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Rev. Marisol Caballero
August 3, 2014

We celebrate the closing of another Camp UU year by looking to Harry Potter and the lot from Hogwarts to teach us life lessons. We explore how the seventh principle might be understood to one of J.K. Rowling’s witches or wizards!

Call To Worship
By Amy McKenzie Quinn

Welcome to this common,
Sacred space.
Common, because we are all welcome.
Sacred, because here we transform the ordinary
And attend to the profound.
We carry with us regrets, doubts, fears, stories, laughter;
And they may inspire our worship.
Above all, may we each meet what we need most to find,
On this day, in this common, sacred space.

Reading: “Back-Scratcher”
by David Bumbaugh

The fall from grace,
The great disruption of primordial order,
The original sin, had nothing to do
With eating apples or talking with snakes.

The instrument of our fall was a wooden back-scratcher,
That piece of wood, bent at the end
So one piece can reach the unreachable spot-
There, between the shoulder blades,
Down just a little bit lower,
Now up a little bit,
There where the most persistent itch
Always takes up residence.

Before the back-scratcher,
Before that simple, infernal device,
We, like our primate kin, depended on others to do for us
What we could not do for ourselves:
“You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours.”
Before the back-scratcher,
Before that simple, infernal tool,
We needed each other to scratch that unreachable itch.
The wooden back-scratcher dissolved the bonds of reciprocity,
Unloosed the ties of community,
And tempted us to believe in our own godlike self-sufficiency.

And God walked in the cool of the garden,
And saw a primate standing alone.
“What have you done,” God asked, “that you stand alone?”
I have found a back-scratcher,” said the beast,
and now I need no one.”
“Poor beast,” said God, “now you must leave this garden:
In Eden, no one stands alone; each depends on the others,”<

And thus began our wandering, our pacing up and down the earth,
Scratching our own itches, pretending self-sufficiency,
Trying to ignore the persistent sense of loss,
The vague yearning for a primordial order,
A world where you scratched my back and I scratched yours.
A wooden back-scratcher is poor compensation
For the gentle touch of a living hand.

Prayer
By Victoria Weinstein

Divinity is our birthright. God nods
To God from behind each of us. But let us remember, as
Mr. Emerson said, “divinity
Is behind our failures and follies also.”
In the silence that follows, let us pray
That we may notice and accept the Divinity of tiny things
The Divine of ordinary miracles
And even in the awkward mistakes.
In frivolous conversation with friends
In wordless companionship with a loved one-
In the work that seems futile one day
But resonates with meaning the next.
In the shared meal,
And the shopping list
In the peaceful sleep
In the simple procession of the [summer] days.
We pray this moment to keep tender vigil over
Our precious, imperfect lives.
To know each other as a vessel, however
cracked or broken, of the Holy.
So we may strive to recognize the indwelling
Presence of God in all people,
In all living things,
And even in ourselves.
In the silence, may we open our hearts. So may it be.
Amen.

Sermon: “The Choice is Yours, Choose Wisely”

A pregnant woman leading a group of five people out of a cave on a coast is stuck in the mouth of that cave, In a short time high tide will be upon them, and unless she is unstuck, they will all be drowned except the woman, whose head is out of the cave. Fortunately, (or unfortunately,) someone has with him a stick of dynamite, There seems no way to get the pregnant woman loose without using the dynamite which will inevitably kill her; but if they do not use it everyone else will drown. What should they do? http://psychopixi.com/misc/25-moral-dilemmas/

In real life, our ethical dilemmas are usually nowhere near the drama of this story. Without realizing it, we make hundreds of ethical decisions in an average day. Should I let my neighbor know that their teen snuck out late last night? Should I consider placing my aging parent in a nursing home? Should I submit a project I know to be sub-par? Should I laugh at a racist joke to fit in? Should I spend the extra money to buy organic, free-range groceries or give that money to charity? Should I give my spare change to that panhandler?

Jesuit ethicist, Thomas Shanks, tells us that, “Most people would indeed like to live an ethical life and to make good ethical decisions, but there are several problems. One, we might call the everyday stumbling blocks to ethical behavior. Consider these: My small effort won’t really make a difference. People may think badly of me. It’s hard to know the right thing to do. My pride gets in the way. It may hurt my career. It just went by too quickly. There’s a cost to doing the right thing.

Shanks goes on, “Now, how would you respond if your own children were the ones making these excuses for their behavior? Oh, Mom, what I do won’t really make a difference. Dad, I just didn’t know what to do. Grandma, my friends won’t like me. I won’t get invited to anybody’s home. I know I’ll just never date again.”

It has been awhile since I took that undergraduate ethics class, but with a small amount of refreshing, I became reacquainted with every manner of philosophical theory ever written by a long-dead guy on the subject. Immanuel Kant, wrote about our free will, which separates people from things. Moral behavior is that which does not inhibit or harm the free will of another individual. I am not sure how Kant would respond to the pregnant woman stuck in the cave, To blow her up would surely inhibit her free will, and we can safely assume that to not do so would inhibitthe free will of the tour group as they drown.

John Stuart Mill and Jeremy Bentham’s utilitarianism instructs us to choose the action which will provide the greater amount of good to the most people and will produce the least harm. Mill and Bentham would have us do away with the pregnant woman posthaste and allow the majority to survive.

Over 2,000 years ago, Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero all wrote of the common-good approach. Though less individualistic than the previous two, the common-good approach to ethical decision making calls us to reflect on our place within a society and asks us to consider how our actions and governmental policies affect everyone. This has proven to be a task easier said than done in a capitalist society, When the bottom dollar is the final word, usually the “haves” remain having and the “have- nots” continue to not have. While the Grecian greats make it sound good on paper, I am not sure that imperial antiquity was altogether that utopian, either.

However, Aristotle also wrote about another criteria by which we might base our morality- the justice approach. If we ask, “How fair is this action?,” we must analyze the level of discrimination or bias toward an individual or group over another before acting. This is an approach that is popular, at least in theory, with Unitarian Universalists, who pride ourselves on our social justice activism, leveling the playing field. Aristotle was right on to something when he said, “equals should be treated equally and unequals unequally.” I’ve observed the problem within UU ranks of a great denial with regard to who among us are treated unequally.

Although Unitarian Universalists don’t share a creed or a hard doctrine, we do have a set of guiding principles that each member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association agrees to affirm and promote. When misunderstood as a creed by another name, UU’s will often argue the exact language of the Seven Principles until they are blue in the face. The vague, poetic language of the Principles is not for everyone. But, what each of the Principles points to is a deeply held virtue that we do tend to have in common. More than any other technique, UU’s will often, over time, begin to employ a virtues approach to ethical decision making.

Our Seventh Principle refers to the “respect for the interconnected web of existence of which we are a part,” On Friday, I shed my skin as Rev, Mari and took on the role of Professor Hagrida, Chair of the Care of Magical Creatures department at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. I had a great time dressing up in a silly costume and leading five classes of campers in a spiderweb-weaving craft. I enjoyed telling the kids that spiders are magical creatures not only because they protect us from biting insects and produce silk, a material that has a strength-to-density ratio that exceeds that of steel. Spiders are magical because they spin webs to not only serve themselves, but to leave as reminders to witches and wizards, the only ones in the know to interpret such signs, that we are all connected. We are all part of an interconnected web of existence that we cannot see, we can only feel and acknowledge by our actions.

As I often do, I began to wonder about how and why we came to understand our interconnectedness through the metaphor of a web. Words intrigue me. Rev. Ann Schranz once preached, “I am not the first to note that spider webs exist as a way to trap tasty morsels of food. A web is a weapon. Also, the typical web exists on a plane; it is flat. There is no hierarchy of wholeness, not even a healthy hierarchy (in contrast to a “dominator hierarchy”). The philosopher Ken Wilber might call something like this “flatland.” I do not see myself as part of a “web” of existence. The “web” metaphor is not sophisticated enough to point to the nature of existence.” I don’t suffer from this same affliction, though I respect her opinion, As much as UU’s everywhere love a good semantics free-for-all, I’m not sure that we split hairs too much in Texas over poetic license. This is a place where we all know what someone means when they proclaim that, “That dog don’t hunt.” And we understand that when someone says that another city is, “not a far drive at all,” we should ring plenty of road snacks and leave first thing in the morning,

Nonetheless, curiosity led me to discover that a spider web as metaphor for our interconnectedness and implied ethical responsibility to each other and our world has no known origin. According to Fritjof Capra’s book, “The Web of Life: a New Scientific Understanding of Living Systems, “The “web of life” is, of course, an ancient idea, which has been used by poets, philosophers, and mystics throughout the ages to convey their sense of interwovenness and interdependence of all phenomena. One of the most beautiful expressions is found in the celebrated speech attributed to Chief Seattle,”

This we know, all things are connected like the blood which unites one family… Whatever befalls the earth, befalls the sons and daughters of the earth, [A person] did not weave the web of life; [they] are merely a strand in it, Whatever [they] do to the web, [they] do to [themselves.]

So, in this way, spiders really are magical creatures who leave reminders of our interconnectedness to those who know how to interpret their meaning. Not to beat this metaphor to death, because surely there are many flaws within it – poetry, after all, is not meant to be precise but to point us to a truth that we are then to discover for ourselves. But, if we are to understand ourselves as mere strands within the web of life, then each point of connection is as important as any other and each strand is crucial to the overall strength of the web.

Why, then, do we feel less of a moral obligation toward those across the world from us than those across the street? Moral psychologist Joshua Greene argues that the notion that morality is mostly common sense and following our gut instincts doesn’t work so well when we are considering a global ethics. Greene says that we are biologically and culturally wired to understand right from wrong with regard to our local group, our “tribe.”. In other words, “evolution didn’t equip us for modern judgements.” Our intuition is sewed to care more for those in close proximity and similarity to us. The farther away we perceive an ethical dilemma to be, the more unrealistic we believe our ability to effect change – or, the more “other” we imagine a people to be, the less likely we are to devote energy to acting. Our moral compasses seem to have a harder time navigating in an increasingly small world. Our brains seem more comfortable thinking in the “us vs. them” binary, despite the intentions of our bleeding hearts.

Enter, the world of Harry Potter. The character of J.K. Rowling’s creation and his trials at Hogwarts school reads like a modern-day morality play. Though not without flaws, Harry continually proves that, given the option, he will choose to do what’s right over what is easy.

This character’s example has inspired books, college courses, and serious academic analysis, In tier essay, “Moral Fibre and Outstanding Courage: Harry Potter’s Ethic of Courage as a Paradigm for the Muggle World,” Eliana Ionoaia writes, “Harry’s authentic courage comes from his valuing of other people’s lives even beyond his own; he feels strongly about his friends; he truly appreciates freedom, and seems to possess an inner compass pointing to justice.” Paradoxically, she points out that Potter’s tragic flaw lies in his difficulty in asking for help or vocalizing his own needs. He feels responsible to the web of life but does not feel worthy of being cared for in return. I’m sure this is relatable to many of us.

With such a fine example as the Harry Potter books toward virtues-based ethical decision making, it’s no wonder that our Hogwarts Camp UU has been such a success in teaching young campers what it means to be UU. In fact, “a study published in the journal of Applied Social Psychology found that J.K. Rowling’s books have been helping fight prejudice by altering young people’s perception towards stigmatized groups,” such as immigrants and LGBT people.

