Environmentalism and a Culture of Caring – An Earth Day message

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Mark Skrabacz

Pastor – UU Church of the Hill Country

April 18, 2010

One morning, long, long ago—in fact, 120 million years ago, something incredible happened here on Earth: The first flower ever to appear on the planet opened up to receive the rays of the sun. Prior to this momentous event, the planet had been covered in vegetation for millions of years but none had ever before flowered. I imagine that this first flower probably didn’t survive for long, since conditions were not quite yet favorable for a widespread flowering to occur. One day, however, such conditions came about.  A critical threshold was reached, and our planet became filled with an explosion of color and scent.  It was an evolutionary transformation in the life of plants and all life.

Much later, flowers would come to play an essential part in the evolution of consciousness of another species: us!  Think about it: over the years, flowers have provided inspiration and insight to countless artists, poets, teachers, and mystics.  In the New Testament, for example, Jesus, himself, tells us to contemplate the flowers and learn from them how to live. And the Buddha is said to have once given a “silent sermon” during which he held up a flower and simply gazed at it.  After a while, one monk began to smile. It is said that this monk was the only one who had understood the sermon. According to legend, that smile (which has been interpreted over the years as “awakening”), that smile was handed down by twenty-eight successive masters and became the origin of Zen.

So it is no accident that flowers are included in so much Buddhist art.  Seeing the beauty in a flower can awaken humans, however briefly, to the beauty that is an essential part of our own innermost being, as the Buddha called it, our original face — our true nature.

This is one of the reasons why many of us like to garden and work with plants. They are serene and their energy is infectious.

This is all described by Eckhart Tolle in his book, A New Earth.  Tolle raises the possibility that important religious teachers like the Buddha and Jesus were some of humanity’s “early flowers,” so to speak. That is to say, they were our precursors. They were rare and precious beings who were as revolutionary in their day as was that first flower 120 million years ago.  And when they appeared on Earth, conditions were not yet favorable for widespread comprehension of their messages.  This, argues Tolle, is because humanity wasn’t evolved enough, hadn’t yet reached a critical threshold of understanding to grasp the teachings.  Thus, these great teachers were largely misunderstood by their peers.

This raises the question:  are we more evolved now, some 2,000-2,500 years since the Buddha and Jesus were alive?  How many of us think that we are?  Although this evolutionary growth of consciousness has seemed to come in fits and spurts—and even seems to regress at times.

In these days of population growth and climate change, of industrialization and shrinking natural habitats, the question becomes whether or not are we evolving quickly enough to preserve life as we know it?

I want to be clear: this is not going to be a doomsday Earth Day sermon.  Rather, I want to share with you this morning why it is that I am feeling hopeful in spite of the many problems threatening the health and future of our Mother Earth.

Let me start with the assertion that we already possess the technical knowledge, the communication tools, the ability to educate our fellow humans about population control, and the material resources to grow enough food, ensure clean air and water, and meet the rational energy needs of all of us.  We have everything we need to survive and thrive for generations to come. Everything, that is, except for the required shift of consciousness that will inspire us to implement changes on a global scale.  Many of us are still plagued by the old habits and understandings that have caused the mess in which we now find ourselves.

“The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be.” Thus began the famed astronomer Carl Sagan’s majestic 1980 television series, Cosmos. The epic grandeur of Sagan’s Cosmos—suffused with “billions upon billions” of planets, stars, and galaxies—captivated the imagination of viewers everywhere. But despite the almost sacred reverence for existence that permeated the series, some still took issue with its strictly scientific bias, finding little room for the numinous or the transcendent in Sagan’s naturalistic worldview.

Fifteen years later, the integral philosopher Ken Wilber issued an 800-page response to concerns such as these. Titled Sex, Ecology, Spirituality, Wilber’s grand tome argued for a more holistic conception of the universe—one that would honor the profound revelations of science and religion alike. He called the Universe “the Kosmos” (with a “K” from the Greek). So when some use the term “Kosmos,” with a “k”, it’s not only to affirm our appreciation for Sagan’s extraordinary universe but also to restore the spiritual depth and transcendent mysticism that the ancient Greek philosophers, who coined the word, duly acknowledged and revered.

Perhaps a more realistic synthesis of the two comes from renowned systems thinker Gregory Bateson,

“If you put God outside and set him vis-a-vis his creation, and if you have the idea that you are created in his image, you will logically and naturally see yourself as outside and against the things around you.  And as you arrogate all mind to yourself (Arrogate, from the latin arrogatus defined as claiming or seizing without justification.) Continuing with Bateson: as you arrogate all mind to yourself, you will see the world around you as mindless and therefore not entitled to moral or ethical consideration.  The environment will seem to be yours to exploit.  Your survival unit will be you and your folks or conspecifics against the environment of other social units, other races, and the brutes and vegetables.  If this is your estimate of your relation to nature and you have an advanced technology, your likelihood of survival will be that of a snowball in hell.  You will die either of the toxic by-products of your own hate, or simply of overpopulation and overgrazing.” Sounds daunting and all to familiar.

Here is the good news: although still relatively small, there is a rapidly growing percentage of humanity that is experiencing a shift in consciousness that many deem necessary if we are going to survive as a human species.  Some associate the shift to the theories and proofs of quantum physics.  Others attribute it to the emergence of the internet—which has brought connections and ideas into our homes from all over the world — our global village. Still others see it as a natural result of the end of imperialism or of the 2500 year epoch of the dark ages.  I personally think that all of these things are having their impact.  Just go to any bookstore and you’ll to find a number of books on the subject, some written by notable scholars such as Joanna Macy and David Korten.

These two writers differ greatly in their fields of expertise—Joanna Macy is a Buddhist scholar, and David Korten is an expert in business and economics.  But both are currently telling us the same thing: that we are now living in a defining moment in the course of our history. That the era of cheap oil is ending, climate change is undeniably real, and economies can no longer rest on the unsustainable foundation of financial and environmental debt.  Out of necessity, they tell us, we are collectively entering a new era.  We are moving away from the life-killing political economy birthed by the Industrial Revolution and we’re moving towards a sustainable, life-enhancing political economy that exists in harmony with the Earth.  They both refer to it by the same name.  They call it “The Great Turning.” Perhaps you’ve heard of it.

Simply put, this concept of The Great Turning encompasses all the actions currently being taken to honor, care for and preserve life on Earth these days—and there are lots of them.  But it is more than these, too.  It involves a new understanding of who we are and what we need to be happy.  In large numbers, people are learning the falsehood of the old paradigm that there is an isolated, competitive, solid self.   In its stead, we are beginning to embrace a new paradigm in which our selfish and solid separateness is seen for what it really is: an illusion.  We are discovering our inter-connectedness to everything, our mutual belonging in the web of life.  So despite centuries of mechanistic Newtonian conditioning, we are slowly learning to name, once again, this world—and everything in it—as sacred, as whole.

Whether these understandings come through Gaia theory, systems theory, chaos theory, or through liberation theology, shamanic practices, the evolutionary theology of UCC minister Michael Dowd, engaged Buddhism,or even Unitarian Universalism, such insights and experiences are now freeing growing numbers of us from the grip of the industrial-corporate-growth society. They are offering us nobler goals and deeper pleasures. They are redefining our wealth and our worth, thus liberating us—finally—from compulsions to consume and control everything in sight.

To me, I view this trend as a natural emergence of the Feminine (or Yin) Principle in a world that has been strongly skewed toward the Masculine (or Yang) Principle.  But however you view it, there is no denying the fact that something is sparking a transition around the world and it is giving me hope!

That’s because one of the best aspects of this shift is that there is less room for panic or self-pity.  No, with these new understandings of who we really are, it is gratitude that generally arises, not fear.  We become grateful to be alive at this moment, when—for all the darkness around us—blessings and awakenings abound. The Great Turning helps us stay mindful and steady, helping us join hands in community to find the ways the world self-heals — like our Sanctuary Garden and Hands on Housing.  The present chaos, then, doesn’t doom us but becomes a seedbed for a better, more sacredly connected, future.

This is a very exciting time to be alive: we have so much potential; we can make such a difference!  Of course that’s not to say that these coming years will be easy.  One can always expect resistance to change, especially when it affects profitability and patterns of dominance.   No, we are now encountering times of great suffering and uncertainty.  And at times our grief will seem overwhelming—like the type of grief so many of us are currently feeling about war, and genocide, and natural disasters, and over-population, of species extinction, and so many more disasters.

But like living cells in a larger body, it is natural that we feel the trauma of our world. So today — this Earth Day — we offer some balance to the paralysis of analysis and its intense anguish that we might be feeling these days.  These responses arise from the depth of our caring and the truth of our interconnectedness with all beings. After all, “to suffer with” is the literal meaning of compassion.  And this world could use a lot more compassion.

What if we were to understand our relation to nature and our environment in sacred terms or poetic terms or, with Emerson and Thoreau, in good old American transcendentalist terms, but there is no broadly shared language with which to do this. So we are forced to resort to what is, in fact, a lower common denominator: the languages of science and bureaucracy. These languages have broad legitimacy in our culture, a legitimacy they possess largely because of the thoroughness with which they discredited religious discourse in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. But many babies went out with the bath water of religious dogma and superstition. One of these was morality. Even now, science can’t say why we ought not to harm the environment except to say that we shouldn’t be self-destructive. Another of these lost sacred children was our very relation as human beings to the mystery of existence, as such. As the philosopher G. W. Leibniz famously wondered, “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

For St. Thomas Aquinas in the 13th century, this was the fundamental religious question. In the place of a medieval and renaissance relation to the world that was founded on this mystery, we have a mechanical relation that is objective and data driven. We no longer have a forest; we have “board feet.” We no longer have a landscape, a world that is our own; we have “valuable natural resources.” Avowed Christians have been slow to recall this sacred relationship to the world. For example, only recently have American evangelicals begun thinking of the environment in terms of what they call “creation care.” We don’t have to be born again to agree with evangelicals that one of the most powerful arguments missing from the 21st century environmentalist’s case is reverence for what simply IS. One of the heroes of Goethe’s Faust was a character called Care (Sorge), who showed to Faust the unscrupulousness of his actions and led him to salvation. Environmentalism has made a Faustian pact with quantitative reasoning; science has given it power but it cannot provide deliverance. If environmentalism truly wishes, as it claims, to want to “save” something—the planet, a species, itself—it needs to rediscover a common language of Care.

Here’s a valuable learning: you cannot defeat something that you imagine to be an external threat to you when it is, in fact, internal to you, when its life is your life.  The truth is, these so-called external threats are actually a great convenience to us. It is convenient that we can imagine a power beyond us because that means we don’t have to spend much time examining our own lives. And it is very convenient that we can hand the hard work of our resistance to these so-called externals over to scientists, our designated national problem solvers.

Environmentalism should stop depending solely on its alliance with science for its sense of itself. It should look to create a common language of care (a reverence for and a commitment to the astonishing fact of flowers and plants and existence) through which it could begin to create alternative principles by which we might live. As Leo Tolstoy wrote in his famous essay “My Religion,” faith is not about obedience to church dogma, and it is not about “submission to established authority.” A people’s religion are “the principles by which they live.”

I’ll close with this: The establishment of these principles by which we might live would begin with three questions. First, what does it mean to be a human being? Second, what is my relation to other human beings? And third, what is my relation to existence as such, the ongoing “miracle” that there is something rather than nothing? If the answer to these questions is that the purpose of being human is “the pursuit ofhappiness” (understood as success, which is understood as the accumulation of money); and if our relation to others is a relation to mere things (with nothing to offer but what they can do for us); and if our relation to the world is only to “resources” (that we should exploit for profit); then we should be very comfortable with the world we have. If this world goes to perdition at least we can say that we acted in “good faith.” But if, on the other hand, we answer that there should be a greater sense of self-worth in being a human, more justice in our relation to others, and more reverence for existence as a sacred Whole, then we must either live in bad faith with market-driven capitalism and other systemic “givens,” or begin describing a future whose fundamental values and whose daily activities are radically different from what we currently endure. The risk I propose, as our choir sang, is for us to rise to the nobility of a star. We should refuse to be mere functions of a system that we cannot in good conscience defend. And we should insist on living a new story, one that re-cognizes the mystery, the miracle, and the dignity of things, from flowers to frogs to forests to our fellow humans, simply because they are.

