UUCP Sermons

The Heart of Buddhism—Irv Jacob—January 31, 2010

2010-10-28T12:34:00.000-07:00

Today I want to examine how we can use Buddhist teachings and practice to . . . develop our hearts, and find ways to be compassionate in everything we do. The teachings I describe today are taken from this draft manuscript which includes a bibliography, and I will provide anyone interested with a online copy rather than cite these references verbally.

One thing I have learned in preparing this study is that there are many misinterpretations and a good deal of misinformation about Buddhism in our Western intellectual tradition. Each of these misconceptions is worthy of a Sunday presentation, but today I want to clarify and explain my understanding of the “Heart”‑‑and to do this I will discuss a few issues based on the usage of a special language or jargon used by the dhamma traditions. This special jargon is what is in great part the cause of these misconceptions.

Now, in order to say what I have just said and be understood, I have necessarily used ordinary language, the language we learn and use in public school. Since we are so familiar.with everyday language, we often fail to realize the existence of other quite different and special languages: [for example the languages of academic disciplines such as economics, or law . . .] also the language of Dhamma, is altogether different from the language of everyday.” (Buddhadasa) In many cases the words are the same but because we use these words in a particular context the meanings we assign to them are often different.

Before I finish I will give some examples of this jargon. But first I wish to clarify one point: When we read about historical Buddhism, many authors regard this teaching as a philosophy (not as a religion) because there is no deistic tradition. Buddha was asked many questions which are still being asked today such as:

Is there a God?
Who created the world?
Is there life after death?
Where is heaven and hell?

The classic answer given by Buddha was silence. He refused to answer these questions purposely because "these profit not, nor have they anything to do with the fundamentals of the religious life, nor do they lead to Supreme Wisdom, the Bliss of Nirvana." Even if answers were given, he said there would "still remain the problems of birth, old age, death, sorrow, lamentation, misery, grief, and despair--all the grim facts of life--and it is for their extinction that I prescribe my teachings."

Buddhism is essentially religious because the teachings lead sincere adherents into having their own experiences that become life changing. No amount of academic or intellectual activity (developing concepts or philosophizing) can replace the experience that comes from diligent and repeated meditation along with sharing with other members of the Sangha.

So even though there is no deistic tradition, Buddhism is not strictly speaking an atheist philosophy, this understanding is left up to each individual, a matter of the Heart. Indeed many people find it possible to continue in their religious traditions and still embrace Buddhism.

How far do we need to go in conforming to the traditions of Buddhism? The Buddha didn’t want his followers to become intellectual slaves to any dogma or teacher, least of all to himself. There are taught ten principles that enable us to discern with our Hearts. The teachings which are truly capable of improving our lives. I will not list all of these-- but briefly:

do not accept and believe just because something has been passed along and retold through the years or has become a tradition
do not accept and believe merely because of the reports and news spreading far and wide . . . nor anything written because . . . words can be created, improved, and changed by human hands. We need to use our powers of discrimination to see how those words can be applied to quenching our suffering.
do not believe just because something fits with the reasoning of logic . . . what we call ‘logics,’ can go wrong if its data or its methods are incorrect [or incorrectly applied.]”
do not believe or accept just because something appeals to one’s common sense ...or agrees with one’s preconceived opinions and theories.
do not believe just because the speaker appears believable. Outside appearances and the actual knowledge inside a person can never be identical.
do not believe just because the preacher, the [charismatic] speaker, is ‘our teacher.’ believe only after adequately considering the advice and putting it to the test of practice… Intellectual and spiritual freedom is best.” (Buddhadasa, 1999, pp. 2-5)

This is the same way that we go about developing our Hearts.

Now I will give some examples of this special Buddhist language. And I want to emphasize that this is much the same phenomenon that occurs in other religions, certainly in Islam compared to the language used by Catholics, they may use similar words in more or less the same ways but the meanings are very different, and Protestants use most of the same words as Catholics, but now after nearly a thousand years of being divided the meanings are often different.

For Buddhism it is taught that: “Having perceived Dhamma, they speak in terms appropriate to their experience, and so Dhamma language comes into being.” This explanation is intended to suggest how the “jargon” of Buddhism developed, not to suggest an elite, secret, or esoteric language.

Buddhism teaches that our existence is, thusness, tathagata, suchness, what is, the here and now. In many places in Buddhist texts the word ‘birth’ and ‘rebirth’ are used but this is a specialized usage. “In everyday language, the word ‘birth’ refers to physically coming into the world. . . In Dhamma language, the word ‘birth’ refers to the birth of the idea ‘I’ or ‘ego’ that arises in the mind throughout each day. In this sense, the ordinary person is born very often, time and time again; . . . a person well advanced in practice (ariyan, noble one) is born less frequently still, and ultimately ceases being born altogether [arahant.]” (Buddhadasa) Because they live without “I” and ego guiding their lives.

Thus the idea that finding nirvana is about gaining enlightenment and thus not needing to suffer again from another reincarnation, is a misinterpretation of Buddhism, although this is taught in many Hindu traditions. In most Buddhist traditions today, “rebirth” is about what is happening in our daily lives.

For most people Buddhism is a very pragmatic teaching: one teacher warns: “If we bring magical and sacred things into Buddhism, it will become just more bowing to and worshiping holy things, requesting whatever we want without doing anything. That's a religion of begging and pleading; that isn't Buddhism at all. Instead, we must behave and practice in correct accordance with the law of nature . . . “ (Buddhadasa) These instructions are as democratic as the nature of the very earliest Buddhist teachings that advocated the abolition of the caste system.

The emphasis on developing the Heart is one case where the Western usage of “Heart” as a useful allegory is familiar and similar to the Buddhist usage. We can have a “full heart,” a “broken heart,” a “soft heart,” a “kind heart,” when we are in love we speak “the language of our hearts”. . . and in each case we have thousands of years of usage to corroborate a meaning for us in our ordinary language, and it is the same in all Western romance languages.

In Buddhism the use of the word “Heart” is composed of what we ordinarily think of as our compassion, memories, mind and consciousness. This is an active allegory, one that can become the repository for our learning gains from the practice of Buddhism, thus we develop our hearts and this can be what guides our lives.

Part of my intention here today is to invite each of you to open your hearts, to have reasonable doubts. I have tried to suggest how we develop our hearts --which is the main focus of the teachings about meditation, rituals, chanting and practices of Buddhism. It is in our Hearts where we can find a space that is devoid of egocentricity, it is in our Hearts where sharing and caring originates. It is in our Hearts where we test the explanations about “creation” for example. It is in our hearts where we put aside gender distinctions that have plagued our society and can still be found in some Buddhist traditions in Asia.

Let me put this together: Recall that I said: “In Dhamma language, the word ‘birth’ refers to the birth of the idea ‘I’ or ‘ego’ that arises in the mind throughout each day." ---It is a universal teaching of Buddhism to get rid of the I, ego-centered life full of craving and grasping and greed – because these attitudes often lead to undesirable and unintended consequences-- But how do we eliminate the sense of my and mine? and still live a normal life?

When I realized that this teaching is based on another special use of language and that it applies to the growth and development of our Hearts, suddenly I could see how it was possible to do this. We can live a normal life working and being happy with our families, using ordinary grammar and prepositions like I, my, they, you etc., and independently develop our hearts to lead us toward developing we, our, all, and find ways to be compassionate in everything we do.

I am not here to tell you that I have actually achieved this kind of enlightened and purified heart, Libby will vouch for my need for modesty in this respect. But I want to leave you with one thought: this idea of developing our Hearts through the practice of Buddhist meditation, rather than just a simple practice of developing self-discipline, is the key to the value of Buddhism in our contemporary society.

The teachings of the religion [of Buddhism] leads to this point: The heart comes first, the heart is chief, the heart is the principal factor. All dhammas come down to the heart. So this is where we should straighten things out. Get so that the heart is shining and bright.” (Boowa, pg. 86) When we develop our Hearts to the point where we are guided in our actions by a gracious and thoughtful sentiment, we are following our hearts and the intention of the Buddha.

Religious Fundamentalism– A Concern but not a Disaster-- Keith Haskell--October 10, 2010

2010-10-26T12:51:00.000-07:00

May I start with a few words about myself. I was born in Portsmouth in Southern England but for the past 35 years my home has been near the small town of Alton. Alton hasn't made a huge mark on history: it was the scene of a battle in our Civil War in 1642 and the novelist Jane Austen wrote almost all her books in a village just a mile away. But it has a place in what I plan to say, and I shall be coming back to it later.

After graduating I spent 38 years in the British Diplomatic Service: 12 of them in countries which are mainly or wholly Muslim. So I have had many opportunities to observe Muslim society at close quarters and see both the good and the dark side of Islam.

You probably know that the numerous strands of Islamic thought and belief belong to one of two main traditions, the Sunni and the Shia. The split between them is a very ancient one, going back to a dispute about the leadership of Islam only decades after the death of the Prophet Muhammad. But both traditions emphasise the central role of the Koran, which among other things enjoins Muslims to respect the faith of other “people of the Book,” including Jews, Christians and Sabaens. So those who commit acts of terrorism against Western society, such as the terrible sequence of events on 9/11, are acting in defiance of one of the basic principles of their religion. The vast majority of Muslims, who want peace and fellowship with their non-Muslim neighbours are dismayed by some of the things that have been and are being done in the name of their faith.

I mentioned the split between the Sunni and Shia traditions of Islam. It would no doubt be tidier and easier to understand if Islamic fundamentalists and the terrorists whom they support belonged exclusively to one tradition or the other. But this is not the case. Muslim terrorists who follow the Sunni tradition include Al-Qa'ida, whose origins were in Saudi Arabia, though it now has followers also in Yemen, Somalia and several North African countries, and Hamas in Palestine. Among those who follow the Shia tradition are Hizb'allah in Southern Lebanon, as well as smaller groups sponsored by the Islamic Republic of Iran.

However it is perfectly possible to be an Islamic fundamentalist and not support terrorism. Citizens of Saudi Arabia belong overwhelmingly to the Wahhabi strand of Islamic thought. Individual Saudis have become terrorists: for example, Osama bin Laden came from one of Saudi Arabia's wealthiest families, although his relatives have now disowned him and he them. Moreover, more than half of the aircraft hijackers on 9/11 were Saudis. But the government and religious authorities of Saudi Arabia have condemned acts of terrorism, and those preparing to commit such acts are liable to be arrested, questioned and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment.

One needs to be cautious about drawing any sort of parallel between Islamic and Christian fundamentalism. However one can see a clear distinction between those Christians who reject the teachings of Islam and the few who appear anxious to express their rejection as offensively as possible: for example, the Protestant pastor who recently announced his intention to organise a mass burning of copies of the Koran, and was fortunately dissuaded from doing so at the last moment. As Voltaire is alleged to have said 250 years ago: “I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it”. Interestingly, although Muslim extremists frequently burn the American flag at their demonstrations, I cannot recall them ever burning a Bible.

Just as there is a difference between Muslims who maintain a strict observance of their faith but oppose violence, and those who are prepared to give support to terrorism, so it is important to understand the motives of the terrorists themselves. For some, violence against the West appears to be an end in itself, and attempts to draw them into any sort of negotiation or dialogue are never likely to enjoy success. But the majority are -wrongly, but sometimes understandably – using violence to solve a political problem. If that problem is solved to the satisfaction of the parties affected by it, there is real hope that the violence will end.

Ireland is a good example of this. Both the Catholics, who supported the Irish Republican Army, and the Protestants, who opposed it, were (and still are) religious fundamentalists. But patient work by Prime Ministers Major and Blair, with strong support from President Clinton and Senator Mitchell, resulted in an agreement under which the Catholics in Northern Ireland were no longer denied their full civil rights, but the territory remained part of the United Kingdom. A few extremists from both sides commit occasional acts of violence, but the vast majority of both communities respect the agreement.

The situation in the Middle East is similar. If an agreement could be reached between Israel and the Palestinians, the ground would be cut from under the feet of Hamas and all other Arab groups which claim that they have resorted to violence only because negotiations had led nowhere. But it must be an agreement from which both sides benefit, not simply a Palestinian surrender to Israeli military power. At the moment, Jewish fundamentalism, not Muslim, is the greatest obstacle to meaningful negotiations. Israel's electoral system tends to give small parties with extremist views more influence than their size deserves. Jewish fundamentalists have set their face against any concessions to Palestinian views – such as a freeze on construction of new settlements on Palestinian land as long as negotiations are still in progress. Despite President Obama's personal commitment, a settlement of the dispute will not be easily or quickly reached.

Well, enough doom and gloom. There are many positive aspects to Muslim relations with other faiths which must not be overlooked. At the beginning of this talk I said I would be coming back to the story of my home town, Alton. Five or six years ago, it was announced that the Ahmadiyya Muslim Association of the UK had bought a 200-acre site very close by on which they proposed to hold their annual Jalsa Salana, or convention. A temporary tent city would be put up each year to provide accommodation and feeding areas, as well as conference facilities, for up to 30,000 visitors.

The reaction was mixed, and certainly not entirely welcoming. Alton has very few Muslim residents, and most people's knowledge of Islam came from alarmist newspaper stories of terrorist acts and inflammatory sermons at one or two London mosques. But as they have come to know and understand Alton's temporary guests, nothing but praise has emerged. Each year the campsite is well-organised and scrupulously clean and creates no noise or other nuisance to disturb its neighbours. Fund-raising events are organised – for example a sponsored walk from Alton railway station to the camp site – with half the proceeds going to local charities. Non-Muslims are welcome at all the sessions of the convention, and numerous Members of Parliament and local councillors have come to see and listen for themselves. And they will have been reassured to hear the Khalifa – the world-wide Head of the Association – say in his address: “Those who love and yearn for peace should stand united against terror and jihadist violence”.

Unfortunately, the information media have discovered that sensational stories about terrorism and violence sell more copies of newspapers and attract higher TV audiences than stories about peace and love. Back in February 1979 I was British Consul-General in Dubai and responsible for organising a State Visit by The Queen. She arrived on a Sunday, and after an introductory tour of the city by motorcade, she wished to attend evensong in the British church. The Ruler of Dubai, Shaikh Rashid, escorted her to the church door. After evensong, there was a two-hour gap in the programme before a State Banquet, so I took the opportunity to call at the media centre, to see if any of the journalists accompanying the royal party needed information or any other help.

The only question asked by the journalists was whether there were any British subjects in jail in Dubai, and if so, whether they were likely to be executed or flogged. I told them that there were two British subjects serving relatively short terms of imprisonment for what I considered serious crimes: they were held in air-conditioned cells and their main complaint was that they didn't have enough reading material in English. I then went on to mention The Queen's visit to the church, pointing out that Shaikh Rashid himself, though a devout Muslim, had escorted her to the door. Not only that, but the church was built on land which he had donated free of charge, and he himself laid the foundation stone 10 years earlier. Several of the journalists ostentatiously put down their pencils with a look of disgust. What they wanted was stories of violence and intolerance, and I wasn't giving them any.

Muslim fundamentalism does of course exist, but I hope and believe that the attitudes of the Ahmadiyya Muslims and Shaikh Rashid are more typical of majority Muslim belief. To quote another Ahmadiyya spokesman: If we are attacked with violence, we don't respond with violence … the best way of changing the world is through persuasion”. That is a message with which I think we can all agree.

My Ministry in Second Life--Aug. 29, 2010--Fred Toerne

2010-10-04T16:59:00.000-07:00

On March 5 of this year I was born to Second Life.
In the virtual world known as Second Life,
that is really how they refer to it.
One is born into that virtual world.
A virtual world is like a video game,
with a three dimensional environment
rendered onto a two dimensional computer screen.
Second Life is a free (no charge) virtual environment,
but of course, it’s possible to spend a LOT of money there!
When you enter Second Life for the first time,
you are given an avatar,
an onscreen virtual body
in which you appear to yourself and others.You choose your name, and your name
and your virtual body will be yours all through your Second Life.
They’re working on ways to let you change your name,
At least in the way it appears on screen,
But so far, you cannot change it.
You can, however change the appearance of your avatar,
And that is one of the first ways you will find
To spend real money
in this virtual world.
You can buy clothes, shoes, hair, skin, eyes, and all sorts of ways
to change the appearance of your avatar.
In fact, you can appear to be almost anything or anyone you want!
The concept of an avatar comes from ancient Vedic religion.
A divine being, usually the god, Vishnu,
Takes on physical form, often human form,
In order to appear in our world
And to help people move toward salvation.
In the movie, Avatar,
the leading characters placed their consciousness into bodies
that appeared like the inhabitants of an alien world.
In the avatar bodies, they could survive in an alien environment
And interact with the other beings whom they found there.
Likewise, in Second Life, each resident of that virtual world
Can take on a form of her or his own choosing
And interact with the environment and the creatures
That he or she will find there.
On our bulletin for today is a picture of my avatar,
Standing to one side of the Church of the Dawntreader,
With ocean and waves as the background
and rocks that resemble those of the Oregon Coast.
My avatar in the picture is wearing a traditional clerical collar,
And that’s what I usually wear to lead worship.
That’s why I’m wearing a clerical collar this morning -
so that I’m dressed like my avatar.
The Church of the Dawntreader is really a beautiful virtual place;
it is there that I lead worship services every Thursday at 10:00a.m.
People from all over the world gather there,
So there is one universal time zone, our own time zone,
Since the company that runs Second Life, Linden Labs,
Is located in San Francisco, California,
And their time zone is the same as ours.
The first time I attended a worship service
at the church of the Dawntreader,
I was somewhat startled
To find a dragon in attendance!
I wasn’t sure what to think, as you can probably imagine.
Maybe I should not have been so surprised…
The church was named for one of the Chronicles of Narnia,
The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,
where one of the major characters turns into a dragon.
(You might want to watch movie listings –
the movie version of that book is coming out in December. )
At any rate, the dragon sat respectfully during the service
And participated in the discussion period afterward.
By now, I’ve gotten used to the idea of sharing worship
With all kinds of creatures. One frequent attendee is a blue, furry fox.
In the case of Second Life –
and in the Furry community in the real world –
the term furry refers to anthropomorphized animals,
also sometimes called “anthros.”
All kinds of creatures are welcome at the Dawntreader church,
And it is a welcoming congregation for LGBTQIA folk,
Much like our own UUCP.
(Wow – that’s quite a serving of alphabet soup, isn’t it?)
As you can probably imagine,
Many of the church and religious groups in Second Life,
Just as in First (or real) Life,
Are not so welcoming of people who are different
in various ways.
Part of the ministry of the Church of the Dawntreader,
And part of my own ministry there,
Is to provide a place and opportunity for refuge
For those who feel or who actually have been excluded
From other spiritual communities –
again, in Second Life and in Real Life.
One example is a church musician
who was asked to stay away
from the church he was serving in Second Life
because he was known to be male,
and yet enjoyed appearing as a female avatar.
It’s sad that discrimination of that sort takes place
Even in a virtual world where almost anything goes
In the name of religion.
But the Dawntreader church is very open and welcoming.
I could not be there otherwise.
In fact, before inviting me to serve as a pastor there,
The founding pastor asked me about the church’s statement
on the subject of homosexuality.
In brief, it says that “pelvic issues”
Are not central to the Gospel,
But Charity might be!
I told him that I agreed wholeheartedly,
And I’ve been leading services there weekly ever since.
The experience is important to me in a number of ways.
In sharing some of them with you,
I hope that we can think together about some of the ways
That virtual worlds can bring people together
And even promote peace in the world.
There are Unitarian churches and fellowships
that meet in Second Life.
I find my need for the depth and breadth of Unitarian spirituality
Is met right here at home, in my real life.
As I’ve said before to many of you,
Nowhere else in my life
Have I been able to experience and express
The full range of my own spirituality
except right here with you.
At the same time,
I have felt a need for an opportunity
to share my own Christian faith more fully,
and the church in Second Life
has given me the opportunity.
I am a Christian agnostic:
That is, I approach my own faith
from a position of not knowing.
I just cannot buy the a priori assumptions of the theist,
Taking the idea of the existence of God
As an assumption before we even begin
to talk about what and how we believe – or don’t believe. I find the presence of the Divine in each and every one of you,
And that is enough of God for me to see and know.
So I’m very much at home here, and I guess I always will be.
I choose to call the presence of God that I see in you
By the name of Christ,
And so I am a Christian.
I have also sensed the same Divine Presence in many people
From all over the world
Whom I have met only by encountering their avatars
And sharing in conversation with them,
through online chat.
The difference and the beauty of Second Life
As a graphics based chat client
Is the opportunity to meet people in a form they have chosen.
Let’s face it:
The bodies in which we are present together in this beautiful –
And newly beautified – place
Are an imperfect representation
of the minds that are inside those bodies.
With an avatar in a virtual world,
We have the opportunity to appear in a form
That better represents who we really are.
That immersive quality,
Of meeting people as we choose to be,
Is a unique way to come together
As people who could meet each other
in no other way than online.
And Second Life offers an opportunity to meet people
in many different environments,
in parks and cities,
in dance clubs and homes
in churches and temples
even in representations
of outer space and other worlds.
At any given moment in time
There are 40,000 to 70,000 people present in Second Life,
So there are plenty of opportunities to meet people
from many different places and ways of life.
It is a unique way of engaging people for dialogue
and for education.
Our own local universities are deeply involved in Second Life.
Washington State University has two regions in Second Life,
And many of the buildings from the campus in Pullman
Are represented in virtual form
On the virtual campus.
The University of Idaho is even more involved.
They have a virtual representation of the old Admin Building,
The I – Tower, and some of the physical features of the campus.
In fact, just for fun, I want to share with you that my best friend,
Who is in the congregation this morning,
And is a graduate of the University of Idaho,
Has a photograph of his avatar
Standing proudly on the top
Of the virtual representation of the I – Tower.
But best and most important of all,
in the region known as Idahonia,
far above the virtual campus with its trees and hills
is a “Skydome.”
The Skydome is a Skybox, as they are called,
a building that floats in the virtual sky
above the virtual ground of Second Life,
and there they have virtual classrooms
where students from all over the world
can attend real classes with real professors
in real time
and have real interactions
with each other.
They even have a special animation
That allows the students to raise their hands to ask a question.
The professors can tell who has raised their hands
and how long the hands have been raised in each case.
Another way Second Life has been a great opportunity for people
Has been allowing people with different kinds of abilities
To get out into the world
And interact with others
in ways that we could not do otherwise.
As some of you know all too well,
I have a sometimes debilitating condition
known as Meniere’s Disease.
It causes dizziness and a sensation like seasickness,
sometimes even when I’m just walking around inside my home.
At the very least it can make it difficult to get around
and impossible to drive.
Much of the time I can do very well,
Even in the middle of an episode
If I can just stay very still and quiet,
preferably sitting up and doing something interesting.
Needless to say, it’s very difficult to do any kind of ministry
while sitting very still and quiet,
but I CAN do it in Second Life.
It has been a very great opportunity for me
To share my abilities
And to get to know lots of interesting people
at the church in this virtual world.
I am not alone in experiencing this kind of interesting second life
despite the inability to do things that most people take for granted.
There is an organization that works within Second Life
Called Virtual Ability, Inc.
That reaches out to people with different abilities and challenges
Including the inability to see, hear, think or learn
according to common patterns.
There are so many opportunities to explore
Within the virtual world of Second Life
That all I can do at this point is list some of them.
Second Life has a virtual economy worth billions of dollars
in U.S. currency.
Linden Labs, the parent company is a billion dollar company,
And they make their money primarily
From the sale of virtual land,
space on their servers, in effect.
The first person to make a million dollars (U.S.)
In the context of a video game
Made his money on Second Life.
On the land that people buy
They can build homes, offices, parks, woodlands, lakes –
- almost anything one can imagine.
In fact, the creation of content for Second Life
Is entirely the work of the people who play the game,
The residents of Second Life, as we are called.
Much of the content is free or very inexpensive.
One can find avatars, clothing, houses, furnishings, animations,
And many other kinds of content for one’s Second Life
At no charge at all or for only pennies.
Music and other art forms are to be found on Second Life
in abundance.
Live music concerts, where musicians and their audiences gather
In avatar form
In all sorts of venues
are happening constantly.
Dance animations enable people to participate, at least on screen.
There are often 300 or more opportunities to share
In performances of live music
In any given 24 hour period.
Sometimes the music is really very good.
There are hundreds of art museums –
even opportunities to purchase original works of art -
in Second Life.
Governments and businesses have facilities
For meetings and the dissemination of information
In their own buildings and on their own land
In Second Life.
Where so many people are able to gather and communicate
Where so many shared experiences can lead to friendship
World peace can surely be promoted:
At any rate, that is one of my hopes.
I could go on and on,
But I think it’s high time for me to stop.
If you want to learn more, ask me – or better –
Just visit secondlife.com,
with secondlife as a single word.
You can read about it, watch videos about it,
Maybe even get your own avatar and visit to see for yourself.
For now, Second Life is open
only to those 18 years of age or older,
although 16 and 17 year olds will soon be able to join.
If you do come into Second Life, please let me know:
Give me your avatar name, and I will “friend” you.
I’ll be delighted to chat with you and show you around.
Whether you are interested in seeing for yourself or not,
I feel that knowing about the virtual world of Second Life
Is worth the time we have invested this morning.
Blessed be!

Social Action in the 19th Century: Margaret Fuller: May 23, 2010--Judy LaLonde, speaker

2010-10-04T16:32:00.000-07:00

In 1884, the biography of a writer characterized as one “whose aims were high and whose services great; one whose intellect was uncommon, whose activity incessant, whose life varied, and whose death dramatic,” was published in the American Men of Letters series that its publishers touted as a history of American literature. Biographers of the twenty-five men of letters were qualified to render insightful critical estimates because they were familiar with the surroundings in which their subjects lived and understood the conditions under which American literature developed. Part of a typically Victorian effort to promote the national identity, the series featured the lives of James Fennimore Cooper, Washington Irving, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, for example.