Ethical decision making is not something we finish learning about in adolescence, it is something that we must practice and explore until our last days. This year, Dr. Andy Gerhart will be teaching a course for adults based on the Tapestry of Faith curriculum, “What We Choose: Ethics for Unitarian Universalists.” This course will be offered on alternating Wednesday evenings, beginning September 17th. Keep your eyes out for more information in next month’s newsletter.

Perhaps our downfall has been the advent of the back-scratcher. We have become too independent and forgotten that we need one another, that we need to be taken care of as much as we need to take care of others. Thank goodness for spiderwebs and their reminder to the contrary. Thank goodness for all magical creatures and the lessons they teach us, including each and every one of us. May the magical creature in you thrive in this wonderful web of existence!

Podcasts of sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 14 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The Indexes link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.

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Rev. Marisol Caballero
July 27, 2014

When Theodore Parker said, “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe… but from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice,” he never could have imagined the current landscape of dialogue around gender equality.

Prayer

Oh, what a week in evening news!
Spirit of Life and Love,
God of many names,
Help us find a place of meaning
between disconnected apathy
and overwhelming helplessness.
Allow our ears to recognize that
Suffering knows no border,
Our voices of empathy and solidarity to be heard,
And our hands to be active in the cause for peace.
Open our eyes, also, to see the need for healing
In our neighbors and in ourselves, as well,
As we remind ourselves that we,
And our closest communities,
Are worthy of our time and concern.
In the name of all that is good, and holy, and true,
We pray.
Amen.

Sermon

If anyone has ever listened to a couple of my sermons or has spent more than five minutes talking to me, they will find a multitude of clues to the fact that I am a relatively unashamed pop culture junkie. I am fascinated by the ways in which and the speed with which the media influences all aspects of our lives- politics, our vocabulary, and even the price we pay for goods. Over time, even for the most disconnected, pop culture will inform how we think- what is funny, what infuriates us, even what is or is not relevant.

This is why, when I look around the world and in our backyard at all that women and girls continue to endure, I wonder what affect pop culture has had in it all. How is it, that 2014, saying the “F-word” is still so shocking? Yes, folks, I’m talking about the word, feminist. This isn’t exactly the crowd that would be too shocked by feminism, but something is amiss when in the first quarter of 2012,49 state legislatures had introduced 916 bills to restrict access to women’s health care. And, just this past April, an Equal Pay for Equal Work bill was defeated in the nation’s House. A week ago, I saw a photo online of a young woman holding a sign at a women’s healthcare rally, which read, “Didn’t my grandmother already have this conversation?” So true. What is happening?

A UU publishing house, Beacon Press, recently published a book by J. Jack Halberstam, a female-bodied professor of ethnic and gender studies at USC who happily occupies the ambiguous space between genders. The book is “Gaga Feminism: Sex, Gender, and the End of Normal” Halberstam introduces gaga feminism, a “feminism of the phony, the unreal, the speculative” that is inspired by pop icon performance artist and singer, Stefani Germanotta, known as Lady Gaga.

Halberstam says that, gaga feminism is “simultaneously a monstrous outgrowth of the unstable concept of “woman” in feminist theory, a celebration of the joining of femininity to artifice, and a refusal of the mushy sentimentalism that has been siphoned into the category of womanhood… [gaga feminism] does not simply tie feminism to a person or to a set of performances, rather it uses the meteoric rise to fame of Lady Gaga to hint at emerging formulations of gender politics for a new generation.”

Halberstam walks in the footsteps of generations of, “activists of all stripes and queer activists in particular [who] have always looked to pop culture for inspiration and have refused facile distinctions between culture and reality,” saying that, “Gaga is a hypothetical form of feminism, one that lives in between the “what” and the “if.”

I read Halberstam’s book thinking, “Yes, and… ?” Being inventive, creative, rejecting culturally imposed ideas of what is normal, sexy, or attractive sounds wonderful as a personal life choice or as an artistic conviction, but does it necessarily work as a political ideology? How does a hypothetical feminism combat an actual, to borrow the language of the media, worldwide political and household war on women? And, I question whether a new school of feminist thought should be inspired by a musical provocateur who has demonstrated a sadly poor understanding of the F-word, herself, as she was quoted as saying, “I’m not a feminist. I hail men, I love men, I celebrate American male culture – beer, bars, and muscle cars.” It’s disheartening to hear that the tired stereotype of feminists as man-haters still permeates after all of these generations.

She then turns around and makes statements such as, “When I say to you, there is nobody like me and there never was, that is a statement I want every woman to feel and make about themselves,” confusing all of us. Is she a feminist or not? Is the confusion part of the performance? After all, ambiguity and any form of attention getting combine to form the brand of performance art Lady Gaga is known for, moreso than her music that, on its own, does not carry a unique sound. Weird Al Yankovic satirized her dance ballad, “Born This Way,” with the lyrics, “I may be wearing swiss cheese or maybe covered in bees, it doesn’t mean I’m crazy, I perform this way.”

Another pop diva that has critics on the fence in understanding her as a true feminist or misguided opportunist is Beyonce Knowles Carter. Several months ago, Beyonce released a powerful, sex-positive album that surprised the world. She independently recorded and produced a full album, complete with music videos to a slack-jawed, stunned world that never saw it coming. The album is chocked full of unapologetic sexually explicit lyrics and images. One song, “Flawless,” was deemed Beyonce’s “Feminist Manifesto” by MSNBC’s Melissa Harris Perry because, during the track, audio from Nigerian author, Chimamanda Adichie’s Ted Talk entitled, “We Should All Be Feminists” was sampled. She speaks of how girls are taught to aspire to be someone’s wife, rather than to reach their fullest potential, while boys are encouraged to succeed. In the video, Beyonce, embodying her best butch persona, then mocks that expectation of marriage and physical beauty by singing, “My diamond, this diamond, my rock, this rock… tell ’em I woke up like this.” Feminist columnist Jessica Valenti, a panelist on Harris Perry’s show predicted that this would be the “album that will launch a thousand women’s studies papers.”

A few years ago, she released a song which asked “Who Run the World?” and answered, definitively, “Girls.” She “raises a glass for college grads” and then, in the next verse, seemingly advocates for women using their sexual prowess toward manipulation. These contradictions are what have old-school feminists, myself sometimes included, taught to reject the objectification of the male gaze, confused by today’s pop stars that are hailed as champions of women, which in turn, confuses young, would-be feminists into a rejection of the F-word.

After the release of Beyonce’s surprise album, Adichie asserted in an interview,

If a woman is sexually overt is she still feminist?

Whoever says they’re feminist is bloody feminist. And I just feel like we live in a world where more people need to be saying it and we shouldn’t be looking to pull people out of the feminist party. And I think the reason I find myself reacting so strongly to questions offemale sexuality is … there’s something very disturbing to me about the idea that a woman’s sexuality somehow is not hers. So when certain feminists who will say, it’s about the male gaze, it’s for the man, there [is] a kind of a self-censoring about that that’s similar to what they’re fighting.

So as long as women have the choice … why shouldn’t women own their sexuality? Why shouldn’t a woman who does whatever with her sexuality identify as feminist? I’ve just always found that very troubling. It’s almost unfeminist to make that argument that if you shake your booty, you’re not feminist.

But I’m thinking, well, do you want to shake your booty? Shouldn’t you have your choice to shake your booty? … 1 want us to raise girls differently where boys and girls start to see sexuality as something that they own, rather than something that a boy takes from a girl.

Here’s where I admit- First off, how cool is it to belong to a faith tradition in which we can legitimately and openly allow our faith to be informed by such figures as Lady Gaga & Beyonce! And secondly, I should tell you that I am not really a fan of Lady Gaga and I am a fan of Beyonce, so there is a bias there that I cannot avoid easily, but I do see many similarities in the debate surrounding their feminism. Perhaps, whether or not women in the spotlight identify as feminists matters less than if they are showing others the value of female artistic autonomy, the chance to define who you are. This is, sadly, still an act that is still to be considered as transgressive, both for the famous and the anonymous woman.

Why should we care about the celebrities whose names are tossed around in contemporary feminist debate? Well, for one, the complexity of the conversation around contemporary feminisms points to the complexities of current misogynies. Not all oppression of women comes packaged in the obvious with restrictive health care laws that define conception as the beginning of life. These days, young men are feeling freer to use misogyny as a cheap laugh and call it irony, but there is a fine line, indeed, between what is well-done satire that will point out the absurdity in hatred and what is actually hate speech disguised as irony. This brand of mistreatment of women has been dubbed “hipster misogyny,” as a nod to Lindy West’s now famous 2012 article on the feminist site, Jezebel, “A Complete Guide to Hipster Racism.”

Alisa Quart writes in New Yorker Magazine, “Like Hipster Racism, Hipster Sexism is a distancing gesture, a belief that simply by applying quotations, uncool, questionable, and even offensive material about women can be alchemically transformed.” Now, instead of solely relying on the classic sexist approaches of interpersonal sexual harassment and cat-calls and institutionalized glass ceilings with unequal pay, we now must also confront the attitude of the dismissive and extra-hurtful, “Relax, it’s just a joke!”

In an editorial piece on the firing of misogynist extraordinaire, Dov Charney, former CEO of American Apparel, Tom Hawking reminds us that, “It’s not like misogynist culture ever really went away, of course – a trip to any sort of frat party will be enough to remind you of this. But in the late ’90S and early ‘0 as, it was cast as something transgressive, a daring reaction against politically correct orthodoxy. Look, we’re being sexist assholes! Aren’t we daring! If you don’t like it, you’re just a square! And, of course, there was always the ubiquitous defense of irony – no, look, we’re getting drunk and harassing women, but we’re doing it ironically! a special sort of cynicism: the nihilistic appropriation of misogyny for personal gain, dressed up in a pretense of irony and satire.”

It is this brand of humor that leaves me unable to stomach such shows as “Family Guy” and such movies as “The Hangover,” but turning a blind eye to the increasing complexities of emerging misogynies and the feminisms that emerge to combat it does nothing to effect positive change. If we are to understand ourselves as helping to bend the moral arc of the universe toward justice, then we must notice where love and acceptance is losing its foothold, including and especially instances when we are a part of it. We should endeavor to understand why rape jokes are laughed at and why young women feel that shocking, grotesque, or hyper-sexualized imagery by pop stars is liberating. We must, for lack of a better description, go gaga.

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 14 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The Indexes link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Marisol Caballero
June 22, 2014

A recent article in the UU World magazine by Doug Muder, entitled, “I Don’t ‘Believe in’ the Seven Principles,” brought up the difference between a belief and a vision. This assertion has the potential to change the way we as UUs respond to the often-asked question, “What do Unitarian Universalists believe?” What about some of the other terms that we use casually to talk about our faith? What might they truly mean to us?

Call to Worship
By Amy Bowden Freedman

Once more, the earth has turned toward the light of the sun.
As we are bathed in the light of a new day,
So may we greet the dawning of fresh possibility.

Once more, we awaken from our slumber.
As our bodies rise
To meet the challenges and pleasures of living,
So may our hearts and minds open with promise.

Once more, we gather for worship.
As we join our voices in word and song,
So may this assembly bring forth wholeness.

Come, let us worship.

Reading
“You Get Used to It” by Barbara Merritt

How many Unitarian Universalists does it take to change a light bulb in our congregation? Answer: none. We don’t change light bulbs. It is easy enough for us to sit in the darkness and remember the light of the past. As we honor the memory of a former brilliance, our task is to live within the confines and limitations of today.

True story. When I arrived in 1983, I was told that the lights under the sanctuary balcony didn’t work, never had worked, and couldn’t be fixed. It was not a big deal.

