A century of relativity

by Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Jim Checkley, Sermons

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Jim Checkley

July 17, 2005

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A Century of Relativity

by Jim Checkley

One of my intellectual heroes is the French mathematician and physicist Henri Poincare. This is because he is universally regarded as the last generalist—that is, the last person to do original work in all branches of mathematics. In 1902 Poincare wrote a book called Science and Hypothesis in which he posited three fundamental problems that befuddled physics: first, the motion of particles suspended in liquid, called Brownian motion, that defied explanation; second, the strange fact that when light hit a sensitive metal plate, electrons were knocked off the plate, a phenomenon called the photoelectric effect; and finally, the abject failure of physicists to detect the “ether”, the hypothesized medium in space through which light waves were said to propagate.

Three years later, in 1905, a 26 year old patent clerk living in Bern, Switzerland, named Albert Einstein, solved all three problems and then some. “A storm broke loose in my mind,” Einstein said about that heady year. Between March and September he published five remarkable papers (all without citation to other work), each of which either created or transformed a field of physics. Physicists call 1905 Einstein’s Miracle Year and his output is generally regarded as the single most productive burst of creativity in the history of science.

In honor of the 100th anniversary of the Miracle Year, 2005 has been declared the World Year of Physics by the United Nations General Assembly, the United States Congress, and a host of physics institutions around the world. Celebrations are happening in more than 30 nations and in the United States, scores of universities have conducted or plan to conduct programs in honor of Einstein’s accomplishments and to promote science generally.

And what accomplishments they were! I promise to talk physics for only a minute or two, in order to sum up what happened in 1905. Most famously, Einstein created Special Relativity, and with it, the only equation Steven Hawking’s publishers would allow him to put in his book A Short History of Time. You all know it, E = mc2, which was derived in its own three page paper that might as well have been attached to Einstein’s original paper on Special Relativity.

Ever pithy, Einstein described relativity this way: “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute.” Special Relativity was subsumed into General Relativity, published in 1915, which overturned Isaac Newton’s theory of gravity. Einstein, and relativity, truly entered into our culture in 1919, when Sir Arthur Eddington conducted starlight bending around the sun experiments that showed the superiority of Einstein’s equations over those of Newton. Relativity revolutionized how we view space and time and lead to the development of atomic power and nuclear weapons.

In explaining the photoelectric effect, Einstein discovered that light is both a wave and a particle and set the foundations for quantum mechanics, one of the most important disciplines of the 20th century. It was for this discovery, and not relativity, that Einstein was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1921. The irony here, of course, is that Einstein never accepted that quantum mechanics gave a sensible picture of the universe, asserting that “God does not play at dice.”

In the third of the big three papers, Einstein proved the correctness of the atomic theory of matter by explaining that Brownian motion was caused when particles suspended in a liquid collide with the atoms or molecules that make up the liquid. That may sound obvious now, but back then, Einstein’s paper was crucial in converting the last skeptics of atomic theory.

Oh, and Einstein also published his thesis dissertation in 1905; it remains one of the most cited scientific papers ever.

Through his radical and revolutionary discoveries, Einstein became the very symbol of genius in the 20th century. Many experts on such things believe that in the history of Western Civilization, only Aristotle, Galileo, and Newton were his equals. Einstein, however, frequently downplayed his brain power with statements such as: “I have no special gift. I am only passionately curious.”

But there was no denying that Einstein was eccentric. His famously chaotic hair actually represented a famously chaotic personality. Einstein never learned to drive, for example, and when he walked home from his office at Princeton University, sockless and deep in thought, he would rattle his umbrella against the bars of an iron fence. If for any reason the umbrella missed a bar, he would go back to the beginning. And his lack of fashion sense would appall any self-respecting metrosexual. But, as always, Einstein had a clever quip to disarm his critics. Comparing the difficulty of physics and fashion, Einstein remarked: “Once you can accept the universe as matter expanding into nothing that is something, wearing stripes with plaid comes easy.”

And Einstein was famous. Oh, was he famous. He is the only scientist to achieve pop star status—something that has endured, if not increased, after his death 50 years ago. I think part of the magic of Einstein is that most people do not understand much about what he did, but they know it was important, they know it changed the world, and he seemed like a self-effacing, harmless eccentric who was accessible and not encased in some ivory tower. Americans like their geniuses to be nonthreatening—and Einstein fit the bill.

Whatever the reasons for it, Einstein used his celebrity to speak out against fascism, racial prejudice, and the McCarthy hearings. He was the only scientist with enough prestige and authority to sign the letter that convinced Franklin Roosevelt to authorize the creation of the atomic bomb. And in 1952, just three years before his death from a heart aneurysm, he was offered the presidency of Israel, which he politely declined.

It is difficult to overestimate how large an influence Einstein’s theories, especially relativity, have had on us and our culture. “We are a different race of people than we were a century ago,” says astrophysicist Michael Shara of the American Museum of Natural History, “utterly and completely different, because of Einstein.”

For all these reasons, and many more, Time Magazine declared Albert Einstein to be the Person of the Century and this year has been proclaimed his year. That is all I am going to say about Einstein directly, and if you are interested, there are a number of good biographies about him, including the one by Ronald W. Clark, which many people feel is the definitive work.

Instead, I want to talk about the impact that Einstein and science generally has had on us over the last century. Because I think it is ironic that the world is celebrating science this year, is trying to use this anniversary to rekindle interest in science across the globe. It is ironic because although the 20th century was the greatest 99 years of scientific and technical progress in the history of Western Civilization, much of it on the back of Einstein, it would be a mistake to claim we are a scientific society. I grant you that because we live in a highly technological society, it is only natural to believe that we also live in a highly scientific one. In fact, just the opposite is true.

Let me give you a few statistics I took off the Internet that I, at least, find disturbing. The belief in pseudo-science and fundamentalist religious assertions is staggering. Listen to this: 47 percent of people surveyed in the United States said they believed that the Book of Genesis was literally true and accurately set forth how the world was created; 65 percent believe in Noah’s Flood; 41 percent believe that dinosaurs and humans lived at the same time. But it’s not just religious fundamentalism: according to a survey taken by the National Science Foundation, 70 percent of Americans do not understand the scientific process; 40 percent believe in Astrology, that is, that the alignment of the planets at one’s birth determines one’s personality and destiny; 60 percent agreed strongly that some people have psychic powers; 30 percent think UFOs are genuine alien spaceships; and millions call psychic hotlines to get advice about finances, romances, and the future.

Belief, not knowledge, is the preferred currency of the day. Magical, superstitions, and irrational thinking are everywhere and the dedication to observation, facts, and the truth those facts reveal, which is at the heart of the scientific approach, is sorely lacking in virtually every aspect of our culture. This phenomenon is, I think, directly correlated with the fantastic strides made by science in illuminating the nature of the world and human beings’ relation to it. It has been said that “The darkest shadows are cast by the brightest lights.” The bright light of science has cast terribly dark shadows for many people who desperately cling to superstition, mythology, and blind faith in order to feel comfortable and at home in a world science has revealed to be harsh, finite, deadly, and without much mystery or magic.

Thus, rather than enhance the scientific and fact based framework of reality, I think that the development of relativity–and quantum mechanics–as well as other scientific intellectual paradigms of the 20th century, including evolution, psychiatry, genetics, and many more, has resulted in the alienation of many people, who either do not understand or do not want to understand the implications of our scientific discoveries and therefore have chosen to base their perception of reality and the conduct of their lives on something other than the cold hard facts.

This is quite a turn of events from what our ancestors just a few hundred years ago believed would happened. The appeal to rationality, to science, to reason was seen during the Enlightenment as inevitably bringing about progress in how people lived, progress for the better, progress that would eventually lead to the perfecting of the world. Unitarians are fond of quoting Thomas Jefferson’s prediction that once all men became rational and reason held sway, then they would all be Unitarians. Well, Thomas Jefferson was a brilliant man of many wonderful accomplishments, but apparently being a seer was not one of them. We Unitarians remain a small minority religion and, in terms of influence, are arguably less influential as a movement than we were in the late 19th century when many of the patron saints of the denomination like Ralph Waldo Emerson held sway and divinity schools like Harvard were populated by many Unitarian thinkers.

What happened? We don’t have nearly enough time today to discuss that issue. Part of it, I believe, is as I suggested: science has revealed a world that is harsh, incomprehensible to the average person, and very unlike what we wish it would be. And, our world is full of uncertainty, ambiguity, and, a sense of insecurity and fear kicked up many notches by 9/11 and war. In this regard, I think Albert Einstein and relativity get a bad rap. That is, Einstein has been blamed or credited, take your pick, by many for the development of moral relativism during the 20th century. Today, moral relativism is used as a curse term by conservatives and the religious right. And while I utterly disagree with them regarding the value of thinking about morals in a relative rather than absolute way, it is also simply untrue that moral relativism derived from Einstein’s theory of relativity.

First of all, Einstein never said “everything is relative, there are no absolutes.” In fact, Einstein developed relativity theory (which he preferred to call a theory of invariances) so that all observers, in whatever reference frame, could get the same answers to their physics experiments. It is true that various measurements will be different in each reference frame, but there are right answers—the same ultimate answers that everybody would agree are correct. Einstein did not bring about the end of certainty in knowledge; by fixing the problems Poincare pointed out, he actually restored it.

This did not stop the pundits from associating new ideas in art, literature, philosophy, and music with Einstein’s theory of relativity. Einstein rejected all such associations. Nevertheless, despite what Einstein said or didn’t say, the phrase “everything is relative” entered into our culture and became synonymous with the notion that there is never an absolutely right answer to any question. The phrases “it’s all relative” and “everything is relative” combine for about 165,000 hits on Google. This concept has saturated our culture in a way that Einstein would both reject and never imagined and has led, I believe, to the transformation of the belief that everybody is entitled to place his or her own opinion into the free market place of ideas, into the belief that each and every opinion must be treated with respect because there are no actually right answers to anything.

This concept—and so much more—has also provided a basis for all those who long for the good old days of traditional values, solid cultural boundaries, and, above all, certainty, to come together and rebel against a culture that, to them, has lost its moorings and exists in a world of ambiguity and doubt, with no boundaries, no guidance, and no rules. This is decidedly not what Jefferson had in mind when he foresaw a world where Unitarianism was the dominant religion.

