Awe and Then Some

December 8, 2019 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
December 8, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

When we consider the magnitude of our universe; observe the intricate beauty and yet the sometimes seemingly random cruelty of nature; contemplate the mysteries of life and living, we can feel both small and humbled, as well as have a sense of being a meaningful part of something much, much larger than ourselves. We’ll explore this sense of awe and how we might cultivate it as a spiritual practice.

Chalice Lighting

As we await the return of the light, we kindle the flame of Community, the second of the five values of our congregation. May the light of Community burn bright, reminding us to connect with joy, sorrow, and service to the Beloved Community that begins within these walls.

Call to Worship

Robert Benson
“Between the Dreaming and the Coming True: The Road Home to God”

We do not always see that we should be moving about our days and lives and places with awe and reverence and wonder, with the same soft steps with which we enter the room of a sleeping child or the mysterious silence of a cathedral. There is no ground that is not holy ground.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Moment for Beloved Community

I was just reading a study that found that white employers were more likely to reject a job application without even doing an in-person interview if they thought the person’s name sounded “black” on their resume.

So, our question to ponder this week is what would it be like to be rejected for employment just because of how your name sounded to someone.
As we ponder this, remember there is no need to immerse ourselves in guilt or shame. In fact, these can be counterproductive, we need joy and community to sustain our struggle to do justice and build the beloved community. There is beauty to be found in the struggle itself.

Meditation Reading

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel
“Who is Man?”

The Sense of the Ineffable

Awe is an intuition for the dignity of all things, a realization that things not only are what they are but also stand, however remotely, for something supreme. Awe is a sense for the transcendence, for the reference everywhere to mystery beyond all things.

Awe enables us to perceive in the world intimations of the divine, to sense in small things the beginning of infinite significance, to sense the ultimate in the common and the simple; to feel in the rush of the passing the stillness of the eternal. What we cannot comprehend by analysis, we become aware of in awe.

Sermon

In August of 2017, my spouse, Wayne and I flew to Denver, Colorado. There, we rented a car and drove to a rural area of western Nebraska, where we met up with Wayne’s best friend, Teresa and her two of her sisters.

One of Teresa’s sisters had arranged with a family who had a farm outside of the little town of Alliance, Nebraska, for the group of us to view the total solar eclipse from up on a hillside on their farm.

We gathered on the top of the hill, picnic supplies in hand to wait for the eclipse.

Now, neither Wayne and I, nor the Denny sisters, Teresa, Pamela and Lisa, very often find ourselves at a loss for words. However, when the eclipse began, as the moon moved over the face of the sun and the light began to fade, as night creatures suddenly began their chorus of early evening sounds, we humans fell still and silent.

Evening shadows fell over what had been mid afternoon brightness.

Eventually, the moon completely covered the sun, yet there was still a slight glow around the edges of the moon, casting a glimmer of light on us and all of the creatures and geography below.

I was awestruck. I could feel my skin tingling.

As the moon began to move further across the sun and one edge of the sun began to be visible again, we could see a glow of light in the distant horizon.

The glow surrounded us.

I turned around in a full circle and could see an orange glow, the color of a sunrise, at the edges of the entire 360 degrees of the horizon around us.

Birds began their morning songs.

I felt myself involuntarily inhaling a deep breath. My eyes were brimming with tears in reaction to the absolute beauty and enormity of what I was witnessing.

Later, after the eclipse had ended, and we had returned to the hotel where we were staying, Wayne and I talked about the experience of it.

We both had gotten a powerful sense of how tiny our planet, indeed we are, in the almost incomprehensible vastness of our universe and the limitless sweep of time.

Yet, we also had experienced a sense of expansion and interconnectedness, of being an integral part of that great immensity.

I wanted to start with that story this morning because it is such a strong example of the spiritual theme we are exploring as a religious community during December – the experience of awe.

What does it mean to be a people of awe?

To start, it may be helpful to define what we mean by that little word “awe” that names an an experience which can have such a profound effect on us.

The expression “awe” is rooted in the Greek word “achos”, which also gives us the word ache.

So, the experience of awe opens an ache in our hearts and thereby expands them with a desire to hold on to the change in perspective, the expansion of understanding that we are given by such experiences.

Dr. Dacher Kelner, researcher and Director of Psychology at the University of California, Berkley, who studies the experience of awe, offers this definition – “Awe is the feeling of being in the presence of something vast that transcends your understanding of the world.”

He says that “Awe imbues people with a different sense of themselves, one that is smaller, more humble and part of something larger… “

Similarly, neuropsychologist, Nicholas Humphrey, who also studies awe, defines it as “An experience of such perceptual vastness you literally have to reconfigure your mental models of the world to assimilate it”

The scientific study of the experience and emotion we call “awe” is relatively new. However, we have already begun to discover some intriguing and potentially important aspects of these experiences.

Several studies of the physiological responses to awe across a variety of different cultures have found a number of commonalities:

A sudden, often vocalized, involuntary intake of breath.
The feeling of hair on the arms being raised and/or of having goosebumps.
Widened eyes and the formation of tears.
Stillness and a feeling of being struck silent.

And awe seems to be beneficial to us in a number of ways.

First, and this may be one of the reasons we evolved to have the capacity for awe, is that it seems to move us from individualistic and self-centered behavior toward collective interest and prosocial behavior.

And, of course, social behavior has been a major factor in the survival of our species.

Researchers theorize this may arise because of the psychological effects of awe that I described earlier – a sense of smallness and humility and yet at the same time a feeling of connection with something much larger.

For example, near the University of California at Berkley stands a grove of eucalyptus trees that are the tallest in North America. Staring up from beneath these trees with their peeling bark, their odor and the grayish green light their canopy creates can readily induce a sense of awe.

In one study, researchers had a group of students do just that for one minute. However, the researchers had another group of students look 90 degrees away, at the facade of a science building.

Then, the researchers arranged for each group of students to encounter a person who stumbled and dropped a handful of pens.

Sure enough, the students who had ben gazing up at the awe-inspiring trees were far more likely to help the person pick up the pens. They also reported feeling less self-entitled than the other group did.

And studies like this, demonstrating the prosocial influence of awe, have now been repeated using a wide variety of methods, in diverse subjects and in numerous different circumstances.

Studies have also found that experiences of awe may improve our relationship with time by anchoring us in the present moment, making us feel we are rich in time rather than always running out of it.

Further, researchers have also found that experiences of awe boost creativity and improve scientific thinking.

This may be because awe stimulates the dopamine system, which triggers curiosity and exploration in mammals.

Albert Einstein once claimed that experiences of awe are “the source of all true art and science.”

Finally, early research indicates that feelings of awe may also be physiologically and psychologically beneficial in numerous other ways also.

For instance, several studies have found that even short but regular experiences of awe can help our bodies regulate the cytokines in our immune system.

Cytokines can be thought of as chemical messengers that among other functions help manage our inflammatory response when we get injured.

Abnormally elevated cytokines, however, are associated with depression and other psychological and physical problems.

Awe seems to help us reduce cytokine levels when they are elevated unnecessarily.

Researchers even theorize that experiences of awe may be beneficial to people with post traumatic stress syndrome.

I was struck by the story of of a man named Stacy Bare. Mr. Bare had been through two deployments in Iraq. After returning to the United States, he was suffering from severe post traumatic stress syndrome, burdened by suicidal thoughts and was drinking heavily.

One day, he had gotten into an argument with his brother as the two were hiking in Utah’s Canyon National Park. Things were getting heated, when suddenly, they came upon an amazing natural structure called the Druid Arch. Here is a picture of it.

DRUID ARCH SLIDE

The men stopped short. Their jaws dropped. They began to laugh. They hugged each other. Bare says that in that moment he could no longer even remember what they had been fighting about.

That experience of awe was the beginning of Stacy Bare’s life turning around.

Today, he is the director of “Sierra Club Outdoors”, the environmental organization’s program that sponsors trips for veterans and at risk youth on just such awe inspiring wilderness excursions.

The program has documented clear “improvements in psychological well-being, social functioning and life outlook.

Now, here is something important to know.

It does not take stumbling upon the Druid Arch, seeing the Grand Canyon for the first time or experiencing a total solar eclipse for us to reap the potential benefits of awe.

Certainly, these and other large and stunning experiences of awe, such as to be found in these types of extraordinary natural phenomenon or pieces of art and music, ritual and religious or spiritual experiences and the like are so often unexpected blessings.

However, the research has found that smaller, more run of the mill feelings of awe may be both more common than we might expect and more beneficial over the long run if we look for them and recognize them on a consistent basis.

Here are just a few, more day to day events that people have reported moving them into a sense of awe:

Becoming absorbed in a pattern of light that the setting sun is casting on the floor through the living room blinds.
Simpler but more frequent experiences of going into natural areas (most of us can’t visit the Grand Canyon every few days, after all).
Gazing at the stars on a clear night or upon an extraordinary sunrise or sunset.
Witnessing a child we love’s astonishment and joy at discovering something new in their world.
Watching gold and red autumn leaves swirl and dance to the ground in a light wind.
Observing other people engage in acts of kindness, justice or courage.

And the list of these more common, smaller doses of awe goes on and on.

In fact science has found that on average folks feel awe every third day and that we can increase that frequency even more if we allow ourselves the time to slow down – open ourselves to the potential for awe.

We can even find awe through other’s experiences of it, including their digital video of it!

The Unitarian Universalist Soul Matters group even put together a YouTube play list of potentially awe inspiring short videos.

Here is a short URL I created that I hope may be easy to remember. It is https://tinyurl.com/aweatfirstuu

And here is just a short example from one of the videos.

VIDEO

I want to share one more video with you also.

It’s by philosopher and television and social media personality Jason Silva. Silva thinks that finding awe in what we might otherwise consider the mundane is not only possible, but that we need it to move us out of the banal and toward the more sublime and life fulfilling.

Let’s look and listen.

SILVA VIDEO

I think I agree with him, and I think that means that these smaller doses of awe, as well as the more immense ones we may be fortunate to experience once in a while, are a vital part of our spirituality.

They nourish our souls.

A fascinating study found that practicing scientists who held awe as a a part of their love of science, were much more likely to have deep sense of spirituality and even to hold a concept of God.

Now most often, they did not hold a classic or biblical sense of God, but rather a mystical concept of the divine.

They found God in the seemingly limitless creative potential of our universe, as well as the still profoundly mysterious nature of it – some of them metaphorically and others as an actual, mystical cosmic force.

Either way, they found through awe a deep meaning and beauty in life and a source of creativity and innovation in scientific their work.

What if we made being open to – even actively seeking these experiences, both the everyday and the more extraordinary, a spiritual practice?

Surrender to the mystery.

Immerse yourself in experiences of awe. For therein is where God lives.

Amen

Most sermons during the past 19 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

Paying Attention

November 17, 2019 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
November 17, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Sometimes our lives can be so fast paced that we fail to notice the beauty all around us. Societal turmoil keeps us from noticing the suffering of others. We fail to cherish the moments with those we love. We will explore mindfulness and directing our attention toward all that we value.

Chalice Lighting

We light the fire of Truth and ask to be clear, wise, and humble enough to admit when we don’t know. We kindle the warmth of community and ask for open heartedness and patience. We are grateful to the Spirit of Life and ask to learn the secret to loving and being loved.

Call to Worship

REVERENT ATTENTION
by Rev. Chris Jimmerson

We gather in reverence
Mindful of the gift of each other and this our beloved community.

We gather in courage
Focused on doing justice and growing the beloved community in our world.

We gather in solemnity
Mindful of the sufferingJ sorrow and injustice still present in our world.

We gather with gratefulness
Expanding our awareness of the great beauty and wonder also to be found in our world.

We gather to worship
Turning our attention now to the sacred interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Meditation Reading

from “AN ALTAR IN THE WORLD”
by Barbara Brown Taylor

The practice of paying attention really does take time. Most of us move so quickly that our surroundings become no more than the blurred scenery we fly past on our way to somewhere else. We pay attention to the speedometer, the wristwatch, the cell phone, the list of things to do, all of which feed our illusion that life is manageable. Meanwhile, none of them meets the first criterion for reverence, which is to remind us that we are not gods. If anything, these devices sustain the illusion that we might yet be gods-if only we could find some way to do more faster.

Sermon

“Your attention is like a combination spotlight and vacuum cleaner: It highlights what it lands on and then sucks it into your brain-for better or worse,”

That’s a quote from psychologist, senior fellow of the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley, and New York Times best-selling author, Dr, Rick Hanson,

We’ll come back to Dr. Hanson’s ideas on how to grow the good in our brains through self-directed neuroplasticity a little later.

For the month of November, our religious education classes and activities have been exploring the question, “What does it mean to be a people of attention”, so this morning in worship we will turn our attention to, well, attention!

With so much vying for our attention these days, it can be easy to feel overwhelmed and distracted, We can end up just sort of moving through our hurried days on autopilot, simply reacting without much conscious thought or mindfulness of our lives, our world, our loved ones,

I caught myself doing this just the other day,

I’d had a long and somewhat frustrating day at the church, having spent much of it struggling both online and over over the phone with a financial institution that seemed to be fighting mightily not to release some funds that properly belonged to the church,

Then, after I left my office here at the church, I made an evening pastoral visit, ran several errands, including picking up laundry from the dry cleaners and finally made it home after dark and late for dinner,

My spouse, Wayne, was on the couch, reading and curled up with our Basenji dogs, Louisa Mae Alcott and Benjamin Franklin, The dogs both jumped up to greet me,

I walked right past them, went into the bedroom, closing the door behind me, hung the laundry in the closet, went into the bathroom and completed my nighttime get ready for bed routine, got my robe on and only then remerged into the living room, suddenly realizing that I had absentmindedly walked past everybody without so much as an even perfunctory greeting.

Wayne was kind enough not to give me a hard time about this.

Louisa and Ben not so much – a lot of complaining and fussing at me ensued until I had finally completed a proper greeting with them.

And it’s not surprising that we can easily lapse into inattentive states like this in situations both small and more significant.

We have so much competing for our attention these days.

Our busy schedules
Social media
Social division
Cell phones
Text messages
Email messages
The Twitter monster in the White House
Impeachment hearings
Etc., Etc. Etc.

A recent study found that on average each single minute results in 204 million emails, 16 million text messages and 350,000 new tweets.

The average smartphone user unlocks their phone in response to a notification between 80 and 110 times per day.

Columbia University professor Tim Wu says that we are being subjected to a multi-billion dollar industry that devises ever more ingenious and intrusive ways to farm and monetize our attention.

He calls them the attention merchants, who offer us “free” services and content – social media, search engines, mass media that use targeted ads, clickbait and sponsored articles and videos to lure our attention.

Thus having ensnared us into a distracted state, wherein we’re most susceptible to advertising, they “harvest our attention for commercial exploitation”.

His words. I don’t think Wu thinks very highly of the attention merchants!

Here are some ways Wu and others say that we can try to avoid having our attention distracted by these types of tactics so that we can focus instead on our values, relationships, goals – just the moments of our lives we may otherwise be missing.

Limit accessing news, social media and the like to at most twice per day
Turn our smarts phones off when not expecting urgent or emergency calls or texts. Just check them a few times each day.
Shut down our email programs and only check email at a few set times every day. (I sense a trend here).
Avoid “clickbait”: articles or videos with sensational and/or controversial titles or descriptions.
Look to see if a link contains the phrase “sponsored article”. If does, don’t click on it.
Ignore Twitter Monster Tweets.

OK, actually, I said that last one. Well, Rachel Maddow and I did.

Anyway, it turns out that gaining as much control as we can over where we focus our attention is important to our mental, physical and spiritual well-being.

Dr. Rick Hanson, whose quote I read at the beginning, describes how neurological research has shown that where we direct our attention can actually alter the structures and neural patterns of our brains.