We have few services in the evenings, and there are plenty of lights in that sacred space that do work.

Only our new sexton, Ron Lundin, did not believe that they were forever broken. He decided to investigate. He took off the glass plate and found a thick, dark coating of dust and dirt.

He thought, “There’s no way it could just be the light bulbs, but I’ll put in a fresh one, just to see what happens.” And then the miracle occurred, “and there was light and it was good.”

Incredulous, he changed the bulbs in the other six fixtures, and light poured forth.

Apparently, the bulbs had burned out in 1939, and no one ever changed them. The dust he removed from the recesses was in place when Hitler invaded Poland and John Steinbeck published The Grapes of Wrath. We don’t know whether the seven bulbs burned out all at once or flickered off one at a time. In either case, someone decided the fixtures didn’t function, and that transmitted wisdom left us in the dark.

Many years ago I faced a similar situation at the parsonage where I lived in Illinois.

For five years, as I had washed dishes, I had stared out of a smudged, streaked, grimy kitchen window. ecause the window had been painted shut for decades, I accustomed myself to looking through the gray film. Then along came a professional painter, and not knowing the limitations of my world, he hit the window rim with a hammer. He “unstuck it” and took out the storm windows. The panes were washed and put back. The task required a total of twenty minutes.

For five years, I resigned myself to the inevitability of blurred vision. Sometimes we settle too quickly for “seeing through a glass darkly.” Sometimes the clarity and illumination we seek is close at hand. Conditions can change. Windows can open.

We just need to stop believing that we already have enough light.

Sermon “What Does it All Mean?”

“A lifelong unchurched man suddenly develops a vague religious urge and decides to join a church – any church. So he sets out to find one.

His first stop is a Roman Catholic church where he asks what he has to do to join.

The priest mentions diligent study and the affirmation of the Nicene and Apostles’ Creeds, then – just to see how much the man knows – asks him where Jesus was born.

“Pittsburgh,” he answers. “Get out!” cries the shocked priest.

Next stop is Southern Baptist where the seeker is told he would have to learn Bible verses, swear belief in the Nicene and Apostles’ creeds, swear off booze, and be baptized (“By immersion, not just some sissy sprinklin”). The Baptist preacher then, to see how much this man knows, asks him where Jesus was born. “Philadelphia?” he asks tentatively (once bitten, twice shy). “Get out, you heathen!” yells the preacher.

Our perplexed protagonist finally walks into a Unitarian church where he is told all he has to do is sign a membership card. “You mean I don’t have to renounce anything, swear to anything, or be dunked in anything?” “That’s right. We have no special tests for membership, no dogma. We support total individual freedom of belief.” “Then I’ll join! But tell me – where was Jesus born?” “Why, Bethlehem, of course.” The man’s face lights up. “I knew it was some place in Pennsylvania!”(http://stoney.sb.org/uujokes)

The biggest fallacy in explaining Unitarian Universalism is to say that, as UU’s, we can “believe whatever we want” because we don’t require a creedal test for membership in our churches. While we don’t have a set doctrine or a singular holy book, this is far from true. I remember a colleague telling me years ago about her time spent organizing a campus ministry program at an east coast university. The Campus Crusaders for Christ group had plastered the campus with posters about their meetings that read, “You’ve got questions? We’ve got answers.” So, the fledgling UU student group made posters, too. “You’ve got answers? We’ve got questions!” Certainty of theological belief is not the greatest gift of the religious liberal.

But, we have all found ourselves in this same position: someone who cannot pronounce the name of our church cocks their head to the side and asks with a skeptical tone, “If you don’t all believe in God or Jesus or the Bible, what do you believe in?” Well, here at First UU Church of Austin, we often lean against our mission statement as an explanation, which does say a good deal about what we come here to do, but it doesn’t talk about belief.

I remember explaining UUism to the mother of a teen patient when I was a hospital chaplain in San Francisco, years ago. From our previous conversation, I could tell she had very little experience of the world outside of the small town they had been transported from, and so, to answer her questions, I remember using a less eloquent, less concise version of what we stand for and believe, but with a similar gist of our mission statement we use here. She smiled and nodded and then informed me enthusiastically that the kind of church I am describing is called “born again” and that she had attended one before.

It’s true. I had described to her any other church that endeavors to create loving community and effect positive change in the world, as they see it.

More often, my “UU elevator speech,” or nutshell description of our faith, will include a vague summary of some of our Seven Principles, such as “we believe that everyone is worthy of respect and dignity and should be supported in their search for truth, wherever that journey takes them.”

Of course, this is much too oversimplified and I often leave those sorts of conversations with feelings of inadequacy. I imagine the frustration newbies, who didn’t grow up UU or spend a decade preparing for ministry or who don’t own shelves of books on the subject might feel in a similar situation.

In the most recent issue of the UU World magazine, Doug Muder writes an article entitled, “I Don’t ‘Believe in’ the Seven Principles,” in which he talks about this experience:

” …If you’ve ever tried to present the Principles to creed-seeking newcomers} you’ve probably seen their disappointment. “And?” their expressions seem to ask.

The Principles fail as a creed because they’re too easy. Billions of people who literally would not want to be caught dead in a UU church can nod along with them. Take the Second Principle: ‘Justice, equity, and compassion in human relations.” Does some other religion take a bold stand,for injustice in human relations? People may argue what ‘Justice” means, but everybody is for it.

The Principles are littered with feel-good terms like that: “spiritual growth,” “democratic process,” “search for truth and meaning,” “world community,” “peace, “liberty. If all Unitarian Universalism wants you to do is approve of such concepts, it’s not very demanding, is it?

So, taken as a creed, the Principles define a religion just one step up from “Believe whatever you want.” Believe a few really easy things, and beyond that, believe whatever you want.

Now, I love our Principles. Though they lack the ability to comfort me in trying times, I have returned to their poetic language time and time again to draw inspiration. I am proud to be UU every time a read them, and I adore the debate-rich process by which they were lovingly authored over the years.

I had no idea what to expect from Muder’s article, but it acted on me and my difficulty in articulating our core beliefs as the light bulb-changing sexton and the window-cleaning painter did in today’s reading. The missing puzzle piece had been right in front of me the whole time.

Margaret Fuller once said, “Cherish your best hopes as a faith, and abide by them in action.” Muder asserts that in thinking of the Principles as beliefs, we have been getting it all wrong. Instead, we should understand and explain them as visions that can guide our actions. “That’s how the Seven Principles turn into a challenging spiritual path,” he says.

To believe something is to accept it as fact and so, in his admittedly blunt tone, Muder points out that none of what is listed in the Principles actually exists. You can’t take a photo or measure the interdependent web and the inherent worth and dignity of every person is surely not always observable, even within these walls.

Now, where the light shone through was in noticing the huge distinction between “belief” and “vision.” I may not believe that the “right of conscience” already exists everywhere, but I can do my part to envision and act its reality into existence.

I have heard this critique from some whom, though belonging to other faith traditions, are familiar with our faith, “Unitarian Universalism is mainly for folks who like to name drop all of the famous people who were Unitarian or Universalist who did great things, but not really have to engage in doing great things, themselves.” Though I did quote Margaret Filler earlier, this is not a completely fair criticism, considering that, for our relative small numbers, UUs are generally loud and proud when it comes to many social issues. But, I can see how attention paid to our haughtiness over the giants of our past can distract us from a deeper engagement and exploration of such terms as “belief” and “vision.”

This may seem like a bit of nit-picky semantics, but don’t UUs live for this sort of thing? It took over twenty years of drafts and debates before the current version of our Principles and Sources were agreed upon in 1984. But, what we know to be true is that words matter. When the Girl’s School of Austin was renting the church, I noticed that one classroom had a reminder posted, “Before you speak: Is it true? Is it kind? Is it helpful?”

The truth is, as Muder says, “truths can take care of themselves.” If something simply is, no further work is required of us. “On a Sunday morning, I can believe just as well in my pajamas… as I can at a Unitarian Universalist worship service.” This is where the once dim and dingy Principles become illuminated. The UUA bylaws require us to reexamine the language of the Principles every fifteen years, yet they have remained largely unchanged for thirty years. This is because the current language of this sacred, living document already has so much to work with, if we change the way we think and talk about them. Imagine if we were known for envisioning the world we hope for into reality instead of wishy-washy “beliefs.” Imagine if “affirming and promoting” meant to us a charge for our daily lives, rather than (if we’re honest) a self-righteous manifesto that we can nod our heads to.

To change the way we think and speak of our Principles as visions, rather than beliefs, is to shift our reliance from ourselves and our heads- where we can often get stuck – into a more demanding reliance on each other’s hearts and hands, to work toward the world the Principles envision in community. Here at First UU Austin, our Values, Mission, and Ends document (available online and in hard-copy in the mailroom) together with our Covenant of Healthy Relations is practically a how-to manual for envisioning our Principles into reality. Our Covenant is as much a means of keeping ourselves accountable to each other, as it is a means of keeping others accountable to us. In this way, this faith of ours requires more commitment of us than the recitation of any creed could. We don’t have to search long to find more “there there.”

In 1979, then president of the Unitarian Universalist Association said, “The old watchwords of liberalism – freedom, reason, tolerance – worthy though they may be, are simply not catching the imagination of the contemporary world. They describe a process for approaching the religious depths, but they testify to no intimate acquaintance with the depths themselves. If we are ever to speak to a new age, we must supplement our seeking with some profound religious finds.” Personally, I think we may be onto something good.

Podcasts of sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 14 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The Indexes link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.

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Marisol Caballero
May 25, 2014

We join in this much-loved tradition of Flower Communion that celebrates beauty, diversity, and uniqueness in community.

Call to Worship
By Thomas Rhodes

We come in a variety of colors, shapes, and sizes.
Some of us grow in bunches.
Some of us grow alone.
Some of us are cupped inward,
And some of us spread ourselves out wide.
Some of us are old and dried and tougher than we appear.
Some of us are still in bud.
Some of us grow low to the ground, And some of us stretch toward the sun.
Some of us feel like weeds, sometimes.
Some of us carry seeds, sometimes.
Some of us are prickly, sometimes.
Some of us smell.
And all of us are beautiful.
What a bouquet of people we are!

Reading: “For the Flowers Have the Gift of Language” 
Reginald Zottoli

Speak, flowers, speak!
Why do you say nothing?
The flowers have the gift of language. In the meadow they speak of freedom,
Creating patterns wild and free as no gardener could match.
In the forest they nestle, snug carpets under the roof of
Leaf and branch, making a rug of such softness.
At end tip of branches they cling briefly
Before bursting into fruit sweet to taste.

Flowers, can you not speak joy to our sadness?
And hope to our fear?
Can you not say how it is with you
That you color the darkest corner?

The flowers have the gift of language.
At the occasion of birth they are buds before bursting.
At the ceremony of love they unite two lovers in beauty.
At the occasion of death, they remind us how lovely is life.

Oh, would that you had voice,
Silent messengers of hope.
Would that you could tell us how you feel,
Arrayed in such beauty.

The flowers have the gift of language.
In the dark depths of a death camp
They speak the light of life.
In the face of cruelty
They speak of courage.
In the experience of ugliness
They bespeak the persistence of beauty.

Speak, messengers, speak!
For we would hear your message.
Speak, messengers, speak!
For we need to hear what you would say.

For the flowers have the gift oflanguage:
They transport the human voice on winds of beauty;
They lift the melody of song to our ears;
They paint through the eye and hand of the artist;
Their fragrance binds us to sweet-smelling earth.

