Our Religious Imagination

by Posted in Audio available, Brian Ferguson, Former Ministers, Guest Speakers, Sermons

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Rev. Brian Ferguson

November 4, 2012

Albert Einstein was one of the great thinkers of the 20th century and knew a lot but said “Imagination is more important than knowledge.” Our Unitarian Universalist religious tradition places great emphasis on the use of reason to interpret our experience to derive meaning in life. But the solutions to some of the most difficult intractable problems in our lives seem to lie beyond our experience and reason. This worship service will explore what possibilities could be open to us if we make imagination a bigger part of our religious life.

Rev. Brian Ferguson is currently serving in his third year as the Consulting Minister to the San Marcos Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. Prior to serving at San Marcos, Brian completed a year of chaplaincy training at Seton Family of Hospitals in Austin, specializing in the areas of Intensive Care, Trauma, and Mental Health. He was honored to serve as the ministerial intern here, at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin, in 2008 and also the Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Church in Cedar Park. Brian earned a Masters of Divinity degree from Starr King School for the Ministry, the Unitarian Universalist seminary in Berkeley, California. His ministry is driven by the desire to explore and improve the human condition in an interdisciplinary and holistic way.

He is a native of Scotland but has lived in California since 1986 prior to moving to Austin in August, 2008. In his previous life, before attending seminary, he earned an applied physics degree from the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow, Scotland, and worked for 24 years as an electronic design engineer and project manager. Brian is joined on life’s journey by his partner and our office manager, Natalie Freeburg, and nine year old daughter, Isla Ferguson.

 

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Does our name mean anything to us?

by Posted in Audio available, Brian Ferguson, Former Ministers, Sermons, Video available

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Rev. Brian Ferguson

May 6, 2012

Many of us identify as Unitarian Universalists, but do we mean the same or even similar things when we identify as such? Or is our biggest commonality our doubt about having any centralizing religious concept that pulls us to together as a religious movement? Something – or the lack of something – keeps inviting us back to be part of our religious community. This worship service explores what that central theme might be or perhaps what it could be.

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Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of What?

by Posted in Audio available, Brian Ferguson, Guest Speakers

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Brian Ferguson

July 3, 2011

Reading

Excerpt from A Treatise on Atonement by the 19th Century Universalist leader Hosea Ballou.

“Man’s major goal, in all he does, is happiness; and were it not for that, he never could have any other particular goal. What would induce men to form societies; to be at the expense of supporting government; to acquire knowledge; to learn the sciences, or till the earth, if they believed they could be as happy without as with?

The fact is, man would not be the thing that he now is, as there would not be any stimulus to action; Men are never without this grand goal, so they are never without their wants, which render such a goal desirable. But their minor goals vary, and their passions differ. Then, says the objector, there is no such thing as disinterested benevolence.

The objector will say, to admit that our happiness is the grand goal of all we do destroys the purity of religion, and reduces the whole to nothing but selfishness.

To which, I reply a man acting for his own happiness, if he seek it in the heavenly system of universal benevolence, knowing that his own happiness is connected with the happiness of his fellow-men, which induces him to do justly and to deal mercifully with all men, he is not more selfish than he ought to be. But a man acting for his own happiness, if he seek it in the narrow circle of partiality and covetousness, his selfishness is irreligious and wicked.”

Sermon

I find it interesting that on this July 4th Independence Weekend that you invited a worship leader who is British. I am reminded of the Romans, who would parade their captured enemies through the street then have the defeated leaders give speeches praising the Great Roman Empire. I wondered if this is why you invited me back? Those of you who remember my eventful Internship here two years ago probably realize that is not what I will be doing. What I do want to do is congratulate this religious community for the hard work you have done over the last two years and your selection of a fabulous Minister in the Rev. Meg Barnhouse. Congratulations, I am sure you must be very happy.

Now happiness is something I want to explore today. Happiness is a strange idea when you think about it. It is one of the most common wishes we make for others. This weekend we will be wishing each other a Happy 4th July, even to British people. Last Fall I even saw a sign saying Happy Veterans Day. I was taken aback and a little unsettled by this, Happy Veterans Day. Veterans Day has always been a day I recognized as a solemn day of remembrance for those who lost their lives in wars. Wishing someone a Happy Veterans Day seems to have missed the point of the day. Not everything in life is happy – in fact even our wishing of each other happiness on holidays implies that most of the time we are not happy.

