{"id":20550,"date":"2017-11-12T16:47:59","date_gmt":"2017-11-12T22:47:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/?p=20550"},"modified":"2017-12-10T15:35:10","modified_gmt":"2017-12-10T21:35:10","slug":"checking-out-falling-back-overwhelmed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/checking-out-falling-back-overwhelmed\/","title":{"rendered":"Checking out, Falling back, Overwhelmed"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"powerpress_player\" id=\"powerpress_player_1770\"><audio class=\"wp-audio-shortcode\" id=\"audio-20550-1\" preload=\"none\" style=\"width: 100%;\" controls=\"controls\"><source type=\"audio\/mpeg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2017-11-12_Falling_back.mp3?_=1\" \/><a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2017-11-12_Falling_back.mp3\">http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2017-11-12_Falling_back.mp3<\/a><\/audio><\/div><p class=\"powerpress_links powerpress_links_mp3\" style=\"margin-bottom: 1px !important;\">Podcast: <a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2017-11-12_Falling_back.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_pinw\" target=\"_blank\" title=\"Play in new window\" onclick=\"return powerpress_pinw('https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/?powerpress_pinw=20550-podcast');\" rel=\"nofollow\">Play in new window<\/a> | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.austinuuav.org\/audio\/2017-11-12_Falling_back.mp3\" class=\"powerpress_link_d\" title=\"Download\" rel=\"nofollow\" download=\"2017-11-12_Falling_back.mp3\">Download<\/a><\/p><p align=\"left\">Rev. Meg Barnhouse<br \/>\nNovember 12, 2017<br \/>\nFirst UU Church of Austin<br \/>\n4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756<br \/>\naustinuu.org<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><i>At times it all gets to be too much. How do we learn to rest rather than quitting?<\/i><\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/suMc-9OzTVY\" width=\"560\" height=\"315\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<hr align=\"center\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"4\" width=\"300\" \/>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Call to Worship<\/b><br \/>\n<i>Apache blessing<\/i><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">May the sun bring you new energy by day,<br \/>\nMay the moon softly restore you by night,<br \/>\nMay the rain wash away your worries,<br \/>\nMay the breeze blow new strength into your being,<br \/>\nMay you walk gently through the world<br \/>\nand know its beauty all the days of your life.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Reading<\/b><br \/>\nMy Help Is in the Mountain<br \/>\n<i>by Nancy Wood<\/i><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">My help is in the mountain<br \/>\nWhere I take myself to heal<br \/>\nThe earthly wounds<br \/>\nThat people give to me.<br \/>\nI find a rock with sun on it<br \/>\nAnd a stream where the water runs gentle<br \/>\nAnd the trees which one by one<br \/>\ngive me company.<br \/>\nSo must I stay for a long time<br \/>\nUntil I have grown from the rock<br \/>\nAnd the stream is running through me<br \/>\nAnd I cannot tell myself from one tall tree.<br \/>\nThen I know that nothing touches me<br \/>\nNor makes me run away.<br \/>\nMy help is in the mountain<br \/>\nThat I take away with me.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><b>Sermon<\/b><br \/>\n<i>These are notes only, and may bear resemblance somewhat to what is said.<\/i><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">One of my friends on social media said that she couldn&#8217;t feel anything after the shooting at the church in Sutherland Springs. All the usual outrage was posted, all the usual moments of silence and offers of thoughts and prayers went up, but she couldn&#8217;t muster any emotional response. So many of us are approaching that level of emotional fatigue. As Masha Gessen writes in the Washington Post, &#8220;we have settled into a constant, low level dread: a state in which one can function, but can hardly be creative or look into the future.&#8221; Yet we sing:<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><i>(sings) -by Holly Near<\/i><br \/>\nI am open<br \/>\nand I am willing<br \/>\nfor to be hopeless<br \/>\nwould feel so strange.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">It dishonors<br \/>\nthose who&#8217;ve gone before us,<br \/>\nso lift me up<br \/>\nto the light of change.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">When I read about my friend who couldn&#8217;t feel anything, I was reminded of the study I read as a psych major about learned helplessness. I don&#8217;t want to describe the studies to you, as they are upsetting, but the conclusion was that if you randomly hurt a being for long enough without giving them any way to influence their situation, they will give up and surrender to the pain. After they give up, you can give them a way out of the hurtful situation and they won&#8217;t take it. They&#8217;ve lost their sense of being able to help themselves.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Many of us are feeling that way, faced with implacable politicians in thrall to the big donations of the gun lobby. We see former NY Mayor Bloomburg fighting, we see the Giffords fighting, and sometimes their efforts seem useless. Many of us are overwhelmed by the actions of people who seem to be ignoring or ignorant of the Constitution. We wake up in the morning like Captain Picard, asking for the Damage Report.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">I&#8217;ve heard many of you say that you are having a hard year. You have been shocked, depressed, feeling constantly emotionally battered. Some sprang into action in the Resistance. Some woke up sick every morning, some stopped watching the news, trying to live by just paying attention to health, family, work. But we get tired, and still we struggle to sing<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><i>(sings)<\/i><br \/>\nI am open<br \/>\nand I am willing<br \/>\nfor to be hopeless<br \/>\nwould feel so strange.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">It dishonors<br \/>\nthose who&#8217;ve gone before us,<br \/>\nso lift me up<br \/>\nto the light of change.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">We get tired. We fight and fight, we make phone calls and write emails, we work on grass roots politics. When I got to Spartanburg SC I was 26; There was no women&#8217;s shelter. I went to a meeting about starting a shelter. &#8220;I&#8217;m too tired, said the social workers. &#8220;I&#8217;m not tired, I said, and we went to work. We started with people who were willing to shelter women and their children in their own homes, private safe homes. I remember arranging pick ups for women in parks, at the mall, at the police station. I remember one woman yelling &#8220;DRIVE!