May the blessing of the flowers be upon you.
May their beauty beckon to you each morning
And their loveliness lure you each day,
And their tenderness caress you each night.
May their delicate petals make you gentle,
And their eyes make you aware.
May their stems make you sturdy,
And their reaching make you care.

Introduction to Flower Communion

The Unitarian Universalist Flower Communion service which we are about to celebrate was originated in 1923 by Rev. Dr. Norbert Capek founder of the modern Unitarian movement in Czechoslovakia. On the last Sunday before the summer recess of the Unitarian church in Prague, all the children and adults participated in this colorful ritual, which gives concrete expression to the humanity-affIrming principles of our liberal faith. When the Nazis took control of Prague in 1940, they found Capek’s gospel of the inherent worth and beauty of every human person to be – as Nazi court records show– ” …too dangerous to the Reich [for him] to be allowed to live.” Capek was sent to Dachau, where he was killed the next year during a Nazi “medical experiment.” This gentle man suffered a cruel death, but his message of human hope and decency lives on through his Flower Communion, which is widely celebrated today. It is a noble and meaning-fIlled ritual we are about to recreate. This service includes the original prayers of Capek to help us remember the principles and dreams for which he died.

Consecration of Flowers 
by Norbert Capek

InfInite Spirit of Life, we ask thy blessing on these, thy messengers of fellowship and love. May they remind us, amid diversities of knowledge and of gifts, to be one in desire and affection, and devotion to thy holy will. May they also remind us of the value of comradeship, of doing and sharing alike. May we cherish friendship as one of thy most precious gifts. May we not let awareness of another’s talents discourage us, or sully our relationship, but may we realize that, whatever we can do, great or small, the efforts of all of us are needed to do thy work in this world.

Prayer

Spirit of all Life and of Love,
God of many names,
We pray that we can be more like flowers,
Whose delicate beauty and soft petals
Remind us that we are sensitive, permeable beings.

We pray that we can be more like flowers,
whose strength can sometimes endure
nuclear devastation and deep arctic freezes.

We pray that we can be more like flowers,
On this Memorial Day weekend
Who mourn death by celebrating beauty
And comfort survivors
With the hope of new life.

We do pray that we can be more like flowers,
Whose too-soon fading beauty
Remind us that life is too short
to choose anything but joy and love.

May we bless creation in these same ways.
Amen.

Sermon “The Lessons of Flowers”

Today we are celebrating all that flowers can teach us. Every year, we know that warmer days are ahead when we begin to see fIelds of bluebonnets on the side of the freeways. They remind us that we live in a beautiful place and that, just like we like to do the same things every year, such as today’s ritual of Flower Communion, Nature has its own rituals to celebrate when spring arrives.

We often celebrate all of the things we can learn indoors. We go to school and read big books, or we sit at our computers and spend the day bookmarking and reposting any article that we fInd particularly interesting. And, while most of us will readily confess our love for the outdoors, especially when we have had weather as beautiful as we’ve had lately, we don’t often realize all of the lessons that Nature has taught us. So today, on the day that we enjoy our beloved Flower Communion, let’s think about some of the ways that flowers teach us the important things about life. Afterall, William Wordsworth, himself, said in his poem, The Tables Turned,

Books! ’tis a dull and endless strife:
Come, hear the woodland linnet,
How sweet his music! on my life,
There’s more of wisdom in it.

And hark! how blithe the throstle sings!
He, too, is no mean preacher:
Come forth into the light of things,
Let Nature be your teacher.

She has a world of ready wealth,
Our minds and hearts to bless-
Spontaneous wisdom breathed by health,
Truth breathed by cheerfulness.

One impulse from a vernal wood
May teach you more of man,
Of moral evil and of good,
Than all the sages can.

Sweet is the lore which Nature brings;
Our meddling intellect
Mis-shapes the beauteous forms of things:
We murder to dissect.

Enough of Science and of Art;
Close up those barren leaves;
Come forth, and bring with you a heart
That watches and receives.

In a moment, you’ll all be invited to come up and select a flower that is not the one you brought with you. When you hold it gently in your hand, I hope you’ll do so “with a heart that watches and receives” the lessons it has to teach you.

There are some things we already know about flowers. Let’s hear you shout out some of the things you know about flowers….

I often say that every age has wisdom in it. Babies have a way of learning that is inaccessible to adults, except for the most genius of geniuses. Kids have imaginations that can help solve problems in ways that grown-ups might never imagine. Teens often have ways of changing the world that take older generations many years to catch up to or even notice that change has happened around them. Adults do a great job, most of the time, in teaching pragmatism and common sense. And our elders teach us patience and a new way of enjoying life and rolling with the punches.

It’s interesting to me that, if we look hard enough, if we really pay attention, we can learn all ofthese same lessons and more from flowers, too! Here are a few of them:

Keep pushing until you break through.
All flowers were once seeds. Although it is probably beyond their wildest dreams that someday they would be tall, and beautiful, and fragrant, they persevere through what sometimes seems like impossible odds, they just keep on pushing through the dirt Ulltil they see the light of day. They teach us that we have to get through the dirty parts of life and work hard in order to realize our full potential.

Face in the direction of the sun.
No matter where the sun is in the sky, flowers will tum their faces in the sun’s direction. In this way, they teach us that we always have a choice – we could either look at the gloomy side of things, or we could spend our days looking on the bright side. Sometimes, this is hard to do. Bad things do happen. People get sick and sometimes die. Natural disasters and poverty leave people homeless. I’m sure you can think of bad things that have happened to you and your loved ones.

Sometimes it’s not only ok, but extremely appropriate to be angry or sad, but what flowers teach us about this is that we should not get stuck there. Even if it takes some time, we should seek joy in our lives.

If you need help, ask a bee.
Many types of flowers could not survive without a little help from their friends. In order to make new buds, flowers must ask bees and other insects or birds to help them pollinate. They do this in many ways. Some of them decorate their petals with bright stripes so that the bees will know exactly where to land. Some of them will even disguise themselves to look and smell like rotting meat to attract flies over. Others will pretend to be a female bee so that the male bee will want to come over and get a closer look. They have all kinds of clever ways of asking for help.

Sometimes it’s hard for us to ask for help. Sometimes we’d rather do things ourselves. Independence is ok, just as long as our stubborn independence doesn’t make us forget that we are actually all interdependent. We rely on each other more than we realize. There will be times for all of us that we’ll need to ask for help. There will be friends of ours, during those times, that will get a great deal of joy out of being able to be there to assist us, too.

Smelling good doesn’t hurt.
First impressions do matter. Flowers understand this better than most. They spend time becoming beautiful as they bloom, but many of them also smell great. For thousands of years, people have been adorning themselves with wreathes of flowers and with perfumes made from their oils to emulate their sweet presentation. It is a lesson that flowers continue to teach us- the way others experience us, our appearance our cleanliness, our manners, has a lasting effect. Taking the time to put our best foot forward does payoff in our personal and professional lives. We don’t want to give a stinking impression.

Rain has its bonuses.
Rainy days can spoil our fun. We usually have to cancel or change our plans. We might feel a bit drowsy as the day goes along. We may not remember how it feels here in Austin, but when we have many, many days in a row of rainy weather, our bodies begin to crave sUllshine. We may begin to feel down in the dumps because of it. Many sad songs and poems talk about rain. Rain imagery is easily recognizable as a common symbol for depression.

But, rain is not all gloom. Flowers couldn’t bloom without it. The same goes with our tough days. Some of the best lessons I’ve learned, that have made me a much better person, have happened because of my most diffIcult days. Sometimes, the worst of times can also be, in ways that cannot be imagined when we are in the thick of it, the best of times, too. Next time you fInd yourself in the midst of a struggle, just think, “Here comes another bloomin’ growth opportunity.”

Grow roots where the soil is nourishing.
Flowers know how to play the hand they were dealt. If conditions aren’t exactly right, the seed will not make a go of it. They like to make their homes in a welcoming, nourishing environment, which sometimes happens to be in a crack in the sidewalk. I think I know some people like that, myself!

This is a great lesson for people. We should care enough about ourselves, our health, and our longevity to surround ourselves with people and conditions that will nourish our growth. We should stop trying to thrive in unhealthy environments. This may be the toughest lesson to learn. It’s so hard to recognize when the ways in which we relate to friends or family members is unhealthy. It’s agony to decide when a relationship has run its course. It’s hard to know exactly when to leave a job that is unfulfIlling or move across the country to a city that is a better fit. The good news it, for every flower, there is a happy spot that can suit them perfectly, sometimes it just takes some caring gardeners.

If you find yourself in winter, hang in there. Spring is awesome.
As I mentioned earlier, sometimes nasty weather in our lives lasts longer than we would like. Most flowers die out in winter, but something to always keep in mind is the promise of spring. Life is filled with cycles. The dips usually swing back up, with a good attitude, perseverance, and a strong support network. Come spring, there will be flowers a-plenty!

Flowers can teach us all these lessons, and many more, if we simply slow down and take the time to… You know what they say!

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 14 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The Indexes link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.

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Rev. Marisol Caballero
January 26, 2014

Many of us are already mired in self-judgment over our “failure” to keep our New Year’s resolutions. What do our Sources have to say about goal-setting and personal criticism?

Call to worship

As we enter into worship, put away the pressures of the world that ask us to perform, to take up masks, to put on brave fronts.

Silence the voices that ask you to be perfect.

This is a community of compassion and welcoming.

You do not have to do anything to earn the love contained within these walls.

You do not have to be braver, smarter, stronger, better than you are in this moment to belong here, with us.

You only have to bring the gift of your body,
no matter how able;
your seeking mind,
not matter how busy;
your animal heart,
no matter how broken.

Bring all that you are, and all that you love, to this hour together. Let us worship together.

Erika A. Hewitt

Reading “It’s Time Somebody Told You”
by Barbara Merritt

Now I’m not one for “affirmations.” Saying something doesn’t make it so. But recently a dear friend of mine read to me some affecting lines from an unknown author. They went something like this:

It’s time somebody told you that you are lovely, good, and real; that your beauty can make hearts stand still. It’s time somebody told you how much they love and needyou, how much your spirit helped set them free, how your eyes shinefull oflight. It’s time somebody told you.

As these words were read, I found a complex internal process going on within me. I was touched, unnerved, and a little sad that I hadn’t heard these words as a child. But mostly I became conscious of enormous resistance. Something in me was not ready to let these words in. It could be that I was not quite ready to hear such positive feedback. Maybe it wasn’t yet the right time to receive love and affection. But apparently, at least one friend thought that now was a good time to attend to what is essential and life-giving. Often we are too busy, too distracted, to listen to what our loved ones have to tell us. They offer all kinds of radical and startling opinions about our place in the divine scheme of things. Messages that I can almost hear include:

“It’s time someone told you that with all your flaws and weaknesses, you are an extraordinary person, well-worth knowing. No one- especially not God or the people who love you- expects you to live without making mistakes or stumbling occasionally. It’s time that you looked at your own life with more kindness, gentleness, and mercy.”

“It’s time someone told you that you are not on this earth to impress anyone, to dazzle us with your success, to conquer all obstacles with your competence, or to offer one brilliant solution after another. We are happy you are here with the rest of us struggling souls. We are all striving to be as faithful as we can be to the truth that we understand. No more is required.”

“It’s time someone told you that the work you do to increase your capacity to love and to pay more attention is more important than any other activity. As you advance closer to what is ultimately true and life-giving, you bless others.”