Now being from Britain, happiness is not something that comes easily to me. I grew up Presbyterian which with its emphasis on human depravity seems much more grounded in reality than any foolish optimism about happiness. Human history seems to have plenty of examples where humanity has taken the low road in the treatment of each other. Reviewing human history with its seeming constant violence and injustice usually stirs in me emotions of sadness or anger and often both. History or our current news rarely stirs emotions of happiness in me.

Now perhaps I’m overly negative about this but to show that I’m not alone in this view, there was a proposal by a British psychologist to have happiness classified as a psychiatric disorder. I originally thought this was a joke from a satirical newspaper like the Onion but it was in the Journal of Medical Ethics1 which is not usually a barrel of laughs. Here is what the abstract to the proposal says:

“It is proposed that happiness be classified as a psychiatric disorder. In a review of the relevant literature it is shown that happiness is statistically abnormal, is associated with a range of cognitive abnormalities, and probably reflects the abnormal functioning of the central nervous system. One possible objection to this proposal remains — that happiness is not negatively valued. However, this objection is dismissed as scientifically irrelevant.” So there you have it to be happy is abnormal – at least in Britain. We British can be a miserable bunch. Perhaps that is why the American colonies wanted their independence from Britain -they wanted to be happy or at least the opportunity to pursue happiness. At the very founding of the United States in the Declaration of Independence there is talk about happiness. One of the most famous sentences from the Declaration says “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”

This is considered a powerful statement of individual human rights and has been called one of the best-known sentences in the English language.2 As a powerful statement of human rights it is great shame that it talked about all men rather than all people being created equal. If it had said all people then women might not have had to wait another 140 years for the vote. Alas like the reading from Hosea Ballou earlier, it’s sexist language was a product of its time.

Thomas Jefferson was the main author of the declaration and acknowledged that most of the ideas in it were not original. Scholars recognize multiple influences on the document. One of the major influences was somewhat ironically the British political philosopher, John Locke, who was one of the most influential thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries. He wrote extensively about the just use of power by governments and about 100 years before the Declaration of Independence he said people had the rights of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of property.” Lock believed that property rights were fundamental to human rights both of which should be protected by the government. It is interesting that Jefferson changed this aspect of Locke’s work to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” The pursuit of property seems much more in line with our lives in the consumer culture of the U.S. today.

The modern American and British views of individual property rights are by no means a Universal view. Many of the indigenous Native American groups to New England struggled to understand the early American colonists’ ideas of ownership of land. A common view among the Native American groups was “The land does not belong to us, we belong to the land.” This in many ways is a radical interpretation of our 7th Unitarian Universalist principle of the respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are part. Many Native American saw humans as part of the environment, part of something larger than themselves, with no sense of ownership by them. That is a radically different world view and makes a clash of cultures inevitable as soon as the early colonists started claiming ownership of land. What did the Native Americans make of the first “No Trespassing” signs?

Many indigenous groups throughout the world struggle with the dominant western ideas of individual property rights. Even, in my home country of Scotland, the native non-English language Gaelic, did not have a word for individual ownership, it only had language for community ownership by family or clan. The language had no way of saying that I own this, a person could only talk about how we own this. This is a remarkably different approach to living than we have in most of our modern society. Yet think about how we talk about ownership within this religious community.

In our religious tradition ownership and responsibility does not lie with some centralized power or with the minister, blame may lie with the minister but not ownership and responsibility. The ownership and responsibility lies with the members of this religious community, with each of us. We talk about our church, our religious education program, our members, our minister, the land that we own, and in the modern world we live – our webpage and our facebook page. As individuals of this religious community we own none of it but together with each other we own all of it.

The idea of individual property rights is so fundamental to how British and American societies operate that we forget it is a choice we make as a society. I find it interesting that the individual pursuit of property was down-played by Jefferson in the declaration of independence and replaced with the pursuit of happiness. There are many benefits to individual ownership since as individuals we often take better care of what we own individually rather than what we own in common with others. The desire for ownership, be it a house, car, or other item, can be the primary motivator for many of our actions.

Now the exact relation of ownership to happiness is a complex one. The material wealth of most Americans has increased enormously since the 1950’s but the surveys of happiness suggest most Americans are slightly less happy than the 1950’s. The pursuit of property may be a major motivator of our actions but does not seem to make us happier. This makes sense to me since pursuing property to a certain level of comfort such as having a safe place to live and ample food to eat will reduce our fear and insecurity therefore increase our happiness. Beyond these basic comforts the continual pursuit of property and goods which is encouraged by our economic system I believe can result in more dissatisfaction. As our expectations are continually raised then the likelihood of happiness or even just contentment can diminish. Perhaps Jefferson was on to something when he replaced the Pursuit of Property with the Pursuit of Happiness.