You may with good reason wonder why I begin a talk about Margaret Fuller by describing a series of biographies about American Men of Letters. The fact is that one of these 25 biographies was not of a man, but of a woman that the female “man of letters” was Margaret Fuller.
Fuller’s biography for this series was authored by Thomas Wentworth Higginson.

Higginson is most recognized, if at all by those not scholars of the 19th century, as Emily Dickinson’s first editor. Higginson was himself a prolific writer, a Unitarian minister and orator, historian, naturalist, translator, and an ardent leader in a variety of reform movements. Taking an active role in the growing suffrage movement at mid-century, he signed the call for the first national woman’s convention. Six years later, Higginson refused to sit on a committee formed to determine whether or not women delegates to a temperance meeting would be recognized, and when a negative decision was made, he left the hall, inviting those in favor of a “whole” worlds’ temperance convention to meet elsewhere. Higginson championed the social and political equality of women, encouraging them to develop their individual talents. But enough of Higginson.

This year is the 200th anniversary of Margaret Fuller’s birth. The UUA, which has encouraged congregations to take a journey of discovery to learn about Fuller, describes her as an author, conversationalist, journalist, friend, companion, mother, and wife.” She was also a feminist, a reformer and a political revolutionary.

We are familiar with many of our UU forbears of the early to mid-nineteenth century. Most, however, do not even recognize the name Margaret Fuller let alone know why she might be a topic for a Sunday talk. The Rev. Christine Hillman, who received the “Ministerial Sisterhood Unitarian Universalist Sermon Award in 2000 for a talk on Fuller, (which, by the way, you can read on the UUA website for worship resources) understood the problem of presenting a biography of Fuller (or any other UU forbear) as a sermon. She presented Fuller, not as an example of a one-dimensional heroine we should emulate, but as someone who had difficulties in her life. Fuller, as Hillman writes, “struggled and wrestled to meet the issues of the day head on and made mistakes, alienated people closer to her, alienated the nation for awhile, left the country to escape the mess.” Hillman goes on, Fuller “wasn’t an easy woman. She wouldn’t have been Margaret Fuller if she had been a simple person. She wouldn’t be a model if she had simply been a woman of her time.”

Margaret Fuller’s own desire for knowledge and action and the subsequent fulfillment of that desire became the keynote of her life as interpreted by Higginson. Establishing the theme in the introductory chapter of his biography, he claims that Fuller most desired “a career of mingled thought and action as she finally found. Higginson considers Fuller’s intellect subservient to her “vigorous executive side,” her literary life merely preliminary to a life of action by which, he claims, she would rather have been judged.

But to acquaint you with at least a rudimentary knowledge of Fuller, we go back to 1810, to Massachusetts where Fuller was born, the eldest daughter of eight. Her parents were Unitarians—her father was a prominent lawyer and later, Congressman. Under her father’s insistence, she learned to read at age 3 and was reading Latin at age 6; A taskmaster, her father “demanded accuracy and clearness in everything.” Fuller explained his rules: you must not speak unless you make your meaning perfectly intelligible to the person addressed; must not express a thought unless you can give a reason for it, must not make a statement unless sure of all particulars.” She described herself as being fed on “meat instead of milk"; she thought of herself as a living mind, not a child. As a result, she suffered nightmares, insomnia, and headaches most of her life.

The family moved to Connecticut where she attended a finishing school off and on. At age 15, after leaving school, she continued a self-imposed education: her daily schedule apparently began at 5 in the morning and ended at 11 at night, included reading literary and philosophical works in four languages, walking, singing and playing the piano. The family returned to Cambridge in early 1830s where she became acquainted with Emerson, Thoreau, Channing, Theodore Parker and others central to the Transcendentalist movement.

At the age of 25, following the death of her father, she essentially took control of her family. They were not well off, and Fuller supported them by teaching, one of the few acceptable vocations available during her lifetime. One transcendentalist, Bronson Alcott (father of Louisa May Alcott and an influential educational reformer) had established a rather revolutionary and controversial school where learning was based on the Socratic method: Alcott believed that learning was the result of dialogue between pupil and teacher and is famous, or infamous for his Dialogues with children on the meaning of the Bible. Fuller taught there until after the admittance of a mulatto girl, the final straw, the school folded and she took a position of principal of a school in Providence R.I. During that entire period, she also taught classes of her own in French, German and Italian and translated German literary works into English.
By 1839, her brothers were self supporting.

Higginson describes Fuller’s next move as a response to her desire to contribute to society while continuing to support herself. She moved to Boston and from 1839 to 1844, she held a series of “Conversions,” seminars for women that were “designed to encourage women in self-expression and independent thinking.” Since there was a ban on public speaking by women for pay at that time, this was done in violation of the law.

The Conversations were held in the Boston bookstore owned by Elizabeth Peabody. The meetings started with 25 women willing to commit to 13 weeks, meeting once a week from noon to two, willing to discuss issues such as “what were we born to do? How shall we do it?” Charged $10 for the first week; the fee doubled as attendance grew. The first Conversation was about the advantage men have in terms of education over women. Here, again, she used the Socratic Method: each session was devoted to a philosophical question and she would engage the participants in discussion and dialogue before expounding her own view with clarity and expression that “dazzled” her listeners. That women could have their own opinions on matters outside their sphere proved an intoxicating proposition.

The Conversations were very popular--over the five-year period, more than 200 women participated and the Conversations became a strong base for feminism in New England, including wives of famous men like Emerson, Theodore Parker and Hawthorne, as well as other women who were developing their own work and careers, often as writers.

During that same time period, Fuller co-founded with Emerson and George Ripley the transcendentalist journal The Dial. The journal was an offshoot of the Transcendental Club whose meetings began the movement (Peobody and Fuller were the only female members of that loosely organized club). Transcendentalism dominated the thinking of the mid 19th century and influenced thought well into the 20th century by its expression of a national spirit, messages of confident self-identity, spiritual progress and social justice as well as a celebration of the grandeur of the American soul. For three years, Fuller coaxed articles and poetry from reluctant writers, rejected unsuitable material (even from Emerson) and wrote much of the content herself, including a landmark essay called “The Great Lawsuit: Man Vs. Men and Woman vs. Women.”

The essay was revised later into Fuller’s best known work, Women in the Nineteenth Century. In that, she attacks the hypocrisy of man that allowed him to champion freedom for blacks while maintaining legislation to restrict the rights of woman; a hypocrisy that saw man complain about woman’s physical and emotional unsuitability for positions of responsibility in public life, yet insist that she be a field hand, a nurse, the one to raise and socialize children. Fuller made arguments for full equality of opportunity for women and for abolishing stereotyped gender roles. Susan B. Anthony believed Fuller’s work had “more influence on the thought of American women than any woman previous to her time.”

The following is a dialogue from that book, which represents Fuller’s response in advance of criticism against women leaving their traditional sphere:

I would have woman lay aside all thought, such as being taught and led by men. I would have her, like the Indian girl, dedicate herself to the sun, the sun of truth, and go nowhere if his beams did not make clear the path. I would have her free from compromise, complaisance, from helplessness, because I would have her good enough and strong enough to love one and all beings, from the fullness, not the poverty of being.

Is it not enough . . . that you have done all you could to break up the national union, and thus destroy the prosperity of our country, but now you must be trying to break up family union, to take my wife away from the cradle and the kitchen-hearth to vote at polls, and preach from a pulpit? Of course, if she does such things, she cannot attend to those of her own sphere. She is happy enough as she is. She has more leisure than I have---every means of improvement, every indulgence."

"Have you asked her whether she was satisfied with these indulgences?"

"No, but I know she is. She is too amiable to desire what would make me unhappy, and too judicious to wish to step beyond the sphere of her sex. I will never consent to have our peace disturbed by any such discussions."

"'Consent-- you?' it is not consent from you that is in question - it is assent from your wife."

"Am not I the head of my house?"

"You are not the head of your wife. God has given a mind of her own."

"I am the head, and she the heart."

"God grant you play true to one another, then! I suppose I am to be grateful that you did not say she was only the hand. If the head represses no natural pulse of the heart, there can be no question as to your giving your consent. . . There is no need of precaution, of indulgence, nor consent. But our doubt is whether the heart does consent with the head, or only obeys its decrees with a passiveness that precludes the exercise of its natural powers, or a repugnance that turns sweet qualities to bitter, or a doubt that lays waste the fair occasions of life. It is to ascertain the truth that we propose some liberating measures."

After she turned the Dial over to Emerson, she toured the Great Lakes Territory and when she returned, authored the book Summer on the Lakes. Through the mediation of friends, Fuller was permitted to use the Houghton Library at Harvard to assist in her research, the first female scholar so honored. You will recall, women were not permitted to attend colleges at this time.
Summer on the Lakes is not a great work of literature, but as contemporary critic Joel Myerson writes, the value lies in Fuller’s emerging strain of social criticism. In it she sympathizes with the plight of Indians, their betrayal by white men and decries white man’s sense of superiority. She worried about attempts of women she met to imitate Eastern standards of culture at the expense of losing what was unique to the west. She wrote of how hard it was for women who had been taught only to be ornaments of society.

The book helped her gain attention as an author and attracted the attention of Horace Greeley, owner and editor of the New York Tribune, who offered her a position in New York as literary and cultural critic for the paper. The Tribune was only 3 years old at the time.

Her move to NY in 1844 marks a distinct change in her life and career. It was a career, according to Higginson, of mingled thoughts and action such as she always wanted. Working for Greeley, she became aware of urban poverty and strengthened her commitment to social justice and to the causes that concerned her: prison reform, women’s suffrage; and educational and political equality for minorities. She engaged in benevolent work, visited prisons and mental asylums, immigrant slums, city hospitals and charitable institutions; talked with inmates. She expressed strong support for the abolitionist movement. She visited and wrote of Quaker Isaac Hopper’s halfway house for recently released prisoners and Eliza Farnham’s revolutionary program of self improvement for female inmates of Sing-Sing. She focused her attention, as she had not before, on specific social issues of the day, like capital punishment, the abolitionist movement, the war on Mexico, the horrific conditions in hospitals and prisons, and the treatment of madness. Her writing shows a distinct awareness of concrete conditions; far away from the abstract intellectualism of the Transcendentalists. Greeley wrote of her: “For every effort to limit vice, ignorance and misery, she had a ready, eager ear and a willing hand.” If she had had the money, “she would have had a house of refuge for all female outcasts.”

In 1846, she left for Europe as the first female foreign correspondent. Her reports from the Continent concern urban poverty in Manchester and Glasgow; penal reform; sweat labor; educational reform; and female self-improvement. She was unambiguously socialist. Fuller wrote “The people of American may look on and learn in time for a preventative wisdom the real meaning of the words Fraternity, Equality. Learn the needs of true democracy. Learn in time to reverence, learn to guard, the true aristocracy of a nation, the only true nobles, the laboring classes.”

Fuller settled in Rome in 1847 and became involved in the Italian Unification Movement. Her dispatches to the Tribune urged American support for the republican cause, and she and her new husband played an active role in the siege of Rome in 1849. The revolt failed. She and her husband and son left Italy and spent time on the continent with literary figures such as Carlyle and the then notorious French woman novelist George Sand. She supposedly was writing a history of the Italian Revolution.

Fuller’s story has a tragic ending. Returning to the States in 1850, the ship carrying her and her family struck a sandbar off Fire Island on June 1, less than 100 yards from shore. She, her husband and son drowned. Only her young son’s body was found and any manuscript she might have had with her was lost.

Truly, Fuller can serve as example for us, encouraging us to be aware of the social ills of our time and and dedicating ourselves to expose them, to suggest ways to eliminate them, and to work towards justice for all.

The Entangled (and Sometimes Violent) Web of Lamist Politics--April 18, 2010--Nick Gier

2010-05-05T17:51:00.000-07:00

On March 21 Tibetans will celebrate the 51st anniversary of the Dalai Lama’s safe arrival in India, on March 10 they will commemorate the second anniversary of the killing of up to 70 monks and civilians and the jailing of thousands more Tibetan protesters. For these occasions I would like to share some of my research on the relation between Tibetan Buddhism and religious violence.

History demonstrates that there have been very few examples of nonviolent rule by religious leaders. Given the ethical tenets of the major religions one would expect higher levels of conduct on their part. The millions who rightly admire the current Dalai Lama would offer him as a glowing exception, and he is indeed a saint of nonviolence equal to Mahatma Gandhi. When the young Dalai Lama met Gandhi, he remarked afterwards: “I felt I was in the presence of a noble soul . . . a true disciple of Lord Buddha and a true believer in peace and harmony among all men.” If he could have lived to see the remarkable accomplishments of the Dalai Lama, I’m sure that Gandhi would have returned the favor.

In my book The Virtue of Non-Violence: from Gautama to Gandhi I give Gandhi’s ethics of nonviolence a Buddhist interpretation, and I also criticize Gandhi’s thought where I think he has gone wrong philosophically. Given what I have learned about Gandhi’s personality, I’m certain that he would have received my criticism with openness and charity, and I hope that my reservations about some of the Dalai Lama’s theological views are taken in the same way.

Many would make the assumption that Tibetan Buddhism has always produced saintly lamas who have followed the ethics of the Buddha. Sadly, this is not the case. Historian Hugh Richardson comments that the “rivalry and bitter fighting” among the monasteries “is a blot on the Tibetan Middle Ages.” Each of the monasteries had a “private army commanded often by a reliable family member of the original religious founder.” The general justification for this use of violence was same that some Christians and Muslims use: it is God’s will as found in prophetic oracles and religious texts.

Buddhist rule has always been more successful under civilian rather than religious rule. Many of the Buddhist kings in India, Cambodia, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Bhutan were exemplary for their peaceful and enlightened leadership. It is supremely ironic that the most religiously tolerant rulers of Hindu India were the Buddhist Ashoka the Great and the Muslim Akbar the Great, and the best kings that Buddhists of Sri Lanka ever had were their Hindu kings from 1739 to 1815.

During a 3-week tour of Tibet and Bhutan in 1999, I learned that the Bhutanese had bravely defended themselves against nine Tibetan invasions in the 17th Century. The Bhutanese were followers of the Tantric Red Hat school of Tibetan Buddhism, and the Tibetans were committed to extending the rule of the Yellow Hat sect.

The first three invasions, however, were due to infighting among the Red Hats. My gracious Bhutanese hosts allowed me to assume that they were always the victims of religiously motivated violence, but my research has revealed that their most famous lama, Ngawang Namgyal, known simply as the Shabdrung, was ruthless in rooting out religious and political opposition to his absolute rule. He consulted both prophetic oracles and Buddhist scriptures to justify his actions.

In a famous 16-point proclamation the Shabdrung declared: “I am the incarnation prophesied by the patriarchs. I am the executioner of false incarnations.” The Shabdrung had sought refuge in Bhutan after a dispute arose about his right to be the incarnation of the Bodhisattva Chenrizi (Avalokiteshvara in Sanskrit). All the Dalai Lamas claim that they are also the incarnation of Chenrizi, so unfortunately we are confronted with something very familiar: armies appealing to the same deity for victory in war.

The Bodhisattva ideal is one of the greatest moral and spiritual achievements of Mahayana Buddhism. These enlightened Buddhas, beneficent laypeople in many instances, have exhausted their karmic debt, but nevertheless they chose to reenter the cycle of birth and death until all sentient beings are redeemed. Early Bodhisattvas such as the amazing Vimalakirti did perform miracles, but he did not have any grand plans for the destiny of India as Chenrizi does for Tibet. Bodhisattvas generally do not select their next incarnation with the purpose of extending their lives, particularly not as political rulers.

Bodhisattvas are like the Abrahamic deity in that they are persons with wills and emotional/mental lives, and they have a transcendent existence apart from time and space. (This belief applies to Mahayana Buddhism of which Tibetan Buddhism is a part.)

Buddhas and Bodhisattvas are significantly different from the Abrahamic God in that they are not creators of the cosmos (which is eternal) nor are they omnipotent. This may be the reason why the Dalai Lama, in his conversations with Thomas Laird in The Story of Tibet, says that Chenrizi’s plans for Tibet have failed on several occasions. The denial of omnipotence makes way, as it does in Christian “process” theology, for human freewill and responsibility, but the mechanics of this divine-human interaction are pretty much inscrutable in all the Mahayana works that I have read.

Also like the process deity, Bodhisattvas are not impassive and immutable. The early Church declared the doctrine of patripassianism--the view that God the Father suffered in the Crucifixion--heretical, but Alfred North Whitehead, modern father of process theology, stated that fellow sufferer

In the Pali scriptures (the Mahayana writings are in Sanskrit), Gautama Buddha calls himself a Bodhisattva in each of his previous lives, but uses the term Buddha to describe his last life as Prince Siddhartha. He describes these earlier lives as “when I was not fully awakened and still a Bodhisattva, being myself liable to birth” (Majjhima Nikaya 1.163.4). Although legends indicate that he knew he was a Buddha at birth, Gautama did not actually confirm this until his enlightenment at the age of 45. The implications here are rather momentous and most ironic: for Gautama Buddha the earlier Bodhisattvas, even though they are benevolent in every instance, are lesser beings because they are subject to rebirth. For Mahayana Buddhists, however, their Bodhisattvas are greater than Gautama, because they refused to enter Nirvana, which Gautama did, but choose to return to the world again and again until all beings are liberated.

An outside observer could say that this makes Gautama Buddha a rather selfish saint, but an insider could counter that the law of karma, over which the Buddha has no control, dictates that there can be no rebirth or any continued existence if a being has no karmic debt. In a longer version of this essay, I argue that the Mahayana Bodhisattva doctrine may very well undermine the law of karma. In that paper I also argue, just as I did in my book on Gandhi, that a Buddhist ethics of nonviolence is better served by the more robust view of the self found in the Pali writings. If the self and its suffering are ultimately illusory, as many Mahayana and Hindu philosophies claim, then there is no intelligible basis for personal agency or human rights.

Tibetan Buddhists believes that Chenrizi, starting with a monkey incarnation, has guided the people of Tibet throughout all of its fabulous prehistory and history. The Tibetan kings of prehistory were chosen according to procedures that appear to have an ancient Central Asian provenance. It is King Songzen Gampo (AD 605-49) for which we have the first good evidence, and he was held to be an incarnation of Chenrizi. There does not seem to be a break in Chenrizi’s guidance, so that means that Chenrizi is there for the reign of the anti-Buddhist king Langdharma as well as all the other less distinguished Tibetan rulers and lamas.

In his conversations with Laird, the Dalai Lama confirms the traditional view that Chenrizi has a “master plan,” and that he has chosen the Tibetan people to have a key role in that plan. (Those who object to my using the phrase “divine will” have to deal with the fact that plans and wills are inextricably linked.) The odd feature of this divine plan is that it has not been fulfilled on a number of key occasions, including the entire lives of the 6th through 12th Dalai Lamas. The failure of the 13th Dalai Lama’s efforts to modernize Tibet also went against Chenrizi’s plan. Again this may be due to human failure and not the less than omnipotent Bodhisattva.

Starting with the Third Dalai Lama (1543-1588), the Yellow Hat sect forged an alliance with Mongolia. Altan Khan declared that all his people had to join the Yellow Hat sect on pain of death, and his troops played a central role in subduing and marginalizing the Red Hat sects. As a result the Yellow Hat sect has dominated Tibetan politics and religion for the last 300 years.

To his credit the Fifth Dalai Lama, sometimes called “The Great Fifth” for his many achievements (including the construction of the 13-storey Potala Palace), confessed that he was not the right reincarnated child, and he reluctantly acceded to the use of military force that his advisors proposed. The Great Fifth actually practiced the sexual yoga of the Red Hat School and he was tolerant of all the Buddhist schools, even the indigenous Bon religion.

Tsangyang Gyatso, the Sixth Dalai Lama, was, to say the least, a controversial figure. He drank and made love to men and women to great excess, and, in a great act of defiance, he renounced his monastic vows. In response, the Manchu and Mongol leaders found another young man whom they claimed was the true Sixth, and Tsangyang Gyatso died mysteriously on his way to China.

The ultimate failure of reincarnation politics is clearly seen in the current situation. In 1989 came the death of the 10th Panchen Lama, considered second only to the Dalai Lama in spiritual significance. Considered a collaborator by most Tibetans, the 10th Panchen Lama was imprisoned for 13 years because the Chinese perceived that he was insufficiently loyal to the Communist cause. Just before his untimely (and some say suspicious death), he was speaking out against the government.

The current Dalai Lama commenced the traditional proceedings to find the correct child incarnation for the 11th Panchen Lama. When the selection was announced on May 14, 1995, the Beijing government arrested the young boy and placed him and his family under house arrest. The abbot who conducted the search was imprisoned for seven years and he is still under house arrest.

Using a selection procedure by which previous Chinese rulers had certified not only the 10th Panchen Lama, but also the 10th, 11th, 12th, and the 14th Dalai Lamas, the Communist government presented, on November 19, 1995, the young Gyeltsen Norbu as the true 11th Panchen Lama. His parents had of course been vetted by the Chinese Communist Party. In March of 2010 the Beijing government announced that their Panchen Lama, now 20 years old, is now among the 13 new members of the powerful National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference.

It is therefore inevitable that upon the death of Dalai Lama, the Communists will ask Gyeltsen Norbu, as it is the Panchen Lama’s duty, to search for and choose the new Dalai Lama. The Tibetans in exile will no doubt find their own child as the true heir of the Yellow Hats, and unfortunately the controversy will drag on indefinitely.

In 1907 the British convinced the Bhutanese to set up a royal line to solve similar disputes in their reincarnation politics. (With DNA testing now available a true prince can always be correctly identified.) The Bhutanese kings of the 20th Century have proved to be some of the most enlightened royalty in Asia. King Jigme Singye Wangchuck became world famous for his motto “Gross National Happiness.” His green campaign has stopped forest products exports to India, banned motorcycle taxis, and eliminated plastic bags. The Bhutanese have enjoyed free education and health care for decades.

In 1934 Tibetan authorities blinded a well-meaning lama, who took four students to Europe and worked hard to modernize the country. In stark contrast, King Wangchuck sent his son to Harvard (he is now king), and he made English the language of instruction in all schools. Because they loved their kings so much, the Bhutanese very reluctantly voted in their first parliamentary elections in 2008.

The Dalai Lama says that if he returns to Tibet he will step down as head of state and continue his life as a “simple monk.” He also says that Chenrizi might choose a person in another country for his next reincarnation. Does that mean that Chenrizi has given up on Tibet as the nation best suited for the rule of reincarnated lamas? Even if so, what is to prevent the Beijing government from claiming that Chenrizi is embodied in its choice for Dalai Lama? It can claim a 290-year-old Chinese tradition of certifying a new Dalai Lama.

If Chenrizi does choose a different country, where is there a nation that would embrace that idea of a young Buddhist ruler? The only other majority Tibetan Buddhist areas are Ladakh and Sikkim and they are now part of India. Perhaps the Shabdrung was correct in claiming that Chenrizi had chosen him and Bhutan as the legitimate place of divine sovereignty.

In conversations with Thomas Laird, the Dalai Lama speculated that it was Chenrizi’s plan that the Great Fifth’s reincarnated successor be a king rather than a lama. By renouncing his vows, the Sixth Dalai Lama actually made this possible. This would have put an end to the impractical and unwise practice of choosing young children to rule a country.

With regard to the idea of a hereditary king for Tibet, why did Chenrizi choose such a poor candidate, and why did this divine plan fail? And why does the Dalai Lama imply that we would not have had the great benefit of his compassionate and charismatic leadership? Even more questions can be raised about the implications for basic Buddhist philosophy, and the relationship of this great Bodhisattva to the Tibetan people and the rest of the world.

Fiber Arts and Social Justice--Nov. 11, 2009, Judy LaLonde

2009-11-15T14:29:00.000-08:00

Opening words—by Margaret Mead: Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world; it’s the only thing that ever has.

We come together today, not to celebrate the Purple Paisley Quilters (although, of course, you are always welcome to provide us with praise), but to celebrate the men and women, who use their skills with pieces of cloth and lengths of yarn in the service of social justice. Yes, it is quilt Sunday, but we’re extending the topic to include knitting—if you stop by some Monday night, it would be very unusual to not find at least one of us knitting as well as quilting.

So today, I’m going to take you through some history of ways needlework has been used for social justice.

There is a long history of wartime knitting. There would seem at first glance, to be nothing peaceful about knitting in times of war. To many, knitting to support those fighting in war may seem as though it supports the war itself. But peace is not a commodity exclusive to pacifists. Anyone in a difficult situation—from War refugees to soldiers on battlefronts—deserves some measure of personal peace. That is what has inspired knitters through history to knit for them all, especially during the most devastating and demoralizing times.

America was founded in an act of noncompliance, and its no surprise that colonial knitters stitched in that spirit as well. Britain’s tight restrictions on its colonies led American colonists to dig in their heels. Spinning, weaving, knitting and sewing, formerly seen as domestic roles of the “weaker sex,” became a new way to assert American independence. Home production of clothing became a protest: spinning bees and knitting circles became resistance movements.
When the Revolutionary War began, women were urged to “cast their mite into the public good” to assist the government in clothing its army, and they did not disappoint. From Virginia to New Jersey, they furiously knit socks and sewed shirts for the soldiers—in addition to those they made for their own families (usually a sizeable number).

Others used their knitting to forward the war effort in more subversive ways. “Old Mom Rinker,” a knitter near Philadelphia, passed on tidbits of British military history garnered from eavestropping tavern keepers in only a way a knitter could conceive of: she embedded notes to General Washington in balls of yarn, went to a cliff outside of town, and perched their with her knitting, a picture of innocence. When the General’s troops passed along the path below, she would nudge a ball of yarn over the cliff edge, landing at their feet. One of the troops would just as innocently pick it up, and the message would be hastened to General Washington.Almost a century later, during the civil War, the pleas for knitted things—especially socks—came directly from the soldiers. Personal appeals, sent to mothers and sisters and wives in battlefield letters from soldiers with frostbitten feet and tattered boots, heightened the knitters’ sense of urgency. With no need of government bidding, women automatically organized themselves to roll bandages, collect donations, and knit. You might recall scenes from Little Women.

