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Rev. Michelle LaGrave
March 10, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

During this “Great Turning,” it can sometimes feel more like the world is turning away from truth and justice rather than toward it. How, during these often troubling times, might we sustain hope?

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

THE GREAT TEACHERS IN LIFE
Jason Cook

We seekers are on a quest:
A quest to discover truth and meaning.
Sometimes we think we’ve found it-
Wrapped up, glimmering with newness
Straight off the intellectual assembly line.
All the answers right here for us
And others, if they’d only listen.
But truth has a way of coming in disguise,
Sometimes wearing rags and sometimes finery,
But so often cloaked from our immediate sight.
And sometimes, that which we have rejected,
That which we have let go of
Or decided was only for others
But not us-Can be our teacher.
Let our time of worship be an acknowledgment
Of the never ending journey toward truth and meaning,
And our appreciation of those we learn from along the way.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Reading

THE WEB OF LIFE
Robert T Weston

There is a living web that runs through us
To all the universe
Linking us each with each and through all life
On to the distant stars.
Each knows a little corner of the world, and lives
As if this were his all.
We no more see the farther reaches of the threads
Than we see of the future, yet they’re there.
Touch but one thread, no matter which;
The thoughtful eye may trace to distant lands
Its firm continuing strand, yet lose its filaments as they reach out,
But find at last it coming back to him from whom it led.
We move as in a fog, aware of self
But only dimly conscious of the rest
As they are close to us in sight or feeling.
New objects loom up for a time, fade in and out;
Then, sometimes, as we look on unawares, the fog lifts
And there’s the web in shimmering beauty,
Reaching past all horizons. We catch our breath;
Stretch out our eager hands, and then
In comes the fog again, and we go on,
Feeling a little foolish, doubting what we had seen.
The hands were right. The web is real.
Our folly is that we so soon forget.

Sermon

Several years ago, pre-pandemic, and with great excitement, I went to see the film Wonder Woman. The movie is about the famous comic strip superhero who has been around for generations. Without giving away the plot, just in case you haven’t seen it yet or aren’t overly familiar with the comic strip, I’ll share the story of her origins as portrayed in the movie. Wonder Woman is an Amazon; yes, those Amazons we have heard about from Greek mythology. Her mother is a Queen; they live on Paradise Island with only other women warriors; and she is the only child amongst them. Wonder Woman plays the role of hero and her male sidekick, the damsel in distress.

Though many have long thought the Amazons to be only the stuff of legend; more recently archaeologists have confirmed their existence. Or, perhaps more accurately, archaeologists have demonstrated the historical existence of the women around whom this famous mythology has arisen. They were Scythian warriors; groupings of nomadic people who lived on the steppes of Eurasia and rode horses millennia ago, perhaps as early as the Bronze Age. They lived in extended family groupings of women, men and children. About a third of the warriors were female. And their territory included one island off the coast of the Black Sea. Earlier, when the skeletons of these women warriors were first discovered, they were presumed to be men due to the “masculine” nature of the grave goods associated with them. It is only with more recent DNA testing that archaeologists realized they were, indeed, actually women warriors.

There is quite a bit of mythology associated with these women, much of which deserves what we call a “content warning” these days. They were said to have lived only with other women. They were said to have killed their men and male children or maimed or castrated the young boys. They were said to have been lesbians. They were said to have had only one breast, having cut the other off to better shoot their bows and arrows while riding atop their horses. They were also known to have been heavily tattooed and fond of using marijuana.

Much of this mythology arose with the Greeks who seemed to both fear and admire these women warriors. Some of it was based in what we would call fact. The rest of it in rumor and ill-logic that might have gone something like this … obviously, no men would ever allow their women to be warriors, therefore they must live in groups of only women; since the women did not live with any men, they must have done something to the men -like kill them. Since the women did have children and women cannot procreate with each other, they must have found other ways to get pregnant, like visiting nearby societies were men did live; furthermore, since the women did have children and their offspring would surely be both female and male, the women must have done something with their male children -like kill or maim or castrate them. And so on.

All this goes to show, that we people of the 21st century are not the first victims of “fake news.” And if you haven’t figured it out already, the only scientifically verified facts, in the midst of all this fake news, are the parts about smoking pot and getting lots of tattoos. Hmm, that kind of sounds like a prehistoric version of Austin.

Today we live in a post-truth era filled with alternative facts, disinformation, and fake news, not to mention AI chatbots pretending to be customer service reps and, even worse, deep fakes. Some of this is not all that new. Before there was fake news there were hoaxes and propaganda; some of it even published in what today we would consider more reputable publications. What is new, is the speed at which fake news travels; mostly due to social media, and the extremely high quality of deception; due to advancing technology.

Living in a post-truth era often feels somewhat surreal. This can be underscored when the practice of gaslighting is added to the dissemination of fake news. In the aftermath of the attack in Charlottesville a half dozen years ago, members of the alt-right circulated fake news stories claiming that the person who videotaped the car driving into the crowd was not there by coincidence, but “in fact” was there as a set-up from the Left to discredit the Neo-Nazis. Let me repeat that, the alt-right claimed that the person who videotaped the car driving into the crowd didn’t just happen to be there, but was intentionally planted, ahead of time, as a set-up from the Left to discredit the Neo-Nazis. It’s mind-blowing, isn’t it? And it’s intentional, but we’ll get to that in a little bit.

NPR did a news segment, a while back, on the problems science teachers are having teaching students, due to the prevalence of fake news stories that have come into circulation. For example, science teacher Nick Gurol says his students believe the earth is flat. Why? Because a basketball player named Kyrie Irving said so. No matter what the science teacher says, whether simply correcting the students or reasoning with them, they will not change their minds. They believe the earth is flat. Gurol says: “They think that I’m part of this larger conspiracy of being a round-Earther.” In other NPR segments describing what teachers are doing to effectively combat fake news, one teacher shared that a student asked the question “What is news?” Other students asked a NPR reporter if NPR traffics in fake news.

And here is the crux of the matter, the paradox – Sam Harris, a well-known atheist and neuroscientist puts it this way:

“If someone doesn’t value evidence, what evidence are you going to provide to prove that they should value it? If someone doesn’t value logic, what logical argument could you provide to show the importance of logic?”

These are questions that don’t have easy answers. 

So how did we get here? – to this place where facts are not to be believed and science is considered a conspiracy?

Well, there are people who study this stuff. Robert Proctor and David Dunning are two of the more well-known figures. And … this field of study has a name: agnotology.

AGNOTOLOGY is commonly defined as the study of culturally induced ignorance or doubt i.e. ignorance or doubt purposefully created and spread by people, typically those in power.

I say “typically” because with the advent of social media, those who are otherwise lacking in power, now also have the ability to spread ignorance and doubt. Actually, anyone can do this through the power of social media – either intentionally or as unwitting prey to more powerful interests. 

Janna Rose and Marcos Barros, two professors at the Grenoble School of Management, describe it this way:

“Agnotology is more than the study of what we don’t know; it’s also the study of why we are not supposed to know it. One of its more important aspects is revealing how people, usually powerful ones, use ignorance as a strategic tool to hide or divert attention from societal problems in which they have a vested interest.”

Examples include the tobacco industry spreading doubt about the negative health consequences of smoking as well as conservative think tanks spreading controversy about the science of climate change.

So how can agnotology help us to better understand this world we find ourselves living in? Julian Birkinshaw, of the London Business School Review cautions us that in attempting to understand our current political climate “we shouldn’t mix up cause and effect: contempt for expert advice is what created the Trump bandwagon, not vice versa.” (as well as Brexit, if you live on the other side of the pond) I’ll repeat that: contempt for expert advice causes bandwagons. Bandwagons, or their leaders, don’t cause contempt for expert advice.

Birkinshaw tells us that there are two distinct trends that are shaping our understanding of the world.

• • The first is that humans are becoming stupider if stupider is measured relative to all the world’s collective knowledge. In other words, while our IQs have indeed risen a bit, they have not kept pace with the exponential growth in humankind’s collective knowledge. He says: “The gap between what each one of us knows and what the world knows is growing rapidly.”

• The second trend Birkinshaw sees is that business and politics are growing more and more interdependent. And the effects of one on the other can be rather unpredictable. The global economy is a complex system and he says: “It is a strange paradox of our times: the more we connect, the harder it is for us to predict.”

Over these past eight or so years, I have engaged in so many, many conversations with people about what is going on in our world. Feelings of cynicism, pessimism, hopelessness, and despair about the state of the world seem to be on the rise. People are struggling to understand how we have come to be in this place; this place where, among other things, vast numbers of people vote to put in office someone who is in direct opposition to their own self-interest. Julian Birkinshaw has the best explanation I have seen about how and why this happens so I will take the time to share an extended quote. Here goes:

“Put these two points together: as individuals, we are struggling to understand the present, and it is getting hard to predict the future. The result is a form of cognitive dissonance. As thoughtful beings, we like to be in control, but increasingly we cannot. So how do we resolve this dissonance? We fall back on belief – on our own intuition.

 

This is a scary point: it is human nature to jump straight to a judgment, often on the basis of the slenderest of facts and, paradoxically, the more complex and uncertain the issue, the more we tend to trust our intuition … If asked, [a complex question like] do you support leaving the European Union, the reasoning-based part of your brain goes into meltdown, and the intuitive part takes over.

While this tendency to leap to judgment has always existed, it has become a bigger problem as individuals become (relatively) ignorant and less able to see what’s coming next. Technology then exacerbates the problem, with our Facebook and Twitter feeds … [spreading news] that [is] often completely devoid of facts. And smart politicians are quick to exploit the trend, tapping into our intuition and subconscious beliefs, rather than boring us with hard evidence. Emotion beats logic in the art of persuasion – a point that the Brexiteers and the Trump campaign understood very well.”

Emotions beat logic. Our brains go into meltdown. Our intuition takes over. We fall back on belief. I’ll repeat that:

When faced with increasingly complex issues … Emotions beat logic. Our brains go into meltdown. Our intuition takes over. We fall back on belief. We are literally overwhelmed with information. And we become susceptible to fake news, alternative facts, and disinformation; which in turn, overwhelms us. Robert Proctor sums it up best: “We live in a world of radical ignorance, and the marvel is that any kind of truth cuts through the noise.”

In one of the earlier scenes of the movie Wonder Woman; our superhero discovers that her new sidekick, the first male she has ever seen, has been deceiving her. She then wonders aloud how she would know if he is deceiving her again, now. Her solution? She wraps her lasso around him and squeezes the truth right out. Unlike Wonder Woman, none of us has a Lasso of Truth, but there are things we can do to protect ourselves and our children from a vast ocean of deception among them making use of websites like Snopes, PolitiFact, and FactCheck.

Like the man on the beach tossing starfish back into the ocean, one by one by one, we face daunting odds. It would be easy for anyone of us to lose hope in this post-truth era. But like him, and the writer who joined him, we can keep hope alive by making a difference for this one: by debunking this myth, by teaching this child to think critically, by stopping the spread of this piece of fake news and by not tolerating the intolerant, by not tolerating this hate group, by not tolerating this act of intimidation, by not tolerating this symbol of racist ideology.

It is time, in this post-truth era, to live into the paradoxes of contemporary life and stop wasting energy railing against them … verbally. I don’t mean don’t do anything. I mean stop spending energy railing against what is. You can get into a lot of Buddhism here, actually … with non-attachment and attachment. When you’re attached to the idea that logic should rule and it doesn’t, you suffer … right? So, non-attachment is what I’m talking about.