But despite my discomfort with all this, it might not matter so much if the people who believed in unscientific, irrational things kept their beliefs to themselves. But that is decidedly not the case with regard to religious fundamentalism. Fundamentalist religions of all denominations are the fastest growing religions in the world. According to reports on the Internet, fundamentalist Islam has been the fastest growing religion in the world over the last 30 years. And you don’t need me to tell you about the growth of fundamentalist Christianity in this country and the increasing amount of power and influence Christian fundamentalists wield. Right after the last election, Time Magazine’s cover story was on the 25 most influential fundamentalists in the country. They, and millions like them, have, to their credit, gotten off their backsides and entered into the fray, and now have influence and sometimes control at all levels of government and are seeking more. And the effects are being felt over much of the country. Here are just a few examples.

In Tulsa, Oklahoma, the board governing of the local zoo has authorized the construction of an exhibit that presents Biblical creation as the explanation for how animals got on this planet and their diversity. The justification used for this was, in part, that a small statue of an elephant in the style of Hinduism was present at the zoo.

At a park called Dinosaur Adventure Land, run by creationists near Pensacola, Florida, visitors are informed that man coexisted with dinosaurs. This fantasy accommodates the creationists’ view that the Earth is only 6,000 years old and that Darwin’s theory of evolution is false.

At the Grand Canyon, the Department of the Interior is selling creationist literature that claims that the canyon was made during Noah’s Flood and not over many millions of years of erosion by the Colorado River. This situation got the attention of scientists from seven organizations who sent a joint letter to the Department of the Interior demanding that the literature be removed from the book store. But when the Grand Canyon National Park superintendent attempted to block the sale of the book, he was overruled by headquarters. I can report to you that the privately run Noah’s Flood tours of the Grand Canyon have been cancelled for economic reasons, but as far as I can ascertain, the Bush Administration still condones the sale of the book.

In Texas, and around the country, fundamentalist pharmacists are refusing to fill prescriptions for birth control pills and other related devices based on personal moral standards. In 1965, the Supreme Court of the United States found that a Connecticut law making it illegal to sell contraceptives even to married couples was unconstitutional as a violation of the right of privacy. Today, however, legislation has been introduced in a number of states to specifically authorize pharmacists to refuse to fill a prescription based on their personal beliefs.

The Catholic Church has become more vocal and more radical on issues of science and religion. Two pieces in the Times last week (“Finding Design in Nature” by Christoph [Cardinal] Schonborn, July 7, 2005 and “Leading Cardinal Redefines Church’s View on Evolution: He Says Darwinism and Catholicism May Conflict” by Cornelia Dean and Laurie Goodstein, July 9, 2005) assert the view that evolution is in conflict with Catholic teaching.

And it’s impossible not to note that yesterday, J.K. Rowling sold millions of copies of the sixth volume in the Harry Potter series, a series that the Pope, who as a Cardinal was head of what used to be called the Inquisition, has condemned. According to signed letters scanned and published on LifeSiteNews.com, a family-oriented news portal on the Internet, Benedict wrote in 2003 to the author of a book critical of the Potter series: “It is good that you enlighten people about Harry Potter, because those are subtle seductions, which act unnoticed and by this deeply distort Christianity in the soul, before it can grow properly.” My soul is probably too old and already too corrupted for the Potter books to do too much damage, but I picked up my copy of the sixth volume yesterday and have already read the first 130 pages.

Finally—and I could go on, you understand—in Cobb County, Georgia, the Board of Education required that stickers that asserted that evolution is only a theory be placed into science books. The stickers read: “This textbook contains material on evolution. Evolution is a theory, not a fact, regarding the origin of living things. This material should be approached with an open mind, studied carefully, and critically considered.” This was in keeping with the President’s own scientific understanding of evolution when he said: “On the issue of evolution, the verdict is still out on how God created the Earth.”

Now it’s true that the sticker requirement was struck down by the courts, but that’s not the point. The point is that fundamentalists are everywhere trying to remake the world in their own image, trying to undo 400 years of scientific progress in our understanding of ourselves and the world, trying to make the world safe for their version of Christianity and its dogma so that they can luxuriate in their framework of life–a framework that at its heart is, I believe, unsupportable, but one that, for them at least, is also full of hope, promise, and self-satisfaction.

It is unreasonable and unrealistic to believe that fundamentalists are going to give up their religion, their beliefs, and the hope, promise, and satisfaction they provide, merely because somebody points out that scientific observation conflicts with those beliefs. You understand nothing about the human heart and soul if you do not understand the lengths to which they will go to keep an unwanted truth at bay. You understand nothing about the power of fundamentalist religion if you do not understand how deeply and powerfully it affects the people who surrender to it. The heart and soul do not care if something is true in the scientific, intellectual sense in order to become attached to it.

Human beings have the ability to invest themselves in beliefs that have no rational basis. You all know that. It happens all the time. But what quality of belief allows it to persist in the face of insurmountable evidence against it? This is a complicated question, one that I wish I knew the answer to, but I think we begin to understand it when we realize that whatever gives life purpose, meaning, and hope is the stuff that moves our hearts and souls and is believed. And for most people, there seems to be an imbalance between belief and knowledge in how they affect us and how they are valued. Knowledge tends to feed the intellect. Belief tends to feed the heart and soul. For so many people, satisfying the heart and soul, whatever is believed and however that is accomplished, is what is important in life; the rest, it doesn’t matter much, and can be left at the door.

In vivid and stark contrast, many Unitarians are the kind of people who, as Davidson is fond of saying, believe in salvation through bibliography. A central element of our religion is that it is one where knowledge and the intellect take precedence over, and in some sense control, what the heart and soul are able to believe. Unitarians insist on taking their brains with them into the pews.

The problem is that not only are they—we—in the minority, but the millions upon millions of people who believe in things that are irrational, delusional, unscientific, and downright wrong, they will never give up those beliefs on the basis of mere facts. We live in a post factual age—something I see increasingly expressed in outlets like the New York Times, the various news magazines, and even the cable news networks. I have concluded that Canon was right: Image is everything. And in a world where all things are relative, where everybody is entitled to his or her own opinion and have it respected out of PC etiquette, where there are no firm, absolute answers, then anything goes and belief–something that is at least an order of magnitude stronger than mere knowledge–will have its day.

I fear we are in danger of losing the gains made in the last 400 years against superstition, fear, and irrationality. Many before us have paid a high price to bring our culture to this point of understanding of the world and our place in it. Giordano Bruno was burned at the stake because he asserted that the stars were suns and there were other planets and they were inhabited. Michael Servetus suffered the same fate for claiming there were errors in the concept of the Trinity and that it was nonbiblical. Galileo was condemned because he espoused the Copernican system, a system that yanked Earth, and with it humans, from the center of creation. Joseph Priestly, the discoverer of oxygen, was forced to flee from England after his laboratories were attacked because he was a Unitarian who asserted that Jesus was not the literal Son of God.

But we are not going to retain what has been so costly won by simply asserting that reason and logic should be honored over mere belief. We know too much about how human beings work to return to that. Even economists now admit that people do not behave rationally in the market based on evidence that demonstrates that where money is concerned, people do not behave rationally, but rather indulge their hearts and souls when buying cars, houses, clothes, and everything else. The wonder is that it has taken economists this long to figure that out.

I think the challenge to Unitarianism and to Unitarians everywhere is to develop and share a religion that provides something worth believing, worth cherishing, worth investing one’s life in, while not leaving our brains at the door, while not succumbing to illusion and delusion, and while being true to ourselves–and by that I mean our hearts and souls as well as our brains. The Unitarian religion has always provided an abundance of things worth knowing; we need to strive just as hard and just as passionately to provide something worth believing.

This won’t happen by itself. Like the fundamentalists, we have to leave the safety of our sanctuary, and venture out into the world and proclaim that it is possible to be both scientific and heartfelt, to demand understanding based on knowledge without throwing out the deeply held beliefs that nourish our souls. But that will require us to take a stand, to assert that this way—our way—is better than their way and thus leave behind the shackles of political correctness and an irrational tolerance of things that we don’t believe in and that we actually believe hurt us and our neighbors.

As you leave church today, consider that our building is invisible until you are on its very threshold. Consider that we are isolated from the world and think about whether that is what you want for your religion, the one you’ve chosen, the one you believe in. Consider if you are willing to stand up for what you know and believe against a world engulfed in fundamentalist and irrational beliefs, beliefs that clash with much that we in this church hold dear. Consider if you are willing to be a beacon on a hill before it’s too late.

Presented July 17, 2005

First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin

Austin, Texas

Revised for Print

Copyright © 2005 by Jim Checkley

Permission is given for noncommercial, personal use.

When You Love Someone

by Posted in Audio available, Former Ministers, Guest Speakers, Sermons, Vicki Rao

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High School Seniors Bridging Ceremony

Victoria Shepherd Rao

Delivered by Don Smith

08 May 2005

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.

PRAYER

Earth mother, star mother,

You who are called by a thousand names,

May all remember

we are cells in your body

and dance together.

You are the grain and the loaf

that sustains us each day,

And as you are patient

with our struggles to learn

So shall we be patient

with ourselves and each other.

We are radiant light

and sacred dark -the balance-

You are: the embrace that heartens,

and the freedom beyond fear.

Within you we are born,

we grow, live and die-

You bring us around the circle to rebirth,

Within us you dance forever.

Amen.

SLT #524 Starhawk

High School Seniors Bridging Ceremony

We are now going to have one of the rare rituals our Unitarian Universalist tradition has for us. This is a Bridging Ceremony, an initiation ritual in which we will ask our High School Seniors to come up and cross over from their youth and as YRUU community members here the church and into a new territory as Young Adult Unitarian Universalists about to set the world on fire outside the confines of this particular congregation. We have a member of the Young Adult Religious Network, Lisa Fredin, to welcome them.

The Young Adult Religious Network is a long standing group of young adults, from all over the city, that meets every week here with the leadership of the Rev’d. Kathleen Ellis of Live Oak UU Church. It is part of a larger network of Young Adult Unitarian Universalist groups which meet in towns all over the continent.