For example, London cab drivers develop thicker neural layers in their hippocampus, which is associated with visual, spatial memory. This is likely from them having been required to pay great attention to London’s spaghetti snarl of streets in order to find their way around.

Long-term meditators have been found to have changes in the brain associated with reduced anxiety and stress, along with several other neurological changes thought to have enduring psychological benefits.

In general, directing our attention mostly toward negative thoughts, emotions and experiences wires the brain in ways that lead to greater reactivity, anxiety, depression, a focus on threats and an inclination toward anger, sadness and guilt.

Conversely, directing our attention toward the generally positive aspects of our lives can lay down neural patterns conducive to resilience, realistic optimism, positive mood, a sense of worth and less stress and anxiety.

As Dr. Hanson says it, in perhaps a bit of an oversimplification, “Mental states become neural traits.”

Attention is also vital to our relationships with our loved ones, as well as at work, in our larger community and here at the church.

Sociologist, clinical psychologist and MIT professor Sherry Turkle has studied this and found that relationships depend on authentic conversation. She also found that authentic conversation requires us to give our undivided attention to others, as well as depends upon our own capacity for self-reflection.

So just a couple of practical notes here. If you are at home talking with your spouse, and you take your smart phone out and start looking at the internet or checking Facebook, you are not paying attention. You are not having authentic conversation.

If you meet your friend for lunch, and the entire time they are sharing something with you, you are mentally preparing what you plan to say next, you are not paying attention. You may be having a competition or an argument, but you are not having authentic conversation.

Now, I mentioned that capacity for self-reflection, paying attention to what is going on inside ourselves is also important.

This can be harder than it might seem. Particularly when strong emotions have been provoked, we tend to just react in the moment. We don’t stop to reengage the reasoning areas of our brains.

Here’s an example, from an experience I had just recently.

Last Sunday, I sat in on the early service. Wayne and I sat over on that side way in the back, which I have not done since the new section of the sanctuary was completed.

The singing and music during the time for meditation and lighting candles in the window was absolutely beautiful.

And suddenly, I found myself with tears in my eyes. I couldn’t stop them. The story I told myself is that it was the beautiful music and that I always am touched by this part of the service anyway, and I hadn’t seen how magnificent the new area of the sanctuary really is from the vantage point of being across from it and that I have been feeling blessed lately more than ever to being doing ministry in this place and with this religious community.

And that was all true and all correct. And all of that was only part of the true story. The emotions were more complicated than that.

The other part of the story is that I had just officiated at a memorial service the day before and that in the days and weeks before, both as a minister and in my personal life, I had spent a good deal of time with folks who were grieving and/or suffering in other ways.

So, when I had time later that Sunday to go back to that experience and pay attention to what had been going on within me, I discovered that I had internalized some of the grief of other folks that wasn’t really mine to take on.

Now don’t get me wrong, I don’t mean we shouldn’t feel our own empathetic emotions when we witness other people suffering.

And it can be very easy to unconsciously absorb some of the grief and suffering of others. In extreme cases, this is called secondary trauma.

I just mean I think we have to pay attention to the possibility of this happening because if we don’t

those feelings will find a different and potentially more destructive way to get out anyway and
I do not think we can be as fully present for our our loved ones and others who may need us if we have not dealt with this within ourselves.

And this need to examine what is going on within ourselves plays out in so many settings.

So, for instance, when we find ourselves angry with someone else … when we are feeling anxious about something, if we stop, pay attention to what we are feeling and the story we are telling ourselves as a result, what we often discover is that there is a more accurate and less dire story than our negative emotions are causing us to construct.

One of the pernicious things about negativity is that it tends to be self-reinforcing.

Clinical psychologist and mindfulness coach, Tara Brach has a practical technique with the acronym RAIN for bringing our awareness back to a closer version of reality when we have been overwhelmed by such emotions.

R – Recognize what is happening. Pay attention to the emotions cOIning up within us, as well as any physical reactions such as shortness of breath or muscle tightness. Don’t judge them, just acknowledge them, which in and of itself sometimes reduces their power over us.

A – Allow life to be just as it is. Let yourself experience the feelings and the situation as it is. That does not mean we may not work for change later, but first we have to accept what the reality is.

I – Investigate inner experience with kindness. What story am I telling myself and is it accurate? What within me or in my life most needs my attention? In what ways am I judging myself and causing shame? How can I treat myself and others with the same kindness I would show to a hurt child?

N – Non-Identification. I am not the current situation. My present emotions are not the totality of all that I can and will feel. I have the agency to rewrite this story.

So, Dr. Brach’s RAIN is a practical way to stay mindful.

And I think contemplative practices can also help us become more capable of remaining mindful.

Meditation, journaling prayer. And prayer does not have to be directed to a higher power but can just be a way of focusing our intentions and attention.

Just sitting on the ground and truly paying attention to the intricacies of life all around us.

Noticing the sound of the water when we shower in the morning. Stopping to pay attention to how the sunlight feels on our face when we first walk out the door.

Stop. Pause. Notice. It can be that simple.

Dr. Hanson offers another practical way to draw our attention into the present moment and to focus it upon positive experience.

I’d like to invite you now to engage with me in his meditation for self-directed, positive neuroplasticity.

I invite you to close your eyes – close your eyes, take a few deep breaths and then follow along as I read Dr. Hanson’s guidance for this meditation.

Have: Find a pleasant sensation that’s already present in the foreground or background of your awareness.

Perhaps a relaxed feeling of breathing, a comfortable warmth or coolness, or a bodily sense of vitality or aliveness. Perhaps warmth you sense from those around you.

The sensation could be subtle or mild.

There may be other sensations, or thoughts or feelings, that are uncomfortable, and that’s alright.

Just let go of those for now and bring your attention to the pleasant sensation.

Enrich: Stay with the pleasant sensation. Explore it a little. What’s it is like? Help it last. Keep your attention on it.

Come back to it if your attention wanders. Open to this sensation in your mind and body.

Without stressing or straining, see if it can become even fuller, even more intense.

Let the pleasure of this sensation help keep it going.

See if you can embody it through small actions, such as shifting your body to breathe more fully or smiling softly.

Absorb: Intend and sense that the pleasant sensation is sinking into you. Imagine the experience weaving its way into you like water soaking into a sponge.

Let the sensation become a part of you.

In this absorbing, let there be a sense of receiving, softening, sinking into the experience as it sinks into you.

As we come out of the meditation now, I hope Dr. Hanson’s exercise gave you at least a sense of the potential power of paying deep attention to the good. If it did not this time, I hope you will give it a few more tries.

The latin roots of our word, “attention”, mean “to stretch toward”. Where we place our attention may well determine the direction that calls us into our future.

I leave you with words from writer and poet, Annie Dillard.

“At a certain point, you say to the woods, to the sea, to the mountains, the world, Now I am ready. Now I will stop and be wholly attentive. You empty yourself and wait, listening … “

As you go back out into the world now may your attention be drawn to that which is life giving, that which nourishes our soul.

Most sermons during the past 19 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

Sacred Belonging

October 21, 2019 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Text of this sermon is not available. Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
October 20, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

There is something about connection and sense of belonging that is essential to us as human beings. Any yet, true belonging is more than just fitting in with others. In fact, sometimes it means being so spiritually grounded in both a sense of self-acceptance and at the same time a sense of being a part of something larger than ourselves that we can stand alone even while maintaining connections. We’ll explore developing a sense of “right place” and sacred belonging.

Chalice Lighting

May the flame we now kindle light the path back to our center, back to that place of belonging again to our deepest self. And may our chalice remind us that we are held and welcomed whole, without the need to hide a single piece or part of who we are.

Call to Worship

HERE WE ARE TO EXPLORE THE MYSTERY
Chris Jimmerson

Here we are to explore the mystery of life together. In this place that is sacred to us we gather to experience the awe that rises from being part of the great unknown. On this hollowed ground we glimpse with wonder that which is larger than us and difficult to fully fathom. Yet, in which we are an intergral part within which we find a true sense of belonging. We gather to ask questions more profound than answers, to dwell together for a while in a great openness of mind, heart and soul.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Meditation Reading

BRAVING THE WILDERNESS: THE QUEST FOR TRUE BELONGING AND THE COURAGE TO STAND ALONE.
Brene Brown
True belonging is the spiritual practice of believing in and belonging to yourself so deeply that you can share your most authentic self with the world and find sacredness in being both a part of something and standing alone in the wilderness. True belonging doesn’t require you to change who you are, it requires you to be who you are.

Most sermons during the past 19 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link below to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

SERMON INDEX

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link below or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

PODCASTS

Faithful Expectation

September 16, 2019 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
September 15, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Our religious values are aspirational expressions of our highest expectations for ourselves. Expectations can provide powerful inspiration and help us live out our Unitarian Universalist faith and reach for our best selves. So too though, sometimes the unexpected and letting go of expectations that are not serving us well can also bring enrichment to our lives. We will explore the intricacies and paradoxical nature of expectation.

Chalice Lighting

We light this chalice, the flame of our heritage, in solidarity with Unitarian Universalists and all the peoples of the world lighting candles of planetary hope. May it ignite a spirit of solidarity and enthusiasm for the new world we can create, together.

Call to Worship

Now let us celebrate our highest values. Now let us worship together.

Transcendence
To connect with wonder and awe of the unity of life

Community
To connect with joy, sorrow, and service with those whose lives we touch

Compassion
To treat ourselves and others with love

Courage
To live lives of honesty, vulnerability, and beauty

Transformation
To pursue the growth that changes our lives and heals our world

Now we raise up that which we hold as ultimate and larger than ourselves. Now we worship, together.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Meditation Reading

TRUST YOURSELF TO THE WATER
By Alan Watts

Faith is a state of openness or trust. To have faith is like when you trust yourself to the water.

You don’t grab hold of the water when you swim, because if you do, you will become stiff and tight in the water, and sink.

You have to relax, and the attitude of faith is the very opposite of clinging and holding on.

In other words, a person who is fanatic in matters of religion and clings to certain ideas about the nature of God and the universe becomes a person who has no faith at all. Instead they are holding tight.

But the attitude of faith is to let go and become open to truth, whatever it might turn out to be.

Sermon

All of this month, our religious education classes and activities are exploring expectation as a spiritual topic, so today, we will also spend some time considering expectation as it relates to our Unitarian Universalist faith.

To begin this morning, I thought we would start with a reflection on expectation taken from one of our great Unitarian Universalist sacred scriptures, National Public Radio.

Power of Expectations video

I loved that chapter from our NPR sacred texts because it captures so many of the conundrums we encounter when we examine our expectations, especially from a spiritual or faith-based perspective.

So, for example, we set expectations for ourselves, and yet, as the video demonstrated, other folks also place expectations upon us. On top of that, we quite often internalize the expectations placed upon us by others without even realizing that we are doing it, and so they become unconscious self-expectations.

Our expectations and those of others toward us can be greatly beneficial to us.

Studies have shown that positive expectations can beneficially influence everything from health outcomes to psychological well-being to career and sports performance, and on and on.

Yet, expectations can also limit us when they are set so high as to be unachievable, or our life situation changes such that what was once possible for us can no longer remain a reasonable expectation.

Conversely, expectations that are too low can also adversely influence us. For example, many studies have shown that teachers having lower expectations towards students of color or with disabilities greatly disadvantages such students.

So sometimes we have to learn to let go of unreasonable or harmful expectations, and sometimes we try to defy expectations that would otherwise limit us.

Interestingly, our expectations not only impact our behavior and that of others toward us, as pointed out in the video, now research indicates that expectations can have actual physiological effects upon us.

My favorite study I found about this involved drinking beer.

The researchers randomized people into two groups. Both groups were asked to taste test two different beer samples. One sample was just plain beer. The other was the same beer to which the researchers had secretly added balsamic vinegar.

The researchers did not tell the first group the difference between the two beer samples.

The folks in this group overwhelming preferred the taste of the balsamic vinaigrette infused beer.

The researchers told the second group the difference between the two beer samples before they tasted them.

Almost to a person, the second group hated the beer with the vinaigrette in it – many going so far as to spit it out and exclaim something like, “this is terrible.”

The expectation that adding the vinaigrette to beer would ruin the taste caused them to experience exactly that.

Subsequent tests showed that it was not just mental perception. Telling the second group up front about the balsamic poisoning of their beer had subtly altered the physiology of the second group’s taste buds compared to that of the first group.

Other research has identified physiological effects from our expectations that are much more potentially life altering than the tase of our beer.

Other research has also found that our expectations can draw our attention and focus so strongly that we may miss other important information.

This probably had a survival advantage at one time by, for instance, allowing us to focus on what we expected a potential predator might do and not get distracted by less life threatening things.

Today though, that focus itself can sometimes become the distraction.

Let’s watch an example of this phenomenon.

As you watch the next video, following the instructions at the beginning of it, please try not to express any verbal reactions so as not to break the concentration of your fellow congregants.

Ball Passing Video

How many of you saw the man in the gorilla suit before they played it back a second time?

This is probably an experiment that is better done in an individual versus group setting because those who see the gorilla may give off subtle reactions that clue others in the group to then see it also.

I watched it alone the first time and did not see the gorilla. The researchers have found that well over 50% of people who watch it do not see the gorilla because we are focusing so intently on our expectation about being able to correctly count how many times the folks in white pass the ball.

And I did get the count right, by the way, even if I did miss the damn gorilla.

Next, I want to introduce you to Daniel Kish, whose story I think so embodies the power of letting go of unhelpful expectations, defying expectations that limit us – keep us from claiming our full potential and humanity.

Daniel Kish Video

Daniel was born with a form of ocular cancer. His doctors had to remove one of his eyes when he was 7 months old and the other eye when he was 13 months old.

The first thing he did after waking up after his second surgery was to climb out of the crib and crawl around the nursery they had put him in at the hospital.

For whatever reason, his mother decided not to try to hold him back, even though she feared he might get hurt.

And he did a few times, but he says it was worth it.

Daniel learned to echolocate that clicking noise you heard him making in the video allows him to listen to how the noise bounces off things and determine shapes and motions around him.

It is much that same way that bats use sonar to navigate when they fly.

As you saw in the video, Daniel learned to ride a bike. By the time he entered elementary school, we was able to walk to school on his own and pretty much take care of himself through out the day.

Because his mother never enrolled him in an assistance program for the blind and let him go to a regular school, Daniel did not encounter other blind people until he got older.

He was dismayed to discover that so many blind folks he met were unable to take care of themselves in so many of the ways that he was capable.

Daniel came to believe that the well intentioned efforts of loved ones and non-profit services to help blind folks with so many aspects of daily living was creating expectations well below their potential.

So, he started the non-profit organization he discusses in the video. Through it, he teaches echolocation to others and sets expectations allowing folks to live more fully and more independently.

Researchers using MRI scans have found that people using echolocation light up the brain in the same patterns of those of us with ocular vision.

They can correctly identify and describe the shape of objects placed in front of them, as well as the direction of motion.

So, in a real since, by raising expectations through teaching echolocation, Daniel Kish is giving people of form of vision.

With that, I want to close by talking briefly about how I think expectation is such a large part of our Unitarian Universalist faith.

As Unitarian Universalists, we share 7 principals that we affirm and promote.

The inherent worth and dignity of every person;

Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;

Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations;

A free and responsible search for truth and meaning;

The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congregations and in society at large;

The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all;

Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.

It is likely we will be adding an 8th principle regarding dismantling racism. At this church, we also have a set of religious values that you all read together earlier with Elizabeth.

Our faith principals, our religious values, they are our aspirations, the expectations we have set for ourselves concerning how we will be in our world – how we will be with each other – how we will live our lives.

And we are reaching for those expectations all of the time, in so many ways through the many ministries and programs of this church, as well as our our larger denomination.

Next Sunday, we will have the chance to live our values when we celebrate this religious community and all pledge together to support it into the future.