And we can look for reasons to hope. We can find reasons for hope in the North where folks are helping to pay for families who are relocating from states like ours where trans kids are not safe. They’re bringing their kids to other places. They’re helping to support people and find houses and things like that. We can be symbols of hope to each other.

It is all one thing, not many separate things. It is both and not A but B. It is the individual starfish and the ocean. It’s just that we usually see each piece of the web separately, except in those precious few moments when the fog rolls away and our hands reach for the truth.

May we see truth more clearly and hold it more dearly. Amen and Blessed Be.

Closing Words

CHERISH YOUR DOUBTS
by the Rev. Dr. Michael A Schuler

Cherish your doubts, for doubt is the servant of truth. Question your convictions, for beliefs too tightly held strangle the mind and its natural wisdom.

Suspect all certitudes, for the world whirls on-nothing abides. Yet in our inner rooms full of doubt, inquiry and suspicion, let a corner be reserved for trust.

For without trust there is no space for communities to gather or for friendships to be forged.

Indeed, this is the small corner where we connect-and reconnect-with each other.

Extinguishing the Chalice

We extinguish this flame, but not the light of truth, the warmth of community, or the fire of commitment. These we hold in our hearts until we are together again.

Benediction

NOW MAY THE LOVE OF TRUTH
by Jane Mauldin

Now may the love of truth guide you, the warmth of love hold you, and the spirit of peace bless you, this day and in the days to come.

SERMON INDEX

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Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
February 25, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Did you know that Unitarian Universalism has its very own theology? It is called Affect Theology and was created by the Rev. Dr. Thandeka, a Unitarian Universalist minister and theologian. This umbrella theology is an embodied theology that when well understood and applied can help UUs of multiple theological and philosophical perspectives to lead lives of wholeness and fulfillment.

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

THE LONGING FOR SOMETHING MORE
by Gretchen Haley

Every little thing that breaks your heart
Is welcome here
We”ll make a space for it
Give it its due time
and praise
for the wanting it represents
the longing for something more,
some healing hope that remains
not
yet

We promise no magic no making it all better
But offer only this circle of trust
This human community
that remembers
Though imperfectly
that sings and prays
though sometimes
awkwardly

This gathering that loves,
though not yet enough
We’re still practicing
After all,
still learning,
still in need of help
and partners
Still becoming able
to receive
all this beauty and all these gifts
we each bring

Come, let us worship together.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Story for All Ages

Once upon a time, in a magical space called Howson Hall, two Unitarian Universalists sat down together. They had just come out of the worship service. Rev. Michelle had been preaching about affect thea/ology.

“Hey, Lucas, how are you? You look like you might be feeling a little down,” said Sheldon.

“Well, I guess I kind of am, said Lucas. That sermon got me thinking about my job and I’m realizing how unhappy I am with my career.”

“What do you do?” said Sheldon.

“I sell really fancy cars, like this one. I want to help people and I like seeing how happy they are when they drive away in their new car, but I don’t love what I do in the same way the other salespeople do. They get really excited talking about engine specs and trim packages, even when they’re on break. They wave their arms around a lot when they’re talking about cars. One of them accidentally smacked me in the face the other day because she was so excited about the new car model that just arrived on the lot and she didn’t even notice I was standing next to her. But I just get so stressed out with the pressure to sell. I can feel my heart pounding in my chest and my stomach doing flip flops. I think I might need a new career.”

“Mmm, said Sheldon. That might be a good thing to think about. It sounds like even though you want to help people in a fun way, your job is just stressing you out a bit too much.”

“Thanks for listening, Sheldon. I am going to think about it some more. You’re a great friend. I’m so glad we met here.”

“Me too, Lucas.”

A few weeks later, the two friends met up once again after worship. This time, out in the courtyard.

“Hey, Lucas, how’s it going? said Sheldon.”

“Well, a little better, I guess. I left my job selling cars and now I’m trying to sell houses. I have a friend, Tanisha, who is a great realtor. Their whole face lights up with excitement when they talk about their career. I thought that selling houses would be fun, plus I thought it would feel good to help people find their home sweet home.”

“But it’s not working out that way?” said Sheldon.

“No, I’ve been job shadowing Tanisha. They still love what they do, but I’m just finding it all kind of … odd. Some of these houses just creep me out. I can feel shivers going down my spine and I get goosebumps on my arms.

“Hmm, said Sheldon. I know helping others is important to you, but maybe its not people you’re meant to help.”

“What do you mean?” said Lucas

“Well, I notice you’re wearing a shirt with dogs all over it. You seem to wear that one a lot. And I noticed you only eat the vegetarian dishes at the church potlucks. Plus, you got really excited when that tiger, India, was it?, was on the loose in Houston. You said something about wishing you could volunteer at that animal sanctuary he went to. I know you love animals a lot. Maybe you could think about helping animals instead of people?”

“Thanks, Sheldon, I will do some thinking on that. You’re the best.”

And so Lucas did just that. He went home and he thought about all that Sheldon said and about how much he loves animals and how much he loves being helpful and he made a decision. Lucas went back to school and became a vet tech. Now, he works with, and helps, the animals he loves every day as well as their human parents.

A couple of months later, the two friends met up once again, this time at a pool party at Sheldon’s house.

“Lucas, I can’t believe how much happier and more relaxed you look these days,” said Sheldon.

“Yes, I am, Sheldon,” said Lucas. “That’s in part, thanks to you. I love my new career. I’m eager to go to work each morning and find out what the day will bring and I feel so fulfilled at the end of my day. I really appreciate all the listening you did and the way you helped me put things together in a deeper way. You really are a great friend.”

“So, how are things with you, Sheldon?”

Reading

Excerpted from Braver/Wiser
by Dr. Takiyah Nur Amin

When I used to work with Black Lives of Unitarian Universalism {BLUU)-doing workshops or meeting people in UU congregations-inevitably a very well-meaning white person would ask, “Who’s the Black Emerson?” or “Who’s the Black Thoreau?”

This question is wrong; icky for so many reasons. One of the tenets of white supremacy culture is the prioritization of the written word, and not understanding that if you want to discover the “evidence” of Unitarianism, Universalism, or Unitarian Universalism in the lives of Black folks, it’s not always in written essays-because historically, we’ve had different trajectories: different levels of care and resources and access that would enable us to create something like that.

If you’re seeking sacred Black “text” in our tradition, you have to examine the way our Black ancestors lived. You have to seek out the Black folks who were in Unitarian and Universalist or UU congregations, and the work that they were doing in community-whether it was suffrage, or trying to educate Black children, or their working towards social action or civil access. Our “text” is embodied in the lives of people like Frances Ellen Watkins Harper, Joseph Jordan, David Eaton, and countless others.

One of the things I love about this tradition is that our faith is covenantal and not confessional-meaning that to some degree, our tradition cares little about what you stand up and say you believe. The evidence of your Unitarian Universalism is embodied in the depth of your relationships: how do you live in relationship to self and other? {I don’t just mean human other: to the plants, to the animals, to the stars … ) The proof is in the pudding, for UUs. It’s not about what you have to say. How are you living?

Sermon

The words washed over me like the first drizzle on a parched land:

“Though you have broken your vows a thousand times;
Though you have broken your vows a thousand times;
Though you have broken your vows a thousand times … “

The rhythmic repetition of the congregation singing in unison began to settle into my body and nourish a place in my spirit I hadn’t known was thirsty. The verse continued, washing in and out like the tide, while other voices sang from above:

“Come, come, whoever you are,
wanderer, worshiper, lover of leaving,
ours is no caravan of despair,
come, yet again, come.”

And … 

“Though you have broken your vows a thousand times,
come, yet again, come.”

A sense of sweetness settled upon my heart and I allowed the words to soothe me. I was sitting in the pew of the UU Church of Worcester, Massachusetts, celebrating the Soulful Sundown service. The minister, the Rev. Aaron Payson, had invited us to join in singing the missing line from Rumi’s poem; the one which does not appear in our hymnal.

I think I understand why Rumi’s verse about breaking vows does not appear in our hymnal. It has to do with the tendency of Unitarian Universalism, as a whole, to avoid all things relating to sin, confession, and forgiveness, often to our own detriment. Many, and perhaps most, of us have arrived at Unitarian Universalism after coming out of another religious tradition. And all too often, we arrive here having suffered spiritual harm from a theological language of sin, confession, and forgiveness that was used to incite feelings of guilt or shame. And so, all too often, we arrive here wanting to avoid these theological terms. Yet, this self-protective action can also come at a price. We can close ourselves down, refuse to hear or try to understand what scares us, and so reject the good and beneficial which may be mixed in and amongst the harmful.

So, while we UUs tend to avoid topics like confession or brokenness or guilt or forgiveness; sometimes, though, I think we get it right. The worship leaders at the Soulful Sundown service I went to that time got it right. I needed to hear that message that night: though I have broken my vows a thousand times, as I surely have done, I still must come. I still must approach. I still must join with. I still must return, over and over and over, again. Theirs was a message proclaiming that I belong, here, in this faith community, even in my brokenness.

Theirs was a message promising that I will be seen, here, in this, my beloved Unitarian Universalist faith tradition, for all of who I am, even the less than perfect parts, and that I will be accepted not in spite of, but because of my imperfections. Theirs was a message of hope, acceptance, and strength, not one of shame or guilt, and this is a message we all need to hear. So, I’ll repeat it in slightly different words. To truly and completely affirm ourselves and each other, we must accept those feelings of brokenness; we must accept that there are parts ourselves and each other that feel out of alignment with who we understand ourselves to be and who we hope to become. We must begin by accepting our imperfection. Only from there, will we be able to seek wholeness in any truly meaningful way.

Which brings me to … UU Theology and an introduction of Thandeka. I first met the Reverend Dr. Thandeka on Star Island a UUA/UCC camp and conference center off the coast of New Hampshire, well over a decade ago. She was then a professor at one of our UU seminaries: Meadville-Lombard Theological School; and she is a Unitarian Universalist theologian. Morning after morning, just after breakfast, for an entire week, I listened to Thandeka lecture on a system of thought she termed affect theology. She traced its evolution from Friedrich Schleiermacher through George de Benneville and William Ellery Channing and up to her own refined application to contemporary Unitarian Universalism.

Affect theology is an incredibly complex system of thought, based on neurobiology, psychology, child development, anthropology, and theology. It is also an umbrella theology: a single theology that has the inherent ability to overarch or encompass all of our individual theologies and philosophies of life. Yes, all of them – whether you consider yourself to be a UU humanist, a UU Jew, a UU Buddhist, a UU Christian, a UU atheist, a UU Pagan, or a plain-old UU; there is a home for you within the umbrella of affect theology. It is a theology to which we all belong.

In hearing Thandeka speak over the course of that week, I was both fascinated intellectually and unsettled emotionally. Somehow, I felt like my body knew the truth of her words in a way I could not articulate. Her words sounded … vaguely familiar. Her words almost … haunted me. So, ever the researcher I am, once I returned from the Island, I decided to compare what I had learned about affect theology to my very recently written credo statement. It was with that reading and in that moment that I became a believer.

I became a believer. And ever since, affect theology has been formational in the way that I think theologically, in the way that I grow spiritually, and in the ways that I teach and minister. So, what is affect theology all about and how does it work? As we prepare to explore the 4 components of affect theology, let’s imagine ourselves embarking on a journey; a journey on which we search together for truth and meaning; a journey on which we encourage one another to spiritual growth; a journey toward belonging; a journey toward wholeness; a lifelong journey.