In the North, they were fairly organized. In 1861, the United States Sanitary Commission, a predecessor of the Red Cross, organized and streamlined theprocess. Women knit gloves, mufflers, blankets, socks sent to the Union soldiers, generally accompanied by a note of encouragement. Quilters donated quilts and comforts. In fact, the military made specific requests that quilts be made about seven feet by four feet, the convenient size for a military cot and bedding pack. Many quilts were made from available fabrics and sometimes quilts were made by cutting up two existing bed quilts and sewing them into three cot quilts. Eventually money had to be raised to buy the fabric to make soldiers' bedding as existing materials were used up. Craft bazaars had existed, but now the proceeds were used to buy needed supplies for the Union. During this period, beautiful album quilts, flag quilts, and silk log cabin quilts were sewn. By the end of the war, it is estimated that over 250,000 quilts and comforts had been made for Union soldiers.

There are intriguing myth of how quilting was used to help the slaves escape through the Underground Railroad. A Log Cabin quilt hanging in a window with a black center for the chimney hole was said to indicate a safe house—or was it a red center? Underground Railroad quilts, a variation of Jacob's Ladder, were said to give clues to the safe path to freedom. We imagine women secretly sewing fabric pieces together to be used as signals. However, research about the Underground Railroad finds no evidence that this actually occurred. But these stories have been told from generation to generation filling our imagination with visions of quilting being a part of the flight for freedom. While we enjoy these stories it is important to be aware that it is unlikely that quilts were ever a part of the Underground Railroad.

In the South, things were more difficult. The area was more rural and battles took place right there in their back yards. Women were known to stuff their pockets with socks and deliver them to soldiers on the battlefields. Sometimes, plantation houses were set up as knitting and sewing centers. Meanwhile, the quilters made “gunboat quilts:--medallion style floral arrangements cut from printed fabrics highlighted these quilts, sold to raise money to pay for three ironclad gunboats.

In Lexington, Missouri, the women of the Methodist-Episcopal Church decided to make a quilt to auction at a church bazaar as a fundraiser for destitute Confederate families. The minister’s wife donated a black silk dress embroidered with butterflies, and other women contributed silk dresses and dressmaking scraps to use for the quilt. Each of the Log Cabin blocks was centered with one of the colorful butterflies. Someone supplied enough black-and-white-checked silk to make the back of the quilt. Someone else furnished silk ribbon to use for the binding.
The quiltmakers gathered to sew and talk about the sadness that had come to so many families. They gave thanks when their own relatives had been spared, and they comforted their companions who had experienced loss. In their earnestness, the women wanted to leave no doubt as to the purpose of their project. They applied brass sequins diagonally across the center of the quilt to form the words “FEED THE HUNGRY."

Forward to 1914 and the 1st World War—the Red Cross recruited knitters nationwide to clothe and comfort Allied soldiers, European civilians, and eventually, US troops. They distributed yarns, patterns and needles; advertised in local newspapers and magazines. John D. Rockefeller actually opened his mansion to knitters.

Some critics suggested that all this knitting was a waste of time, energy and resources, arguing that the items provided were more “comforts” than “necessities.” But soldiers in foxholes would probably have argued otherwise. Mary Pickford—perhaps the first celebrity knitter—knit between scenes of her latest photoplay in support on ongoing Red Cross efforts even after war was over—for refugees and hospitalized soldiers.

During World War II, the same type of effort was repeated. Maria Kaiser of Raleigh, NC, remembers her grandmother knitting scarves and helmet liners for troops. Maria remembers knitting in the dark of a movie theatre. Her mother knitted one scarf—her only knitting venture—and she said she felt sorry for the soldier who received it. Move forward in history to the year of the Selma-to-Montgomery march. A white Episcopal priest, who was the newly appointed head of an Alabama civil rights project, was driving south of Selma through desperately poor Wilcox Country to document cases of whites harassing blacks involved in the rights movement. He noticed a cabin clothesline from which were hanging three quilts in strong, hold colors in original patterns. He conceived the idea that the black women could increase their involvement in civil rights by mobilizing to sell patchwork quilts. Within weeks, the Freedom Quilting Bee was formed-- a hand craft cooperative, eventually acclaimed across the nation.During the late 1960s, early 70s, the Freedom Quilting Bee captured the attention of the New York world of fashion and interior design, sparking a nationwide revival of interest in patchwork quilts. The quilters began to earn significant money to supplement their family incomes, which had been averaging less than $1,000 a year. Formerly field hands with fingers callused by the lifelong chopping of cotton, the Freedom quilters became skilled artisans and self-styled business executives who, with determination, vision, and pride, began collectively to keep aflame an artistic endeavor central to the black culture of that Alabama community—which is now the largest employer of Wilcox Country.

There are several current projects whose knitters attempt to provide comfort across the world. The Ships Project—more than 100,000 knitters 275,000 items sent to Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait and Uzbekistan. Operation Toasty Toes sends warm slippers, hats, and other comfort items.

But today’s knitters and quilters do more than just supply articles to those in need—they use fiber arts as a tool to raise awareness and inspire thought and discussion. A woman in San Francisco started a project knitting small, GI Joe size sweaters for each death in Iraq--red, of course. Because of the increasing numbers of deaths, she had to limit it to American Death toll. At time she started, around 1,500. Connected in a chain and displayed on a tree in front of her house. As people across the country learned about her project, she was inundated with red sweaters from across the country.

Quilts especially have been used to bring people together. The Faith Quilts Project of Boston started in 2003. The project ended with 56 quilts representing diverse traditions as African-American, South east Asian Muslims, Baha’s, Native Americans. Mormons, Wiccans, Buddhists, Evangelical Christians, Seventh Day Adventists, Secular Humanists, Jews, and others.
The quilts were displayed this past April at several places in Boston. It was started as a way to visually express deeply held beliefs, to start a citywide exploration of faith and the human spirit, when the world in increasingly engaged in political wars for their beliefs. Project coordinators hope the quilts will challenge stereotypes and educate the public about the diversity of faith traditions, a form for discovering similarities as well as differences among faith communities.

And at the Harvard Divinity School in February 2005, quilters gathered together to decorate a quilt with self portraits to be sent to the West Bank City of Ramallah where it now hangs in a Quaker meeting house. One quilter, Vinny Dorio whose self-portrait included a tear, explained: “The whole Israeli-Palestinian conflict does make me very sad. But even a little thing like this, just to make this quilt for Ramalla, which someone sees and says, ‘We have to stop this.’ You never know.” Of the 30 participants, at least six were men. The quilts, representing the coming together of different peoples, express the longing to overcome human divisions.

Of course, we are all familiar with the AIDS Memorial Quilt, which dates back to 1985 and one San Francisco gay rights activist, who helped organized the annual candlelight march honoring those who died of AIDS. End of March, he put pieces of paper with the names of those victims on wall—He and his friends noted that it looked like a patchwork. Following year, they made the first panel and formed the Names Project Foundation and people in US cities started sending panels. Displayed the first time at the National Mall DC in October 1987—then, it was 1920 panels and covered a space larger than a football field, viewed by ½ million people. Since then, the quilt made tours of North America. The last time it was seen in its entirety was in 1996. Nominated for a Nobel Peace Price in 1989; the largest community art project in the world. The stated mission of the Aids Memorial quilt is to provide a creative means for remembrance and healing, to effectively illustrate the enormity of the AIDS pandemic, to increase awareness of HIV and AIDS throughout the general public, and to assist others in providing education on the prevention of HIV infection, and to raise funds for community-based AIDS service organizations. For anyone that hasn’t seen parts of it, the quilt measures approximately 12 feet square, and a typical block consists of eight individual three foot by six-foot panels sewn together: There are 44,000 panels to date. According to the Foundation, The Quilt has redefined the tradition of quilt-making in response to contemporary circumstances. A memorial, a tool for education and a work of art, the Quilt is a unique creation, an uncommon and uplifting response to the tragic loss of human life.

Another fiber project for social action that familiar to us is the Afghans for Afghans. Originally, a drive started by one woman in 2001 who aimed collect 5000 hand knit wool hats, mittens, sweaters, vests, and afghans to be sent to orphanages, clinics and children’s centers. Notes were often included. The afghans are not always perfect, but full of good thoughts.

Many more current projects—too numerous to name—and most were started by one person or a small group and then grew: caps for kids; hats for women undergoing cancer treatment; caps for preemies; prayer shawls.These projects provide ways for men and women with a yen to have needs of one kind or another in their hands and indulge in yarn or fabric; and from their hands come warmth, comfort and hopes for peace in the world. Closing words: We quilters and knitters work a powerful magic when we use our skills for others. By doing this, we can build bridges between warring nations, help to heal deep wounds, offer a primal sort of comfort, and create peace—however small, and in whatever way that may be--for others and ourselves

Sources: Christiansen, Betty. Knitting for Peace: Make the World a Better Place One Stitch at a Time. NY: Harry N. Abrams, 2006.“Quilters Hope to Link Patchwork of Views,” Rich Barlow, Boston Globe, February 17, 2007. www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/12/17/quilters_hope_to_link_a_patchwork ofviews. Access 10/28/07.The Pluralism Project of Harvard University: “The Faith Quilts Project (2006), www.pluralism.org/research/profies/display.php?profile-72650, Accessed 10/28/07The Aids Memorial Quilt, www.aidsquilt.org/index.htm; Accessed 11/3/07.Macdonald, Anne L. No Idle Hands: The Social History of American Knitting. NY: Ballantine Books, 1988.American’s Quilting History: Underground Railroad Quilts and Abolitionist Fairs. www.womenfolkd.com/quilting_history/abolitionist.htm. Accessed 11/3/07.Afghans for Afghans. http://www.afghansforafghjana.org/. Accessed 11/3/07.The Freedom Quilting Bee. www.ruraldevelopment.org/FQB.html. Accessed 11/3/07.

Getting in Touch with Your Inner Quilter--November 9, 2008--Karen Schoepflin Hagen

2008-11-13T09:16:00.000-08:00

There are a number of little sayings that refer to quilters:
When live gives you scraps--Make a quilt
When you fall to pieces--Make a quilt

These sayings suggest an attitude adjustment--a therapy, or a healing process that quilt making can supply. I am not going to talk only about what quilts mean to me, but what I have observed them to mean to others.

When we think of quilts, we think of a comfort that might mean "to encircle." We don't feel alone when snuggled into a quilt. The quilt is a "safe" place. What a wonderful gift for anyone of any age! Many people create soft, beautiful quilts for new babies, as well as warm, cheerful lap quilts for the elderly. The quilt becomes an ever-present reminder of the care--the time--the love that went into that gift. However, there is also a reward for the quilt maker. We find the truth in the words "it is more blessed to give than to receive." We experience the joy of creation, and the satisfaction in fulfillment of ideas.

I belong to several quilt guilds. Those groups make quilts for families who lose everything in a fire, experience other tragedies, or just for individuals who need extra comfort in some way. The quilters don't usually get to see who receives their gift, but they know that it will make someone feel special. Quilting is sharing oneself with others.

Quilts are also a tie to the past. Many of us can reach back to memories of those old special quilts of interesting designs made from little calico prints or the cloth from flour sacks. Perhaps we remember quilts made from warm, but scratchy, wool pieces. Or maybe we remember running our fingers over the velvets and corduroys of an intricately stitched crazy quilt, as we feasted our eyes on the endless decorative stitch choices.

I've known people who spend years studying the fascinating history of quilts and the people who make them. Hundreds of traditional patterns were made up by unknown quilt makers who wanted to decorate and beautify the quilts they stitched. Many treasured quilts from the past have been carefully preserved and passed down. They can be a binder” between generations.

Possibly you have seen one of the many sunbonnet girl quilts made using the fabrics from the real dresses a little girl wore throughout her childhood, or quilts made from shirts and ties. Maybe you have seen quilts made from special T-shirts, from award ribbons, or from dainty handkerchiefs. I've seen quilts made for almost any subject: weddings, anniversaries, births, sports of all kinds, music, fishing, golf, dolls, cars, motorcycles, railroads, pets, tribute quilts to certain people, and so forth. I made a tribute quilt to the memory of our pet guinea pigs. Because of the way they wove themselves into our lives, I decided to try a method I had no idea how to achieve. I wove the quilt in the same weaving look of the chair weaving on my bent-wood rocker. This was to symbolize their entwining with our family. I brought that quilt to share as an example of a tribute quilt to pets.

Many quilts have been made to commemorate events such as the Statue of Liberty Centennial, or the Bicentennial year of our independence. I made a quilt for each of those celebrations, and will share the one I did to celebrate the Statue of Liberty.

Some quilts also express grief over devastating events. An example of this would be the ever-growing Aids quilt project. I also have seen photos of many incredible quilts relating to the 9-11 disaster.

There is a very interesting history of quilts being used as a signal for the Underground Railroad. The hanging out of a log cabin quilt with a black center rather than the traditional red center meant that was a "safe house." A wheel pattern showed that a group was going to be departing.

I was invited to Boise back in 1990 to help design the Idaho's People Quilt. That was when I first learned of the Boise Peace Quilt Project. This is an amazing group of women who have sought to combine peacemaking and quilt making. These are individuals working to produce quilts as gestures of international goodwill and as awards for peacemakers. Their goal has been to create a more peaceful world one stitch at a time. They design and make quilts to present as an award to various chosen, deserving recipients in recognition of their unique efforts toward peace among people. I have a collection of postcards showing quite a few of the quilts, as well as some photos printed from their web site if anyone wishes to look at them after the service. There are too many for me to name and describe in my talk, but this is a beautiful collection of quilts.

While I was helping work on the design for the Idaho's People Quilt Triptych, one of the women suddenly jumped up and quickly ran out of the room saying, " My men--I'm forgetting my men!" The others explained that she takes meals twice a day to a large group of homeless men who live under the bridge. I found this to be indicative of the nature of quilters: always concerned for the comfort of others.

It is not only women who find satisfaction in quilting. I knew an amazing elderly gentleman while I lived in Richland, Washington who made many quilts despite his very swollen, arthritic fingers. All of his quilts were made of one-half inch squares. He would draw his plan on graph paper, color the design, and cut his fabrics into piles of half-inch squares sorted by color. Then following his design, he would stitch square after square by hand in a ladder, stair-step fashion. All of his quilts were hand pieced and usually contained words, phrases, or whole sentences as part of the pieced design.

When I was doing my quilt exhibit in Salem, Oregon, several women brought quilt examples to show me that were made by men in the prison. They were teaching the men to make quilts, and the men in turn made quilts for their charity projects: an example of the healing power of quilts.

I have never been sorry that I was introduced to the hand quilting process at the little Viola Community Club in the 70s. They have a long history of hand quilting quilt tops for people. The sisterhood of our quilting and chatter one day a week was something I will always remember.

Because I marvel at all aspects of the outdoors and nature, many of my quilts were inspired by and depict birds, flowers, trees, and landscapes. I will finish by quickly sharing some of those quilts. These are a type of quilt meant to be hung on the wall. Finally, because this is a church service, I would like to share my quilt titled "Agony At Gethsemane."
List of quilts shown:
Little Friends
United We Stand
O Beautiful For Spacious Skies
Call of the Cranes
Forest Floor Fragment
Mt. Shuksan--Shalom
Beachcomber
Consider the Columbine
Display of Daffodils
Egret Elegance
Glorious Morning
Marsh Mates
Agony at Gethsemane

My Religious Faith-April 26, 2008--Tracy Springberry

2008-11-07T15:51:00.001-08:00

One of the deep pleasures of my seminary education has been the discovery of theology. At one time theology meant the "study of God." Now, at least in liberal religion, it means the study of what is most meaningful and valuable. It is an incredibly interdisciplinary area of study. The best theologians try to take what we know from all sorts of fields: biology, physics, psychology, history, art, literature are a few examples, and then try to figure out the nature of human beings and the universe and what that might mean religiously and ethically.

Albert Einstein said, "All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree . . . " Most academic disciplines study a branch of the tree. But in my experience, it's the theologians who are trying to figure out the nature of the tree itself and then consider just what in that means for our lives. In theology classes, I've read a dense text on the evolutionary biology of emotional response, a fairly incomprehensible legal treatise on human rights, classical philosophers, and an economics book. Probably the most profound influence on my theology has been A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, which is a delightful overview of what we know scientifically about the earth and universe.

This morning, I want to share just one bit of my personal theology that I have developed over six years of reading, writing and discussing. I want to talk about my religious faith.

The word "faith" and its cousin "belief" are challenging words for many Unitarian Universalists. Often we associate "religious belief" with a person's intellectual confidence that God exists or that Jesus Christ died for humanity's sins or that there is a hell. We then associate "faith" with "believing" in these ideas even when no logical evidence exists for their truth. For example, if I "believe" in a personal God who cares for me, then I have "faith" God is looking out for me. The most rational among us sometimes reject such ideas and feel there is little point to discussing religious faith and religious belief.

However, the word "faith" with no religious context refers to what any person trusts to be true about the world and life. What a person has faith in guides the decisions he or she makes about how to live. People have faith in all sorts of things. Faith can be based on reason, experience, external evidence, or cultural expectation and tradition.

People in our culture often have in faith in ideas such as:
* Somebody ensured the airplane we just got on has no mechanical problems.
* The water in our town is safe.
* Children and youth will have better, richer lives if they are involved in sports or other structured activities.
* The scientific method is the best way to understand the world.
* Going to college, getting a good job, buying a house, and investing in retirement will ensure financial security and, thus, a good life.

Since most of us are 21st century Americans, we probably have faith, or have had faith, in many of these propositions and have made decisions about how to conduct our lives based on them. We drink water from the faucet without fear. We buy houses and invest in retirement. We read scientific discoveries as truth. However, none of these propositions is true all of the time.

The Hebrew word that is translated in modern Bibles as "faith" does not mean "belief in something without evidence" but means "steadfastness." All of us steadfastly direct our lives by certain ideas. Even if we know that going to college and buying a house doesn't always, every time, mean a good life and that the water in the tap might not always be safe, we choose to live our lives by those ideas.

We have faith.

But what of religious faith? Religious faith, like secular faith, guides the decisions we make about how to live. Only religious faith is typically based on beliefs about what helps us live value-filled lives and what helps sustains us during times of despair. Religious faith is about what we believe directs our lives toward love and justice and hope. It guides how we act to make our lives and world better.

For Christians, Jews, Muslims, and some people in this room their religious faith is in God. God is the one who has the power to help steer lives toward love and justice and hope. This faith provides direction to people. It helps one focus on what is most valuable. When life is hard, a person can pray to and trust God. One can follow old religious traditions that have developed methods for aligning one with God and love, justice and hope.

Modern secular culture and much of Unitarian Universalism teach that what we can have faith in is ourselves. Both teach that it is our actions and our will to influence our actions that direct us toward what we value we most and toward love, justice and hope.

This was what I was taught growing up--that I was ultimately responsible for my own fate and for improving the world. The saving of the earth and ourselves, this implies, is achieved by what each of us is able to do. We have faith in ourselves and our ability to make and act on good choices.

I think this is partly true. Often I have faith in myself to do the right thing to make a difference and I do it.

But not always. I can't always do it.

I cannot do all that has to be done and often what I can do, I cannot do perfectly. If what I can will myself to do is responsible for creating a good life and world, than what I do does matters tremendously, and it matters much more than I can deliver.

Many times I do not do what I know I should do.

We all have these experiences. We decide to lose weight, but eat cake the very day we make the decision. We decide to live in gratitude, but find ourselves wishing for an air conditioner or a different car. We decide to live in love, but find ourselves judging a difficult person. We decide to change the world, but do little of significance.

Other times I don't know what to do.

Does anyone really know the correct way to raise a child or deal with a challenging family member? Or the best way to spend time and money to end the pain of a suffering world?

I'm also certain that sometimes I act in ways that hurt myself and the world that I'm not even conscious of.

I know in my past I behaved in ways that seemed right and appropriate, but now I realize were damaging, because I have seen their results. I had a friend who grew up in a racist home and community and had no idea her attitudes were damaging until she was an adult and lived in other communities and met other people.

What do I do at these moments? Where do I turn? What guides my actions? Faith in myself provides no guidance. I simply feel guilty, hopeless and paralyzed.

To respond effectively to the world and live with hope, I need something more.

I know a wonderful man who has a deep faith in God. He works very hard to make the world better for people who struggle against oppression. But at the end of the day, he says, I have done my part; the rest is up to God. I envy the man's commitment and ability to do his part and then remain confident that his God continues to work while he rests. He is not guilty, hopeless or paralyzed.

I want that sort of faith.

I was raised by academics and am myself highly educated. What I was trained to do, and what seems as natural as breathing, is to think rationally. I mull the evidence. What I have faith in and what guides my moral choices cannot contradict the scientific evidence, cannot contradict what we know of history and of psychology, anthropology and sociology, and cannot contradict my experience. It is not part of my experience or tradition to find faith in a personal God who is beyond history and nature and can influence the world.

Still my experience demonstrates that this world is more mysterious than we can rationally understand: there is synchronicity, moments of grace, falling in love, call to vocation, and the intensity of birth and death. My mind, experience and heart tells me that there is something beyond myself that can guide me toward what is most valuable and toward love, justice and hope.

Henry Nelson Wieman, an influential liberal theologian in the early to middle part of this century, helped me find what I'd been looking for. For Wieman the question of the religious journey was, "What can transform people in such a way to save them from the depths of evil and bring them to the greatest good which human life can ever attain?"

He had two answers. The first is what we can will ourselves to do--the emphasis of secular and Unitarian Universalist culture. He called that ethics.

His second answer addressed the question what "transforms us when we cannot transform ourselves?" What, in other words, can we have faith in to help us when we don't behave as we want, don't know what to do, or don't realize our limitations?

His answer was creativity or as he called it the "creative event."

Very simply, creativity brings together a person's experience of the world's diversity, mixes it within a person, and changes the person so he or she can experience new, deeper relationships. Through creativity a person's life and the world become richer, more meaningful, more full of love and more just.

Creativity requires engagement with the world. Wieman calls this "creative interchange." We must reach out beyond our own understanding to listen and appreciate the other--whether that is a pinecone, our friend, someone with the opposite political views, or our own mysterious breath. We must reach out with our time, attention and heart.

One important element of this creativity is we do not control it. We cannot make the creative event happen.

We also cannot decide how it will change us. Wieman says, "The creative event cannot be used to shape the world closer to the heart's desire because it transforms the heart's desire so that one wants something very different from what one desired in the beginning."

However, we can lead our lives to make the creative event more likely to happen. For Wieman this meant increased appreciation of the world, times of silence, prayer and worship, and engagement with others particularly in sustained small groups.
Still, we cannot will creative change to happen.
It is out of our power.
It is beyond us.
Wieman's idea of creativity seems true to me.

The operating principle of the universe appears to be to be creativity--the combining of diverse elements to make something new. That is how we got atoms, molecules, flowers, blueberries and us. The operating principle of human culture also appears to be creativity. That is how we got democracy, the English language, and Unitarian Universalism.

So it makes sense that creativity would be what makes human change possible, help us live more by our values and align our lives toward love, justice and hope.

I have also experienced the transforming power of creativity, certainly many times, but I have one story that clearly demonstrates the change. In Spokane a couple of years ago, I took Spokane Alliance Leadership training. The Spokane Alliance brings together churches of wide theological differences, unions, educational institutions and non-profit agencies to work for meaningful non-partisan political change. Based on the work of Saul Alinsky, their philosophy is that people work together better across differences, if they know each other, and they do this through relational meetings, where each person shares their thoughts feelings on a specific question and the other listens and then they trade places.

While practicing relational meetings, I was paired with a woman very different from me in age, class, political affiliation and religious belief. For some reason, I don't now remember, she began discussing Wal-Mart. I boycott Wal-Mart because of their labor practices. She did all her shopping there and was bitterly angry with people who criticized Wal-Mart. At first, I was surprised at her bitterness. Most people I know who shop at Wal-Mart at least feel guilty about it. Then I felt superior. I understood the issues. I was ethical. I stood up for what I believed. But because the assignment was to listen, I listened. And because I listened, I experienced her fear of living on a fixed income, prices rising and her standard of living slipping, until she saw herself homeless. Wal-Mart prices allowed her to live with a standard of living that she was used to, at least for the moment. I understood then how Wal-Mart is the result of a society that values consumerism above all else and where the poor are getting poorer. It's fine for me, financially secure, to be superior in my Wal-Mart boycott, but Wal-Mart is not going anywhere with its labor practices and philosophy of closing down local retail economies until the root issues of poverty and consumerism are addressed.

I had listened and I had changed. I no longer felt superior. I knew I needed this woman to work for justice and to end poverty. We needed each other. Love, justice and hope increased in the world at that moment.

My faith in creativity has changed my approach to life. When I don't do what I think I should or when I don't know what to do, I remember my commitment to creativity. And I always remember, I cannot will creativity to happen. It is like my friend with his faith in God. He does his part and lets God do the rest. I do my part and let the creative power work in me and in others.

So I do what I can. I do those things I know I can do to make my life and the life of others better. My Then I open myself to creativity. I appreciate the world. I become "wholly attentive," as Annie Dillard said in this morning's meditation. I listen. I meditate. I pray. I worship. I stay in relationship with people.

I have also been fortunate, as you are, to be in a congregation that provides opportunities that prepare us for creative transformation. Small groups and affinity groups, such as the PPQ and men's groups, allow us deepen and lengthen relationships. Non-violent communication teaches us to listen more deeply to others and ourselves. We worship together. We value generosity, community, gratitude, acting in love, and paying attention.

I find as practice my faith in creativity, my faith deepens.
Sometimes I am exhausted and overwhelmed: the study of ministry takes so long, family and work is demanding, hundreds die in Iraq each month, hundreds others starve all over the world, and the glacial ice cracks as it thaws. All I can remember in those moments about the practice of my faith is that I should "appreciate" and be "wholly attentive," to the other and myself. So I look at trees. I examine the chunky puzzle piece bark of pine trees and the new bright green growth at the tips of fir branches. I wonder at the stately trunks of pines and the branching trunks of apple trees. Often as I'm admiring this artistry a squirrel darts out, its bushy tail high as it scurries across the grass, or a bird sweeps down and flies gracefully among branches.