This bridging is a symbolic act to re-enact a very real transition in the lives of these young people. They are moving from home and home town and taking on new identities independent of families and church communities. It is a very exciting and significant transition. As we watch them bridge, let us commit ourselves to support them, their parents and families as they test their wings. As the hymn says, wings set us free but the roots, they hold us. That support becomes especially important when new territory and identity is explored. They will each light a candle from our chalice to symbolize their new being within our wider Unitarian Universalist community.

Before we get into the bridging ritual, we will hear from our graduating seniors as they tell us about their plans for next year. And then Lisa Fredin will say a few words to introduce the Young Adult Program and extend an invitation to any interested newcomers out there.

Coming of Age Presentation

This is a special service. It is the time for giving the five eighth graders who have been participating in this years’ Coming of Age Program a chance to share their Credo Statements. The Credo Statements are statements of faith. A tough assignment for people of any age. We have asked these thirteen year olds to articulate what it is they believe about life and the way of the world, and what it is they value most in living, The understanding is that these statements are snapshots, the thinking of a moment in time. We have asked that they be honest and promised them that what they say will not be held against them. They are not committing themselves to life-long agreement, in fact, we hope the benefit of doing these statements will be largely realized in the future as the participants will read them and be able to reflect back on their earlier selves. In our liberal religious tradition, it is okay to explore ideas and ways of interpreting life and our own place in the grand scheme of it.

The Coming of Age program has been a year-long event. This has been the second year running. I have helped Carrie Evans, the Youth Assistant in preparing and sharing the once a month Sunday morning sessions where topics have ranged from values identification, liberal religion, and life choices. The program asked the youth to interview church leaders of their choice, visit another UU congregation in town and attend the worship service here. They have been asked to help with church events, to provide some service to the church, to help with a worship event, and to get involved in a social action project in the community. All the youth participated in the Christmas pageant. It is a lot of effort to ask of young people and these individuals you will now hear have shown a determination to see it through. I have appreciated their honesty and I hope you will too.

Each participant has been mentored by an adult from the congregation whom you’ll now meet as they step up to introduce themselves and their mentees in turn.

The following are the unedited credo statements from the bridging participants.

Credo Statement:

Thomas McLaren

Religion plays a somewhat small part in my life, but what I do believe in, as I have learned, is somewhat hard to define. This is a summary of my beliefs.

I believe that there is a higher power in the world. I think of this power as God. God, in my opinion, does not interfere with human life very often. I think that God is probably understanding of all religions and faiths.

Out of all the beliefs and religions of the world that I know of I think Buddhism makes the most sense. That you cannot just do good deeds and be accepted into heaven for all of eternity. You have to make yourself ready to be removed from the cycle first. To do this you have to truly be a good person, you can’t just do good deeds and not really mean it you must truly want to help people out. You have as much time as you need to do so also.

I believe in karma too. For me karma is a sort of reward system. If you do good deeds in this life then in the next one you will be rewarded. If you act badly you will be punished accordingly. Karma helps me live my life with regards to others.

I also believe that there is a negative force. This force isn’t purely negative, it just distracts from reaching your goal. This force is one of the main reasons people take so long to attain nirvana, which is the ultimate reward. There isn’t a specific name for this force it is just all the bad things in the world put together.

I do not pray, even though I believe that there is a “God”. I do not think God is active enough in human life to help out very much with my personal problems.

All in all I believe the basic structure of Buddhism but with a few sort of “twists” of my own. I believe in nirvana as I mentioned earlier and I believe in reincarnation also. I believe in the ways to attain nirvana, but I also believe in a higher power like god or something. Together this makes up the religious part of my life.

Credo Statement:

Robbie Loomis-Norris

I see life logically. What I mean by this is that I believe what I see and hear and touch and taste and smell. I rely on what I can understand it true. Even though, I also believe what people tell me if it seems like it is logical. This leads me to say that I do not believe in any kind of god or goddess or higher being. Because, like I said before, I can not see, hear, feel, taste, or smell it

I think that the “purpose of life”, is to have as much fun as you can while you can. By that I don’t mean that you should always just blow off things that are more important, but say, if you were inside and it was a wonderful day, and all you are doing is watching TV or something, then you should get outside and have fun. But when there is something that you need to do or say or some kind of responsibility that you need to fulfill, then you need to get it over with so that you can go have fun. Basically, I say that I live life to the fullest unless there is something more important to do. By “important”, I mean something that would have a bad effect to you or someone close to you. Such as a very large English paper to write before the end of the school year, If you didn’t do that then it would completely mess up your grade and it would go on your permanent record.

People are a big part of my life, that’s not very unique, but it’s true. I think one of the most needed things for humans is friends, because they help you through everything that you need help with. Well, most things anyway. They help you when you need help with big things, like family problems, and also with small things like, “hey, which page were the questions for English on?” Anything that a person would need, most of the time they will look to friends for help. Of course, that’s not all friends are good for, they have fun with you, which is why people have friends in my opinion. My friends and I have fun because, like I said earlier, fun is the basis of life. Friends are friends because they like each other and because they can have fun and laugh together. Everybody knows that things aren’t nearly as fun if there’s no one to share the fun with.

People are not originally corrupt, in my opinion, but the things that they want or have, persuade them to do things that they wouldn’t do normally. Such things like stealing from people and killing and other inhumane things like that. People do those things so that they can look good or have things that they want. Some people steal things just for the sake of having them, like money. People steal money because they want it. I think money actually controls people, because it can get them anything they want, which means that money = the world. That might be so, but still, money can of course be used for good things too, such as something to give to other people that don’t have any so that they can get things that they need to live.

LIFE, it is what everyone is “here” for. Even though I do not believe in any kind of life after death, I still think that we have a reason for being here. And my reason is that we need to live life up. We need to keep our lives, because that is all we really have.

I don’t always follow these things that I believe in, but I try to most of the time. No one knows what they really believe I think, but they can dig deep enough to live by, and this is what I dug up from inside of myself.

Credo Statement:

Edward Balaguer

I have been asked many times what I believe in. After being asked this a couple hundred times, you decide to make time to think about it. (Having to think about it for coming of age also helps you make time for it) So, after thinking about what I believe in I have come up with a rough outline of what I believe. To answer the question that has always been asked is there such thing as God? No, there is no “God” No there isn’t a person or some being who sits up in the sky deciding who gets to go to “Heaven” and who goes to “Hell”, in my belief, there is some power out there that flows among everyone and everything it is present in everything and it manifests itself differently to everyone. This Power isn’t the same for everyone. There is no book that says what’s right and what’s wrong. There is no one person who can tell you that is wrong and this other thing is right. It is the power that dictates the unexplainable, and helps explain those things that we don’t know about or those things that should never happen. Such as “miracles” a miracle is something that goes against the normal course of nature or what should happen. If you looked at something like a miracle with a scientific, or logical state of mind, you would say that those things can happen their perfectly okay but then the chances of a “miracle” occurring are very little. But besides all the odds they still happen.

I came to this conclusion by examining other religions. In the past, in my opinion, religion was a way to explain the unexplainable. To help explain the world around them, such as if lightning hits a field of food and sets it on fire, it is because you did something to anger the gods or your god. But now, after science has explained most of the things in our modern lives, there are still those very few things which we cannot explain. How something should happen but it doesn’t, how a person can get lost at sea and somehow survive, how someone with a malignant brain tumor survives for 20 years without an operation, how someone is shot in the head but makes a full recovery, how things that are thought to be impossible happen. It gives people something to believe in besides pure science, and probability, because Science alone is just cold hard numbers that have no feeling. But on the other side, religion alone is too much feeling without any fact. Science alone or Religion alone can only take you so far. You need to mix science and religion to get the best . The knowledge and fact from science, but the feeling from religion. The best of two worlds, or in the words of Albert Einstein, “Science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind.”

Credo Statement:

James Borden

When it comes to what I believe about the Universe and God, basically I believe in Darwinism, the Big Bang Theory and a kind of natural order to the Universe. It’s hard for me to believe that an entity decided to give this little gas ball (Earth) trees, water, and life. The traditional Christian view is that God created everything-but if he’s the creator, then who created him? While many people find the idea of God a source of strength and hope in their lives, I believe that God is functioning for them in the way an imaginary friend can give strength and comfort. While this is important and powerful for them, I find the same strength and comfort not in an imaginary God (“G-O-D”) but in a very real dog (“D-O-G”) Riley, who I can talk to and find strength, reflection and comfort.

I don’t believe that there is a set purpose to life. Instead I think that each person has to figure out for themselves what they want to do, how they want to live and how they will relate to others. Basically, there is no “God-given” rule about right and wrong that we can rely on to know what to do or how to live. However, humans have evolved a social system that helps us live happier, more productive lives with rules that are sometimes spelled out in laws and sometimes expressed through our culture. While the laws are available for anyone to read, the cultural ideas of right and wrong are a little harder to pin down, but they are just as important for the community. These include things like helping others in need, and telling the truth when it is helpful. The Golden Rule, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” is another helpful expression of this kind of cultural rule that helps society function effectively.

So fundamentally I believe that laws of nature govern the Universe, of which we are a part, and therefore govern the cultural and written laws that we humans create and the society in which we live.

Credo Statement:

Kelley Donoghue

Statement removed at the request of the author. 1/10/2009

HOMILY: First Essays in the Art of Living

by Victoria Shepherd Rao, Intern Minister

I wanted to offer some reflections on some of what we have heard from Tom, Robbie, Edward, James, and Kelley.

There are familiar refrains in what they have chosen to talk about.

Edward has sought to find some kind of rational, comfortable balance between scientific or empirical knowledge and unexplainable revelation. Many in our congregations struggle to do the same.

James sees in life an opportunity to grow, perceiving enough of a natural orderliness in the world to trust the cultural framework we have inherited. And this is where we all live isn’t it, with hope?

Kelley gives voice to what many of us have experienced as a loss of faith in institutionalized religion. She questions any teaching that can lead to oppressive rather than liberating attitudes and ways.

Tom reveals a liberal approach to religion. He has tried on various interpretations of the human experience and decided that for him Buddhism makes the most sense. He exhibits the unselfconscious assimilation of centuries of liberalism in this, the Emersonian ideal of the individual persons capacity and God-given right to trust his own perceptions of the world as a reliable standard upon which to judge the convents of truth.

And Robbie speaks of values which many of us can relate easily to: the importance of people in our lives – family and friends, the truth that fun or enjoyment rests somewhere close to the center of life’s mysterious purpose. He shows no small insight when he identifies life as all that we can really know we have, each day, each sunny day we remember to get out to simply enjoy ourselves. This is an affirmation that is both deeply existential and spiritual.