Our green sanctuary ministry team has been living our principle about respect for the interdependent web in so many ways, including getting the Austin City Council and the Travis County Commissioner’s Court to pass resolutions that require our city and county governments to put into high gear actions across their departments to fight the climate crises.

And this Friday, September 20, Unitarian Universalists from across the country will live out the expectations of our faith by joining in a world-wide climate strike.

Led by our youth, people from across the world will join together to demand urgent action on the climate crisis before it is too late.

And folks we do not have long. A few years at most.

Some links where you can get more information are posted on the church website.

Here in Austin, the climate strike will begin with rallies at the state capital at 10 a.m. and again at noon on Friday.

I hope as many of us who can will live our religious values by participating. Our youth are expecting us to leave them a world that is at least livable.

Our youth are expecting us to act as if our house is on fire.

Because it is.

As Unitarian Universalists, our faith has always been one of hopeful expectation.

For Unitarian Universalists, our faith expectation is that there is meaning and beauty in our world that has yet to be fully revealed.

As Unitarian Universalists, our faith tells us that we are the ones who must unveil those revelations yet to become.

May we make it so.

Amen.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Ever Emergent

August 25, 2019 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
Ausust 25, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

This month’s Soul Matters is Emergence. We will explore how we might keep ourselves open to unexpected and creative possibilities and the potential for transformation.

Chalice Lighting

As we light the chalice may our souls become its hearth. We join our hearts to the one great flame of bright compassion, Beloved Community, and fervent justice. May our sparks become a wildfire in the world, lighting the way for all.

Call to Worship

“MERE CHRISTIANITY”
by C.S. Lewis

It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg.

We are like eggs. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Meditation Reading

“YOU CAN’T BE NEUTRAL ON A MOVING TRAIN”
by Howard Zinn

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness.

What we choose to emphasize in this complex history will determine our lives. If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something. If we remember those times and places – and there are so many – Where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future; The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvelous victory.

Sermon

Janine Shepard had dreams of competing in cross-country skying at the Olympics for her home country of Australia.

She was on a training bike ride with some of her fellow teammates headed toward the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney.

They had reached the foothills, her favorite part of the ride. She stood on her bike to allow her to pedal more strongly.

She felt the cold mountain air in her breath.

She reveled in the morning sun on her face and basked in the beautiful morning sunlight in her eyes.

And then everything went dark.

A speeding utility truck had hit her, knocking her unconscious, breaking her neck and back in six places, fracturing five ribs on her left side, crushing her right arm and leaving her with internal bleeding and a number of other life-threatening injuries.

Medics airlifted her to a hospital with a specialized spinal unit in Sydney. When she arrived at the hospital, her blood pressure was forty over zero.

As Janine Shepard herself puts it, “I was having a REALLY bad day.”

She was paralyzed from the waist down.

She spent ten days in the lCU before the internal bleeding stopped, and her doctors could do surgery on her back.

Her lower back was crushed. The surgeon spent hours removing fragments of bone from her spinal cord. They removed some of her ribs and used them to rebuild her back.

The surgery was a success in that she regained slight feeling and movement in parts of her lower body; however, she was told she would never ski again and might not ever walk again.

After some time, they were finally able to move Janine to the acute spinal unit, which would be the first step in her long attempt at rehabilitation and recovery.

Here is Janine Shepard herself, describing life in that acute spinal unit.

VIDEO

After six months, Janine’s parents were finally able to take her home, in a wheelchair, still wrapped in a plaster body cast.

Janine was depressed. She wanted her body back. She wanted her life back.

Then, she remembered her friends in the spinal ward, the connections, the hope, the courage of those fellow human beings in circumstances so like her own.

And she knew she could accept her new circumstances.

She began to think about how she might build a new life. She says, “I stopped asking myself, ‘why me’ and realized, ‘why not me’. I thought, ‘maybe rock bottom is the perfect place to start. ‘”

And in that uncertainty, she found a new creative freedom to begin imagining a new life, such that one day when she heard a plane flying overhead, she looked up through her bedroom window and thought, “Well, if I can’t walk, I might as well learn to fly.”

“Mom”, she cried out, I’m going to learn to fly.”

“That’s nice, dear,” replied her mom.

And Janine did learn to fly. She booked flight training with a nearby school. They lifted her into a plane, body cast and all, and once in the air, the instructor gave her control of the plane, as she could use her hands and arms. He pointed toward the Blue Mountains and said to fly toward them.

And so her new life began right above where her tragic accident had happened.

She eventually learned to walk again.

She eventually got, first a single engine plane license, and then several other types of licenses, leading up to her commercial license and even an aerobatics license – you know where people fly upside down and in loops and such.

Just less than 18 months after Janine Shepard left the spinal unit, she began her new calling, teaching other people to fly at the very same school where she had first learned how to take a small plane out over the Blue Mountains.

The theme we have been exploring this month in our religious education program is the spiritual theme of “emergence”. Emergence is defined as to become manifest, to rise from, the process of becoming.

I wanted to share Janine’s story with you this morning because I think it so powerfully illustrates so much of how the emergent, how transformation and change happen in our individual lives, even when it is on a much less dramatic basis than hers.

Her story demonstrates how so often, something new arises out of change that has been forced upon us, even sometimes difficult or even tragic circumstances.

Now, I want to be careful to state clearly, we are not talking about cliches such as: “God works in strange and mysterious ways,” to somehow justify tragedy as being ultimately good.

What happened to Janine was random and terrible and not part of some master plan.

It was how she responded to it that allowed the emergence of her new passion.

Janine’s story also shows how so often in order to say yes to something new, we have to let go of something else that is no longer healthy and sometimes no longer even possible for us.

And often, for transformation to emerge in our lives, we have to learn a new perspective. We gain a more complex understanding about life.

Later in her Ted Talk that I showed you a segment from earlier, Janine Shepard says, “I learned that I am not body and you are not yours.”

And so she says that if we learn to look beyond the superficial and help each other to try to live vulnerable, authentic lives, allow the ultimate, creative expression of who we really are to emerge, our collective liberation and bliss might just become emergent also.

We need relationship. We need belonging for beneficial emergence to occur.

After all, like the folks in that acute spinal unit, we are all interconnected by millions or billions of metaphorical straws. Non-plastic, metaphorical straws, no doubt.

That brings me to the scientific theory of emergence.

In science, emergence theory is the study of how creative and complex systems arise that are greater than the sum of their constituent parts. The system comes to hold properties that none of its individual components alone do.

Examples include how life itself first arose on our planet and then evolved from single cell entities into ever more complex life forms.

How energy transitions into matter.

How fish school and birds flock together, moving as one with such grace and coordination without an apparent leader.

And the examples go on and on.

Scientists are studying whether the natural laws, the rules by which each of the individual components of these systems adaptively interact in such ways that create something more complex and creative.

Scientist Harold J. Morowitz takes this even a step further and applies it to human social systems. Morowitz even describes a spiritual/ theological aspect of this.

For Morowitz, our ethics, the rules we follow in our interactions with each other and all that is, make us partners with the immanence of, the continuing emergence of God in our world.

Now whether we agree with Morowitz’s version of theism, it does seem that emergence theory supports Janine Shepard’s idea that our individual and communal emergences are linked and together might have the potential to result in something even greater.

I recently saw a video featuring Michelle Alexander, the author of the book, “The New Jim Crow”. Unitarian Universalists across the country read, studied and discussed her book together a few years back, as the source material for our annual “Unitarian Universalist common Read”.

In the video, she reminded me of another aspect of emergence.

We most often do not know exactly what is emerging until the full emergence has happened.

I want to share that video with you now.

VIDEO

I am intrigued by her idea that we may be the revolution – that those of us who want to struggle together with compassion and love to build the Beloved community and secure our collective liberation are creating the new emergence and that the forces of bigotry and hate are the resistance against that new emergence.

And yet, as I said before, we can’t know what will actually emerge while it is still happening, so we have to make sure that the ethical and spiritual rules we are following, our own emergence, contributes to that greater system – that Beloved community about which we dream.

I don’t know about you all, but for me that can be difficult sometimes. With the barrage of negativity and hate and half-truths and outright lies that are coming at us constantly these days – with the images of people, including children, in cages, with no where to sleep except on a concrete floors without even enough room to stretch out – with children dying while in the custody of our government – with two mass shootings in less than 24 hours recently – with almost daily reports of authorities apprehending one or more young white men with multiple weapons of war who have threatened synagogues, churches, schools, retail stores, gay bars – it can be difficult sometimes to act and feel in healthy, constructive ways.

It can be far too easy for me to want to lash back out, for anger, fear and even rage to emerge within me.

I keep wondering when one of those young guys will avoid apprehension until it is too late, and they commit the next mass killing.

So I think we have to honestly acknowledge that we are living in a time of extraordinarily elevated anxiety. We are experiencing social trauma.

No matter which side of the political spectrum one is on, to reach for our best selves, for our best selves to have any chance of emerging, we have to acknowledge these feelings. We have to find ways to talk about them with other people.

Not talking about it is not really an option, at least not a healthy, life giving option.

I believe this church is a place where we can have such honest and vulnerable conversations.

We can be there for one another. certainly, I want you to know your ministers are here for you during these times.

This church, this congregation is a place where we can both find respite and seek the emergence of our best and truest selves, the people we are called to be, both individually and communally.

I want to close by telling you how fortunate I feel, how grateful I am to get to do ministry with this congregation and with our extraordinary and just plain fun senior minister, Meg.

I am moved by what we have already become and by the church that is still emergent.

You heard earlier about the new ways of doing religious education that are emerging. Our religious education ministries are brimming with potential and filled with fantastic people.

I have no doubt that wonderful new ways of being and understanding will emerge for both our religious education learners and those leading the programs and classes.

With our beautiful new renovations and expansion, so much can now emerge that we cannot yet even fully imagine the potentialities.

New ministries are already emerging, such as a visitation program for older church members who can no longer attend church on a regular basis.

So much is already happening. So much is yet to become.

I can’t wait to witness and be a part of the emergence of all that we have only begun to dream.

Much love. All blessings. Amen.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Learning through Joy

July 22, 2019 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
July 21, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

In our religious education department, we are experimenting with teaching our children UU values through guided, joyful, playful games and activities. Many of our church groups are also engaging in more opportunities, for fun, fellowship, humor, and connection. We’ll take a look at how joy, fun, and connection can enhance our spiritual learning, build resilience and enhance our overall wellbeing.

Call to Worship

MINDFUL
by Mary Oliver

Everyday
I see or hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It was what I was born for –
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world –
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.

Reading

WELCOME MORNING
by Anne Sexton

There is joy
in all:
in the hair I brush each morning,
in the Cannon towel, newly washed,
that I rub my body with each morning,
in the chapel of eggs I cook
each morning,
in the outcry from the kettle
that heats my coffee
each morning,
in the spoon and the chair
that cry “hello there, Anne”
each morning,
in the godhead of the table
that I set my silver, plate, cup upon
each morning.

All this is God,
right here in my pea-green house
each morning
and I mean,
though often forget,
to give thanks,
to faint down by the kitchen table
in a prayer of rejoicing
as the holy birds at the kitchen window
peck into their marriage of seeds.

So while I think of it,
let me paint a thank-you on my palm
for this God, this laughter of the morning,
lest it go unspoken.

The Joy that isn’t shared,
I’ve heard, dies young.

Sermon

“BE MORE DOG” VIDEO

OK, it is not my intention to inflame a cat lovers versus dog lovers war by starting with that video this morning.

I love both.

I think the “Be More Dog” metaphor is about being less aloof and allowing ourselves to experience and engage in more fun and joy.

Though, of course, if you have ever engaged in cat cohabitation you know that they have their own ways of playing and playing pranks. Evil pranks.

As you may have heard already, there at the church, we are experimenting with help our children and youth learn our Unitarian Universalist history and value, engage in spiritual development and learning through games, play and joyful, fun activities.

And this is not just limited to our children and youth activities.

We will be infusing our adult religious education programs with this same sense of humor, play and joyfulness.

In addition their other activities, many of our church groups and ministries are also trying to add opportunities for connection, joy and fun, such as lunching together, holding potlucks, watching video and films together and other types of social activities.

Examples include our People of Color group, White Allies for Racial Equity group, our Alphabet Soup group and some of our Chalice Circles.

The same is being practiced more and more in our own and in other social justice movements. More and more, it is becoming clear that for such movements to be maximally effective, for folks to have resilience and avoid burnout, opportunities for social connection, play, humor and joy are absolutely vital.

And of course we have a fellowship team that creates such opportunities for the church as a whole.

Another group has started a game night here at the church.

All of next week, the church will be teaming with young witches and wizards attending our annual Hogwarts Camp UU.

The halls will be filled with laughter, fun, play and joy, while at the same time much learning about our faith will be happening.

Now, shhhh, don’t tell them I told you this, but I suspect that the adult volunteers, who make Hogwarts happen each year, experience as much, if not more, fun and joy as our children and youth they are serving do.

And all of this attention we are paying to fun and joy is for good reason.

More and more, we are discovering that fun and joy are key contributors to our learning and wellbeing.

More and more, science is finding that joyfulness and joyful play stimulate neurological patterns and neuro-chemical transmitters that improve our ability to learn and retain information.

Joy helps us lay down more complex and contextual memory and to retain such learnings and memories longer because they get associated with pleasure centers in the brain.

As one researcher puts it, “nothing lights up the brain like joy and play.”

Games and play also teach social skills and allow for a more creative perspective on the subject matter involved.

This is partially why many educational programs in general have begun to move away from strictly transmission models of teaching to more generative and even transformation models.

Within Unitarian Universalism there is even a model that is called “spirit play” (and in Christian traditions, “God Play”).

To over generalize a little, folks are moving away from the banking education model, wherein the teacher stands at the front of the classroom and deposits information into the passive minds of the students, to more like this (show Child Play Slide) wherein learning occurs through a sense of joy, play, games, humor, fun activities and social interconnectedness.

And, it is important to note that joyful play is not just rehearsal for adult challenges, as we oftentimes tend to think of it. For instance, if you prevent a kitten from playing, as an adult cat it will still know how to stalk, hunt and kill prey.

Humans and cats and dogs know instinctively know how to engage in play with each other simply for the joy of the playing.

In fact, all mammal species have been observed to engage in play at all ages of their lives.

The researcher I quoted earlier has found that play seems to have some vital biological role, just as sleep and dreaming do.

Joy, fun, play seem to be beneficial to us both psychologically and physically.

The opposite is true also. As adults, a lack of joyful play has been associated with depression. Children who are deprived of play often develop serious psychological issues as adults.

This was found to be a factor with Charles Whitman, the U.T. tower sniper who killed 16 people and injured 31 others here in Austin back in 1966.

I would propose that joy and play are also vital to our spiritual development and that a lack of joy damages our very souls.

In fact, there is a theory that church, along with its associated religious rituals, is in truth “deep play”. It is helping us understand deep and complex life issues in metaphorical ways at least partially through experiences of spiritual ecstasy (otherwise known as joy or bliss).

I want to share with you a story that I think illustrates both how we learn through our experiences of joy and how being open to joyfulness can be so good for us.

The guy in the video I am about to show you is a farmer and goat rancher from upstate New York named Jay Lavery. The video has become known as “The Barn Dance”.

Now, since our subject matter today is “Learning Through Joy”, and one of the ways we experience joy is dancing, I encourage you to get up and dance along with Jay if you are so moved – or at least to groove in place on your chair or pew if not.

VIDEO

I got a little worried when he started the stripper moves there (actually, he keeps his remaining clothes on through the rest of the video).

Mr. Lavery posted his video for his Facebook friends, partially because he had serious back problems, and he wanted them to know he was doing OK.

He says never expected that his joyful video would go viral, with over 7 million views in less than a year.

Fifteen years prior to making that video, Mr. Lavery had a traumatic back injury that required several surgeries including a discectomy and a spinal fusion.