Mostly, I just breathe easier after meditating on trees.

But once, I was pulled deeper. In trees, squirrels, and birds I saw how amazing Life is. How it is strong, tenacious and creative in its expression of itself. Life can be a tree, a squirrel, a piece grass, an ant, or a lilac. Life is undaunted by change. When the atmosphere could no longer support Life in the form of dinosaurs, Life morphed and made other things--mammals and different of sorts of birds and reptiles. Mass extinctions have wiped out 98 percent of species that have ever lived, but Life is still abundant. From my yard, I saw magpies, robins, horses, petunias, phlox, honeysuckle, weeping birch, and day lilies. I couldn't see, but knew they were there: worms, ladybugs, and the bacteria that decay leaves. What more Life I would see if I walked down the street or flew to Peru. I was awed by the abundance of Life.

Then I remembered that I am a bit of Life. I am strong. I am tenacious. I am creative. I can be alive in new ways.

I also remembered that I am only one bit of Life--just a small part and thus both significant and insignificant, both powerful and not powerful.

My exhaustion evaporated. I walked slowly back into the day--where I found my family and work, the journey toward ministry, and a world both suffering and flourishing.

I joined, bringing the vibrant piece of Life that I am to the webs I live in, realizing that I could act or, if needed, just be, and I could trust the creativity and strength of Life itself to be a part of whatever happened.

I knew that there would be love. There would be justice. And there would be hope.

May it be so.

Justice Sunday--April 6, 2008--Peggy Jenkins

2008-11-07T15:11:00.000-08:00

The UUCP is one of many congregations participating in "Justice Sunday" in partnership with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. Our church is a member of the UUSC, which is an organization dedicated to advancing human rights and social justice, and which provides resources to local congregations like ours. This year, Justice Sunday calls for consideration about war, poverty, and our nations priorities. The UUSC provided us with a sermon prepared by Carmen Emerson, a divinity student who works for the organization. I have taken excerpts from her sermon, and from the writing of Doctor Martin Luther King, who died 40 years ago this past Friday.

One year before Dr. King's death in Memphis, he gave a speech at the Riverside Church in New York City entitled "Beyond Vietnam, a Time to Break the Silence." King said of Vietnam "Somehow this madness must cease. . . . . I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken... The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."

The five years before the Riverside Speech had been busy ones for King. In 1963 he was jailed in Birmingham Alabama, and later that year he delivered his "I Have a Dream" Speech in Washington, D.C. In 1964 he was awarded the Nobel peace prize. He witnessed the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. In 1965, at Howard University, Dr. King gave his first speech against the War.

We often think of the risks Martin Luther King took in the violence and unrest of the civil rights movement, but in many ways his opposition to the war was an even greater risk. He alienated many political allies and friends. Clayborne Carson, a King historian at Stanford University, explains: "The white liberals had kind of abandoned him because of his Vietnam speech. [President Lyndon B.] Johnson thought he had gone off the deep end. And most black people in the civil rights movement thought he had gone off the deep end." At Riverside Doctor King acknowledged:

"Many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path--Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people? Such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling."

According to Clayborne, King was politically isolated in the final years of his life. King acknowledged this alienation when he spoke at Riverside. He said, "Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony."

It should be said, though, that Dr. King's speech at Riverside was not an occasion for despair. In fact, he was celebrating, because he had found a community of faith opposed to the War. He was addressing a group known as "Clergy and Laymen concerned about Vietnam." The Group was formed in October 1965, and Doctor King was one of its few black members. It must be said that the Group served Doctor King's pragmatic interests: he had well-founded concerns that he would be smeared as a communist for opposing the war in Vietnam, and his association with the Clergy and Laymen Group helped him place his views within the broader religious opposition to the war. But the "Clergy and Laymen" group served Doctor King's spiritual interests as well. He said:

"We must rejoice--for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance."

Doctor King also had a sustaining spiritual kinship with the Unitarian Universalists. In 1966 he addressed the UU General Assembly in Hollywood Florida. He said:

"There are those wonderful moments in life when you speak before a group that is so near and dear to you that you don't feel like you have to engage in the art of persuasion. You know that you are with friends. I can assure you that I feel that way tonight."

Of course, Doctor King's address was about segregation and civil rights; had he addressed the UU general assembly about Vietnam in 1966 he would not have found uniform acceptance for his views. Dana McLean Greevy, President of the UU Association in the mid-sixties, was a member Clergy and Laymen concerned about Vietnam. But throughout America, the war divided UU congregations. People left the church, both out of a feeling that the increasingly anti-war church did not support their views, and because they felt the church was becoming more of a political institution than a religious one. Even within the our chuch there was division and conflict over the war.

Even today, developing a single UU position on war and conflict is a daunting, if not impossible task. Right now our church and others have been asked to consider this question:

Should the Unitarian Universalist Association reject the use of any and all kinds of violence and war to resolve disputes between people and nations and adopt a principle of seeking just peace through non-violent means?

I am sure that, among you sitting here today, there are a range of opinions on this issue. And there are people like me who are not even prepared to formulate an opinion. I would need time to sit quietly, to unpack all the thoughts and feelings that keep me from embracing that statement whole-heartedly. I need to examine my misgivings: hold them up in the light, and turn them around so I can see them from all sides. I have to find a way to articulate and express my concerns, and to find a place for them in the UU discussion.

I's not easy. But it's what Unitarian Universalists have been called upon to do over the next couple years. These discussions will lead up to a statement of conscience about just war and pacifism for consideration by the 2010 General Assembly. In the fall our church will engage in conversations about war, just war, just peace and pacifism. I hope you will take part.

Talking about war and conflict seems abstract and academic, for those of us who don't control the bombs or guns and who don't witness the carnage first hand. But it's not, because the resources we waste on bombs and guns prevent us from providing justice and opportunity at home. Doctor Martin Luther King recognized this in his speech at Riverside in 1967. He explained there was a very obvious--an inverse correlation--between war in Vietnam and the war on poverty in America. He said,

"A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor--both black and white--through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such."

Doctor King's words are heartbreakingly true today. Forty years later, exchange the war in Vietnam for the war in Iraq and consider the socioeconomic status of those in the Gulf Coast most hurt by Hurricaine Katrina: consider the state of health care, education, affordable housing and civil liberties in our nation, and consider Doctor King's words: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

In the five years since President George W. Bush invaded Iraq, the U.S. has spent or committed $600 billion on and to the war. Can you imagine what Dr. King could have done with $600 billion? Can you imagine what half that amount would have done to renew the gulf coast? Instead, on the gulf coast, the poorest people in the world's wealthiest nation struggle to complete a recovery effort subjugated to the same disparities of race and class that called King to act over 40 years ago. Just as Dr. King observed, it is the poor who are most grievously injured by our nation's misplaced priorities.

Affordable housing in New Orleans is non-existent, rents have increased by as much as 200 percent; and only one of seven general hospitals in New Orleans is operating at pre-storm levels. Mental health problems and post-traumatic stress are rising, as are suicide rates, but funding and resources for mental health continue to be reduced.

The poorest of the poor continue to pay the highest price. Taxpayers in Louisiana and Mississippi will be asked to pay $1.8 billion, for proposed Iraq war spending in the 2008. Again, those are funds that could have made an immediate and lasting difference to post-Katrina recovery efforts. That is money taken away from education, health care, and housing for those in dire need in the Gulf Coast Region and throughout the United States.

In the history, facts and figures considered today, certain questions persist: Why do we kill other people? Why do we take care of some while neglecting others? When faced with the overwhelming needs of this nation and of the world, are the odds too great? Have we rationed our moral outrage to the point of apathy? Coming to terms with those questions and that doubt is a necessary step on the road to change. In the words of Martin Luther King,

"Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on."

We are most fortunate to be in a community where we can work together to find our truth and imprint it upon our world. As people of a theologically and politically diverse faith, it is our highest calling to hold each other up through the work of justice and peacemaking. We need not fear unanswerable questions. We have covenanted to accompany one another in a search for truth and meaning, and questioning is a sacrament to us. We need not surrender to apathy or be mesmerized by uncertainty. We are active agents in our own salvation. We have ourselves; we have each other; and we have a social justice legacy that it is in our bones.

In many ways, the hardest thing we have to do is make the choice to act. To save our singular country from the threat of spiritual death. And to seize the moment now. In the words of Doctor Martin Luther King:

"Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter--but beautiful--struggle for a new world. . . . Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? . . . . . Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with [our] yearnings, of commitment to the cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history."

The Circle: Moscow Women Giving Togethe--August 10, 2008--Jessica Bearman

2008-11-07T14:22:00.000-08:00

Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today about giving circles, shared giving, and philanthropy in general. During our time together today, I want to do two main things:

* I want to share with you some knowledge about giving circles--what they are, how they work, and why they are important.
* And, I'd like to tell you a little bit about the Moscow giving circle, called The Circle: Moscow Women Giving Together, how we began our journey, what we have accomplished so far, and where we hope to go.

But, first, a little exercise in visualization. Close your eyes and picture a "Philanthropist" What's coming to mind? How many of you pictured someone male? Someone white? Someone quite wealthy? Someone quite old? Maybe someone dead?
Philanthropy is a big word and for most of us, it doesn't quite fit. My hope is to convince you that we can all claim that title, if we want it.

In fact, most givers don't fit this profile at all. Most givers are people like you and me . . . And giving circles are one of the ways that people like us can give back and make a difference in our communities.

So, what is a giving circle anyway? Giving circles have been described as a cross between a book club and an investment club. They are formed when individuals--often people of moderate means--pool their money and decide together where that money is given.

* Donors pool and give away personal resources (wide range of sizes and $$ amounts)
* Donors decide together where their money is granted (usually local)
* Giving circles educate their members about philanthropy and about the community
* They have a social dimension that is often as important as their philanthropic dimension
* They maintain their independence from any one organization.

Giving circles aren't new--the idea of pooling money and using it for mutual aid is as old as the hills. But, we think that giving circles in their current iteration are part of a larger shift.

* People want to give back--the secret of philanthropy is that the greatest gift is almost always to the giver.
* People want to make a difference NOW--we don’t want to wait until we are rich or dead . . . and we want to make good, thoughtful decisions.
* We are seeking community--and like to do things that bring us together with others who share our values.
* We like to do it our own way--and giving circles can be designed to work for any community and any group of donors.

What is important about giving circles?

* Donors--There are more than 400 giving circles across the country, and they engage donors--12,000 according to our most recent data
* Dollars--They give back to the community--giving circles have given away nearly $100 million over the course of their lives and gave away $13 million in 2006 alone!
* Do MORE--They build civic engagement--giving circle donors learn about their community's needs and nonprofit resources. They become involved in meaningful ways--volunteering, serving on boards, and getting engaged in community improvement efforts. They are an exercise in democracy.

From our interviews with giving circle members and founders, we have learned that giving circles have a huge impact on their donors.

"This endeavor has transformed many of our members in very profound ways. They take more responsibility for others and their community. Participation has opened their eyes to other issues in society. I would say that the giving circle has been a spiritual journey for all of us."
Ericka Carter, The San Fernando Valley Giving Circle

* Demystify philanthropy
* Leverage resources to make a difference
* Learn about issues, needs, and organizations in the community
* Build community--both within GC and outside of it
* Members giving and volunteering beyond the giving circle
* Giving is more informed and thoughtful and more focused and strategic

So, here's the story of our giving circle. It's a story about how a small group of motivated individuals were able to get something started.
* Running group . . . talk talk talk . . . pulled in Amy Grey and Gerri Sayler. Decided: women's giving circle and $365 (dollar a day)
* Each of us invited some people we knew to a party. We thought that maybe we'd have 15 or 20 people, but fifty people came. We had a goal of attracting thirty women and raising $10,000. But, in the end, we had 47 members and raised more than $19,000!
* Our membership is a wonderful slice of Moscow.
* Our members range in age from mid 20s to late 60s. We include women who have lived in Moscow for one year and for 48 years.
* We volunteer an average of 10-20 hours per month
* Politically, group members described themselves as everything from very liberal to conservative, to apolitical.
* What we share is a commitment to this community and a desire to be part of an interesting group of women working to make Latah County even better.
* In our first year, we gave $18,500 in seven grants ranging from $1500 to $5000. Our first round of grants went to the following organizations:
* St. Vincent de Paul: $5,000 for emergency energy assistance
* University of Idaho Child & Youth Study Center: $4,000 for intensive reading intervention and tutoring
* Palouse Youth Hockey Association: $2,000 for scholarships and equipment
* Troy Elementary School: $2,000 to help create an outdoor science education program
* University of Idaho Sustainable Campus Move-Out Program: $2,000 to encourage recycling of unwanted furniture, clothing, and equipment at the end of the school year.
* West Park Elementary: $2,000 to help repair dilapidated playground equipment
* Moscow Rendezvous for Kids: $1,500 to support access to arts education for all interested children

For me, personally, this has been a way to take my giving and give it more purpose, focus, and direction. I have always given, but I have generally given reactively. Fifty dollars here . . . twenty dollars there . . . someone is running a marathon for AIDS . . . someone else is biking to cure juvenile diabetes. This is a good way to give, but I began to feel that if it was the only way that I gave, then I was missing the chance to be intentional with my giving.

Being part of a giving circle allows me to make a larger gift and make it much more thoughtfully. There is also the power of pooling my money--my $365 may not seem like a lot. But being able to give away $18,500--that was powerful! And doing it while spending quality time with other interesting, passionate, and engaged women . . . what could be better?

What is next?
* The Circle is currently recruiting new (and existing) members to sign up for 2008-2009 giving cycle.
* We will rethink our priorities for this year
* Emphasis on learning about our area's needs and resources
* Working on getting more women--and men--engaged and feeling confident as philanthropists.

The State of Our Unions:Gay Marriage Advances Down the Aisle!--Oct. 12, 2008--Rebecca Rod

2008-10-12T13:08:00.000-07:00

Opening Words
"Because: Gay and Lesbian Studies 101" by Rev. Mark Belletini
So one of the members of the search committee asks me
"But why do you people"--
(He really said that, "you people--)
"Why do you people have to talk about it [so much]?"

Right . . .
Well, because:
Because, if I fell in love--
You know, with sonnets and everything--
and I wanted to name all the stars in heaven
one at a time with a goofy smile on my face--
I'd love to be able to.
Or because--if I didn't fall in love,
I'd like to be able to grouse about it a bit,
or work up a bitter Theory to explain it.

Or because--if my lover got run over by a drunk driver--
(it happens you know, remember blue-eyed Stewart?--
I'd like to be able to take a few days off work
and cry and stuff, OK?
Because, if my partner-in-life--
Whom I can't really legally marry because it upsets someone's stomach or something--
suddenly developed an infection and got sores all over his body
and had to go to the hospital
(you know, just like my friend Stephen?)
I'd like to take him there and hold his hand for a few days
And still get paid on family emergency leave
So I could still eat and pay the rent and all . . .

And because, well--lying all the time is still wrong, isn't it?

Oh, and because--whether you believe it or not--
My life is just as important to me
As yours is to you.

Meditation
"We thank you now for love. . ." Daphne Rose Kingman

We thank you now for love--the great, miraculous gift.
For love in the body that comforts,
For love in the emotional body that delights and frustrates and instructs,
For the love of our sacred circle of friends,
For love in the spirit beyond all walls and wounds, bounds and ends.
Love--we thank you for love.
Love that stirs and soothes us,
Love that gathers us into all joy, and delivers us from all brokenness.
Love that hears the soundless language,
Love that imagines and dreams,
That can conquer all, and willingly surrenders everything--
Love that brought us into our lives
And love that will carry us home.

The State Of Our Unions: Gay Marriage Advances Down the Aisle
On August 25, 1996-- the hottest day of that year-- my partner, Theresa, and I were "married" in this church by our then minister, the Rev. Lynn Ungar. Many of you who are long-time members of this church were here with us, packing this space to the walls and up the stairs, along with our Moscow community friends and additional friends and family members who had come to join us from out of town. I remember some of you brought your kids with you--very young children who were attending their first wedding--a wedding of two women, which was still a bit of a big deal back in 1996.

That sweltering Saturday afternoon, Theresa and I, dressed in dresses, walked ourselves down this aisle holding on to each other and a sharing a bouquet from our summer flower garden, as our friend, Jo, sang "Give Yourself to Love." I clearly remember I had to swallow hard so I wouldn't break down in tears at the overwhelming feeling of being surrounded by so many supportive friends and family beaming at us as they turned their heads to see us coming. At the front of the church, we lit a unity candle together, and then Lynn began a short wedding homily with an excerpt from a book called The Riverhouse Stories: How Pubah S. Queen and Lazy LaRue Save the World. In the excerpt, Lazy and her sweetheart, Pubah, are attending the wedding of their good friend, Elby who is marrying her long-time boyfriend:

At the back of the room someone sang music from an opera. The groom's ex-wife read a poem. Everybody cried.

"Why are we crying?" Pubah wondered as they went out the door and down the street into the night when the ceremony was over.
"Commitment makes us cry," Lazy told her. "We're so small next to commitment. When two people walk right up to it so willingly . . ." she drifted off.
They looked back. The small white church burned with a golden light inside . . .

"Shall we marry, Pubah? " asked Lazy.
"But what would it mean? " Pubah asked. "For us, it's illegal."
"How can that be?" Lazy said--and thought of all the things that ought to be illegal and were not--"Like asking children to sit down all the time at school--that ought to be illegal and it's not. And what about wars, for heaven's sake? "

Then she had another idea. "Let's marry illegally," she said. "Our community supports us. When it lasts, it's a statement. When it lasts, it's a joy--for everyone…"
"Especially for us," said Pubah.
"For everyone," Lazy said. "Joy to the world is joy to the world. Why is everybody so darned fussy about where the joy comes from? "

Indeed. "Joy to the world is joy to the world!" So we were "married" that day--illegally, but joyfully--and were well feted afterwards with a full-on best-dish-you-could-bring potluck and a DJ-ed dance where Theresa's sister taught everyone how to do the Macarena.

You know--as humans, we celebrate so many of the most meaningful times of our lives in the presence of our loved ones. Family and friends gather around us for all those special "rites"--namings, baptisms, confirmations, graduations, and yes, marriages. We are held up and blessed, congratulated, kissed, and wished well with plenty of hugs and tears all around--as well it should be. During these times, the love of our family, friends, and community is not only most evident, but most wanted and needed to help guide us through life's passages from one landmark to the next. We not only gain meaning and direction for our lives from these events, but the outpouring of love and support we receive gives our lives a certain shape and quality. And what quality is of more importance to nurture and celebrate in the life of a human being than his or her capacity to give and receive love?

Most members of our species possess this driving desire to couple-up and settle down--and it's not that much different for gay folks than straight folks. Why we should continue to be excluded from the acknowledgement and encouragement of our relationships, well--that's what ought to be illegal.

Back in 1996, Theresa and I weren't as politically aware of same-sex rights and other gay issues as we've become over the past few years. We'd done some work helping to try to defeat some of our state's anti-gay measures in the past--I particularly remember working against Proposition One in 1994. Its intent was to remove books and materials dealing with homosexuality from schools and public libraries all across the state and to effectively gag teachers so that they could not say anything even remotely positive about homosexuality. Thanks to a lot of good hard work by lots of local folks and others throughout the state, it was defeated--by a narrow margin. But it seemed like things were slipping a bit all around the country around that time. A month after our wedding in 1996, Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law. I remember feeling that as a huge blow and thinking it would kill any further progress toward marriage equality.

But, as I've been looking back through various records to find information to fill out this picture of our progress toward marriage equality, I realized that things weren't as dead as they seemed at the time. Indeed, there were little pockets of potential that just needed some creative nudging to help them unfold in the face of what appeared to be such tough odds.

In order to relate this journey of progress (and regress) to you today, I've tried to put it in context by creating this Readers-Digest condensed timeline of our unfolding issues since the early 1970s (when I was in college!).

In 1973, the American Psychological Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. This huge change contributed to the questioning, examination and removal of various laws relating to homosexual behavior. Some states started decriminalizing homosexual acts (like sodomy) and removing other related laws throughout the 1970s. After that, the 1980s became a decade when gay civil rights acts began to be proposed and passed--laws that offered gay people some legal help and protections. In 1984, the Berkeley (CA) City Council passed a domestic partnership bill giving benefits to long-time gay and heterosexual couples.

Then, in the 1990s, attention to particular gay political issues began to rise sharply--focusing on gays in the military, gay marriage, gay adoption of children, issues of discrimination and hate crimes against gays.

That's a very broad 30-year overview that begins to set the stage for the appearance of challenges to equal marriage rights.

In 1991, a group of same-sex couples in Hawaii applied for marriage licenses and were turned down, after which they filed suit claiming that the state marriage laws were unconstitutional. In 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the refusal of marriage licenses was unconstitutional. It turned the case back to a Circuit Court, saying that the couples should be given marriage licenses unless a compelling interest in banning them could be shown. A commission was established to study the issue, and eventually--in the interest of making a very long story short--in 1997, Hawaii became the first state to actually offer some spousal rights to same-sex couples.

Meanwhile, other states were getting nervous watching this process unfold. In 1995, Utah passed a Defense of Marriage Statute stating they would not recognize any same-sex out-of-state marriages. Concern ratcheted up among state senators and representatives on Capitol Hill and, with Republicans in control of the Congress, Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act in September of 1996. After that, states began passing their own constitutional marriage definitions and bans--Alaska in 1998, Nebraska in 2000, thirteen more states in 2004 (Missouri, LA, AR, GA, KY, Mississippi, Michigan, MT, ND, OH, OK, OR, and UT). In 2005, Kansas and Texas followed suit. Then, in 2006, AL, CO, SD, SC, TN, VA, WI and our own Idaho passed constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, some varying in language, with ours being among the most strict--banning recognition of civil unions and domestic partnerships as well. This November, Florida and Arizona will vote on their own ballot measures to ban same-sex marriage (and other forms of unions) as well as (ironically) California, where gay marriage is legal right now. The expectation is that it will be defeated there because of all the marriage gains there--but no one can call it for sure.

But there is good news. As of just this Friday, there are now THREE STATES where gay couples can get legally married--MA (since 2004), CA (as of June 17 this year) and Connecticut (as of Friday, October 10). Apparently, over 10,000 same-sex couples have gotten married in MA since 2004. But in California, over 11,000 gay and lesbian pairs have gotten married since just June--surpassing in four months the number married in MA in foir years. Of course, CA marriage licenses were made available to people from other states from the start, where as MA same-sex marriage had been limited to just state residents.

There are eight states that offer some form of civil union or domestic partnership:

2000--Vermont--has civil unions that are equivalent to state-level spousal rights
2002--Dist. of Columbia--has domestic partnerships equivalent to state-level rights2004--Maine--has domestic partnerships with some statewide spousal rights
2004--Massachusetts--issues marriage licenses for people who live in state
2007--New Jersey--has civil unions equivalent to state spousal rights
2007--Washington--has domestic partnerships with some state spousal rights
2008--New Hampshire--has civil unions with equivalent state-level spousal rights
2008--Oregon--offers domestic partnerships with equivalent state spousal rights

And as of 2008, the state of New York recognizes marriages by same-sex couples from other states. A number of large cities and municipalities have created various forms of domestic partner recognition in order to extend benefits as well, as have many businesses and corporations. Even our own City of Moscow has made a brave effort towards fairness by allowing city employee's domestic partners to apply for benefits. I hope one of these days someone will test it, so we can see if it holds. It could prove to be a creative way to wiggle out of our state's strangle-hold--and perhaps then our UI powers might venture to try it.

Really, it's rather head-spinning to try to keep up with all the progress that is being made around same-sex relationship recognition. New developments take place practically daily it seems. And so far, no states have slipped off the face of the earth or fallen into fiery crevasses. In fact, some state's economies are even being helped.

Straight people seem to still be getting married--and divorced--regardless of our progress down the aisle. And as time goes by, more and more people opining through the myriad of opinion polls indicate they're getting less and less fussy on the subject of same-sex relationship recognition. Although, they still don't want to share the old standard "horse and carriage" marriage. Well, let them keep dragging around in that old beast of burden, I say. We'll create the new model, where any two can ride--and no animals will be harmed in the process!

It's really quite amazing how much has happened since our wedding in 1996--and as we move forward into the future it feels like we just keep gaining momentum. I've certainly seen more progress than I ever expected in my lifetime, and it gives me great hope for the future of the lives and relationships of the LGBT students I work with. No doubt, it'll still take quite some time for our own state to be able to move toward marriage equity. But selfish and self-serving constitutional amendments and their agents will be worn down or die off in time.

And our day will come. Love is gaining ground in various cities and states, countries and companies every day. Like water that carves through rock with a steady trickle over time, or sometimes in the fury of a flash flood--love will cut its course across states and borders everywhere, clearing the aisles for us and our partners to stride down freely and openly into a fair and equal future.

Closing Words
"Go out into the highways and by-ways . . . " John Murray (#704)

Go out into the highways and by-ways,
Give the people something of your new vision.

You may possess a small light, but uncover it, let it shine.
Use it in order to bring more light and understanding
to the hearts and minds of men and women.
Give them not hell, but hope and courage;
Preach the kindness and the everlasting love of God.

Informed Consent: Dan Schmidt--July 13, 2008

2008-09-06T13:47:00.000-07:00

Opening Words:
Hippocrates, Decorum

Advice to physicians:
"Perform these duties calmly and adroitly, concealing most things from the patient while you are attending to him. Give necessary orders with cheerfulness and serenity, turning his attention away from what is being done to him; sometime reprove sharply and emphatically, and sometimes comfort with solicitude and attention, revealing nothing of the patient's future or present condition."