Happy Earth Day!

Excellence in Ministry

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Rev. Don Southworth

Executive Director

UU Ministers Association

March 28, 2010

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

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READING

From Why I Am a Unitarian Universalist

by Jack Mendelsohn

Who is a Unitarian Universalist minister?

A person who is never completely satisfied or satisfiable, never completely adjusted or adjustable, who walks in two worlds-one of things as they are, the other of things as they ought to be-and loves them both.

A UU minister is a person with a pincushion soul and an elastic heart, who sits with the happy and the sad in a chaotic pattern of laugh, cry, laugh, cry-and who knows deep down that the first time the laughter is false, or the tears are make-believe, his or her days as a real minister are over. UU ministers have dreams they can never wholly share, partly because they have some doubts about those dreams themselves and partly because they are unable adequately to explain, describe, or define what it is they think they see and understand.

A UU minister continually runs out of time, out of wisdom, out of ability, out of courage, and out of money. A UU minister is hurtable, with great responsibility and little power, who must learn to accept people where they are and go on from there. UU ministers who are worth their salt know all this, and are still thankful every day for the privilege of being what they are.

The future of the liberal church is almost totally dependent on two factors: great congregations (whether large or small) and skilled, effective, dedicated ministers. The strangest feature of their relationship is that they create one another.

SERMON

It is a joy to be with you this morning! I want to thank Janet, your excellent interim minister, for inviting me to be with you today and for the assistance and support of our service leader Valerie Sterne. Valerie told me this was her first time but I think she was just saying that to make me feel good because this is my first time in this pulpit.

As Valerie mentioned I am the Acting Executive Director of the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association. I bring greetings and tidings of hope and anticipation to you from over 1600 active and retired Unitarian Universalist ministers from around North America. As I have read your newsletter the last few months I want to affirm something that Stefan Jonasson told you in January. Many of our UUMA members will be watching you in the next few months as you continue to do the work to lay the foundation for your new minister. I expect your search committee, when the time is right, will be hearing from quite a few of them.

The UUMA’s purpose is to support and nurture excellence in ministry through, mainly, continuing education and collegiality. I have the good fortune to serve, advocate for and occasionally lead those people who – in Jack Mendelsohn’s words – are “never completely satisfied or satisfiable, never completely adjusted or adjustable, who walk in two worlds-one of things as they are, the other of things as they ought to be-and loves them both.”

While I am not sure that all of us UU ministers, always love both of those worlds, I do know that Mendelsohn has one thing absolutely correct. “The future of the liberal church is almost totally dependent on two factors: great congregations (whether large or small) and skilled, effective, dedicated ministers. The strangest feature of their relationship is that they create one another.”

This morning I want to explore with you what happens when great congregations and great ministers create one another, or, to put it another way, what needs to be in place to enjoy excellence in ministry. Excellence in ministry – what might that be?

The Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association continues to develop and strengthen programs, training, expectations and standards of conduct to nurture excellent ministers but I hope you noticed that our purpose is not to support excellent ministers but excellent ministry. Because we know – what Jack Mendelsohn and I suspect most of you know – ministry is not something that is only done by ministers; excellent ministry takes ministers, of course, but it also takes all professional religious leaders and congregation members to make it a reality.

My late colleague Suzanne Meyer wrote, “A congregation is a cooperative institution; everyone is expected to participate in the creation of community and to share the load. The operative question is not what I can get out of this, but what of myself can I give? Faith communities exist not to serve us, but to teach us how to serve.”

Ours is a shared ministry. The word ministry, in its most ancient form, simply meant to serve. Gordon McKeeman, former president of Starr King School for Ministry, claims that ministry is a quality of relationship between and among human beings that beckons forth hidden possibilities and that it is inviting people into deeper, more constant, more reverent relationship with the world and one another. If we hold his words and the original definition of ministry to be true, ministry is to serve and bring forth the best in each other.

Defining ministry is easy; at least when we compare it with defining excellence. In December 2008 the UUA convened a summit on Excellence in Ministry. Ministers, educators, denominational and lay leaders were invited to reflect on the issues and challenges we face in achieving excellence in ministry. Daniel Aleshire, Executive Director of the Association of Theological Schools, told the group that excellence was a hot topic among religious denominations and seminaries representing every theological perspective. He said in his keynote address, titled The Tyranny of Excellence, “Being committed to excellence doesn’t make excellence into tyranny, of course. But if these many different schools, with their very different capacities, visions of the world, and strategies for theological education, can all use “excellence” as the descriptor of their identity, then it must have a very plastic definition. That is the tyranny. I have decided that “excellence” is one of those terms that everybody affirms because nobody knows what it means.”

We all know what mediocrity in ministry means. Hopefully we have not experienced it very often. But excellence, excellence is a little bit harder to define. Perhaps defining excellence is akin to what the Supreme Court declared when they were asked to define pornography decades ago. We known it when we see it. Or in the case of excellent ministry, we know it when we experience it. When we connect with something greater than ourselves, when we are transformed by serving others, when we find meaning and purpose and create a world with more compassion and love.

In the early 1980’s Tom Peter’s book, In Search of Excellence, was a rage in the corporate world. Six million people bought the book and I was one of them. Peters was recently asked to define excellence in a time when so many businesses in this country are falling apart, he responded, “The 1982 excellence was a static experience. But real excellence is always a moving target.”

Knowing that excellence always is a moving target, a target that we never really know we have reached and knowing that excellence in ministry is usually found in places which cannot be measured – our hearts, minds and souls; I offer you some lessons I have learned about co-creating excellence in ministry with the congregations I have served the last ten years. As you prepare for your new minister I hope you find them helpful.

The first lesson is that the mission and health of the congregation is the most important work and ministry that ministers and congregation members must be about. -. I am pleased to see that you are are doing the work of revisiting your mission and asking questions such as “what is our saving message?” Too often our congregations, ministers and religious professionals forget the mission of the congregation and focus too much on individuals and not enough on the health and well-being of the congregation’s mission. This is one of the reasons that we have not grown as a religious movement and is one of our greatest causes of conflict in our congregations. Ministers need the freedom and courage to challenge congregations into living the church’s mission and congregations need to expect their ministers and their members to pay attention to the mission of the congregation more than their own satisfaction.

My colleague Julie Ann Silberman-Bunn says this well. “A church is not a place where you are catered to and pampered. Our congregations are religious communities, sanctuaries for those in need, safe heavens, and respites from the chaos of the world. Churches neither expect nor guarantee satisfaction.” Excellence in ministry and mission aren’t about satisfaction they are about transformation – in ourselves, in our congregations, and in our communities.

Lesson #2 – A congregation must always remember they are both a sanctuary from the world and a sanctuary for the world. Every congregation is first a place for people to come to heal, to rest, to connect with something greater than themselves. The world is often a difficult place and we all need a place to come home to where we are known and loved for who we are and not what we do. But once we find a religious community like this we must not forget that we are not simply a sanctuary from the world but we are a sanctuary for the world as well. Congregations spend far too much time dealing with internal challenges and issues and far too little time reaching out to the world. A healthy congregation will not only have a care team for its members but will have a care team for the members of its community; a vibrant congregation will not only have a membership team to assist and integrate new people into the life of the congregation, they will also have a team and strategy for how to serve more people outside the doors of the congregation.

Reaching out to another is at the core of the religious life. Being in community with other congregations, other faith traditions does not only add new perspectives and learning to the congregation, it gives congregations the joy of serving and teaching someone else.

Lesson #3 – Remember that we are Universalists too. In 1961 two religious traditions came together as one. Our new name put the Unitarians in front of the Universalists and for most of our congregations Unitarianism is the primary theology and the main identity they carry. We call ourselves Unitarians far more than Universalists. In most of our congregations we seem to value the intellectual stimulation and rational debate of our Unitarian heritage far more than the heart centered passion and love of our Universalist faith. But excellence in ministry, especially in the multi-cultural world of the 21st century, must speak to the body, mind and spirit. Marlin Lavenhaur of All Souls in Tulsa Oklahoma, Senior Minister of one of the largest and most diverse congregations in the country, says he is not sure if Unitarian Universalism will survive the 21st century but he knows Universalism will. If we truly want to be more diverse and reach out to more people with the saving message of our faith Universalism will be far more attractive than Unitarianism. Embrace mystery, redefine God, language and worship that unites and moves the heart and the head.

Lesson #4 – Covenant is not optional. To build the beloved community and practice excellent ministry, we must make promises to each other about what we value and how we wish to be with each other. We are a covenantal and not a creedal faith. If we are to grow in our spiritual and emotional maturity we must agree on how we will be together. Every thing does not go. Being part of something larger than ourselves means that sometimes we must sacrifice something for the greater good. Covenants are not rules of behavior; they are promises about how we will be in relationship with another and how we wish to be challenged and comforted into being better selves and a better community.

Covenants – when done right – create and nurture trust; and trust, or rather lack of trust – is one of the shadow sides of Unitarian Universalism that too often quietly destroys the morale and connections of a congregation. We do not trust our leaders and our leaders do not trust us. Instead of assuming best intentions we fear and criticize those who are paid and volunteer to lead us. When we speak about the benefits of building and taking part in a religious community it is easy to get carried away with the ideals of what a community can be and forget the realities of how difficult building, and taking part, in a community truly is. But nobody said that congregational life – or excellence in ministry – would be easy. But it is worth it.

Lesson #5 – Be more religious and be more spiritual. To be religious – by definition – is to be bound together. It is to be aware of the sacred and to be willing to manifest the holy more fully in our lives. It means participating in a community and learning how to be guided and how to teach on the path of life. Spirituality is a commitment to embracing and enhancing spirit – literally, the breath of life. Religion without spirituality is community, rules and tradition that become meaningless and even lifeless. Spirituality without religion can become self-centered and bereft of connection and caring for the world around us. The words in your vision – “as an inclusive religious and spiritual community” – tell me you understand this. Of course, the challenge is to keep on living it.

Lesson #6 – Spiritual practice is foundational to Unitarian Universalism and congregational life. Spiritual practice is the regular act of doing something – hopefully every day – that connects us with the spirit, the sacredness, the joy, the depth that lives within and outside of us. Ministry – and especially excellent ministry – demands we have a deep well to draw from. Spiritual practice, drinking from the springs that quench our thirst, is essential. Two fundamental spiritual practices are gratitude and generosity. There are many ways to acknowledge and celebrate these two both in our lives and our congregations but I have seen that the congregations and individuals who are able to cultivate and create these spiritual practices live happier, more meaningful lives. Regular spiritual practice and sharing the fruits and techniques of that practice with others in your congregation should be an expectation of membership and if it happened would transform not only every life but every congregation as well.

Lesson #7 – Cultivate and develop leaders. To practice excellent ministry, to create the beloved community, the congregation that transforms lives, that makes a difference in the lives of those in the larger community demands strong, compassionate, competent leadership. Leadership development, training and support is not an optional practice it must be a fundamental priority of any congregation. To serve in leadership, to assist and support your leaders, paid and unpaid, to spend money to make sure people get the best training they can is what every member and every minister must to be committed to. It is not okay for nominating committees to have to ask 20 people to find one who will serve, it is not okay for congregations to elect members to serve on boards and not give them the skills and tools to be effective, it is not okay for religious professionals to not be held accountable to leadership and spiritual development plans and/or not being given the budget to do them right.