We begin this journey in the base of our brains. This is where our brains receive both external and internal sensory input. We see, hear, taste, smell, and touch. Here, we begin to be aware that our hearts are racing, that our bodies are feeling pain, that our skin is sweating, that our muscles are relaxing. To hearken back to my Soulful Sundown experience … I heard the music: a familiar melody with a new descant weaving in and out and among notes well loved; I felt the vibrations of dozens of others singing along with me; I saw candles lit and flickering in a darkened and beautiful sanctuary. Our bodily experiences are foundational in the way we understand and live out our faith lives. Affect theology is an embodied theology.

Next, and second, on our journey, we move a bit farther up our brain stems to where our emotional responses occur. First, we experienced sensory input within our bodies. Now, we experience emotions which we feel about these same sensory experiences. I felt emotions about my worship experience – not all of which were name-able, but include feelings of comfort, relief, nourishment, reassurance, and gratitude.

Next, and third, on our journey, we move even farther up our brains and into the neocortex, the most recently evolved portion of our brains, the center of thinking, reasoning, and logic. Here it is that we think about our bodily, sensory experiences and the emotions we have felt about those experiences. Here it is that we do the work of reflection and of meaning-making. I made sense of and came to an intellectual understanding of my Soulful Sundown worship experience by thinking through that experience. I thought about the contrasts between Unitarian Universalism and Sufism in the importance each religion places on making and keeping vows and what it might mean to break those same vows. I thought about the making, keeping, and breaking of vows and how that might relate to traditional Jewish and Christian theological concepts of sin, confession, and forgiveness. And I thought about the relative lack of those same traditional theological concepts within Unitarian Universalism and what that might mean for us as a faith tradition.

Finally, with the next, and fourth, step on our journey, we move to the last component of affect theology, which is our actions. That is to say, we have sensory experiences, emotions we feel about those experiences, thoughts we think about what we experience and feel, and actions which we undertake as we interact with the world, as we live our lives. I act by admitting my mistakes, apologizing, asking for forgiveness, and changing my future behavior. I act by writing and delivering this sermon. Sensory input. Emotions. Thoughts. Actions.

According to Thandeka, it is only when these four components:

• sensory input
• emotions
• thoughts
• actions

are in alignment; it is only then, that we feel whole, that we feel fulfilled. When these four components of our lives are out of alignment, when our thoughts don’t match our actions and our feelings don’t match our thoughts, we feel broken, disaffected, fragmented, disembodied. 

Affect theology is a path to leading a life of healing and wholeness and of fulfillment; a journey which we can all choose to take, regardless of our individual belief systems. In some ways, it is simple to understand (sensory input, emotions, thoughts, actions, all in alignment) but it is not actually easy to do and will never be finally or fully accomplished by anyone.

And so it is, that I believe in being fully present to those who I am with, yet I sometimes find myself feeling impatient or becoming lost in thought. And so it is, that I believe in making careful, considered, and ethical choices when shopping, yet I sometimes find myself choosing the easiest or least expensive option rather than the most ethical one.

For each piece we snap into place, there are more to be sorted, as we continually put together the puzzle we call life and journey onward. That is why we need each other – to help sort the puzzle pieces, to support and encourage one another, to call each other back into alignment. Just as Lucas’ friend Sheldon did for him, and as Lucas will do for Sheldon.

Take note, that means I ask you to call me back into alignment with myself. That’s the beauty, the absolute beauty, at the center of this theology – I ask you, my atheist friend, to call me back into alignment with my panentheistic self, not your atheistic self. And you, you ask your Christian friend to call you back into alignment with your Pagan self. No one’s individual theology or philosophy need threaten or take away from another’s. I need you all to hear this, because the survival of our faith tradition depends on this: no one’s theology of philosophy of life need threaten another’s. What we need is each other. What we need is a faith community to which we can belong.

In other words, as individuals, incorporating affect theology into our understanding of ourselves as whole, or even holy, beings is certainly … hmm, adequate for living a moral and ethical life.

We can use this system of thought to see a way toward becoming more ethically consistent in the totality of our individual being. We can use this system of thought in a spiritual practice of self-examination and self-culture. But the concept of working on ourselves by ourselves is no longer enough. It never really was. We are intimately connected on the interdependent web of life. We can only truly and fully understand ourselves in relationship to others. A change in any one of us is felt by all. We are all one.

I’ll say a little more about this, using Thandeka’s own words. In writing about a need for a language of reverence, she defines the symbol of salvation within the context of affect theology in this way:

“Human salvation is thus a corporate affair. We were not conceived, born, or individuated alone. If others did not exist (including the wider world of nature and the universe) we would not be here. We could not be here. A basic eco-biological law of nature is that organisms cannot flourish without an environment that nurtures, sustains, and enhances their developmental continuity through life-affirming relationships. Our human affections are thus deeply private and utterly social. We feel the world upon us and within us. The world stirs our affections. We are a pulse of its life.”

We Unitarian Universalists have covenanted together as congregations in relationship to other congregations of Unitarian Universalists, to encourage and support one another in our mutual quests for spiritual growth, as we each engage in a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. And so, when the search for truth and meaning becomes difficult, when we find ourselves living too much in our heads, or too much in our hearts, we can remind each other of our need for balance; our need for alignment. Body, heart, mind, will, spirit, all are essential on our path to healing and wholeness.

After all, we are all disaffected, disembodied, or broken, in some way. This is the natural order of life and the result of our all-tao-human experiences. If we were not, we would be inhumanly perfect, and no one is. Thandeka reminds us: “We were not broken alone and we cannot heal alone. It takes a religious community to heal a broken souL” We need each other.

As Unitarian Universalists, we have long struggled in finding a foundation for our liberal theology. Lewis B. Fisher said back in 1921: “Universalists are often asked to tell where they stand. The only true answer to give to this question is that we do not stand at all, we move.” This captures something quintessentially true about liberal theology, that our theology lives and grows and changes. Our theology is constantly in the process of becoming. Thandeka demonstrates that with affect theology, our search for a foundation may be over.

The foundation of affect theology actually rests outside of theology, and within the field of science. Human experience is understood through the lens of neurobiology. As people of liberal faith, we are not likely to ever plant our feet in a cement-like faith, but here we can find a place to rest, a place to find the ground beneath our bodies, a place to stop our seemingly endless wandering. Here, within the warm embrace of affect theology, we can move forward together, with purpose, as we join with each other on a life-long journey of becoming and of belonging.

May it be so.

Benediction

There is a promise, inherent within affect thea/ology, that we might one day come more fully into our own; a promise reflected in this poem by Derek Walcott; a promise that life itself is, indeed, poetry.

The time will come
when, with elation
you will greet yourself arriving
at your own door, in your own mirror
and each will smile at the other’s welcome,

and say, sit here. Eat.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 24 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
January 28, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

How do we build an accessible church where more and more people will feel included and welcome? We’ll share some stories of what it means to live a disabled life and how we can begin to dismantle ableism within ourselves and our community.

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

“TODAY WE CELEBRATE A DREAM AWAKENING”
by the Rev. Dr. Elizabeth M. Strong

Today we celebrate a dream awakening.
Today we worship with renewed hope in our hearts.
Today we act on an audacity of hopes and dreams for the future.
Today we, begin the hard work for justice, equity and compassion in all human relations,
for today is a day like no other and it is ours to shape with vision and action.
Let us worship together and celebrate a dream awakening.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Reading

“MEANT FOR LOVE AND BEAUTY”
by Julian Jamaica Soto

I need you to know
that there is nothing
wrong with you, if you
find the world congealed
and unwieldy. You were
never meant to serve money,
to give loyalty to unprincipled
power, to spend your joy
frantically soothing yourself
in order to tend wounds
of being constantly
dehumanized. I need you
to know that your sense
of injury and anger is not
overdeveloped. You are meant
for love and beauty. You belong
where you are known and
where your future is not just a
resource, but a promise, which
you begin to fulfill by being
unmistakably, irrevocably
yourself.

-you are not wrong.

Sermon

Together, we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the beloved community. This is the mission of this church and this church is the most mission-driven congregation I have ever had the joy to minister. Together, we build beloved community and the love which is centered in the word beloved is a serious love, it is a liberating love.

Today, I’m going to talk about the liberation of a people we don’t talk much about. People with disabilities. All kinds of disabilities because we come in all kinds of bodies. Some bodies think differently, some bodies process pain differently, some bodies regulate emotion differently, some bodies work differently, some bodies see and hear and move differently. Differently how? Differently from “the norm”, differently from the way human bodies “are supposed” to be. As if there were a single magical template from which any deviation is a problem.

Before I go any further, I’d like to make a note about language. As with any group of people, disabled folx don’t all agree on language, or anything else for that matter. Just like able-bodied people don’t all agree on language or anything else for that matter. And language tends to change over time. So, I’ll say right up front that I choose to use the words disabled and disability. I think these words, disabled and disability, are the best way to get at the heart of what ableism is and why we need to do something about it. In other words, because ableism is still largely unacknowledged, talking about disability and disability justice helps to acknowledge the very existence of ableism. Maybe someday, when we live in a more just world, I’ll feel differently, and I will find a better way to talk about the experience of living in my human body.

Some folx experience themselves as disabled their whole lives. For me, I didn’t encounter any serious issues until I was close to 40 years old. I was serving a church in central Massachusetts in a hilly little village, and by little, I mean a population of around 1200 people. This is relevant because in order to have a Memorial Day parade it was all hands on deck. Including all clergy hands. Yes, the clergy were asked to march, as our own little unit, right behind the Fire Department. All 3 of us. And since it was a hilly and fairly long parade route, it was also how I measured the onset of my disability. I went from marching the entire route one Memorial Day, no problem, to not being able to march at all the next.

Perhaps even more difficult than adjusting to the chronic pain was the process of coming into a new identity, that of a disabled person. Using a cane, getting a disability tag for my car, climbing into a mobility scooter for the first time, deciding whether I wanted to use the word disabled to describe myself, all were big milestones, as was getting matched with my first service dog for mobility, Bella. So, too, were the obstacles I began to encounter and my realization of inaccessible and ableist the world was, even more milestones.

Ableism flies so far under the radar that it’s worth a moment to define it. Simply put, ableism is the unspoken and un-thought-about assumption that able bodies are normal bodies. As a society, we build houses, apartments, offices, stores, libraries, hospitals, rest rooms, and more with this assumption. We design classrooms and museums and other educational or learning opportunities with this assumption. We create transportation systems, cars, airplanes, and even bike racks with this assumption. And, yes, we design our churches and our worship services this way, too.

Which is why there is a new ministry team here at First UU. A few months ago, I was approached by Vicki Almstrum who wanted to start an accessibility ministry team. While some accessibility features were put in place a long time ago, especially in the newer sections of the building – think hearing loops, a ramp up into the pulpit, wireless receivers to better hear the service, door openers outside the sanctuary doors, support grips in the restrooms, braille signs and hymnals, and so on, she knew that accessibility is about much more than seeing, hearing, and using a wheelchair. The new team was approved, and she got to work reaching out to people who might be interested in joining the AMT – Accessibility Ministry Team. Their first official debut was at the Connections Fair in December where many of you submitted suggestions for ways that accessibility can be improved here.