Some historians believed that Jefferson de-emphasized protection of property by the government to allow taxation but most historians believed that Jefferson wanted a more virtuous ideal to go along with life and liberty. Happiness was a very important concept in the 18th century since many liberal philosophers like Jefferson and Locke were justifying the curbing of the powers by Kings and Tyrants – often the same thing. The justification defined the role of government to serve the people by seeking the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.3 Judging by this standard it would seem that our present government in America is failing badly since no-one seems happy with it.

At the time of the writing of the Declaration of Independence Happiness was considered the supreme determiner of a person’s actions. This idea was mentioned in the earlier reading by Hosea Ballou, considered the father of the Universalist side our tradition. He stated: “Man’s major goal, in all he does, is happiness; and were it not for that, he never could have any other particular goal.”4 Hosea Ballou was writing just 30 years after the Declaration of Independence and still reflects that period’s belief in the pursuit of happiness as the major motivation of a person’s actions. The Declaration has a strong religious context emphasizing rights endowed by one’s Creator meaning God. Ballou likewise believed we had a God-given right to be happy and we were created to be fulfilled and happy. Jefferson from a political point of view stated the pursuit of happiness is a right and Ballou from our own Universalist religious tradition stated that happiness is our main stimulus to noble action. It seems like happiness is a very important idea but is the pursuit of happiness an appropriate religious goal?

In the earlier reading Ballou warned that acting only for our own individual happiness is irreligious and wicked5. The focus on one’s own individual happiness can easily slip into narcissism and selfishness. Ballou believed true happiness would come when we acted justly on the behalf of others and dealt mercifully with them – a universal system of benevolence. Over the last 200 years we have increasingly become a more individualistic culture and many in our society do not think in terms of the greatest happiness for the greatest number of people.

As well as the overemphasis on individual happiness, the idea of happiness as a goal to be pursued seems problematic to me since it implies we can reach some stable state of happiness. I don’t think life is like that. Given the constant change in our world and the finite nature of human life then any expectation of a lasting state of happiness seems doomed to disappointment. Our lives are filled with challenges such as illness, loss of loved ones, disappointments in relationships, financial uncertainty, and injustice in its many forms. Now being happy through all the struggles of life may not be a psychiatric disorder as was claimed earlier but may not be a meaningful response to life’s challenges. Having expectations of lasting happiness can lead to a sense of disappointment and despair. I heard it said that expectations are just premeditated resentments therefore I treat life with high hopes and low expectations. So what are my expectations and hopes about happiness?

I think we have brief moments of happiness rather than lasting periods of happiness. These moments often come when reflecting on our past, often our immediate past. These reflections can be on some great time of connection with family or friends, or a great event we worked hard on that felt successful, or time we took for ourselves to reflect on our growth as people through skills acquired or changes of behavior. Happiness for me has a reflective quality where some past event gives us satisfaction and I think that happiness is more often the consequence of what we do not the motivation for what we do. Take some of the life’s struggles I just mentioned – with illness I seek care, for loss of loved ones I seek comfort, for disappointments with relationships I seek understanding, for financial struggles I seek support, and for injustice I seek to work for justice.

Mainly what I seek with life’s struggle is the compassion and understanding of others to help me cope. This is where I think religious communities can play an important role in our lives. Many people seek religious community to help them cope with life’s sorrows and celebrate life’s joys. The congregation I serve in San Marcos has a shared joys and concerns portion of our weekly worship service which is a ritualized form of that. But the sharing of joys and concerns amongst us does not just happen in worship, it happens in the fellowship hour after service, and through the friendships we have with fellow congregants. This is a vital part of the fabric of a healthy religious community.

Through this sharing and reflection on the struggles and joys of life we create the meaning in our lives. This sharing and reflection in community can allow us to feel cared for, comforted, supported, and understood which, in time, may leads us to moments of happiness as we reflect on how we are valued by other people. And the sharing of joys is important because if we can learn to truly find joy in another person’s joy then this can help increase the moments of happiness in our own lives.