**********************************************************************

Word for meditation:

Proverbs 1:10 (Advice from King Solomon, son of David)

"My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not."

*************************************************************888

Informed Consent

Hello. As introduced I am a Family Physician. I got to spend a month on an Indian Reservation in the Grand Canyon this last spring. With no cable TV, no home or old car repairs to distract me, I found myself reading a book recommended by a friend in his first year of law school. It was titled "The Silent World of Doctor and Patient," by Jay Katz. It was a scholarly piece addressing the long history of the lack of communication between physicians and the people they care for. Dr. Katz chose to focus on the legal doctrine of informed consent. This concept is centered on the idea "that patients are entitled not only to know what the doctor proposes to do but also to decide whether an intervention is acceptable in the light of the risks and benefits and available alternatives, including no treatment." So, a judge in California came up with the idea that patients have some responsibility in their care, and doctors need to respect this. I wish to explore this subject today and invite your reflection.
First, let me ask, are there any lawyers here?

I ask to offer my apology, since I am not a legal scholar. The concept of informed consent arose in US law in the late 1950s. Notice I say this came from judges and has been somewhat reluctantly accepted by doctors. I will not cite case law, but it makes for good bedtime reading.

So I guess I should ask, are there any physicians besides me here today? I'm trying to get a sense of the audience, since doctors have a certain perspective on this topic.

Finally, how many of you have personal experience with signing an informed consent document? I have been a patient too, and if your experience was like mine, the process is treated as an inconvenience, a legal formality. Today I wish to convince you, all of you, the mistake in this casual approach.

It may or it may not surprise you that most doctors (80-90 percent in multiple polls) believe most patients are not capable of giving truly informed consent. So let's see what you all think. How many of you believe you can become informed about a medical decision and then consent or refuse for your treatment?

And not?

I'll admit to my skepticism. I often thought it was best for me to just decide, since the subtleties of the treatments, the odds of success or failure can be quite complex. But I think what I was confusing for an "informed" decision was instead what I considered the "right" decision. And that illusion, that there can be a "right" decision in the morass of uncertainty surrounding a person and their illness can be quite intimidating. But, as you heard Hippocrates advise, we doctors should at least act confident, even if we are unsure. I'll admit it. Often, I don't know what the right decision is. For instance, just to make this level of uncertainty of treatment clear to you, lets talk about heart disease. A heart attack. Acute myocardial infarction. Statistically, there's got to have been one or two of you out there who have gone through this. Most people have known some one with such a medical episode. Modern treatment of heart attacks includes intervention. In the old days we gave medicines and oxygen, observed in the hospital for arrhythmias. Now a days we intervene either with bypass surgery or angioplasty and stents. Do you know how many lives are saved with these interventions? We do know this number. Three good studies came up with the same results. If you separated 2000 acute MI patients, treated 1000 with the medicines and bed rest, the other 1000 with angioplasty or surgery, you would save four lives per thousand in the treated group. You need to treat 250 patients with this intervention to save one life. So what is the right decision in that setting? Medical culture is strongly on the side of intervention. How would you like to have a detailed discussion about the pros and cons, risks and benefits of this intervention when you're clutching your chest and dripping sweat, panting and short of breath? I'll admit to skipping the informed consent process in such settings. And I have skipped it when ordering a routine test. And for this I apologize. But it does not make the concept invalid because it may be difficult or inconvenient.

So let's add another confusing motivation. We have a profession, doctors, who deal with uncertainty, yet are trained to portray confidence. Most are private businessmen, dependant on a discriminating marketplace for their livelihood, and now I am suggesting they should openly share their uncertainty with their patients. Would this openness be welcome? Would it sell? Would this doctor have high moral standards and no patients? Does financial pressure affect a physician's ability to openly communicate? There are lots of studies that show doctors order more tests when they profit from these tests. But there are lots of reasons, on both sides of the doctor patient relationship why frank discussions might be avoided. For instance, just this last year the President of the American Board of Hematology/ Oncology chided his colleagues. In the last 10 years the percentage of patients dying of cancer who received chemotherapy within two weeks of their death almost doubled. More people trying to beat what will kill them. And why has this gone up so? Have doctors lost the skill of prognosis? Or are doctors just afraid to pass on bad news? Or is there a shared deceit that serves both parties in an unhealthy way?

I believe physicians and patients are often supporting each other in a mutual charade. Doctors are taught to be confident. Patients want answers. Why not give it?

There is a long history in the medical profession of reluctance in sharing information with patients. As physicians we are sworn to do no harm. Hippocrates gets credit for that. And as you heard in the opening words, four thousand years ago he thought lots of information was best kept from the patient. The worry was that information can cause harm. There is no doubt it can cure. The placebo effect is testimony to that. Doctors have known, for millennia, in an intimate and daily way, the power of information to affect a patients well being. It was long considered inappropriate to share grave news with patients. Sir Thomas Percival wrote advice to physicians in the 19th century:

"This office (delivering gloomy prognostications), however, is so particularly alarming, when executed by the attending physician, that it ought to be decline . . . However it can be assigned to any other person of sufficient judgment and delicacy."

He goes on to explain that the power of the physician to heal may be diminished by conveying such news. And if the goal is to heal one must maintain that power.

So the paternalistic role of physician is ancient, well established. Is it not desirable to patients that their physician fit the image? In an illness we may be vulnerable. When we seek care, are we seeking the responsibility of our illness and the treatment, which is required if we are to participate in a decision, or do we, the patients want to revert to a childlike state where our needs are decided for us? This psychological explanation for the paternalism of the doctor- patient relationship is most likely inadequate, and most definitely beside the point. But this does beg the question, can a sick person make a healthy choice, or should that choice be made for them? Doctors have often chosen the latter. Maybe patients have too. The doctrine of informed consent instead expects physicians and patients to communicate as adults, with mutual respect and dignity regarding their care. Both parties need to be in conversation. One shares an intimate knowledge of their life, their illness, their circumstances and desires; the other brings knowledge of disease processes and treatments. If the two are able to share, to speak, and to listen, to share their fears, what they know and do'’t know, the patient interests may be met.

And is the burden of uncertainty too great to bear? The truth of this world is that often two things can be true and yet seem to contradict. And for this we need faith. Often in medicine we need to make a decision based on partial information. Why not share this uncertainty with the person most affected by this decision? For too long the medical profession has shouldered the load of doubt, treating the patient like a child. This unequal relationship has lead to many misunderstandings. We can do better.

In summary, I support the concept of shared responsible decision making that is behind the doctrine of Informed Consent. I believe it is aligned with our Unitarian Values. All people, sick or well, have inherent worth and dignity. As a physician I should not let my fear of uncertainty, nor let the patient's desire for certitude interfere with the free and responsible search for truth.
Thank you for your time and attention. I invite your response.

*************************************************************************************

Closing words:
Jay Katz MD JD

. . . Informed consent could play a vital role in containing the much lamented explosion in medical cost. A greater clarity about the elective nature of many treatments may change patterns of utilization of medical services in significant ways. The time costs of conversation may turn out to be much less than the costs of intervention. . . . "Second medical opinions" may be one answer, but "first patient opinions": may be a better answer.

Flow Revisited: Steve Cooke--June 28, 2008

2008-09-06T13:37:00.000-07:00

"Flow Revisited: Csikszentmihalyi meets Ellis"

Mihalyi Csiksentmihalyi describes the psychology of optimal experience in his 1990 book called Flow. Flow is described as the optimal combination of challenge and skill. Albert Ellis, the father of cognitive behavior therapy, has explained how to cope with frustration by being both disappointed and accepting of reality. Are the secular theories of grace? Are they competitive or complementary?

Opening words
. . . We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness . . . .
(Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776)

Aristotle said that more than anything else, men and women seek happiness.
(Csikszentmihalyi, p. 1)
Why did God make us?
God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven.
Father McGuire. The New Baltimore Catechism and Mass, NY, Benziger Bros.1953.

Ed Diener, a researcher from the University of Illinois, found that very wealthy people (400 richest Americans) report being happy on average 77 percent of the time, while people of average wealth report being happy on 62 percent of the time. (Csikszentmihalyi, p. 45).

Trouble? Life is trouble. Only death is no trouble.
(Zorba the Greek, in Campbell, p. 65)

History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
(James Joyce, in Campbell, p.65)

The [Holy] Grail becomes symbolic of an authentic life that is lived in terms of its own volition … that carries itself between the pairs of opposites of good and evil, light and dark… The best we can do is lean toward the light, toward the harmonious relationships that come from compassion with suffering.
(Campbell, p. 197)

No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.
(J. S. Mill, Csikszentmihalyi, p. 9)

Meditation:

People are disturbed not by the events that happen to them,
but by their view of them
(Epictetus, in Ellis, p. 184)

Closing Words

"An Irish Blessing"

It’s easy to be pleasant
When life flows like a song.
But the person-worthwhile is the one who can smile
when everything just goes wrong.

For the test of the heart is trouble,
which always comes with years.
And the smile that’s worth all the praise on earth
Is the smile that shines through tears.

Sermon
1. UUA principles addressed
a) Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations
b) A free and responsible search for truth and meaning
2. My intentions
To give you a path on which to pursue happiness
To synthesize the work of Flow (Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi)
with Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (Albert Ellis)

Thesis:
1. Happiness or grace is the experience of enjoyment defined as flow
2. Flow is the union of challenge and skill
3. The absence of flow leads to boredom or anxiety
4. Self-shame and self-blame keep us from a return to flow.
5. Explore the possibility of a flow-like process that will get you back to a true flow experience, aka happiness or state of grace.

I will do this w/ words, pictures, homework, and a song

Background and defining terms:

Flow, Challenge, and Grace (March 26, 1995)
Synthesis of Flow (Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi) with
Family Systems Theory (Murray Bowen)

Topics covered included:
Micro & macro flow,
life themes, and
Characteristics of highly differentiation-of- self people
1. Operationally clear about he differences between feeling and thinking
2. routinely make decisions on the basis of thinking
3. life is much more under the control of deliberate thought
4. free to engage in goal directed activity w/ others and
5. to lose themselves in the intimacy of a close relationship
6. less reactive to praise or blame
7. have a more realistic evaluation of his own self
(Bowen, p. 475)

There are people, regardless of their material conditions,
who are able to improve the quality of their lives,
who are satisfied, and
who have a way of making those around them also a bit happier.
who are open to a variety of experiences,
who keep on learning until the day they die, and
who have strong ties and commitments to other people and the environment in which they live.
They enjoy whatever they do, even if tedious or difficult;
they are hardly ever bored, and
they can take in stride anything that comes their way.
Perhaps their greatest strength is that
they are in control of their lives.
(Csikszentmihalyi, p. 10)

Grace:
1. On this, almost all Christians agree: Grace is God's initiative and choice to make a path of salvation available for men.
2. From the non-theist perspective, grace appears to be the same as [good] luck
3. In Catholicism, grace is God’s divine life itself, which enables the work of Christ to flow through us.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_grace)

Flow
Flow is the process of achieving happiness through control over your inner life by meeting challenge with action through the perfection of skills (physical, sensory, symbolic, job, and relationship)

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
Thesis
You largely choose to disturb yourself about the unpleasant events of you life, which is encouraged by social learning
Irrational beliefs and self sabotaging habits are choices you make in the present
It take work and practice to alter irrational beliefs, unhealthy feelings, and self destructive behaviors. (Ellis, pp. 243-244)

For example
It’s great to succeed, but I can fully accept myself a s a person and have an enjoyable experiences even when I fail.
I don’t have to succeed to be a worthwhile person.
(Ellis, p. 241)

Csikszentmihalyi and Flow
Flow is enjoyment not pleasure

Thesis:
how people respond to stress determines whether they will profit or be miserable
It is possible to enjoy life despite (perhaps even because of) adversity
the periods of struggle to overcome challenges are what people find as the most enjoyable times of their lives.
which result in a more complex self

Ralph Ellison: goal
‘to snatch a little of life’s insights even in the face of insurmountable odds’

Elements of Enjoyment
1. Confronted w/ a challenging activity that requires skill
2. Concentration that merges action and awareness
3. & 4) Clear Goals and Feedback
5) Actions have a deep but seemingly effortless involvement
6) You have a sense of complete control
7) You lose all self-consciousness but emerge w/ a greater sense of self
8) Your sense of time is altered and transformed
(Csikszentmihalyi, p. 48)

I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance w/in our own innermost being and reality. … so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive …
(Campbell, p. 5)

Control over consciousness cannot be institutionalized. As soon as it becomes part of a set of social rules and norms, it ceases to be effective in the way it way originally intended to be. (Csikszentmihalyi, p. 21).

Notes on Albert Ellis. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: It Works for me – It can work for you, Amherst, NY, Prometheus Books 2004.

Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy
to use my head to govern my feelings
to govern feelings but not squelch them
to avoid an over-optimistic attitude that consists of finding something to be glad about in every situation.
to retain some bad feelings so that they motivate me to keep trying to change the obnoxious events in my life while savoring the present and future
(Ellis, p. 61)

REBT: Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy

Goal
Adversity
Rational Beliefs
“I don’t like this (e.g., unloved, unsuccessful),
Healthy Consequences
“sorrow, regret, disappointment, frustration, annoyance, displeasure, irritation”

Goal
Adversity
Irrational Beliefs
“I must have a different outcome.”
Unhealthy Consequences
“shame, embarrassment, humiliation, anger, desperation, detachment, rage, depression, panic, self-pity, ”

Disputing irrational beliefs
“Why must you have a different outcome?”

Rational Mantra (Gradient vector toward flow)
I do not need what I want. I never have to succeed, no matter how much I wish to do so.
I can stand being rejected by someone I care for. It won’t kill me and I can still lead a happy life.
No human is damnable and worthless, including me. (Ellis, p. 248)

Irrational mantra (Gradient vector away from flow)
I must do well and have to be approved by people whom I find important.
Other people must treat me fairly and nicely.
Because I am not being approved by people whom I find important, as I have to be, my life is awful and terrible.

Shame attacking homework exercise:
Challenge and a skill aka a flow like experience to get back to flow
an adventure that will maintain you emotionally health and keep you reasonably happy
no matter what kinds of misfortunes assail you.(Ellis, p. 243)

Think of something that you would consider v. shameful and humiliating.
Pick something that would embarrass you
Do it in public where other can stare and laugh.
Don’t do it as a joke or for amusement.
Don’t impose too much
Don’t frighten or harm others
Don’t do anything that will get you in trouble w/ the law
Keep risking and doing things that you irrationally fear,
Keep acting on your irrational fears on a regular basis

Example:
Getting on a bus and yelling out all the stops at the top of your lung or
going into a department store and yelling “Ten thirty-three and all is well”
Stop a stranger in a popular meeting place and say “I just got out of the loony bin, What month is it.”
Walk a banana on a leash and feed it w/ another banana.

Lesson:
you are the shamer of yourself,
no one else can make you feel humiliated.
Choice:
to feel shame and anxiety or
to feel regret and concern

Thesis:
1. Happiness or grace is the experience of enjoyment defined as flow
2. Flow is the union of challenge and skill
3. The absence of flow leads to boredom or anxiety
4. Self-shame and self-blame keep us from a return to flow.
5. The shame-attaching exercise will help get you back to a true flow experience, aka happiness or state of grace.

References

Bowen, Murray. Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. Northvale, NJ: Aronson, 1994.
Campbell, Joseph and Moyers, Bill D. The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday, 1988.
Csikzentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience., NY, NY: HarperCollins, 1990.
Ellis, Albert. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: It Works for me – It can work for you. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books 2004.

Appendix
Melvina Reynolds, “Somewhere Between”
Sometimes I think I'm a sinner,
Sometimes I think I'm a saint,
Sometimes I don't know what I am,
But I know that a saint I ain't.

Chorus:
Somewhere between the good and the evil,
Somewhere between the right and the wrong,
Somewhere between the kind and the mean,
Somewhere between is where I belong.

Sometimes I'd steal from a baby,
Sometimes I'd give you my shirt,
Sometimes I lie on my couch and moan,
'Cause my conscience is doing me dirt.

(Chorus)

Sometimes I rail at my kinfolk,
Sometimes I'm gentle and good,
Sometimes I wonder, and count every blunder,
And wish that I knew where I stood.

(Chorus)

If I could just peek at my record,
I'd know if it's dirty or clean,
I'd know if I'm destined for heaven or hell,
Or to flow like a bird in between.

(Chorus)

Public Education: Marilyn Howard--October 21, 2007

2007-10-30T10:47:00.000-07:00
I'm so pleased to be with you today and to be in Moscow which is a second home to me. Being a school administrator was a new role for me so it goes without saying that I was fearful..

I know this makes me sound like the cowardly lion in the Land of Oz, but I am sincere in saying that the loving mentorship of this education-focused community helped me find my courage.

I mention this because I believe this is a time for courage. It seems that fear always resides in the future. It is with some trepidation that we ask: "How are we to prepare our students for success in the world they will enter as adults." There are no easy answers to questions such as, "What might happen next ? How will what we do today affect tomorrow?"

There are some things we know: We want our children to be smart and to be good. Those two goals speak volumes. In a world grown more complex with decisions that offer no easy solutions, our young people need to be able to think and to reason.

And, they must be able to do so within a framework of strong moral purpose.

The documents that founded our nation have been looked to with the eyes of each new generation as it seeks to apply those principles to the emerging needs of the time.

Holding fast to that which made us strong can only be accomplished if each generation is fully grounded in the fundamental principles of democracy, understands the history of our country and recognizes the full scope of our actions at national and international levels. Our Constitution is our bedrock. "Its story is both noble and tragic, but its genius is emblazoned from the beginning": writes Forrest Church in his book The American Creed.

It is imperative that students have knowledge that is both broad and deep. Along with that knowledge must come the sense of personal responsibility that gives credence to the phrase, "We the people" that introduced the expectations for the new country.

One aspect of courage is the willingness to act in the face of the unknown. And, today, perhaps more than ever, it is difficult to anticipate the world that our students will enter.

Schools are expected to prepare students for successful entry into a world economy that is very different from the past and to deal with the realities of today's politically driven education agendas. Our schools are welcoming ever more diverse students even as expectations for public schools are increasing from all quarters.

Those of us in education look at what is currently happening and think of it as a political problem. However, behind almost every political problem is an economic problem. The quicker we recognize the economic realities in any situation, the more quickly, and more appropriately, we can react.

For this, we have to be paying attention, not just to FOX news but through every medium, and by watching, reading, listening, and reasoning.

This is not new. I'm not going to take a long time to recount educational decisions of the past but I'm going to remind us of how education has been affected by economic needs and other anxieties over the years.

About 1830 or -40 a public school system formalized what was perceived to be a disjointed and fully localized educational system. As new waves of immigrants arrived, schools provided the mixing pot where children of varying religions, cultures, and languages came together in a common system.

Along with the industrial revolution came the need to prepare students to enter the world of work and more students started to attend high schools. By the 1950s schools became the crucibles for promoting a diverse society as the civil rights movement began.

Did any of you stop a moment on October 4th to remember the stir that the launch of Sputnik caused 50 years ago? There was a massive call for math and science education.

Beginning with the release of the "Nation at Risk" report in 1983, we began looking more and more at how American students were doing in comparison to their peers in other industrialized nations.

So here we are, with a very heavy dose of federalism in the No Child Left Behind Act and an increasing focus on setting goals, measuring achievement and reporting results.

You know, for years I listened to the debate over whether public education was a local responsibility or a state responsibility. Now the argument is over, and the winner is . . . the federal government.

To an extent that I never imagined possible, what we test, and when, and who is qualified to teach, how we rate schools, how and when we report to the public - all of that is now being driven by federal law and regulation, rather than state or even local decisions.

The NCLB Act has dominated public education for the last six years. It stated goal is to make sure that every child is proficient in the basic subjects, reading, language arts, and math - by 2014.

A huge component has been mandatory testing for every child at every grade from 3rd through 8th grade and then once in high school - a sort of exit test. Idaho calls its test the ISAT or Idaho Standards Achievement Test.

The No Child Left Behind Act is now entering its destructive phase and schools that have not met all the expectations in a way consistent with the law are slated for "restructuring": a form of state takeover of the local district.

Alot has been said about the tests that are used to dictate the decisions. More discussion needs to occur. There is a principle of quantum physics that says the very act of measuring something changes the essential nature of what is being tested. We see that happening.

The tests we are giving are not constructed to make teachers better teachers. The tests are also not instructionally sensitive - they don't discriminate good teaching from rote instruction.

The latest issue of Phi Delta Kappan addresses these issues in detail. We see a warning from Robert Sternberg that massive testing "is one of the most effective if unintentional vehicles this country has created for suppressing creativity."

Finn and Ravitch, who have been critical of public education, now are worrying out loud about the effect of testing. Here are some of the problems they see:

1. The gradual death of liberal learning in higher education. The emphasis is now on career preparation and professional training.

2. A standards and accountability movement increasingly focused only on basic skills. Other areas, anything other than reading, math, and science are seen as less valuable.

3. So much focus on math and science that other subjects are squeezed out of the curriculum.

4. A widening gap between those who have-a-lot or those who have-little resulting in a widening achievement gap between those groups.

The same magazine also has a focus on international education. I think we are all paying more attention to the rest of the world these days. I know I've recently read books about Islam and Afghanistan and one that recounted the history of Burma.

We are afraid of how the world and our place in it are being affected by events of the last several years. We recognize that the isolationist attitudes of the past are not going to work in the future. The world is simply too small.

We heard about that in Thomas Friedman's book, The World is Flat, where he discusses how a computer connected world has transformed the workforce. When work is done on line it doesn't matter where the worker is located so the person willing to work longer hours, for less money and fewer benefits can have the job.

Interestingly, although we've heard for years about the wonderful systems in places in China and Japan, the reality is that in both of those nations, the trend is more toward what we have here: a system in which students are encouraged to think and to create. These traits have been seen as strengths of the American system.

As State Superintendent, my office turned attention to international issues. We formed an international studies team, made up mainly of skilled teachers who would travel to other nations, learn as much as they could and then bring that information back to Idaho to share with their students and with other teachers.

When I left office that effort transferred to the Idaho Human Rights Education Center. I continue to be involved.

This last summer two Moscow teachers, Leanne Erickson and Kris Peterson were on the Education Center's sponsored mission to Europe to study such topics as immigration, workers rights and so on from a broader perspective. On these trips we also visit schools, talk to educators and set up sister school relationships. And we learn from them ways to strengthen our system.

Here are a few:

Our students should learn another language. Along with that comes knowledge of the cultural norms: what is considered polite, what is rude, how business is done - those give a leg up in a highly competitive world.

We need to invest in school improvement efforts that raise the quality of instruction in elementary and secondary schools. We do have to get better at what we do in education.

We are getting children ready for the world of work. Certainly they need to learn the basics, but beyond that: how to read with comprehension, speak and write clearly, listen actively, resolve conflicts, work in teams, solve problems, and make reasoned decisions.

We need to practice manners. There is not much tolerance for incivility. Our work with other nations is not enhanced by our reputation of insisting on our own way. I often reference the traits described in Clifton Taulbert's book Eight Habits of the Heart to describe the common elements of civility and civic citizenship. They include dependability , responsibility and high expectations, but they also include a nurturing attitude, friendship and brotherhood. Put together with courage and hope our youngsters will be equipped with the habits and attitudes needed to build strong families and communities.

On a broader scale, it is time for our state to pursue social and economic policies that will allow children to start school more equally ready to learn. Your area legislators have been leaders in trying to get state support of early childhood education. I wish them better success in the upcoming session.

In closing, I want to say that all the debate about the quality of our schools, what we're doing, how much it's costing, whether long-term improvement or a once-a-year judgment is important, all of this debate simply reflects the public's concern about, and interest in, its public school system.

In fact, someone gave me a cartoon that cuts right to the heart of it. It shows a man down on one knee, engagement ring in hand, proposing, and he says, "Marry me, Judith, I own a home in a wonderful school district."

We want our children to be smart and to be good. We want them to have satisfying lives that realize the potential they possess. We want them to live in a peaceful world. We want our nation to thrive and to be respected for its goodness as well as its strength.

Listen to the words of Langston Hughes: "O, let America be America again--the land that never has been yet ---and yet must be."
I cannot end without thanking the teachers. The teacher truly is the key. Teaching, challenging, nurturing, encouraging, correcting, and even inspiring: what they do today lasts for a lifetime. I wish them courage.

References:

Forrest Church reference: from The American Creed: a Spiritual and Patriotic Primer, St. Martins Press, NY, copyright 2002.

"We the People" reference: Preamble to the United States Constitution

Clifton Taulbert reference: from Eight Habits of the Heart, Penguin Books, copyright 1997

Langston Hughes poem: "Let America Be America"

Thomas L.Friedman reference: The World is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century, Farrar, Struaus & Giroux, April 2005

References from Phi Delta Kappan magazine: October 2007 include:
Gerald Bracey, The 17th Bracey Report on the Condition of Public Education, "The First Time Everything Changed," pp 119-136 reported on the Finn and Ravitch work and quoted Robert Sternberg, p 128. W. James Popham, "Instructional Insensitivity of Tests: Accountability's Dire Drawback" pp 146-155, details the problems associated with making judgments on teaching or teacher quality based on test scores.

Dancing . . . And a Bit of Randomness--Diane Walker--May 13, 2007

2007-10-30T10:05:00.000-07:00
Process and product --and perceptions. Dance in my life, with a few side excursions, or how I recently ended up choreographing for five dancers and two remote controlled cars.

Good Morning. I am honored to be your invited speaker. I have been dancing since I was four and still choreograph. I find it difficult to condense life and thought into 15 minutes. I have decided to speak first in general terms about dance and then share more personal experiences recognizing my choice of general terms has been influenced by my perceptions.

I think Dance differs from the other arts in that our instrument --the body--renders it both sinful and essential.

I'd like to begin by reading a wonderful, passionate! inscription in the front of a small book What's Wrong with the Dance?– in its 13th printing in 1953. This is part of a series on Questionable Amusements by Preacher John Rice.