Lesson #8- Ministers are not your friends so treat them better than that. The congregant/minister relationship is a unique one. Intimate without being very close; formed in large part by past experiences and projections that have nothing much to do with who the minister really is. Whoever you call next year to be your new minister, they will have some of the stuff that delivers excellence in ministry and so will you. And you both will have stuff that gets in your way. The challenge will be what will you do with and for each other to bring out the best in both of you. Shower your minister with gratitude and generosity and most importantly the gift of telling him or her your truth. Don’t expect her to be your friend – do expect him to tell you the truth – as they see it – and not only the truth that will make you feel comforted all the time. Take a risk. Give cards and presents even when it is not a holiday or birthday. Be more generous and give more money so that your minister – and all your paid religious professionals – know you are as serious about this place as they are. And most importantly create a congregation that enables and supports excellent ministry in all its glorious forms.

Good luck in your work. May you know the peace, joy and transformation that ministry, especially excellent ministry, can bring into your life and the lives of others. May it be so. Amen.

Freedom with responsibility

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Rev. Kathleen Ellis

Co-minister of Live Oak Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin

Ministerial Settlement Representative

March 14, 2010

Thanks so much for your warm hospitality! I’d like to express special appreciation to the Reverend Dr. Janet Newman and the Worship Committee for turning the pulpit over to me this morning. Together you have learned a great deal, you have been through tempest and storm, and you look ahead to further challenges in ministry. It’s an awesome task, but the rewards are great.

I am also grateful to the Rev. John Weston, Transitions Director, who has provided much of this information and excellent training for representatives like me. We are fortunate to have him as a guide for the search process. As for me, it is a real pleasure to be here, just across town from my home.

You have been through incredible transition and upheaval over the past year or so, yet here you are, poised on the threshold of still more change. The process for calling a settled minister has been honed through generations of experience for the benefit of congregations and ministers alike.

[Describe the difference between the search for a settled minister and the selection process for an interim. Clarify that I will be neither of them-just a guest preacher; just a consultant.]

The freedom we enjoy as Unitarian Universalists extends to multiple areas of congregational life. We are free to follow our spiritual paths where they may lead, free to decide whether and how to support the church with our resources of time and money, and free to call our own ministers. Other congregations and denominations revolve around holy scripture, sacred creeds, and lectionaries that recommend the readings and themes for worship. They seek a spiritual depth that comes when the ongoing study of familiar text sinks into one’s psyche over time and this is a great spiritual practice. Have you ever fallen in love with a poem and read it over and over until it seeped into your very bones? That’s the spiritual depth I’m talking about.

Traditional churches have doctrine to defend their beliefs and practices. They have bishops and hierarchies of authority to whom the minister is responsible for what he says, as well as how he conducts himself. Unitarian Universalist churches have very few of these controls. We have the freedom and the responsibility to govern our own affairs plus plenty of traditions of our own!

Some of you may wonder about Unitarian Universalist headquarters in Boston, our District Executive Susan Smith, your consultants Peter Steinke, Stefan Jonasson, Walter Pearson, or even me, your Ministerial Settlement Representative. Do we represent authority and control? Actually, we represent service to you, a member congregation of the Southwestern Conference and the Unitarian Universalist Association. You have autonomy and independence, but also the good sense to call in consultants as appropriate.

As for ministry, there is no external control over the content of sermons or the religious education that goes on here. Only the most out-of-bounds ethical behavior by a minister that is brought to the attention of the Ministry and Professional Leadership Staff Group, will warrant any attention.The Unitarian Universalist Association works for you, more like a trade association that forms a network for the benefit of its members. You the congregation have the power and the authority!

A great deal hangs on the choice of a minister. Your minister has enormous power in setting the tone and direction of worship, and even the tone and direction of the congregation. And you, the members of the congregation, have an opportunity to call a minister who best fits your mission and vision. The minister serves at your pleasure for as long as he or she remains in covenant with you. It is a sacred trust you hold for the people who are not even here yet. Ministers come and ministers go, but the congregation remains.

All of us are called in one way or another to serve the highest ideals we can achieve. Some of us are called to serve as professional ministers, with an intention to forge a bond with a congregation over the long term. You as a congregation will have a chance to call a minister presented by your search committee after hours of careful deliberation. I know that Austin in an attractive place to live and this is the largest UU congregation in town, so I am fairly confident that the search committee will consider a dozen or more ministerial prospects.

Settled ministers may have the good fortune to bless the children, then the grandchildren; celebrate their coming of age; officiate at their weddings; stand at the threshold of dying and death; partner with you in the ministry of the church. The letter of agreement between minister and congregation is open ended, to allow for the fullness of relationships to develop over time.

Jack Mendelsohn once said “The future of the liberal church is almost totally dependent on two factors: great congregations (whether large or small) and effective, dedicated ministers. The strangest feature of their relationship is that they create one another.”

Your Search Committee of 9 members will represent you as a congregation, selected with the greatest of care. Basically, you will want people who represent the congregation as a whole, not just special interests. In other words, you want Senators instead of lobbyists who advocate for one program like religious education for children or a particular social justice cause. You want people who are thoroughly steeped in Unitarian Universalism. You want people who have the time to spend.

Committee members can expect to work hard-about 400 hours over the course of a year-although someone told me recently that 400 hours is an understatement. But however daunting their task, a good Search Committee will reap spiritual benefits along the way. It’s an opportunity that comes along only rarely. If you are interested, find out from your Board about the application process.

Once the committee is in place, the rest of you will want to support its work by answering questions, filling out surveys, sharing your dreams for ministry, and preparing the way for new leadership. On rare occasions a committee decides not to make a recommendation according to their original timeline because they have not found the right match. However, the greatest risk is to call someone who is not a good match for who you are and where you hope to go.

A secondary risk follows when anxiety about the process gets the upper hand. Anxiety can generate risk-aversion and self-doubt to the point of paralysis. Look on this as an adventure! The committee will have wonderful ministers to consider and their challenge will be to narrow the field.

The Search Committee as a whole should get to know the congregation as thoroughly and intimately as possible so that they become a microcosm of the congregation. When they do the work of culling through ministerial records, when they conduct interviews of interested ministers, and when they meet ministerial pre-candidates in person, the gifts and qualities of Search Committee members will stand in for the congregation, as though all of you were in the room.

You as a congregation will benefit from this kind of representation. Your trust in the Search Committee will become a healing balm not just to the committee, but to each other and to the congregation as a body.

Freedom and liberation and the term “liberal” flow from the same stream. A liberal education gives us a broad appreciation for literature, history, public speaking, music, philosophy, and mathematics. Liberal arts and liberal religion have been closely related. Both of them aim to crack open our minds to new possibilities, new horizons, and escape from narrowness of vision, ignorance, and prejudice.

When I was a young woman, the best thing that could have happened to me was to participate in an international Girl Scout encampment in North Carolina, then to move from a southern upbringing in Shreveport to college in Missouri. My liberation from childhood had begun.

The late Rev. Forrest Church points out that the Church as an institution is conservative by nature. It forms boundaries, maintains traditions, and in association with other churches, provides a stabilizing force in society. On the other hand, it models and incorporates liberal values such as “hospitality, neighborliness, forgiveness, compassion, and tender loving care.” [from God and Other Famous Liberals, p. 122]

You would do well to select a minister who is generous in spirit and deeply immersed in the task of being and becoming a whole person. Technical expertise is not enough. To know how to preach a sermon or facilitate a group; to excel in scholarship or organizational development; all these are elements of ministry-pastor, prophet, rabbi, preacher, storyteller, midwife, juggler. But ministry is even more about the whole person, knowing what it is to be human and recognizing the humanness in others-that everyone is a juggler!

As you get to know your new settled minister, you will grow in the depth of your relationship. The minister may challenge your preconceptions and call you to account, and both of you will grow spiritually over time. With the right chemistry, your spiritual growth will be an inspiration to your minister, who will be the better for it. The congregation and the minister will shape each other.

Ministers are called to serve their Higher Power and to serve their congregations with their entire being. It doesn’t matter so much whether they are theists or atheists or any other theology; their task is to honor yours and to help you reach your fullest potential. To paraphrase Peter Lee Scott, ministry requires scholarship, yet it must be grounded in people’s lives. It is a social profession, yet often a lonely one. It involves finding meaning and making meaning; acknowledging human frailty while trying to rise above it; providing a shoulder to cry on, yet sometimes being the one who cries. Ministry is what you will do-together.

The ministerial search process has come about through years of experience in best practices, and in the past decade the process has also become much more open, thanks to technology. Both ministers and congregations prepare a record that is posted on the web. Every UU minister who reads your profile and is interested in checking you out further can indicate interest with a simple click on the keyboard. In the old days, the Transitions Director had to consider all the congregations and ministers looking for each other, play the role of matchmaker, and send a list of potential candidates to the congregations.

Now it’s more like “Match.com” or “EHarmony.com.” You are free to present yourselves as honestly as you can, and nothing stands in the way of a minister who likes your profile. Likewise, every Unitarian Universalist minister in search must answer a series of questions through the settlement web site such as why they are seeking a ministry and what kind; how they wish to work with staff and volunteers; and a mistake they have made and how they approached it.

Here’s a typical timetable: Once the search committee is formed, they will go on a retreat for team building, bonding, understanding each other’s personalities and skills, and deciding on a process for making difficult decisions. Then they will launch surveys and group meetings to find out what you want in a minister. Alas, no minister can walk on water or leap tall buildings, so you will need to set priorities. Remember the good qualities of your previous ministers as well as characteristics that seem important for the next decade or more.

The search committee will absorb all this information and post a congregational record on the web by Oct. 31. While they are waiting for interested ministers to indicate interest in serving you, they will put together a packet of information about you, various aspects of congregational and spiritual life, lots of photographs, and info about the City of Austin. This is typically ready by the end of November.

At that point, the process enters a phase of confidentiality. The committee will start reviewing the Ministerial Records of prospective candidates, exchange packets with the most promising ones, conduct phone interviews, and narrow the field to 3 or 4. Each of the pre-candidates will meet with the search committee for a weekend of interviews and a sermon at a neutral pulpit. The committee will sift through all available information, check references, and receive an interpretive summary from the Transitions Office that reflects everything in the minister’s file. In this way, any important information that is known to the UUA will be provided to the committee.

The committee then will decide on the one minister who is the best match for this congregation-someone with solid experience, a good track record, and a religious leader who can work with you toward your dreams. Ministers want a place where they themselves can learn and grow in spirit and where they can have a positive impact.

Be forewarned, however: No minister, however well qualified, can do this work alone. You need a mission and you need commitment. Unless you as a congregation, along with your minister, understand why you are here and what you are called to be, the best ideas and any amount of “busyness” will keep you static and uninviting. Then you need to own that mission, take responsibility for it, and carry it out into the world.

That’s what will get you excellence in ministry. The quality of worship, education, care and outreach will rise accordingly. Remember the idea of Jack Mendelsohn-that great congregations and great ministers shape each other. May you travel this transitional year with high spirits and a healthy sense of humor along the way.

Amen

House Rules for our UU Game

by Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Sermons

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Corinna and Dale Whitaker-Lewis

February 28, 2010

Readings:

Dale: We have two short readings. The first is from William Butler Yeats…

THE SECOND COMING

Turning and turning in the widening gyre

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity

Corinna: And this, from the instructions on a box of cards..

Fluxx, a perfectly simple card game for 2-6 players.  Simple? Fluxx has but one rule: “Draw 1 card and then play 1 card.” What cards could you play?  Well, you could play Time, or War, or perhaps Love. I shall play Chocolate. It is a fine thing to have Chocolate.  What’s this? You have played the card “Play 2.” Well, then, play a second card!  Don’t you know the rule of Fluxx? It is this: “Draw 1 card and then play 2 cards.” Well, that’s what it is NOW.  Perfectly simple.  The goal of the game?  Oh, I’m terribly sorry. No one has played a Goal card yet.  Enter the World of Looney Labs Games.” (Now that’s a fitting name, isn’t it?)

Corinna: Good morning everyone!  My name is Corinna Whiteaker-Lewis,

Dale: and I’m Dale Whiteaker-Lewis, and we have been coming to this church for almost 20 years.