Beginning today, you’ll start to see some changes taking place with both the worship service and the website, the two areas the team has identified to prioritize. Because accessibility covers such a wide range of needs and in so many different areas of congregational life, there is going to be a lot to learn, and I include myself in that. So, to share your ideas for accessibility or your kind, caring, and covenantally constructive feedback, the Accessibility Ministry Team has a new email address. You can send your thoughts to Access@austinuu.org.

Like I said, there is a lot to learn to do accessibility well and it will take lots and lots of practice, on all of our parts, including those of us who are disabled because we still need to learn about each other’s needs, which are different from own. This is all work that can and should be joyful. Before I talk a little bit more about what we’re doing, I’d like to say some more about why. And it’s all about that liberating love embedded right there in our mission statement.

Those of you with a Christian background will likely remember these words of Paul’s and the rest of you will probably find them familiar, too, as they are so well known. In First Corinthians, which is actually a letter Paul wrote to the church in Corinth about how to be together as a church, he said: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud … ” and so on. Setting aside issues with Biblical translation for now, I’d like to share excerpts from something the Rev. Tess Baumberger wrote, which is based on this passage from First Corinthians. Here it is:

Love is kind with people but impatient with injustice.
Love is assertive and respectful.
Love listens to the anger of those who experience oppressIon
Without responding, without defending,
Without interrupting, without explaining.
It listens with compassion, seeking always to understand …
Love is willing to examine itself,
Its thoughts, actions, and unmeditated bias.
It recognizes one’s power to harm, or to be part of systems of harm
With or without awareness, but once aware it can only intend
To make amends, to right the wrongs, to change the systems…
Love is willing always to change,
Always to learn, always to heal.
Love rejoices in truth and in equity.
There is no limit to love’s steady presence,
Or it’s holding us, gently but insistently, to what is right.

This love she speaks of is a liberating love, a love that sets people free from oppression and systems of oppression. This love is a love that does what is right because it is right. And this love is a love that doesn’t give up because doing what is right is difficult to do. This love is willing to learn and willing to practice. This love is willing to change and to grow. This love is a joyful love. This love is a liberating love.

What does this kind of liberating love mean in action? Sometimes, it looks like new slides, in a different font, in a larger size, and a higher contrast color ratio. Sometimes, it sounds like purchasing more wireless receivers because hearing aid technology has changed. Sometimes, it smells like fragrance free soap, shampoo, and lotion. Sometimes, it speaks in American Sign Language. Sometimes, it means the time of silence isn’t actually silent. Sometimes, it means that the preacher’s image is left up on the sanctuary’s monitors. Sometimes, it means that people move around a lot during worship. Sometimes, it means that there’s a dog on the chancel. Sometimes, it means that the preacher speaks in plain language. Sometimes, it means that we get a little repetitive. (It’s okay to laugh at that one. I did it on purpose and I’m kind of making fun at myself.)

Now, I’m guessing that some of those ways of demonstrating a liberating kind of love that I just named feel easier or more challenging than other ways. Take the time of silence, for one. Silence is an age-old spiritual practice that does have many benefits for the inner spiritual life. And, it is challenging, stressful, and sometimes even impossible for some disabled folx to do. Never mind the non-disabled folx. Babies cry. Children fidget. And elders, well … a number of years ago, a noise audit was done for congregational worship. You know what they found? That the elders made more decibels of sound than the infants and children.

I’m guessing, though, that the most challenging way of becoming more accessible to more people for Unitarian Universalists is the use of plain language. We UUs (as a whole, not just this church) tend to pride ourselves on the number of college and graduate level degrees we hold, though it’s important to note , that’s not all of us.We are, on the whole, an educated bunch and we tend to intellectualize a lot. There’s not necessarily anything wrong with that. I can “geek out” on occasion along with the best of them. And people who have graduate level vocabulary tend to use it, without even thinking, most of the time.

Here’s an example. My mom, who holds a graduate degree, and gave me permission to share this story with all of y’all, spent much of her professional life teaching in special education. I often substitute taught in her classroom or volunteer chaperoned on class trips. The students, who were high school or college aged, sometimes couldn’t read or read at a 2nd or 3rd grade level.

So, one time, I was helping to chaperone a class trip and a student who also had mobility challenges was struggling to walk up a paved path. My mom said to her “Don’t worry, it’s only a steep incline.”

My eyes grew wide and I struggled to not burst out laughing immediately. Later on, she heard it from me though. “What was up with that steep incline, Mom? It’s a hill. It was a hill.” We are a family who love to laugh at ourselves, and that joke lived on for a long, long time.

My point in sharing that story is that while plain language is more accessible, it can be hard to change the way we talk, especially in worship and during the sermon. It does not mean, though, that our sermons and our services have to be any less deep or any less based on complex thea/ological ideas. Let’s face it, we’re only getting so far in less than twenty minutes anyway.

There are many stories I can tell about what it is like to live with a disability that causes chronic pain and limits my mobility. And many tips I can give about how to interact, or not interact with and near me.

A few quick ones, all of which have actually happened to me:
1. Never call someone else’s service dog to you while they trying to go down the stairs.
2. Never park your car or truck or other vehicle with one end hanging over the sidewalk.
3. Never cut off someone who is using a mobility scooter in a store, either with your body, your child, or your cart. Those things don’t have brakes, people!
4. Never glare at someone parking in a disabled spot. Many disabilities are invisible or nearly so. And, yes, it was amusing to see how quickly faces changed once Bella hopped out.

And one longer, and more humorous story.

One year, I went Christmas shopping for my spouse, Micah, in one of those dollar-type stores. I was looking for things to fill his stocking and I was there with my service dog, Bella, a beautiful black lab, whose jobs included picking up things I dropped on the floor, getting my cane when it was out of reach, and so on. I was stopped by the rack of crossword puzzles and word searches, wearing my glasses, and flipping through the pages of one of the books, when all of a sudden I heard two older men say, from partway across the store:
“She can’t help us. She’s blind.”
So, I turned in to find out:
(a) if they were really talking about me. (They were) and:
(b) what they were up to.

It turned out that someone, a niece apparently, had sent them to the store in search of some feminine products, without clear instructions, and they didn’t know what they were doing. I decided not to volunteer to help, curious to “see” what would happen. They did wind up getting some help, from a store clerk. My only regret was, they were not around when I went out to the parking lot, got in my car, and drove away.

The moral of the story is – we never know what anyone person’s needs or abilities are without actually getting to know them. We can learn how to put some good practices in place, but in the end, we are all different, and yet we are all the same. We are all human and we are all worthy.

Amen and Blessed Be

Benediction

As you go forth, in the many ways you go forth,
May your hearts and minds be open to the many ways of being in this world,
May your senses be open to new encounters, May the ways you experience the world,
lead you to transform this world,
all for the better.

Amen and Blessed Be.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 24 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
January 7, 2024
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Play and playfulness are easily overlooked aspects of faith, development, and spirituality. Join us for a playful New Year’s service filled with Robert Fulghum readings.

Chalice Lighting

EXPLORING WHO WE ARE
by Melanie Davis, adapted

Under the right circumstances, playing around the fire is a delight -imagine being gathered round a firepit as the crackling flames invite us to sing, dance, and roast a marshmallow or two.

Our chalice also invites us to play, although with ideas rather than with marshmallows. The flame encourages us to explore who we are, who our neighbors are, and where we are on our spiritual journeys.

Today, we light this chalice in the spirit of play. Let us trust the light to guide us in this hour and in the days to come, finding joy along the way.

Call to Worship

ENTERING THE BRIGHT WORLD
by Shari Woodbury

Let us enter this sacred sanctuary
the way a soft infant enters the bright world:

squinting in wonder
holding to another
taking it all in.

Let us open all our senses
and let our synapses spark
one connection after another

as we make sense of the world
and find joy with each other
and follow the instinct to play.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

First Reading

WHAT ON EARTH HAVE I DONE?
Robert Fulghum (excerpts)

PLAYER Definition: Persons with enough nimbleness of mind to accept a surprise invitation to jump into a quick game of imagination. People with a loosey-goosey sense of mischief. Players are also Laughers. And you can’t tell the Players by the way they appear on the outside.

Example: Here’s a uniformed city bus driver standing in the door of his vehicle, staring into the rain.

An invitation from me, passing by: “OK, here’s the deal: I’ll pay for the gas, and you’ll drive us to California to the beach at Santa Monica.”

With a straight face he says, “OK, meet me here at midnight. It’s the end of my run and they won’t miss me or the bus until morning. I’ll get some barbecue.” He smiles. A PLAYER.

Consider this lady with a shopping cart full of oddball stuff standing beside me in front of the cheese counter at the grocery story.

My invitation: “I like the groceries in your cart better than mine. Want to trade? You take mine and I’ll take yours. Could be interesting when we get home.”

She smiles. Checks out my cart. “You’ve got a deal,” she says. We take each other’s carts and roll away. Later, she’s waiting for me at the check-out counter. She knows and I know: we weren’t really going to go through with it. But those few moments of madness brought new meaning to “going to the store for a few things.” And the lady knows the game. A PLAYER.

On the other hand: There’s a tailor shop on Queen Anne Avenue. Sign in the window says “ALTERATIONS AND REPAIRS FOR MEN AND WOMEN.” The tailor is standing in the doorway. I stop.

“I’d like to get altered and repaired,” I say.

She looks at me cautiously. Goes inside. Closes the door. NOT A PLAYER.

Second Reading

WHAT ON EARTH HAVE I DONE?
Robert Fulghum (excerpts)

Here’s me again, at a well-known company to pick up copies of a manuscript. I am visibly annoyed – this is my third trip to get what was promised yesterday. The anxious clerk, Miss Saucer-eyes, is obviously new to the herd behind the counter and doesn’t know what to do with me or for me. The work is still not done, despite promises. Getting mad won’t help.

“OK, I won’t make any trouble,” I say, “Just give me a really clever, off-the-wall creative excuse – the wildest thing you can think of. Make me laugh and I’ll go away.”

Miss Saucer-eyes is mute. This situation was not covered in training school last week. “I’ll speak to my manager.”

Definitely not a PLAYER. But the story continues.

Miss Saucer-eyes retreats to the back of the shop and consults with her boss, a high-energy, sharply dressed woman, who marches briskly toward me with a steely look.

She leans over the counter and explains: “Sir, you may not know this, but this store has been a front for the Irish Republican Army for years. We’re supposed to be turning in our firearms, and it seems a bazooka is missing from the inventory. When we find the bazooka, things will get back to normal. If I were you, I wouldn’t make any trouble – just come back tomorrow, OK?”

A big league PLAYER.

A garbageman in charge of a monster truck. Lousy day. Cold. Rain. But he’s a Player. This time the invitation comes from him. As I pass by, he says, “Hey, you look prosperous.”

“Thank you. I feel prosperous.”

“You look like a man who might have some frequent-flyer miles.”

“As a matter of fact, I do. Lots of them.”

“Listen, I need enough to get me to Buenos Aires, one way.”

I’ve got enough. They’re yours. But what’s in it for me?”

“Take the keys to this garbage truck. It’s yours. Even trade.”

“Yes! I’ve long had an urge to drive one of those things. I’d like to dump a load of garbage in a certain person’s front yard. It’s a deal.”

“You got a license to drive a truck?”

“Well, no.”

“Deals off. I can’t be part of anything illegal, but no problem. Get a license. I’m here every Monday.”