In closing, I think Jefferson did get it right in pursuing happiness rather than property as one of our rights but happiness is not a goal to be achieved but moments of satisfaction to be savored in our lives. Aristotle said “happiness is the only thing that humans desire for its own sake, unlike riches, honor, health or friendship, which are sought not for their own sake but cause people to be happier.” I would add that people may desire happiness but life will place obstacles in the way of our happiness. How we choose between riches, honor, health, and friendship will determine the depth and frequency of those moments of our happiness. We do well to choose wisely.

 

Ballou, Hosea. A Treatise on Atonement Edited and introduced by Ernest Cassara (Boston, MA: Skinner House Books, 1986) p.33-34

i Bentall, Richard P. Journal of Medical Ethics Volume 18, Issue 2 (BMJ Group, 1992) p.94-98

ii Lucas, Stephen E. Justifying America: The Declaration of Independence as a Rhetorical Document in American Rhetoric: Context and Criticism Thomas W Benson ed. (Carbondale, IL: Southern Illinois University Press,1989) p.85

iii Willis, Gary. Inventing America: Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence ( New York, NY: Doubleday, 1978) p.259

iv Ballou, Hosea. A Treatise on Atonement Edited and introduced by Ernest Cassara (Boston, MA: Skinner House Books, 1986) p.33-34v Ballou, Hosea. A Treatise on Atonement Edited and introduced by Ernest Cassara (Boston, MA: Skinner House Books, 1986) p.33-34

Endings and Beginnings

by Posted in Audio available, Ed Brock, Guest Speakers

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Nell Newton

Chris Jimmerson

Eric Hepburn

Brendan Sterne

Susan Thomson

Rev. Ed Brock

June 19, 2011

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Tribute to Ed Brock

Nell Newton

As Mick and Keith have already told us, “You can’t always get what you want, but you’ll get what you need.”

That is exactly what we got when we called Ed Brock and asked if he would consider serving as our interim minister for this past year. We didn’t know this at the time, but let me back up.

The process by which churches obtain interim ministers is much more streamlined than the search for settled ministers. While a settled search takes nine people about 18 months, an interim search can be done by five people in three months with the UUA serving as matchmaker.

Last spring we were wrapping up a successful and soothing year of interim ministry with Rev. Janet Newman. We knew we still had some work to do before we’d be ready to call a settled minister, and we’d heard stories about other interim ministers who specialize in shaking up the status quo. These are the SWAT ministers who come in swinging their brooms, with a critical eye for bad habits, and who cut no slack for sentimental tradition if it stands in the way of progress. Perhaps that’s what we should look for – a no-nonsense interim who would make us stand up straight, straighten our tie, and do things their way. It would be good for us. We knew we had some bad habits, and we were ready to be humbled, if necessary.

As the president of the congregation, I was kept apprised of the progress and would be the one to make any formal offers. The search team was sent four names of possible interims – and two had the reputation of being stem-to-stern change up specialists. Oooh! Perfect!

But nothing went as planned. For assorted reasons, none of those four names answered when we called to inquire. Oh dear. Perhaps we weren’t challenging enough for them? Or worse — maybe we were we too far gone…

I called the office at the UUA and tried not to let them hear the rising worry in my voice. Uh… could we maybe, uh… well, you see… we need more names… Of course, we’ll send more names. Not to worry, this happens all the time. Trust the process. You’ll get the right minister.

Four more names arrived, and immediately the search team pushed one name ahead of the others: Rev. Ed Brock. A minister trained in family systems theory – Oh! We’ve heard about family systems theory! And he’s a trained counselor – Oh! We could use some counseling! I was a little nervous when we called him. Would you? Could you? Consider us? Yes? Wonderful. Thank you. Yes! Yes! Yes!

When Ed first arrived, he didn’t kick in the doors, he didn’t tell us we were doing things all wrong, and he was nice. He was the kind of guy who would pull you over to the side and quietly tell you if you had spinach stuck in your front teeth. And during his first visit with the board, he gave us the nicest gift. He told us that during this year, we would be busy at work searching for our next settled minister, but that one thing we should always remember is that we already have our settled ministry in the form of our lay leadership and our community. We are the enduring ministry of this church.

Oh, my heart just melted then and there! Instead of telling us we were a lost cause, he had held up a mirror and showed us how strong, and lively, and beautiful we are.

Instead of marching ahead, he walked alongside us during a year of heavy work. He pointed out dusty places, and held a flashlight steady as we went into some dark spaces. He kept us company and encouraged us to keep going as we cleaned the windows, overhauled the by-laws, and learned to trust ourselves to do good work.