Corinna: We have two daughters who delight and challenge us every day, Audrey who you just heard reading the children’s story, she’s 13, and Bridget’s here as well, and she’s 10.

We hope we will live up to Janet’s expectations today –we are very honored she asked us to speak, and also quite a bit daunted! Please forgive our need to read quite a bit of what we will say to you today.

We have reflected much over the years on this church, this congregation, this religion called Unitarian Universalism.  Having been raised without a religious tradition, this church is the only one I’ve ever known, so it’s all new to me.  We found this church in 1991 because we wanted someone to marry us, but leaving it at just that felt wrong.  We needed to make a connection here, and we did – we made good friends and have left sermons feeling recharged for the week ahead.

Dale: I grew up attending an Irish Catholic church in Cedar Falls, Iowa.  I didn’t connect strongly with the faith or rituals of my parents, and came to hate being forced to attend.  Millions of people have gained purpose and direction from that religion.  But, I came away as a teen bitter and—except for my love of a good hymn—feeling like I had escaped something unpleasant.  When we started coming here in ’91, I overcame my childhood resentment with a bargain.  I would be OK attending church if I: A. Don’t have to dress up –and— B.  Don’t have to “remember the Sabbath day and keep it holy.” I could miss a week or two.

Corinna: And for a while, that was all we needed—inspiring sermons, a casual dress code and no truancy policy. But, our family’s participation in the life of this church has also really waxed and waned, waned and waxed over these last 18 years.  Some years, we maybe came to service once a month. The old bargain didn’t make our church life meaningful by itself.  But seeing that you all accepted our approach made this a safe spiritual environment for us.  In the vocabulary of logic, this was a necessary condition of our growth, but not a sufficient one.

Dale: We sometimes fell back on that basic bargain, but over time both our involvement and our unconscious expectations grew. Over the years we have taught in summer camps, chaired the Social Action Committee, helped form an Amnesty International group, served on the Board of Trustees and worked on the church’s computer network.  My resentment of religion faded, and we enjoyed most of our church activities.

Without thinking about it, though, our expectations grew: for a cleaner RE wing, for support of our personal causes, for a well-oiled volunteer process, and the like.  So, our minimum requirements for church life expanded, but I can’t say that we ever spelled out the new bargains clearly, even to ourselves.  At the same time, we often didn’t know what the church and its members expected of us, and so we weren’t always very engaged.

Corinna: Looking back, the inconsistency of our attendance seems strange to me.  I guess there were reasons why we didn’t come much some years: newborns, new houses, new jobs. So, while I think an expressed tolerance and acceptance drew us to this place, the absence of a request for commitment kept us from making one. Asking for a commitment would have meant this church would have to know itself, and be able to describe that to us.  And then tell us what our role, as church members, would be.  Because to ask us to figure out what this place meant to us was waayy too much work, I mean that’s just waayy too many choices.

Does that mean we were lazy? Does that mean we were not good UU material? I mean, this is all about everyone finding their own truths, right? I think it’s a lot to ask someone new to our church to do on their own, though. I mean, it’s just the kind of work you join a church to do together with others–developing relationships and, dare I say, some rules. I am one of those who work better with constraints than without, and I wonder if that doesn’t have something to do with it. I mentioned this to my friend Natalie, and she talked about how some of the most creative costumes she’d ever seen were for the black and white ball in San Francisco.

Multiple choices tend to stymie me, and I don’t think I am alone in this.  Dr. Barry Schwartz, in his book, “The Paradox of Choice, Why More Is Less” argues that too many choices can erode our psychological well being. He cites a study where shoppers will buy more jam when offered fewer varieties. He argues that after thousands of years working towards the simplification of providing for the necessities of life, the trend is reversing back to foraging behavior, as we are forced to sift for ourselves through more and more options in every aspect of life. I know that after shopping exclusively at little Wheatsville for a while, entering an HEB can feel like climbing Mt. Everest.

Dale: Fast forward to February of 2006, when our minister delivered the only sermon we’ve ever walked out of, about the responsibility for the 9/11 attacks.   The experience helped reveal hidden assumptions and expectations we had.  And, understanding those new expectations matters more to us now than what was said, or how it made us feel.  We had made new bargains and had new, necessary conditions for our church life.  We had strong expectations that weren’t being met, about what other church members believed or would accept.

I have been an alcoholic in recovery for nearly my whole adult life—I spent my 20th birthday in rehab.  The lessons of sobriety have shaped my whole life, including church.  I have been taught that, when I have resentments, it helps to look relentlessly at my own part in the matter.  This serves two main purposes, first to take the focus off the offender, since I’m never going to change them.  Second, it helps me see where—to quote recovery literature—I’ve made decisions based on self which later put me in a position to be hurt.

Corinna: After 2006 and through the dismissal to this year, we have thought a lot about our role in the hardship we now face together.   In the example of the 9/11 sermon, Dale and I found we had developed unspoken assumptions about how others must support us, about the type of sanctuary you were required to maintain for us here.  We had built the walls of our sanctuary well inside the walls of the church, and left a lot that we didn’t like outside those walls.  We both feel now that for our church to heal, we must come to see not just a part of the church as our sanctuary, but the whole church body.  Not doing so sets us up for disillusionment.

For example, if you are very in touch with the music program, or the RE program, or the Forum program, and that changes suddenly and drasticly, will you still find peace of mind and sanctuary here?  We were convinced that we personally needed to expand our concept of sanctuary, but we weren’t sure how to accomplish that.  So, we were both relieved and excited when Janet started emphasizing covenant, especially developing something like a “covenant of right relation”.   It seemed to provide an opportunity for us to look at our relationship to the church as a whole.

Dale: To us, it seems like creating a good covenant is a lot like deciding on how to play certain games among friends.   Preparing to play a game might start with months of training for a marathon, or a casual invitation to play cards.  Just so, our activities at church might be well-planned or impulsive.  In each case, though, a lot about what happens and how we experience it depends on the rules of the game.  The rules might all be agreed and well-known ahead of time, as with the marathon.  Or, they might be last-minute, the way kids often make up new rules for each backyard game.  More likely, there are some of each: “standard” rules and “house” rules.

Standard rules to tell us things like which of the 100’s of card games we’re playing with that same old deck.  And House rules to fit the game to the players or circumstance.   Maybe we have younger or inexperienced players that need a break, or less than the usual time to play, or maybe we just think our rules will be more fun, just as we might spice up an old recipe.  If we don’t agree on some rules, though, can we even play a game together?  Or, are we just in the same place at the same time?  Think of that tense feeling we all know from childhood, when a player tries to change the rules to his or her favor in the middle of the game.

Corinna: Our family has always enjoyed playing games together.  In BK times, before kids, we had a lot of fun playing the video game Myst with our friends Karen and Michael, Rod and Carol.  We also had way too much fun with a free CD of Boggle that we got off a box of Cheerios. (Geeks that we are.) The girls started out on these cooperative board games where no one actually loses.  Harvest Time! Let’s all help each other bring in our crops!  But there’s one thing we always do, and that’s set up some house rules.  Do-overs might be allowed.  You can start your turn before amassing 30 points.  Sometimes there are very strict time limits on (some player’s) turns!  Or, you can have all the time you want.

Dale: Amazingly, as you heard in the reading, you don’t need to know the goal to start playing the card game Fluxx! The goal comes in somewhere along the way, and often changes.  What makes it playable is that people sit down together and agree on a single rule, just to start with.  People walked in the door of this church.  It’s reasonable for a person to first experience this sanctuary and our services when they start coming here.  But it’s a church,we are the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin, so we don’t think of this place as a lecture hall.  It is a sacred space, for inspiration, for meditation, for transformation. And much of that transformation happens in the relationships between each other, as a people sitting here together, sharing life.

Corinna: I don’t think I was looking for spiritual growth, really, when I started coming here. I was just looking for a group of people who shared my beliefs, so I could feel good and comfortable about having those beliefs. I was tired of being the outsider, the one who isn’t like everyone else.  At 6’2”, as a lifelong vegetarian, as a liberal in Texas, I’ve been in the minority often enough.  Being different was something I long had turned into a strength and used as a defense mechanism.

It served me well for quite a long time, but ultimately it was an easy out, with no opportunity for change.  My spiritual journey now is to be the best person I can be, while contributing to something bigger than myself.  Something that is meaningful, uplifting, and a catalyst for good. So, I make a commitment to this community.  But to adhere to a commitment you make to other people is hard work, and you have to work at it.  It is not easy, but from that hard work comes growth.

Dale: To my mind, the most important rules for a covenant of right relation are the most minimal.  What standard of behavior can I, on my worst day, still commit to uphold.  If some morning I didn’t have time for breakfast, and I just found out a loved one was ill, and my shoes don’t fit right and my car is acting up and I’m late to church and you stop me in the hall to ask me about a problem with a church computer.  Then, what behavior should I tell you to expect of me?   That minimum standard of behavior says:  if I don’t meet even this, you are right to be concerned for me, and it is OK to be upset with me.   You should expect better, and you can and should help me to do better.   I may not be pleasantly receptive to your correction, but the heart of the covenant is that, even on those occasions where I miss the mark, I commit to stay engaged while I try to get my behavior back in line.

Corinna: When you are in community with other people, when you’ve shared a covenant on how to behave, the hardest thing is to call someone on not honoring it.  The fact that we don’t have a covenant yet makes it even harder, since we don’t even know if we agree on what’s acceptable.  I experienced this just recently. I had an exchange with someone here at church that made me feel uncomfortable and maybe even a little bit threatened. This person spoke very judgingly, told me I was wrong, raised her voice, and seemed very irritated and exasperated with me.  I remained calm, and restated my point of view, but ultimately did not let this person know how she was making me feel. I then turned around and talked to someone else about had happened!

Fortunately, my confidant gently let me know that my silence only allowed this person to think that the way she treated me was ok.  And on top of that, I was developing a negative opinion of this person without giving her any chance to explain herself. So, while I upheld a personal commitment to be polite, I also have the harder job of standing up for that value with someone who may not share it. This is the very difficult part of living honestly with other people, of being in community.  But, this experience would have been easier for me if I had known that we both agreed to a covenant, as members of this church, to be caring toward one another.

A covenant of right relation, or some agreed-upon house rules, allows us to leave our suspicions at the door, and have meaningful experiences in an environment that may strain or break our expectations about things that matter to us.  Having that commitment to each other about a minimum standard of my own behavior and yours, even helps me tolerate situations where the commitment is breached, because we have a standard to get back to that is a community standard that we can remind each other of.  Bringing this out of the realm of the implicit helps expose assumptions we have about “normal” or “acceptable” behavior.  And I make the promise here and now, before you all, that I will get up the nerve to speak to this person!

Dale: And, just to give you an idea of how disciplined we were in preparing for this sermon, a very timely article came in yesterday’s UU World magazine.  Written by a consultant with the Alban Institute, Dan Hotchkiss, it talks about covenant, mission, and vision.  When discussing who the board of a church must serve, he says they must serve, quote, “the congregation’s mission, the covenant the congregation has set its heart to and the piece of the Divine Spirit that belongs to it.” He then goes on to ask and what is the mission?  “The great management consultant Peter Drucker wrote that the core product of all social-sector organizations is “a changed human being.” A congregation’s mission is its unique answer to the question, “Whose lives do we intend to change and in what way?” …. Growth, expanding budgets, building programs, and such trappings of success matter only if they reflect positive transformation in the lives of the people touched by the congregation’s work,” unquote.

Corinna: You know, what we have here is such an incredible opportunity.  There are not many chances for a group of people to get together and determine for themselves how they want to be with another.  Like the children in Roxaboxen found, this is a freedom.  But it won’t happen; we can’t be healthy here, unless we are willing to be vulnerable and say that we’re not perfect and would like to change.We must start with ourselves.  And then dare to think that we might know what we would like to be, and that with each other’s help and love, we can get there.