As he drives off, I wonder how many other people on his route get offers from him every day. He has all the nervy characteristics of a nonstop all-day PLAYER.

One final example: A double whammy I didn’t see coming.

Clerk in a bookstore – older lady with dyed red hair. “Can I help you?” she asks.

“Happy birthday,” I say. (Always makes people smile – sometimes you’re early, sometimes late, but sometimes right on. An invitation to play.)

“Well, I hope you’re coming to my party,” she says. “We need someone to jump out of a cake.”

“I’m your man.”

“You’d be expected to go-go dance naked.”

“Then I’m not your man.”

“My mistake. I thought you looked a little kinky.”

A PLAYER.

A lady waiting in line behind me overheard this bookstore babble and drifted away from the counter and out the door. She missed her chance.

Probably not a PLAYER.

Later, as I walked by a sidewalk table at a nearby coffeehouse, I spot the lady who fled the store.

“Sorry, hope we didn’t annoy you,” I said.

She smiled. “Oh no,” she replied, “It’s just that I jumped out of the cake last year. It hurts my feelings to think they’re looking for a replacement.”

A PLAYER after all.

Sermon

In our readings this morning, Robert Fulghum is, essentially, asking each of the people he encounters: “Are you a player?” This is a not inconsequential question. Are you? Or you or you or you? Are you a player?

Several Christmas’ ago, I got my spouse, Micah, a game he’d been wanting for a long time. It’s called Forbidden Island and the game is about retrieving four treasures from different parts of the island and then getting off the island before it floods. Micah was reading the directions aloud and while I understood the object of the game easily enough, I couldn’t quite see how the rules I was hearing would align with a strategy until I heard, Micah say: “We have to work together.” Oh. Ooh. Then it made sense. It was a cooperative game. I had been listening with the assumption that it was yet another competitive game. But this time, we would win or lose together.

As it turns out, the game of Forbidden Island is much like the game of Real Life. We have to work together to get anywhere we really want to go. For a long time, people believed that evolution was primarily a matter of survival of the fittest, the ultimate in competitive games. More recently, anthropologists have come to understand the essential role that cooperation – plays in evolution. Humans were, and are, able to evolve in the ways we do because we cooperate in meeting common goals. The strategy for the game of Real Life is cooperation.

And this is important because as Peter Gray, a psychology professor at Boston College says: “Play primarily evolved to teach children all kinds of skills, and its extension into adulthood may have helped to build cooperation and sharing among hunter-gathers beyond the level that would naturally exist in a dominance-seeking species.” In other words, not only is cooperation essential to the path of human evolution, but play is what helps us learn cooperation.

Play has other benefits as well. Lisa Barnett, a professor at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign, says we play because it is therapeutic. In the work environment, play speeds up learning, increases productivity and improves job satisfaction while at home, play helps with bonding and communication. She says that playful adults have better coping skills. While they feel the same stressors as everyone else, they experience and react to these stressors differently. Playful adults can transform stressful situations into something entertaining, which then allows stressors to roll off more easily than for those who are less playful.

The late Edwin Friedman – rabbi, family therapist, congregational consultant, and author of what is pretty much “the Bible” of congregational systems theory said that: “A major criterion for judging the anxiety level of any society [that is congregation] is the loss of its capacity to be playful.” In other words, playfulness, and the ability to be playful, is an essential attribute of a healthier congregation or family or individual.

And so the question remains, are you a player? Fulghum gave us a definition of a player as a: “person with enough nimbleness of mind to accept a surprise invitation to jump into a quick game of imagination. [A person] with a loosey-goosey sense of mischief.”

I’m guessing that some of you might have noticed some mischief going on around here the last month or two with miniature versions of some of the staff popping up here and there. In case you missed it, here’s some photographic evidence.

Images on the screen of Barbie dolls outfitted as church staff members and their personal equipment.

Of course, Robert Fulghum is not the only person to try to define what a player is. According to researchers who published a study in the journal Personality and Individual Differences there are four types of playful adults. (Wallace, 2017)

• • those who outwardly enjoy fooling around with friends, colleagues, relatives and acquaintances;

• • those who are generally lighthearted and not preoccupied by the future consequences of their behavior;

• • those who play with thoughts and ideas;
  • and those who are whimsical, exhibiting interest in strange and unusual things and are amused by small, everyday observations.

I think I’d definitely put Robert Fulghum in that last category.

Or, with a hat tip to Kelly, who brought this back from the last LREDA conference, we can think about these 8 play personalities as identified by a researcher named Stuart Brown.

Let’s try to have a little fun with this. I’ll describe the play personality and then whoever feels like they have that personality can raise their hand. You can raise your hand as many times as you’d like. (This is one situation in which you are not limited to having only one personality.)

The Joker – Play revolves around silliness and making others laugh. Jokers tend to be the “class clown” in school, and may engage in play through telling jokes, doing funny impersonations, or playing practical jokes.

The Kinesthete plays through movement. They experience pleasure in movement and feeling the result of physically pushing their bodies. While this category may include athletes, competition is not the main focus; the joy of engaging in the activity takes precedence. The Kinesthetete’s play might take the form of running, dancing, sports, yoga, swimming, hiking or walking.

The Explorer is enthusiastic about, and engages in play by exploring the world around them. The Explorer’s play can be physical (going to new places) emotional (search for a deepening of emotion through music, art or movement) or mental (researching a new area of interest or reading a book).

The Competitor engages in play through competitive games with specific rules, and enjoys the thrill of winning. The games can be solitary, such as trying to beat his/her top score in a video game, or social, such as competing in a team sport. Competitors may also play through observing and being a fan of competitive sports.

The Director engages in play through planning and executing events. They are the organizers of the social world and may be the instigators of a weekend up North, or throwing a party. Directors may be active in creating a facebook group, or organizing a meet-up.

The Collector plays through engaging in seeking and holding onto the most, best and most interesting collection of objects or experiences. They experience bliss in finding a new piece/experience, organizing or showing off their collection. The Collector may be interested in coins, purses, shoes, cars, or photographs (the possibilities are endless!)

The Artist/Creator plays through creating and making things. The Artist/Creator may engage in drawing, building, or sculpting, painting, singing, knitting, gardening, woodworking, or any number of creative endeavors. The Artist/Creator may also take joy in fixing or making something work, like taking a part a broken item, cleaning and replacing parts, and putting it back together again.

The Storyteller engages in play through adventure into the imagination. They may enjoy reading novels, writing, or watching movies and theater. Storytellers enjoy being immersed in a story, experiencing the thoughts and emotions of characters in the stories.

Well, that was fun! So why does it matter whether we play, or are playful, in church? In addition to keeping levels of anxiety down, there are probably many, but I’ll share two more for now.

One is that in our playfulness we turn toward each other as play partners. We become less self-absorbed and more community oriented. In order to play with each other or play off each other, we need to pay attention to each other and how our wants, needs, hopes, dreams, personalities, and even our cultures differ. Music, staff, ministry teams play can also support us in meeting the goal of becoming more radically welcoming. Once we know, understand, and care about our needs we can better meet them. Think about that explorer personality.

Another possibility relates to the work of faith formation. We have covenanted to encourage one another to spiritual growth. In order to be thea/ologically or philosophically flexible we need to be able to be both creative and open to change with our ideas. For some of us, this aligns with process thea/ology specifically. G_d, or Love, or that which is Ultimate is continually in process and so are we. Being playful helps us to be more flexible.

So… it doesn’t really matter what kind of player you are, just that you play and play often. And, if you are not a player, or not much of a player, know that you can learn to play. Play skills are something you can teach yourself by observing the ways in which others play or by trying out one of the play personalities we talked about today.

Today is the first Sunday we have gathered all together since the start of the New Year. Last week, you ritually let go of those things you wished to leave in the past, with the Burning Bowl service led by Bis. Now it is time to choose what it is you would like to take up in the New Year. I invite you to consider taking up play. The interim period can be a stressful time. Learning to play together, or how to play together better, can relieve some of the stress and anxiety inherent in any transition, including an interim ministry. Plus – it’s fun! And who doesn’t want to have more fun? The only question remaining is … Are you a player?

Amen and Blessed Be

Benediction

As you venture into the new year …
may you find a nimbleness of mind and spirit,
may much love and laughter await you,
and may all that is Good hold you and keep you. Amen and Blessed Be

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 24 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
December 10, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Mystery abounds during this season of telling the old stories and celebrating the unknown. How does mystery feed our spirits or nourish our souls? How does embracing the unknown help us to grow?

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

IN THIS SPIRIT OF SEARCHING
by Joan Javier-Duval

Out of depths unknown
the spark of life ignites
and we are born
we enter a world, a universe
not of our making
our lives unfold
in mystery and wonder
questions abound
for which there are no definite answers
and so
we gather in community
to seek in one another
assurance
and recognition
compassion and strength
we gather in community
to be reminded
of what is most ultimate
and what is most sacred
in this spirit of searching
and of reverence
let us worship together this morning

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Reading

I have been looking for the words that come
before words: the words older than silence,
the ones not mine, that can’t be found by thought –
the ones that hold the beginning of the world
and are never used up, and arrive loaned,
and make me weep.

– Nancy Shaffer

Sermon

There are so many kinds of mysteries in the world. The kind written in books, for which there is an entire genre. The kind for which there are no answers. The kind for which we suspect there might be a scientific explanation someday, even if not in our own lifetime. The kind which are hard to bear. The kind of which mystics speak. The kind that moves us to write a poem or compose a piece of music or create a piece of art. The kind that prompts us to study thea/ology or moves us to explore the stars. In this world of ours, one thing is clear: mystery abounds.

Rev. Michelle tells her personal story: “Music for Dance class.”

There are times when the joy is found in not finding an answer, enjoying the mystery, the experience of wondering, allowing the mystery to remain unnamable, unknowable, letting the mystery be.

Here’s another story, this one comes from Erik Walker Wikstrom …

One day a Religious Man approached a Mystic and asked, “Does God exist?”

“Allow me to go within for an answer,” the Mystic replied. After meditating for quite some time, expanding her heartconsciousness to embrace the totality of existence, she answered, “I do not know what you mean by the word ‘God,’ but I do know that this world is more mysterious and more wonderful than I could ever imagine. I know that you and I are part of something so much larger than our own lives. Perhaps this ‘something larger’ is what you seek.”

Then the Religious Man approached a Scientist. “Does God exist?” he asked.

“Let me think,” the Scientist replied. And so she thought. She thought about the vastness of the universe-156 billion light-years, or something like 936 billion trillion miles, in diameter-and the almost immeasurable smallness of a quark. She thought of how the energy of the Big Bang fuels the beating of her own heart. And then she answered, “I do not know what you mean by the word ‘God,” but I do know that this world is more mysterious and more wonderful than I could ever imagine. I know that you and I are part of something so much larger than our own lives. Perhaps this ‘something larger’ is what you seek.”

The Religious Man then thought to himself. He thought of what he knows and what he does not know. He thought about how he knows what he knows, and how he knows he doesn’t know what he doesn’t know. He thought about his experience of the world and how it is but one tiny, infinitesimal fraction of all experience. He thought about his dependence on forces larger than himself, and he thought about the interdependence of all existence. He experienced wonder and pondered mystery. And then he knew-he knew in his soul the truth of what the Mystic and the Scientist said-that he is part of something so much larger than his own life.

And then, only then, did he think about what he’d call it.

