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Don Smith

July 18, 2004

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

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PRAYER

Let our prayer be a prayer for remembrance.

Let us remember that today, like every day, is a holy day. It is a gift of time, freely given to all that lives. May we honor this day by using it well.

Let us remember that today, like every day, is a judgment day. It is a day with infinite opportunities to do either good or evil. May we choose to do the good and to fight the evil, so that, at the end the day, we may judge ourselves gently.

Let us remember that there are those among us today who hurt and whose pain takes away the gifts that others enjoy. May we do what we can to ease their pain.

Let us remember that there are those among us today who struggle with problems that may seem too big to manage. May we do what we can to lighten their load and help them on their way.

Let us remember that there are those among us who are lonely, even in the midst of the crowd. May we offer a kind word, a friendly smile, and the hope of new friendship.

Let us remember, again, that each day brings with it new opportunities. May we strive not so much to do more, but to do better.

SERMON

What does it mean to be a morning person? What I want to do this morning is try to describe a way of viewing the world that, to my mind, constitutes being a morning person. Bear with me if I seem to wander about; I think the picture will come into focus before I’m done, and I trust you to tell me if it doesn’t.

In his book with the audacious title How the Mind Works, Stephen Pinker posits that it is primarily through metaphors that we understand our world and I agree with him. I think this is especially true in areas outside the hard sciences, when it comes to contemplating our lives, what we’re doing with them, and the meaning we assign to things, independent of their concrete facts. Most all religious texts, poetry, great literature, and songs are filled with metaphors.

Since being a morning person is a metaphor of my own creation (although I’m sure I’m not the first to use it) we’ll consider some other, perhaps more familiar metaphors–along with some lesser-known personal favorites–to try to narrow in on my conception of what it means to be a morning person.

Let’s start with a metaphor from the New Testament; a metaphor used in two ways. The first is found in the Gospels. We’re told by these writers that Jesus once said to his disciples “Suffer the little children to come unto me, and forbid them not: For of such is the kingdom of God. Verily I say unto you, Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein.”

The second comes from St. Paul, in his first letter to the Corinthians. He wrote “When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things.”

The same metaphor “that of being childlike” is used to express seemingly opposite ideas, as something to embrace and something to shun. But is that really the case?

Our responsive reading this morning was, to my mind, at least, an explication of Jesus’ words. If all people had the spirit of a child–if all people trusted, imagined, sang, received the beauty of the world without reservation, were filled with wonder and delight and a faith that could cure them of their cynicism and make them unafraid to need and to love’then I believe we truly would be living in the kingdom of God.

Looking at the larger context of the letter to the Corinthians, it becomes apparent that when Paul told the Corinthians that they must put away childish things he was speaking of childish, that is to say, overly simplistic views of the meaning of spiritual teachings. Spiritual teachings taken as literal truths lose their power to inspire us and lift us up. Instead, they become dead and suffocating things. They block our ability to see the world as Jesus would have us see it, with the wonder, honesty, and simplicity of a child. It’s like reading those words by Jesus and taking them to mean that heaven is a physical place peopled only by children. That really doesn’t provide a lot of hope or inspiration for those of us who have made it into adulthood, does it?

Having been raised in a fundamentalist Christian church–where the Bible is taken as literal truth, even in matters historical and scientific– I was taught, for example, that creation was a one-time event. God created the universe and everything in it over a period of six days. It’s been running its course according to God’s plan ever since, and it will be destroyed at some unknown point in the future. Our main concern in life should be making sure that when the world ends we’re part of the “elect”, meaning those who are destined for heaven. Heaven, in this worldview, is some distant place where all is perfect. And we can get there, but not in this life.

Now, contrast that view of things with the view expressed by Thoreau when he wrote in Walden that “The morning wind forever blows. The poem of creation is uninterrupted, but few are the ears that hear it. Olympus is but the outside of the world everywhere.” This is a radically different view than the one I was taught, is it not? Creation, rather than being an historical fact, is an ongoing process. Olympus’ home of the gods, or heaven is all around us. We need only wake up to that realization and live our lives accordingly in order to experience it. Heaven is, or can be, here, now.

The first attribute of a morning person is this: A morning person sees creation as an ongoing process in which he or she has a part to play. And the second attribute of a morning person is this: A morning person believes that his or her part is important and can have an impact on the world. These two attributes go hand in hand.

In her song “The Dream Before”, Laurie Anderson writes these words (and for what it’s worth, the scene is a conversation between Hansel and Gretel, who, we are told, are alive and well and living in Berlin):

She said, “What is history?”

And he said, “History is an angel being blown backwards into the future.”

He said, “History is a pile of debris, and the angel wants to go back and fix things, to repair the things that have been broken. But there is a storm blowing from Paradise. And the storm keeps blowing the angel backwards, into the future. And this storm, this storm, is called Progress.”