&#8221; when she thought she saw her husband behind us. He had a shot gun, she said. I was president of it for four years. During that time we hired a director and rented an old house in an undisclosed location. Now the organization has a huge budget and helps hundreds of people. After four years I was tired. Burned out. I hadn&#8217;t known that I could say no to being president. I got so I couldn&#8217;t even open an envelope from them. I had forgotten to rest. So I quit.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">That is the shadow side of justice work. What do we do with that? It makes us want to withdraw, turn our head, give up, if we have the option to.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Contemplative RC author Thomas Merton writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;There is a pervasive form of contemporary violence to which the idealist most easily succumbs: activism and overwork. The rush and pressure of modern life are a form, perhaps the most common form, of its innate violence. To allow oneself to be carried away by a multitude of conflicting concerns, to surrender to too many demands, to commit oneself to too many projects, to want to help everyone in everything, is to succumb to violence. The frenzy of our activism neutralizes our work for peace. It destroys our own inner capacity for peace. It destroys the fruitfulness of our own work, because it kills the root of inner wisdom which makes work fruitful.&#8221;<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p align=\"left\">Last spring I was felled by something that could not be influenced by wit, intelligence, or force of will. For months I just had to go through it, one day at a time. I love consulting the I Ching, a Chinese book of wisdom. It has been one of my wisdom companions since I was in high school. When I consulted it about the infection in my hip appliance, it said things were not going to go the way I thought they should go. It said I should not have goals, but instead I should give all my attention to process. Just do what I was supposed to do, day by day. That has been valuable in fighting a sense of despair or overwhelm.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\"><i>(sings)<\/i><br \/>\nI am open<br \/>\nand I am willing<br \/>\nfor to be hopeless<br \/>\nwould feel so strange.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">It dishonors<br \/>\nthose who&#8217;ve gone before us,<br \/>\nso lift me up<br \/>\nto the light of change.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">I know some folks who work in politics. Several of them embody the word &#8220;Steady,&#8221; which I&#8217;m reading about in Dan Rather&#8217;s new book. Their candidate wins, and they nod and go back to work on what&#8217;s next. They lose, and they nod and go back to work on what&#8217;s next. I admire that. It is more in some people&#8217;s nature to ride the rejoice and lament roller coaster. We need all of us to do what&#8217;s next. Then rest, then have a party with our friends, then come back and do what&#8217;s next.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Burn out is the shadow side of a big long struggle. The music this morning has been metaphorical, about wanting to be numb, not wanting to feel the tiredness, the overwhelm, the frazzle. It&#8217;s ok to rest. You don&#8217;t have to keep pushing 24 hours a day. There is no need for guilt if you fall back from the front lines, if you take an afternoon to have fun, if you find a way to laugh and dance in the midst of struggle. As Emma Goldman said, &#8220;If I can&#8217;t dance, I don&#8217;t want to be part of your revolution.&#8221; The postlude will be an opportunity to laugh and dance to a statement of truth. Sometimes we want to be sedated. We look that feeling in the face, we look the shadow side in the face and acknowledge its truth. To stay open and willing, we must pay more attention to processes than goals, faithfully stay in the struggle, rest, and we must not forget the joy.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">FIRE<br \/>\n<i>&#8211; by Judy Brown<\/i><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">What makes a fire burn<br \/>\nis space between the logs,<br \/>\na breathing space.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Too much of a good thing,<br \/>\ntoo many logs<br \/>\npacked in too tight<br \/>\ncan douse the flames<br \/>\nalmost as surely<br \/>\nas a pail of water would.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">So building fires<br \/>\nrequires attention<br \/>\nto the spaces in between,<br \/>\nas much as to the wood.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">When we are able to build<br \/>\nopen spaces<br \/>\nin the same way<br \/>\nwe have learned<br \/>\nto pile on the logs,<br \/>\nthen we can come to see how<br \/>\nit is fuel, and absence of the fuel<br \/>\ntogether, that make fire possible.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">We only need to lay a log<br \/>\nlightly from time to time.<\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">A fire grows<br \/>\nsimply because the space is there,<br \/>\nwith openings<br \/>\nin which the flame<br \/>\nthat knows just how it wants to burn<br \/>\ncan find its way.<\/p>\n<hr align=\"center\" noshade=\"noshade\" size=\"4\" width=\"300\" \/>\n<p align=\"left\"><i>Podcasts of this and other sermons are also available for free on iTunes. You can find them\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/itunes.apple.com\/podcast\/first-unitarian-universalist\/id372427776\" target=\"_blank\">here<\/a>.<\/i><\/p>\n<p align=\"left\">Most sermons delivered at the First UU Church of Austin during the past 17 years are available online through this website. You will find links to them in the right sidebar menu labeled Sermons. The\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/category\/sermons\/indexes\/\" target=\"_blank\">Indexes<\/a>\u00a0link leads to tables of all sermons for each year listed by date (newest to oldest) with topic and speaker. Click on the topic to go to a sermon.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rev. Meg Barnhouse November 12, 2017 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 austinuu.org At times it all gets to be too much. How do we learn to rest rather than quitting? Call to Worship Apache blessing May the sun bring you new energy by day, May the moon softly restore&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19,16,2,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-audio-available","category-meg-barnhouse","category-sermons","category-video-available"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20550"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20619,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20550\/revisions\/20619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/austinuu.org\/wp2013\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}