December 14, 1955. Dear Mr. Winkler. I understand you want Roland to dance. Are you a Christian? If you are you would think many times before you would consider asking anyone to dance! I have personal knowledge of broken homes, ruined youth, broken bodies, filled graves, etc.--because of dance. You are not just teaching a student,--you are suppose [sic] to be building a life. If you are a Christian I wish you would think many times before you sell out to dance. The cheapest people I know are those who dance --Roland is not to dance under any circumstances--or any of my children.
Hinton H. Harris

P.S. Please read this book.

How did we get to this point?

Doug Adams, in his book Congregational Dancing in Christian Worship, posits that the priests in the Middle Ages stopped it because dancing by the laity made everyone equal and that didn't fit into their politics of power.

The dance opposition that was ignited with new fervor in the Reformation, and that was carried directly to America, began in a context that emphasized salvation by grace through faith (Luther).

Interestingly--the noun "grace" has carried both a theological and an aesthetic meaning.

Grace, in its theological dimension, connotes good fortune--good will--in contrast to a right or obligation. Martin Luther understood the grace of God to be a free, divine gift and gift connotes that which cannot be earned. "Gift" also applies in artistic performance --from the 15th century forward--graceful dancing connotes ordered and controlled movement which is pleasing to the viewer rather than right or wrong according to moral law.

Ann Wagner, the author of Adversaries of Dance wrote "A positive affirmation of life flows from the concept of grace. . . . A gift brings thanksgiving, joy, celebration. And dancing, in its essence, is celebration. (p. 396)"

So here I want to say "Hurray for our side!" This is great! But it is also a problem due to peoples' perceptions of what grace, or being graceful, means and how it relates to them.

To get away from thinking of The Product --ordered and controlled movement --think of the process of dance as:
1. natural expression --though non-verbal --and
2. a neuromuscular event with perceptual-motor connections.

Schools teach that we have five senses--always omitting our kinesthetic sense (and some would include ESP--which may be related).

The internal sensation you have when you see someone tripping and falling, doing a spectacular dive, or a child happily "dancing mountains" is kinesthesis. This sense is non-verbal yet feeds into brain processing and perception.

Dance communicates through this sense in orderly--AND disorderly ways --and that's OK. It can only be talked about metaphorically and often only by groping for words. Communication is based on what we can call "culturally-understood Universal Gestures" --recognized non-verbally and analogically. The instrument is the body and the elements of dance language parallel the other arts.

Dance has provided me with so many levels of satisfaction and enrichment. Years of practice brought me the joy of autonomous movement --moving on "auto-pilot" --where everything comes together and it is effortless --and joyful --and transcending.

Teaching has always been a journey of discovery--translating what I understood kinesthetically to my students--creating experiences for them which sometimes led to a breakthrough in understanding, risk taking and personal growth. It has always been stimulating--and usually fun.

Choreography and teaching composition have been experiences in which the process is more rewarding than the product. This is probably because it is guided by the creative process and saying "I wonder what would happen if . . ." - trying something and discovering the result. Choreography, like composing in the other arts, has a life of its own. It shows where it wants to go and the choreographer allows that to happen.

I have done two different things with my choreography--choreographed for the stage and also for liturgy.

My interest in liturgical choreography began in the 1960s. My first work here in Moscow was at the Presbyterian Church in 1969, innocently scandalizing some of the congregation by costuming the college dancers in long-sleeved, form-fitting black leotards, long black skirts --- and bare feet. I understand some people left and went to the Methodist Church (I know it was more than me, but this trend was part of it). By 1973 Tom Richardson, as choir director, had invited me to do a full-length piece at the Methodist Church (they couldn't escape me).

This led me to become involved with Jubilate--an ecumenical liturgical arts organization sponsored by the Pacific Northwest Conference of the United Methodist Church. In teaching workshops for the past 20 years, I have been able to explore approaches to choreographing congregational movement to songs--primarily gestural--and to find ways to help people be comfortable with their own gift of grace. I was able to ask "What if . . . " and to find the answer through their generous response and support.

And in 1986 this also led to choreographing for eight Jubilate International Choir Tours and taking my work to almost every continent. The greatest gift it has given me, and all of us on the tours, is to experience how dance crosses the boundaries of language and enables us to share a common activity as congregations join in the movement with us.

The most powerful piece has been to the Communion Hymn--One Bread, One Body (speak words and show gestures). Our first tour was to the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe before the Berlin Wall came down. My strongest memory, still, is of being in a small church in East Berlin where the congregation was invited to mirror the gestures and to join hands with us. It was a powerful and ineffable experience as we established this non-verbal connection. The memory of that particular moment engenders strong emotions even after 20 years.

In choreographing for the concert stage, I have been able to ask "What if I choreographed a dance using the metallic-looking car window sun shades --but using them as anything but . . .?" and they became fans, bonnets and teletubbies tummies.

This past fall I wondered "What if I choreographed a dance which also involved remote controlled cars?" and a dance for "two species," as Engineering Professor Richard Wall termed it, evolved. The title was the same as the one for this presentation--Dancing . . . And A Bit of Randomness. The choreography was interrupted when a car came close to a dancer and she had to react by adding a turn before continuing. Since controlling the cars was not an exact science, we never knew quite when this would happen. I enjoyed the result, but the process of getting there was more fun and we discovered that the two little cars took on personalities of their own. They were quite endearing as they generated that "bit of randomness" into the dance. This was performed in Dancers Drummers Dreamers this March. DDD, a unique collaboration between music and dance is in its 16th year, being a product of Dan Bukvich and me saying "I wonder what would happen if . . . ?"

As I look back, I realize it is this bit of creative thinking --"I wonder what would happen if . . . " that has shaped much of my living. It is more than creating dances; it is a way of looking at life as process and continuing to find the product fun and very interesting.

So I have now gotten myself to the point of asking, "I wonder what would happen if I taught this group my simple, non-threatening, choreography to one of their closing songs 'Go Now In Peace' so they could experience the words non-verbally and communally as well?" And I'm going to discover the answer .

(If you will sing the song once, I’ll show you the gestures. Then I'll explain them and take you through the sequence very slowly).

Thank you for giving me your gift of dance!

P.S. Dance as I define it--a body moving with a heightened awareness of space, time and energy. So everyone can dance!

[5-28-06] Our Spiritual Common Ground

2006-07-25T10:17:00.000-07:00
Our Spiritual Common Ground.
Speaker: Scott Cardell

Here at the UUCP we have an incredible diversity of theological viewpoints. Sometimes there seems to be a division between rational humanist intellectuals seeking intellectual stimulation and spiritual mystics seeking inspiration. However, I see a large common ground. In this sermon, and it is my hope to deliver a sermon rather than a lecture, I will address that common ground, focusing more on the spiritual than the intellectual.

Let’s start with some rather broad definitions that work for me. The intellectual realm is the realm of ideas, the connections between ideas, and the logical frameworks that we create by developing and connecting ideas. The spiritual or inspirational is the realm of insight into the ineffable. Relying more on the connotation than the literal meaning, my primary definition of ineffable is "that which transcends the limits of concrete comprehension."

Here at the UUCP our survey shows that a majority of our congregation comes to the Sunday service seeking both intellectual stimulation and spiritual inspiration. To me this is completely natural, as we all depend on both intellectual frameworks and insight that transcends our concrete understanding. Inspired, creative artists also use intellectual approaches in their work and the most intellectual mathematicians and scientists use creative inspiration in their work. Psychologists have shown that when mathematicians think about hard math problems they use the same part of their brains that artists use in their creative work. This applies to all fields from the sublime to the mundane, from the art of dance to the science of accounting; true expertise is based on the ability to combine creative inspiration and concrete intellectual thought. Each of us shares in the common experience of seeking inspiration into those parts of our chosen fields of endeavor, or into passionate hobbies, that we never expect to fully comprehend. This shared experience is part of our spiritual common ground.

Interestingly, a completely materialistic approach to reality leads to the necessity of incomprehensible mysteries. In a materialistic world we are very competent thinking machines. The Gödel incompleteness theorem from pure mathematics proves that no competent thinking machine can understand its own capabilities. Other mathematical theorems prove that there are interesting questions that are forever undecidable. So in this purely rational cosmology, self knowledge, the human condition, "life the universe and everything" will always contain inexplicable mystery. Furthermore, this applies broadly to the world as a whole; for however humanity and nature cooperate, the same reasoning applies to the total. Thus, not only can we never fully understand ourselves, but humanity as whole can never fully understand itself or the natural world. Such theorems give me insight into the nature of the spiritual realm, the ineffable.

In this materialistic world view, inspired insights can supply clues to these mysteries and produce a dimension of understanding that we recognize as spiritual. However, how much inspiration is possible will always be part of the truly unknowable. On the other hand, believing in the possibility of a complete enlightenment that removes all mystery is a position that is untenable in a materialistic world view and instead requires a supernatural explanation.
Another part of our spiritual common ground is found when a well-chosen metaphor expands our understanding. Consider the metaphor of a cup of meaning from my father's ministry. In this metaphor we each have our own cup of meaning and what we fill it with becomes the meaning of our life. This metaphor is expressed in words, but it is an ineffable insight beyond our capacity to fully understand or express in words. Part of its insight is a very UU understanding that meaning is not given to us but chosen by us. However, such choices are not irrevocable. Sometimes we will choose to change the meaning of our life; and sometimes a crisis like a divorce, a death, or a failure in a career will crack our cup of meaning and cause some of our meanings to leak out. When that happens we must mend and refill our cup of meaning thereby changing the meaning of our life. I say must because that is the UU imperative - to continue the search for truth and meaning. UUism gives us the power to choose what will be the meaning of our life, and emphasizes our responsibility to choose wisely. So we do not come to the end of our lives discovering that we have lived neither as we wanted to nor as we ought to have. In the words of our closing hymn for today, "what we choose is what we are."

Another part of our spiritual common ground is explored in sermons that connect an idea with a personal inspirational experience, so that the idea imbues the story of the experience with the transcendence to escape from the specifics of the example and such that the inspirational story in turn imbues the idea with its power to connect to the human experience. Most often ministers use their own personal experiences but at other times they use experiences related to them by the stories of others or even a well-chosen experiential reading. On occasion the story alone has the power to inspire without regard to one’s theological perspective. The following true story is one that may inspire equally the theist, the atheist, the humanist and the mystic.

During World War II my father served in the 101st airborne. He was captured at the Battle of the Bulge, but managed to escape. He was then recaptured along with four other escaped prisoners. They were all lined up to be shot (the Geneva convention allows escaped prisoners to be executed). However, after the first three were shot the officer in charge stepped out of his tent and said to save the last two for questioning. After that he and the other survivor were combined with a column of prisoners being marched deeper into Germany in order to stay ahead of the advancing Allied lines. As they were marching along Allied bombers flew overhead and the prisoners cheered wildly. Shortly afterwards they approached a village and began to see the effects of the bombs those planes had carried. When they saw a little girl that had been killed by the bombs they became quiet. As they entered the village, the villagers approached them with rocks to stone them, but the German guards protected the prisoners. In frustration one elderly man with a large round face that had turned completely red shook his fist at the prisoners and yelled at them in German. My father came to think of that man as the little girl's grandfather. My father never doubted that from the Allied viewpoint World War II was a just war. However, with that experience my father decided that parish ministry was the only way to make future wars unnecessary, and that he would become a parish minister.
It is very Unitarian that my father's theology plays no role in this story. He had grown up in the Presbyterian church and assumed that he would become a Presbyterian minister. However, he had been an atheist from an early age. Later on he and my mother together discovered Unitarianism and he decided to become a Unitarian minister. When the Unitarians and the Universalists merged, dad was an enthusiastic supporter. In one of my last conversations with him he reminded me how offensive he found the saying that "there are no atheists in foxholes"; he took it as an assault to his intellectual integrity and to the intellectual integrity of all atheists.
When Steve Cooke spoke on scientific materialism some weeks ago, he placed in the realm of religion the realization of a wonder in you and the universe and experiencing the awe before that mystery. Sometimes such awe motivates us to seek scientific understanding, and sometimes we are motivated to simply be fully in the experience. I had a sense of awe when, at the age of six, I discovered that if I took road tar made soft by a hot day, shaped it into a ball, and threw it hard against the concrete, it to shattered like glass. Then I experimented to find out how this phenomenon was affected by how hot and soft the tar was and other factors. Perhaps this experience started me toward studying physics in college.

I and, based on our survey, many others in this congregation find spiritual experiences in the natural world. When I woke up camping out on a snowy morning and observed in the dawning light a deer walk through the snow and take a drink from the creek, that was a spiritual experience. When I told my mother what I would be speaking on today she related how spending an hour watching a flower open was a spiritual experience for her. All such ineffable experiences are part of our spiritual common ground.

Some years ago Audrey and I saw the stone circle at Callendish for the first time. It was a dreary, drizzly day and after a little while we were the only ones there. I felt a timeless spiritual connection to the ancient worshipers who once gathered there. As I looked out at the ocean I could imagine being among them and looking at this same ocean, perhaps hoping to see a relative returning from fishing in a tiny boat made of stretched hide, or fearing to see an enemy coming in such boats. On another trip to Scotland, Audrey and I and two close friends landed in the Orkneys at 10 at night. As it was near mid summer, the sun was still up. We quickly drove to another stone circle called the Ring of Brodgar and enjoyed the sunset there. Again it was an experience of awe and wonder. Each of these experiences was primarily about being fully in the moment and letting the awe wash over us. Oh, intellectually I wondered if ancient peoples sited there stone circles by finding places that naturally led to such spiritual experience and wondered whether in those ancient societies sensing such locations could have had a selective advantage which I might have inherited through my Scottish and Welsh ancestry. But the awe and wonder and the insight it gave me into an ineffable timeless connection to those ancient people was the message, not such speculations.

Another insight into ineffable timeless connection comes from Reading #537 in the back of our hymnal, by Maria Mitchell. It says: "the words that we utter reach through all space and the tremor is felt through all time." While chaos theory has proven that this statement is literally true, the statement provides an insight into ineffable truth that transcends that literal meaning.

Finally, we find spiritual common ground in our continuing search for truth and meaning. Consider some of the things that we have in common beyond our seven principles. Whatever we may believe individually we find resonance in Thomas Jefferson's idea that all humans have an inherent moral sense and in the statement of some UUs of faith that for them Unitarian Universalism is a reasoned faith. We believe in the power of human reason to guide our search for truth and meaning. We believe that the theist, the pagan and the atheist alike have the power to choose to live a good moral life. These ideas are in a sense intellectual, but our belief in them is spiritual. We cannot prove them through scientific experiment or logical argument but we believe them because our insight into the ineffable truth of human nature tells us that they are true.

In the seventeenth century Descartes proposed what he claimed were logical proofs of the existence of God. A few years later Pascal proposed that belief in God was a good wager, because if you believe and it is wrong nothing is lost, but if you do not believe and it is right then all is lost. These arguments caused much controversy among Christian theologians. Eventually, Pascal’s wager was rejected by most Christian theologians, not on the simple ground that such a faith was self serving, but on the broader ground that any faith reached through logical reasoning was inadequate. Interestingly, many Christian theologians went on to reject Descartes’ proofs for the same reason. As UUs we choose the opposite reason to reject Pascal's wager, rejecting it on the ground that truth cannot be determined by what we would like it to be.

It is not the truth that makes us free and whole - it is our search for truth that makes us free and whole.

Copyright © May 2006 by N. Scott Cardell

[3/19/06] Tolerance (Take Two)

2006-03-19T12:26:00.000-08:00
by Rev. Patti Pomerantz

After 9/11 I heard a presentation by an American who worked as a negotiator in the Middle East. He named tolerance as the crucial starting point for successful peace negotiation. Palestinians, he explained wanted Jews to disappear from the face of the earth; Jews, for their part wanted the same fate for Palestinians. There can be no compromise, no meeting of the mind, he said, unless each side of the conflict recognizes the other side's right to exist. Tolerance is clearly part of the road to peace. Unitarian Universalism's commitment to tolerance is a gift we can bring to the larger world. When we bring tolerance to the different sides of the political and religious struggles just in Moscow and Pullman, we're creating a stronger community. When we bring tolerance into our political disagreements--if we could bring tolerance just into our Letters to the Editor--we'd be creating a better community for our children and their children.

Tolerance has had an important role in the growth of Unitarian Universalism. When Theodore Parker criticized the organized church in 1841, it was tolerance--the deeply held belief of a minister's freedom to speak from the pulpit without retribution--that kept him from being booted out of the minister's guild. Parker became one of the most important liberal theologians of the nineteenth century and a founding father of Unitarianism. It is tolerance that is tested when we meet someone in this congregation whose political or theological beliefs seem diametrically opposed to our own. It's often hard work and if you're anything like me, it's work that I am often not very good at. Just last week I was not tolerant last week when I tried to convince Mike Browne that my view of religion was truer than his. I'm sorry, Mike. We need tolerance to respect the inherent worth and dignity of all beings--even those with whom we differ most.

Freedom, reason and tolerance have long been considered a trinity of sorts in Unitarian Universalism. They were first used this way in the middle of the twentieth century by the great Unitarian historian Earl Morse Wilbur, in his history of our faith. As he reviewed our early Eastern European roots, through the Reformation, over the English Channel to England and then across the Atlantic Ocean to the Revolutionary United States, Wilbur found that while each historical period supported different theologies, all of them exhibited a commitment to the three principles. He distinguished these three principles from religious belief:

"Freedom, reason and tolerance. . . are not the final goals to be aimed at in religion, but only conditions under which the true ends may best be attained. The ultimate ends proper to religious movement are two, personal and social; the elevation of personal character, and the perfecting of the social organism, and the success of a religious body may best be judged by the degree to which it attains these ends." (Earl Morse Wilbur: A History of Unitarianism, vol. 2, p. 487).

Wilbur's work provided part of the framework for developing our current religious Principles. His perspective is one way to make sense of what holds our religious community together. It helps me to understand how our Principles are not a creed so much as conditions under which we choose to live our lives. Our liberal religious history, especially held up against the wrath of intolerance around the world, holds up the benefits of respecting beliefs that are not our own. Tolerance is good.

Several weeks ago Janis Eliot and Dave Huggins led a reflection on our theological diversity and how tolerance plays a role in respecting theological differences. Your discussion then led to responses about how it feels for people sitting among us, long time members or first time visitors here, to be outside the mainstream of Unitarian Universalism--for instance to be Christian in this congregation, or to be Republican, or fiscally conservative--about their need to be partially invisible here, if they choose to stay. It's not that we're being intentionally intolerant of other views, or even knowingly exclusive. This is not the intolerance of anti-Semitism or homophobia. This is not the intolerance of political groups working against marriage equality and other civil liberties.

But tolerance does have a dark side, one that I think is more active in our religious faith than we'd like to admit. It threatens our vibrancy and keeps us from achieving our potential as a community of faith. I'll use two examples of how this operates--by exploring two concepts we each either love, or love to hate--theology and spirituality. Unitarian Universalism challenges each of us to articulate personal views on each subject. I wager that if we went around the sanctuary right now there would be as many views as there are people present. And we would likely be surprised by how much we don't know about each other, in many cases people we have gathered with for many years. That exercise would have the same result in most UU gatherings, and it exemplifies one of the primary dangers of tolerance--tolerance can silence us.

I imagine the following example is familiar to most of us. A group of Unitarian Universalists are gathered--perhaps it is coffee hour, or a potluck. We start conversation with someone--it doesn't matter if it is someone you don't know or someone you think you know very well. You find out--perhaps to your surprise--that their understanding of the world is much different than yours. Perhaps you are a staunch atheist and they are pagan. Perhaps they loved the earth-centered service of greening the sanctuary before winter holidays and you were just irritated at being asked to welcome the four directions. When you discover how you see the sacred in two different ways, you make an unspoken truce not to bring up the subject again. You'll serve on committees together, watch each other's children and grandchildren grow up together. You may share a book discussion group, a small group ministry group, an adult religious education class. And the silent tolerance runs through the relationship. We hide our diversity, however selectively, in a dance of the silence of unspoken compromise, the agreement we made without speaking a word at that first conversation, keeping us from creating the depth of community that we not only crave, but that the world needs us to model.

Could this be different? Is there a different framework we can use to be in diverse relationship? We donâ€™t want a community where everyone has the same beliefs. We don't want a religion that tells us what is right belief and what is wrong. We don't want to be told we have to even have a theology. In the 2001 Commission on Appraisal report called, "belonging: the meaning of membership," a theology of relationships is presented. Using the work of Henry Nelson Wieman, a process theologian in the early 20th century, and Mary Hunt, a contemporary feminist theologian, the report convinces me that theology is more than whether or how we believe in God. The report describes both writers as humanistic theologians--not because they necessarily reject the notion of deity, but because they believe in the centrality of human experience. It doesn't matter here whether you believe in a transcendent energy or not, it matters what responsibility you assign to yourself and to humanity for the condition of the earth and our relationships with its inhabitants. Paraphrasing the report in Wieman's terms, human beings are the agents within whom the greatest value-appreciation has been released into the known universe. Relational theologies are transformative, generative, and directed toward the creation of community. This means that individuals who enter into particular relationships can expect to be changed by these relationships, to become more caring, more concerned with the well-being of people around them, and more able and willing to effect change. [p 21]

This does not say to me that by being in this relationship in community we will create uniformity of belief. What it does say is by being in conversation--including being in conversation about that which is not similar--we will deepen our relationships, we will practice finding common ground in differing beliefs. This says to me we are expected to be in deep conversation with each other; that we are urged to be present and willing to be changed every time we come together. This level of presence is not just manifest in observing rituals that we think have no meaning to us--whether it be earth ritual, humanist presentation or a reading from the Gospel--but that we open our hearts and our minds to the possibility that there may just be something connecting our disparate beliefs. Why can't we sing the old Christian hymns with the original words many of us bring into UU community with fondness? What is the benefit of constant translating into words I think you may find more palatable than my own? And why should we spend so much energy trying to not offend, which often results in use of language that does not have meaning to any of us? Why can't common ground grow out of the fact that we all have questions, and a commitment to conversations that affirm our common humanity, our common struggle for justice, our common passion for freedom of belief?

Theologian Mary Hunt, believes that friendship reveals what is of ultimate worth to us. Her model of theology portrays friendship as the basis of our relationships, voluntary associations that require intentionality. And when the elements of friendship she presents are in balance, the relationship becomes generative; not only does the process impact the individuals involved, but the larger community in which the relationship exists as well. One of the elements of her paradigm is spirituality. Here is her definition: "spirituality is defined . . . as an intentional process of making choices that affect self and community; it is attentiveness, focus, awareness of how our behavior and choices affect the people around us." [23-4] Using her definition suggests that spirituality is not something we choose to have or not depending on our beliefs, but a way of being in relationship that we all do. Spirituality is not something attached to worldview, but a way we act with each other regardless of specific worldview.

The theologies of Wieman and Hunt suggest a process of relating that goes beyond the passive, non-relational aspect of tolerance, a way of accepting that there are different points of view. This more relational definition of what we believe and how we behave can bridge different perspectives. Here we practice living as if we are all one--regardless of how we describe that oneness. Our relationships become the foundation of religious community, the quality of this community the foundation of how we live, and therefore how we act in the world. This is a definition of tolerance I can live with, a definition that is worthy of the principles and values of Unitarian Universalism.

This tolerance is demanding and never static. It requires that we live in a way that sees the questions still unanswered, whether we believe they are ultimately answerable or not. It makes the quality of our relationships the core of how we perceive our place in community, our role in the larger world. This makes sense to me--this is a paradigm of Unitarian Universalism I can celebrate and follow. If we look at personal theology and spirituality as behaviors to help bring our lives and work into a framework of common ground, a foundation for how we listen to each other and how we make decisions, we bring our daily lives into the realm of the sacred. And they are. How we believe in our hearts is deeply personal, intimate really. Even if what I believe in my head seems to be unrelated to what I think you believe--how we each act to relate them is sacred work.

It is hard work, too. Work for which we need each other's support, both to examine perspectives and to question. This is not tolerance that comes from a mind that makes hard lines out of difference, but a call to be in relationship that challenges both head and heart. Perhaps our lives of privilege lead us to think we can choose which paradigm we live through--the active or the passive understanding of tolerance, theology, and spirituality. But I don't believe we really do have that choice. We choose the passive paradigm at great peril. Maybe not to us in our lifetimes, maybe even not in our children's lifetimes. But insistence on a paradigm of right belief and wrong belief can lead only to destruction.

It is simply no longer enough to live and let live. We must live in a way that proactively gives voice to all lives. We can no longer sit back and watch foreign policies bring more death, or domestic policy that assigns civil rights and power according to economic status. And I say we can no longer afford to live in a community that fosters divisions based on differing religious interpretations of life and the sacred. We must truly live our statement that all are welcome here--welcome into our community that seeks unity and peace above all else. Please God of many names, may it be so. In our most rational minds, may it be so. In our connection to the earth, may it be so. In our love for each other and for our humanity, may it be so.

(c) Rev. Patti Pomerantz 2006

[1/22/06] In Faith - After the Fall

2006-01-22T12:28:00.000-08:00
by Rev. Patti Pomerantz

Sometimes I think it's a good thing that my time with you in Moscow is only one year. With as many tumbles as I've taken, I'm not sure I'd survive here much longer! My last fall, number three, occurred in Portland. It was not dark, or icy or wet; it was not unknown territory--it was outside my house. I did a face plant onto concrete in front of family and neighbors--bloody, painful, embarrassing and ego shattering. I checked in with my doctor and there doesn't seem to be anything physiological--which is a good thing. Except now I have to find a different answer to why I keep falling. There must be something else going on that I'm not paying attention to.