Dale: In the meantime, come play some games with us! The Open Minds Covenant Group is hosting an all ages Games Night in Howson Hall this coming Saturday night at 7 p.m. Snacks. Drinks. Surprises. Childcare provided in the nursery (need to RSVP for that), but there will also be supervised games for kids 5ish and up. But you’ll have to follow the rules, and we know you will! We’ll bring Fluxx…

The Handwriting on the Wall

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First UU Transition Team

Margaret Roberts, Sylvia Pope, Wendy Kuo, Sharon Moore, Nancy Bene, Jim Burson, Michael Kersey

January 17, 2010

Margaret Roberts

Some months ago, I worried that our church would become inactive and even lethargic during the two year transition period between settled ministers.  Fortunately, I had no need for concern.  We have remained a very busy and vibrant congregation.  If you doubt me, I encourage you to check the bulletin boards in the hall adjacent to and across from the office.  There you will see hundreds of photographs documenting many recent church activities.  We have come together to worship, sing, celebrate, play, learn, share ideas, cook, eat, feed and shelter the homeless, and conduct church business.

The timeline exercise which we underwent in October and November confirmed what the photographs of our activities illustrate:  we are a healthy and energetic congregation.  Having read the comments posted by our church membership on the timeline, I believe the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin is experiencing an upswing in attitude and outlook.

Many church members expressed pride in First UU’s long history of participating in works of social justice.  One commenter reminded us that as early as the 1950s, this congregation made efforts to racially integrate Barton Springs.  First UU Church is a longtime supporter of the local chapter of Amnesty International.  Our social action outreach continues today with our sack lunch for the homeless program, our regular assistance at the People’s Community Clinic, and our participation in Hands-on-Housing and Freeze Night sheltering programs.  Did you know that six members of First UU donate 3 hours every week to assist Austin’s North Central Caregivers?  And were you aware that our choir performs at an annual concert each December for the benefit of North Central Caregivers?  In addition to addressing local social issues, our church is responsive to victims of world crises.  We experienced this concern earlier in our service as the collection was taken to help the people of Haiti.

Many comments on the timeline expressed pride in our church community’s ability and willingness to take care of each other through the work of our Congregational Care Committee.  This desire to help each other during times of personal difficulty was evidenced by the generous collections taken during our recent Christmas Eve services.

A number of members expressed pride in the progress of our healing since our minister’s departure 13 months ago.  Almost immediately after Reverend Davidson Loehr’s dismissal, groups were established within the church for people who wished to share their feelings with others.  Outside experts were consulted and workshops scheduled to help us process our grief and rebuild.  Volunteers stepped forward and new leaders emerged to assure that our church life would continue.

Most of us agree that we need to learn to disagree with more civility.  We need to develop methods of arguing with respect.  As UUs, we like to think of ourselves and enlightened and accepting of others who differ from us; we need to practice this acceptance with each other and strive to be open-minded and kind in our interactions with our fellow congregants.

Despite the challenges we have faced during the past 13 months, our members still hold many hopes and dreams for our church.  For example:

1)     We dream of the re-establishment of our warm, loving church environment where members interact with honesty, fair-mindedness and respect, and where we collectively work to promote the interests of our posterity;

2)     We dream of creating a hospitable church community that welcomes new-comers and guests and celebrates diversity of ideas, faith, culture and lifestyle;

3)     We hope for renewed commitment of church members expressed in terms of increased participation in church activities, and increased financial pledges to assure support of our various programs, generous compensation for our staff, and payment of our “fair-share dues” to the Unitarian Universalist Association;

4)     We dream of a super-successful capital campaign so we can remodel and expand our existing building to meet our active congregation’s needs now and in the future;

5)     We dream of having a greater impact on the local, national and international community expressed through more educational outreach and more social action activities; and

6)     We look forward to calling an excellent new minister who fits our church and our local community, and who welcomes a regular professional evaluation as an opportunity to communicate with the church membership.

Some may find this list of hopes and dreams daunting, but I find it encouraging.  Because so many of us have the courage to nurture hopes and dreams for our church, I feel confident that we have a future.  In fact, I believe we have a strong future, because I believe that this transition experience, as tough as it has been, will ultimately prove to strengthen the First UU Church of Austin.

Sylvia Pope

Many of the contributions to the timeline that resonated most for me were those that spoke about our congregation’s commitments to the environment.    As embodiment of our belief in sustaining “the interconnected web of which we are all a part;” we have cultivated native plants on our campus, installed solar panels on our roof, changed to energy-efficient light bulbs and sought to recycle our paper, bottles and cans.  These “green” steps may seem small but they convey our commitment, care and concern for our planet and each other.

Here are some of the thoughts shared on the timeline:

“I am so proud of our church’s environmental efforts – gardens, solar panels, etc.”

Another Proud Moment:  “Garden’s Wildlife Habitat designation and proud of all who worked to make it so.”

Did you know that our landscaping has been certified a Backyard Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Federation?  Thanks for the efforts of Dale and Pat Bulla, Barbara Denny and many others who affectionately toiled to transform a humdrum landscape into something wild, beautiful and beneficial to nature.

The All Ages Playground; a welcoming, nurturing place for youth and adults; is a native landscape showpiece that was conceptualized and brought to life by Elizabeth Gray and Earl ??? and many volunteers.  If you haven’t had the time to sit on one of the benches and enjoy the cool breezes on a sunny afternoon, I highly recommend it!

In the Hopes and Dreams portion of the timeline, our environmental commitment was mentioned directly but I believe that is a part of our collective desire to be a community of vibrancy, inclusion and inspiration!

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A second theme mentioned in the Proud section is the strength of our religious education program.   I share a strong interest in RE and I believe that our collective support of this program and our children has kept us together at times when we felt like falling apart.    Does any church have as dedicated and enthusiastic staff and volunteer corps as we do?  I doubt it!  Examples of their energy and creativity are:  the UU Summer Hogwarts School (a fun, unique and free week of community building for our children),  co-hosting  YRUU rallies, the Halloween Haunted hallway and the Christmas pageant.  New members and visitors bring their children to our church because of the warm, welcoming atmosphere.

Sharon Moore

In your notes you talked about 2 of my big passions regarding our church life. One is the quality of the leadership of our senior staff and one is the importance of small group ministry in our church.

You said we should call no more one trick ponies for minister and that we have looked to ministers to make us whole – to save us.

My experience in 3 UU churches tells me that our ministers generally come with 1 of 3 major talents.

  • One is best at administration and strategizing and leads us through all the minutia and vital tasks that make a church run efficiently.
  • Another minister is a great orator who leaves the management duties to the executive director and leaves the pastoral care to a second minister or congregational care team. This person’s strongest talent is in inspiring with words.
  • The third type is a caregiver, a pastoral person who excels in people skills, loves to counsel, visit the sick, perform weddings and memorial services.

All 3 types bring a different set of skills to keep the church strong. Almost never will 1 person have all 3 gifts in abundance. That would be the perfect person, and no one is perfect.

With our new settled minister, we must pool all of our resources, dream our dreams, and work hard to make them a reality.

Many of your notes dealt with wanting us to strengthen community here.

You said, The covenant groups started and are still part of our community. Yes! You said, In Evensong I formed lasting relationships here.

You talked of the positive impact that groups such as sharing suppers, men’s breakfast, adult ed. Classes, Voyagers, Paradox Players, Circle of Friends, Couples Club, and many more groups and committees have had on your lives.

I believe small groups are the key to really getting to know one another. We all yearn for heart to heart contact, to be listened to, validated, and challenged to grow. We can’t go it alone.

You will have several opportunities in the coming weeks to participate in group discussions, working on our church’s core values, covenant, purpose and mission statements that will all help get our church ready to sail on a wonderful new voyage with all of us buying in to where we are going and how best to get there.

Nancy Bene

We are a community. We are a network. A web of interconnectedness.  What we do and don’t do effects all around us.  On the positive side, we are a safe haven where what we do is respected and encouraged.  Our community has existed for over 50 years here in Austin. Through good times and not- so- good times – just like a family. We’ve talked together, dreamed together, argued, laughed, joked, created, destroyed and cried together.

I’m sure you know that the seeds of our present not-so-good times were sown several years ago.  We lost our way toward the principles we value most.  Instead of growing into the workings of a large congregation, we continued doing what we had always done.

Each step taken to break the old ways was difficult and we are in for a few more difficult steps before we can reach out to a spiritual leader and ask him or her to join with us.  We must step back and take an objective look at where we are and where we want to go and then express in writing – for everyone to see- what it is that we collectively hold sacred.

Many of you who posted sticky notes on the time line were proud of this church.  Many thought we could do better.  Now is the time for you to actively influence the direction this congregation will take in the future.  Tell us how we can heal and become the safe haven for spiritual growth translated into action in our community.  There is and always has been a tremendous creative energy in this church.  We can work together to encourage ourselves and others to become the best we can be. I look forward to working with you, all of you, in discovering what this church, as a whole, finds precious. And then sharing our uniqueness, our preciousness within our community – here and everywhere.

Jim Burson

Talk To Me About Our Church

G – O – O – D MORNING —

My name is Jim —

Today I want to ask you to TALK to ME —

The comments that were posted on the Time Line that stood out most to me were of two types —

One type asked for more TRANSPARENCY by our church board –

The other type asked us to be more FRIENDLY to visitors and

new members —  people that we do not know —

These messages tell me that THE biggest challenge that our church faces is –

Not enough communication –

Y’all need to talk to each other –

Y’all need to talk to me –

The members of this congregation need to talk to each other –

And  not only to the friends we know –

But, more importantly, — talk to people we do not know –

Talk to me –

Each of you  –

Must talk to our minister, —-  Janet Newman —

You must talk to the board members –

And,  — the board members must talk to you –

And, —  of  course  —  the board must talk to the minister –

And,  —

y’all, — must talk to me –

I am personally  going  to seek out people that I do not know –

To talk to them –

And to listen to them –

We must have dialogue  —

Not just talking –

But, —  talking  AND listening –

And —  you must listen more than you talk –

Y’all listen to me.—

If we had been talking and listening to each other for the last ten years –

We would not be in the situation we are in now  —

We would have  fewer complaints about TRANSPARENCY ––

Fewer complaints that we are  AN UNFRIENDLY people —

Y’all stop to talk –

Stop to listen to each other –

I’ll listen to you –

My name is Jim —

Y’all  talk to me —-

Bryan and the Social Darwinists

by Posted in Audio available, Gary Bennett, Guest Speakers, Sermons

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William Jennings Bryant and the Social Darwinists

Gary Bennett

December 27, 2009

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.

Reading

BRYAN, BRYAN, BRYAN, BRYAN – Vachel Lindsay

In a nation of one hundred fine, mob-hearted, lynching, relenting, repenting, millions, There are plenty of sweeping, swinging, stinging, gorgeous things to shout about, And knock your old blue devils out.

I brag and chant of Bryan, Bryan, Bryan

Candidate for president who sketched a silver Zion,

The one American Poet who could sing outdoors,

He brought in tides of wonder, of unprecedented splendor,

Wild roses from the plains, that made hearts tender,

All the funny circus silks

Of politics unfurled,

Bartlett pears of romance that were honey at the cores,

And torchlights down the street, to the end of the world.

There were truths eternal in the gab and tittle-tattle.

There were real heads broken in the fustian and the rattle.

There were real lines drawn:

Not the silver and the gold,

But Nebraska’s cry went eastward against the dour and old,

The mean and cold.

It was eighteen ninety-six, and I was just sixteen

And Altgeld ruled in Springfield, Illinois,

When there came from the sunset Nebraska’s shout of joy:

In a coat like a deacon, in a black Stetson hat

He scourged the elephant plutocrats

With barbed wire from the Platte.

The scales dropped from their mighty eyes.

They saw that summer’s noon

A tribe of wonders coming

To a marching tune.

Oh, the longhorns from Texas,

The jay hawks from Kansas,

The plop-eyed bungaroo and giant giassicus,

The varmint, chipmunk, bugaboo,

The horned-toad, prairie-dog and ballyhoo,

From all the newborn states arow,

Bidding the eagles of the west fly on,

Bidding the eagles of the west fly on.