I think about those words quite a bit. It’s a wonderful image. It’s the way I see much of our human endeavors. While I agree that those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, I sometimes think that we spend too much time analyzing and agonizing over the mistakes of the past, and not enough time dreaming about the future. I’m reminded of Bobby Kennedy when he said “There are those who look at things the way they are and ask why. I dream of things that never were and ask ‘Why not?'” Those are the words of a morning person.

Many among us believe that all we need to do in order to make the world better is to go back to some earlier time, before we made some huge mistake or went off in some wrong direction. I suppose we all wish from time to time that we could go back and get a second chance at things.

And I think we’re all angels trying to fix things, but I believe we need to turn around and face the future. Rather than fighting progress, let progress be the wind at our back–the morning wind that forever blows, carrying us in the direction that we need to go. To quote Thoreau again, “Go confidently in the direction of your dreams. Live the life you’ve imagined.”

The third attribute of a morning person, then, is that he or she embraces the idea of progress. Even though we may question what true progress is–and that’s too broad a question to address in the time we have this morning–we must believe in our ability to move beyond where we are today, both individually and as a species. We must believe that a better future is possible, and that our dreams can be realized.

In every age there have been prophets of doom, people who see no hope for the future. Looking only at what’s wrong with the world, they give in to a cynicism that eats at the core of their faith, regardless of what it is that they have faith in. They overlook all the good that is done, daily, by the majority of people. They forget how many trials and tribulations humanity has endured, and how great some of those have been. It’s easy to do; too easy, I’m afraid.

Emerson, in an address to the Phi Beta Kappa society at Harvard and published under the title The American Scholar, said that we must have “the courage to call a popgun a popgun, though the ancient and honorable of the earth affirm it to be the crack of doom.” How many events have been declared the beginning of the end, if not the end itself, only to pass into history as nothing but another obstacle over which humanity has stepped in our long and steady progression through time. Marcus Aurelius, using another wonderful metaphor, said “History is a sort of river of passing events, and strong is it’s current; no sooner has a thing been brought into sight than it is swept by and another takes its place, and this too will be swept away.”

A morning person embraces a spirit of optimism and fights against the cynicism that comes to us all too frequently, and all too easily.

This may sound like an overly simplistic, even naive view of things; a view that could only be embraced by Professor Pangloss. You remember Professor Pangloss? In Voltaire’s story Candide, Professor Pangloss is the teacher who asserts that “all is for the best in the best of all possible worlds.” But as Candide learns, through many trials and tribulations, his beloved Professor Pangloss is not correct. Everything is not for the best. In the final lines of the work, using yet another wonderful metaphor, Candide sums up what he has learned by saying that “we must cultivate our gardens.” And that brings us to a discussion of how a morning person conducts his or her life.

I’m a gardener, and I can tell you that any gardener knows, as they pull the weeds from their garden, that the weeds will return. It’s the way of the world, and not to be changed. But we pull the weeds anyway. Because to not pull the weeds is to abandon the garden, and this we cannot do.

A morning person continues to work for the good, not with the naive hope of eradicating evil, not because they believe they can solve all the problems of the world, but because it’s the thing to do. Bodil Jonsson, the Swedish physicist, writes in her book Unwinding the Clock “it doesn’t befit a human being to give up. The future is not some mountainside we’re all going to smash into. Nor is it some kind of precipice and we’re all going to fall off the edge. We’ll do what people have always done. We’ll try.” A morning person tries.

Winston Churchill was a morning person when he said to a group of elementary school students “Never, never, never give up.” Martin Luther King, Jr. was a morning person when he delivered his “I Have a Dream” speech.

A morning person holds fast to his or her belief that a better world is not only possible, but assured. The future is not something to fear, but to work for.

What kind of future do I want for myself and my children? What kind of world do I want to live in? What can I do to move in that direction? These are the questions that a morning person asks.

I have to confess that, although I am by nature a morning person in the literal sense, I sometimes have to work at being a morning person in the figurative sense. It’s not always easy, when I look around me and see some of the things going on in the world, to be a morning person. But that’s what I want to be, and it’s why I come here. I rely on you’on this community’to help me continue in the way of a morning person. And for that reason I also ask “What kind of future do I want for this church?” “What kind of church do I want to be a part of?” “What can I do to move us in that direction?”

What about you? What do you need in your life? In times of despair, where or from whom have you found strength?

I want to close with some words from the theologian Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Optimism is by its nature not a goal for the present situation but a life-force,

A force for withstanding setbacks, a force that never surrenders the future to pessimism but rather requisitions it for hope.

He wrote those words while he sat in a German concentration camp, awaiting execution. He’d been sentenced to be hanged for his part in a plot to remove Hitler from power. Listen again to the words of a morning person.