Ed’s ministry showed us that, No, you don’t always get what you think you want, but if you do the work, trust the process, and say “yes, yes, yes!” you’ll get what you need.

 

 

Chris Jimmerson

In the past year, I have had the opportunity to work with Rev. Brock, Ed, in a variety of ways and on a nearly weekly basis. After spending all of this time with him, I can tell you one thing for certain – The Reverend Edward L. Brock is …not normative.

And that’s a good thing! When it comes to large systems, oftentimes, normative is great because what has become normal practice is the result of much experience, experimentation and research to determine what works best.

In an interim minister though, normative could mean average, when what we are hoping for is excellence. Excellence is what we got in Ed Brock!

So, let me count the ways that Ed has been “not normative”.

1. Despite his self-effacing and modest disposition, Ed has dared to tell us how his experience and training might inform the opportunities and challenges we have encountered – to help up us begin to implement the covenant, governance and mission groundwork we had laid in our first year of interim ministry – even when it meant challenging prior ways of doing things and ingrained ways of thinking.

And all without disagreement or controversy!

2. He has sent us some of the wisest and most detailed email messages I have ever seen. Many of them sounded just like one of his sermons; some of them were shorter.

3. His sermons have contained a terrific mix of humor, inspiration and topical wisdom that we needed to hear. Some of them were even better than his email messages.

4. Ed gave some great stewardship speeches that helped increase pledges at a time when the church really needed it. As they said in the small Texas town where I grew up, “he can talk a dog off a piece of meat.”

5. Ed did all of this while mentoring not one but two new Unitarian Universalist ministerial aspirants. I’m so grateful for the advice and opportunities he has given me, not to mention for all of the various recommendation forms and paperwork he has had to complete for me as I applied to seminary, scholarship funds, the Unitarian Universalist Association, etc. In fact, it got to be so much extra work for Ed at one point that I took to taking previous forms he had filled out, reformatting them to fit wherever I was applying this time and giving them to Ed to sign if he was OK with what I had done.

Oh, that reminds me – (to Ed) Ed could you … (back to congregation) excuse me … (take to Ed) Ed, could you just sign and date this here. Oh, and on the second page also.

(Back to congregation) Sorry.

Suddenly I’m realizing, I can’t possibly cover all of the extraordinary gifts Ed has brought to us in the last year, so let me just close by saying this: If helping a congregation to call an exceptional settled minister by guiding us through the work necessary to chart a future filled with magnificent promise with that new settled minister is what we hope is “normative” for a second year interim ministry in UU churches, then Ed has set the new gold standard with us.

Thank you Ed, for a wonderful year.

 

 

Brenden Sterne

Our new congregational President Chris Jimmerson asked me to say a few words about this past year and the work that the church has accomplished with the help of Ed Brock. I am tempted to say a few nice things about Ed, but afraid that all the nice things that can be said about Ed have already been said, by Ed.

In all seriousness…

Early on during my first year on the Board of Trustees, a dozen or so of us sat around the tables on a hot Saturday morning in one of the classrooms, and Nell Newton, our president at the time, asked us to check-in by taking turns sharing with the group, what is was that we were giving up to be at church that Saturday

I thought it was a great idea to recognize what we sacrificing that day to do the work of governance. And that it would help us get to know each other better. There were a variety of answers. If I remember correctly I felt most keenly that I was missing time with my family – my daughter’s soccer game that morning, and maybe swimming in the afternoon.

Whenever anyone in our community, devotes some of the their time, talents or treasure in serving the mission of our church, they are giving up something too. Just to be here this morning, each of you has given up something. Maybe it’s time you could spend on your house. Or time reading. Or maybe it’s just sleep. As the parent of toddler I know how precious, precious sleep is. So we’re all giving up a little something to be here.

Ed was joking around these past two weeks as he asked us if we members of the congregation wouldn’t mind recording a brief message of support, that he could bring back with him and share with his family.

And if you reflect on that request for a moment – the human side of Ed comes out. On father’s day I think it’s particularly appropriate that we recognize that behind the professional role of Minister that Ed lives so well, there is also the role of husband and father. As many of you know Ed has a wife and children 7 and 9, in Washington state, that he has been apart from this year.

And that’s why he asked us record those videos. Because as he wants his wife and children to know why is doing what he does, and that what he is doing is important.

This shows that Ed has had to make some big sacrifices to be here with us. And what it also shows is how much faith he must have in our religion, and this church, leaving his family for a big part of this year.