“It’s time somebody told you how absolutely beautiful your laughter is. You bring joy into our world.”

Just possibly, messages of love and acceptance have always been circulating in our midst. The hard part is not seeking out these positive and creative affirmations that remind us that we are loved. The hard part is taking in the love.

It’s time someone told us all that we are valued and infinitely worthwhile.

And it’s time we believed it.

Sermon “Resolution Disillusion”

At the beginning of last week, my fiance and I dutifully drove directly from work to the gym, changed into stretchy fabrics, and climbed the stairs to the yoga studio.

The last time I had been in that room, I was hard to find a spot for my mat, but this time, we had a run of the place and could stretch out as much as we wanted. The instructor looked around the room and declared, “Well, I guess the resolutions are over!”

I must admit to a bit of a self-important satisfaction at that moment. I am a recovering overachiever who likes to think of herself as a good student. But, I am not sure if it was, necessarily, any amount of steady devotion to a champagnedriven, December 31st promise to myself that had brought me to the gym after a long day and an even longer week. It was, more likely, the thought of wedding day photos that are a mere nine months away that has kept me in sneakers this far into January. It’s not so much that I’m a diligent student, it turns out I’m just vain!

And now, I had my moment of raw honesty, so I’d like to ask those of you who made some sort of New Year’s resolution to raise your hands. Don’t worry, I won’t be asking if you’ve stuck to them.

I nearly always make New Year’s resolutions. And, according to a study published in the Journal ofCUnical Psychology, I’m in good company with 50% of Americans also claiming to make these nearly unattainable goals. The most popular are exercise, weight loss, smoking cessation, “better money management and debt reduction.” Mainly easy stuff like that…

But, unattainable, you ask? Yes, if the Wall Street Journal is to be believed, 88% of those who make such resolutions will fail. Looking back on my many years of resolution-setting, I would guess that my failure percentage is higher than 88. And, wanting to have the satisfaction of knowing that I’ve truly followed through on a promise to myself, and having wanted to not only succeed but also exceed my goal, I always end up feeling as if I am somehow deficient. Don’t worry, by now I’m great at talking myself off of that ledge, but I wanted to say this because I think that this is a fairly common human experience.

Neurologists are saying that there is science behind our inability to follow through on resolutions. The part of our brain that handles willpower is our prefrontal cortex, which sits behind our forehead. According to Jonah Lehrer, Neuroscientist and author of How We Decide and Proust was a Neuroscientist, this area of the brain has come far since our knuckle-dragging days, but it probably hasn’t expanded enough during evolution to meet the challenges of the 21st Century and handle the self-judgment and pressure that goes along with creating New Year’s Resolutions.

We know, through science that this prefrontal cortex is already working quite hard at any given moment on any given day, as it is responsiqle for “keeping us focused, handling short-term memory and solving abstract problems.” He says, “asking it to lose weight (one of the most common New Year’s resolutions] is often asking it to do one thing too many.” “The spirit is strong, but the flesh is weak,” as they say …

Most of us, myself included, are so mired in self-judgment that we hear such things and think, “Excuses, excuses. So the part of the brain that controls willpower has its hands full with other tasks, somebody call the waaa-mbulance- waa, waa, waa, waa …” Ok, maybe that’s just me. Maybe I binge-watch Modern Family a little too much while snacking on sugary foods instead of eating fruit salad as a reward after a hard workout at the gym.

Or, it’s also possible that I am being hard on myself, should listen to science, and reframe the whole experience. Again, I reckon I’m not alone here. These thoughts sound silly and irrational when spoken aloud, but I would venture to guess that most of our internal dialogue would.

Lehrer acknowledges that, “There’s something unsettling about this scientific model of willpower. Most of us assume that self-control is largely a character issue, and that we would follow through on our New Year’s resolutions if only we had a bit more discipline. But… research suggests that willpower itself is inherently limited, and that our January promises fail in large part because the brain wasn’t built for success.”

That last sentence blew my mind. The brain isn’t built for success? Then, what are we all doing? This makes me want to grow out a beard and never wear shoes again, or at least never have to tie the shoelaces when I do.

Psychology professor Peter Herman echoes this. “(He] and his colleagues have identified what they call the “false hope syndrome,” which means their resolution is significantly unrealistic and out of alignment with their internal view of themselves. This principle reflects that of making positive affirmations. When you make positive affirmations about yourself that you don’t really believe, the positive affirmations not only don’t work, they can be damaging to your self-esteem.”

So, the lesson is, we should significantly lower our expectations of ourselves so that we aren’t sad when we fail to achieve such goals? I’m, sure that, to a room full of Unitarian Universalists, who are typically high-achieving goal-setters, this sounds like the sort of attitudes that other countries laugh about when they caricature Americans as an emotionally fragile, ego-centered culture that insists on celebrating mediocrity- the inventors of the” everyone-gets-an-award -simply- for- participating” blue ribbon.

Thankfully, the researchers didn’t stop there. They haven’t all “tuned in, turned on, and dropped out.” Instead, many have saved the world (or, at least, this congregation) from such a fate, as well. Lehrer insists that the prefrontal cortex can be strengthened much like a muscle. All right, I’ll add that to my growing list of “problem areas” to tone up! Not necessarily. He suggests that, if we approach goals in bite-sized, attainable pieces, instead of creating huge and sweeping, abstract goals, we have a better chance at success, as, “practicing mental discipline in one area, such as posture, can also make it easier to resist Christmas cookies.” When our willpower brain-muscle is stronger, we become more skillful at exercising willpower. We create brand-new neural pathways.

An editorial in Psychology Today offers practical tips:

1. Focus on one resolution, rather several;

2. Set realistic, specific goals. Losing weight is not a specific goal. Losing 10 pounds in 90 days would be;

3. Don’t wait till New Year’s Eve to make resolutions. Make it a year long process, every day;

4. Take small steps. Many people quit because the goal is too big requiring too big a step all at once;

5. Have an accountability buddy, someone close to you that you have to report to;

6. Celebrate your success between milestones. Don’t wait the goal to be finally completed;

7. Focus your thinking on new behaviors and thought patterns. You have to create new neural pathways in your brain to change habits;

8. Focus on the present. What’s the one thing you can do today, right now, towards your goal?

9. Be mindful. Become physically, emotionally and mentally aware of your inner state as each external event happens, moment-by-moment, rather than living in the past or future.

And finally, don’t take yourself so seriously. Have fun and laugh at yourself when you slip, but don’t let the slip hold you back from working at your goal.

Science is great. And, learning about how our own brains work against us, setting us up for New Year’s resolution (and goal-setting in general) failure does help me to forgive myself, to a degree.

But we are more than just our intellectual understanding of our physiology. We are spiritual beings that, underneath the vanity and internalized societal pressure, have deep, unmet spiritual needs buried underneath each of our New Year’s resolutions. Underneath a goal of weight loss is usually the need to be loved and accepted just as we are. Underneath the goal of debt reduction may, be the spiritual need to demonstrate our love for others, as we desire to provide for our families and children’s future. And, underneath the goal of quitting damaging habits such as smoking may be the human spiritual need of reconciliation, as we hope to make right years of damage done.

One of the most difficult lessons for me to learn while a student chaplain in a hospital setting, and one I believe I will continue to learn and re-Iearn throughout my life, is the notion that, “whatever the situation, know that you are enough.” I rebelled with every fiber of my being against this. And yet, my professors would say, “It’s true. No matter how inadequate you might feel, no matter how much you believe that your presence in a situation is of little consequence. You are always enough. The authentic “you” that you bring is enough. It is enough because it is all that you can possibly be and do.” I still wonder about the truth in this, yet I know that most of what that heavily-accented, six-foot-something German “Yoda,” my supervisor, Rev. Birte Beuck, said contained wisdom that I will spend the rest of my life unpacking. It certainly didn’t feel like I was enough when I stood at the bedside of a family whose one-year old baby girl had just died in their arms after several months’ hospitalization, and there I was, unable to speak the indigenous language of their tribe and culture that they had left behind in the mountains of Mexico for a better life in the United States.

The notion of Loving-kindness, of extending love to oneself and others by way of practicing kindness and empathy, is one that is found in many religious traditions.

In the Jewish tradition, the Hebrew word, chesed, appears in Psalm 47, which can be translated as, “Whoso is wise, and will observe these things, even they shall understand the lovingkindness of the Lord.” In Christianity, we are taught the notion of agape, the highest form of love, the kind of love that God can express for creation by ultimate sacrifice and the kind of love we can express for one another when committed to caring about the well being of others.

But, we are perhaps most familiar with the notion of lovingkindness as it comes to us from Westernized Buddhism. Meg leads us, most weeks, in a much-beloved Meta-meditation of lovingkindness in which we extend kindness first to ourselves, then to someone we love, and then to someone “for whom we hold a resentment.” I was not aware, until recently, that “Meta” is Pali for “lovingkindness” and that this practice comes to us from the Theravadin Buddhist tradition. In its traditional form, the meditation ends with the extension of lovingkindness toward all sentient beings.

When Meg leads this, she often says that extending lovingkindness toward someone for whom we hold a resentment is typically he most difficult of the three, and yes, forgiveness of others is hard stuff, but there are some days in which extending lovingkindness toward myselfis the most difficult. It’s that tricky self-forgiveness thing, again. It’s that wall that we hit when we believe that we are not enough.

My friend, Natalie Briscoe, recently modeled this so well for me with her hilarious and poignant online post about self-forgiveness and the extension of lovingkindness to oneself. She said, “Today while I was eating lunch, and Ian was screaming in my face, throwing food, grabbing off my plate, pulling my hair with ketchup hands, trying to climb me like a tree, and pooping in his pants, I recalled an old story about two Buddhist monks who were observing a business man eating and reading the paper at the same time. The first monk asked, “which is he doing, reading the paper or eating?” And the second monk said, “He is doing neither of them well” And then I thought that if that story were true, I would punch those monks in the face with my ketchuppy, poopy hands and say, “I can do lots of things well, thank you! I’m a mom!”

New Year’s resolutions are all about becoming more like the kind of person we want to be, what we admire about ourselves and in others. I am not sure that we should take the free pass that science may seem to hand us and never set such goals. After all, what is the point of life besides walking humbly on this journey toward living, a tiny step each day, more fully into our shared humanity and learning from our stumbles and the obstacles we encounter along the way?

What I’m learning is that, instead of a boot-camp type, drill sergeant approach to meeting my goals, I might just try a lovingkindness approach. Maybe extending lovingkindness to ourselves, the thought that “I am enough” should top our resolution list each year.

Barbara Merritt suggests in this morning’s reading that, “It’s time someone told us all that we are valued and infinitely worthwhile.” Maybe we are that someone. Yikes!

And, as I’m stretching into a pose I am convinced I will spend the remainder of my uncomfortable life in, I look up and across the room at a woman with a serene countenance, who looks as if she naturally falls into this pose when she sits down to read a book, and I think, “This is absolutely nuts. What am I thinking?” The yoga instructor walks past me and says, “Remember to breathe. Perfecto!” And I realize, I am enough.

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Marisol Caballero
December 29, 2013

We carry around so many stresses with us in our daily lives. As we leave behind the rush of the holidays and think about beginning 2014 anew, we will ask ourselves which of these burdens are worth our effort to carry, and which ones might we set down?

Reading “God on a Bad Day”
by Daniel 0’Connell

Who is God on a bad day? I’ll tell you who God is: God’s the one washing a piece of fruit over the sink, only the fruit has ants on it. God’s using a spray hose to blast the ants off the fruit and down the drain. We’re the ants.