His dancing, along with practicing yoga and meditation, are how he overcomes the back pain he would otherwise have and how he avoids having to take pain medications.

Now there could be some physical aspects to this, but I have little doubt that his joyfulness in his dancing has helped him learn how to move through the pain.

As he puts it, he hopes his video inspires “anyone to move in spite of pain and I hope this puts a smile on your face … ” Avery even got to go on the Ellen Degeneres show, where he expressed his great amusement over many aspects of what he calls his” 15 minutes of fame”, including several marriage proposals he has received from several women smitten by his silky moves.

“What they didn’t realize,” he says, “is I’m gay.”

So, if, as is apparent from Jay Lavery’s story, joy is so good for us.

If joy helps us learn more readily and in more complex and complete ways, why don’t we infuse more joy, fun, humor and play into our our educational institutions, our workplaces, indeed our lives?

Why has the banking model of education persisted for so long and why does it still continue to be the primary model throughout so much of our current educational system?

Well, I am not sure I know all of the answers to those questions.

I suspect though, that it could have something to do with our protectant work ethic and more broadly our puritan ancestry.

Work, school, and church are not supposed to be fun!

On a more individual level, I think we may sometimes not allow ourselves to fully experience joy because of what social science researcher Bene Brown calls, “foreboding joy”.

Now some of you may have heard me talk about Dr. Brown’s concept of foreboding joy before, so this time I thought I would let her tell you about it herself.

BRENE BROWN VIDEO

So, we do not get to experience true joy, the fullness of joy without vulnerability.

Joy requires a sense of belonging and connection, and we do not get these unless we risk being our authentic selves. We don’t get these unless we allow ourselves to also experience the inevitable sorrow and loss that goes along with living and loving fully.

Joy requires us to have the courage to be be vulnerable.

One of the religious values we have defined for ourselves here at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin is this:

“Courage – To live lives of honesty, vulnerability, and beauty.”

May we live that value together so that we may experience a full and vibrant joy together.

And let’s remember to dance, laugh, play and have a little fun while we are at it!

I would like to leave you with the words of Steve Garnaas Holmes, who is a Methodist Minister and author. He comes from a Christian perspective, so I invite you to translate with your own understanding of that which is ultimate as you listen to his words.

They are titled, simply, “Joy”. “Who says God has to be so serious all the time? That God can’t have some fun, go on a lark, crack a good one?

Who says God can’t evolve a platypus instead of a woodchuck, or a flightless bird just as a joke?

Or give you a gorgeous sunset just to see the expression on your face? Or invent laughter?

Who says God’s passion is reasonable and not unrestrained celebration?

Jesus’ first miracle was a party trick. Pure. fun. Wine from water. And really good stuff, too. And at a wedding, no less. It’s a parable of covenant faithfulness, and love, and an ironic reverse-foreshadowing of the Last Supper.

It’s a parable of abundance and beauty and mystery and needless splendor.

It’s about life, and about blessing, and about joy-way too much and too good, way more and better than we need. Ridiculous. Over the top joy.

So raise a glass! Drink deep.”

And amen to that.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Abundance is Already Ours

July 14, 2019 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
July 14, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We live in an economic system that perpetuates itself by creating a culture of scarcity. What if we stopped to appreciate and express gratitude for all that we already have? What if we worked toward a culture of abundance?

I recently bought this iPhone. It’s the latest and the greatest technology.

Within a few months, a newer model with even later and greater features will come out – a model that was already planned when I bought this one.

We live in an economy that is designed to keep us at first thrilled with our new purchases and then quickly disillusioned with them and craving their replacement.

We exist in a culture where we are told that what we have is never enough. We exist in a culture that by design creates a myth of scarcity.

How often have you gone to reserve a hotel room or a flight online and gotten the little flashing message that only two more are available at this price.

Or “there are 30 people currently looking at this hotel.”

How many ads do we see that contain a not so implicit message that we are never successful enough; we never have enough; we are never good enough; attractive enough; thin enough; sexy enough; smart enough, etc.

Some other car is always newer and nicer than ours; our dishwasher is too slow and too loud; our clothing is already passe; our hairstyle is no longer the style.

Scarcity. Scarcity. More scarcity.

This morning as we have gathered for worship, the Trump administration has threatened to round up, detain and then deport thousands of immigrant families – a move which will:

worsen the conditions at already overcrowded and inhumane detention camps,
separate families, including taking even more children away from their parents,
and send folks who have been contributing to our society to countries where they will often face threats to their wellbeing and sometimes even their very lives.

And this too is also at least partially a fear-based tactic rooted in that mythology of scarcity.

Now there is a lot going on with this, including not so subtle racism and xenophobia, but these too arise at least partially out of the scarcity myth.

Trump himself has stated that we do not “have room for these people” – that somehow if we allow asylum seekers into our country it will mean taking jobs and resources away from the folks who are already here.

And yet study after study has found that this is simply not the case. We have plenty of wealth to go around. Immigrants are net contributors to our society. We have the food, housing, economic and other resources to more than support our population plus many more.

And when it comes to basic human rights, I like this meme that has been going around lately.

“EQUAL RIGHTS FOR OTHERS DOES NOT MEAN LESS RIGHTS FOR YOU. IT’S NOT PIE.”

The scarcity myth drives inequality and human rights abuses.

It drives radically capitalistic, consumerism.

The scarcity Myth is one of the major lies that has been used to excuse a vast transfer of power and wealth from the many to the very few that has been going on for decades now.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I am not against economic development and technology advancements that can enhance our lives and wellbeing. I love my iPhone.

I just think we can choose a different narrative that would eventually drive a different kind of economy and society.

I believe that rather than scarcity, we can choose abundance, not just for the few but for all.

We can adopt a narrative that we are, there is ENOUGH.

VIDEO CLIP

That’s Kevin Cavenaugh, an architect by training and now a commercial real estate developer in Portland, Oregon. The flowery pants he is wearing in the video were made for him one of his children out of fabric recycled from their old couch.

Cavenaugh goes onto explain that as they began to recover from the recession, and he rebuilt his business, he kept asking himself this question about enoughness – how much is enough?

Doing so has changed how he lives and how he does business.

He asked himself how much is enough wealth and discovered that while he was making a percentage of the profits from his building developments, the members of his small staff were not. So, he created a program in which they could become vested in a percentage of the profits also the longer they worked with him.

He also asked himself how much equality is enough because the inequity in pay between men and women in our country bothered him.

He then redesigned the pay pyramid for his company so that instead of him making more than everyone else, everyone gets paid exactly the same, including himself.

It turns out, he discovered, that companies that treat their employees better and equally have better long-term stock valuations. They attract the best talent. As he puts it, not paying equally was stepping over dollars to pick up dimes.

Finally, he was disturbed by the rising level of homelessness in Portland. Rent in the area has grown 20 times faster than wages, so that even folks with a college degree and who are working can find themselves living out of a tent in one of the city’s parks.

He asked himself and a group of investors for one of his buildings, how much would be enough rent? They did the calculations and discovered they could make enough return from their investment if they developed a building that would provide simple rooms with a bed and washbasin, shared showers and restrooms and a communal kitchen and living area. By doing so, they could rent the rooms out for $290 a month each.

So now, a number of formerly homeless folks have simple but adequate shelter. It is enough.

And this defining and redefining of “enough” it turns out is one of the strongest ways in which we can resist the cultural myth of scarcity. It is one of the ways we can find greater life satisfaction.

All over the country, people are engaging in this counter cultural idea and redefining for themselves what “enough” means.

People are embracing minimalism. You can learn more at theminimalists.com, but basically minimalists are discovering a new sense of freedom by living with far less stuff.

One common way that people get started is by jettisoning at least one material possession each day for at least a month by asking each day of one item, “does this have value to me? Does it have utility in some way or bring me joy?”

If the answer is no, it goes – sell it, donate it to charity where someone else might find value with it, just get rid of it.

Many folks have found they got rid of more than one item per day and continued the practice for several months.

I’m pretty sure it would take me at least a year to clear our whatever all that stuff in our garage is.

Other families with children have determined what the minimal salary they need is to feel life satisfaction and provide adequately for their children. They then live off of that and donate anything they earn above it to benefit others.

We have all witnessed the movement toward smaller or even tiny houses that has been growing.

What folks have discovered when they have done some of these things is that it freed them to pursue their desires and goals in life more easily. Many found they did not need to make us much money and could take a job that left them time to travel, go back to school for their Master’s degree or pursue a passion such music or an art, as examples.

Now, I am not suggesting that everyone here has to become a minimalist, give all their money to charity (but if you do please consider your church) or sell their house and all their stuff to move into a 600 square foot box.

I just offer some of these trends as an example of how it is possible to define and redefine “enough” for ourselves. I am suggesting that by periodically asking ourselves the question, “What is enough to me” we may begin to find ways to experience a greater sense of abundance.

In addition to thinking about what enough means to you, here are a few other ways that we may also develop a greater sense of abundance in our lives and that have thereby been shown to increase life satisfaction.

Invest more of your time and resources in your relationships with others.

Whether it is our spouses, partners, children, other family members, friends, our fellow church goers, the stranger we just met or some folks in need we may never meet, study after study have shown that belonging and connection, love and doing for others are vital to our satisfaction in life.

Also, invest more of your time and resources on experiences rather than things. Traveling, attending a play or concert, learning to play the guitar or speak a new language, taking the children to an amusement park or to go camping, whatever the experiences may be, a wealth of studies have shown that we place higher value on experiences rather than things. Experiences bring us greater happiness than possessing material items.

Next, practice gratitude every day.

Practicing gratitude has been shown to be one of the strongest ways to develop a sense of abundant life and is continually associated with greater life satisfaction.

The key is that it has to be a practice something you do. It is the active practice of gratitude that brings abundance. Here is a little more about the science of it and some potential gratitude practices.

VIDEO

Finally, whether it is through attending worship, cultivating a spiritual practice such as meditating, gardening, working for justice in our world, making art or music, whatever it is for you, finding ways to connect with something larger than ourselves, to experience the holy, to know truth meaning and beauty within our connection and experience of that something larger than ourselves lies abundant living.

These are just a few of the ways we can develop a sense of abundance in our lives.

I’d like to close today by inviting you to engage with me in a spoken and sung meditative ritual on abundance. Please repeat after me:

I am grateful for life.

I am grateful for loving and being loved.

I am grateful for the adventures and experiences of my life.

I am a part of something larger than myself.

I experience truth, meaning and beauty.

There is enough.

I am enough.

Please sing after me:

What we need is here.

Now please sing with me:

What we need is here.

My beloveds you are enough. Abundance is already ours.

Amen

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Pausing for Perseverance

July 7, 2019 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
Bear Qolezcua
July 7, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We often think of perseverance as being strong, having grit, to keep pushing forward even against difficult obstacles. Perhaps though, perseverance also requires a time for rest and spiritual renewal, being vulnerable enough to acknowledge that we need help sometimes and need others to carry the burden for a bit while we do the things that restore us.

Call to Worship

STILL I RISE
by Maya Angelou

You may write me down in history
With your bitter, twisted lies,
You may trod me in the very dirt
But still, like dust, I’ll rise.

Does my sassiness upset you?
Why are you beset with gloom?
‘Cause I walk like I’ve got oil wells
Pumping in my living room.

Just like moons and like suns,
With the certainty of tides,
Just like hopes springing high,
Still I’ll rise.

Did you want to see me broken?
Bowed head and lowered eyes?
Shoulders falling down like teardrops,
Weakened by my soulful cries?

Does my haughtiness offend you?
Don’t you take it awful hard
‘Cause I laugh like I’ve got gold mines
Diggin’ in my own backyard.

You may shoot me with your words,
You may cut me with your eyes,
You may kill me with your hatefulness,
But still, like air, I’ll rise.

Does my sexiness upset you?
Does it come as a surprise
That I dance like I’ve got diamonds
At the meeting of my thighs?

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from a past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into a daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise.

Reading

– Aimee Van Ausdall

This morning I have been pondering a nearly forgotten lesson I learned in high school music. Sometimes in band or choir, music requires players or singers to hold a note longer than they actually can hold a note. In those cases, we were taught to mindfully stagger when we took a breath so the sound appeared uninterrupted. Everyone got to breathe, and the music stayed strong and vibrant… So let’s remember the advice of music: Take a breath. The rest of the chorus will sing. The rest of the band will play. Rejoin so others can breathe. Together, we can sustain a very long, beautiful song for a very, very long time. You don’t have to do it all, but you must add your voice to the song.

Bear Qolezcua

THE LIGHTHOUSE AND THE LITTLE BLUE BOAT

Once upon a time there was a mighty lighthouse. The tower had a broad base and a bright pink stripe spiraled up its body. The house that sat beneath it was always warm and inviting, its furnishings roughhewn but cosy. The smell of lemons, cinnamon, and vanilla swarmed around its great hearth.

The lighthouse sat on a very old bay. For many years it oversaw the sea and swells as storms came and went, crashing over the shore and snarling at the tower with great blows. The lighthouse survived each one but even though sometimes a window might be broken or the tower would be scarred and chipped, it continued to be a beacon of safety and strength.

Time passed and the sea changed. Parts of the surrounding bay got deeper, and others more shallow. Jagged boulders were upended in the distance to form a sea wall. They created a gentle pool beneath the watchful tower of the lighthouse. The jags were dangerous and dark, making the lighthouse’s job more important than ever.

After some years, the dry dock beneath the tower was opened and a little blue boat was taken from it and put into the water. The lighthouse loved its little blue boat. It was squeaky and small but safe and dependable.

It stayed afloat even when the ocean swelled and threatened it or when it found itself being pushed to the craggy breaks and jags out at sea. The little boat served its purpose well, no matter the gales against it, as it rescued many who were lost in the water, bringing them safely to shore without fail.

Once, the little blue boat’s oars fell off and it was swept quickly into a current, unable to find its way home. It discovered many dark places in the sea, some were far more dangerous than the jags the boat had avoided so well in its bay. A kind young woman discovered the boat, trapped in mangrove roots along a river inlet. She gave it new oars and asked nothing in return. She wished the little boat farewell and the somewhat scuffed and marred vessel made its way back home.

On a frosty winter morning, the lighthouse found it had a crack in its foundation. Many tried to mend the damage but it could not be repaired. The lighthouse resigned itself to shining brightly as long as it could. Years later the foundation broke and the light faded. The lighthouse fell.

The kerosene lantern used to light the tower spilled fuel and flame, the woodwork burned to ash, leaving only chipped, bare stones in a pile on the shore.

The little blue boat sailed off into the sea, not knowing which way to turn. It did not rescue others from the waters because it was scared of not having a safe place to take them when it had no safe place to go itself. It became so very lost in the great sea that it couldn’t find the shore at all. It stopped looking at all, fearing more jags, more fire, from any shore to which it might come.

By chance, the boat happened upon the familiar rocky breaks of the sea wall it once knew. More rocks had been upended and the bay was cut off from the outside. The little blue boat looked through whatever cracks and faults it could find and saw that the shore had changed much more. The pile of rubble still on the land, buried under a thin layer of mud and sand. The little blue boat stayed there for so long it forgot how many moons passed.

Workers with noisy machines came and cleared the fallen building, they gathered and buried the ashes of the tower’s frame. Nothing was left but the Ebenezer stone bearing the name of the original overseer. The little blue boat wished to be closer and see more but it could go no farther in the water.

The loss of the lighthouse left the boat scared to return to the open sea and so it stayed stuck along the jags for years, letting them cut at it, scuff it, and wear parts of it so thin they threatened to break open where the sea water would overtake the boat and claim it in the depths.

Some young people found the little boat while out on the water and two got into it. They asked the boat to take them back home and the boat did, having nothing else to do with its time. The boat lingered on their shore, resting from the great jags and storms. With time, many came and repaired the boat, patching weak spots, strengthening it and protecting it.