All these statements express one of the unique spiritual gifts of our religious tradition. That is religion without the fear. No fear of institutional or eternal punishment for asking questions or having doubts. The down side of such freedom we all know is the possibility of confusion.

Here is a little story about a fish swimming along. He is burdened with a big question on his mind. But then he comes across a big fish.

“Excuse me,” said the little fish. “You are older than I, so can you tell me where to find the ocean?”

“The ocean,” said the other fish, “is the thing you are in now.”

“Oh, this? But this is water. What I am seeking is the ocean, ” said the little fish. Disappointed, he swam away to search elsewhere.

(Anthony De Mello, The Song of the Bird, pg.12-13)

This parable gives some indication of how confusing it can be to ask ourselves religious questions. And it has been difficult for these young people to tackle this credo writing assignment. But I hope they are not going to swim away disappointed. Because they may or may not recognize the significance of some very important positive things they have said to us this morning about the way the world seems to work. And so I want to briefly highlight them.

Edward has said that he believes that there is some power that flows in and among all things. This power explains the miraculous and can contain human feeling. Kelley also spoke about a force that flows through everything which everyone can feel and no one can describe. It connects everything. Holding this belief, she says, brings order to her life and eases confusion. Helps the world seem a bit less crazy.

Tom talked about some Buddhist beliefs that he has found useful. He is in the minority in this group, choosing to name the nameless, “God.” He ventures beyond the certainties of this life and takes comfort in the idea of reincarnation, the idea that we all have as much time as we need, as many lifetimes as we need, to learn the lessons we need about love and kindness. Tom says this way of understanding life, with a final goal of reaching enlightenment, helps him live his life “with regard to others.” How to live “with regard to others.” We all need to learn these lessons on living “with regard to others.” This is universal teaching.

As Robbie said, you have to dig deep into your self to come up with this stuff and these articulations show a great sensitivity to the paradox or contradiction inherent in religious ideas. They are beyond human words and understanding. Words may be used to speak of such things but they cannot contain or completely describe the ultimate truth.

But still, we know we can experience the coherence of ultimate reality and most of us do. James has said, in earlier versions of his credo anyway, that he talks to his dog, Riley, and that he has found comfort and real relationship with his dog. And such is the experience of babes in the arms of their new parents. It is the feeling of an unconditional love, a wordless embrace, a word-transcending feeling of acceptance. Such experiences are the foundation of love of God or life, the stuff of faith.

Robbie talked about the importance of his close connections to his friends, how his relationships with others enhance the experience of fun. It is something about sharing that makes it real. It reminds me of Mother Teresa’s words about love, that love can have no meaning if it remains by itself. It has got to be something which connects us to others, something which is expressed in action which connects us to others or else it is meaningless.

Words fail to signify the depth and power of such experiences of love and relatedness. But the fortunate truth is we are experiencing creatures and we don’t need words and ideas to draw the vital spiritual sustenance available to us through relationships with others. It is there, in the eyes, in the face let us always take the time to look into one another’s eyes and faces and see there communion.

But these young people have gone on a word chase and they have worked hard to find the words which express their views at this time. It is hard to call out from the wilderness between the vast expanses of childhood and adulthood, where they are now – hard to know what you think and believe, and to find the courage to share it with others, to say it out loud. I want to commend Kelley and Tom and Robbie and James and Edward. It has been a great learning challenge for all of us. Carrie and I want to thank you for sticking with it and we want to thank the mentors and all the parents for supporting us all the way.

Mark Morrison-Reed, one of the ministers at Toronto’s First Unitarian Church, and one of the first preachers of this movement to inspire me, has said that “the task of religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all[that there is] a connectednessdiscovered amid the particulars of our own lives and the lives of others.” This morning you have all been called to witness to such particularities in the lives of a handful of families of this community. May the sharing of the milestones of our personal lives build the strength of the bonds of our communal life. Morrison-Reed asserts that the religious community is essential because, “Together, our vision is widened and our strength is renewed.” He was speaking about the potentiality of the religious community to act for justice in the world and that is a very important calling on the church, but what he says is also true on a personal level, for meeting the challenges of changes and transitions in our lives, in all their particular dimensions.

Growing Up and Finding Ourselves

by Posted in Audio available, Davidson Loehr, Former Ministers, Guest Speakers, Sermons

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Youth Service

Reflections from Megan Blau, Patrick McVeety-Mill and Karen Farmer

Worship Leader: Davidson Loehr

24 April 2005

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.

INTRODUCTION:

Like most churches, we have struggled with learning how to understand and structure “youth services” so they are enjoyable for both adults and our youth. In the past, there were youth services at which attendance would drop below fifty. Adults were not attracted to them, and the youth dreaded doing them.

A couple years ago, I decided the failure was mine, not theirs. We changed the structure of the service to one in which the youth work with me and our intern to plan the service, where the intern and I have the responsibility for approving all parts of the service and arranging their order.

We also changed the philosophy of the service, and I think this change has made most of the difference. When I meet with our youth, I explain that once they are standing in front of the congregation, the rules change. It is no longer about them; it is always about the people sitting in front of them. Whatever they offer must be a gift to people of all ages. And to do that, their offerings need to feed the minds and souls of all the people there. Our congregation wants to see how teenagers wrestle with the questions that make us most human. It’s a serious assignment, and we treat it as such.

At first, this news seems to shock our kids, who can easily – like adults – slip into thinking it’s a time to do their own thing, and that it’s about them rather than the congregation.

They submit drafts of their statements to the intern and me, and we make suggestions as to how they could be strengthened and made more effective. In return, I try to remember they are teenagers rather than graduate students, and keep criticisms pretty gentle.

I then write a homily to weave their reflections into a message that can bring out their strengths and help others see how they relate to the existential questions of everyone in the room.

We still need to do more work in helping them speak loudly, clearly and slowly – when we get nervous, we often speak fast and softly. But we think the general philosophy and approach have solved nearly all the problems with which we’ve struggled in the past, so offer this service as a model for others to consider.

— Davidson Loehr

REFLECTION #1,

by Megan Blau

I am not a gardener. Plants wilt after a few days in my house, I have managed to kill cacti and Aloe Vera plants, I have a brown thumb. So last year, when I acquired four plants for a science project, I feared for their lives. Yet, after well over a year, they are not only alive but thriving. And when, during last month’s hail storm (which I’m sure you all remember), all their pretty yellow flowers were broken off, I was kind of upset, but I realized that while I was not a gardener, I did enjoy it a little. I found a small piece of myself, and it was nice. I know that’s not surprising; at my current age it’s hardly uncommon to be finding yourself.

But what about later? Growing up is usually thought of as a process throughout your childhood and teenage years, but I doubt any of you would tell me we just hit 21 and stagnate. So what is growing up? A physical, mental, or emotional thing? Sure, but these things are changing all our lives, not just in childhood, for better or worse. I want to keep growing up throughout my whole life, no matter what it means. I don’t want to get complacent in the imagined knowledge that I know everything. I would like to keep discovering myself, no matter who I may find. I don’t know much about plants, I’m not very good with them, and yet I was able, though all I did was leave them outside and water them every few days, to make them live and flower. And there is a very definite satisfaction in knowing that I was part of something like that.

This experience has also left me with the knowledge that I may be able to do something even if I don’t think I’ll be good at it. There’s just no way of knowing beforehand, and an attitude of self-doubt tends to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Though the hail broke off their flowers, the plants remained green and healthy, and already have a few buds. If I can keep this in mind most of the time, then maybe I’ll be able to blossom, too.

REFLECTION #2,

by Patrick McVeety-Mill

Growing up is a difficult process that we all must go through. It stretches from the second you are born to your last moment of life. This is against what some people believe, that as soon as you become an ‘adult’ you’re done growing up and can rest for the rest of your life, we all grow up at various times in our life and each bit of growing gets us closer to know what it’s all about. Right now, our seniors are selecting which college they will go to for the next few years of their life. This can greatly effect what happens to them past here.

It is the decisions that take place growing up that will effect and change our lives and get us closer to finding ourselves. Getting married, having kids, getting promoted, getting fired. The list of experiences goes on for quite some time.

I found that my first time really growing up was right here in this very church taking part in the coming of age program. I got to talk about how I felt about things, I felt like I was older, like I had stepped up a notch on the course of my life. I had to sit and think about what I believed, what I wanted in life, and what I had to do to get there. The decisions I made will change what’s going to happen from here on out. I feel that they serve an important purpose in our life. Growing up, learning, finding your true self, all of this is so important, and I know that I’ll have to think about what I do before I get to it. It’s quite the experience.

Even other creatures have places and times where they grow up, like dragons. Yes, dragons, just stick with me for a second. They must go through steps that will set the course for the rest of their lives. They breath their first fire, soar into the heavens, and let out their first, blood chilling roar. Each of these effects them, will they be the terrible dragon that destroys cities and eats knights for breakfast or the gentle one that sits in the forest and helps lost travelers.

The same thing happens with us. I recently had to choose between two high schools, a fine arts and a liberal arts and science one. This may effect how the rest of my life goes. I’m having different experiences, meeting different people, and taking different classes than if I made the other choice. Several years from now, I might be a completely different person because of this decision. Who knows? All we can do is wait and see.

If one is lucky enough to choose between two or more well paying jobs after college, each one will lead them down another path. Or what to do if someone (or thing) close to you has passed on, what you do next can change the path of your life. Life is like a giant board game. We shape ourselves with every move of the piece, every roll of the die. Draw a card: you’re fired! What now? Stick with unemployment, angry and depressed, or go out and find a new job. Or maybe you’re happy about it!

Each part of growing up has a different effect on everyone that can lead to finding oneself in the end. The end to this board game is different for everyone. Where you finally stop growing and find your true self is all a matter of the decisions we make. Thank you.

REFLECTION #3,

by Karen Farmer

Preface: When I was about 5, my father was working off the gulf coast, counting birds on small islands for a nature conservancy group. One day, he decided to take me with him to one of these islands, and I was deeply impressed by the birds. I had no idea that this day would change the girl I have become. My father and the birds inspired such an awe at their power, beauty and independence, that I came to admire and often expect these same qualities in the people around me, as well as myself. I would like to tell you about that day.