Optimism is by its nature not a goal for the present situation but a life-force,

A force for hope when others give up,

A force for withstanding setbacks, a force that never surrenders the future to pessimism but rather requisitions it for hope.

I don’t know what else I could say.

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© Jonobie Ford

27 June 2004

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.

PRAYER

Heaven is not reached in a single bound,

But we build the ladder by which we rise

From the lowly earth to the vaulted skies,

And we mount to its summit round by round.

I count this thing to be grandly true:

That a noble deed is a step toward God –

Lifting the soul from the common clod

To a purer air and a broader view.

SERMON: Daily Practice Makes Perfect

Jack Kornfield’s book, After the Ecstasy, the Laundry, tells of a young man returning to the West. For the past twelve years, the man has been living a devoted religious life in India and Tibet. He’s in for a bit of culture shock in this re-integration; instead of strict schedules of meditation, intense daily focus on religion, and a community of similar believers, he finds himself lost and adrift in his old, chaotic world. Old patterns of living come back suprisingly quickly. He becomes irritable, confused, and angry. He starts worrying about money. And he begins to wonder whether he’s lost all that he’s learned in these past twelve years. And suddenly, in a flash of inspiration, he realizes:

“I can’t live in some enlightened memory. Spiritual practice is only what I’m doing, right now. Anything else is a fantasy.”

“Anything else is fantasy” — what a strong statement! But I think he’s got it right: Our religion is what we do, each and every day. And one way to focus on what we want to do, to make our daily decisions while keeping in mind these ultimate concerns in life, is to spend time with our religion each day.

I say “daily”, although perhaps “frequent” is a better term. Not all of us can or want to make time for daily practice. But daily practice need not be something that’s eternal. Like many things, some seasons of our lives may call for more focus on religion than others. Daily practice has many benefits, and trying it for a couple of weeks, or months, or even years, can produce some suprising results.

I had a somewhat impromptu daily practice a couple of months ago while writing my affirmations of faith. Each evening for several weeks prior to the service, I sat down at my computer, lit a small candle that I frequently use for rituals, and tried to compose understandable descriptions of what I believed.

The act of dedicating time to religion each evening made me go through the next day thinking about ways I could implement my religious beliefs. It sounds so simple, but I really think that doing a daily practice helps me be a nicer person. I start thinking about how others fit into the breath of life, and how we’re all in this together, and I’m more likely to see people as, well, people, and not just roles.

While I was writing my first affirmation of faith, I was also at a very busy point in my project at work. There was a coworker who had been frustrating me for the past couple of months. One day, after he had just complained to my boss’ boss about a decision I’d made, I was venting about this to my office mate. I actually stopped mid-word in my rant as my brain bubbled “Wow, you’re a hypocrite!” to the surface of my thoughts. Here I was, each evening, writing up lofty ideas about people being part of the breath of life, and how we’re all in this together, and yet, during the day, I hadn’t noticed that this guy was just like me. I’d just been seeing him as this thing that was in my way — not as a person who was just trying to do his job the best he could, just as I was. I might have thought of that without my daily practice, but I’m not so sure. I certainly hadn’t thought of it up until that point — this was not my first rant. And after this mid-rant revelation, I began to interact with him differently, and to actually listen to him, rather than to have my first reaction be annoyance. We ended up being allies, if not exactly friends, by the end of the project.

Daily practice looks different for different people. One couple I know prays a rosary together daily. Another person, a chronic insomniac, meditates each night when she wakes up and can no longer sleep. Yet another person speaks of studying Hebrew and religious scripture each day. My husband and I take turns saying grace at dinner. We all do our practice differently, but the sentiment is the same: Alone, or with others, we spend some time each day reminding ourselves about the ideas we hold most dear.

Regardless of exactly what the practice looks like, it’s clear a lot of people use a daily religious practice, or at least think it’s a good idea. I did a Google search on the phrase “daily spiritual practice” and came up with over 800,000 hits. That’s a lot of talk about daily practice!

Here, in a UU organization, we don’t seem to talk about daily religious practice much. I’m not sure why that is; it may be because we shy away from the notion of doing things that are overtly religious, or it may be because many of us don’t see any value in it. After all, much of the world talks about daily religious practice in terms that don’t work for some of us, by talking of making offerings to Gods, praying, and so forth. It may also just be because we’re busy people and don’t feel we have the time.

But daily religious practice holds a lot of value, even for followers of a liberal religion. There are a whole host of benefits that come from spending part of each day focusing on whatever it is that brings you here, to this church. Is there something you used to do that you don’t anymore, such as journaling, writing, poetry, praying, or taking a morning walk? Maybe it’s time to think about picking it back up again. Summer, with its more relaxed pace, is a great time to return to a daily practice.