Sure some of it is being 52, overweight, klutzy, and preoccupied. But there's more. I didn't get it when I fell in the yellow house, or when I slipped on the ice outside. Banging my head once, twice didn't seem to be enough--I had to get cut, go the emergency room, get x-rayed and cat scanned and stitched; face my friends and family with an ugly black eye and swollen face. In other words, I had to be stopped in my tracks, forced to slow down and pay attention. It would be an understatement to say I was surprised by what I saw. After all the analyzing and reflecting and talking I saw how the falls all come down to my own lapse of faith. And so it is with humiliation I share this reflection on faith with you--there will perhaps never be a more apt example of my preaching what I most need to hear. This time the stakes are really high for me--if I don't get this I'm afraid I will get hurt even more seriously.

Faith is one of those words that Unitarian Universalists love--even if we love to hate it. Faith has more meanings than we will ever come up with; we can discuss the differences and the meanings of the meanings for ever and ever; it has something to do with religion, God, spirituality, without actually being any of those things. But it is not the definition I need to talk about with you today. I need to see how it works, or in this case doesn't work, in my daily living.

For me, faith, like God is a metaphor for a universal intangible. It provides a common word within which we can share our different theologies. Faith is part of the connective tissue of the universe and whether we think we have it or need it or not, it is part of how each of us connects to the world. Faith is relational--it impacts how we behave with one another as well as how we relate with the larger universe. Faith is a mindset, something to practice. And like all practices, it can always be strengthened, improved, or for a time ignored.

If our goal in life is at all related to living our Unitarian Universalist principles, which by the way are printed every week on the back of your order of service--faith cannot be dormant for too long. Like anything we repress, at some point it will surface whether we want it to or not. At least that's how I understand what happened to me--and I do have the stitches to prove it! When we tell each other to keep the faith, or to have faith, or sign our letters in faith, as I often do, I think we are reminding each other to look beyond our rational perspective in our daily living.--It is an invitation to a deeper understanding of how we act in the best interest of the universe, and therefore to each of us; how we can act in ways that strengthen our connection to one another and the greater good. These days faith seems hard for me to find. My life is too scattered to keep hold of it. I'm too busy juggling my different lives to be intentional about looking for the deeper meanings. I see brief glimpses, but it's hard to reach for it. Mostly I think I report on observing it. "Just the other day," Iâ€™ll tell you, "I got a glimpse of faith and now I want to cajole you into looking for it in your own life, attaching yourself to it. Trust me, it'll be good for you and good for us."

But does holding up faith for you to see make me faith-full? I may be doing my job, but am I attending to my own life? And, can I be a good minister to you if I don't minister first to myself? It seems I needed to be hit upside the head with a two by four almost literally to see the answer. While we usually think of falling out of faith, I think perhaps I have been falling into it.

I thought I was keeping faith--I thought I was living in the present here with you. And that thought disguised my lapse of faith. It was quite inadvertent. As I hope most of you know by now, I love my work here with you. Having taken a half-century to find this passion, I just can't get enough of it. I rest, take breaks because I have to; and I often lament that I am not 20 years younger when I had more energy than I do now. I complain about my search for a called ministry because it takes me away from my work with you. Working with you is like being in love--a little incredible, extremely joyful, and totally distracting. I've seen similar passion in much of your work, your love of family, your unwavering commitment to celebrating the joy in your lives, the gift of caring for one another you practice.

There were signs. You kept questioning my pace--"are you sure you have time for that, Patti?" "Are you feeling all right?" "Are you going to actually take time off on your day off?" "Yes, yes, yes," I faithfully replied. Embarrassingly, I've asked the same thing of some of you. How many times have you heard me say that outcome is not nearly as important as process. An outcome can't be positive if those involved don't survive the process. This aspect of faith is a mind-set, trust in yourself that those who depend on you--family, colleagues, clients--are getting what they need from you. Patience, trust--faith that who you are is enough. This is foundational to my understanding of faith - who I am, what I do, is enough. Running through each day, running from one thing to the next, trying to do everything, even when on some level I know it is at the expense of self-care is a breach of faith. I promise that I will not urge you onward in this practice until I've learned to do it myself.

But faith in who I am lives on the surface of my life. I think of it when I'm prioritizing my work, when I'm questioning a decision I've made, when all I can do in the face of someone else's pain is be there with them. It is faith in who I am that letâ€™s me do things I never imagined myself doing. It is faith that brings me up to this pulpit, that writes this message to you. It is the faith I discovered after 9/11 when I finally understood there will not be peace in my lifetime, even if I devote every part of my being for every minute of my life, I cannot make world peace happen. It led to both crisis and relief. Now I know that all I can do is live who I am now with integrity. It is this faith in my own sufficiency that helps prepare me for the long haul--to approach the issues I am most passionate about, where the work is never done, and where I never have the resources to do all that needs to be done. Who I am, what I do is enough.

But that is not all there is to faith. There's a second aspect of my personal faith that is more than who I am. This faith connects me to the larger universe. It is faith that there is something, some source of energy, some life source beyond my control that invites me into right relationship with it. This is the faith of political theologies that have been vying to own it for centuries. This is the faith that speaks to those in our communities who hold beliefs we think are harmful. This is where it is all too easy to be arrogant, even contentious. This faith can hold us steady as we dig ourselves deeper and deeper into the mire of isolation that seems to pervade our lives and culture. Thankfully we each have a heart which helps us see beneath our political drives, through which we can discern what we must do, even when it's inconvenient, or uncomfortable. I need this faith. I need to believe that there is more to my existence than personal need. I have to believe that I will help the world if I just pay attention to how we are connected.

To breach this faith has high stakes. It can take me into place of isolation, where I see my actions out of context; where my needs are most important, if only because they're the only ones I see. In this place there is no hope to stretch for. In this place I no longer feel an obligation to consider how my actions will affect you, because I no longer feel how we are connected. In this place connectivity is replaced by ego, generosity is overcome by greed, faith is drowned by selfish need.

This is why I must believe in God--if I did not, I would fall into despair--not just about what's going on around me, but what would go on inside me as well. Repressing that belief, that need for connections I cannot fully name or understand is why I keep falling--I keep forgetting that I am more than my body and my thoughts and actions. I am also a part of the deep mystery that connects me to each of you and each being in the universe. And that connection should be always in the forefront of my mind. Without faith, I forget that I can trust the decisions in my heart, that my control comes from letting go of it.

I think I'm back on track now. I haven't fallen in three weeks. I've slowed down. And most important, Iâ€™ve turned my vision inward, away from the 2 x 4 into my heart. That is the attention I have not been paying--and I've been paying for it very dearly.

This weekend I met briefly with your search committee. I told them I had absolute faith that they would find the right candidate for your settled minister. Now I just have to remember the same goes for me. I must practice being faith-full all the time. I think it will make my road a little smoother. May it be so. Please, may it be so.

(c) Rev. Patti Pomerantz 2006

[12/11/05] Winter Light

2005-12-11T12:24:00.000-08:00
by Rev. Patti Pomerantz

When I was a little girl, I was afraid of the dark; actually, I was terrified of the dark, so much so that I still remember the images that would come to me at night in my bed. There was the room filling up with water and sharks swimming all around me, and there was the horse drawn carriage that would come to get me and take me away. I would hide from it under my covers even in the humid Philadelphia summers. When these waking dreams would get too overwhelming, I'd wake up my mother who, in her very practical parental fashion would reassure me that the fish weren't real and that my bedroom was fine. Then she'd send me back to bed.

These visions came from my very active imagination--something that in my practical family was discouraged, however unwittingly. According to Dorothee Soelle, a twentieth century feminist scholar, ecological and political activist, theologian and teacher, my story is an example of our culture's tendency to deaden childhood imagination at as early an age as possible. So, as adults, we have lost the language and the memory of our imagination. With this loss we have also silenced the articulation of the sacred in our lives. She explains how this process occurs:

We label [imaginative] experiences as craziness or silliness and then hide or trivialize them in terms of our 'nothing but . . . " formulae . . . By banishing them from our children, we destroy them within ourselves at the same moment. The trivialization of life is perhaps the strongest antimystical force among us. [12]

Some might say, 'so what.' Mysticism doesn't move me. And that's as it should be. But I gotta tell you it is my mysticism-my direct experience of my own inner truth - that is my primary defense against our materialistic holiday culture--what some may call the dark side.

Let me tell you how--and invite you to try it on. I never have outgrown my childhood problem with darkness. It's still scary, and aging isn't helping much. The manifestation of the fear has simply aged with me. Add to that the darkness of chronic depression and I can be one blob of paralysis at this time of year. If the growing darkness doesn't sap my energy, the depression surely will. But I have learned over the years that my reaction to darkness doesn't mean that it is evil or out to get me. Like other shadows, there is an opportunity to learn.

One of the tools I've been using is something called the dark night of the soul. St John of the Cross a sixteenth century Carmelite monastic wrote about this in his own journey to know God during his imprisonment for refusing to obey an order of his provincial supervisor. He was almost totally in the dark in a small, airless cell. He wrote some incredible poetry at the time, which he would memorize bit by bit as he had nothing with which to write. What I find remarkable about St John is how he used the darkness to move into a deeper connection with the larger universe. Along with his mentor, Teresa of Avila, he developed an understanding that in order to be fully in relationship with the Holy, one must loose even their most basic belief in the Holy--the experience they termed the dark night of the soul.

Only by letting go of all expectations of hope or salvation, by facing our own doubt in the existence of truth, can we fully experience truth. Like bottoming out in addiction counseling, you must let go of what you think you know or how you think you are, in order to truly heal. St John's dark night helps me in two ways. First, it gives me hope. I don't imagine I'll ever really know if I've hit bottom, if I've had a true dark night of the soul. But I know I've been close--and when I am, I'm pulled toward knowledge that the light, the other side of whatever darkness I am in will be glowing stronger when I return to it--or it to me. It's a metaphor that seems particularly apt these days. By looking at our national leaders, our imperialism as this country's dark night, I can imagine there may be a light of truth waiting to emerge--incubating in all this craziness. I don't mean to minimize the crimes committed in our name, or the hatred cultivated in the name of democracy. But I can't see living through this time without a hope that as all life is part of a cycle, so, too, are the modern travesties we struggle against. I believe I will be reborn--reintroduced to the light.

The dark night of the soul also reminds me that there is meaning in the darkness--not necessarily apparent while I'm stumbling around in it, but available as I move through it. One of my life's most difficult lessons is that in order to grow into who I can become, I must let go of who I was, that holds me back. Letting go often plunges me into darkness. This is really a very pragmatic lesson. If I'm holding on to something behind me, I can't move towards what waits ahead of me. It is a challenging practice to believe in this paradigm. But I'm not sure I could be here with you today if I did not take it into my heart over and over again. In order to get out of the darkness I must not only face it, but trust enough to turn within it to face a light only promised.

Nils Peterson helped me with this next part. In conversation with him just the other day, Nils helped me to name the other important tool I use during this time of year. It is the appreciation of twilight--the in between time when neither darkness nor light claims precedence. Twilight has a number of uses in my metaphor. Let me give you two. First, twilight reminds me that nothing is absolute--that there is light in darkness just as there is darkness in light. It helps me to keep a sense of balance in my own moods whether I name them good or bad. I also believe that important things in life manifest in twilight times, when my vision is not clear, when the path is not brightly lit, when I'm unsure.

Twilight often serves as a beacon of sort in my journey. Twilight prepares me for the coming of the dark, gives me something familiar when I can't see. And it also gives me something to look toward in the dark. It doesn't always take very much energy to change complete darkness to twilight. Just that thinnest line on the eastern horizon and I know the cycle will continue. Both twilights--coming out of the dark as well as moving into it--are hints of returnings. I need to remember that even in my time of light and joy there will be a return to dark and sadness. It is the movement of my life. Accepting the cycle keeps me from manic responses to both light and dark. I use other tools - medication, good self care, understanding scientific descriptions all help me hold onto the continuity of the cycle--the movement from darkness to light to darkness. These things enhance my faith that there is a rhythm in the universe, manifested in my own life, that will feed me regardless of my tendency to ignore its nurture.

In the few months I've been here with you we have had many conversations about the cycles of the universe--the origin of energy and matter, the criteria of scientific inquiry, the beginning of the world as we know it, and the ending. I listen with rapt attention to these conversations, the scientific explanations of our universe; I try also to listen for some kernel of agreement in the tirades of conservative creationists as well--not because I think they are correct in their beliefs, anymore than I think the scientifically tested laws of the universe are incorrect. But my understanding of the cycles of darkness and light, and their relationship to each other instruct that I cannot hold exclusively to either side. They each need the other to exist.

The nature and depth of our universe will always be a mystery to me. And I like to believe that some of that mystery that will remain always beyond our grasp. Like the relationship of the dark to the light, the Taoist Yin and Yang, both science and faith must be real for me. It is my job to weave the two together. What we understand scientifically cycles with the unknown, the as yet undiscovered. To be fully present each of us must find appreciation and value in both the known and the unknown parts of the cycle of knowing. How much does it matter if what is unknown today is ultimately unknowable? I can't imagine being human without the darkness of the unknown--knowing would pale without not-knowing. Where would our drive to explore come from? What would we do without questions to answer?

Perhaps accepting the cycle of mystery has its own lesson. Regardless of where I find myself today, I must always believe that there will be another twilight, another time to learn, to integrate both the darkness and the light. I may not like the dark, but I must embrace it. The light may be blinding, but I must live in it. I need both. Do you?

(c) 2005 Rev. Patti Pomerantz

[12/4/05] The Fabric of Our Universe

2005-12-04T21:28:00.000-08:00
by Petr Kuzmic
December 4, 2005

Throughout history, science and religion have been asking the same big questions. When and how did our universe come into existence? What, if anything, existed before that? Is the Milky Way a river, as in our children's story today? In the words of our hymn, who or what is the "Dear Weaver of our lives' design"?

Today I'd like to talk about three things. One, what does current science know about the very beginnings of the universe. Two, what does science know about the long-term fate of our universe. And finally, as a working scientist and a religious humanist, I'd like to share a few reflections on how current cosmological research influenced my philosophical and ethical beliefs.

The first question on our list is what does current research tell us about the very beginning of the universe. The simple answer is: nothing, nothing at all. Now, by the very beginning of the universe I mean the exact moment at which it appeared, technically speaking "time zero". We do know that our universe came into being very abruptly in something like the Big Bang, but current physical theories say literally nothing about that particular moment. Physics begins its story very shortly after that, a tiny fraction of a second after "time zero". It is a very short amount of time, but currently accepted research has nothing to tell us about what happened before that short fraction of a second elapsed.

We could talk for a long time about the technical reasons why there is this problem. We could talk about "singularities" in solving general relativity equations. We could talk about the profound contradictions between two branches of physics, general relativity and quantum theory. We could talk about efforts to create a Grand Unified Theory, where these internal contradictions in physics would be resolved, so we could at least start talking sensibly about the very beginning of the universe. But the fact is, at this moment we don't have a widely accepted physical theory applicable to the very early universe.

One prominent theoretical physicist, Brian Greene, puts is this way in one of his popular books, The Fabric of the Cosmos:

"We don't know what the initial conditions of the universe were, or even the ideas, concepts, and language that should be used to describe them. No one has any insight on the question of how things actually did begin. In fact, our ignorance persists on an even higher plane: We don't even know whether asking about the initial conditions [...] lies forever beyond the grasp of any theory."

Now let's turn to our next question: what is the long-term fate of our universe. In that area, we actually know quite a bit, and a lot of it was learned in the last six or seven years. The main message seems to be that, in the long term, things won't stay as they are now.

First of all, it's been known for a long time that, in a few billion years, our sun will turn into something called a "red giant", envelop the entire solar system, and in the process incinerate our planet. That's a big change, I would say... You may say that a billion years is an unimaginably long period of time, but I'll try to show that it isn't. Let's play a little mathematical game. Let's use as our yardstick the duration of one average human life, say 75 years. Let's measure with this yardstick how far into the past we could reach, if we could ever stagger the lives of a certain number of people.

So, how far into the past we could reach if staggered the number of people who could fit into this room, let's say 130 people? Well, 75 x 130 is about ten thousand years. That's much farther back than to the arrival of first Europeans in America. It's much farther back than to the Egyptian pyramids. In fact, we could reach back in time to the most recent ice age. And one billion years is only the number of staggered human lives of people currently living in New York City, so in some respects it's not a very long time at all.

Aside from our little corner of the Milky Way getting swallowed by the sun in not too distant future, things will not stay the same even in the much larger cosmic neighborhood. Already in 1929, Edwin Hubble discovered that our universe is expanding. That was probably the second most important revolution in astronomy, after Copernicus discovered that the Earth goes around the Sun, and consequently we humans are not the center of the universe. In fact, not only we are not in the center of the universe anymore, but the universe also is being inflated under our feet, like one giant birthday balloon.

For several decades after Hubble's discovery, the question was whether the expansion will continue forever, or will it eventually stop and reverse itself. In the second case, the universe might eventually collapse on itself because of gravitation and perhaps begin a new cycle in a giant explosion. Well, now we know. Based on very precise astronomical measurements conducted between 1998 and 2003, the answer is in, at least tentatively. The answer is, not only is only our universe actually expanding faster and faster as time goes on, but also the amount of matter and energy in the universe suggests that it will never stop expanding.

But what could it mean to say the universe will "never stop expanding"? What will happen with the fabric of our universe, as the threads continue to be pulled apart? The answer to this question has to do with Albert Einstein and his special theory of relativity published in September 1905, almost exactly a hundred years ago.

If you can imagine somehow stretching a piece of regular fabric as our universe expands, first the threads would come apart; then the tiny fibers of cotton or silk in each thread; then the molecules in each fiber, then the atoms in each molecule and so on. Eventually, even subatomic elementary particles would be pulled apart into constituent pieces. But where would all this material go? This is where Einstein comes in, with his equivalence between matter and energy, the famous "E equals M C squared" equation. The very early or young universe was composed mostly of energy (meaning radiation, or light) but very little or no mass. Our own middle-age universe happens to have both mass and energy in it, but as the fabric of the cosmos continues to be pulled apart and stretched, an old-age universe will return to a state of pure energy or radiation.

Here is how Brian Greene puts it:

"In the far, far future, essentially all matter will have returned to energy. But because of the enormous expansion of space, this energy will be spread so thinly that it will hardly ever convert back to even the lightest particles of matter. Instead, a faint mist of light will fall for eternity through an ever colder and quieter cosmos. The guiding hand of Einstein's E = mc² will have finally come to rest."

I remember how I felt when I first learned about the inevitable end of all life on our planet, after the sun grows into a giant fireball. I felt horrified and panicked, even though I knew this would happen long after I am gone.

I realized then how much of my core beliefs were based on the assumption that life, which started in our nook of the Milky Way, will go on forever. And if not here, then somewhere else. Apparently I believed in a humanist equivalent of the eternal soul; I believed in some humanist equivalent of the final judgment; and I was placing the reference point in my ethical universe not here and now, but to a very distant time. I was basing my faith in an eternally unbroken chain of future generations, just like revealed religious traditions place their faith in an eternally unchanging God, a source of ultimate moral authority, who will forever judge our actions.

The most recent results in cosmology and theoretical physics focused my attention again on the here and now. I no longer look to eternity as a reference point. This, here and now, my friends, is really all we have however briefly. We now know that everything material is temporary on at least three different scales of time. We always knew that our individual human lives don't last forever. We've know for few decades that our earthly home inevitably will come to an end, as soon as our sun's lifecycle is completed. This will happen in a relatively short amount of time, a time it would take for all the inhabitants of a small handful of major cities to live out their lives one after another.

But now we also know that all matter in the universe will be converted back into pure energy. The fabric of our forever-expanding universe will be gently pulled apart into its constituent threads. The atoms of matter themselves will be gently pulled apart into its constituent particles, and ultimately all matter will disappear: only a faint mist of pure light will remain.

I myself don't find this vision discouraging. I hope that being increasingly aware of my own temporary nature, and of the temporary nature of all matter in the universe, will continue to encourage me to get up in the morning and do what needs to be done.

Amen and blessed it be.

[11/25/05] Giving

2005-11-25T12:30:00.000-08:00
by Rev. Patti Pomerantz

As predicted I spent the week in Portland eating too much, getting over stimulated and not paying particular attention to what is means to give. I'm quite sure that we all give. We give to our families, our jobs, our community, global causes, this church in any number of different ways.

How many here contribute to Sunday programming--worship, religious ed, greeting, preparing announcements and inserts, preparing coffee, selling fair trade coffee, being celebrant, or story teller, or presenter? How many of you contribute to the maintenance of our building and property? How many contribute to weekly programming, the newsletter, special events? How many of you are part of the caring team, small group ministries, the board, committees? Our living faith exists only to the extent that we give to it. And in Unitarian Universalism we decide how we give with no creedal instruction, no dues, no regulations or expectations by district or associational governing bodies.

As I lumbered back to Moscow trying to shed the trypophane daze, I realized I could not speak to you about your pledge to this year's canvas--not without taking stock of what giving means in my own life. I've made my pledge and I've cajoled you to give yours. And if you have, perhaps you feel the satisfaction of expressing your commitment to this community. I do. But I realized there's another layer of giving where I fall short. I know because I've recognized examples of it. I'm going to share two with you today--examples that push me to question my own commitment to giving.

The first is about a classmate of mine. Perhaps you remember my friend Shelley who walked from Indiana to Washington, DC, because she wanted to do something for peace. This is part of her reflection upon returning home to New Castle and her family.

Being for Peace Means Loving One Another
[A sermon by Shelley Newby; New Castle, IN Nov 2005]

"On October 17, I woke up at home. After six weeks of daily awakening in the home of a new stranger turned friend, being at home feels really good. So does the realization that I faithfully completed the 560-mile faith walk for peace from New Castle, Indiana, to Washington D.C. that was inspired by a vision received in April during my daily prayer and meditation time. What I have to share with you this morning are some reflections and experiences from this walk.

"Mine was a faith walk for peace. I was walking for peace rather than anti anything. It was a positive rather than negative action. You see, I-ve come to understand, that being anti-war invites conflict, which is the opposite of what we want to do if we are striving for peace. Being for peace, on the other hand, invites conversation, hope, and possibility.

"Many wondered if I was a pacifist. The answer to this is more complicated than you might think. As I have said, I am committed to being positive, to taking positive action. The definition of a pacifist is, 'one who opposes war.' . . . Being an opponent sets up the dynamic of we/they, a competition to be right and prove the other wrong or to win and make the other lose. It plants the seeds of conflict, the roots of the very thing the pacifist wants to avoid--war.

"Rather than surrender pacifism altogether, I am wondering if it is time to redefine it, time to take it further than we have thought to go in the past. Since now we are more aware of the power of our thoughts and words, isn't it time we used only positive language to describe pacifism and in that way incite only positive action? This would invite us into new understandings about how to be peacemakers in the world. I'd like to see the definition of a pacifist as: one who endlessly seeks peaceful resolutions to conflict. The groundwork for this is listening to the other with the intention of finding shared beliefs and common ground; it is agreeing to disagree and enduring the discomfort until way opens to agreement.

"Currently the beliefs, decisions, and actions of many are too often based in fear or anger--powerful motivators, no doubt, but negative rather than positive ones. Many argue for the value of anger to empower people to take action--particularly where there are injustices. Anger can be a great motivator to take that first step, but . . . anger ostracizes the opponent and limits their ability to join the cause, even if eventually they see the good in it. 'You're right, I am wrong,' are hard words for most of us to speak, especially when the setting is charged with anger.

"Though some more than others understood my message of being for something rather than against, of taking positive action in the world rather than negative, I felt a connection to each, and I believe they felt the same. I pray these individual conversations planted the seeds of peace in their lives as well. Perhaps the man in the red truck talked to his son at the dinner table that night in a new way, or the clerk at the BP called her mother and said, 'I love you.' I'll never know. But I do know that we can all have a positive impact if we simply choose to seek commonality rather than conflict, compassion over pride, love instead of anger, and faith that God makes what we do enough.

"You see, peace, like conflict, begins in small ways, in every day interactions between people like you and me. Being a peacemaker means seeing strangers as potential friends. It means being kind to one another--even if the other is a cranky check out clerk or a hateful neighbor. Being a peacemaker has nothing to do with opposing our spouse, our boss, or anyone who sees things differently than we do. Being a peacemaker demands that we love our way through any conflict . . . that we love one another."

I like to think there are some UU influences in Shelley's understanding of peace and I read her words with a certain satisfaction in my own UU evangelism. But there is so much more here for me to learn. Although she probably doesn't see it this way, I see that Shelley took herself out of her life-- especially her high school aged daughter --to literally walk her talk. 560 miles of strange beds, wet highway, unknown companions--because her heart told her she had to do this--not the why, she didn't know the why, she probably still doesn't know the whole why--just the walk. Could I live so true to my own principles? None of us know what it will take to tip the scales from greed and fear to love. If I could be the one and I don't respond to the call â€“ how then do I live?

The second story is from a book called Soul Work. It is a series of discussions on racism about how UU's do and do not, can and cannot have an impact on dismantling racism. This excerpt is from a lecture by the Rev. Dr. James Cone, a black theologian and one of two non-Unitarian Universalists who were invited into this dialog. Cone went to seminary in the 60--a time when theology schools taught of no black theologians, not even those who were acting their commitments in our national community. After his training he wrote a book about black liberation theology. It is an angry book and thirty years later, Dr. Cone spoke to Unitarian Universalists about what we're doing--and not doing--to dismantle racism.

James Cone
[From Soul Work: Anti Racist Theologies in Dialogue, Skinner House Books, 2003, pp. 1 --15]

"Physical death is only one aspect of racism that raises serious theological questions. Spiritual death is another, and it is just as destructive, in not more so, for it destroys the soul of both the racists and their victims. Racism is hatred gone amok; it is violence against one's spiritual self. As James Baldwin put it, 'It is a terrible, an inexorable law that one cannot deny the humanity of another without diminishing one's own; in the face of one's victim, one sees oneself.'

"We are all bound together, inseparably linked by a common humanity. What we do to one another, we do to ourselves. That was why Martin King was absolutely committed to nonviolence. Anything less, he believed, was self-inflicted violence against one's soul. 'Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate.'