Sometimes God goes to the extra trouble to blast-blast-blast an ant who has almost gotten away.

Who is God on an ordinary day? God is the pesky reminder that turns into the possibility of insight. It’s like cleaning your kitchen before the in-laws come over. As you kneel down to clean off the front of the oven, you notice some old dried pudding stuck to the kitchen cabinet, down near the floor.

As you get down on your hands and knees to clean the dried pudding from the cabinet, and from that angle you look up and see all the dust on the window, the crumbs in the corner, the chipped formica, all the little bits of crud attached to things you move through daily, all the stuff you’ve been living with. It’s all been there this whole time- for weeks, months maybe.

You see some of this for the first time. You wonder what visitors to your house might see. And you shudder with disgust or fear or a new resolve to clean things up.

But some things are too cheaply made to ever look good. And in another month the dirt will just be back again. Thanks for the fresh insight, God.

Who is God on a pretty good day? You look up from what you are doing and notice someone – your spouse, someone you know, perhaps a stranger. And God is the thought: You know, I gotta be nice to somebody; it might as well he you.

Who is God on a great day? God is the excuse to say thank you. Dear God, thank you for this life. Thank you for my spouse. Thank you for my family and friends. Thank you for my congregation, my calling, my colleagues. Thank you for this day- this amazing, never-to-be-repeated day. Thank you for another day of living. Thank you for all the blessings in my life, known or unknown to me. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Amen.

Candle Lighting and Meditation
by Mark Belletini

Let the difficulties of the week
take their Sabbath now,
their brief and simple rest.

Let the worries of the week
Lay their heft gently onto the dark earth
Below this carpeted floor
Which can bear them with greater ease
Than any of us can by ourselves.

Let the tangle of feelings,
The pull and push of these last seven days
Sit still for a minute,
Stop writhing in my heart,
And move no more than a Buddha
At rest under a tree.

Let there be stillness in my heart for a moment,
The balance point between breathing in
And breathing out, like the pause of a dancer
Between movements in the music.

Let the breathing in this room be free and flowing.
Let pulses trance a slower rhythm in the wrist.
Let the coming silence be like hands
Pulling back a curtain,
Revealing the table set with the feast of life
Which is present here and now
And has been the whole while,
Present to those who give up living in either the past
Or the future.

Sermon

This year is coming to an end. Each time that happens, there is a natural human urge to reflect back on the past twelve months and take stock of our journeys. We think back to all of the triumphs and difficulties we’ve maneuvered around and where all of that twisting and turning, dancing and crawling has taken us. I’ve been doing a lot of this, myself. It has been an eventful year. And, as I reflect back, I am noticing all that I am grateful for. I have been surprised by my gratitude for something deplorable. So, I’m just going to say it:

Thank goodness for stress! Yes, it’s crazy, but after much introspection, I mean it. Thank goodness for the sweaty palms, the indigestion, the nail biting, the tight necks, the tossing and turning at night, and the headaches. Don’t get me wrong. Stress is not fun, but I have come to think of it like that little red button on the Thanksgiving turkey that will pop up when the bird is ready to eat. Stress is a good indicator button, a flashing neon light. It will tell us if we are feeling sketchy about a situation and need to retreat – a great tool in developing our street smarts. It will also give us superhuman strength, so they say – if your child is trapped under a car, as rising stress levels result in an increase of the release of endorphins.

But, more than this, I appreciate stress if not for any other reason than the fact that when I notice that I am stressed, usually because I notice some of the physical symptoms I mentioned before, I gain an increased awareness. If I’m paying attention, an awareness of higher-than-usual levels of stress will alert me that there is a larger something going on that I should pay attention to, like a swollen lymph node does before an infection. I become more mindful of my life, my activity level, my obligations, my shortcomings, and my health. When I notice I am stressed, I am able to stop and take the pulse, so to speak, of all of this and make better decisions or reframe my thinking, though it is always easier said than done, for sure.

I haven’t always had this friendly of a relationship with stress and, truth be told, as with most people I suppose, I struggle with it daily. We have a love/hate relationship, stress and I. It was fairly recently in my adult life, actually, that I came to discover that I suffer from anxiety. It isn’t enough to be diagnosed a disorder, and most people do not know me as a particularly nervous person, so I was resistant, at tlrst, to facing it. I have made great strides through various forms of therapy and through reflection, but I have found that the most valuable lesson learned has been trying to make friends, a bit, with stress. Anxiety can be managed by reframing our worries, fears, and stresses and by tossing out those that do not serve us or are unnecessary.

Now, as I go along, you may notice that I will use the terms “stress”, “worries”, “fears”, and “anxiety” somewhat interchangeably. This might not be clinically sound, from a mental health perspective, since anxiety means something quite different to a psychologist, but it would be irresponsible of me to attempt to speak in clinical terms, anyhow. There is some overlap in the common understanding of these words and it is in that more general, casual context that I will use them. Thanks for indulging me.

Another one of the benefits of stress is that it can be a good motivator, urging us to meet deadlines & get great things accomplished. (I am one of those expert procrastinators that swears she does her best work under pressure.) Stress can also help us to place our best foot forward, when we prepare for a job interview or get ready for a first date. It can add to our excitement as we wait in line for a roller coaster.

Acknowledging these beneficial forms of stress can make it easier to make friends with it, to a degree. But in reality, most of us lead such fast-paced lives filled with responsibilities and demands of work and family, that our experience of stress is of the more annoying variety. It comes in the same package as the excitement building, motivating variety: palms sweat, the heartbeat increases, hands may start to quivel; stomach goes crazy, the mouth goes bone dry… Sound familiar? The difference is, with the aggravating type of stress comes the anxiety that deep-seeded fear induces.

Fear is at the bottom of all of our anxieties. In fact, we spend the good majority of our lives afraid. For example, if our job stresses us out, we might fear getting laid off or fired. We may fear ending up a “failure” or maybe even a success. Many times we become anxious because of the fear of breaking relationship with others. We’ll stress out about the way that our communication was received, wondering if we have hurt the feelings of someone we love. We fear not being accepted by others or not being loved. For many, above all, the most anxiety inducing fear is the fear of death. Wishing to prolong the inevitable for our loved ones and ourselves, we worry and worry about safety and health.

None of these are unfounded fears. Any anxieties caused by possible events are valid anxieties. After all, we have all either experienced or witnessed the loss of a job, a relationship ending in divorce, a broken friendship, or the disassociation of family members. We have all certainly felt rejection at one point or another in our lives. And, we have all experienced death and illness- whether intimately or several persons removed. We understand that tragedy is not only possible, but many of us have met it, personally. We know that bad things do happen so what is preventing them from happening to us and to those we love? – realistic, understandable, valid anxieties.

Why, then should stress be an indicator to slow down and gain perspective? Well, it is easy to allow our worries to snowball and become difficult to manage. I am not referring to the anxiety that can be brought on by drug or alcohol abuse or to the type that leads to panic attacks or that impede on the ability to function normally. These are all indications of larger problems and I urge anyone experiencing these types of anxieties to seek professional help.

No, I am talking about our common daily stressful lives that can leave us a bundle of nerves at the end of the day and make it difficult to unwind. How many times have you felt ruled by your stress instead of the other way around? This is why work is so often referred to as “the rat race”. We can easily feel as if a twenty four hour day just isn’t long enough, with all of our obligations and demands, combined with the things we enjoy doing and try to make time for. Worrying becomes the unwritten bullet point on our list of things to do and eventually goes along with each thing on the list, if we let it.

But, while many of our anxieties are justifiable, many more are unnecessary. They don’t serve us. They are superfluous. It is important to remember that possible events are not always likely events. I have heard wise parents speak of child rearing with this understanding of anxiety, saying, “Of course you worry, but you cannot stop your children from experiencing the world, good and bad. There are times that you have to let go and trust them and trust that you have done what you could for them.” Winston Churchill once echoed this when he said, “When I look back on all these worries I remember the story of the old man who said on his deathbed that he had had a lot of trouble in his life, most of which never happened.”

I once read a story that was a great illustration of how we may carry more stress than is necessary. In the story; a teacher asks some students the weight of a glass of water. Some answered 8 ounces, some 20. The teacher replied, “The actual weight doesn’t matter. What matters is how long you try to hold it. If I hold it for a minute, that’s easy. If I hold it for an hour my arm will ache. If I hold it for a day, you’ll have to call an ambulance. In each case, it remains the same actual weight, but the longer I hold it, the heavier it becomes.” He continued, ‘find that’s the way it is with stress management. lfwe carryall of our anxieties all the time, sooner or later; as the burden becomes increasingly heavy, we won’t be able to carryon.” As with the glass of water; we must set down our worries, especially the unnecessary ones, sometimes temporarily, while we recover our strength, time, and emotional reserves, and sometimes permanently; when we gain an awareness that they do not serve us.

One instance in which I truly recognized the value in this practice of distinguishing between the useful and not-so-useful anxieties occurred along my path toward ministry and provided me with this sermon title of Surplus Anxieties. In 2010, I travelled to the east coast to be interviewed by the Regional Subcommittee on (Ministerial) Candidacy; one of the many hurdles through which we must pass on our way toward ordination. I was terribly nervous, so this was a chance for me to truly practice all that I have learned in managing my anxiety. I would be going before a panel of several strangers who were there to ask me personal and professional questions and whose job it was to judge me fit or unfit to continue on this journey: I was given the option beforehand to bring words to read as we light the chalice and I decided that I should take them up on the offer.

So, a week before travelling, I sat down and imagined myself before them and prayed what I felt. This is the prayer that I wrote and ultimately read on the day of my interview:

May this candle be for me here like a warm hearth fire, calming all surplus anxieties and reminding me that, in this company, I am home.

Yes, may this light be the hearth fire of this committee, as its members gather round it in their wisdom and experience, offering guidance and counsel to each who sit before them today.

The flame is our hearth, our common gathering place as Unitarian Universalists. Around it our movement draws together, returning home to where we are cherished, challenged, and celebrated, and creating a home for those seeking the same.

May the warmth of its fire be ever reaching. Amen.

We began the interview and I immediately noticed a man to my right with furrowed eyebrows and an intent look on his face. He leaned in closer each time I spoke to answer a question. For a moment I was certain that he absolutely hated me. But, I caught myself and thought, perhaps this is the look he has when he is listening deeply, perhaps he doesn’t hate me. Then came his turn to ask a question. He paused, eyebrows even more furrowed, and said, “My question is: Did you write that chalice lighting yourself? It was just lovely. Those words, “surplus anxieties”, I’ve never heard it put that way before. I really liked it!”

Man, the irony! My fears about being rejected, about the financial impact a delay in ordination might bring, all of my anxieties wrapped up in my imaginings of those furrowed eyebrows were all “surplus”! They were not needed and, in fact, were not serving me!

What has the wisdom of your years taught you is worth your extended anxiety and what is not? What are your “surplus anxieties”? Take a moment to reflect on what worries you are able to let go of that you have been carrying around with you. Maybe you can think of one, maybe several. Maybe it will not be easily set aside, or maybe it will. Try to challenge yourself. I invite you to hold them in your minds during the musical interlude. Perhaps you’d like to close your eyes. Visualize yourself lifting something heavy. That heavy object is your surplus anxiety. Then, imagine yourself setting that burden aside and simply walking away.

The old Quaker song says, “‘Tis a gift to be simple, ’tis a gift to be free… ” Let’s simplify our lives by being free of our surplus anxieties.