While I was preparing for this service, Davidson shared with me an old preacher’s story. In it, two people are talking after church.

One says: “That sermon didn’t have much in it. In fact, most sermons don’t have much in them. I don’t know why I keep coming.”

And the other person replies, “Yes, I’ve found that meals are that way, too. Each one, taken by itself, doesn’t have too much. But if I skipped them all, I don’t think I’d do well. So I’ve decided that the effect of worship services, like the effect of meals, isn’t to seek feasts, but to get in the habit of nourishing myself regularly.”

There’s actually some good, solid evidence that frequent spiritual nourishment is good for us. Although the highly hyped studies describing the value of remote prayer (where other people pray for you) are scientifically suspect, there is evidence that frequent personal practice is healthy. For instance, one study of 1,000 seriously ill men in Veterans Administration hospitals found that “religious coping” — a method that includes frequent personal prayer — decreased depression. In another study, overseen by Duke University researchers, subjects who both attended worship services and prayed had lower blood pressure than a control group. Participants who prayed or studied the Bible daily were 40% less likely to have high blood pressure. Some people might claim that this study somehow proves Christianity’s correctness; given that I found similar studies for meditation and chanting, I’m inclined to say it’s the practice of focusing on religion each day, regardless of exactly what that practice is. Well, almost. An interesting tidbit from that same study: “Those who frequently watched religious TV or [listened] to religious radio actually had higher blood pressures.” I’m not surprised; Jerry Falwell makes my blood pressure rise, too.

At-home religious practice is also helpful for those of us still deciding what religious ideas to make our own. It gives us a safe place to try out and test different ideas. For me, my daily practice has helped refine my theology. For example, I’d always been dubious about praying for other people. After all, I believe that my Gods rarely, if ever, interact with the world in material ways.

When I first began following a daily practice, I found it easiest to use a book of daily devotions.[1] All the devotions in the book include a section for prayers for other people — for example, one directs the reader to pray for people who pollute the earth, while another one suggests praying for those who are refugees or without a home. When I began, I almost skipped doing them. I decided to temporarily leave the prayers in, figuring I shouldn’t remove them on the basis of previous prejudices.

I later realized I didn’t want to remove them. I still didn’t really think praying caused any sort of supernatural action in the lives of the people I was praying for, but prayer had become a way of focusing my attention. In fact, after praying for people, I felt more compassion for those I had prayed for. I wanted to interact with, support, honor, or help them in real ways, not just by thinking about them in the solace of my home. I tried to reduce my pollution by cultivating a worm bin in my apartment, and it now turns most of my previously-discarded kitchen scraps into compost. I also became more involved here at the church, both personally and financially. And I realized that any practice that takes my faith from inside my head into action in the world is a practice that’s powerful and worth retaining, regardless of my discomfort with the word “prayer”.

Daily practice is also just practice at being religious. Just as practicing a piano piece can ingrain the memory of it into your fingers, practicing being religious helps set it into you more firmly. When I first began a daily practice, I was at a really tumultuous time in my life. I was beginning my first job, and I had no idea if I was doing what I wanted to do. I don’t know if it’s this way for everyone, but my first job was when it really hit me — I suddenly knew what “the daily grind” meant. Dilbert, once somewhat incomprehensible, suddenly became hilarious. It sounds hopelessly naive now, but I really think I had the idea that a person went comfortably from out of school into a dream job, and would automatically become a highly respected member of the workforce. Instead, I was hurtling into a whole new world, I was off the tidy little life-plan I had devised for myself, and I was terrified.

Looking back, I can see that if religion is “what I’m doing now”, in the words of the Buddhist Lama, I didn’t have much of a religion at all those days. And even then, I realized that I needed a way to center myself, and to focus on who I was and what was important to me, every day. It felt like I was in danger of losing that, otherwise. My daily practice became part of the “ladder that took me to a broader view”, that reminded me that there was more to life than driving to work, working a long day, and driving back home, exhausted.

In the beginning, daily practice was relatively easy, particularly because it started shortly after I began seriously exploring religion. There was so much new information to read, absorb, and try, that my practice naturally was frequent and enthusiastic. But once my religion and my job become more comfortable, it was harder. While there was still much to learn and absorb, the freshness and enthusiasm began to fade. But I also realized that, in the words of the Lama returning to the west, religion isn’t some memory of past enlightenment — or memory of freshness and enthusiasm, it’s what I’m doing now, each and every day.

I’m told that our hunter-gatherer ancestors would often go without food for days, and then gorge themselves when they had a successful hunt. Like the people in Davidson’s story, it’s easy to slip into thinking about religion in this way, as though we’re waiting for one really good sermon to feed us for a month. But our ancestors realized that it was better to get in the habit of eating small daily meals, just as we still do, and it keeps us nourished all the time. Maybe part of being always nourished is to bring our religion out of the realm of what Kornfield’s Lama calls “fantasy” and down to the earth in our daily lives.