That morning we jumped in the motorboat. It doesn’t matter which morning, for I was young enough then that each morning seemed the same, and the color of the sky and the worth of the day still meant little. The thick sea air engulfed us and then dumped us onto the dock of Green Island, an island that to me, never fit in the real world and never needed to. It just floated as a point in an endless desert of anonymous shifting water. Here, I stomped over the dock to wait for my father as he carried the day’s lunch and a pair of binoculars, to meet me and grasp my hand. I carried the look of my father’s steps, confident and firm, while his distracted eyes urged me to be silent.

Among the whisping ghosts of birds, we climbed the ladder to the blind, a wooden creature, a shack on stilts, and sat inside, the slats crisscrossing to make little windows that framed the chaotic, asymmetrical and beautiful movement of the shorebirds. They yelled like mad to each other, the sounds of their clicks and claps lost in the cacophony, individuals, calling to her chicks or calling his mate. My father treated them like human beings, admiring their cascading wedding plumage, their striking color, their sound. And my father carried these memories. This was his job.

He was paid to count them, to learn them and to understand them. I heard the sounds of birds come out of his mouth so many times it seemed that he spoke like the birds even when he spoke to me. In my mind, they both chattered in the same esoteric language I admired but could never touch. Without thought, I carried their sound. I preened my feathers, learned to dive and fly in the gulf wind, and tried to speak with the paradoxical complexity and simplicity of their vital and pointed speech. I did these things so my father would see me that way, wanting him to watch me and to speak to me. I wanted to carry their language so I could learn the only language my father ever knew, the language of their confidence, their dress, their dance.

Like me, each bird danced for another, sky pointing, their paired dipping beaks and necks, making careful interpretive inkblots on a backdrop of smooth blue. In their excitement, they ruffled their wedding plumage, accentuating the curving vines of their necks, ruffling brilliant feathers, carrying a few away by the violent wind. Feathers whipped around and around the island, performing pirouettes like stumbling children, falling everywhere and settling cool in the shade of a restless Mesquite. Sometimes, their wide wings carried them in the wind as well, dipping and swooping low into the brush to nudge a chick or high in the air to spot a fish in the shallow gulf. As a birdwatcher, my father followed their eyes with his eyes with weighty black binoculars, his body rigid and insistent. In the mornings, he just watched, observing color and size, and carried silent imprints of the day in his mind. Not permitted to speak, I squirmed and tossed around in the blind, restless from waiting. I did not yet know why I liked being there, as the sun beat mad looping patterns of heat into my skin and cells which carried the boredom heavily, making me wild.

In the sparse shade, we stopped to eat lunch. And here, chin on my knees, between bites of a ham and cheese sandwich, crust strewn across the ground, I felt that the ants must be more free. I imagined them sleeping under a dark virgin sky, lit with the cold light of crisp stars. I imagined them sitting back in little restaurants the size of leaves and chatting about their tans and the feast of crust, retrieved earlier at lunch.

The birds were like Greek gods, bickering about space and food as a hobby, as they watched and flew, like creators, proud and contented, over their kingdom. Every bird carried its young to maturity with lazy, comfortable guidance. The only limit was space; they used every inch. Feathered shoulders almost touched and every thorny branch provided a place to land. And yet these shorebirds didn’t ever care about birds of any other species. Great Egrets defended their territory against other Great Egrets, making threatening gestures with their long white necks, but a Roseate Spoonbill was virtually invisible to them. Each one seemed to carry the isolation of city people, with apartments like tiny, stacked houses, separate and easily overlooked by other tenants.

In the afternoon, after lunch, I ran down to the beach and sifted through the seaweed, soggy and ripe with salt, on the shore. Plovers and Sanderlings wandered here as outcasts, tiny gray birds, with short pointed beaks and plump bodies. They seemed like regional deities on such an island. Rushing in and out in a childish, passionate, giddy play, they carried the routine of water, a simple in and out of tides, with no need to watch or to observe. I’d never been one of these birds; I’d never loved one. I could only watch them as a child, fascinated but detached, eyes wide and distracted from the cool stick in my hand and the foaming seaweed.

Meanwhile, as shadows fell across the island, my father watched as the birds came back from fishing and flight, to roost, and he counted them. Hurrying back up the trail, I again sat next to him in the blind, sun soaked and windblown, to watch the last of the settling birds. Their concave wings curved into a feathered embrace, into the relative harmony of sleep. Their chicks, awkward with newness, closed large eyes in a woven stick nest in the undergrowth. I marked our footsteps in the rich dirt and then sand as we reach the dock, little feet and big making a two-part rhythm on the wet wood. We carried our trash and belongings in a hush, for the noises of the birds negated our own. Even as night came, those creatures chattered on and it made me wonder what they were talking about.

Stepping back on the boat was the hardest part. The way it swayed in the shallow water as I put a foot in made it seem like it didn’t want me back. The feeling was mutual. But as a chore, as a ritual, I stepped in, one foot and then the other, balancing and glancing back at the island. My father joined me and started the motor, cutting the shallow, salty gulf and then the Intercostal Waterway, slicing the sea in half. Streaming towards shore, I carried the smell that is so recognizable there, so unique. I’ve always thought it comes from the smell of birds, millions of birds living close, the smell of salt, crystallized on everything, and the strange smell of rot, taking the seaweed, the fish, and the birds. Off the boat and home, everything seemed so grounded. Just the grackles eating scattered dog food in the driveway. Just the ants following the same line in the dirt. No restaurants the size of leaves. No sleeping under the stars.

Away from that place, the idea coats me like a filter on a camera, not inventing color, but intensifying it, all reds and greens and blues saturated and brilliant. Something happened within me on that day that changed me. Now, in my heart, everyone is a bird. Because every bird is different, there must be, it seems, one match for every human; one that tends to cock its head, one that sings a complex tune. My father is the Great Blue Heron, an intelligent and lanky shorebird, dressed in lovely blues and whites and blacks. And I am the Green Jay, a solitary, timid bird of the woods, who wears tropical blues and greens.

Now, I carry that day everywhere. I carry the washed out bleach of the sun, the harsh sea wind, the screeching cry that birds make like humans, yelling at the summit of a mountain, yelling for something undefined, yelling for defiance and beauty and power. And whenever I’m alone, I carry my father’s voice, whispering their names in the morning heat; I carry the taste of the shadows, delicate and crucial under a great speckled egg.

SERMON: Growing Up and Finding Ourselves

It’s hard enough to have to read an original piece you write about yourself in front of a lot of people. But I made it harder for our three high school students, by saying I wanted them to write something that could be a gift to you, because standing up here on this stage is always about serving the people sitting in the pews.

In working with these students, I was reminded of Kahlil Gibran’s poem on children, where he said “Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.” All children are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. They come with their own personalities, their own styles, just as we did. And they seek ways to find a home in life, to serve it, to serve this grand sense of a Life that longs for itself – just as we do.

I see these annual youth services as a chance for the grown-ups to look into both our future and our past. Our children struggle with the same questions and challenges that we once did. And hearing from them as we have this morning can remind us how much like them we are, how much like us they are. We are also manifestations of Life’s longing for itself, and we also look for ways to find the dynamic and creative powers of life in and around us, to become a part of them, a part of this vast and transcendent Life that cradles us all.

You can see this in all three of their statements. Megan began with an innate sense of honor for Life, and a reluctance to take on responsibility for it because she had decided she had a brown thumb. Well, if you don’t think you can care for life well, you won’t want to.

It reminded me of something I read this week in Tikkun magazine. On the surface, it has nothing at all to do with Megan’s piece, but you’ll see the connection. These were two articles by women who are working to reframe the abortion debate, to get it out of the “individual rights” and “a woman’s right to choose” boundaries that aren’t likely to work any more. They are looking for a framework that is more honest, more accurate, and they write that choosing life or choosing abortion aren’t primarily choices about the new life. They’re choices about whether we feel that we can do honor and justice to the new life.

For instance, during Bill Clinton’s very liberal presidency, abortion rates in the U.S. fell by nearly 17%. Yet during George W. Bush’s very conservative presidency, abortion rates have risen by over 14%. Why? Because young women and young couples are embedded in our national economy. When the economy is better, they believe they can serve and honor life, so they have fewer abortions. When the economy is unfair, when it beggars most workers, people don’t feel that they can do justice to life, so they get more abortions. Abortion is about the economy and a deep respect for the sanctity of life, not about a hatred of life.

And there were seeds of this way of thinking in Megan’s piece. When she felt she couldn’t serve life, she didn’t want to take it on. When she began to believe she could, then she did. And that sense of life’s sanctity, and the conditions that need to exist before we encourage it – that sense seems to lie deep within us, and to be trustworthy.

Megan was talking about plants, not babies. And her point was about gaining faith in her abilities, faith that can give her more courage to engage more fully. But its implications are far-reaching. Her piece could inspire a whole book of sermons.

Patrick has a very different style from Megan. If he were a Hindu, I’d say his path is the path of Jnana Yoga, the path of trying to relate ourselves to life through understanding it more fully. You heard him working to figure it out, to understand how the choices we make have far-reaching effects, how they’re connected to life.

He also brought in another wonderful dimension: the dimension of mythology as a source for creative understanding of ourselves and our options. There are good dragons and bad dragons, and some of the difference comes from their choices. The good ones sit in the woods to help lost travelers; the bad ones just eat them. And as it is with dragons, so it is with us. How will the decisions Patrick makes help direct his life toward helping others rather than devouring them? How will ours? Is there ever a time in our lives when we aren’t trying to sort things out like Patrick is?

This is really what myths are for: religions, too. It’s also what good stories, movies and comics are for, because they are our modern forms of myth-making. We create the dragons, princes and princesses, the action heroes; we create sages like Yoda in “Star Wars,” as imaginative projections of our own strong sense of duty, courage, whimsy or wisdom. We create our dragons in much the same way as we create our deities. The distance between gods and dragons isn’t as far as you might think.

Gods and demons come from the world where dragons also live. And we often miss the point, miss mining them for the insights they offer into ourselves and our own lives. Patrick’s reflections could also be the inspiration for a whole host of sermons.