Where is mystery in your life?
And what do you call it?
Or do you prefer for it to remain unnamed?

Sarah York writes:

We receive fragments of holiness,
glimpses of eternity,
brief moments of insight.
Let us gather them up
for the precious gifts that they are
and, renewed by their grace,
move boldly into the unknown.

May it always be so. Amen and Blessed Be.

Benediction by Eric Williams

We all emerge from
Dwell within
Are transformed by
And called back to Love.

May your mind be humbled before this Mystery.
May your heart grow hopeful by it.
May you be sustained by this Love always.

Amen and Blessed Be.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
November 5, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

This is the time of year when spiritual traditions around the world, including our own, remember and honor the people from whom we came, our ancestors. This year we will focus on the importance of naming traditions while remembering those ancestors who have helped to shape us into who we are today.

Chalice Lighting

As we kindle this the flame, we honor and remember
Those who have passed into the mystery.
Their brightness lives on in our vision;
their courage lives on in our commitments;
and their love continues to bless the world through us.

Call to Worship

UNITED BY STORY AND BOUND BY LOVE
by Andrea Hawkins-Kamper

Gather we now into this space, this time when the Wheel turns and the Veil shatters.

Gather we now to remember, to grieve, to prophesy, to complete our harvests before the long Dark comes.

Gather we now to tell the Old Stories and sing the Old Songs, to be as we have always been -the Voice of our people eternal.

Gather we now to celebrate that which was, that which is, and that which will be. Gather we now, as we have always done, united by Story and bound by love.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Reading

Image of a painting on the screen

ABBE MOSES THE BLACK
by Mark Dukes

My spiritual ancestor Abbe Moses the Black lived 1600 years ago. He used to be the leader of a gong of thieves. One day while hiding from the law he met a group of monks who lived simple, prayerful lives in the deserts of Egypt. He decided to join them.

In my picture he is talking to his gang about his newfound experience of joy in doing good. The thieves on the left drop their knives and decide to change their lives. The thieves on the right haven’t decided yet. later, they will drop their weapons, change their violent lives, and follow their leader, Abba Moses.

I’m one of the gang. Can you find me? Instead of a knife, I have a paintbrush. It’s the magic of my paintbrush that enables me to travel back in time.

Above us are two more saints. Tekla Haymanot is a legendary Ethiopian saint. Mahatma Gandhi is an Indian saint who lived in modern times. I put him with Tekla because I thought Gandhi would like a ride on a magic carpet of light. Wouldn’t you?

Sermon

Almost as old as time itself are the tales of this time of year; a time when the veil between this world and the next thins and spirits of the dead and otherworldly creatures cross over. This is a time of liminality; a time of in-betweenness – between summer and winter, between light and dark, between this world and another. This is the time of All Hallow’s Eve, Dia de los Muertos, Day of the Dead, All Souls’ Day, Samhain …

I begin with an old Celtic tale, from a county in Ireland, from which rises an old mountain in the shape of a sleeping woman, and on top of which still rests an ancient burial cairn, near some rocks which naturally take the shape of a doorway. There once was a young man, a hunter and a warrior, in between his childhood and his inheritance, named Fionn, which means “fair”, for his hair which had turned unnaturally white at a young age. One long ago Samhain, an otherworldly creature emerged from the cairn and stole a pig that was roasting over a fire. Fionn chased the creature and killed him with a spear just as the creature was slipping through a doorway back to the Otherworld. Finn’s thumb was caught in the door as it was shut. He pulled his thumb out and because it hurt, he sucked on it. Because his thumb had been in the Otherworld, Finn gained a great wisdom.

It is said that this tale is meant to explain how people gained wisdom from the ancestors.

Whether this tale comes from your own tradition or not, it is simply one of many the world over, which speaks of the wisdom of the ancestors. And, we all do have ancestors, some who are known to us and some who are not, some who come from our family lines, some who come from our cultural lineages, and some who come from our own, shared, living tradition – our Unitarian and Universalist forebears. There is a great wisdom that come to all of us from our ancestors, and from the living elders we have known in our lives.

In this season of liminality, many of us choose to honor our ancestors by creating altars and visiting graves, by placing photos, and food, and flowers, and by telling stories. I encourage you to engage in a spiritual practice of honoring the dead in whatever ways feel appropriate to you and your family and also, for all of us, to take some time to reflect on the wisdom we have gained from the ancestors and to share it with each other.

While some of that wisdom is fairly easy to hear, easy to take in, easy to apply to our lives, some is not. Some of that wisdom is gained by wrestling with our heritages. What can we learn from the ways in which our ancestors, intentionally or unintentionally oppressed others? Were oppressed by others? For me, in my direct family line, I have both Pilgrims and Pirates and I’m not always sure which heritage is more difficult to wrestle with. A beloved mentee, not so long ago celebrated Trans Power by holding a vigil and creating an altar to honor the transcestors. She has now become one of them. Her name was, is Audrey Gale Hall.

We do not only learn from, gain wisdom from, our ancestors. We also are the ancestors. While we are still living our lives, and beginning at any age, is the best time to think about our own legacies. What legacy do we wish to leave behind? What wisdom would we like to leave behind? How would we like to be remembered? BE THAT! One of our shared spiritual ancestors, the Rev. William Ellery Channing, once said: “May your life preach more loudly than your lips.” How wilt how does YOUR life preach?

Amen and Blessed Be.

Benediction

INSPIRED BY OUR ANCESTORS
by Leia Durland-Jones

For those who came before us,
we offer gratitude and thanks.
May their memories be a blessing.
May we feel surrounded by their love.
As we go forth from this time and place,
let us be inspired by their courage,
their wisdom, and their dreams.
let us honor them by doing the work
of living boldly, loving mightily,
and creating heaven on earth.

Amen and blessed be.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
October 15, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Generosity shows up in our lives in so many places and so many ways. Today we celebrate the generosity that is present in this church and which enables us to do the work of nourishing souls, transforming lives, and doing justice.

Chalice Lighting

We light this chalice for all who are here, and all who are not:
For all who have ever walked through our doors,
for those who may yet find this spiritual home,
and for those, we can’t even yet imagine.
For each of us and for usalll, may this flame burn warm and bright.

Call to Worship

LETTING GO
Jay Wolin

Are we a people of holding on or of letting go?
Holding on to rigid ideas or
Letting go and opening our minds and our hearts, to something new;
Holding on to certainty of how things should be or
Letting go and living with the uncertainty of new ways of being in the world;
Holding on to what makes us comfortable or
Letting go so we may grow which can be uncomfortable;
Holding on to what makes us safe or
Letting go to make room to help others feel safe?
With this flame, this symbol of our religion,
let it be a symbol of burning up the ties that hold us back from being our true self and reaching our true potential;
let it be a symbol of lighting a new way for us into a better tomorrow;
and let it be a symbol of letting go
Because holding on too long and too tightly is never good for the soul.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Reading

The story goes of an old woman who found a precious gem in the river…
by Rev. Gretchen Haley

Sermon

Text of this sermon is not yet available.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
October 8, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Our lives are filled with moments of amazing grace, which break our hearts wide open with compassion for our fellow beings. We may not know why these moments come and go; even so we can meet them with gratitude together.

Chalice Lighting

We light this chalice to affirm that new light is ever waiting to break through to enlighten our ways. New truth is ever waiting to break through to illuminate our minds. New love is ever waiting to break through to warm our hearts. May we be open to this light and to the rich possibilities that it brings us.

Call to Worship

Come into this space, this sacred space, this sanctuary. Whether your sanctuary is here or at home or some other on-line space. Draw in its beauty as if drawing in a deep breath. Draw in its peace as if drawing in a deep breath and come, come into this space with hearts open, hearts ready to receive, hearts ready to give. Let us begin.

– Rev. Michelle LaGrave

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Reading

THE SOUND OF THE GENUINE
By Howard Thurman

If I were to ask you what is the thing that you desire most in life this afternoon, you would say a lot of things off the top of your head, most of which you wouldn’t believe but you would think that you were saying the things that I thought you ought to think that you should say.

But I think that if you were stripped to whatever there is in you that is literal and irreducible, and you tried to answer that question, the answer may be something like this: I want to feel that I am thoroughly and completely understood so that now and then I can take my guard down and look out around me and not feel that I will be destroyed with my defenses down. I want to feel completely vulnerable, completely naked, completely exposed and absolutely secure.

This is what you look for in your children when you have them, this is what you look for in your husband if you get one. That I can run the risk of radical exposure and know that the eye that beholds my vulnerability will not step on me. That I can feel secure in my awareness of the active presence of my own idiom in me.

So as I live my life then, this is what I am trying to fulfill. It doesn’t matter whether I become a doctor, lawyer, housewife. I’m secure because I hear the sound of the genuine in myself and having learned to listen to that, I can become quiet enough, still enough, to hear the sound of the genuine in you.

Sermon

I enter the trauma room and stand off to the side, watching. A young man, barely a man, lies before me on a stretcher. He is combative, fighting with the medical staff about having his pants taken off, demanding the two police officers in the room be removed, and refusing to give his name or any information about what happened to him. I watch as he alternates between fighting and yelling with the staff and curling over on his side and crying about how much it hurts. He was found, by police, lying in a snowbank; a victim of assault. Not much is known, yet, though he is clearly injured on one side. His appearance; young, male, ears and tongue pierced, arm tattooed; and his manner; refusing to give his name or story in front of the police, his anger and combativeness toward the medical staff; give rise to a myriad of possible labels and stories, none of them flattering. Then he turns on his side once more, curls up into a ball, and cries about the pain. My heart breaks open. A part of me knows this young man could be … a gangbanger, a person accustomed to being in trouble with the law, an innocent victim, or a thousand other things.

But none of that matters now. The possible labels and stories have fallen away. All I can see now is a young boy; crying, in pain, and needing comfort. My heart has broken open. I move closer, encourage him to breathe, and rub his head in comfort. His chaplain is there. Someone who cares, not just about his body and its broken condition; but about his feelings and his spirit, which have also been broken. He has been seen and his need for emotional comfort and spiritual healing has been acknowledged.

Years ago, I worked as a chaplain resident in an intensive clinical pastoral education program. The hospital where I served is a Level 1 trauma center and contains the state’s only burn unit. It is located in a city filled with violent crime and gang activity. Patients seen cover a wide range of diagnoses; from gunshot wounds and stabbings to appendicitis; from cancer treatments and life-threatening burns to dehydration or frostbite and they cover all ages, from the not-yet-born to elders dying in hospice suites. The program itself is demanding even, at times, grueling. Residents are there to learn how to do pastoral care, in all of its forms, well. Eventually, they move on to churches and hospices, hospitals and synagogues; wherever they are called and feel the call. Meanwhile, the most is made of their time in the program; work-weeks range from 60 to 64 hours; some shifts lasting as long as 28 hours at a time. Written work and assignments are in addition to those hours. My aim in telling you all of this is to explain how easy it is to become jaded in such a setting. It takes a significant amount of dedication and commitment from anyone who chooses to do a residency. And I will admit, there were times when I questioned my own levels of dedication and commitment, especially after a long and sleep-deprived night. But … this night and this patient I just spoke of was not one of those times.

Though I eventually found out his name and that he had been beaten by several guys who he is going to “get” someday; I never did get the chance to talk with him and find out who he really is as a person and what his story was about. The next hour or so had been spent alternating between resisting staff and their attempts at medical care and allowing himself to be comforted and soothed by the chaplain. Eventually, he fell asleep, from sheer exhaustion, and for several hours. I did not see him again, though his presence remains with me still, for my heart had been broken open.