The fawn, prodactyl and thing-a-ma-jig,

The rakaboor, the hellangone,

The whangadoodle, batfowl and pig,

The coyote, wild-cat and grizzly in a glow,

In a miracle of health and speed, the whole breed abreast,

The leaped the Mississippi, blue border of the West,

From the Gulf to Canada, two thousand miles long:-

Against the towns of Tubal Cain, too cunning for the young,

The longhorn calf, the buffalo and wampus gave tongue,.

These creatures were defending things Mark Hanna never dreamed:

The moods of airy childhood that in desert dews gleamed,

The gossamers and whimsies,

The monkeyshines and didoes

Rank and strange

Of the canyons and the range,

The ultimate fantastics

Of the far western slope,

And of prairie schooner children

Born beneath the stars,

Beneath falling snows,

Of the babies born at midnight

In the sod huts of lost hope,

With no physician there,

Except a Kansas prayer,

With the Indian raid a howling through the air.

And all these in their helpless days

By the dour East oppressed,

Mean paternalism

Making their mistakes for them,

Crucifying half the West,

Till the whole Atlantic coast

Seemed a giant spiders’ nest.

And these children and their sons

At last rode through the cactus,

A cliff of mighty cowboys

On the lope,

With gun and rope.

And all the way to frightened Maine the old East heard them call,

And saw our Bryan by a mile lead the wall

Of men and whirling flowers and beasts,

The bard and the prophet of them all.

Prairie avenger, mountain lion,

Bryan, Bryan, Bryan, Bryan,

Gigantic troubadour, speaking like a siege gun,

Smashing Plymouth Rock with his boulders from the West,

And just a hundred miles behind, tornadoes piled across the sky,

Blotting out sun and moon,

A sign on high.

Headlong, dazed and blinking in the weird green light,

The scalawags made to moan,

Afraid to fight.

II

When Bryan came to Springfield, and Altgeld gave him greeting,

Rochester was deserted, Divernon was deserted,

Mechanicsburg, Riverton, Chickenbristle, Cotton Hill,

Empty: for all Sangamon drove to the meeting-

In silver-decked racing cart,

Buggy, buckboard, carryall,

Carriage, phaeton, whatever would haul,

And silver-decked farm-wagons gritted, banged and rolled,

With the new tale of Bryan by the iron tires told.

The State House loomed afar,

A speck, a hive, a football,

A captive balloon!

And the town was all one spreading wing of bunting, plumes, and sunshine,

Every rag and flag, and Bryan picture sold,

When the rigs in many a dusty line

Jammed our streets at noon,

And joined the wild parade against the power of gold.

We roamed, we boys from High School,

With mankind,

While Springfield gleamed,

Silk-lined.

Oh, Tom Dines, and Art Fitzgerald,

And the gangs that they could get!

I can hear them yelling yet.

Helping the incantation,

Defying aristocracy,

With every bridle gone,

Ridding the world of the low down mean,

Bidding the eagles of the West fly on,

Bidding the eagles of the West fly on,

We were bully, wild and wooly,

Never yet curried below the knees.

We saw flowers in the air,

Fair as the Pleiades, bright as Orion,

-Hopes of all mankind,

Made rare, resistless, thrice refined.

Oh, we bucks from every Springfield ward!

Colts of democracy-

Yet time-winds out of Chaos from the star-fields of the Lord.

The long parade rolled on. I stood by my best girl.

She was a cool young citizen, with wise and laughing eyes.

With my necktie by my ear, I was stepping on my dear,

But she kept like a pattern, without a shaken curl.

She wore in her hair a brave prairie rose.

Her gold chums cut her, for that was not the pose.

No Gibson Girl would wear it in that fresh way.

But we were fairy Democrats, and this was our day.

The earth rocked like the ocean, the sidewalk was a deck.

The houses for the moment were lost in the wide wreck.

And the bands played strange and stranger music as they trailed along.

Against the ways of Tubal Cain,

Ah, sharp was their song!

The demons in the bricks, the demons in the grass,

The demons in the bank-vaults peered out to see us pass,

And the angels in the trees, the angels in the grass,

The angels in the flags, peered out to see us pass.

And the sidewalk was our chariot, and the flowers bloomed higher,

And the street turned to silver and the grass turned to fire,

And then it was but grass, and the town was there again,

A place for women and men.

III

Then we stood where we could see

Every band,

And the speaker’s stand.

And Bryan took the platform.

And he was introduced.

And he lifted his hand

And cast a new spell.

Progressive silence fell

In Springfield,

In Illinois,

Around the world.

Then we heard these glacial boulders across the prairie rolled:

“The people have the right to make their own mistakes….

You shall not crucify mankind

Upon a cross of gold.”

And everybody heard him-

In the streets and State House yard.

And everybody heard him

In Springfield,

In Illinois,

Around and around and around the world,

That danced upon its axis

And like a darling broncho whirled.

IV

July, August, suspense.

Wall Street lost to sense.

August, September, October,

More suspense,

And the whole East down like a wind-smashed fence.

Then Hanna to the rescue,

Hanna of Ohio,

Rallying the roller-tops,

Rallying the bucket-shops.

Threatening drouth and death,

Promising manna,

Rallying the trusts against the bawling flannelmouth;

Invading misers’ cellars,

Tin-cans, socks,

Melting down the rocks,

Pouring out the long green to a million workers,

Spondulix by the mountain-load, to stop each tornado

And beat the cheapskate, blatherskite,

Populistic, anarchistic,

Deacon- desperado.

V

Election night at midnight:

Boy Bryan’s defeat.

Defeat of western silver.

Defeat of the wheat.

Victory of letterfiles

And plutocrats in miles

With dollar signs upon their coats,

Diamond watchchains on their vests

And spats on their feet.

Victory of custodians,

Plymouth Rock,

And all that inbred landlord stock.

Victory of the neat.

Defeat of the aspen groves of Colorado valleys,

The blue bells of the Rockies,

And blue bonnets of old Texas,

By the Pittsburgh alleys.

Defeat of the alfalfa and the Mariposa lily.

Defeat of the Pacific and the long Mississippi.

Defeat of the young by the old and silly.

Defeat of tornadoes by the poison vats supreme.

Defeat of my boyhood, defeat of my dream.

VI

Where is McKinley, that respectable McKinley,

The man without an angle or a tangle,

Who soothed down the city man and soothed down the farmer,

The German, the Irish, the Southerner, the Northerner,

Who climbed every greasy pole, and slipped through every crack;

Who soothed down the gambling hall, the bar-room, the church,

The devil vote, the angel vote, the neutral vote,

The desperately wicked, and their victims on the rack,

The gold vote, the silver vote, the brass vote, the lead vote,

Every vote?…

Where is McKinley, Mark Hanna’s McKinley,

His slave, his echo, his suit of clothes?

Gone to join the shadows, with the pomps of that time,

And the flame of that summer’s prairie rose.

Where is Cleveland whom the Democratic platform

Read from the party in a glorious hour,

Gone to join the shadows with pitchfork Tillman,

And sledge-hammer Altgeld who wrecked his power.

Where is Hanna, bulldog Hanna.

Low-browed Hanna, who said: “Stand pat”?

Gone to his place with old Pierpont Morgan.

Gone somewhere… with lean rat Platte.

Where is Roosevelt, the young dude cowboy,

Who hated Bryan, then aped his way?

Gone to join the shadows with mighty Cromwell

And tall King Saul, till the Judgment day.

Where is Altgeld, brave as the truth,

Whose name the few still say with tears?

Gone to join the ironies with Old John Brown,

Whose fame rings loud for a thousand years.

Where is that boy, that Heaven-born Bryan,

That Homer Bryan, who sang for the West?

Gone to join the shadows with Altgeld the Eagle,

Where the kings and the slaves and the troubadours rest.

Sermon

The scene is frozen in our consciousness, one of the defining moments of Modern America: Clarence Darrow heroically defending Science and Intellectual Freedom by placing the champion of the forces of darkness and ignorance on the stand, forcing William Jennings Bryan to show to all the world that he believes absurdities, defends the indefensible, and uses his power to force others to do the same. You’ve seen the play: this yokel believes Adam and Eve were the first human pair, doesn’t know or care where Cain got a wife; believes some sort of whale or fish swallowed Jonah; in short the whole enchilada, whatever the Bible says, however absurd, however much in contradiction of science or even of itself; coming soon to your local school district to punish teachers for teaching biology, geology, physics or history. The Dragon, having been metaphorically slain by St. Clarence, obliges by dying on the Spot, presumably from shame at having been publicly exposed as a charlatan.

I’m afraid I’m going to make several demands on you today, and the first is to suggest that things are not always what they seem, that we have in fact merely caught a man of great and noble character at a bad moment. One of the rarities of Bryan’s career was that, before the Scopes Trial, he had in thirty years lost many political races and crusades, but had steadily gained in esteem through them all. More than almost any other American politician, Bryan had the knack of losing the battles, but winning the war. His causes were adopted, one by one, by people who had originally seen him as a dangerous radical. But in Dayton, Tennessee, he as prosecutor technically won the case, while in the great court of public opinion, in the major newspapers of his day and in the play Inherit the Wind a generation later, he lost the reputation he had gained over a lifetime.

A biographer suggests mitigating factors in Bryan’s behavior after 1920. The diabetes that claimed his life shortly after the Monkey Trial may have been diminishing his mental faculties and clouding his judgment. And we know that he disapproved of laws of the Tennessee model which included punishment for disobedience; he believed strongly in the power of moral persuasion and disapproved of the use of force in most cases. Bryan was not after publicity; rather, as the most revered Christian statesman in America, he was steadily pushed by others, first into a position of national leadership in the fundamentalist movement, and then into helping prosecute a violator of a law to which he had objected. In the end Bryan saw his faith on trial, and he could not back down.

But this is not all there was to William Jennings Bryan. He was one of the greatest men of his time, and it is doubtful that any other American has ever made such a great positive impact upon our public life and then been so thoroughly forgotten.

For the rest of the story, we go back to the year 1896, a turning point in American political history. After the Civil War, American cities and industries and railroads had blossomed, but the wealth created was concentrated into fewer and fewer hands. Prices were jacked up by high protective tariffs and the spread of monopolies; labor conditions were abominable, with extremely long work weeks, widespread child labor, unsanitary and dehumanizing sweatshops; company towns that sucked workers’ wages away faster than they could earn them; wages depressed by seemingly endless stream of immigrants fleeing even worse conditions abroad. Attempts by workers to better themselves were bludgeoned to death by management-hired private thugs as well as regiments of public thugs called up by governors beholden to the rich. One of the grandest of these grand larcenies was the adoption of the Gold Standard in 1873. By removing silver as currency while withdrawing paper money from circulation, the plutocrats who ran the government systematically shrank money supply over the course of two decades, even as the population and real wealth of the country exploded. The result was one of the greatest deflations in world history. Debts incurred in the 1860s and ’70s became far larger and harder to repay as time went on. The massive deflation in the US housing market over the last two years, where houses are in many cases worth far less than what is still owed on their mortgages, may give us a sense of what it was like to live in that time, especially for Western farmers. Since prices of monopoly-controlled goods did not share in the price reductions, farm prices fell all the faster.

Both major political parties were owned body and soul by the rich. We think of Democrats as the Party of the Left, more or less, but for half a century before 1896 that had not been the case. The Democrat Grover Cleveland cleaned up some governmental corruption by creating the Civil Service, but had nothing to say about the growing economic inequities, and fittingly lost control of his own party after doing nothing about the suffering engendered by the Depression of 1893.

With the deepening poverty and despair, radical movements began to flourish, particularly in the West and South. The Populist Party grew in the 1880s, but like all American third parties, it was ultimately doomed to irrelevance and extinction. By the way, regardless of what the media might proclaim, there are not now nor were there ever “conservative populists” any more than there are “conservative progressives” or “conservative liberals.” The Populists were angry, but they were also as intelligent, well-read and principled as were the radicals who had made the American Revolution; they even managed to bring Southern blacks and whites together in a party of common interest, something demagogues have not tried to do in any era. In the Democratic Convention of ’96, radicals of this stripe were in control; they nailed together a platform calling for a progressive income tax, control of monopolies, and a return to silver coinage as a way of halting deflation. Then they waited for a candidate.