I haven’t tried to feed you a huge feast today, and I’m not sure I’d know how. Nor have I wanted to offer you “fast food”. I wanted to bring you some spiritual appetizers — a little nourishment for your souls on this hot summer day. Maybe it’s a little like Chinese food, and you’ll be hungry again in a few hours. I hope so. Because if we all keep coming back for Sunday snacks, we might grow into the habit of eating spiritual food between meals. And in the long run, you know, that’s a lot like living at a feast.

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© Davidson Loehr

Ian Reed

Will Boney

13 June 2004

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button.

CENTERING

Ian Reed

In the presence of the power of this congregation,

 In the presence of the warming chalice,

 We gather here to search and to reflect,

 On the beauty and power in this room.

HOMILY: Tolerance

Ian Reed

We gather here today, in this room, in front of this chalice, as a congregation of Religious liberals looking for a greater truth. And right here in front of us is one of the most powerful symbolic lesson to be found on that search, our chalice. While it’s origins as pertaining to our faith are rather spiritually empty, being more or less the winner of a glorified design contest, it still remains that the chalice is one of the most potent religious symbols for any faith. As the oldest recorded symbol for the feminine, the chalice is here to remind us of one of the most important lessons our faith yearns to teach us. That of respecting all of humanity as you respect yourself. One of our strongest principals is to respect the inerrant worth and dignity of every person. Regardless of race, sexual orientation, economic status, or religious affiliation, we have a sacred duty to respect all life, regardless of our disagreements.

The power of this symbol, the power of creation, acceptance, and nurturing, serves as a reminder to us all. This symbol is here to remind us that when we grasp those ideals of tolerance, we have the age old power of the chalice within us.. We must not think of someone’s origins, someone’s family past or religious orientation, we must only think of them as people, for they were all created just like that flame. Gently cradled, and given the spark of life to dance with. This symbol of creation is a reminder to us all that true life comes from this cradling, from this nurturing of the flame. Whether in turn the flame is oil or candle, the person Christian or Jewish, the chalice, the mother gives life to all unconditionally. This is our gift, this is our calling.

My favorite example of that is the biblical story of the good Samaritan. The story goes that there was a man on his way from Jerusalem to Jericho and on his way he unfortunately encountered a band of robbers. These robbers stole all the man’s possessions and beat him to within an inch of his life. So there the poor man lay on the road, while a day’s worth of commuters pass by his way. Much time had passed after the beating when all of a sudden, a kind stranger, identified by Jesus as a friendly Samaritan took it upon himself to help the near dying man. The Samaritan took up the man, bandaged him, bathed him, took him on his back, brought him to the nearest inn, and looked after him for the rest of the day. When the kind Samaritan had to leave the next day, he left two silver pieces with the inn master for the care of the injured man, promising also to repay the innkeeper if the man’s care cost any more. The moral of this story seems to be a simple one of helping your fellow man, but it goes much deeper than that. You see, that Samaritan was not just anybody, for at the time, the Samaritan’s were waging a violent war against the Jews. Thus the lesson herein is much more profound.

Regardless of opinion, regardless of past experience, we must treat all who we encounter with the same tender care. Blood, birth, belief, neither of these truly define a person, or give any justification for harm. The beauty of this story is that it admits this folly, admits the folly of war, the stereotype that all enemies are enemies, that all soldiers are soldiers, even off the battlefield. Respecting the inerrant worth and dignity of every person is just that. We must truly be unconditional with our kindness, for not every Muslim is a terrorist, not every Baptist preaches hellfire and brimstone, not every Catholic is anachronistic, not every Christian wishes to convert us, and not every American is a violent sadist. We must see beyond the labels we create, and respect the person behind them.

The Samaritan was at war with the Jews, and yet he was able to put aside any anger, any prejudice, and simply helped a man in need. The Samaritan did not see the man as a so, as an enemy, as a threat, he just saw a man in need. This is our power as religious liberals. We have the power to see the wonderful myriad of spiritual pathways out there with an unfettered spirit, an unbound mind, and an unobstructed vision. We have no creedal right and wrong, we draw members from all spiritual pathways, from all callings, and we have a gift to see the entire world in that light. We are the Samaritan, we are not bound by thoughts of religious predestiny, of a hell or heaven, we can just see all the world, and all its myriad paths as just that. We can rightly give life to anyone, for that is our strongest calling.