And think about Karen’s piece. While she isn’t referring to mythology – except in noting that the birds bickered like Greek gods – her poetic sense has described our world as a mythic stage on which life’s grandness struts in all its many forms. She studied the birds the way Patrick looks at dragons and Megan sees some plants surviving a hail storm, reading them like tea leaves, for insights into the deep structures of life, including hers.

Karen kept the magic of the associations she made a dozen years ago, the patterns she saw in birds and people, the wondrous variety and vitality of life in all its forms. Whenever these moments of revelation happen, they become part of our sacred foundation, and are always as present to us as they were at the moment of the revelation.

All three of these teen-agers have sensed something of the awe-inspiring magical powers of life. They are all trying to find places within life, to serve it, to honor and do justice to the spirit of life in the world around them, and the spirit of life within them. They’re grappling with the same deep callings, sensitivities, and needs that we are, aren’t they?

And let’s take it into another area beyond this room and this time. Here are three people who are part of our future, trying to relate themselves and their decisions to causes and ideals that best serve the wonder and creativity of life. What if those considerations are taken into the way we look at our world? What if we ask whether our economy serves life or stifles and batters it, both here and abroad? And what if we said the only choices we could be proud of making were choices that honored those life-giving forces rather than the choices that devoured them like a dragon devouring knights? What if we looked at our international policies of war from this perspective?

You may say, “Oh no, religion can’t consider any of those things. It’s not about the outside world; it’s only about personal things that stay inside of our individual souls!” But not one of these three kids was talking only about themselves. They were talking about how they can most creatively and proudly interact with all the world around them to honor the kind of life forces they are already aware of.

What if we encouraged our children to bring those considerations into every single decision they made in their lives? To encourage only economic policies that empower and enrich the greatest number of people? To sanction only wars that are absolutely necessary, and never to sanction wars undertaken to seize another nation’s assets, or use it as a launching pad for yet another war on its neighbor? And to insist that the pictures of the dead and wounded from our wars are always kept before our eyes by the media, so that we can see and feel the cost of our wars, so we might weep together? What if we encouraged our children to think of every decision, large and small, as one that must be kept in harmony with these fragile and miraculous forces of life they are all learning to honor, trying to serve?

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself. What if we encouraged them to insure that their life paths and life decisions also honored Life’s longing for itself?

Friday night about eight people came to our monthly movie night, and one of the movies we saw was a 45-minute film by Canadian scientist David Suzuki, on the interrelatedness of ourselves with all life on earth (“Suzuki Speaks”). At one point, he showed a film clip of his teen-aged daughter addressing an international assembly, assailing the adults gathered there for not having made choices that served life. Afterwards, he said some adults came up to her to admit their failures, and said they were counting on her generation to fix things. She responded in two ways. First, she said “So that’s your excuse for not doing anything?” And then she asked how her generation was to do any better, when the adults had been their role models.

These awarenesses of life and our responsibilities to become responsible parts of it – these awarenesses start very early in our lives. They are the questions whose pursuit makes us most human. You have heard them in the reflections of all three of the teenagers who shared their reflections with you.

We hold these youth services once a year because we say we want to honor our children. But it might be worth our while to listen to them. They are reminding us of the great idealism we once had about life, remember?

Remember when you first discovered that you could actually serve life, and that doing so not only helped plants blossom, but also helped you blossom? Remember that?

Remember when you were awed by the implications of the choices you could make, how they would affect your life, and how you wanted to become like the good dragons rather than the bad ones?

Remember when you entered so easily and often into the world of birds and bunnies, horses and dogs, when you marveled at the great variety of life, when you affirmed your own style, your own gifts, and knew for a fact that you were a precious part of life – just as everything else was? Remember that?

Then do you remember how you looked forward to a whole life ahead of you, looked forward to being a bigger part of life, or serving it, of loving it, and of blossoming?

Remember? Do you remember?

Spiritual, Not Religious

by Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Dr. Laurel Hallman

Senior Minister of First Unitarian Church of Dallas

03 April 2005

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

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SERMON: SPIRITUAL, NOT RELIGIOUS

Some of you have found this church through Beliefnet.com. You took the quiz on the website to see which faith your profile resembled, and found you were closest to Unitarian Universalist, or perhaps to Secular Humanist, sometimes Quaker, in some order of the three. Then, I’ve been told, it’s true at my church, I’m sure it’s true of yours. I’ve been told-that, some of you-not knowing what Unitarian Universalist meant, moved to that website, then linked to this church’s website, and here you are.

Almost every time we have a group join our church in Dallas, someone in the group has found us through Beliefnet.com. I have to believe it is also true here.

It may interest some of you that Beliefnet.com now has a feature called “Soulmatch”, a matching service to help you meet people online with your same values, and characteristics

In the initial quiz, to introduce you to the service, you can check, among other things, what faith you would prefer your matches to have. The list starts with “Any”, and after the second on the list, shows all the usual main religions of the world. It is the second one that caught my eye. It is, “Spiritual but Not Religious”.

I know exactly what it means. I’ve heard many in my church use just that phrase to describe themselves. I expect that a large number of people check that box on Soulmatch, so your chances would be good to meet someone if you also checked it, I would think. And I also might guess that if those people who checked “Spiritual but Not Religious” met, fell in love and decided to marry, they would have a high probability of having the wedding at a Unitarian Universalist church.

Because many imagine that we are also . . . “Spiritual but Not Religious”.

I had a young man, in my first meeting with a couple planning their wedding-I had a young man tell me that they came to our church for their wedding because they didn’t like organized religion.

I chose not to explain to him that we, in fact, are an organized religion, even knowing that John Buehrens who preceded me as Sr. Minister of my church is known to have said, “You don’t have to worry about organized religion around here. We’re not that organized.”

I didn’t go into details, because I knew what he meant. I know what people mean when they say they’re spiritual but not religious. They mean that they choose not to affiliate with any religious body of beliefs, doctrines, rituals and activities, perhaps because they have found them oppressive, or perhaps because they’ve never experienced them. There are, now, many people known in church-lingo as “the unchurched”. They might say they are spiritual but not religious because they are the adult children of people who left organized religion long ago, never exposing them to any organized religion-making them wary of all of them.

People who say they are “Spiritual, but not religious” mean that they have found meaning and purpose and even a set of beliefs about life and its mysteries, outside Catholic, Jewish, Protestant Christian, or the “other” faiths on the Soulmate list. They have found them in the writings of people like Jack Kornfield, or Ram Dass, or Thich Nhat Hanh-(interestingly, each of them speaking out of a religious tradition, but not directly representing that religion-and speaking more to people outside religion altogether, than those who are churched)-or these seakers have found their spiritual path in the midst of poets like Rilke, or Rumi, or Rabindranath Tagore who speak eloquently of the life of the spirit, and give guidance about how to live that life. Some have become spiritual but not religious because they have found more truth in nature than in church.

Whatever the source of this spiritual awakening–whatever the source of their spiritual awakening-I know it can be transformative, sustaining, deeply meaningful and purposeful.

It is, as we heard in the reading earlier-the call to go within. It is the call to pay attention to what is close at hand. It is the call to notice the feelings we have in the moment, and to move beneath them, to a deeper response, a deeper connection than our usual reactions and responses in life. It is an invitation to dip into the underground river-(Ira Progoff called it,) or the singing river -( Harry Scholefield called it)-it is the call to greet life with open hands-( Henry Nouwin) suggested, telling us to move into the “inner space” of our lives.

I have a postcard I keep on my desk. I received it in 1995 from a colleague I barely know, who had heard me preach, and said the picture on the postcard reminded him of my sermon. On the postcard is a reproduction of a painting by a contemporary Italian painter, Wainer Vaccuri. The painting is titled “Deep Down”. In very clear imagery, a man is poised on his toes at the top of a cliff, like a diver on a high diving board-arms and hands pointed straight down, body bent as if he is already beginning the fall-his head is turned to the side away from us-he is looking at a figure floating above him. The figure has one outstretched arm pointing straight down. The horizon of the sea off in the distance, but about even with our diver is pale blue. But the sea into which he is about to dive is deep and dark. We know he’s diving anyway.

I keep that postcard on my desk in a plastic envelope to protect it, because it reminds me when I am tempted to scoot along the surface of things-that my call is to the depths. Not to the darkness per se though sometimes that’s what I find-but to the depths of life’s purpose and meaning. To dive in. To dive off. To dive. The man’s head is turned as if to say, “Are you sure?” And the angel, no frilly wings in sight-the angel’s posture says, “I’m sure.”

I say this because it takes courage to live the spiritual life. It takes a willingness to face reality- to stop and face reality. It takes courage to take life on life’s terms, and to dive deeply into its truths.

It takes discipline to live a spiritual life. It takes silence, and practice writing fears and hopes and yearnings and thanks and regrets and joys, and being willing to start each day anew, as if it were your first.

I will admit that once in a while when someone tells me they’re spiritual but not religious, I can sense it is a cop-out. They live in the world of shallow affirmations, and drippingly sweet words of inspiration. They live in the world of imagined joy, where tragedy never visits, and where love overcomes every difficulty-To be sure, our bookstores are chock full of books to sustain that vision.

But today I want to honor the spiritual path which has depth, meaning, discipline, and willingness to live without knowing what exactly is expected of us in the present moment, and living that moment as fully as we can anyway.

I understand that religion has failed many people who have found their spiritual path on their own. I understand that religion has failed many who put their faith in belief systems and have been broken by them. I understand that religion has bored people until they couldn’t stand it any more. And I understand that religion has excluded, restricted, ruled over many people until they said “no more” and left.

So if you get anything from today it is that I understand why people say, “I’m spiritual but not religious.” I get it.

I understand why people say it in our churches.

But lest you find yourself embarrassed because you don’t understand fully where you are, I want to add some thoughts about being religious.

One of the problems with being spiritual but not religious, (and it may be why some of you are here) One of the problems is that it’s hard to find a group to join. Some find a meditation group. Some who are spiritual but not religious will have found their way into Group Therapy, or into a 12 Step group, and it will satisfy their need for companionship along the sometimes difficult road of life-for we will gather in groups-it seems to be part of human nature-to find others like us, to find others facing the same questions and challenges we are-to celebrate our joys together. We will find groups.

Now that it’s on Soulmate, and couples are encouraged to find each other, perhaps a larger “Spiritual but not Religious” movement will begin to emerge. Because eventually some of those couples will have children, and want to raise their children in a setting which is congruent with their world view, and then they may want to get together for spiritual practice, and then they may discover that others throughout time have done similar things, and voila! they’re spiritual and religious at the same time.