This rest ended one day when a great ship passed nearby the boat and caught itself in a shoal too shallow for the ship to make. It slowed and began to capsize. The passengers and crew were in danger as the ship yawed toward the water. Some made it to rescue boats but many were thrown dangerously into the cold dark waters out at sea. They cried for help but none seemed to come from the lifeboats surrounding the ship. Many of which had already made it to shore.

The little blue boat heard them crying out but it felt so afraid. It was unsure about the mended parts of its body, worrying if it would be strong enough and whole enough to be able to once again carry the weight of others within. It decided that with the rest it had received it must at least try and floated quickly over to passengers in the water, taking them on board and delivering them safely to the shore, many times over it did this until none were left in the water. It discovered that it saved itself by caring for others who needed only the safety of a lifeboat.

Having once again found its purpose, the little blue boat sailed off into the sea knowing the currents and sea walls would never allow it to return to its bay. Because of its time of rest and repairs, the little boat carried the strength and endurance of its lighthouse within, once again bringing hope and safety to passengers and ships in peril.

Chris Jimmerson

When my mom was 67 years old, she wrecked her Harley Davidson motorcycle.

She slid off the road on a sharp curve in the hills of the East Texas pine forest and skidded sideways across several dozen feet.

She broke her nose, scraped the skin off of both arms and broke seven vertebrae in her lower and mid back.

The emergency responders had to take her by life flight to a hospital that was over an hour and a half away from where the accident had happened.

We were not sure she would survive.

The neurosurgeon who took care of her back injuries had to use screws to attach two metal rods on each side of her spinal column.

It is still a lot of fun to go through airport security with her even today.

I asked her permission to tell you the story of her accident and her recovery from it this morning, because I think I learned about perseverance from it.

My mom survived the accident and then persevered through first a rehabilitation hospital and then outpatient physical therapy, yes, partially through her own grit and determination. She drew upon her own religious faith and spiritual practices.

Also though, she had a whole host of loved ones who stayed with her and supported her through those times.

My step-father, Ty, took care of her when she was not physically capable of caring for herself.

Her children and other family members chipped in too. Along with a whole host of friends, we brought them meals, helped with chores and errands, provided rides to where she needed to go, gave her emotional support and sounded a resounding chorus of “no” when she wanted to get back on a motorcycle again before she was even fully healed. Today at age 78, my mom no longer rides a Harley, but she does have an open air go-cart in which she zooms around her neighborhood at altogether alarming rates of speed.

So perseverance, our ability to survive and sometimes even thrive through adversity, has both an individualistic component and a communal aspect.

We persevere through our own grit and determination, yes. And science has shown that we can cultivate this tenacity and resilience through spiritual practices, religious faith, remaining open to humor beauty, joy, grief, embracing gratitude and forgiveness and practicing self-compassion. But, we also need community. We need love and support to fully develop our perseverance.

We find greater strength, power and sustenance communally.

So, our religious community here at First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin can help us all maintain our spiritual perseverance.

We need each other and so many more if we are to persevere against the assaults on human rights and dignity; the degradation and potential destruction of life and our planet we are witnessing in these times.

Sometimes we have to vulnerable enough to admit that we need help and be willing ask for it.

Sometimes, to be able to persevere in the long run, we need to set the burden of our struggles down and let others carry them for a while. We just need a pause – a respite – a time to simply take care of ourselves and our nearest loved ones. We need this in order to be able to build up the resilience that is so necessary for perseverance.

And yet, it is more complicated than that even, because those of us with relative privilege can more easily retreat from the struggle than those who are being crushed under the weight of extreme oppression and maltreatment. We must not allow ourselves to fall prey to the lie that we can look away permanently, because in the end, as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King wrote, “Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhereÉWhatever affects one directly, affects all indirectly.”

This past week, we witnessed the juxtaposition of the celebration of our country’s Independence day (and all the values it is supposed to represent) with the Department of Homeland Security’s own Inspector General’s report on “Dangerous Overcrowding and Prolonged Detention of Children and Adults” at five Customs and Border Protection holding facilities here in Texas.

These are supposed to be temporary holding facilities at the border, and yet in these 5 facilities alone, the Office of the Inspector General found:

8,000 detainees in custody with almost half held greater than the time period allowed by law.
2,669 children, 826 held longer than the law allows, 50 younger than 7.
Children and adults sleeping on concrete floors with no access to showers, limited or no changes of clothing and no hot meals.
Adults held in over-crowded, sometimes standing room only conditions, some for over a month.
Adults who had gotten sick after being fed only bologna sandwiches.
Once facility was basically outdoor cages that had been constructed under a bridge in the outdoor heat of El Paso.

These are just some of the conditions that have been observed. These are only the border facilities and do not include conditions at longer term prison camps maintained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

I am dismayed that my country is doing this (AGAIN) – horrified that it is happening in my state. I can only imagine how painful witnessing this must be for those of you with small children of your own.

I struggle because no matter how many phone calls I make, emails I send, petitions I sign, contributions I give, rallies and protests I attend and on and on, still it never feels like enough.

I struggle with persevering when it would be so easy to fall into despair and helplessness.

And yet, I know the folks in those facilities have had to persevere against conditions in their home countries, perilous journeys to seek refuge and the horrifying way in which they are being treated by our government.

I know these folks have had to persevere in ways in which I never have and can only begin to grasp at understanding.

I know that I cannot claim to affirm our Unitarian Universalist principles, such as the inherent worth and dignity of each person, justice, equity and compassion – I cannot uphold this church’s mission – I cannot maintain my own humanity if I remain silent while the humanity of people seeking our help is defiled.

I know that I must act now – that waiting for the next election to act is too late, as important as that election will be in relation to ending these atrocities.

I know to persevere, to keep up the struggle in the face of such heartbreak, I will need:

this religious community,
my Unitarian Universalist faith,
the leadership of those who have experienced our broken and bigoted immigration system,
the many other folks and organizations that are joining together to cry out for an end to these atrocities.

My beloveds, I believe that our Unitarian Universalist faith, our religious values, this church’s mission, they are calling us, each of us, to do what we can to demand an end to these crimes against humanity.

Doing what we can will look different for each of us, depending upon our circumstances.

We have left a list of many different ways to get involved on the social action table in Howson Hall and have also put it on the social action page of our church website so that you can follow the hyperlinks it contains. Beloveds, we come from a long tradition of perseverance on behalf of truth, justice and human dignity.

Today, we are called to continue in that faithful tradition. We can carry each other when each of us inevitably needs respite. We are the ones we have been waiting for.

Amen and blessed be.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Beauty amongst the thorns

June 10, 2019 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
June 9, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Even in life’s challenging and difficult times, we may still experience beauty; sometimes when it is least expected. And that, in turn, can help us through such times.

Call to Worship

By Rev. Mary Katherine Morn

Beauty does more than awaken us.
It also admonishes us.
It demands something…
We are here, in religious community, not to hide from the anguished cries or the tender lullabies.
We are here, in religious community, not to protect our hearts from breaking.
We are here together to borrow courage for the task of coming alive.
We are here so that together we might heed the admonitions of beauty.
Answer its call to create; protect; and preserve.

Reading

John O’Donohue

It’s the question of beauty … there are individuals holding out on front lines, holding the humane tissue alive in areas of ultimate barbarity,where things are visible that the human eye should never see. And they’re able to sustain it, because there is, in them, some kind of sense of beauty that knows the horizon that we are really ca!led to in some way. I love Pascal’s phrase, that you should always keep something beautiful in your mind. And I have often – like in times when it’s been really difficult for me, if you can keep some kind of little contour that you can glimpse sideways at, now and again, you can endure great bleakness.

Sermon

“Where beauty is apparent, we are to enjoy it.
Where there is beauty hidden, we are to unveil it.
Where there is beauty defaced, we are to restore it.
Where there is no beauty at all, we are to create it.”

I loved that quote from the late minister, theologian and social justice activist Robert McAfee Brown.

I love it, because I think it captures so well the complex and profound ways in which we are called to interact with beauty in our world.

Beauty is the monthly theme we are exploring in our religious education classes and activities this June, so let’s take a bit of time to explore beauty together in worship this morning also.

Research has even begun to show that attentiveness to beauty may be beneficial us to psychologically and physically. Most of the studies have been based upon experiences of beauty in nature; however, now the research has begun to expand to such experiences through the arts and music.

Here are just some of the potential benefits that have been found:

Emotional well being.
Pro-sociality – having concern for others.
Greater life satisfaction.
Reduced stress.
Lower heart rate and blood pressure.

Here is how philosopher, futurist and social media and television personality, Jason Silva says that “Beauty Can Heal Us”.

Silva video

“Beauty can shake us out of our jadedness … Let the music make you cry … gaze upon the fading sunset.”

So, first, “where beauty is apparent, we are to enjoy it”.

That seems simple enough, yet how often do we allow ourselves to pay attention to and enjoy that which we find beautiful? How often to we explicitly set aside time for it in our daily lives?

I know for me, as some of you have heard me share before, one of my spiritual practices, one of the things that keeps me grounded and relieves stress, is to go on a meditative hike in one of our many local nature areas – to allow myself to just get absorbed in observing the beauty of nature.

And yet, in the times that are challenging and difficult, the times when I need it most, I am also most likely to put off this practice that so soothes and relaxes me. I have to remind myself to make the time to experience the beauty that will help me through such difficulties.

“Beauty can shake us out of our jadedness … Let the music make you cry … gaze upon the fading sunset”, Chris.

It is so hard to practice what I preach sometimes, I’ll tell you!

Next, “where there is beauty hidden, we are to unveil it.

It is easier, I think, for us to find beauty in the places that have been more traditionally associated with it – nature, the mountains, the oceanside, a spectacular sunset, those we love, the music that moves us, the work of art that takes our breath away, a stunning moment in a play or movie or dance performance, as just a few examples.

It can be harder to see the beauty in what we might otherwise consider unattractive or mundane. And yet, if we look for it, the beauty is likely always there in these places too.

When I was in seminary, they had us do an exercise called a beauty walk that was based on a Native American tradition. They had us go to an area we would not normally associate with beauty and walk through it slowly, being attentive to the potential for beauty we might have missed before, bringing a camera to take pictures of what we found.

I went to a warehouse/industrial area and was surprised to discover that it was teaming with life and elements of beauty.

Ants dwelling in the cracks in the sidewalk.
Flowers finding places to bloom even amongst all the metal and concrete.
Birds dwelling everywhere they could find.
The interplay between the bright colors with which people had painted some of the buildings.
Landscaping people had created to surround themselves with beauty when they sat at their outside lunch table.
Vegetable gardens people had grown in plots they had created outside the warehouses in which they worked.

My beloveds, beauty surrounds us, both in the classical ways in which we have conceptualized it and in places we might least expect it, as well as within so many of the seemingly mundane moments of our every day lives.

I invite you to try the beauty walk exercise and see what hidden beauty you may unveil.

Here is a short video that I think captures this idea that beauty is to be found in the sublime, as well as in the more mundane.

Video

Finally, “Where there is beauty defaced, we are to restore it. Where there is no beauty at all, we are to create it.”

I think this is at least partially what our call to worship you all read with Mary Jane earlier is expressing.

Our Unitarian Universalist minister, Rev. Sean Dennison, says it like this:

“The ability to see beauty is the beginning of our moral sensibility. What we believe is beautiful we will not wantonly destroy. With this, we are reminded that beauty does more than soothe and heal. It demands. It creates commitment. It doesn’t just say, ‘Love and appreciate me.’ It says, ‘Protect me! Fight for me!'”

So yes, beauty is there for us to experience it with awe and joy. Beauty is there to comfort us and sustain us in our struggles.

And, our experiences of beauty also call us to create more of it – to restore it when it has been defaced and to create it where it has not yet existed.

Beauty calls us to love and justice. It calls us to leave our world more beautiful than the one into which we were born.

And with all of the ugliness, all of the beauty defaced in our world today, I know, for me, it can sometimes be hard to hold on to a vision of that more beautiful world, that world toward which beauty beckons us.

For me, what would be beautiful, what beauty calls us to create, is a world in which children coming to the U.S. after fleeing persecution with their parents are welcomed with loving open arms rather than being torn away from their parents and locked in cages.

Beautiful would be a world in which we have answered the call to abolish immigrant concentration camps and prisons, and children no longer die while under the custody of our government.

Beautiful will be when Alirio, who has taken sanctuary here in our church, and Hilda and her son Ivan at St. Andrews, are all free and no longer fear for their lives.

Better yet, what would be beautiful, what beauty calls us to envision is a world in which we have helped to create conditions in people’s homelands that are safe, secure and prosperous.

Beauty beckons us to create a world in which our own children can attend schools that provide safety, equity, a caring loving environment. Schools where our 5 and 6 year olds and on up no longer have to live in fear and participate in mass shooter drills.

Beautiful will be when we have put into place a federal administration and state governments that all stand up for the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersexed folks rather than encouraging discrimination against us by making it legal.

Beauty calls us to build a world in which transgender and all queer folks are able to live out loud as a our true and beautiful selves without fearing violence or even death at hands of hatred and bigotry.

Beauty will happen when women and all people capable of bearing a child have control over their own bodies in all states and regions of our country. Beauty calls us the cast the patriarchy upon the ash heap of history.

Beautiful will be a time when black mothers and fathers no longer have to feel terror over the prospect of their children and loved ones being shot by the very law enforcement that is supposed to protect and serve.

A criminal justice system that actually is just – that would be beautiful, and beauty is begging us to create it.

Beautiful would be Muslims in the U.S. and ALL people of faith living without fear and coexisting in peace.

Each of us living our own religious beliefs without trying to force them upon others. How beautiful would that be?

Beautiful would be saving our planet, bringing democracy to our work places, restoring our institutions of representative democracy to their proper balances of power.

Beautiful would be eliminating poverty and homelessness, wiping out economic and wealth inequality, dismantling white supremacy culture.

Beauty calls us, it lures us to these and all forms of love and justice.

OK, now just go do all of that, and I’ll see you next week.

I think one of the places beauty is too often hidden and must be unveiled is our inability sometimes to recognize our own beauty.

We must know our own beauty to be fully able to experience the beauty in our world, restore that which has been lost and create that beauty which has not yet become.

To build the beloved community, to create that world about which we dream, we must overcome the many messages that we receive telling us we are not enough, not beautiful as we are.

Certainly, our cultural standards for physical beauty, especially for women, exclude all but a small segment of the white European descendent population.

Even more so though, we are discouraged from expressing the beautiful unique wholeness that is each of us.

Here is a poem by Maya Angelou that I think expresses this idea so well.

PHENOMENAL WOMAN
by Maya Angelou

Pretty women wonder where my secret lies.
I’m not cute or built to suit a fashion model’s size
But when I start to tell them,
They think I’m telling lies.
I say,
It’s in the reach of my arms,
The span of my hips,
The stride of my step,
The curl of my lips.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

I walk into a room
Just as cool as you please,
And to a man,
The fellows stand or
Fall down on their knees.
Then they swarm around me,
A hive of honey bees.
I say,
It’s the fire in my eyes,
And the flash of my teeth,
The swing in my waist,
And the joy in my feet.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.

Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Men themselves have wondered
What they see in me.
They try so much
But they can’t touch
My inner mystery.
When I try to show them,
They say they still can’t see.
I say,
It’s in the arch of my back,
The sun of my smile,
The ride of my breasts,
The grace of my style.
I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

Now you understand
Just why my head’s not bowed.
I don’t shout or jump about
Or have to talk real loud.
When you see me passing,
It ought to make you proud.
I say,
It’s in the click of my heels,
The bend of my hair,
the palm of my hand,
The need for my care.
‘Cause I’m a woman
Phenomenally.
Phenomenal woman,
That’s me.

My beloveds, you are beautiful.