I do not know how or why these moments of broken-openness come and go, just that they do. I consider these moments of broken-openness to be moments of seeing, of truly seeing, or “essentially seeing” as Mark Nepo has termed it or “the sound of the genuine” as Howard Thurman has so eloquently described. I consider these moments of heart-broken-openness to be moments of amazing grace.

Amazing Grace. There is a story behind the song; one which you have probably heard. It goes like this … John Newton was a slave trader, who after surviving a horrific storm, became suddenly wracked with guilt about his chosen profession. Newton immediately turned his ship back to Africa, freed all his slaves, and, as a newly-converted Christian, wrote the hymn “Amazing Grace”. Now, as heart-warming as that story sounds, it is unlikely to be a story Newton himself would recognize. That story is really the legend behind the song. It does not reflect the sound of the genuine John Newton.

So today, I am going to tell you a different story; a different story about the same person and one, hopefully, John Newton would better recognize. This one is a story about a young boy frequently in trouble for disobeying his father, who grew into a young man impressed in the British navy. Of a deserter who was caught, publicly stripped and beaten, then demoted to the lowest rank. Of a slave trader brought back to life – by slaves sneaking him food from their own small allowance. Of a slave trader locked up by his own master – who went without food, shelter, or clothing – for many hours at a time; yet, still continued to trade slaves after he was rescued.

It is the story of a man who drank and swore too much, who derided Christians, who was disliked by his fellow crew yet was saved by them when he nearly went overboard in a drunken stupor. It is the story of a man who twice, by two different captains on two different ships, avoided drowning when he was sent on a last-minute errand. It is the story of a man who got shot in the hat, lived through at least two tropical diseases, one mutiny, and three slave revolts.

It is also the story of a 23 year old who converted to Christianity- yet continued to trade slaves. Of a 39 year old who became a priest, of a 47 year old who wrote a hymn, of a 60 year old who finally began to speak out against slavery – and continued to do so for 22 more years. John Newton’s story is NOT an easily-reducible story (as no one’s really is); and it is NOT the story of legend. John Newton’s story IS the story of a human life, of painfully slow growth, and change, and finally, transformation. This John Newton story reflects “the sound of the genuine” in one former slave-trader come priest. His story is a story of amazing grace. His story is a story of a heart broken open.

Knowing this story, the longer, deeper, fuller, though still-not-complete story, brings richer and deeper meaning to the words of this famous hymn. Listen, once more, with eyes and ears and hearts open, if you will …

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost but now am found, was blind but now I see.
Twas grace which taught my heart to fear and grace my fears relieved.
How precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.
Through many dangers, toils, and storms I have already come.
Twas grace which brought me safe thus far and grace will lead me home.

When John Newton penned the words “through many dangers, toils, and storms, I have already come” he wasn’t exaggerating; not by a long shot. Like all of us, his life was full of its own dangers and challenges and near misses. His life was replete with its own tragedies and sorrows. As my life is … and your life is … and all of my patients’ lives were … As Unitarian Universalists it is from our lives; from our direct, lived experiences that we build our thea/olgies and philosophies about what is sacred; about what is holy; about what gives meaning to our lives and what our lives mean.

This journey of meaning-making and discovery and, hopefully, self-growth is never-ending. William Ellery Channing, one of our early and most famous forebears, believed that this process (which he and other 19th century Unitarians termed self-culture) continued even past death and into the afterlife. Either way, we all continue, throughout our lives, to make meaning and to discover anew, as did I, during the time I spent working as a chaplain. Here are a few of the things I learned:

All of us, and any of us, can and do feel lonely and isolated at times and it is not a matter how many people we are surrounded by. Each of us, any of us, can get wrapped up in our own pain and suffering and when this happens we are often unable to see the loneliness and pain and suffering of others who surround us. I have often walked into a hospital room and discovered a person who is sitting, or lying, in isolation and loneliness and who is suffering. Though the hospital is 430 beds full, and almost all of the people who fill those beds are experiencing some kind of pain or suffering, each person feels alone. Alone, in the middle of four hundred and thirty other people, also feeling alone. And I daresay, there may be people right here, there probably are people right here, sitting in this room, amongst all these people, who feel lonely; at least sometimes. It can be as if each person is blind to the suffering of others and cannot see through their own pain. This is a natural phenomenon, inherent to the experience of being human, and can easily happen to any of us when we are hurting deeply.

So please hear me well. I do not mean any of this as criticism of any person or even as a critique of the human condition. Rather, I see these moments as opportunities; opportunities for grace; maybe even for amazing grace.

“Grace”, as a theological concept, traditionally refers to the grace of God. Though there are multiple definitions of exactly what grace is within Christianity, I like to explain it as a gift, neatly packaged and tied with a divine bow. Christians, may or may not believe grace is deserved, and they may differ on ideas about how grace is earned, or even if it is earned; but it seems that no matter what, by anyone’s definition, grace is always unexpected. When John Newton wrote “Amazing Grace” he certainly was referring to a Christian concept of the divine grace of God. Today, though, I’d like to argue that there is such a thing as human grace; a grace that, like divine grace, may or may not be earned, but is certainly always unexpected.

I believe that each of us needs to be seen, heard, known, affirmed, and validated in our pain and in our suffering and even in our joy. I believe this needs to happen whether we are lying in a hospital bed or sitting in a pew on Sunday morning; whether we are at a gathering of friends or standing by the grave of a loved one. No one’s life is just like another’s, even when we are experiencing similar life circumstances. Each person’s experience is unique and must be seen for what it is. And when someone comes along and sees another’s pain, or joy, or sorrow, sees it’s essential truth, and sees the person behind the emotion; whether that someone is your chaplain or your minister, your friend or a stranger to you; you have been a recipient of grace. Human grace; extended from one human to another; yet no less holy than any kind of divine grace.

I believe that when we can see, when we can essentially see, the truth of another’s life through their own eyes and hearts, then our hearts are broken open and our lives are filled with amazing grace.

May it be so. Amen and Blessed Be.

Benediction:

With hearts open, and with a love which knows no bounds, may your spirits be filled with amazing grace.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
September 24, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Have you ever felt like you didn’t belong – somewhere, somehow, sometime in your life? Probably, if you’re like most people. What makes the difference in feeling like you do or do not belong? How can we help ourselves, each other, and people we haven’t even met yet cultivate that oh-so-important sense of belonging? And how does all of this relate to our Unitarian Universalist Principles?

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

Lifting Our Voices #36

We are all longing to go home to some place
we have never been – a place, half- remembered, and haIf-envisioned
we can only catch glimpses of from time to time.
Community.
Somewhere, there are people to whom we can speak with passion
without having the words catch in our throats.
Somewhere a circle of hands
will open to receive us, eyes will light up as we enter, voices will celebrate with us whenever we come into our own power.
Community means strength
that joins our strength to do the work that needs to be done.
Arms to hold us when we falter.
A circle of healing.
A circle of friends.
Someplace where we can be free.

– Starhawk

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Reading

YOU BELONG: A CALL FOR CONNECTION
by Sebene Selassie

“When you don’t like the joke, you belong. When you’re the “only one” of your race, disability, or sexuality, you belong. When you’re terrified to speak in public, you belong. When you feel hurt or when you have hurt someone else you belong. When you are down to your last dollars and the rent is due, you belong. When you feel overwhelmed by the horrors of human beings, you belong. When you have a debilitating illness, you belong. When everyone else is getting married, you belong. When you don’t know what you’re doing with your life, you belong. When the world feels like it’s falling apart, you belong. When you feel you don’t belong, you belong.”

Sermon

I remember well the moment I knew that I belonged in a UU congregation. I was in the meetinghouse, standing at the kitchen sink to wash my hands, when I saw this … a bottle of Seventh Generation dish soap. And then I saw that the paper towels were unbleached, brown, recycled paper towels.

This was many years ago, long before you could go to the regular grocery store and buy all sorts of cruelty-free, environmentally friendly, vegan much of anything. Instead, you had to go to a natural foods store or order what you wanted online. That meant that in many areas of my life, like at work, I felt different from most other people. I was a vegetarian, with vegan tendencies, and had been for many years. And most folk, even in the liberal areas, just … weren’t.

So, back to the sink. There I stood, looking at dish soap and paper towels, and a feeling overcame me that here were a people who would understand me, all of me. Here, I could be free. Here, I wouldn’t feel so different, so separate. I felt my body relax, as if I had been holding my breath and could finally breathe. A missing piece of the puzzle, that thing I had been longing for, without even knowing it, had been found. Here, I was at home. Here, I belonged.

If Sebene Selassie, the author of this morning’s reading, were here, I think she would tell me, tell all of us, that this experience of mine wasn’t really about finding a place I belonged, so much as it was about experiencing a feeling of belonging. Because I already belonged. I belong. And so do you. Selassie would say, and has said, that the key to belonging comes from within. We all already belong to everything – to ourselves, to each other, to the cosmos. That the feeling of not belonging comes from a “delusion of separation” – a false belief that we are separate. That if we don’t feel like we belong, we can learn to feel it, because belonging is wired within us. Feelings of belonging come from within.

Let’s sit with that for a moment. Everyone of you, whether you are here in person, or watching online, or watching on television, belongs. You already belong. Whether you feel it or not, and I hope you can, you belong.

Selassie, among other things, is a meditation teacher and a student of Buddhism. She explains it this way: There is a paradox in Buddhism called the Doctrine of Two Truths

“the absolute or ultimate truth of interconnection and the relative or conventional truth of difference. The absolute and the relative seem to contradict each other … but they describe only one reality. Belonging flourishes within this paradox: everything is connected, yet everything is experienced as separate.”

Within our own Unitarian Universalist tradition, we know this as “the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part”. We are interconnected. Interdependent. We cannot separate ourselves from the web of existence, from all of life here on earth, or from the cosmos itself.

Let me say more about this interdependent web of all existence and where it comes from. As a member congregation of the Unitarian Universalist Association of congregations, we have covenanted to affirm and promote several Principles. These are found within Article II of our UUA’s bylaws and, because of their importance, are printed many other places, including in the front of our gray hymnals.

The interdependent web is the 7th Principle. All Unitarian Universalists, all UU congregations, have covenanted to affirm and promote the interdependent web of all existence. This is not a belief statement, but an action statement. Though it may be helpful to understand that many of us have incorporated the Principles into our personal belief systems.

Now, bear with me for a moment, because here comes the part where we need to catch everybody up all together. As we are a non-creedal faith, we rely on covenant and because we are a living tradition, we require of ourselves to review our covenant and, therefore, our Principles, every so many years. We are currently in one of those review periods and so we are living, for a year, with a new format, based on shared values, which will then come up for a final vote in the General Assembly in June of 2024.

These are our (proposed) shared values. Love is at the center, along with a flaming chalice. The remaining six values are pictured in a circle around the chalice. Starting at 12:00, there is:

• Interdependence, in a swirl of orange;
• Equity, in a swirl of red;
• Transformation, in a swirl of purple;
• Pluralism, in a swirl of blue;
• Generosity, in a swirl of teal.
• Justice, in a swirl of yellow;

(The image and discussion of the proposed change can be found HERE.)