Or they can come here for their religion.

If you take anything else home today from this sermon-first I will remind you that I know what it means to be spiritual but not religious. But second, I need to say that coming here is a religious act. This is a religious place. We encourage you to be spiritual and religious here.

But, you may say, this is a “dogma-free zone (we actually have little cards you can give to people when they ask about our religion-they’re linked to a UUdecide.com-one of them says on it “dogma-free zone” Doesn’t dogma define religion?

Sometimes.

But more definitive is the history of grappling with theological questions. We have that.

More definitive is a defined set of values. We have that.

Even more definitive is the institution which is dedicated to a certain path, a certain set of activities (like teaching our children, and meeting here every Sunday to sing and pray and for this brief time, order our lives together) and probably most definitive, is the extended past and future in which we honor those who have gone before, and invest ourselves in the people and events which will follow us.

Someone said to me recently, “If you want your life to have meaning, invest in an institution.”

Invest your time and resources in the structures of society which have depth and meaning and purpose beyond your individual life.

Last month, a friend of mine died. He was the husband of one of my best friends. They belong to the Unitarian Universalist Church in Bloomington, Indiana-where I was the minister for six years. Our friendship has continued over the 18 years since I was there.

My friend was 70. He was an ecologist who taught at Indiana University. He also more frequently than he liked, gave expert testimony in cases around ecological issues-usually about wetlands, his specialty.

His life was invested in the preservation of wetlands, in the students who would carry the work forward, in his Unitarian Universalist church and in his family. He sang in the choir-not always on key. He played the banjo in a string band. He first questioned, and then agreed with the building of a sanctuary for that church. More recently he questioned and then agreed with the hiring of three part-time ministers for that church. He was chair of the “Grounds” committee, and spent untold hours at the church planting, trimming, mowing, and tending the grounds of the church. . He mentored my son, in the Coming of Age program 22 years ago. And a better mentor I could not have found. My son would travel to Bloomington to see his friends during his college days in Minnesota–and he would stay with Dan and Melinda. He had a home there with them.

Dan did not claim to be spiritual or religious. He chided me frequently about my use of traditional religious language. He found his refreshment in deep sea fishing-or more specifically ‘catch and release’ deep sea fishing. He sided with Emerson and Thoreau about the power of nature to feed our souls.

In the last months of his life-far too brief a time as far as Dan’s friends were concerned-in the last months of his life-in a specific shift of theological stance, he said that he had found God in the community which surrounded and sustained him.

The choir at their rehearsal, one Wednesday not long before he died-the choir called his home and sang one of their pieces to him through the phone. He wasn’t speaking by then, but he smiled (I’m told) through the whole of the singing. The string band made regular visits to his home to the very end. Almost every Christmas card I received this year from Bloomington mentioned Dan and his illness. The church in Bloomington lost one of their pillars.

I tell you this personal story because it is my most recent experience of what it means to be religious.

It is to be spiritual within the context of a living, breathing, sustaining, historically grounded institution with babies being born, and old ones who are dying-and everything in between. It is to be spiritual within the context of pot lucks and discussion groups, Sunday School classrooms, Christmas pageants and choir practice. It is to be spiritual and to take on a mortgage for expansion, and it is to be spiritual and then burn that mortgage.

To be spiritual and religious is to show up here each week. To bring your discouraged and sometimes battered spirit to this place to be lifted up, to be challenged, to be sustained here among all these others, and to be blessed back into the world to continue your work, the investment of the time and resources of your life in things which matter.

To be spiritual and religious is to show up here each week, in this place where the two come together, where we search the inner space of our lives together. Where we, one more time, make space for hope to emerge, together. Where we are not alone in our grief. Not alone in our search. Where we are not alone.

Last week I spoke with my friend Melinda to find out how she was doing. She’s all right. She is overwhelmingly sad, but she is all right. She said the flowers are coming up.

They always had flowers blooming all around their home. Dan had, years before, torn up the lawn, to plant native plants and flowers. So I knew it would be time for their flowers.

But she added, “Last fall he kept buying bulbs. He would sit out on the deck because he was already weakened by his cancer-and point to where he wanted the bulbs to be planted by the men who had come to help. He kept saying he’d be here to see them, even though we both knew he wouldn’t.”

I remembered the poem I read earlier-and I recited part of it over the phone. We both had a good cry. Because it is about Belief-not the belief that we will be here in the spring-everything is too transient for that-but the belief that spring itself will be. With or without us. It is a belief, not in the shallows, but in the deep movements of life that renew and sustain us even when all is lost.

So… all this is to say that the next time someone speaks to you about your faith, tell them your have found the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin, where your spiritual life is nurtured, and where you have found a religion of inclusion, freedom, faith and hope for your life, for your family, for our future together. Tell them you are spiritual and religious, and that it has made all the difference.

About Schmidt – About Life – About Aging

by Posted in Guest Speakers, Sermons

© Nathan L. Stone, Ph.D., minister

27 February 2005

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

CALL TO WORSHIP

When you walked through those doors this morning – you entered a very rare world of church and religion.

A place where no thought is taboo.

A place where questions are expected… valued… and even celebrated.

A place where the most sacred things are you and this good earth.

A place where we can actually poke fun at our own religion because we know that no religion has a corner on the truth.

This, then, is my hope, my prayer, and my wish for you… and for me:

That whatever spiritual or emotional itch you may be experiencing that you will find a way to have that itch scratched by whatever happens here today in this community called First Church. And may you be surrounded by love.

May it be so.

PRAYER

Will you join with me in an attitude of prayer?

Spirit of Live… God of many, many, many names… and no name.

We pause to give thanks for a place and a people who are willing to hear and celebrate the good things in life. We pause to give thanks for a place and a people who are also willing to hear about the painful and difficult parts of our lives.

In a busy, fractured, and fearful world – may we be energized by holding hands, laughing, and dreaming big dreams.

In a busy, fractured, and fearful world – may we truly find a stillness here that will gently carry us through all of our days and nights.

In a busy, fractured, and fearful world – may we learn to go slower, to be healed of our brokenness, and to find a deep, deep love that will slowly dismiss our fears.

May we find a true harmony and serenity that knows how to accept the things we cannot change, discovers the courage to change the things we can – and the wisdom to know the difference.

This is our prayer in the name of all that is good and true and honest and beautiful.

Amen.

SERMON

I know this is a sermon about aging. And I know some of you may be saying, “I am not old!” But you will be. And, chances are – somebody you love is old. So here is a sermon dedicated to us all.

Recently I received an email story. Whoever wrote the story starts it out like this:

I have been guilty of looking at others my own age and thinking… Surely I cannot look that old. I’m sure you’ve done the same. You may enjoy this short story.

While waiting for my appointment in the reception room of a new dentist, I noticed his certificate, which bore his full name. Suddenly, I remembered that a tall, handsome boy with the same name had been in my high school class some 40 years ago. Upon seeing him, however, I quickly discarded any such thought. This balding, gray-haired man with the deeply lined face was too old to have been my classmate.

After he had examined my teeth I asked him if he had attended a local high school. “Yes,” he replied. “When did you graduate?” I asked. He answered, “In 1957.” “Why you were in my class!” I exclaimed.

He looked at me closely and then asked, “What did you teach?”

Ouch. That’s funny… not funny. The movie, “About Schmidt,” is funny… not funny. It is funny… not funny because it is about aging – which is funny… not funny.

My wife and I find ourselves having more and more conversations about our aches and pains. Recently, we even had an extended conversation (are you ready for this?) comparing – colonoscopies! That’s funny… not funny, don’t you think?

How many of you have seen “About Schmidt?” This is a movie that got my attention. If you haven’t seen it you must see it soon.

In the Los Angeles Times, Manohla Dargis writes:

“About Schmidt” opens with a 66-year-old man staring at the second hand sweeping toward the last 5 o’clock of his working life. After years as an executive in what he calls the “insurance game,” Warren Schmidt has reached the age of retirement and, like the packed boxes stacked next to him, he’s about to get junked. He’s a nowhere man at the end of his run and he might not grab your attention if not for the fact that the senior citizen with the exquisitely anguished comb-over and the potato physique is played by Jack Nicholson. (http://www.fandango.com/reviews_fullreview.asp?mv=39806)

Roger Ebert says that,

Warren Schmidt is a man without resources. He has no intellectual curiosity. May never have read a book for pleasure. Lives in a home “decorated” with sets of collector’s items accumulated by his wife, each in the display case that came with the items. On his retirement day, he is left with nothing but time on his empty hands. He has spent his entire life working at a job that could have been done by anybody, or apparently, nobody. He goes to the office to see if he can answer any questions that the new guy might have, but the new guy doesn’t. In a lifetime of work, Warren Schmidt has not accumulated even one piece of information that is needed by his replacement.

“The mass of men,” Thoreau famously observed, “lead lives of quiet desperation.” Schmidt is such a man. (http://www.suntimes.com/cgi-bin/print.cgi)

And movie critic, James Berardinelli, writes:

“About Schmidt” is an unsentimental yet effective portrait of a character struggling with the essential questions of life. Although it has moments of cynicism, this is not a cynical film. Although it contains instances of humor, it is not a comedy. And, although it contains elements of the road trip genre, it is not a road trip movie. Instead, this is an opportunity to spend two hours in the company of a fairly ordinary man who no longer understands the point of anything.

(http://www.movie-reviews.colossus.net)

And although I have never thought much about retirement the movie made me face up to my own aging. Especially in one scene where Warren Schmidt does muse on his wrinkles as the camera zooms in: the sagging skin under his chin (the inevitable gift of gravity), the hair in his ears, and the little veins in his ankles.

Speaking of hair in the ears – I declare that if all the hair in my ears would grow on top of my head I could look like Texas Governor Rick Perry. Maybe even become a televangelist.

The movie just hit too close to home. And, what’s more, I saw it on the eve of attending my 45th high school reunion in Honolulu in June. And, indeed, I kept wondering at the reunion: “Who are all these old people?”