Watching the world like this, without pre-existing fear, hatred, misunderstanding, is our highest good. This is the Samaritan’s true lesson. That when it comes down to every day, to our daily lives, the only thing that matters is seeing past what we are trained to see, and see the man behind the prejudice. We cannot label people by our preconceived notions. Then we become every other passerby we become the ones who let the beaten man lie in the road and die. Our thoughts do have that power. Every time you avoid a Christian because of fear of conversion, you are abandoning them, and denying them crucial companionship. Every time a stranded truck intimidates you a little too much just because of a visible confederate flag, you are denying a man the help he needs. Every time you don’t attend a dinner party with a Hasidic friend for fear of ‘unhealthy’ dinner conversation, you are leaving a good friend based on mere thoughts. We have the power to do many great things with our love, if we can only lean to give it without fear, prejudice, without hesitation. Our greatest gift as a congregation is our love, is our commitment to respecting and understanding the views of all people. If we are willing to accept the lesson of this age old story, and embrace the power of tolerance, of acceptance and understanding, we have the power to be a congregation of good Samaritans, the warmth of the life giving chalice, and when we live up to that potential, let the light of our acceptance shine, we relive that greatness, that warmth, that life saved.

HOMILY: Tolerance

Will Boney

A recent search for tolerance found an organization called Fight Hate and Promote Tolerance. This project has countless resources for someone trying to find out about tolerance. It contains countless examples of tolerance in the news: gay marriage in Massachusetts, the 50th anniversary of Brown v. Board of Education, etc. And our society has taken large steps towards being a tolerant society in recent years. I recall watching Philadelphia a couple of weeks ago with my parents. For those of you who don’t know it is the story of a young lawyer, Andrew Beckett, who is fired when it becomes apparent that he has become infected with HIV and is therefore, according to the stereotypes of the time, gay. The amazing thing about the movie was the huge amount of change that has occurred with the way normal people in society view HIV and homosexuals. Instead of, as in the movie, it being difficult to find a lawyer willing to represent Beckett due to his homosexuality, the opposite would now be true. My parents and I were amazed when we realized that this movie was made in 1993, a scant 11 years ago. This increase in tolerance has shown up in a myriad of areas, too numerous mention here, from the societal classics of race, religion, etc… to the more mundane aspect of tolerating people who are different from us in our individual, everyday lives. This increase in tolerance has definitely been a good thing. Tolerance is important on two levels: first, the tolerated gain by being tolerated. By being tolerated, they can be accepted into a community and society. As social beings, this acceptance is key to many people’s happiness and self-actualization. The second benefit of tolerance is to the tolerating society on a whole. The tolerance increases the diversity of the society, which countless studies and authorities claim increases some overall quality.

But does this tolerance truly extend to everyone? The previously mentioned organization to Fight Hate and Promote Tolerance reported on many other news stories, including one regarding an ad campaign that was attacking a proposed reality show called “Amish in the City.” The news story sided with the ad campaign, but, to me, this seems the opposite of their declared position for tolerance. The attacking of the proposed show is very intolerant, and yet an organization to promote tolerance supports it. The explanation is easily understandable the show is accused of mocking the Amish, an intolerant act but this position exposes a contradiction, or at least an ambiguity in any doctrine of tolerance. There are likely to be people who do not accept tolerance in all things. How does a tolerant person deal with this? One cannot attempt to force tolerance on them because this goes against the very core idea of tolerance. There seems to be no action or inaction that can be taken by a tolerant person to end this intolerance. They must simply tolerate it. But a tolerant person cannot easily in good conscience ignore them because the intolerance is so offensive. That is one of the great challenges of tolerance: how to tolerate the intolerant.

Another huge challenge of the tolerant is to tolerate everyone. This, I believe, is the biggest obstacle to complete tolerance. Everyone has their morals and ethics; these are the rules people live by that give them guidelines for what they can do and what they can’t do. Tolerance is easy when it is an act that ones morals agree with, still easy when one finds it not too offensive. But how many of us can tolerate the things that we find the most offensive in the world? How many of us are tolerant towards murderers? Rapists? Child molesters? The list goes on. For that is the true test of tolerance: think of the most disgusting, offensive act you can and see if you can tolerate a person that commits that act with no remorse.

And is tolerance really enough? Because tolerance only means that, well, you tolerate it, that you allow it to happen around you and in your community without taking action against it. Tolerance in no way means that you like it, that you encourage it, or that you support those who you tolerate. Instead, you need only ‘grin and bear it’ for tolerance. But is this really what we want in society? A bunch of people who go around merely tolerating each other? Does that really constitute a community, or merely an assortment of people? Acceptance seems more desirable, but much more difficult to achieve. Acceptance would give us a real society, but less diversity. Although the amounts of both can increase some over time, there does seem to be a definite tradeoff between the amount of community and the amount of diversity. Which one is more important is a choice that people will have to make for themselves, but it seems as though we cannot have both.