Bryan, the final speaker on platform issues, became man of the hour by delivering a speech for the ages. Once this was a treasured statement of progressive American principles in much the same way as the Declaration of Independence and Gettysburg Address; perhaps it should be again. These are his concluding remarks:

I come to speak to you in defense of a cause as holy as the cause of liberty – the cause of humanity ….

Mr. Carlisle said in 1878 that this was a struggle between “the idle holders of idle capital” and “the struggling masses, who produce the wealth and pay the taxes of the country”; and my friends, the question we are to decide is: Upon which side are we, “the idle holders of idle capital”or upon the side of “the struggling masses”? This is the question which the party must answer first, and then it must be answered by each individual hereafter. The sympathies of the Democratic party, as shown by the platform, are on the side of the struggling masses, who have ever been the foundation of the Democratic party. There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you will only legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea, however, has been that if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class that rests upon them.

You come to us and tell us that the great cities are in favor of the gold standard; we reply that the great cities rest upon our broad and fertile prairies. Burn down your cities and leave our farms, and your cities will spring up again as if by magic; but destroy our farms, and the grass will grow in the streets of every city in the country …. Having behind us the producing masses of this nation and the world, supported by the commercial interests, and the toilers everywhere, we will answer their demand for a gold standard by saying to them: You shall not press down upon the brow of labor the crown of thorns, you shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold.

The campaign was far and away the most scandalous in American history. Republicans owned most of the newspapers then as now, and they painted Bryan in the most pejorative terms imaginable. A Jacobin, an Anarchist, a Socialist (there were no Communists yet, or he would have been one of those too), a demagogue. Mark Hanna extorted from frightened businessmen a war chest which in real terms was in the range of $200-$500 million, in a nation far smaller and poorer than our own; Standard Oil’s contribution alone almost matched the entire Democratic campaign fund. Teddy Roosevelt made plans for a last military stand if the “Reds” won, and John Hay made plans to rendezvous with other emigrŽs in Paris. A number of bosses told their employees not to bother to show up the next day, should Bryan win.

That all this should be the reaction to a candidate who brought back the words and ideas of Thomas Jefferson, Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln, illustrates better than anything else the death grip which wealth had gained on America in 1896. In the end the popular vote was close, the electoral vote less so, but Bryan lost.

A pattern had been formed for Bryan’s career. In 1900, new and massive gold strikes in the Klondike and South Africa temporarily eased the vice grip of deflation. But in the aftermath of the Spanish-American War, we had become an imperial power in a world mad with colonialism; Bryan dared to campaign against imperialism, saying it was unworthy of America’s ideals and suggesting that we should begin preparing our new colonies for self-government. He lost again, but in 1901 accidental president Teddy Roosevelt became the first of Bryan’s former political enemies to begin adopting his policies, now rechristened the “Square Deal.”

A third principled defeat followed in 1908, but after Woodrow Wilson won in 1912 in a close three-way election, Bryan was appointed Secretary of State. Wilson was another former enemy, but he now called for a New Freedom, also straight from Bryan’s platforms. Aside from his foreign policy responsibilities, Bryan was instrumental in shaping several of the key domestic reforms, most importantly the creation of a new way of banking called the Federal Reserve System.

On most foreign policy issues, the President and Secretary of State thought alike. Their guiding principles were distaste for imperialism, respect for the autonomy of other countries, a desire to spread American values of democracy and human rights, and the attempt to create an international structure of law to curb war and other primitive national atavisms. As is the case today, some of these principles came into conflict with one another; as a result, the level of intervention in the Caribbean and Central America was almost as great as in the “We stole it fair and square” days of Teddy Roosevelt. Still they laid a foundation for a future Good Neighbor Policy to the south and for supra-national organizations to mediate disputes elsewhere.

Only in one area did Bryan and Wilson disagree, and that finally led to the Secretary’s resignation: he was a pacifist who rightly believed that Wilson’s policies toward Germany would lead us into war. Who was right? Without American intervention, Germany would have won, and the result would have been an unpleasantly authoritarian Europe. But given the way events actually played out, the imposition of a draconian peace treaty on Germany, which enraged its people while keeping their economy weak and its democratic government unpopular and the withdrawal from European affairs of the only state capable of controlling it or resolving its grievances peacefully, all of which pretty much guaranteed some variant of Hitler and World War II, it would probably have been better for America to stay out of World War I. Finally, at the end of the war, Bryan’s last failed political crusade was attempting to persuade Americans to join the League of Nations.

While he despaired of his failures, meanwhile, items from Bryan’s agenda continued to be adopted: direct election of senators; progressive income tax; women’s suffrage; prohibition; moving colonies to self-government. And a number of states were adopting Populist reforms such as initiative, referendum and recall. Franklin Roosevelt, coming to power after the Nebraskan’s death, abolished the gold standard, established a principled foreign policy in Latin America, and helped create the United Nations as what Bryan hoped the League of Nations would be. In short, much of the decent middle-class, internationally respected America he campaigned for had come into being by the time some of us were coming of age in the mid-twentieth century.

But we are back to that strange period of his life, starting in 1921, when Bryan abandoned the world of politics and began to champion the teaching of bad science in the schools. It mystified his contemporaries among liberal reformers and has continued to baffle those who know enough about him not to be satisfied with Elmer Gantry / Pat Robertson-type caricatures. We mentioned his illness and pressure from followers as possible reasons. But we also know that he had come to believe that the evils he had been fighting his whole political life had been caused or exacerbated by the influence of one man. For the malefactors of great wealth, the monopoly-seeking capitalists, the gold standard purists, the imperial expansionists continued to expound a world view in which what they were doing was natural and right and inevitable, as they invoked the name of Charles Darwin.

Darwin was a scientist and his theory of evolution through natural selection, first explained in Origin of Species 150 years ago last month, is one of the great documents in the history of science; but his achievement did not exist in a vacuum. The 19th century, particularly in England, America and a few other countries, was a time of rapid change without parallel in world history. The development of industrial capitalism, huge corporations and what seemed a widening distance between wealth and poverty, resonated with the notion that progress in the world came through savage competition; the very phrase “survival of the fittest,” though appropriated by Darwin, was actually coined by the English political philosopher Herbert Spencer and meant to apply to human culture. His basic premise was that government should stay out of the way and let human beings compete for survival as the only path to evolutionary improvement of the species; if the strong survived and the weak failed, then that was what nature intended. It was a very popular idea among the new industrial barons, and both Darwin’s and Spencer’s ideas were pushed and funded by them. Spencer’s ideas did not survive him long in England or Europe, but lived on in the United States and were later pushed by intellectuals like Ayn Rand and Milton Friedman.

In Europe, Darwin’s name was invoked to push other ideas, such as that of German Premier Otto von Bismarck, that affairs among nations are ultimately settled by “blood and iron;” Marxists saw competition as between economic classes. And everywhere Darwin was used to push racism. The economic and military supremacy of the West was seen as proof that its peoples were more highly evolved and were natural masters of the world; all other races were natural selection’s losers, destined to be slaves. We can group these assorted ideologies under the banner of “Social Darwinism.” Though some were ideological support for actions that would have taken place in any case, others were the direct result of popular beliefs about evolutionary biology. There was the pseudo-science of eugenics: legislators, judges and juries were persuaded to disregard their natural sentiments and authorize sterilization of the unfit. Many of the frightened Republicans who were terrified of Bryan considered his followers to be subhuman; the Darwinist H. L. Mencken was only a particularly skillful writer among the many who habitually used images of apes and subhumans to describe Bryan’s followers and most other liberal politicians and political groups.

Thus it was that Bryan, who as a young man had been open-minded about the origins of humanity, came to be convinced that Darwin’s theory was responsible for much that was wrong with the modern world. “The Darwinian theory represents man as reaching his present perfection by the operation of the law of hate,” Bryan said, “Evolution is the merciless law by which the strong crowd out and kill off the weak.” He believed that the Bible countered this merciless law with “the law of love.” It was not any principle of Biblical inerrancy that motivated him, but a desire to cut off a poisonous political philosophy at its root, to promote a national myth that would motivate the young to high ideals. He prepared himself as a prosecutor not to defend the stories of Genesis, but to present to the court and world the image of Jesus as “Prince of Peace.”

He completely misunderstood his political adversaries, of course. In a Monkey’s Paw sense, his wish for the defeat of Darwin in the political arena came true, in that challengers to the teaching of evolution are strong in much of the United States. But I’m not sure he would appreciate the victory. We might say Social Darwinism has simply evolved, adopted protective camouflage, or mutated. Much of modern fundamentalism shares the same policies at home and abroad as did the Social Darwinists, but uses the language of evangelical Christianity, though there are usually very few teachings of Jesus himself in their dogma. Those Christian groups which preached social justice and were open to the findings of modern science, on the other hand, have declined in numbers and influence. Secular culture in the West has also changed. The horror of Social Darwinist moralities finally climaxed in the 1930s and ’40s when perhaps 100 million human beings were murdered in Nazi and Communist atrocities and in the battles of World War II. There has been a massive reaction in the West since then; for much of the second half of the last century, it was impolite in intellectual circles to imply that any human characteristics beyond eye, hair and skin color might be due to genetics. In general, secular culture in both Europe and America has promoted policies far more progressive than have today’s fundamentalist Christians.

At the same time, the popular understanding of evolutionary biology is better grounded. Natural selection never involved “survival of the fittest” within hunter/gatherer tribes, but pushed trust and cooperation to form cohesive groups that could protect and educate children. Since individuals never had to survive on their own, they were able to carry a much wider variety of genetic traits, and this in turn has given the human species much more flexibility in adapting to different environments; genetic variation has been one of the greatest strengths of humanity, not as eugenicists asserted a weakness. And until recent times, there was very little or no competition for survival between tribes, which were scattered too thinly to interact at all; nationalism and racism could never have been factors in human selection. Thus the major tenets of Social Darwinism have no basis in actual human evolution; it was an ideology that emerged from a particular culture and economic system, not from any insight into the reality of human nature. Bryan too was a product of his time, but one worthy of our highest respect. I would like to end with these words of historian Henry Steele Commager:

. . defeated candidates are usually forgotten and lost causes relegated to historical oblivion, but Bryan was not forgotten and the causes which seemed lost triumphed in the end. He refused to acknowledge defeat, not out of vanity or ambition, but because he was sure the causes which he championed were right, and sure that right would triumph in the end. And, right or not, most of them did. Few statesmen have ever been more fully vindicated by history. ltem by item the program which Bryan had consistently espoused, from the early nineties on into the new century, was written onto the statute books – written into law by those who had denounced and ridiculed it. Call the list of the reforms: government control of currency and banking, government regulation of railroads, telegraph and telephone, trust regulation, the eight-hour day, labor reforms, the_ prohibition of injunctions in labor disputes, the income tax, tariff reform, anti-imperialism, the initiative, the referendum, woman suffrage, temperance, international arbitration. These were not all original with Bryan, but it was Bryan who championed them in season and out, who kept them steadily in the political forefront, who held his party firmly ‘to their advocacy ….

For Bryan was the last great spokesman of the America of the nineteenth century – of the America of the Middle West and the South, the America of the farm and the country town, the America that read the Bible and went to Chautauqua, distrusted the big city and Wall Street, believed in God and the Declaration of Independence. He was himself one of these people. He thought their thoughts, and he spoke the words that they were too inarticulate to speak. Above all, he fought their battles. He never failed to raise his voice against injustice, he never failed to believe that in the end justice would be done. Others of his generation served special interests or special groups – the bankers, the railroads, the manufacturers, the officeholders; he looked upon the whole population as his constituency. Others were concerned with the getting of office or of gain; he was zealous to advance human welfare. And when the [rest] . . . are relegated to deserved oblivion, the memory of Bryan will be cherished by the people in whom he had unfaltering faith.