You are phenomenal.

You hold within you your own unique spark of the divine. You have your own unique set of gifts that only you can bring into our world.

And as a religious community, as a religious faith, we may combine together each of our unique sparks of the divine, blend together our unique gifts to answer the call of beauty.

Together, may we radiate the divine our into our world, restoring beauty where it has been defaced, creating beauty where it has yet to become.

Amen.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Curiouser and Curiouser

May 6, 2019 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Click on the Play Button Above to Listen to the Service Recording.

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
May 5, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

As a people who have always been seekers of truth and askers of questions more profound than answers, following our curiosity can be a spiritual discipline for Unitarian Universalists.

Call to Worship

LET US BE CURIOUS
Alexis Engelbrecht

Let us be curious.
May we contemplate what we believe and why.
Let us be curious.
May we inquire to learn more about beliefs and experiences different from our own.
Let us be curious.
May we explore the world around us, so that we might broaden our awareness and appreciate the beauty that is, while exploring what else might be.

Reading
Rainer Maria Rilke

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue.
Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them.
And the point is, to live everything.
Live the questions now.
Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.”

Sermon

Dr. Michelle Khine had a problem.

Dr. Khine is a researcher whose scientific interest, life long empirical curiosity, involves developing nanotechnology that can be used for healthcare purposes.

Her problem was that at the time, her work with such nanotechnology required a lab with sophisticated equipment that allowed doing the work at the microscopic level.

She had just changed jobs, but the lab at the new job that she had been promised was nowhere near ready. In fact, it appeared to be months away from being equipped and useable.

How would she continue her work and meet the requirements of the grants to fund it that she was bringing with her? Without the equipment she needed to work on a microscopic level, all seemed to be lost.

Then, she remembered a toy from her childhood called, “Shrinky Dinks”.
Shrinky Dink’s are polystyrene sheets that can be cut into various shapes, colored and then placed in an oven, where they will shrink into small, hard plates without losing their original shape and characteristics.

Michelle Khine was curious whether she could use this process to allow her to do her work starting on a larger scale and then shrink everything down, thereby avoiding the need for the expensive lab equipment required to work at the microscopic level.

And thus was born the Shrinky-Dink microfluidics: 3D polystyrene chip.

And thus, did curiosity allow Dr. Khine to save her nanotechnology career with a toy from her childhood.

Dr. Khine’s story, I think, is a wonderful illustration of the power of our human capacity for curiosity. Among other benefits, curiosity is the source of our creative potential.

This month, our lifespan faith development activities and religious education classes are exploring the concept of curiosity, and I thought it would be a great topic for us to examine together for a while this morning.

After all, Unitarian Universalists come from a long tradition of being the
questioners and the curious – those for whom revelation is never sealed but rather is continuously unfolding and therefore always to be explored anew.

The Unitarians got curious about how God as a trinity could make any possible sense and eventually rejected this idea, among several others that had been and often remain Christian dogma.

The Universalists became curious about how a supposed all loving God could condemn those who were supposedly so loved to bum in hell for all eternity.

Eventually, some Universalists came to reject hell altogether, while others thought that sinners might burn in hell for some unspecified time period before God would lift them out of the flames so that they did not have to burn painfully for the rest of all eternity.

I’m glad we continued to cultivate our sense of curiosity and don’t believe that anymore.

Now, some aspects of religion have actually discouraged curiosity – witness the Adam and Eve story about partaking of the forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge for example – but all in all, I think both religion and science stem from our curiosity about our human condition, the world and universe in which we find ourselves and the larger questions of meaning in life, death, beauty, truth and ethics.

And they are at times trying to get at, different types of questions and certainly in different ways. As such, I don’t think the commonly held perception that science and religion have to stand in opposition to one another is necessarily true. I think at times they might indeed inform and enhance each other.

Certainly, through science, we have discovered changes that moved us from cave dwelling to landing on the moon to having a phone in our pockets more powerful than the original computers and on and on and it has been our curiosity that has driven our science.

So why do we humans have such a curious nature. After all, our curiosity drives us to spend time exploring not just those big questions I was just talking about, but also to spend time exploring seemingly unproductive curiosities like reading news about people we will never meet, watching movies and reading stories about people who do not really exist, exploring places we will never visit again and learning about topics that seem to have no practical use in our daily lives, just to name a few.

Well one evolutionary theory is that it stems from a trait we evolved called “neoteny”, which means that even as adults we retain more juvenile characteristics compared to other mammals, such as being relatively hairless and having brains relatively large in relation to our body size.

And this neoteny, while making us weaker than our primate cousins, has given us our lifelong playfulness, curiosity and deep sense of attachment to one another, all of which have provided survival advantages.

And it turns out that in a complex world, even those seemingly unproductive curiosities we are prone to explore that I mentioned earlier provide an advantage. They do so by keeping our brains open to novelty and new learning, so that we do not remain stuck in old but useless thinking algorithms when we encounter new challenges or threats.

What may have seemed to be useless learning in our past can turn out to be very useful knowledge later on.

Curiosity then is what keeps our learning alive and drives us to engage our full learning capacity.

As Albert Einstein once said it, “I have no special talents, I am only passionately curious.”

And it turns out that some research has found that maintaining that passionate curiosity is associated with better health and greater longevity, as well as developing and retaining higher intelligence.

In other studies, people who were actively curious about others more easily established close relationships, found greater satisfaction in their relationships and were less likely to express racism and other forms of prejudice.

Other studies found engaging with novelty and remaining curious are correlated with a sense of overall life fulfillment and happiness.

Now, while it is important to note that “associated” or “correlated” does not establish cause and effect, still these studies might give us reason to consider whether actively keeping our sense of curiosity alive might be good for us.

Here are a few practices in which can engage that may help us do that. For a faith steeped in questions more profound than answers, we might even call them spiritual practices.

1. Reconnect with play. Children are naturally curious, and play is one of the ways that as children we explore ourselves and the world about which we are learning.
We too often lose our our sense of play as adults; however, even as adults, play can still open up novelty for us.
And actually one good way to engage with play is to be around and play with children. They can teach us how to do it again!
One warning though, those curious children may surprise you.
I loved one story I found about a little boy who was curious about why his mother’s hair was beginning to turn grey.
So, one day, when they were at the playground and his mom was playing seesaw with him, he asked her, “Mommy, why are some of your hairs turning grey?”
Thinking she might use this playful occasion as a teaching lesson, the mom replied, “It’s because of you dear. Every time you do something bad one of my hairs turns grey.”
“Oh,” replied the little boy innocently, “Now I know why grandma has only grey hairs on her head.”
2. Intentionally building our knowledge enhances our curiosity to learn even more reading, attending talks, watching documentaries, traveling to new places, making lists of things we want to explore for a few examples. Studies have found the larger our knowledge base, the more likely we will be curious to learn even more.
3. Get comfortable with uncertainty and being uncomfortable. Being curious by necessity involves exploring the unknown, and while novelty and surprise can cause us tension, they are also some our greatest sources of joy and learning.
For folks who watch sports for example, part of the enjoyment is in the tension of not knowing what the ultimate outcome of the game will be.
4. In every conversation, think of questions too ask, not things to say next. Listening more activates our curiosity and can add much greater depth to our conversations and relationships.

So those are just a few of the ways I found that we can keep our sense of curiosity alive and fulfilling.

Now, with the exception of religion and sometimes play, the ways we can pursue our curiosity and practice keeping it alive about which I have spoken so far have been in terms of very concrete and literal thinking.

I want to turn now to some more emotional, embodied and metaphorical ways we can both explore that about which we are curious and also keep our curiosity active.

There are times when we are curious about things that we either do not have the ability to fully understand because of our current scientific limits or that are just not as easily understood and expressed on a concrete and literal level.

Love, beauty, meaning, morality, justice and injustice, human cruelty and human altruism, God or that which is ultimate, to name just a few examples – these are just a few of our human curiosities that may be further explored metaphorically.

And one way that we explore these types of interests is through storytelling. Whether told orally, written, expressed through television, movies theatre or the opera, the power of stories is that they help us understand things that may require us to go beyond literal, intellectual thinking. They help us approach matters that can only be pointed at metaphorically and that must be felt in our bodies, hearts and souls in order to better grasp at their meaning.

And by the way, you can experience the power of storytelling, at an event called, “Story Telling Under the Stars,” here at the church, on our courtyard at 6:30 p.lU. this evening.

Likewise, the visual arts, poetry, music, dance and the other performing arts can also help us to experience that about which we are curious but that may be best approached through metaphor. These too can move us beyond only the intellectual and help with that which requires the engagement of our emotions and senses.

And all of these not only help us with that about which we may be curious but need more than only a literal approach, they also stimulate our curiosity even further.

How often has reading a good fictional book gotten you interested in exploring some subject brought up within the story?
Or seeing a movie gets us interested in visiting a place we have never traveled to before.
Or an engaging night at the theatre get us interested in a moral issue we had never thought much about, etc.

Experiences of storytelling, music and the arts then are other vital ways in which we cultivate and expand our curiosity.

My friends, we were meant to be curious creatures.
And science and religion are important.
Learning about the really big stuff matters.

But so too does the more mundane – something in which you get interested may seem to have little practical value in that moment, but go ahead and pursue your curiosity about it anyway.

Later on, it may well have value you would have never anticipated. At the very least it will keep your thinking adaptable and open to novelty.

So, yes, please do keep coming to church! Yes, keep up with what science is teaching us.

But also read that story about people you likely will never meet, attend that concert featuring music that is new to you, sing out loud, read up on shrinky-dink microfluidics just because your curious about it, spend hours admiring your favorite artwork, explore lands to which you may never return, start a new hobby just because it interests you, play with the abandonment of small children.

These too are spiritual work because they stimulate our curiosity and keep it alive and well.

Or as Kurt Vonnegut put it, “We are here on earth to fart around. Don’t let anybody tell you any different.”

Benediction

As we go out into our world now, may we go with the courage to pursue the curiosity that transforms us and moves us toward wholeness, compassion and transcendence.
May we carry the spirit of this, our beloved religious community with us until next we gather again.
May the congregation say, “Amen” and “Blessed Be”.

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

The Holiness of Wholeness

April 1, 2019 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
March 31, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

How do we nurture our whole selves, especially those parts of ourselves that we may have been taught were no acceptable? How do we create communities and a society that are more whole?

Call to Worship

ALL OF YOU IS HOLY
Anonymous

Forget about enlightenment,
Sit down wherever you are,
and listen to the wind that is singing in your veins.

Feel the longing, the fear, the love in your bones.

Open your heart to who you are, right now,
not who you’d like to be,
not the saint you’re striving to become,
but the being right here before you, inside you… All of you is holy.

You’re already more and less
Than whatever you can know.
Breathe out, Look in, Let go.

Reading

WHOLENESS
Parker Palmer

If I am to let my life speak things I want to hear, …
I must also let it speak things I do not want to hear and would never tell anyone else!

My life is not only about my strengths and virtues;
it is also about my liabilities and my limits, my trespasses and my shadow.

An inevitable, though often ignored, dimension of the quest for ‘wholeness’ is that we must embrace what we dislike or find shameful about ourselves as well as what we are confident and proud of.

Sermon

“Making the World Whole Again” Video

During the upcoming month, our Lifespan Faith Development ministries and religious education classes will be exploring the topic of “wholeness”.

How do we become our whole selves?

What are some ways we can bring wholeness to our relationships with those whom we love?

How do we create wholeness and holiness within this, our beloved religious community?

In our larger community?

Our society?

Our world?

One of the things I loved about the video with which we started just now is how, among other things, it points toward one of the paradoxes we encounter when we start examining this idea of wholeness.

In order to help make our communities and our world more whole, we must move toward wholeness ourselves as individuals.

And yet, it can be so difficult to do that when our society and our world can seem so fragmented and tom apart sometimes.

So our journey toward wholeness, by necessity, is both an individual trek and yet a passage that must also be done in relationship and community with others and our world.

Now, it might help to take a moment to examine what we mean by wholeness or to become our whole selves.

There were several quotes that I found reading the materials for this topic that might be helpful.

“Happiness is just one part of our existence, wholeness is to embrace all that is within us. It’s to embrace our shadow qualities, to embrace our self-doubt, fear, anxiety, as well as the brightness, joy, and curiosity. It is all welcome”.

That’s from Dan Putt, a consultant and entrepreneur who works with folks on developing the ability to take risks and embrace change.

That quote, and the reading from Parker Palmer that Carol read for us earlier I think both remind us about an aspect of finding wholeness that can be difficult – embracing and accepting the parts of ourselves that we do not like as much; the things we are not as good at; the sides of ourselves that might make us feel vulnerable about being judged by others.

Part of learning to be whole is loving even the parts of ourselves that we may not like or that cause us challenges sometimes.

My parents divorced when I was twelve, and my mom ended up having to work more than full-time to make ends meet. As the oldest child in the family, that meant I often ended up caring for and to a degree parenting my younger sister and brother.

Later, as I moved into adulthood, I started to recognize this pattern I could easily fall into of taking on the needs of others – parenting people who were themselves adults and could therefore take care of themselves.

Family Systems Theory calls this “overfunctioning”, and it is something I have to monitor about myself even today.

The thing is, that experience of helping to raise my brother and sister and all of the tendencies it created within me are a part of who I am now – the whole human being I have become up until now.

And those tendencies are not necessarily entirely unhealthy or bad. For instance, I suspect that they are a part of why I have spent most of my adult life within the caring professions, which has been amazingly rewarding.

Perhaps paradoxically again, embracing the wholeness of ourselves, including the areas on which we may want to do some work means first, we have to accept those areas in order to be able do that work, and second some aspects of our whole selves may be both sometimes problematic and sometimes beneficial. In some instances, wholeness is not either/or.

Unless you’re a narcissistic psychopath, in which case you don’t get to go “oh, that’s just part of who I am.”

Anyway, author and editor for the spiritual series “On Being”, Kristin Lynn says “Wholeness is never lost, it is only forgotten.”

What a wonderful way to think about wholeness, and one that I think leads us to some other ways in which our sense of wholeness can be challenged.

Inevitably in life, we face loss and sorrow. Inevitably, we will encounter the judgements and prejudices of others.Inevitably, we will run up against constraints that cultural and societal norms place upon the expression of our full and whole selves.

When we lose a person or even a creature that we love, a job, a physical or mental ability, it can feel like our wholeness has also been lost.

I remember after my stepfather, Ty, died, my mom saying that it felt like a part of her was missing. It felt that way to me too, and I remembered feeling that same way after other times of loss.

The thing is, we so often would not give up one moment of our relationships with those we loved and have lost. We carry them with us. They and our loss of them become part of the whole person we now are.

Parker Palmer says it like this

“We all know people who’ve suffered the loss of an important person in their lives.
At first, they disappear into grief, certain that life will never again be worth living.
But, through some sort of spiritual alchemy, they eventually emerge to find that their hearts have grown larger and more compassionate.
They have developed a greater capacity to take in others’ sorrows and joys, not in spite of their loss but because of it.
Suffering breaks our hearts – but there are two quite different ways for the heart to break.
There’s the brittle heart that breaks apart into a thousand shards, a heart that takes us down as it explodes and is sometimes thrown like a grenade at the source of its pain.
Then there’s the supple heart, the one that breaks open, not apart, growing into greater capacity for the many forms of love.
Only the supple heart can hold suffering in a way that opens to new life.”

The supple heart allows us to find wholeness.

Similarly, when we experience the loss of physical or mental abilities we once had, it can feel like we are less than whole.

I went through this when I was temporarily disabled by an impacted nerve in my neck a while back. It did feel like a loss. I’m fortunate that it eventually got resolved, so I never had to reach acceptance and find a new sense of wholeness for myself.

I have a friend who was born with a condition that left her physically disabled in a number of ways. She says that her journey toward wholeness has involved unlearning the many ways in which other people and societal systems labeled her as and made her feel incomplete.