Now I can’t speak for the good Reverend Ed, but I’ve come to know him a little bit, and I think that I understand why he is doing what he does. Just like most volunteers at our church – he does it for the money.

You can’t do Interim Ministry without a deep belief that what we do here at church is important. I can’t recall where I first heard the words, but they’ve stuck with me, and that is: ‘We have a life-saving message’.

Let that one sink in here for a second. ‘We have a life-saving message’. The ‘we’ in that sentence can mean Unitarian Universalism. And it can mean the First UU Church of Austin. Whatever works for you.

I know Ed really believes that we have a life-saving message, and that we can make a real difference in our community and the world.

I want to thank Ed for all his wonderful contributions to our church this year. And I want to thank the congregation for all your hard work and trust that you have placed in the board.

When I’m at church I’m always delighted to see that there is a community of people who are willing to make sacrifices – small and large – towards a higher purpose. I hope that you are, and continue to be nourished, and that you find your life being transformed, as I find mine.

I look forward to my final year on the board as your board secretary. And I’m excited about the arrival of our new Minister Meg Barnhouse.

 

 

Susan Thomson

I have been reflecting a lot lately on the state of our church 2 years ago and now. I was not excited about the prospect of an interim minister, even though I had been in congregations, including this church, with interim ministers of whom I was very fond. And perhaps that was why I was not looking forward to more as I had quickly bonded with these interim ministers only to have them move on from my congregation in a short time. So I was eager to just get on with it and hurriedly organize a search for our next settled minister. And if I had been the Grand Poobah, or the Decider, to quote a former President from Texas, that is exactly what we would have done.

I came to believe, though, in the wisdom of not only having one interim minister for one year but a second interim for the following year. Our church has been so blessed by both our interim ministers, Janet Newman and Ed Brock, who each brought different gifts at just the right time for us.

I have been struck in looking back on the past two year about how much our church has grown by doing things the right way. To have a deliberate transition from one settled minister to the next, with time for re-examination about who we are as a congregation, resulting in a beautiful new mission, values and ends-that was the right way to do things. For time to identify what needed to change to make us a better, healthier congregation as we prepare for our next settled minister-that was the right way to do things.

Joe Sullivan, a consultant with Unity Consulting, observed at our board retreat last weekend that we not only commissioned the Bridge Builders report from Peter Steinke, contrary apparently to many churches, we actually read it and actually implemented the actions called for in the report. So we have done many things the right way these past 2 years.

But what I would like to speak to today is not only the part that Rev. Brock has played in helping us do things the right way, but the courage he has demonstrated in pointing us toward the right thing to do. And there is a difference. Doing the right thing is much riskier. It involves poking more sacred cows. It is often more challenging to determine the right thing to do than to look through a rulebook or a policy manual for answers on the right way to do things. It takes more courage.

Ed has worked tirelessly to help us determine the right thing to do. He has done so with our mission, our values and our ends as his compass. And as we wish Ed Godspeed with grateful hearts for his time with us and prepare to welcome Meg, we know that we now have the foundation upon which we as a congregation can work tirelessly to do the right thing at First UU, to allow our mission and our values and our ends to guide us to become the thriving congregation we want to become.

 

 

The State Budget Crisis and Education

by Posted in Audio available, Ed Brock

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Rev. Ed Brock

State Representative Donna Howard

Bee Morehead, Executive Director of Texas Impact

March 6, 2011

This sermon is available on audio. Click the play button below to listen.

Donna Howard’s comments:

Though I typically prefer speaking extemporaneously, with limited time I decided to script my comments. I’m going to try to convey what’s happening with our state’s budget in 5 minutes or less. So, let’s get started.

Texas is an overall low-tax-burden state. In fact, we’re 48th in the nation in terms of local and state taxes combined per individual. That doesn’t mean our tax bills are actually low because we are overly dependent on sales and property taxes to fund government. We’ve got some of the highest sales and property taxes in the nation. At the same time, according to a 2010 report of the Legislative Budget Board (our state’s version of the federal CBO) we are 50th in the nation in terms of expenditures per capita.

Our current biennial budget is about $182 billion, but we only have discretion over about $87 billion. Of that, about 85% goes to public and higher education, and health and human services. We have a shortfall of $27 billion. That means, in order to balance our budget-which we’re constitutionally required to do-and, in order to balance our budget using only cuts-which those in power have determined is the route we must take-we have to make serious cuts in basic education and health and human services.