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© Matt Tittle

22 February 2004

First UU Church of Austin

4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756

www.austinuu.org

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READING

As we embark on the subject of integrity this morning, I’d like to start with a reading from early 19th century Universalist minister Hosea Ballou, which I believe, illustrates a liberal religious understanding of integrity:

“I know it is frequently contended that we ought to love God for what God is, and not for what we receive from God; that we ought to love holiness for holiness’s sake, and not for any advantage such a principle is to us. This is what I have often been told, but what I never could see any reason for, or propriety in. I am asked if I love an orange; I answer I never tasted of one; but then I am told I must love the orange for what it is! Now I ask, is it possible for me either to like or dislike the orange, in reality, until I taste it? Well, I taste of it and I like it. Do you like it? says my friend. Yes I reply, its flavor is exquisitely agreeable. But that will not do, says my friend; you must not like it because its taste is agreeable, but you must like it because it is an orange. If there be any propriety in what my friend says, it is out of my sight.”

SERMON

This subject of integrity is a complex one, but at the same time, quite simple. Everyone is FOR integrity, everyone wants to HAVE integrity, everyone demands integrity from others.

When something big is at stake or of ultimate importance, then we insist on integrity. We want our leaders to have impeccable character, we want corporations, and government, and schools, and the church to be institutions that are beyond reproach. But when it comes to the small things, well, then it might be ok to stretch the rules. We learn to fib rather than hold fast to our principles if we believe their might be some benefit, or we don’t think anyone else will suffer. The old adage of “what they don’t know won’t hurt them” is a familiar one. So what if I stretch the truth a little on my income taxes. So what if I was undercharged. So what if they gave me back too much change. So what if I speed a little. Nobody is getting hurt, are they?? Integrity is easy to think about, but I believe it is more difficult in practice. Maybe we don’t spend enough time figuring out HOW to have integrity.

So, today I will talk about several aspects of living a life of integrity. These are maintaining wholeness, freedom as a fundamental value, acting on the courage of our convictions, and the willingness to take risks. Wholeness, freedom, courage, and risk. These are all central to integrity in our spiritual and personal lives.

First, we will deal with wholeness. By definition, integrity is the act of maintaining wholeness. Integrity shares the same Latin root as the word integer, or whole number. A person of integrity is a whole person. There’s an interesting 19th century form of the word that illustrates this point. It is “Integralism,” which means “the belief that one’s religious convictions ought to dictate their social and political actions.” – Integrating the religious, social and political aspects of our lives. This is maintaining wholeness.

While we are thinking about definitions . . . I’ve often used the word integrous as an adjective to describe the quality of having integrity. But I’ve noticed that no one else ever uses this form.

Being the educational product of the South Carolina public school system, I often question my own grasp of the English language. You won’t find “integrous” in any American dictionary. But, it is in the Oxford English Dictionary – as an obsolete and rare form. How ironic, or how unfortunate, that we don’t have a commonly used adjectival form of integrity in English. So I will continue to use integrous, in my own hope that it comes back into to our common vocabulary.

So, we have the first concept of wholeness. The second aspect of integrity, especially in liberal religion, is the concept of freedom. Freedom is at the core of Unitarian Universalism. We have emerged from the free church tradition — rejecting prescribed doctrines and creeds, while simultaneously affirming freedom of belief and freedom of association. In 1960, on the eve of the consolidation of Unitarianism and Universalism in the U.S., Rev. David Parke, Unitarian historian and then minister of the Unitarian Church of Peterborough, New Hampshire, addressed the issue of integrity in Unitarian Universalism in a series of sermons. He noted that some of us find fulfillment in the fact that we are free. Others of us find fulfillment not in freedom, but in faith. For the first group, faith is the means to a life of integrity, freedom is the end. For the second group, freedom is the means, faith is the end. Parke said in 1960 that humanists fell into the first category, while Unitarian Christians fell in the second category. He said that Unitarian Universalists – then a new breed – fell somewhere in between. Faith, freedom, and fulfillment — three aspects of integrity for a liberal religious faith; not unlike “Integralism” and integrating the religious, social, and political aspects of our lives. The elegance of Unitarian Universalism is that we are not boxed into absolute categories when it comes to freedom, faith, and fulfillment.

This brings me to the third primary element of integrity – the courage of our convictions. We have addressed the essence of integrity -which is wholeness. We have addressed core of integrity in liberal religion, which is freedom. The courage of our convictions addresses the question of HOW we live integrous lives.

In his book, titled Integrity, Stephen Carter explains that living an integrous life requires discerning what we believe is right and what we believe is wrong. At the foundation of integrity is our values system. Values systems are represented by our emphasis on freedom, by our seven Unitarian Universalist principles, by the Torah and the Talmud of Judaism, by the gospel teachings of Jesus for the Christian and so on, as each religious tradition has tried to discern that which is of utmost importance.