And far too many of us have felt limits imposed upon us, barriers to becoming our whole selves because of gender role stereotypes and restrictive gender binaries, because of our race or ethnicity or religious beliefs (or lack there of) or our sexuality or our gender identity (or lack there of) and on and on and on.

I’ll talk a little more about this in a moment, but for now I want to note that even the scars we bear from our losses, as well as those we may bear from fighting to become our full, whole selves even up against oppression and restrictive mores – they too, these scars are a part of who we are now – the whole person we have become.

Many of you are probably aware of Kintsugi (Kin Sugi), the Japanese art that provides a beautiful metaphor for what I am trying to express, but here is a short video that explains it better than I likely could.

Kintsugi video

Here is another quote related to all of this that I loved, from a UU named Paula Goldade

“As a Unitarian Universalist, I have come to see that universal salvation is not just for all of us but for all of me. There is no crevice inside of me that love cannot touch.”

Now, so far, I have been concentrating mainly on how we become whole as individuals, but I want to return to this idea that we also must be in relationship to find wholeness. We must work to create wholeness in our communities and our worlds to know wholeness for ourselves.

Here is one more quote that I loved, from our own Unitarian Universalist minister, Rev. Anya Sammler-Michael

“We don’t really know our own wholeness until we see the wholeness of another or work to serve wholeness in our world. Wholeness, a sense of our own fullness, a spiritual realization of our own strength and beauty, is given when we give of ourselves… We heal our own aches by healing the aches in others. We put back the pieces of our own souls by helping others redeem their own wholeness.”

I think she is so spot on there, and I also think that this has implications for the work we are called to do in our world to build the beloved community.

My friends, I believe that we, none of us nor our communities or our society – we can never be whole while black lives are still so far too frequently being extinguished and destroyed.

We cannot ever be whole when people are still being forced to proclaim that their lives do matter.

Black Lives Matter.

They do matter.

And we can never be whole when brown and queer bodies are treated as if they are of little significance; when indigenous peoples are treated as expendable; when female and nonbinary gender identities are treated as “less than:”; when entire cultures and religious expressions are demeaned.

We need all of humanity’s beautiful variations to be fully realized and embraced for all of humanity to become whole.

It seems like you can hardly ever attend one of my sermons these days without also hearing from author and researcher Brene Brown, my personal guru and diva.

I want to share with you a short video from Brown, because I think she has identified a root cause of what lies at our lack of feeling whole sometimes and then bringing and perpetuating that unwholesomeness and unholiness in our world.

She says it has to do with how we are constantly receiving messages that make us feel we can never be enough. And this, in turn, undermines our feelings of belonging and worthiness.

She says that to counter this, we have to be willing to be vulnerable and to live in a way that she calls “wholeheartedly”.

But maybe I should shut up and let her speak for herself.

Brown video

Unitarian Universalist have seven principals that we affirm and promote and the first of those says that we affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

I wonder sometimes though if whether we affirm that for and about our self.

My beloveds, you are worthy.

You have inherent dignity.

You are capable of knowing and becoming the whole person you were born and are called to be.

And by doing that – each of us individually and yet also together – by doing that, we may yet bring more wholeness and holiness into our world.

And hallelujah to wholeness and holiness!

SERMON INDEX

PODCASTS

Journey of the Spirit

March 10, 2019 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Chris Jimmerson
March 10, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

We often talk about our spiritual path. But is that journey inward or outward or both? Sometimes to become our truest self, we also have to unbecome who we are not.

Call to Worship

WE TRAVEL THIS ROAD TOGETHER
by Tess Baumberger

From the busy-ness of every day we gather once a week to remember who we are, to dream of who we might become.

We travel this road together.

As companions on this journey, we share the milestones we meet along the way. Individual moments of joy and sorrow become shared moments of comfort and celebration.

We travel this road together.

We share this journey across differences of belief and opinion
Because we value diversity and because we care for one another.

We travel this road together.

Today as we take the next steps, let us notice our fellow travelers:
The burdens that they carry, the songs that inspire their hearts.

We travel this road together.

As we gather in beloved community, let us open the holy havens of our hearts,
Let us share the sacred places of our souls For we are pilgrims who share a common path.

We travel this road together.

Reading

HAVING COME THIS FAR
by James Broughton

I’ve been through what my through was to be
I did what I could and couldn’t
I was never sure how I would get there

I nourished an ardor for thresholds
for stepping stones and for ladders
I discovered detour and ditch

I swam in the high tides of greed
I built sandcastles to house my dreams
I survived the sunburns of love

No longer do I hunt for targets
I’ve climbed all the summits I need to
and I’ve eaten my share of lotus

Now I give praise and thanks
for what could not be avoided
and for every foolhardy choice

I cherish my wounds and their cures
and the sweet enervations of bliss
My book is an open life

I wave goodbye to the absolutes
and send my regards to infinity
I’d rather be blithe than correct

Until something transcendent turns up
I splash in my poetry puddle
and try to keep God amused.

from Special Deliveries, New and Selected Poems
(Broken Moon Press, 1990)

Sermon

Zen Buddhism has a story in which a man is on a horse which is galloping very quickly down a road.

A woman standing alongside the road shouts, “Where are you going? It seems like it must a very important destination”.

The man on the horse replies, “I don’t know! Ask the horse!”

Sometimes, life’s journey can seem that way, can’t it? Like we are being carried along with much less control than we like to think. Like so much of what happens to us that can suddenly change the direction of our journey is random and beyond our control – illness, falling in love, death, accidents, sudden and unexpected experiences of beauty, joy, wonder and awe.

Our life span faith development religious education classes and activities are exploring the concept of journey this month.

Wow, that’s a big topic.

There are so many ways to think about journey. There are so many types of journeys we take – from literal geographical travel to thinking of life as a journey.

We often talk about our exploration of spirituality as a journey. And that can mean journeying inward, outward or both.

So often, our spiritual journeys, our journeys of personal growth, involve not just becoming our full or true selves but also leaving behind, unbecoming identities, ideas and beliefs we were taught earlier in life involving religion, gender, race, sexuality and so much more.

Facing life’s inevitable difficulties and struggles, as well as moving through life passages (coming of age, marriage, beginning or ending a career, etc) can all seem like their own distinct journeys even as they are also wrapped up within the overall journey of life.

And as I mentioned earlier, so much of what happens to us during life’s journey is beyond our control. Like the man on the horse in the Zen story, we have some agency – we can try to point our journey in a general direction through the education we obtain, the spiritual and health practices in which we engage, the relationships we cultivated etc.

But like that spirited horse in the story, our life events have a mind of their own and our journey can suddenly be altered by unexpected events that cause our lives to go galloping off in a different direction, whether we like it or not.

And so to make some sense of our journey, we create a narrative – we tell ourselves a story to make meaning of our lives, and it is through these stories, how we respond to our journey, that we may find more agency. It is not complete agency because much of the story we create is unconscious and the events of our ongoing journey keep altering the narrative we are creating for ourselves.

However, the opposite is also true. The stories that we tell ourselves can also alter the direction of our journey, and this is especially true if we take the time to examine what implicit, unconscious narratives we are creating for ourselves, thereby making them conscious and explicit. By doing so, we can change the story if it is one that is not helping us; that is pointing our journey in an unhealthy and harmful direction.

Frank Loyd Wright, one of the greatest architects of the twentieth century told the story of how he used to visit his uncle’s farm.

One winter when he was nine, Wright and his uncle took a walk across a snow covered field. His uncle stopped the young Wright and pointed to the tracks in the snow they had left behind.

His uncle told him, “Notice how your tracks meander all over the place from the fence to the cattle to the woods again, while mine go in a straight line from start to finish aiming directly at my goal. There is an important lesson in that.”

Years later, Wright realized he was going to have to unlearn the story his uncle had implanted in his young mind that day.

To become the architect he wanted, to live the life he wanted, he was going to have avoid walking the straight line. “It was then I determined” said Wright, “not to miss most things in life as my uncle had.”

He had taken a story that had been implicit, made it explicit and then changed it to a story that better suited the journey he wished to pursue. Now, of course, recognizing the subliminal stories we are telling ourselves so that we can change them to more beneficial narratives can be difficult, so I want to share with you a few thoughts that might be helpful for doing so.

Many of you are likely familiar with author and comparative mythology/comparative religions scholar Joseph Campbell’s concept, “The Hero’s Journey”.

Here is a short video that takes us through the key components of this concept.

Hero Video

Campbell said that these myths exist in all cultures because they help us make sense of the challenges, fears, and difficulties we face in our own journeys.

We all face problems in life. We all have to leave our comfort zones sometimes.

And yet, how often has it been difficulty, failure, even loss that has eventually led you to an experience of transformation?

What if we all thought of ourselves as on a hero’s journey (and to avoid misogyny and gender binaries a “Shero’s or their o’ s journey)?

Might that help us live more richly and fully? If we could see ourselves as moving through the cycle described in our video, might it help us change what could otherwise be an unhelpful narrative we have constructed when confronted with challenges we fear?

Campbell once said, “In the cave you fear to enter lies the treasure you seek.”

David Whyte is a poet and philosopher that has another concept that I think can help us construct more helpful narratives.

I want to let you hear him briefly describe what he calls, “The conversational nature of reality.”

Whyte Video

I loved that story because I think the immigration officer grabbing his attention so humorously demonstrates this “conversational nature of reality”. It changed the story he was telling himself about that immigration officer.”

I think one of the false stories that we tell ourselves is that we can construct an identity separate and apart from our world and other people, when, in fact, we can only do so in relationship to all that we encounter – this is the conversational reality of our journey.

Whyte talks about having spent almost two years in the Galapagos paying deep attention to the animals and birds and landscape around him. He began to realize, he says, “…my identity actually depended on how much attention I was paying to things that were other than myself and that as you deepen this intentionality and this attention, you started to broaden and deepen your own sense of presence.”

Larry Smith, author, journalist and editor stumbled upon another tool that I think might be very useful to us in unearthing the implicit stories we may be telling ourselves about our journeys.

Smith heard a legend about Earnest Hemingway being challenged to write a novel in six words and Hemingway’s powerful response.

I’m not going to share his response in worship today because it could be emotionally triggering for some of our folks, but you are welcome to ask me about it one on one later.

Smith started a project he calls six word memoirs wherein he ask people to describe where they currently are with their journey – tell their current story and state of mind in 6 words. He created a website for folks to do so.

I think this is a powerful way to access our unconscious stories and get at the emotional content because we have to engage our most creative selves in order to tell our stories in six words.

The six word memoirs people have shared range from the poignant to the humous to both. I want to show you just a few examples. You can see more at www.sixwordmemoirs.com.

Six word video

I may have written that last one after experiencing several unexpected, potentially life-changing and certainly challenging life events all within a short time period.

I invite you, as you are moved to do so, to think about what you might write as your six word memoir. We have provided pens and Postit notes here in the sanctuary. There are more on a table in front of the windows overlooking the courtyard from inside the foyer.

If you choose to share your story, please post it on those same windows in the foyer.

You do not have to include your name if you don’t wish to do so.

Cheating by using contractions is allowed.

Six words!

That brings me to the last thought about unearthing our stories I’d like to discuss today.

I think a wonderful purpose this church serves is sharing our stories like this in this our beloved religious community.

A couple of Saturdays ago, I was here for the launch of the monthly “First Arts at First UU” presentations our Gallery Ministry Team is presenting. First Arts allows artists to showcase their work.

Church member, Shirley Steele shared with us some of her wonderful artwork. Even more so, I was touched with how she shared with us some of her journey as an artist, as well as some of her personal story because, of course, you can’t really separate the two.

At the same time, an Austin Chamber Music concert was going in here in the sanctuary. We had only just gotten permission from the City of Austin to use the sanctuary addition and had not even had our first service with it ourselves.

Some how though, it seemed appropriate, even touching somehow, that one of our partners with whom we have chosen time after time to journey would be getting to use the new space even before us.

Here at the church, we walk our spiritual journeys together in beloved community. Our journeys can bump up against each other and those of our partners with whom we journey, and that can sometimes help us turn our journeys in more life-giving, life-fulfilling, creative directions.

We can share our stories with each other from a place of trust and vulnerability. We can sometimes help each other rewrite the story we are telling ourselves if needed to make our most life-fulfilling journey more possible.

Like with Campbell’s “hero’s journey”, being capable of changing our story in ways that turn our journey toward transformation is an almost divine-like ability.

Helping each other to do so is a gift of grace that we can give to one another.

Amen.

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SERMON INDEX

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Trustful and Trustworthy

February 24, 2019 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
February 24, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Unitarian Universalism has historically been a faith that questions and can even be skeptical. Yet, we call ourselves a faith, which implies a trust that we are a part of something larger than ourselves. What does it mean to trust and to be trustworthy? How do we rebuild trust when it gets broken and is it healthy sometimes to withhold trust that has been badly violated?

Call to Worship

THE BLESSINGS OF TRUST SOUL MATTERS

We gather today to receive the blessings of trust.
May the relationships in this room, help us notice we do not walk alone.
May the quiet we share, help us connect to and trust our deepest self.
May the music offered, help us feel and hold tight to the restorative rhythms of the world.
May the words offered, remind us that we too have a voice, one that must be trusted and shared.

Reading

A HIDDEN WHOLENESS: THE JOURNEY TOWARD AN UNDIVIDED LIFE
-Parker J. Palmer

If we are willing to embrace the challenge of becoming whole, we cannot embrace it alone-at least, not for long:

we need trustworthy relationships to sustain us, tenacious communities of support, to sustain the journey toward an undivided life.

Taking an inner journey toward rejoining soul and role requires a rare but real form of community that I call a “circle of trust.”

Sermon Notes

What does it mean to trust? What does it mean to be trustworthy? What does it mean to have faith – to trust that we are a part of something larger than ourselves.

This month, our faith development classes and activities have been exploring these and other questions involving the subject of trust. This morning I want to explore the concepts of trust, trustworthiness and faith a little further.

Research from psychologist John Gottman.

In romantic relationships (and family/friends/etc.) it’s not the grand gestures that build trust over time – it’s the small gestures.

noticing a spouse or partner seems upset and putting aside our smart phone to ask them what is going on with them.
Remembering that your sister has the big presentation that is important to her at work tomorrow and sending a note or giving her a call to wish her luck.
My grandfather brought my grandmother coffee in bed every morning of their life together. He banked lots of trust points for that!

Here at church – yes the caring team checking in when we are in the hospital, the minister doing the memorial service for our loved ones, these are important, but trust in our church community is likely also built upon the smaller gestures:

noticing the visitor who looks lost and not sure where they are supposed to go and offering to help.
the phone call or card to say I heard about your loss and wanted you to know I am thinking about you.
the friendly smile in the fellowship hall
saying “thank you” to the flocks of fine folks who do the many marvelous ministries of this church.

Loss of trust also comes in small moments of betrayal.

So, trust is built in small moments. But what is trust. How do we define it?

One answer can be found in Brene Brown’s video at brenebrown.com. “SuperSoul Sessions: The Anatomy of Trust”. In the video she quotes a definition from trust researcher and consultant Charles Feltman.

“Trust is choosing to make something important to you vulnerable to the actions of someone else.”
“Distrust is when what I’ve shared with you something that is important to me is not safe with you.”

Dr Brene Brown describes the elements that make up trust with the acronym “Braving”.