Musical Interlude

To take care of ourselves is truly a spiritual exercise. In doing so, we honor the sacred nature of our being, the spark of divinity that resides inside each of us. When we pay attention to our whole selves, our physical, emotional, and spiritual needs, we are, in turn, caring for and showing reverence to one small corner of the interdependent web of existence, for we, too are citizens of the universe that matter. When we recognize the importance of caring for ourselves, we become better stewards of the planet and begin to increase the value we recognize in all living things and in future generations. And, when we take the time to care for ourselves, we replenish our reserves and have the capacity to care for others better.

One reason we come to church is to take care of ourselves by being part of a loving spiritual community. We become one part of the whole, knowing that we don’t always have to shoulder all of our worries alone – others will worry about us and with us, as well.

Recognizing and then ridding ourselves of our surplus anxieties is one way to exercise self-care. To do so as a church community shows us that we are not alone in carrying them around. In fact, next Sunday during the annual Burning Bowl service, all will be invited to bring forward those things that you would like to leave behind as we begin 2014 together. Your surplus anxieties may find their way into the fire alongside bad habits, grudges, and other disposable things.

There are many ways to de-stress and relieve anxiety before they become “surplus”. Paying attention to our interpersonal communication, setting achievable goals, forgiving your shortcomings, going to therapy or chatting with your partner, a close friend, your minister, or another or confidant, and exercising flexibility are all ways to alleviate anxiety and practice self-care. Other means of self-care include meditation, prayer, exercise and healthy eating habits, using your imagination, your creativity, and enjoying your hobbies.

Again, practicing self-care is not simply a matter of self-indulgence, it is a spiritual practice. It nurtures our soul. I now invite you to consider the ways that you will engage in the spiritual practice of self-care – perhaps today or this week, perhaps this year. No matter. Think of it as a promise to yourself. Visualize yourself engaging in these intentions. Now that we have freed ourselves of the surplus anxieties we carried in with us this morning and have together set intentions for self-care, perhaps we can leave here with a lighter load, filled with joyous gratitude, like God on a great day, saying to our lives, “Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.”

Benediction

Let love, not fear or worry, or stress, or anxiety be your legacy! Carry these intentions out with you today! Go in peace!

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Marisol Caballero
November 24, 2013

We celebrate gratitude by engaging in generosity! The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee’s annual “Guest at Your Table” campaign kicks off this Sunday and continues through December. We learn about opportunities to support grassroots programs and organizers who are working to bring peace, justice, and compassion to communities worldwide.

Reading: “Declaration of Interdependence”
by Melanie Bacon

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

That all life is interconnected, and endowed by our Creator with certain inalienable rights and responsibilities,

That among these are presence, compassion, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights and responsibilities,

We open our minds and hearts to the needs of others, and our own true needs, We hear the sound of the living universe in our ears, and add our voices to the song, We live every moment with awareness of the purity and power of existence.

And for the support of this Declaration, we pledge to each other our love and our breath,

For the freedom of the one is the freedom of the all, and the pain of the one is the pain of the all;

The breath of the one is the breath of the all, and the breath of the all is the breath of God.

Prayer/Meditation

Spirit of Love,

Of families, of friends,

Wrap us in the warmth of our interdependence on this cold morning, As we cannot help but shiver, too

When some don’t have homes or heat on such chilly nights.

Despite our turkey and stuffing, Our bellies cannot help but ache, too When many go hungry.

Even as some rejoice in sweet reunions, We hold in our hearts those, Among us and unknown to us,

For whom the holidays are a time of great sadness

Due to distance, poverty, grief, absence of familial acceptance, or depression. God of many names, Protect all who travel.

Fill us with gratitude, hope, and love.

Amen.

Sermon: Guest at Your Table Kickoff

My earliest memory of what could be considered an international, intercultural exchange happened when I was just four years old. We had just moved from San Antonio to Alpine, TX, where my mother enrolled in Sul Ross State University after my parents’ divorce. We were living in these little white, crumbling cottages alongside the freeway that headed into town. They’ve long since been condemned and torn down. I was what our friends we stayed with in Africa last month called a “moveous” child, meaning I didn’t stay put very often.

I quickly made friends with another little girl, around my same age, who lived several cottages down. She told me that she was from “EgyptandKuwait,” just like that, as if it were one word. It sounded like a magical land because her house always smelled like smells I’d never smelled before, her mother worse a loose scarf, draped elegantly around her head and shoulders, and her dad, a geology student at the university, sometimes wore what looked like a dress over his pants.

They were cool. One day, I woke up; finished my frosted flakes with record-speed, got dressed, and ran to see if my new friend could come outside to play, only to discover that her whole family was still eating breakfast. They invited me in and I joined them on the floor, where they had spread newspapers out, and were eating a feast like I hadn’t ever seen! They had chicken drumsticks, rice, veggies, hot, freshbaked flat bread, and all before lOam! They were so cool. I often got a second breakfast before I ever knew what a Hobbit was. And often, my mom was none the wiser.

Since then, I have had the honor and pleasure, in various settings, of breaking bread with many people from various parts of the world and who have come from various circumstances. There is something about sharing a meal with someone that allows for a deeper understanding of our shared humanity.

Today, we are kicking off our Guest at Your Table program, which will run through the end of December. Many of you know about this program already. This congregation has participated in it every year for a while now. Many more of you do not, as this has been mainly a project of Sunday School children and their families, in years past. This year, we hope to get the whole congregation involved!

As great as it would be to actually host an international peaceworker at your dinner table, I should let you know, up front, that no one is actually coming to sit at your table as part of this program. Each year, the symbolic guests at your tabie are four individuals or grassroots organizations, vetted and chosen by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC), that work to further the “spirit of gratitude and justice, equity, and compassion in human relations” that the UUSC promotes. This year, the UUSC has chosen to work with and feature four people who are all working to empower others to recognize and work toward their own basic human rights.

The way the program works is simple: a small bank is set on the dining table and, each time there is a meal in the house, a donation (no matter how small) is placed into the bank, as if an extra meal has heen paid for. At the end of December, the banks are returned to the church and the collected money is sent to the UUSC, who continues to work with and financially contributes to our four “guests.”

With prior campaigns, the UUSC sent each participating congregation colorful cardboard banks that featured pictures of each of the peacemakers on the sides. This year, for the first time, in an effort to be more environmentally conscious, the organization has decided not to print any more such boxes. Instead, folks are encouraged to be creative in acquiring their loose change receptacles. So, in that spirit, our children have taken up that challenge and have repurposed water bottles to create not-your-average piggy banks! We have doggie banks, and froggy banks, and flamingo banks… all for fifty cents each. In fact, I’m not sure that we actually had many piggy banks made, come to think of it. To invite one of our guests to your table, you may purchase one of these wonderful works of art and imagination at the Lifespan Religious Ed. Table after church. The whopping proceeds will benefit the Children’s Religious Education Fund. Or, you may choose to use an old coffee can or a mason jar for your table, something less animalistic.

It’s a great program that can provide wonderful fodder for not your normal, everyday dinner conversation. Unless your household is anything like mine, in which Erin asked me the other evening, “Can we have one night without talking about conquest!?”

I would like to introduce you to one of your dinner guests and their work. In the pamphlet, Stories of Hope, available at the Lifespan RE table after service, we learn about Danielle Neus who, through her organization, the Bright Educators of Delmas (GEAD), is teaching people in the most devastated areas of Port-au-Prince, Haiti how to grow personal gardens in recycled tires. Haiti has a plentitude of garbage, such as discarded tires. What it doesn’t have, however, is easy access to affordable, healthy food.

“Their initial project trained 60 families to make tire gardens, which allowed them to grow cabbages, eggplants, spinach, and other food that’s healthy to eat and valuable to sell. And GEAD uses popular education, which invites Haitians to work together – to learn from each other, combine their resources, and find solutions that benefit the entire community. Danielle shares the GEAD motto: “We are all one, we remain one, and we will die one.”

Danielle says that, in order to achieve common goals, honest communication is everything. The group that started GEAD finds success because each member is able to speak freely about their dreams and their fears. She believes that community members must talk openly and work together, because they may all have the same goals and never know it if they don’t speak up.

The next step for GEAD is to open its own training center in the city, so that they can train more families at a faster rate. It would also allow GEAD to locally produce compost, a vital material that currently must be brought in from the countryside. Danielle believes that providing training for youth is especially important, because moving communities forward is a responsibility shared by every generation. Her goal is not just to teach her fellow Haitians to plant seeds and grow food, but also to plant the seeds of community organizing and empowerment so people may rebuild their lives.”

Please pick up a copy of “Stories of Hope” or download it from the UUSC website to learn more about: Nelson Escobar, who came to the United States from El Salvador as an asylum-seeker, only to discover, first-hand, oppressive working conditions. “Nelson now helps others to overcome barriers, learn about their rights, and access support from workers’ centers and other organizations.” “Malya Villard-Appolon works to end gender-based violence in Haiti and provides support to survivors. Malya is educating and empowering women to know their legal rights and to talk to one another to create safer communities.” George Friday trained in community organizing and began building coalitions as a teen and now helps people realize the strength of their combined voices and “the value of their grassroots knowledge and expertise.”

Around the time that I was discovering that Chicanos didn’t own the monopoly on delicious breakfast food, (chicken drumsticks for breakfast does rival chorizo and eggs), I was also being taught the importance of neighbors by a Mr. Rev. Fred Rogers. He stood in my TV and asked me daily, through song, if I would please be his neighbor and he modeled how to be a good neighbor. It was not until adulthood, upon learning more about Mr. Rogers, that I realized he probably wasn’t only talking about your friends who live next door when he spoke of “neighbors.” This Presbyterian minister was speaking of being a neighbor, of “neighbor” as a verb –neighboring.

Mark 12:28
And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, “Which commandment is the most important of all?”

Jesus answered, “The most important is, ‘Hear, 0 Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.

And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’

The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

Mr. Rogers continues to teach us, as this quote grew viral after the Sandy Hook shooting, “When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of ‘disaster,’ I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers – so many caring people in this world.”

Our neighbors might live across the street, across the country, or across the world. Who are the helpers?

This week, we recognized the fiftieth anniversary of the death of another prophetic soul who taught us about this type of neighboring. In his famous inaugural speech, President John F. Kennedy reminded us that, “With a good conscience our only sure reward, with history the final judge of our deeds, let us go forth to lead the land we love, asking his blessing and his help, but knowing that here on earth, God’s work must truly be our own.”

We declare our interdependence. We must be the neighbors. We must be the helpers. Sometimes, we must be the guests at someone’s table. Always, we are God’s hands.

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

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Rev. Marisol Caballero
July 14, 2013

In response to a Facebook post bemoaning my challenges in learning to drive standard, someone wrote something along the lines of, “I would say ‘I’ll pray for you,’ but I guess that wouldn’t sound very UU of me!” Is it not UU to pray? I have heard this sentiment expressed before. Where do our misconceptions lie with regard to the spiritual practice of prayer and how might we explore this expression of faith as Unitarian Universalists?

Call to Worship

By Erika A. Hewitt

As we enter into worship, put away the pressures ofthe world that ask us to perform, to take up masks, to put on brave fronts.

Silence the voices that ask you to be perfect.

This is a community of compassion and welcoming. You do not have to do anything to earn the love contained within these walls.

You do not have to be braver, smarter, stronger, better, than you are in this moment to belong here, with us.

You only have to bring the gift of your body, no matter how able; your seeking mind, no matter how busy; your animal heart, no matter how broken.