If you listen or read carefully, you will find the familiar language of all of our Principles reincorporated into these shared values. The proposed language, which goes with the value of Interdependence, is this:

“Interdependence. We honor the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. With humility and reverence, we covenant to protect Earth and all beings from exploitation, creating and nurturing sustainable relationships of repair, mutuality, and justice.”

We are interconnected, interdependent with all of existence. We cannot remove ourselves from it, therefore, we belong. By the very nature of our existence, we belong. We belong to the interdependent web, we belong to the earth, the rocks, the trees, the oceans, the mountains, the creeks and rivers, the forests, the deserts, the animals, the birds, the volcanos, the lands where we have never been. The parts we like and the parts we don’t. We belong to all of it. And we belong to each other. Whether we want to belong or not, whether we try to belong or not. We belong because we are. Whether we see it, or hear it, or feel it, or sense it, or experience it, or not – we belong because we are.

(Story about cafeteria table in seminary)

My friend belonged, but did not experience feelings of belonging, did not experience feeling welcomed at the table. No matter our intentions of radical welcome, no matter our efforts at radical welcome, no matter whether we were the cool kids or not. My friend perceived us as separate, as disconnected. Sometimes, the best laid plans simply go awry. And that’s okay. We learn something from it and then we try again.

Welcoming is the Soul Matters theme for this month for some of the small groups (chalice circles). So, I’ve been thinking a lot about welcoming and belonging, how they are similar and how they are different and where they overlap. To my mind, belonging is something that just is, whether we want it or not, and whether we can feel it or not. This is new thinking for me, to which I greatly credit Sebene Selassie after reading and reflecting deeply upon her work and how it converges with my own life and experiences.

Welcoming, on the other hand, is about actions we can take. We can practice welcoming. We can even practice Radical Welcoming. And these practices can, potentially, increase feelings of belonging in those we are welcoming. Here, this congregation practices welcoming in a lot of ways: there is a welcome table, there are name tags, cough drops, and Kleenex, there are gender neutral single stall bathrooms, there is a membership coordinator, there are classes about membership, there is a group that helps people connect to the various church ministry teams, there is a BIPOC group, there is an LGBTQ group, there are classes on antiracism and trans inclusion, and so, so much more.

I see welcoming, or radical welcoming, as actions we can choose to take, and which highlight the strands of the interdependent web of all existence. It is easy to fool ourselves into thinking that we are separate, disconnected, or don’t belong. It is easy to get busy with our lives and not notice the connections. the strands of the web, which are there all the time. Welcoming practices help ourselves and each other to see, or hear, or sense, or otherwise experience the strands of connection inherent in our interdependent web. It’s kind of like in one of those action movies where someone is trying to break into a high security area crisscrossed by invisible lasers. The would-be intruder, who is also often the heroic figure, pulls out a can of something, sprays it all around, and the laser beams suddenly become visible. I like to imagine engaging in welcoming practices as something like spraying that can. We can make the strands of the interdependent web, which connects all of us, and to which we all belong, visible by spraying that can. Just like spraying a room to find all the hidden laser beams, we welcome people to highlight the strands of belonging.

While speaking of belonging, and of welcoming, I want to highlight another important aspect of our living tradition. We are not a faith where anything goes, where you can believe anything you want, or do anything you want. Our beliefs and actions are all meant to be oriented toward the good, for the building of a better world, for the creation of beloved community. While people of all identities, or combination of identities, marginalized or privileged, are welcome here, not all behaviors are. This is why covenanting is so critical to our faith.

When we are at our best, we have good, strong, healthy boundaries. In this congregation, that means being a people of goodwill. And, by the way, the Healthy Relations Team is currently working on some proposed changes to the church covenant to make it more inclusive. If you’d like to participate in this process, go see them at their table at social hour.

All people of goodwill – Whoever you are, wherever you come from, wherever you find yourself on your life’s journey, whichever your pronouns, whether you’ve walked in or rolled in or dialed in, whomever you love, you are welcome here. You belong here.

May it be so evermore. Amen and Blessed Be.

Benediction

All know, that you are welcome here.
Know that you belong.
Know this deep down in the center of your soul:
Each and everyone of you belongs,
All the time, everywhere, to everyone, to everything. May the interdependent web shimmer and shine, hum and thrum,
for all your days and for all of your nights.

Amen, Amen, and Blessed Be.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above.

Rev. Michelle LaGrave
August 27, 2023
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
www.austinuu.org

Rev. Michelle LaGrave will share her theology of interim ministry, some of her hopes for this coming year, and a little bit about herself too.

Chalice Lighting

This is the flame we hold in our hearts as we strive for justice for everyone. This is the light we shine upon systems of oppression until they are no more. This is the warmth that we share with one another as our struggle becomes our salvation.

Call to Worship

WE GATHER HERE TO WORSHIP
By Gary Kowalski

We gather here to worship:
to seek the truth, to grow in love, to join in service;
to celebrate life’s beauty and find healing for its pain;
to honor our kinship with each other and with the earth;
to create a more compassionate world,
beginning with ourselves;
to wonder at the mystery that gave us birth;
to find courage for the journey’s end;
and to listen for the wisdom that guides us
in the quietness of this moment.

Affirming Our Mission

Together we nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice to build the Beloved Community.

Reading

READING # 120 FROM “LIFTING OUR VOICES”
By Erika Hewitt

READER 1: I don’t have anything to say.

READER 2: Well, I do – but it might not be interesting to anyone.

READER 1: I have secrets inside of me, and struggles, and I don’t know if I’m ready to share them.

READER 2: I want to hear what you have to say.

READER 1: I want to speak of the deepest things together.

READER 2: I want to hear what you dream about, what you hope for.

READER 1: I want to know how you have come to arrive at this resting point along your journey.

READER 2: What if I speak and you don’t understand me?

READER 1: I will listen, and listen again, until my hearing becomes understanding.

READER 2: What if can’t find the words to share the world inside of me?

READER 1: I believe that wise words will emerge from you.

READER 2: How can I trust you to hold my life’s stories? You, who I may not even know?

Reader 2: How will this work? What will happen? What awaits us?

Reader 1: We can find out anything by beginning.

Sermon

“Let us begin to listen, and trust, and to know one another more deeply.” (from the reading)

Let us begin to listen, to know one another more deeply, and to trust. Let us begin by sharing our stories. Mine begins like this …

I was born under a cross. This might seem like an odd beginning for a Unitarian Universalist minister, but it is true, both literally and figuratively. Not only was there a lighted cross on the hospital itself, there was a giant lighted cross that sat upon the top of a hill and loomed over the city, beneath which, on the side of the hill, in large white letters, were the words “Holy Land”.

I was born a liberal Protestant into a world dominated by Catholicism, a world that, upon later reflection, seemed to be re-living the Protestant Reformation. As a Congregationalist, I was part of a numerical minority and experienced my small world as such. I was taught everything we believed in contrast to what Catholics believed. We kept things simple. Crosses instead of crucifixes. No idols. That was a big one. Not a single painting or drawing or image of Jesus anywhere. Which was fine, when I was in my home church, but quickly became a moral dilemma every time I was in a Catholic Church, and there were many times – for weddings or funerals or Girl Scout events or while sleeping over a friend’s house. The problem was I didn’t know where to rest my eyes there were statues everywhere, so I mostly wound up looking at the floor. It was safe there. I didn’t want to get in trouble with G_d for accidentally committing idolatry.

I was, in some ways, a serious child, at least when it came to my faith. While I didn’t always love Sunday School, I did love being in church. I loved the joyful entrance songs and the long processional of robed choir members and ministers. Sometimes I daydreamed about what it might like to be a minister, though I thought it wouldn’t be a good match for me – too much writing, which I didn’t like, plus people were always telling me I was shy.

Well, as you can see, I eventually did become a minister, a transformational process which began when I was in my 30s. I sat down at the dining room table one day and began to read an inspirational article about Ghandi. In it, they talked about how someone had once asked Ghandi if he had a mission or a motto in life. His answer was: “My life is my message.” In less than an instant, I knew that I needed to become a minister. By then, I was a Unitarian Universalist. I knew that I wanted my life to be my message and in order for that to be true, I needed to become a UU minister. This was a deeply spiritual experience.

One I didn’t completely trust at first. So, I went through a process of logically confirming that becoming a minister would be a good match for me. I found out it was. I had received my call.

Years later, and early in my ministry, I candidated for a position as a settled minister in a church. It turned out to be one of life’s most heartbreaking, and best, experiences. The vote to call did not pass, and when people talked about it with me afterwards, they explained that the discussion was all about my identities, that I was queer, and disabled, and had a service dog, and was married to a person who was transgender, and was … large. My heart broke. These people, my people, had broken faith with me, with all of us. That these discussions had happened, so openly and explicitly, was exactly what we UUs were not supposed to be. I was shocked.

And I, rather quickly, become determined. I had already done one transitional ministry, so I turned right around and applied for another. My mission became clear. I would travel around the country, teaching congregations, through my presence, that it was okay to have a minister like me. My initial call was affirmed. My life would continue to be my message.

And so, here I am, your Interim Co-Lead Minister. Over my time as a minister, I have served congregations in Texas, Nebraska, Illinois, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. I know, that’s a lot of moving around! Some of it has been hard, much of it has been rewarding. I have met many wonderful people along the way and done some good, I think.

On the micro level, my mission is to support congregations in becoming stronger and healthier.

On the macro level, my mission is to build a better world.

We will begin, or continue, as you have already done some interim ministry, with a practice of self-reflection. My role is to, symbolically, hold up a mirror, reflecting what I see, so that you might better see yourselves, who you are as a congregation, how you function, so that, together, we might discern some patterns in who you are now as a congregation and how you have been. This is all done so that you might thoughtfully and intentionally choose which patterns you would like to continue and which patterns you are ready to let go. I will support and guide you through this process, and I won’t let you fall off any cliffs I see coming. But I want to be clear, and I want you to be clear, that this is your congregation. It is not your ministers’ congregation. It is not Rev. Meg’s congregation, though she will remain your honored emerita. It is your congregation. Who you are and how you are in this world, is up to you.

You are a strong, vital, healthy, growing congregation and you have much to be proud of. That will not change. And, this interim time can be a rich and rewarding time in the life of your congregation, a time when you become even stronger, even healthier, even more vital. The way this happens is by engaging in the hard work of cultural change, maybe even, of transformation. I will be here to guide you and support you on the way through, even as it is your congregation and your work.

Why do I do this work, this ministry? Why should you do this work? This is the crux of the issue, isn’t it? Underlying all of this cultural change work, underlying all of this potential transformation, is the work of antiracism and antioppression, or, if you prefer newer language, the work of belonging and inclusion. As our congregations work, as this congregation works, to dismantle oppression, to widen the circle of concern, to become even more inclusive, to build on feelings of belonging, we, you, are building a better world, we, you are creating beloved community. This is our, yours and mine, thea/ological work. This is the way we move our thea/ology from our minds, our intellect, from our hearts, our compassion, into action.

May it be so. Amen and Blessed Be.

Benediction

Go now in Peace, with Love in your hearts, kindness on your lips, and compassion at your fingertips, blessing all others as you yourselves are now blessed. Our worship has ended, now our service begins.

Please join me in saying: Amen and Blessed Be.

SERMON INDEX

Most sermons during the past 23 years are available online through this website. Click on the index link above to find tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on a topic to go to that sermon.

PODCASTS

Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them by clicking on the podcast link above or copying and pasting this link. https://itunes.apple.com/podcast/first-unitarian-universalist/id372427776