“About Schmidt” also got to my friend, Neal Jones – a psychologist in South Carolina. He said,

Toni thought it was just ok, but it struck a deep nerve in me. Here’s this guy on the last lap of his life’s journey looking back and wondering what it was all about. He’d done everything he’s supposed to – he’s worked hard at the same company, saved, remained faithful to his wife, raised a kid. Yet the woman he met at the camper park nailed him. She could see behind his polite smile to his very soul, and she saw that he was empty, angry, lonely, and sad. That got to me. Here at mid-life I wonder what it’s all about. I’ve been a “good boy” all my life; I’ve done what I’m supposed to. Yet none of the dreams I had about my life in my twenties have come true. Have I failed, or have I just become more realistic? Am I doing what I’m “supposed” to be doing? All I know at this point is that it’s passing by mighty fast, and I still don’t know what it’s all about. (email: 01/21/03)

It is simply amazing how, all of a sudden, you’re old. They say that old is anybody who is 15 years older than you. And so I may take some comfort in finding a 79-year-old person and feeling smug about my “youth.” But at some point there are not many people 15 years older than you. I have to also realize that there’s some 49-year-old who’s looking at me and saying, “Damn, that Nathan is old!!”

Schmidt makes me wonder, “When does old happen? When does a person wake up and say, ‘Oops, I guess I’m old now!?'”

In an article entitled, “Auguries of Aging,” George Merrill shares his reflections.

I’m old now. I became old incrementally: first, at 50, when the American Association of Retired Persons notified me that I was eligible for membership and then at 65, when, at my regional Social Security Office, seated under the portrait of a cherubic, boyish looking President Bill Clinton, I applied to receive benefits. Finally, days after my last birthday, when I attended my fiftieth high school reunion, I knew the deal was clinched.

Old is a fickle word: it’s revered and feared. Americans love anything old: antiquing is a national sport and genealogies are hot. No collector wants a “senior” butter churn or a “mature” eighteenth century bed warmer. He wants it old, the older the better. The word old, like the word dead, isn’t necessarily problematic, except as it may refer to us.

The dead don’t want to be thought old, either. Obituaries are often accompanied with pictures of the deceased. Seeing only the pictures I’d think everyone died between forty and fifty. Most were upwards of sixty. For anyone sixty-five and up and not sure whether they’re old, looking at the photograph from your most recent driver’s license helps. Two things happen: the image you see never squares with the one you have in your mind’s eye, and it gets more difficult kidding yourself about age.

Am I uneasy about being an old man? Yes. I resent the diminishments and vulnerability. I’m embarrassed when my mind goes blank when reaching for people’s names. I’ve experienced my first arthritic pains: they’re like electric shocks. At doctor’s appointments, now, entering the office feels like walking the last mile. Young women regard me with respect, but not desire.

As a young clergyman, I enjoyed visiting the elderly on Manhattans’ West Side. I’d get my parishioners talking about the old days, the world of their youth. It was wonderful hearing their stories. They’d invariably interrupt their narrative to launch into what I then callously called “organ recitals.” These were detailed accounts of aches and pains in various body parts and commentaries on operations they’d undergone. My parishioners would recite names from the obituaries, asking me if I knew them. I’d grow impatient, and try to change the conversation. I was rarely successful. Age evens the score: where they were then, so I am, now.

It’s disturbing being old in our throwaway culture. (“Journeys” – Winter-Spring 2003; p.2)

The sad thing about Warren Schmidt is that he, apparently, never thought about anything beyond his small world. After his retirement and in his sense of emptiness and confusion he tries to reach outside his world by responding to a TV appeal called, “Childreach.” He decides to send them $22 a month (only 72-cents a day!) for a 6-year-old Tanzanian child named Ndugu. “Childreach” sends him a picture of Ndugu and asks Warren to write and tell the little boy about himself.

For what seems like the first time in his life Warren Schmidt tries talking about his insides – and, it is clear, he has very little to say. In 66 years Warren Schmidt seems to have never, or perhaps rarely, visited his insides. I read in some review that Warren’s soul desperately needed a squirt of oil desperately.

My brother – who works very hard – hated this movie. “Nathan,” he said, “I do not want to be like that. I don’t want to retire and realize I did not invest in anything beyond my paycheck. I do not want the end of my professional career to be a perfunctory retirement dinner and a Winnebago in my driveway. I do not want to come to the end of my professional career and try to make life worth while by sending $22 a month (only 72-cents a day!”) to “Childreach” and writing to an absentee foster child named Ndugu.

Schmidt got to him because he rarely, if ever, visits his insides.

“About Schmidt” is a haunting movie. I think it should be required viewing for all teenagers. And then we should all have to watch it every two years.

I do not want the Schmidt-syndrome to sneak up on me. So I’ve made myself a list of reminders. Things to do to avoid a Schmidt-life.

1. Remember to read… and read a lot. Read in order to live in a very big world of knowledge and insight. Read to keep your mind alert.

2. Remember to travel. Get out and beyond my little 40 acres of life. See how the rest of the world lives. Go now and find some Ndugu while I still have time and energy. Go now and find some Ndugu before I get calloused, set in my ways, and my heart becomes two sizes too small!

3. Remember to hang out with people who like to think and discuss world events and big ideas.

One of the ways I do that these days is that I have lunch once a week with a bunch of old guys. I call it “The Geezer Lunch.” I learn so much from all that geezer-wisdom.

4. Remember to cultivate friendships. I must thank Pat for pushing me in this regard. Left to my own introverted and sometimes depressive devices I’d be alone most of the time. But Pat believes in making friends, developing friends, and nurturing friendships… so that your life doesn’t become insulated and isolated. So that you don’t end up like Warren Schmidt: a wife, a Winnebago, and a daughter who lives far away and doesn’t like you very much.

5. Remember to keep an eye on your attitude. See – this is how it works. If you’re grouchy now – you’ll only get grouchier in a nursing home. If you’re a whiner now you’ll whine much, much more when you’re old-old.

The 92-year-old, petite, well-poised and proud lady, who is fully dressed each morning by eight o’clock, with her hair fashionably coifed and makeup perfectly applied, even though she is legally blind, moved to a nursing home today. Her husband of 70 years recently passed away, making the move necessary.

After many hours of waiting patiently in the lobby of the nursing home, she smiled sweetly when told her room was ready. As she maneuvered her walker to the elevator, I provided a visual description of her tiny room, including the eyelet sheets that had been hung on her window. “I love it,” she stated with the enthusiasm of an eight-year-old having just been presented with a new puppy.

“Mrs. Jones, you haven’t seen the room… just wait.” “That doesn’t have anything to do with it,” she replied. “Happiness is something you decide on ahead of time. Whether I like my room or not doesn’t depend on how the furniture is arranged… it’s how I arrange my mind. I already decided to love it. It’s a decision I make every morning when I wake up. I have a choice: I can spend the day in bed recounting the difficulty I have with the parts of my body that no longer work, or get out of bed and be thankful for the ones that do. Each day is a gift, and as long as my eyes open I’ll focus on the new day and all the happy memories I’ve stored away. (source unknown)

I’m sure there are a bunch of other things that can be done to avoid the Schmidt-syndrome but I’ll just mention one more.

6. Remember to get a dog. I saw “About Schmidt” four times and I was struck that there was no dog in his life. A dog would have taught him to get outside of himself.

I must admit that before I met Pat I had no dog in my life. (Uh, that is not a good sentence but I think you know what I mean. I hope Pat knows what I mean). But now I have Lani. And how I do love that silly girl. We rescued her. She is part Retriever and part Burmese Mountain Dog (we think). She weighs 85 pounds and is barely a year old.

Shee teaches me so very many things. When I get into one of my pity-parties and I’m pouting around wanting someone to pet me – here comes Lani to nudge my arm until I pet her. She makes me get out of myself.

And then there’s our other dog, Yellow. (She died not too long ago.) She was a thousand years old with really bad arthritis, tumors everywhere, and dying of congestive heart failure. But she never complained and her tail continued to wag even into the final visit with the Veterinarian. Yellow taught me to embrace the passage of time – to age – and to die with dignity and grace. Yellow was a kind of spiritual director for me.

I read a poem recently. A poem by Mary Oliver. It is a fine anti-Schmidt poem:

“When Death Comes”

When death comes

like the hungry bear in autumn;

when death comes and takes all the bright coins from his purse

to buy me, and snaps the purse shut;

when death comes

like the measle-pox;

when death comes

like an iceberg between the shoulder blades,

I want to step through the door full of curiosity, wondering:

what is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?

And therefore I look upon everything

as a brotherhood and a sisterhood,

and I look upon time as no more than an idea,

and I consider eternity another possibility,

and I think of each life as a flower, as common

as a field daisy, and as singular,

and each name a comfortable music in the mouth,

tending, as all music does, toward silence,

and each body a lion of courage, and something precious to the earth.

When it’s over, I want to say: all my life

I was a bride married to amazement.

I was the bridegroom, taking the world into my arms.

When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder

if I have made of my life something particular, and real.

I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened,

or full of argument.

I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world.

(New and Selected Poems; Beacon Press: Boston, Massachusetts; 1992; pp.10-11)

I do not want to be a visitor to life. I do not want to be Warren Schmidt.

I want to be Kathy Bates – her name is Roberta in the movie. She’s about Warren’s age. Her presence, in contrast to Schmidt’s – her presence just fills up the screen. When old age and death come I want to be Roberta : naked in a hot tub next to a frightened and bewildered Warren Schmidt. When old age and death come I want to be Roberta – who approaches life hungrily and with good cheer and who can’t stop talking about how sensuous and “orgasmic” (her word!) she is.

When old age and death come – I want to be Roberta. What about you?

Shalom. Aloha. Salaam. Namaste. Amen. Blessed Be. And I love you all.

BENEDICTION

The bene-diction: the good word as we go our ways –

Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-prepared body… but rather to skid in broadside, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, “Wow! What a ride!!”

[Hug somebody if they’ll allow it. Remember that Virginia Satir used to say that we need at least 3 hugs a day just to survive. 12 in order to flourish!]

Walking the strait and narrow

by Posted in Audio available, Guest Speakers, Sermons

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Chuck Freeman 2005

February 20, 2005

The text version of this sermon is unavailable but you can listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.

 

Rev. Freeman is a guest minister from the Live Oak Unitarian Univeralist Church.

Jesus’ admonition to “Walk the strait and narrow” is widely misinterpreted. It refers to taking the difficult path, not the path of conformity. It means finding your own path, not one laid out by another, and having the courage to take it.