A Festival of Thanksgiving

by Posted in Audio available, Former Ministers, Guest Speakers, Janet Newman, Sermons

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Rev. Janet Newman

Vicky, Brian & Geneva Bailey-Miller

Louise Reeser, Rose Ann Reeser & John Payne

Wayne Bockman & Chris Jimmerson

Chris, Toby & Maya Heidal

November 22, 2009

Text of this sermon is not available. Click on the play button to listen.

A Missional Church

by Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Sermons

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Rev. Dr. David Jones

November 15, 2009

Readings:

Matthew 14:22-33

Exodus 35: 20-29

Sermon: Keep your eyes upon Jesus

On the morning of my senior sermon at Princeton Seminary I was shaving and made the dire mistake of nicking a mole on my neck and it required a serious Band-aid. Preaching professor, Dr. Donald Macleod, a sometimes dour Scot, noticed the obtrusive Band-aid and inquired: “Mr. Jones – what is that thing on your neck?”

“It’s a Band-aid.”

“A Band-aid! On your neck – on the morning of your senior sermon! And how did that get there?”

“Well, Sir, I was thinking about my sermon and I cut my throat.”

He replied: “Well you would have done a wee bit better if you had thought about your throat and cut the sermon.”

I’ll try to be succinct today.

Seven years ago my family and I moved to Austin, TX from a little ocean-front village called Amagansett, NY. The cultural shift from the eastern end of Long Island NY to Texas is ambitious. One morning we had breakfast in a southern diner and the waitress, knowing we were Yankees asked me: “Y’all want to try some grits?” To which I replied: “Well, I’ll have one or two.” Like many towns on the L.I. coast, Amagansett has a rich history of instituting Life Saving Stations. I share this story from the Preface of Dr. Howard Clinebell’s book: Basic Types of Pastoral Counseling.

On a dangerous sea coast, where shipwrecks occur often, there was once a crude little lifesaving station. The building was only a hut, and there was only one boat, but the few devoted members kept a constant watch over the sea. With little thought of themselves they went out day and night diligently searching for the lost. Some of those who were saved, and others in the surrounding area, wanted to become associated with the station and give of their time, money, and effort for the support of its work. New boats were bought–new crews trained. The little lifesaving station grew.

Some members of the station were unhappy that the building was so crude and poorly equipped. They felt that a more “comfortable” place should be provided as the first refuge of those saved from the sea. They replaced the emergency cots with beds, and put better furniture in the enlarged building. Now the lifesaving station became a popular meeting place for its members, and they decorated it beautifully and furnished it exquisitely. Fewer members were now interested in going to sea on lifesaving missions, so they hired life boat crews to do the work for them. The lifesaving motif still prevailed in the club’s decoration, and there was even a liturgical lifeboat the club’s initiations were held.

About this time, a large ship was wrecked off the coast, and the hired crews brought in boat-loads of cold, wet, and half-drowned people. They were dirty and sick. Some of them had black skin, and some yellow skin, and some olive skin. The beautiful new club was in chaos. The property committee immediately had a shower built outside the club where victims of shipwreck could be cleaned up before coming inside.

At the next meeting, there was a split in the club membership. Most of the members wanted to stop the club’s lifesaving activities because they were an unpleasant hindrance to the normal social life of the club. Some members insisted upon lifesaving as their primary purpose and pointed out they were still called a “lifesaving station.” They were voted down and told if they wanted to save lives, they could begin their own lifesaving station down the coast. They did just that.

As the years went by, the new lifesaving station experienced exactly the same changes as the first. It evolved into a club, and yet another lifesaving stations was founded. History continued to repeat itself, and if you visit that sea coast today, you will find a number of exclusive clubs along that shore. Shipwrecks are frequent in those waters but most of the people drown.

Whether or not this story is factually true or not I do not know, but I can tell you it is true because it happens every day in the life of Christ’s church. It is true in the sense that it betrays something about the human condition. It’s a parable about the nature of human beings. The story reveals something about how people once dedicated to the simple and noble vocation of service to others can, and usually do, get side-tracked into serving themselves. Allow me to tell a true story that graphically illustrates this.

It was the summer of 1979. I had just finished my first year of seminary and was hired as a summer-intern by the Presbytery of Utica, NY to work with several rural congregations. I served a church of 15 members in a small, up-state NY, farming community. The population of the town, including the dogs, was about 90. My first weekend there, a couple from the church gave me the grand tour in their pick-up truck. Driving down a country lane, the woman exclaimed, with an edge in her voice: “Oh, there’s Stanley Kellogg!” Walking down the road, minding his own business, was a stocky, ruddy faced, older man, with a fishing pole in one hand and a bait bucket in the other. “All he does is drink beer and fish,” she said. “He’s an alcoholic, ya know. He’s despicable.”

Stanley had lived in Westdale all his life. He grew up poor – dirt poor. His family lived in a little shanty with dirt floors and no plumbing. Stanley became an alcoholic after his first wife died. He married again, and his second wife died soon after. The locals say he never recovered from the loss. For almost twenty years, old Stanley lived by himself in a tiny tag-along trailer out in the woods. Right after I arrived, the land on which Stanley kept his trailer had been sold, and the new owner kicked Stanley off. A town’s women took in Stanley as a boarder.

One day, I came upon the house where Stanley was staying. No one was home but Stanley. After listening to some very interesting country yarns, I realized this was the man I saw walking down the road with the fishing pole.

As the summer progressed a fascinating thing happened, Stanley and I became friends. It was a curious friendship–really – a rough old rough woodsman and a green “preppy” seminary student. One day someone offered me the use of a boat to go fishing. I invited Stanley to join me. We went to buy some bait and Stanley tried to convince me the day would go a lot better if I bought a 12-pack of Budweiser. I respectfully declined, but secretly admired his tenacity.

Once on the lake he said to me: “Ya know, you’re the first preacher that took me fishing.” I asked him if he had ever been to the church in town. “Nope, never been invited.” “Well, I invite you,” I said.

Shaking his head, old Stanley got an incredulous grin on his face. He didn’t have to say it because his expression said: “You’re mighty naive young preacher. They don’t want me in that church. I ain’t good enough to go to the Presbyterian Church. Preacher, them folk’s use big words and are different from me.” Remembering the woman’s words I couldn’t help but wonder if he was right.

We shared a wonderful day on the lake, and as we pulled the boat to shore he asked: “What time’s that Bible study you teach tonight?” “7:00,” I answered. “Why?” “Oh, just wondering,” he said.

Later that night as I was leading the Bible Study in Fellowship Hall, who walked in but Stanley Kellogg! He even had an old Bible in his hand. I knew how hard it was for him to come. Thinking I was doing a good thing, I asked Stanley to read a few passages from his Bible. An awkward silence fell over the room. Everyone knew something I didn’t. He looked up and said: “I’d like to preacher, but I can’t read.” He was the first person I ever met who couldn’t read.

Stanley and I became close friends that summer, but he never came back to Bible Study. I can’t say I blame him. He took me to his secret fishing spots that he wouldn’t show anybody else. He continually asked me about the Lord: “Can the Lord really love some old drunk like me?” I saw his faith grow and deepen. Stanley responded to my friendship like parched Texas flowers respond to rain.

You must understand that Stanley was the consummate woodsman – he lived off the land. Most of his food he got from hunting and fishing. He always carried a .22 pistol on his belt – “for snakes” – he said. One day Stanley and I were way out in the wilderness on a dirt road. We had been fishing a very remote trout stream. It was almost getting dark, and he yelled: “Stop the car. Stop the car!” I jammed on the brakes, and Stanley ran out of the car and took his .22 pistol out of its holster, and shot twice in the air.

Two raccoons dropped to the ground and grabbing them by the tails and grinning like a school boy, he brought them to my car. “Can I put these in your trunk?” Just what I needed – two bloody dead raccoons in my trunk! “I can sell their pelts for $25.00 each, and buy a new fishing pole.” He never bought the pole.

The summer passed, and I had to return to Seminary. I was to preach my final sermon and attend a going away party after the service. Everyone was seated and worship was about to begin, when who walks into church–but Stanley Kellogg! He had a haircut and shave, and was wearing a brand new set of clothes! He walked down the aisle and sat in the very front row. He was shaking from nervousness. Although he lived in town all his life, this was the first time he had been in the Presbyterian Church. No one could believe their eyes.

Stanley was at the end of the reception line. “Where’d you get those new clothes Stanley?” “Remember them coons?” he said winking. “I ain’t got no present for you David.” It was the first time he didn’t call me “Preacher.” I said: “Stanley, you just gave me the greatest gift you could ever have given me.” Like the people in Exodus who brought offerings of goods and talents to build the Tabernacle – Stanley’s offerings that day consisted of what little he had – two “coon” pelts, and a bucket of gratitude and friendship.

“I’ll never forget you,” He said. “You got me sober.” “No,” I said – “The Good Lord got you sober.” I have never forgotten the day Stanley Kellogg came to Westdale Presbyterian Church or how he touched the life of a young seminarian. I’ve been telling this story for 29 years.

Some years back, I received a letter saying Stanley had died in his sleep. When I first met Stanley, all he owned were two changes of clothes, a tattered trailer, an old greasy hat with some fishing lures in it, some pots and pans, a .22 pistol, a fishing pole, and the Bible his mother left him. In sixty-five years, that’s all the earthly possessions he accumulated. But by the end of the summer of 1979, Stanley had something else–he had the Lord in his heart. See – his heart got “stirred.” When’s the last time your heart was “stirred.”

I tell this story, not to make Stanley into a saint, because he surely wasn’t, but rather to illustrate how the love of God working through simple human kindness can change people’s lives. Many in that church thought it strange that a seminary student would go fishing with the town drunk. But then didn’t the Pharisees criticize Jesus for eating with tax-collectors and sinners? Didn’t Jesus say: “I didn’t come for those who are well, for they have no need of a doctor.” Stanley was never padlocked out of the church–but he was never warmly invited to participate either. So what’s the difference?

Stanley had built up a lot of resentment towards that church over the years. Some of those good Christian people had watched his mother struggle to feed her children. There were nights they were cold and hungry and the church did nothing. For Stanley Kellogg to come to church he had to forgive. Isn’t it amazing what love can do–how it can change the human heart? In his own way–in his own very special way, Stanley said: “Thank-you.” And it reminds us that the Stanleys of the world are all around us. I bet you know where some are right now.

There are certain laws of life under which we all live. The other day I was washing my car. Have you ever noticed that all the birds watch you when you wash your car? “He’s just about done guys–let’s go!”

But there’s another law of life. Human beings, even spiritually motivated ones, have a propensity to lose sight of their calling and get off track by serving themselves instead of others. So–What is your calling – why is your church here? What mission are you called to embrace in this community?

In today’s Gospel story, Peter gets out of the boat and actually walks on water! But then he did what you or I would probably do. He gets so distracted and concerned with the things of the world–the wind, the waves, and the storm – that he loses perspective. From my Christian tradition–here’s the point of the sermon: WHEN PETER TOOK HIS EYES OFF THE LORD HE SANK–AND SO DO WE! If that tradition does not work for you – maybe you can realize that when you take your eyes off you core mission you will sink.

Proverbs 29:18 says: “Without a vision – the people perish.”

So – remember the stories of the Life saving Station and Stanley because they’re connected–they remind us of the remarkable healing power of human kindness.

Leaders of this church–you and this congregation must be a lighthouse in this community – a beacon of hope and care to a world that is lost in the fog of despair – but only if you focus on your mission. I hope you will covenant to be a lifesaving station amidst the troubled seas of these turbulent times. To all members–help this church be a haven for all who are weary from life’s storms, and may you warmly embrace all who seek the safe harbor of the healing fellowship of this caring congregation.

I hope to hear reports that this congregation continues to step out of the boat of familiarity and complacency and that I hear repeated reports that this church is “walking on water.”