Bring all that you are, and all that you love, to this hour together. Let us worship together.

Reading:
“On Prayer” from “The Prophet” by Kahlil Gibran

Then a priestess said, Speak to us of Prayer. And he answered, saying:

You pray in your distress and in your need; would that you might pray also in the fullness of your joy and in your days of abundance.

For what is prayer but the expansion of yourself into the living ether?

And if it is your comfort to pour your darkness into space, it is for your delight to pour forth the dawning of your heart.

And if you cannot but weep when your soul summons you to prayer, she should spur you again and yet again, though weeping, until you shall come laughing.

When you pray you rise to meet in the air those who are praying at that very hour, and whom save in prayer you may not meet.

Therefore let your visit to that temple invisible be for naught but ecstasy and sweet communion.

For if you should enter the temple for no other purpose than asking you shall not receive:

And if you should enter into it to humble yourself you shall not be lifted:

Or even if you should enter into it to beg for the good of others you shall not be heard.

It is enough that you enter the temple invisible.

Prayer:

Spirit of Life, God of many Names, Join us in this hour.

When we arrive with the hurries and concerns of our daily liveswork pressures, sick children, broken relationships, bills, and grocery lists, calm our minds and give us peace.

When our nation tells us, “liberty and justice for all…” and it sounds more like the promise of fairy tales that, “they lived happily ever after,”strengthen our hearts and give us courage.

When exhaustion or fatigue prevents us from doing the things we’d like to do, Renew our bodies, and give us energy.

Bring us, fully present, into this time together, with calm peace, strong courage, and renewed energy.

Amen

Sermon: “What is Prayer?”

One morning, during the height of our Great Recession, I was enjoying my bowl of cereal when I took notice of a story being reported on morning television. The story was about a woman in Indianapolis who was robbed at gunpoint. She worked at a check-cashing business and was the only other person in the building at the time of the robbery. The surveillance video was amazing to watch: she got down on her knees and began to pray and, after a while, the would-be-assailant joined her, removed the singular bullet from the gun and handed it to the clerk, prayed with her and confided in her for 40 minutes before leaving the store with $20. He turned himself in shortly thereafter.

The woman’s interview revealed what went on during that time. She said that, not knowing what to do, she began to pray for her life and the assailant’s! She asked that her life be spared for the sake of her children and spouse, but then she also prayed that this young man not ruin his life with such an act of crime. Weeping, she prayed that he realize his worth and choose another path in life. She prayed that he see that it was not too late for him to decide to do so. After joining her in prayer, he confessed that he has a 2-year-old son to feed as well, had no household income for a long time and, in desperation to feel some financial relief, made the bad decision to tum to crime. He assured her that he wouldn’t hurt her, saying, “Talk to me. No one will talk to me. I have nobody.” Prayer is powerful stuff.

Prayer has been on my mind for a while lately and this story helped in keeping it there a bit longer. Sometime after hearing this story, I was bemoaning in a Facebook post my frustrations of learning how to drive standard, when someone, another UU, left a comment that read, “I would say, “I’ll pray for you.” But that wouldn’t sound very UU of me.” I’ve heard this sentiment expressed before by other UU’s, and have often wondered what it means to pray, myself. Realizing that my leg was too short to safely reach the clutch, I found a website that could custom make me a pedal extender.

When I received the hardware in the mail, enclosed was a small booklet entitled, “The Incredible Power of Prayer.” Ever the dutiful sceptic, I chuckled to myself, looked at the picture of the grinning author on the back & thought, “In-credible, huh? Well, you said it, not me!”

Before beginning my parish internship in California, as many of you know, I served for twelve months as a chaplain intern at UCSF Medical Center, where I heard many patients and their families either swear by or swear off prayer. Not surprisingly, in times of sickness, I heard more of the former than the latter. I began to more fully recognize its usefulness in all of its many forms. In his novel, Creatures of Light and Darkness, Roger Zelazny gives the prayer of a character who is an agnostic chaplain giving last rites to a dying man, here is his prayer:

Insofar as I may be heard by anything, which mayor may not care what I say, I ask, if it matters, that you be forgiven for anything you may have done or failed to do which requires forgiveness. Conversely, if not forgiveness but something else may be required to insure any possible benefit for which you may be eligible after the destruction of your body, I ask that this, whatever it may be, be granted or withheld, as the case may be, in such a manner as to insure your receiving said benefit. I ask this in my capacity as your elected intermediary between yourself and that which may not be yourself, but which may have an interest in the matter of your receiving as much as it is possible for you to receive of this thing, and which may in some way be influenced by this ceremony. Amen.

I imagine my prayers were similar when I began my chaplaincy internship! To better serve the needs of the patients, I soon became comfortable praying in the style and the religious language of the patient’s tradition. I spent a good portion of my days praying aloud with patients but had no answer when asked by a supervisor, “Do you pray?” I didn’t really know the answer to that one. Do I pray? I hadn’t made direct petitions of God since childhood, but I am learning that there is more to prayer than simply making requests of the Divine. I am beginning to figure out just what prayer can be, in all of its possibilities, and how I might add it more to my own spiritual practice. The story of the clerk and the gunman reminds me that though it does build a relationship with the Sacred, prayer need not be about a person in the sky granting wishes, but can be powerful as a conduit of compassion; a way of connecting people to their shared humanity. That connection through compassion, in and of itself, is miraculous.

Petition prayers are often what we think of when we define prayer. Think about it: when we’re stuck in traffic, “God, please don’t let me be late for work!” But oftentimes, those who make petitions in prayer, as in the story of the woman & the gunman, are doing more than asking for favors. This form of prayer can state our hopes and can also state our individual and communal intentions. For example, at a social justice rally, “May we continue to work for peace … “

Sometimes these prayers are simple yet from the heart, as in times of tragedy and at other times, through poetic language, such prayers use metaphor and imagery to make petitions known. We pray petition prayers such as these every Sunday. Many times they come in the form of hymns. Many UU churches sing the hymn, “Spirit of Life”, each Sunday. In this hymn, we ask the Divine to move our hearts to compassion and inspire our hands to work toward creating justice. In fact, all of our hymns this morning are prayers set to music, which is often the case with hymns. When we sing them, we pray them communally. This is why there’s the old joke about why UU’s can never sing together well: because we’re always reading ahead to see whether or not we agree with the words!

UU ministers also often introduce prayer by asking the congregation to “join in the spirit of prayer and meditation”. Are they different from one another? Prayer need not contain words.

Contemplative prayer, or mysticism, has roots in every major world religion. The psalmists writes, “Be still and know that I am God” (Psalms 46:10).

When we sit in quiet contemplation, we can come to a deeper understanding and appreciation of ourselves, of each other, and of the world around us. This can be prayer. We may use contemplative prayer to critically examine ourselves and connect with a deeper meaning and purpose in our lives. These are listening prayers. As humans, we all share a spiritual need for this sense of meaning and purpose. Prayer can help meet this need.

Another use for prayer is the prayer to express wonder and awe. This form of prayer may be either spoken or silent. Much of the Romantics’ poetry reads as prayers of awe and wonder, as in William Wordsworth’s My Heart Leaps Up:

My heart leaps up when I behold A rainbow in the sky. So was it when my life began; So is it now I am a man; So be it when I grow old, Or let me die! The Child is father of the Man; And I could wish my days to be Bound each to each by natural piety.

I played the cello in grade school (although not very well) and have always been a great fan of Mozart.

I used to love to listen to Mozart when I had a paper to write and sit right next to my stereo speakers with my book on my lap as a desk. I could concentrate better if it was booming, of course. I like to think of his heart-pounding symphonies as the punk rock of classical music.

But, sometimes I would find myself setting down my paper and pen and closing my eyes and allow myself to be amazed as the subtleties of the soft flutes floating above me would give way to an explosion of the strings and tympani drums pounding on the ground. I would experience something not unlike Wordsworth and his rainbows! I have heard these prayers referred to as “praising God”. I also call such prayers “prayers of humility”, as they serve to remind us that we are each but a small part of an enormously wondrous universe. The strange thing is that, in doing so, they also remind us that we are each a part of an enormously wondrous universe! In other words, when we pray prayers of awe and wonder; prayers of humility, we gain an awareness of our interconnectedness.

A form of prayer that the revolutionary in us all resonates with is prayer as prophetic witness.

These prayers serve to call attention to the stuff that most of us would rather not look at. Prayers of prophetic witness are often also known as prayers of lamentation, due to the sorrow present to those living in or bearing witness to injustice. This ancient form of prayer is hauntingly relevant today, as this excerpt from the Jewish Scripture, the Book of Lamentations, could be describing so many scenes of violence and hunger throughout the world:

They cry to their mothers, ‘Where is bread and wine?’ as they faint like the wounded in the streets of the city, as their life is poured out on their mothers’ bosom. (Lamentations 2.12)

Another prayer is the prayer of thanksgiving. This form of prayer may actually extend your life! Well, at least that claim has been made time and time again by several studies on the extended health benefits of gratitude. Regardless of whether or not these studies offer any legitimate scientific merit, being thankful certainly doesn’t hurt. It is so easy to focus on the negative aspects of our lives and, in these hard times, it isn’t difficult to remember the ways in which our lives could use improvement. The spiritual practice of being thankful through prayer is a viable means of retaining a spirit of hope and perseverance. As a child, I loved the simple nightly mealtime prayer of thanksgiving used in the Madeline storybooks, “We love our bread, we love our butter, but most of all, we love each other!”

So, I am still asking myself the question: Do I pray? I believe that the answer is, “Yes, I am learning how.” I laughed when a talk show host once asked a little girl performing back flips on her show, “How did you ever learn to do all of that?!” and the girl responded, out of breath, “Practice.”

The same goes for prayer. You may have heard prayer referred to as a “spiritual discipline” or a “spiritual practice”. I am learning that this is exactly what it is. Prayer takes both regular practice and discipline. Prayer is intentional spiritual reflection. Whether planned or spontaneous, communal or solitary, prayer always has a beginning and an end and a purpose. To many of us, it does not come naturally. I used to refrain from prayer because I became hung up on whether or not someone or something was receiving my prayer and would respond. Why waste time in taking the chance that there was no God listening?, I thought.

Then, I came to understand that this is unnecessary- that the prayer itselfwas the response. Each form of prayer is reciprocal. They are each about giving and about receiving. In prayers of petition, we offer our hopes and receive hope in return. In prayers of contemplation, we give away our haughtiness and receive love and connection. In prayers of wonder and awe, we give our praise and receive beauty. In prayers of prophetic witness, we give our hearts and receive justice and solidarity. And, in prayers of thanksgiving, we give our gratitude and receive blessings. And so, my prayer today is simply: I pray that we continue to find ourselves engaged in prayer and that, in prayer, we continue to find ourselves, each other, our world, and our Sacred Truth. Amen.

Benediction
Words by Lauralyn Bellamy

If, here, you have found freedom, take it with you into the world. If you have found comfort, go and share it with others. If you have dreamed dreams, help one another, that they may come true! If you have known love, give some back to a bruised and hurting world. Go in peace.

Podcasts of this and other sermons are available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Marisol Caballero
May 26, 2013

We celebrate our annual Flower Communion with stories of hope. We remember Rev. Norbert Capek who began this annual festival in the 1920’s and died at the hands of the Nazi’s.

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Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Rev. Marisol Caballero
May 12, 2013

We celebrate mothers and their willingness to speak truth to power for the sake of children worldwide.

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Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them here.

http://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776