You may have heard our shortfall is “only” $15 billion. Both figures are correct. To provide the same services we currently provide leaves us $15 billion short. To provide the same services we currently provide AND to include population growth and increased demand for services results in a $27 billion shortfall. To give some perspective, we grow about 80,000 new students in Texas every year-essentially a new Austin ISD every year. But our budget will not provide schools with the necessary increases in dollars to teach those students even though we require them to educate every student who comes through their doors-and to provide each and every one of them with a quality program that addresses all their needs so they can be college and career ready.

How did we get here? The perfect storm, if you will, includes the recession which seriously impacted the state’s major source of revenue-sales taxes make up about 55 to 60% of our state’s budget; the use of one-time federal dollars to the tune of $12.5 billion which were used to balance our current budget and which will not be available to us in the next biennium; and the so-called structural deficit which was caused by the 2006 compression of school property taxes without sufficient state dollars to compensate. Basically, we reduced property taxes by 1/3 from $1.50 to $1.00 which equaled about $14 billion. The state swapped other taxes to make up for the reduction-an increase in cigarette taxes, used car sales taxes, and a revised franchise tax-the margin tax (which has significantly underperformed). The problem was that it was not a revenue neutral swap, and we’ve been counting on surplus dollars to cover the swap. Of course, that only works when the state has a surplus.

To make matters worse, the amount of money a school district can raise per pupil was frozen at 2006 levels. So, any property value increases since then benefited the state as it realized a windfall of anything above the frozen target revenue. The deal was supposed to be that, if property values decreased, the state would make up the difference so that schools could always count on that frozen 2006 level. However, now that the state doesn’t have the funds-to the tune of $9.8 billion-the proposed budget calls for the legislature to change the school funding formula so that-abracadabra-we no longer owe that amount. That’s why you’re seeing all the headlines about every school district in this state grappling with how to cut their budgets, increase class sizes, and lay-off teachers and staff. And, to make matters worse for them, we’ve tied their hands regarding increases in local property taxes by preventing locally-elected school boards from accessing additional revenue without an election. But, even if they did get support from their taxpayers, this is really just the state shifting that burden to the local property taxpayers at the same time that we are claiming that our budget shortfall can be solved without new taxes.

So, what can we do? Our options are to cut the budget-by the way, we already asked many in state government to cut their budgets by 7.5% meaning that further cuts will probably result in large state employee layoffs-to find new sources of revenue (probably expansion of gambling which will only provide about $1 billion per year and not substantially address our budget problem), and to tap into the rainy day fund.

We’re finally hearing from the chairman of Appropriations in the House that we must use, at least, some of the rainy day fund which is projected to have about $9.4 billion in it at the end of the next biennium. But, of course, the $4.3 billion he’s proposing will only go so far in a $15 to $27 billion shortfall. Additional accounting maneuvers are being planned, such as pushing end-of-year payments into the next year which could save about $3 billion-though, of course, that would need to be covered in the subsequent biennium. And some are looking at closing loopholes in taxing.

So, there you have it, our current budget crisis in a nutshell. The bottom line is that we have to determine-and have honest conversations-about what we expect state government to provide, how much it should cost, and how we want to pay for it. We know that it’s important to have a business-friendly environment that attracts those businesses to our state to create jobs. But we must balance that with providing the necessary revenue for infrastructure that supports those businesses and the families they bring to our state-quality public schools, investment in higher education that creates the necessary workforce, transportation that allows us to get from our homes to school and work. The future of Texas and our economic prosperity-what we’re going to pass on to our children and grandchildren-demands that we behave like grown-ups and find a rational, balanced approach to addressing our budget crisis.

Ed Brock’s Sermon

The State Budget Crisis and Education: A Moral Perspective

I see the specific issue of the state budget crisis and anticipated education budget cuts in a larger context.

This larger framework is that our government at the state and national levels is controlled by powerful financial interests whose aims do not coincide with the public good.

These interests, representing concentrations of wealth, appear to have the sole goal of increasing their wealth ad infinitum; they exert their influence through an army of lobbyists and the ultimate weapon of either extending or withdrawing the financial support which spells life and death to political careers.

There are many excellent articles and books which describe in undeniable detail this pattern of private financial interests overriding and negating a reasonable concern with public good. An article in the August 30, 2010 issue of the New Yorker, written by Jane Mayer, is an example of this. Mayer traces the influence of two extremely wealthly brothers on our national political process.