Beyond knowing what we believe, integrity includes acting on our convictions, even at personal risk. Our own UU principles are a covenant to affirm and promote – these are actions which we agree in principle to take on.

The courage of our convictions also includes articulating our faith — openly saying that we are acting on our understanding of right and wrong. Even if our saying so is unpopular. We must be willing to tie our actions to our principles and say “I’m doing X because I believe Z.” This is what Hosea Ballou was trying to illustrate in his example of loving an orange. We don’t do things because we are told to, or for the sake of doing them. Living with integrity means that we understand what we believe, have the courage to act on our beliefs, and are able to articulate our convictions even in the face of criticism and disagreement with others.

I spent many years being openly critical of Christianity because I felt that its foundation was weak. But when I truly came to understand what I believed as a Unitarian Universalist, I realized that I could not, with integrity, dismiss Christianity or any other belief system that has as its basic assumption the goodwill of everyone. I recognized that Christianity was central to the lives of my mother and father in law, and that they are the most integrous and most service oriented people I know. I know what I believe and why. I act on my convictions. I let others know why I am doing so, but I must also hear and accept the differences and whys of others’ beliefs.

So, now we have expanded our definition of integrity beyond the idea of wholeness, beyond seeing integrity in our value of freedom, to conviction in understanding right and wrong, acting on those convictions, and being able to articulate our faith.

But we are not finished yet. I’d like to add the idea of risk-taking to our understanding of integrity, especially as it relates to liberal religion. My experience with risk-taking comes from an unlikely source, but I find a certain synchronicity it all of it.

I’ve been keeping you in suspense with the title of this sermon – Watertight Integrity. I learned about risk taking as a component of integrity in the Navy. I spent 11 years as an active duty Naval Officer, and recently retired from the Naval Reserve. Four and a half of my 20 years of service were aboard ships. In ships and submarines, WATERTIGHT integrity is essential. Without it, the ship risks sinking. Each door and hatch is lined with a rubber seal, treated with petroleum jelly and tested periodically for its integrity. This ensures that there won’t be any leaks into the next compartment in the event that one side is flooded. Some compartments are called voids and they stay constantly sealed, so that the ship can float. In a submarine it is a little trickier, because they purposely fill these voids with water, and then expel it so that the sub can surface or dive.

We constantly trained in the Navy to ensure that our watertight integrity remained intact. During General Quarters, the level of alert that we go to when danger is imminent, all doors and hatches are closed and sealed. No one is allowed to move around the ship and open any of these doors. We would time how long it took to report “Condition Zebra,” Meaning that everyone had reached their station and all watertight hatches and doors had been secured! There is a Navy ship somewhere right now who is going through this drill, I am certain. They are testing their integrity.

But, Condition Zebra is an extreme condition in which we take no risks. Everything is locked tight. We don’t go to that condition of watertight integrity very often and don’t stay in it for very long. So, we also had condition Yoke, Xray, and modified Zebra – all different degrees of watertight integrity. Each hatch was marked with an X, Y or Z and allowed to be open at certain times and not at others. Just like in life. Sometimes we open doors and take a calculated risk, sometimes we don’t.

Fundamentalist or conservative faiths might be considered to be more often in condition Zebra, relying more on certainty and allowing for very little risk. But they deny their wholeness in the very act of trying to maintain it – People don’t function as well if they are constantly locked down. As believers in a liberal tradition we allow for less rigidity in our knowledge and beliefs, and are more affirming of others’ beliefs. We take calculated risks, but need to have a keen understanding of why we are doing so, and a plan for when we might tighten up a little.

We often TALK about integrity in terms of honesty, of right and wrong. We THINK of it in terms of shoulds and should nots, cans and cannots – but we PRACTICE integrity in degrees. It isn’t PRACTICAL to stay in Condition Zebra all of the time.

Part of integrity is attending to life and to being whole, knowing what is going on around us and what watertight condition we are in at any given time!

Integrity isn’t a question of either/or, it isn’t a question of should or shouldn’t, can or cannot. Integrity is more complex than that. Critics might say this is a slippery slope – .that it is moral relativism to explain away integrity as other than pure and certain. To them I say, we can lock down every door. Or we can live our lives paying attention to our wholeness, maintaining our commitment to freedom, having courage in our convictions, and knowing when to take risks.

Know what you believe. Act courageously on your beliefs. Say publicly and without shame why you are doing so. Have the sense of awareness to know when to take calculated risks, all the while maintaining your wholeness. If we do these things perhaps we will be more integrous people.

May it be so.

———————

Copyright © 2003 – Dr. Matthew D. Tittle, Ph.D.

Except where otherwise cited, the material presented here is the intellectual property of the author. Use and reproduction of this material for non-profit personal, academic, or religious purposes is encouraged with appropriate citation. Any other use requires the expressed consent of the author.

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