BRAVING
B– Boundaries
R– Reliability
A– Accountability
V– Vault
I– Integrity
N– Non-Judgement
G– Generosity
Boundaries – yours are clear and expressed openly and you respect mine.
Reliability – we do what we say to each other and not just once but over and over again. Don’t overcommit.
Accountability – when we make mistakes, which we will, we own it, apologize and make amends. And we allow each other to do so. Exception when trust has been repeatedly been broken and abused – if it becomes clear accountability is not possible.
Vault – we acknowledge confidentiality and hold to it both each others’ and other peoples. Sharing with me something that it not yours to share destroys trust.
Integrity – choosing courage over comfort, doing what’s right over what’s fast fun or easy and practicing our values not just professing them. Example – if say compassion is a value and then I do not act with compassion it shows lack of integrity and destroys trust.
Non-Judgement – being OK with asking for help and not judging when others do. We are better at giving help than asking for it.
Generosity – we make generous assumptions about each others words and actions and we check in with each other. So if I tell a good friend I am having a rough time and then do not hear from them for a while, I don’t start by presuming they are uncaring. Check in. Not assuming good intentions – more the reverse – having the generosity to NOT go immediately to presuming ill intent.

Why I believe this is a spiritual matter; a spiritual discipline, especially for UUs. As I often talk about, we are a faith without creed. We do not have a proscribed set of beliefs we all share. And unlike our friends of some other faiths, some of us do not believe in some higher power, some being in which we can trust to take care of us and our world. So we root our faith, our trust, in a set of principles and values that we share.

Here at this church, we place our faith in the mission we have discerned together, we trust in it as our higher common purpose. And so Unitarian Universalism finds the holy, experiences faith through loving, accountable, healthy relationships with one another, with our communities, with our larger world, with the web of all existence. This is where we experience what some of us call the divine, others that which is ultimate, other that which is larger than us but of which we are a part and can place our trust. And we root our relationship with each other through a covenant, a set of sacred promises that we make to one another about how we will be with one another in healthy, accountable ways. And that requires trust, yet do not think of trust in a large religious community like this doing challenging and sometimes difficult work together as no one will ever make mistakes – no one will ever feel hurt. We Will make mistakes and Agree to be called back into covenant.

BRAVING Trust gives way to live the promises of our covenant and be accountable to it and one another when we fail.

BRAVING provides a framework that can help us keep the promises alive and a way to think about trust that acknowledges the work we must put into it. Otherwise, covenant can become shallow and can be used as a weapon to silence folks when they point out that we are not living out our professed principles and values.

BRAVING implicitly acknowledges that loving, accountable relationships involve risk and they come at a cost but that love is worth it. Besides making mistakes, if we love, we all experience loss, sorrow and grief at some point.

My friends, you can trust that love is more than worth braving it.

BRAVING says that we can trust that love is worth the risk and our efforts to create and maintain it.

BRAVING love is how we do religion as UUs and the place wherein our faith can be found.

May we go about the holy work of braving trust and love together.

SERMON INDEX

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Collective Liberation

January 30, 2019 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
January 27, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org

How do we ground our social justice work, our struggles against racism, oppression and the destruction of our environment? Where do we find reliance and even joy? We will examine a theology that grounds this work in our collective interdependence or as Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Junior put it, “We are tied together in the single garment of destiny, caught in an inescapable network of mutuality … This is the inter-related structure of reality.”

Text of this sermon is not available. Click the play button to listen.

“IF YOU HAVE COME HERE TO HELP ME, YOU ARE WASTING YOUR TIME. BUT IF YOU HAVE COME BECAUSE YOUR LIBERATION IS BOUND UP WITH MINE, THEN LET US WORK TOGETHER.”
Aboriginal Activists Group, Queensland, 1970s

Call to Worship
Rev. Chris Jimmerson

I reach for my fullest potential in a world that pits my full potential against yours.

Together, we can all better reach for our full potential.

I am taught to fear difference.

By embracing our differences, we learn, grow and may be transformed.

The privileges I have been given, the power to oppress, leaves me trapped within those same systems of oppression.

Collectively, we can change those systems and liberate us all.

Racism, sexism, classism, radical capitalism, gender and sexuality biases, religious bigotries; these conspire together to bind us all into silos of spiritual emptiness.

Together, we can burst through these silos of disconnection and journey together toward wholeness and holiness.

Come, let us enter into this journey together.

Together, we celebrate our collective vision of Beloved Community. Together, we build that vision.

Reading

A NETWORK OF MUTUALITY
by Martin Luther King Jr.

We are caught in an inescapable network of mutuality, tied in a single garment of destiny.

Injustice anywhere is a threat justice everywhere.

There are some things in our social system to which all of us ought be maladjusted.

Hatred and bitterness can never cure the disease of fear, only love can do that.

We must evolve for all human conflict a method which rejects revenge, aggression, and retaliation…

The foundation of such a method is love.

Before it is too late, we must narrow the gaping chasm between our proclamations of peace and our lowly deeds which precipitate and perpetuate war.

One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek but a means by which we arrive at that goal.

We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means.

We shall hew out of the mouton of despair, a stone of hope.

Sermon Handout

COSTS OF OPPRESSION TO PEOPLE FROM PRIVILEGED GROUPS

Psychological Costs: Loss of Mental Health and Authentic Sense of Self.

Socialized into limited roles and patterns of behavior
Denial of emotions and empathy
Limited self-knowledge and distorted view of self
Discrepancy between others’ perceptions and internal reality
Pain and fears (of doing and saying wrong thing, of retaliation from oppressed groups, of revealing self for fear of judgment, of different people and experiences)
Diminished mental health (distorted view of self and reality, denial, projection)

Social Costs: Loss and Diminishment of Relationships

Isolation from people who are different
Barriers to deeper, more authentic relationships
Disconnection, distance and ostracism within own group/family if act differently

Moral and Spiritual Costs: Loss of Moral and Spiritual Integrity

Guilt and shame
Moral ambivalence (doing right thing vs. social pressures and realities)
Spiritual emptiness or pain

Intellectual Costs: Loss of Developing Full Range of Knowledge

Distorted and limited view of other people’s culture and history
Ignorance of own culture and history

Material and Physical Costs: Loss of Safety, Resources, and Quality of Life

Social violence and unrest
Higher costs (e.g. for good and safe schools and homes, for qualified employees)
Waste of resources (to deal with effects of inequality)
Loss of valuable employees, clients and customers
Loss of knowledge to foster societal growth and well-being
Diminished collective action for common concerns
Negative health implications

Benefits of Social Justice for People from Privileged Groups

Fuller, more authentic sense of self
More authentic relationships and human connection
Moral integrity and consistency
Freedom from fears
Improved work and living conditions
Access to other cultures and wisdom
More resources to address common concerns
Greater opportunity for real democracy and justice

From: Diane J. Goodman, Promoting Diversity and Social Justice: Educating People from Privileged Group (Routledge, 2011). www.dianegoodman.com

Benediction
by Bell Hooks

The moment we choose to love we begin to move towards freedom, to act in ways that liberate ourselves and others. That action is the testimony of love as the practice of freedom.

SERMON INDEX

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Potential Ever Emergent

January 13, 2019 by tom Posted in Audio available, Chris Jimmerson, Sermons

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Rev. Chris Jimmerson
January 13, 2019
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org

Though Unitarian Universalists are a people of many theological or philosophical perspectives, the human possibility, our potential for doing good in our world has always been central to our world-view. What are the ways in which we are being called toward our full potential. What lures us toward creative, life-fulfilling possibilities?

Call to Worship:

DO NOT LEAVE YOUR CARES AT THE DOOR
By Norman V Naylor

Do not leave your cares at the door.
Do not leave there your pain, your sorrow or your joys.
Bring them with you into this place of acceptance and forgiveness.
Place them on the common altar of life and offer them to the possibility of your worship.
Come then, and offer yourself to potential transformation by the creative process that flows through you and all life.

Reading

FOR A NEW BEGINNING
John O’Donahue

In out of the way places of the heart
Where your thoughts never think to wander
This beginning has been quietly forming
Waiting until you were ready to emerge.

For a long time it has watched your desire
Feeling the emptiness grow inside you
Noticing how you willed yourself on
Still unable to leave what you had outgrown.

It watched you play with the seduction of safety
And the grey promises that sameness whispered
Heard the waves of turmoil rise and relent
Wondered would you always live like this.

Then the delight, when your courage kindled,
And out you stepped onto new ground,
Your eyes young again with energy and dream
A path of plenitude opening before you.

Though your destination is not clear
You can trust the promise of this opening;
Unfurl yourself into the grace of beginning
That is one with your life’s desire.

Awaken your spirit to adventure
Hold nothing back, learn to find ease in risk
Soon you will be home in a new rhythm
For your soul senses the world that awaits you.

Sermon

Earlier, we lit the flame of our chalice, calling it into being. And yet “being” is not quite an accurate description. A flame is not a stable object, but rather an ever becoming process of fuel and oxygen being burnt, one flame dying so that the next can arise, giving the impression to our eyes of one steady flame.

A worldview called process theology says that we are like that flame. We are ever changing processes of becoming, changing into something new with each moment of our experience.

For process theology, God is not omnipotent, but rather is a benevolent force, offering to us almost limitless possibilities from which to choose in each moment, luring us toward those potentialities that are life-giving and life fulfilling, that move our world to-ward greater goodness and beauty, that expand our awareness and spiritual wellbeing.

God then holds our experiences, as well as those of all else, to retain what has been actualized in our world.

The non-theistic version of this substitutes the possibility for novelty, the creative processes inherent in our universe, for God. Love and justice become what lure us toward the creative choices that will enhance our live and world.

Now that is probably that shortest, most simplified version of process theology ever spoken. Process theology is much more complex than what I have just outlined.

I wanted to start by sharing a little about it with you this morning though, because I think it provides one useful way for examining the subject of this month’s theme that our Faith Development classes and activities have been exploring – the Soul Matters theme of possibility.

Unitarians and Universalists have always been a people of possibility. When other faiths have placed depravity at the core of humanity, we have seen potential instead.

A couple of Sundays ago, we talked about how what we do not know, uncertainty and mystery can sometimes create within us experiences of awe and wonder and beckon us toward creative exploration and possibility.

Last Sunday, we thought about how letting go of what may be holding us back can oftentimes create new, more life-fulfilling potential for us. For example, letting go of relationships that have become unhealthy or toxic, so that we can spend more time building those that mutually enhance one another’s lives.

Today, I would like to explore some other ways that may offer us more creative means for reaching toward our full potential.

First, I talk about something closely related to the idea of the things we need to let go to make our full potential possible.

Far too often, I think we tell ourselves stories that make the challenging or difficult seem like impossibilities for us.

I’m too old/too young.
I have to be perfect.
What would other people think?
It’s too risky.
I am not good enough/smart enough! talented enough, worthy enough, etc.
If I do this, they won’t love me anymore.

And there are so many more false stories we tell ourselves. I think fear of rejection, loss of belonging, is involved in a lot of these stories. Fear of rejection is one of the big ways we stifle our creative potential.

Jia Jiang is an entrepreneur who, in his early 30s, realized that a childhood incident had caused him to develop an even higher level of anxiety around being rejected than might be the norm. He ran from any possible chance of rejection, which was harming both his personal life and his entrepreneurial efforts.

So, he decided to go into a period of 100 days wherein each day he would do something that was likely to lead to being rejected. He wanted to see what he could learn from this and whether it could help him work through his fear of rejection. One day he asked a complete stranger if he could borrow $100.

Another, he went to a burger joint, had his lunch and then walked back up to the counter and asked for a burger refill. He convinced a Starbucks manager to let him be a greeter all day like they do at Walmart stores. On yet another day, he knocked on the door of a stranger’s house and asked if he could plant a flower in their backyard.

Needless to say, he got rejected a number of times. But, he also began to notice if he stayed engaged. if he did not immediately flee if told, “no”, that creative possibilities began to open up.

When he admitted to the Starbuck’s manager that his request to be a greeter was a little weird, the manger said, “OK, go ahead. Just don’t do anything too weird”.

The person at the first house he asked about planting a flower in their backyard said, ‘no.” By now, a more confident Jia asked, “why”? The person answered that they had a dog that would just dig it back up anyway but then referred him to the lady across the street who loved flowers. The flower is now growing in her backyard.

So in a way, what he did was to desensitize himself to rejection and even learn to embrace it as a gift. I want to let you hear his conclusions from his experiment.

VIDEO

I think Jia’s story also reveals a couple of other ways that we are called to creative possibilities first, we have greater possibilities when we educate ourselves – open ourselves to having our consciousness raised, and, second, we reach our greatest potential in relationship with others.

We can educate ourselves by formal means, but also by putting ourselves in situations from which we can learn, as Jia did.

One of the ways in which we are learning together here at the church, is how we can better recognize and dismantle a culture of white supremacy and other systems of oppression, within ourselves, within our church community, and beyond our walls, as one of our new ends statements related to our mission puts it.

To that end, a subset of our change team, a group that is working on antiracism and multiculturalism here at the church, has put together an exercise for us this morning.

You will see up on your screen and on a handout you have were given on your way in, a question related to the Language of Anti-Oppression, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion.

What is discrimination against someone based on race and reinforced by systems of power?

a. white privilege
b. Jim Crow-ism
c. racism
d. apartheid

Please decide how you would answer the question and then pair up with someone near you. You’ll each take one to two minutes each to talk about why you chose the answer that you did.

OK, you may begin now.

Let’s come back together now. You’re Unitarians, so I know you are wanting to know if you got the correct answer, but to find out, you’ll have to come to workshop at 12:30 today mentioned on your handout and announcements, where you can learn more of the vocabulary of building the Beloved Community.

So, we can learn from each other. Even further, each one of us can only realize our own greatest potential, I believe, in relationship with others, especially those who have much different life experiences than our own.

We grow the most when we learn to not only encounter but value difference and alternative perspectives. This is one of many ways that our silos rooted in racism, bigotry and ideology harm all of us.

And especially when it comes to movement building, we absolutely must have relationships and community, we must have solidarity, to maximize the social possibilities for which we yearn.

I love the way poet Marge Percy expresses the possibility to be found in building movements in her poem,

“The Low Road”
What can they do to you?
Whatever they want.
They can set you up,
they can bust you,
they can break your fingers,
they can bum your brain with electricity, … ,
they can take your child, wall up your lover.
They can do anything
you can’t stop them from doing.
How can you stop them?
Alone, you can fight,
you can refuse,
you can take what revenge you can
but they roll over you.
But two people fighting back to back can cut through a mob …
Two people can keep each other sane,
can give support, conviction, love, massage, hope, sex.
Three people are a delegation, a committee, a wedge.
With four you can play bridge and start an organization.
With six you can rent a whole house …
and hold a fund-raising party.
A dozen make a demonstration.
A hundred fill a hall.
A thousand have solidarity and your own newsletter;
ten thousand, power and your own paper;
a hundred thousand, your own media;
ten million, your own country.
It goes on one at a time,
it starts when you care to act,
it starts when you do it again after they said no,
it starts when you say WE and know who you mean,
and each day you mean one more.

Here is another take on how movements start.

VIDEO

I think that advice about learning to follow might be a great source of possibility, especially for those of us who are managerial class, white and used to being in positions of authority.

I’d like to end by returning to the process theology with which I began.

What if God is calling you to toward those potentialities that are life-giving and life fulfilling?

What if God is answering your desire to reach for your full potential, with a “yes”?

Or, if you prefer, what if the possibility for novelty, the creative processes inherent in our universe – what if love and justice are luring you toward possibilities that expand your awareness and spiritual wellbeing and move our world toward greater goodness and beauty?

What if the universe is saying, “yes” to the world of which we dream?

How will we answer?

Benediction

GOD SAYS YES TO ME
– Kaylin Haught

I asked God if it was okay to be
melodramatic
and she said yes
I asked her if it was okay to be short
and she said it sure is
I asked her if I could wear nail polish
or not wear nail polish
and she said honey
she calls me that sometimes
she said you can do just exactly
what you want to
Thanks God I said
And is it even okay if I don’t paragraph my letters
Sweetcakes God said
who knows where she picked that up
what I’m telling you is
Yes Yes Yes

SERMON INDEX

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