There are many other examples of such exposes. The point is that this belief that concentrations of wealth are dominating our political system is not science fiction, the product of conspiratorial minds, or an outpouring of wild speculation but is real, based on facts and can be discerned by anyone willing to take the time to connect the dots.

Wealth is being concentrated in the hands of fewer and fewer people; the gap between the super-rich and everyone else is widening. Some members of the super rich class, like those described in Mayer’s article, are exerting their influence in ever more bold and sophisticated ways.

There is a gap between these interests of concentrated wealth and what the vast majority of people actually believe government should and should not be doing and this gap is showing up, again and again, in the wide divergence between what the American public wants and what our law makers nationally and locally do.

For example, according to a 60 Minutes/Vanity Fair poll released recently, a strong majority of Americans think the United States should raise taxes on the wealthiest members of society or Cut Military spending to balance the budget.

Yet, the politicians in power in Washington want to extend tax cuts “permanently” for wealthier Americans while also demanding spending cuts to curb the $1.3 trillion deficit.

Sixty-one percent of Americans polled would rather see taxes for the wealthy increased as a first step to tackling the deficit. And the next most popular way of dealing with our country’s fiscal needs — chosen by 20 percent — was to cut defense spending.

The findings of this poll reflect a contrast which holds true across a wide number of issues. There is a clear, unambiguous divergence between what people say they want and what our leaders are doing.

At the heart of this divergence, again and again, are centers of concentrated wealth driving our political system.

It is possible to say, well, this is how it has always been. Yet that is not exactly so.

As the New Deal took hold, and as FDR prepared to run for re-election in 1936, an organization called the Liberty League launched a major effort to unseat him. Characterizing the League as a tool of what he called “selfish big business,” FDR stated that the wealthy interests behind such groups “…consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs.” He went on to say that based on the experience of the late 20s and early 30s, we “know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob.”

The forces that arrayed against FDR reappeared in the late the 1970’s and from that point became ever more sophisticated in their orchestration of political forces in their favor.

The Citizens United v Federal Election Commission case in which the United States Supreme Court up held that corporate funding of independent political broadcasts in candidate elections cannot be limited under the First Amendment, represents the triumphal ascendency of the interests of concentrated wealth.

Now we are seeing, in state after state, as well as at the national level, the consequences of living in a political context in which financial interests dominate.

Consider for a moment the issue of education and the current budget crisis. Any action which leads to the decreasing of the quality of education, for a city, a state, or a nation, is profoundly destructive to the long term well-being of its people.

The role as teachers is one of the most, if not the most, important role in society.

Teachers give our young the priceless gift of learning; to learn, to acquire knowledge, is to be human; so in a sense, teachers give our children the gift of a human life. The level of civilization rises and falls with the level of education.

Teachers also play a more important role in a country’s or state’s economic development than anybody on Wall Street or Washington. The work of teachers reaches into everything, from the numbers of people able to do basic science to the capacity of the people to be informed citizens.

How could leaders seriously consider draconian cuts to education and also care about the future of the people of the state?

Under the paradigm by which our political system operates, in which the ultimate good is the infinite increase of the already vast wealth of the rich, it is inevitable that the “solution” to tight budgets is to cut funding for education.

But if we look at this issue in terms of the value and importance of education, and the good of the majority, and the well-being of people, and the future of our children, the approach becomes, “We will find the money because the value of education for our children and youth, and the well-being of society and the assurance of a better future, demands it. We will find the money even if it means thinking out of the box of how we have thought about sources of revenue.”

I have learned to ask whenever confronted by a problem or controversy, “what part do I play in this?” I have found that this is a much more productive approach than blaming or taking the position of a victim or demonizing others.

And I would say that what you and I and other ordinary people have contributed to this problem is passivity.

Our passivity is making it very easy for the persons and groups that represent the interests of concentrated money to do what they are doing. Someone has said “don’t ever waste a good crisis.”

So I ask you not to waste this crisis, but to use it by taking action. I ask you to join with others, from across the state, to join the Save Texas Schools Rally.

I ask you to call every friend, every relative, and every warm body you may know, and ask them to join you in this march.

I ask you to use every social media instrument you have at your disposal, to get the word out about this march.

Join your fellow church members as they show support for full funding of public education in Texas.

Will it help? I don’t know.

Will it make a difference? I don’t know.

But by taking action you will know that in this hour when the concentrations of wealth that rule society tried to put money before education, you stood up; you let your voice be heard. You acted. And that is all any of us can do.

Participate in the march for education; let your voice be heard.