Racism is particularly alive and well in America. It is America's original sin and, as it is institutionalized at all levels of society, its most persistent and intractable evil.

"Before we can get whites to confront racism, we need to know why they avoid it.

"Most importantly, whites do not talk about racism because they do not have to talk about it. They have most of the power in the world--economic, political, social, cultural, intellectual and religious . . . Powerful people do not talk, except on their own terms and almost never at the behest of others. All the powerless can do is disrupt--make life uncomfortable for the ruling elites. That is why Martin King called the urban riots and Black Power the 'language of the unheard.' The quality of white life is hardly ever affected by what blacks think or do."

White theologians and ministers avoid racial dialogue because talk about white supremacy arouses deep feelings of guilt.

Another reason whites avoid race topics with African Americans is because they do not want to engage black rage. White-s do not mind talking as long as blacks don-t get too emotional, too carried away with their stories of hurt . . . That is why [whites] preferred Martin King to Malcolm X. Malcolm spoke with too much rage for their social taste. He made whites feel uncomfortable because he confronted them with their terrible crimes against black humanity.

Whites do not say much about racial justice because they are not prepared for a radical redistribution of wealth and power. No group gives up power freely; power must be taken against the will of those who have it. Fighting white supremacy means dismantling white privilege in the society, in the churches and in theology . . . Talking about how to destroy white supremacy is a daily task and not just for consultations and conferences. If we talk about white supremacy only at special occasions set aside for that, the problem will never be solved. People of color do not have the luxury of just dealing with racism in church meetings . . . No day passes in which blacks don't have to deal with white supremacy.

Rosemary Bray McNatt, one of the few UU clergy of color tells this story in the same book. [p 27] She talks of a conversation she had many years ago with Coretta Scott King. McNatt tells of the conversation this way, first quoting King. "Oh I went to Unitarian churches for years, even before I met Martin . . . And Martin and I went to Unitarian churches when we were in Boston. . . " McNatt continues,

"'What surprised and saddened me most was what she said next, and though I am paraphrasing, the gist of it was this: "We gave a lot of thought to becoming Unitarian at one time, but Martin and I realized we could never build a mass movement of black people if we were Unitarian.

It was a statement that pierced my heart and troubled my mind, both then and now. I considered what this religious movement would be like if Dr. King had chosen differently, had decided to cast his lot with our faith instead of returning to his roots as an African American Christian. And what troubled me most was my realization that our liberal religious movement would have utterly neutralized the greatest American theologian of the twentieth century.""

I haven't finished this reflection. I don't know what to say next. I'm hoping you can help me.

(c) Rev. Patti Pomeranz, 2005

[10/2/05] Welcome Table

2005-10-02T12:40:00.000-07:00
by Rebecca Rod

"Welcome to the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse!" After "Good Morning,": these are the first words off the lips of our celebrant each and every Sunday morning as we settle in for our worship service. And, despite our big mouthful of a church name, it starts to roll off the tongue with a little practice.

Why don't you all give it a try with me right now!--"Welcome to the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse!" OK--once more with feeling, and a little more volume! "Welcome to the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse!"

Maybe we should do that all together every week--get ourselves jump-started with this cheer for the home team in one big voice to help us shake those last grains of Sunday sleep from our heads.

So, we start off each Sunday morning with this kind of cheer that identifies us and locates us, but, more than that, in the very first word--"Welcome!"--clearly declares to everyone who has come through our doors that they are wanted, embraced, and even gladly hailed (according to Webster). So, "Welcome!" And we mean it, don't we? Of course we do. And yet, like all words and phrases that through rote and repetition eventually come to be spoken "for granted," we may be somewhat out of touch with what that "Welcome" word can fully mean, both for us as a congregation, and for those who come through our doors for the first time on any given Sunday.

By now, most of us know many of the reasons why the newcomers come--we know because they are who we were some number of years, or months, or weeks ago. So we know for instance, that some people come intentionally seeking a UU church because they belonged to one elsewhere. Or that others come already knowing a bit about us, and are intentionally seeking a liberal denomination. Still others come here out of a kind of curiosity--maybe they've seen some interesting blurb of ours in the Churches column of the newspaper. People who are parents come here looking for a religious education for their children, and then there are many adults who come to us as religious refugees from other denominations. There are folks who come here for the sense of community we offer--not to mention the fun parties they've heard that we have. And then there are those who come here because they have somehow heard that this church is a safe haven with a welcome atmosphere for gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people.

As many of you already know, I am one of those people. I came here almost thirteen years ago when I was church-shopping, because I heard the Unitarians had hired a new minister who loved music, and also happened to be a lesbian. Imagine that! It was definitely a sign for me that this was a church where I could be who I was openly and safely. And indeed, I was completely welcomed here in every way â€“ not "conditionally" welcomed as some churches might have taken me in, with prayerful hopes for my cure and rehabilitation--but fully welcomed for who I was. And there are a number of other Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender people here who regularly attend our services, and some who've become members of our church, who I know have felt welcomed here as well.

In addition to our being just so darn warm and friendly, there are plenty of institutional ways in which we are already an inclusive and welcoming congregation. Officially, we include sexual orientation in the non-discrimination clauses of our by-laws and other church documents. Our church is open and available for the celebration of same-sex commitment ceremonies, which are often performed by our ministers. Many of you attended my and Theresa's own blessed event here over nine years ago.

Our board and committee positions are completely open to everyone--in fact, you would have to hide pretty well not to be asked to serve on something! We consciously use inclusive language in our worship services. And, as a congregation, we have hired two gay ministers in the last 15 years. And so on. I think you get the idea that there are certainly plenty of indications that we have done pretty well here on the GLBT welcoming front.

That said, I still want to stretch the welcoming theme a bit more this morning to see if we might be willing as a congregation to commit ourselves to expanding the boundaries of our welcome-ness even further, toward its ever-loving limitless limits.

Think back for a minute to this morning's Call to Worship. When you raise your voice in singing, [sing] "We're gonna sit at the welcome table . . . " what in that song do you connect with? Is there meaning in it for you personally? Do you place yourself in it or anyone you know--relatives? Friends? In this song, slaves dream of a day when they'll be included at the Welcome Table. But, in reality, at that time the singer-slave's best chance of inclusion was at the Welcome Table in heaven--after death.

When I sing that song, I, too, am singing out a dream that permeates my life--my own desire for full inclusion at the Welcome table, but in the here and now. This is a desire shared by all GLBT people. We see what's on that table--benefits and rights and privileges that only those deemed acceptable in our society have--and we want to pull up our chairs, too. And there is some good reason to believe these things can happen in our lifetime--so much has been accomplished to move us further toward inclusion. But we need help to accomplish these things. We need you by our side inside and outside the welcoming atmosphere of this church. We need you to walk with us, and stand with us, so that we can eventually all sit down at that table together.

One thing we can do to move forward on this front is to finish our process of becoming an official UUA Welcoming Congregation. We took our first steps toward this goal earlier this year, thanks to Ken Faunce, who got us started. He led a group of us in completing the UUA Welcoming Congregation course last spring.

It was a little tricky getting the thing off the ground because on the very first night a couple of people who came expressed their feeling that we were already a welcoming congregation, so why did we need to do this? You may think the same thing today, and for good reasons--many of which I've given earlier about how welcoming we already are. We discussed this a bit in the group, and ultimately, we opted to just withhold on that judgment and trust the process, and that's what we did. There were usually about 5-6 of us congregational members at each session, and three faithful gay students from the University of Idaho who hung in there with us.

We forged ahead, participating in exercises and discussions that were designed to probe our attitudes and prejudices, positive and negative, toward Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, and Transgender people and issues. We examined our personal ideas and biases about sexuality and gender in search of their roots to see how they shaped our view of GLBT people and their relationships. We looked at the terms, acceptable and unacceptable, that our society uses for various sexual orientations, to see how they help and hurt in their categorization of people. We reflected on our own thoughts and experiences regarding GLBT people and issues in our church, and talked about ways to improve our outreach to that community.

It was an interesting exercise in stick-to-it-tive-ness to complete the course. Even when people felt the material didn't hold anything new, we stayed with it. And even if there were no big surprises, I think it was worthwhile. We laughed together, we got embarrassed, we rolled our eyes, drew weird pictures, and laughed a bit more. I even cried once--I think just to have the opportunity to talk about this stuff in a group. It was a first for me.

And even if the others might tell you there were no real "aha" moments for them--I wonder. When you get a group of people together over a series of weeks and you talk and share and reflect on some fairly deep and personal issues, I think something happens that's close to revelation. Here's my two cents worth: Consciousness is raised. Even if it's just a millimeter, something new is brought forth, exposed, elevated. Connections are made that didn't exist before between thoughts and ideas, between people and groups, and it radiates out from there. Yes, it was worth it. And one more step was made toward achieving our Welcoming Congregation status.

Now it's your turn.

Now our whole congregation will be drawn into the process by taking a vote on whether we want to become a Welcoming Congregation. This will also take the form of a pledge, like the draft pledge you find in your bulletins today. There will be a congregational meeting next Sunday when the vote will be taken, so I hope you will all show up for that. Then, if the vote is affirmative to go ahead, the UUA will issue us a plaque at the end of the process confirming that we are indeed an official Welcoming Congregation.

Now, if you're still thinking, "Why bother doing all this for a plaque to hang on the wall that says we are what we already feel we are?"--I guess my final answer is that we're not doing this just for us. We're doing it for the people we don't know yet that will be coming through our doors. Barring the wonderful work of our vigilant Membership Committee, at least a few new folks will probably get in here and out again on a Sunday morning or for a Saturday night concert, or some other event, without any of us having the chance to personally welcome them. But there will be a plaque out there in the foyer, an affirming symbol that they will see hanging on the wall somewhere prominently, stating that we are an open and safe space for them to be who they are. And that may well be enough to make them come back and give us a chance at a real Welcome --to our Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse!

[9/25/05] Buddhist Nationalism and Religious Violence in Sri Lanka

2005-09-25T12:36:00.000-07:00
by Nick Gier

While this Sangha. . . has democracy, it has neither [a] special country nor nation nor caste. To such a society which has no country, nation, or caste, every human being is the same. . . . Those who fight against the Tamils are not Buddhists.

-Naravila Dhammaratana[1]

Introduction

Recently the Sri Lankan people have witnessed more religious violence than ever before. It has spread from the conflict with the Tamil Tigers to Buddhist attacks on Muslims and Christians, and now counter attacks by aggrieved Muslims. During the 1990s the Tamil Tigers forced thousands of Muslims out of their northern "homeland," but at an April, 2002 press conference they announced that they are reconsidering this rash and destructive decision as well as their call for a separate homeland.[2] There have also been positive signs from the Buddhist leadership, who successfully opposed three previous attempts at settlement. This time, however, there has been no effort to undermine delicate negotiations with the Tamils.

With these developments underway, it is all the more regrettable to read about Elle Gunavamsa, a monk whose popular songs are published by the government and are sung as the Sri Lankan goes into battle. Here are some samples:

The sword is pulled from the [scabbard], it is
Not put back unless smeared with blood.
I turned by blood to milk to make you grow
Not for myself but for the country
My brave, brilliant soldier son
Leaving [home] to defend the motherland
That act of merit is enough
To reach Nirvana in a future birth.[3]

Here we have the Buddhist equivalent of the radical Muslim Holy War. Yet another echo is the fact that Gunavamsa calls on Maha Devi, the great goddess that Hindu kings celebrated as they went to war. Although her cult is fading in contemporary Sri Lanka, this could be a reference to the goddess Pattini, an immigrant Tamil deity that alternatively combines the opposing qualities of the Hindu Parvati and Kali (see Obeyesekere 1984).

During 2003-04, 165 Sri Lankan Christian churches were attacked, resulting in the complete destruction of some, the stoning of parsonages, the smashing of statues, and the burning the Bibles and hymnals. Sri Lanka has the largest percentage of Christians in South Asia, and 25 percent of those are Tamils. (The father of Tamil nationalism was a Malaysian Christian by the name of J. V. Chelvanayakam.) Christians say that one reason they are being targeted is that they are accused of being Tamil sympathizers. The other reason is that Protestant Christian missionaries have had considerable success in recent years, which has led to Buddhist charges of unethical conversions. One website claims that Evangelicals and Pentecostals have increased from 50,000 to 240,000 since 1980. The missionaries can also claim that they are simply making up for lost ground because before the rise of neo-Buddhism in the late 19th Century there were many more Christians on the island.

Taking a page out of the book of Hindu fundamentalists, who have passed anti-conversion law in six Indian states, Buddhist legislators have drafted a similar bill that would outlaw the conversion, "by the use of force or by allurement or by any fraudulent means," of a person from one religion to another. Some Buddhist extremists have spread rumors that Christians had assassinated the Buddhist monk who initiated the bill, even though an autopsy showed that he had died of a heart attack. Sri Lankan police have been criticized for being slow in making arrests and for dismissing the attackers as mere drunks, but some observers suspect that they are encouraged by radical elements of the Janatha Vimukthi Peramuna (JVP), a socialist party that has supported a strong nationalist platform for decades. The JVP is allied with Vidyalankara University, whose monks are disciples of Anagarika Dharmapala, the father of Buddhist nationalism and whose second generation monks, as H. L. Seneviratne contends, upset the "delicate balance" established by first generation Dharmapalite monks with "violence, breaking it up into pieces, never to be put back together again."[4]

Buddhist nationalism has its roots in the Dipavamsa, Mahavamsa, and Culavamsa, texts unique to Sinhalese Buddhism. Over the centuries effective rituals, described in the third section below, were developed to reconcile the presence of non-Buddhists in what some Buddhists perceive to be the cosmic center of the Dharma. These premodern systems of integrating the "other" have now been supplanted by a modernist concept of a Buddhist nation state that is exclusionary rather than inclusionary. Peter Schalk proposes that there is now a Sinhalatva (Sinhaleseness) that is just as rigid and uncompromising as Hindutva (Hinduness) in neighboring India.[5]

We will explore the view that this Sinhalatva is based on a reverse Orientalism that essentializes ethnic identities and leverages the supposed superiority of Aryan Buddhists to attack Dravidian Tamils and other "aliens" in Sri Lanka. The fact that even a moderate such as monk Bhikkhu Dhammavihari labels the Tamils "non-Sri Lankan" is particularly unfortunate. It does not help Dhammavihari's anti-Tamil brief to claim historical authority for the Mahavamsa and then state, quite incongruously, that the chroniclers "bungle" when their accounts are embarrassing or do not fit his thesis. [6]

For the purposes of this paper a premodern worldview is one in which totality, unity, and purpose are paramount. These values were celebrated in ritual and myth, the effect of which was to sacralize the cycles of seasons, the generations of animal and human procreation, and to integrate the presence of aliens. The human self, then, is an integral part of the sacred whole, which is greater than and more valuable than its parts. Generally speaking, the premodern mind resolves conflict dialectically, the polarities of yin and yang being the best examples. (The exception to this rule is radical dualism of Manicheanism and Gnosticism.) Robert Bellah has observed that modern religion rejects the premodern mediation of ritual and myth in favor of an unmediated personal salvation.[7] Interestingly enough, there are anticipations of this religious individualism in the world's ascetic traditions, but it did not come to full fruition until the Protestant Reformation. Elsewhere I have argued that premodernism, modernism, and postmodernism is best understood conceptually rather than in strict chronological terms.[8]

In contrast to premodern polarity, the modern mind loves to dichotomize: it separates the mind from the heart, fact and value, science and faith, the public from the private, and theory from practice. As opposed to the premodern relational self, the modern self is seen as self-contained and self-legislating--a social atom as it were. The modern nation state is this autonomous self expressed as the will of a people defined by language, culture, religion, and race. Just as selves as social atoms become dysfunctional, the nation states tend to behave in similar ways. Furthermore, there is a move from a premodern orality to modernist textuality, where the priest/pastor/monk now exhorts his congregation to act on the meaning, sometimes quite untraditional, of selected texts of vernacular scripture available to a literate population. There is a significant difference between finding noncognitive meaning in a ritual performed in sacred language that the believer does not know, and a much more cognitive gnosis by which modern believers shape their religious worldviews and sometimes acting on them in a political way. Here we find a movement from premodern sacred "sound as the message" to a modern vernacular text with an intellectual meaning. In this paper I will critique Sri Lankan Buddhist nationalism using this premodern/modern heuristic, and then, in the concluding section, offer a constructive postmodern solution.

Nationalist claims to ethnic and religious purity have never been borne out by the facts. Sri Lanka's founding myth involves the intermingling of native peoples with Hindu immigrants from North and South India. Historically, Buddhism did not arrive in Sri Lanka until the 3rd Century BCE. It is a fact that Buddhist frequently kings fended off military invasions from South India, but just as often they formed alliances with Hindu rulers and traders from Kerala and Tamil Nadu. Bahu I (1272-84) welcomed South Indian Saivites with open arms, giving them lands and titles, just as South Indians welcomed Jews and Christians to their Malabar coast.

The supreme irony is that the Tamil kings of the Nayakkar line (1739-1815) did the most to restore the Sinhalese Buddhist priesthood and promote Buddhist art and architecture. The other significant fact is that at this time Tamils and Sinhalese were usually not divided by race as they have been since the late 19th Century.[9] The main factor here was the introduction of the European discovery that that Sinhala was an Indo-European (=Aryan) language whereas Tamil was a Dravidian language. The caustic mix of race, language, and Buddhist nationhood had its origins here.

The flag of Sri Lankan contains two stripes, green embracing the Muslims and orange integrating the Hindus, thus validating their Sinhalese identity in the Country of the Lion (=Sinhala). Buddhist nationalists have removed these colored strips from their flag, so the sword in the lion's hand must now appear much more menacing to Hindus, Muslims, and Christians, the Hindus comprising 12 percent of the population with Muslims and Christians claiming 8 percent each.

The Tamil Tigers are just as much to blame for their many atrocities-they have done more suicide bombings than all other terrorist groups combined--but terrorists, whatever their nationality or religion, are made not born. Some argue that Tamil claims to an ancient homeland and distinct ethnic identity are groundless,[10] but comparable Buddhist claims Aryan racial purity are similarly without merit. There are some instructive similarities to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. An aggrieved minority has been radicalized by a perception that Israel and its American ally do not care about them, and Israeli military superiority has forced the some Palestinians to use terrorist tactics to fight back. Both sides in both conflicts have legitimate claim to living on the land that is in dispute. A long, bitter, polarizing struggle with no easy solution has been the result in both countries.

For decades Tamil moderates proposed a reasonable federal solution as they pleaded for social, economic, and linguistic inclusion with some autonomy. (Ironically, medieval Sinhalese polity was a loose federation rather than the homogenous state imputed to it by contemporary Buddhist nationalists.) Until the 1970s a great majority of Tamils would not have supported a separate Tamil state, just as most Indian Muslims did not support Partition. As D. Amarasiri Weeratane states: "When all attempts to settle the problem by democratic methods failed, the Tamils were driven into the arms of the terrorists who posed as the saviours of the Tamil people."[11] Tragically, Muslim and Hindu extremists won out in 1948, but let us hope that the Sri Lankans can avoid the catastrophic dislocation that ravaged India. Fortunately, the Tamil Tigers do not embrace the ideology of Hindu essentialism because their grievances are primarily economic and linguistic, not religious. The first step to peace for Sri Lankans is the acknowledge the fact that for over 2,200 years their beautiful island has been, is now, and must always be a multi-ethnic and multi-religious society.

The Mythical Origins of the Sinhalese Nation

The Mahavamsa (written in the 6th Century CE) tells the story of Sinhabahu, a North India who, along with a twin sister Sinhasivali, was born of the union between a lion and a maiden. He was not a Buddhist but a Vaisnava, and he founded a city called Sinhapura in the lion's territory, and together with his sister as queen, fathered 32 sons, the eldest of whom was Vijaya. The Mahavamsa explains that "Vijaya was of evil conduct and his followers were even (like himself), and many intolerable deeds of violence were done by them."[12] Vijaya and 700 of his men were banished and sent away to sea, landing in Sri Lanka at the time, the chronicle claims, of the Buddha's death. This is the mythological source of the Sinhalese people, those who came from a lion (sinha) and who established Sinhala "the country of the lion."

Vijaya's first task was to rid the island of its indigenous population, known in Hindu epics as a country of yaksas and raksasas, the most famous being Ravana of the Ramayana. The first chapter of the Mahavamsa relates that the Buddha himself did preparatory work during three trips to the island, converting "many koti of living beings" to Buddhism, founding stupas, and otherwise preparing the way for the Dharma, which historically did not come for another 300 years. While it is clear that the resident nagas were converted, the Mahavamsa (chapter 1) relates that Buddha relieved the yaksas of their fears in return for the possession of their island. The Buddha did no violence to them and exiled them to a "rocky island," but they were back on the main island when Vijaya arrived. Furthermore, the Mahavamsa does not record any encounter with Buddhists or discovery of stupas.

According to the chapter 7 of Mahavamsa Vijaya did have two children by the yaksi Kuvani. Following the ancient theme of maiden betraying her people to the foreigner, Vijaya, with Kuvani's help, slaughters her fellow yaksas, but in the end Kuvani is banished along with her children. This mytheme allows us to assume that there was intermarriage with native people, the Vaddas, who, in ancient times, were hunter gatherers spread throughout the island. Most of them were converted to Buddhism after the 15th Century and became rice farmers in the western regions of the country. Only several thousand preserve their original identity today and some claim Vijaya as their ancestral father. In the next section we will see how the Vaddas gained a Sinhalese identity through premodern modes of ritual inclusion.

In addition to mixing genes with the locals, Vijaya married a Saivite Tamil princess and she brought women for Vijaya's ministers and thousands of craftsmen and their families. As Gananath Obeyesekere states: "Unlike the Vaddas, the Tamils are not only kinfolk but also co-founders of the nation. This aspect of the myth has been almost completely forgotten or ignored in recent times."[13] Bhikkhu Dhammavihari grossly underestimates the influx of South Indians to the island when he admits that "a few people from the neighbourhood of the adjacent country moved in here from time to time and soon learnt to co-exist in a spirit of friendship with the people of their new homeland."[14] Obeyesekere counters this claim by declaring that "viewed in long term historical perspective Sinhalas have been for the most part South Indian migrants who have been sasanized,"[15] that is, either having been converted to Buddhism or having come under the umbrella of the Buddhist "church" (sasana). Referring to the Mahavamsa's myth of Sinhabahu, one can make an even stronger argument: the original "people of the lion" were North Indian Vaisnavas not Buddhists.

Buddhist nationalist claims to racial purity are nipped in the proverbial bud: the mythical seed of the Sinhalese Buddhist nation is a hybrid of immigrant Hindus, Indian Buddhists (some Mahayanists), and indigenous people. The Pali word sihala is found infrequently in the early chronicles, and when it is used even Dhammavihari admits that it is not in the sense of a "religio-nationalism."[16] It definitely does not refer to a pure race of people, as some 19th Century Europeans proposed and Buddhist nationalists, in an ironic reverse Orientalism, assumed. Buddhist nationalists sometimes use the testimony of Chinese pilgrims as proof that a distinct Sinhalese identity is not just projection of current beliefs on a distant past. The fact that Fa Xian (5th Century CE) and Hiuen Ziang (7th Century CE) refer to Sri Lanka as "the country of the lion" does not prove ethnic or religious purity at all.

When Vijaya arrives on the island, Visnu is there to greet the newcomers. (He had been designated guardian deity of Sri Lanka by the Buddha himself.) Visnu is asked "What island is this, sir?" "The island of Lanka," he answered. "There are no men here, and here no dangers will arise."[17] And when a delegation returns to the original "lion country" in India, it brings back a Vaisnava prince, Panduvasudeva, who succeeds Vijaya as king of Sri Lanka, still a country of Vaddas, Saivite Tamils, and North Indian Vaisnavas, but, significantly, no Buddhists.

Obeyesekere points out that "it is one of the ironies of ethnicity that the Tamils want a separate state of Ilam, which means 'Sinhala country'; while the Sinhalas want to hang on to Lanka which is derived from ilankai the Tamil word for 'island.'"[18] Obeyesekere also confirms that "in my reading of literally hundreds of ritual texts I have not come across one instance of the country being called other than Lanka or Sri Lanka . . . , except when foreign gods or traders come to these shores and hail it as the country of the Sinhala (sinhaladesa)."[19] Obeyesekere asserts that it is common for outsiders to name a country in terms of its dominant group: "outsiders see it as a single entity whereas the insiders are sensitive to the complexities of internal differentiation,"[20] differences of which the precolonial rulers of the island were aware and respected.

One incident from the Mahavamsa (chap. 19) demonstrates the ethnic and religious harmony that existed during the reign of King Devanamtissa (247-207 BCE), who introduced Buddhism to the island. The chapter begins with an elaborate description of the transport of the Bodhi tree from King Ashoka in India and its arrival in the northern port of Jubukola. There a brahmin priest named Tivakka was one of the first to worship the holy tree. Two weeks later it arrived in the capital city of Anuradhapura and the tree miraculously sprouted 32 saplings. One was given to Tivakka to plant in his own town, and two others were given to ksatriyas in the north. This demonstrates that not only was there ethnic harmony, but Hindus and Buddhists, as many still do today in India and Nepal, worshiped together honoring common sacred sites and things.

The next major event is the campaign of King Dutthagamani (161-137 BCE) that led to the unification of the island under this Buddhist king. The Dipavamsa (18.50-54), the earliest chronicle from the 4th Century CE, portrays the Tamil king Elara as a just ruler and there appear to be no anti-Buddhist allegations against him. The fact that Dutthagamani starts from the periphery of power in the south and must fight 32 other provincial rulers, some of them presumably Buddhists, on his way north indicates that the actual motivations for Dutthagamani's campaign could not have been primarily religious. The 1912 English version of the Mahavamsa contains an unfortunate mistranslation that moves a Buddhist relic from the royal scepter to Dutthagamani's spear and has given Buddhist militants an illicit, but even stronger justification for Buddhist warfare.[21]

While the Dipavamsa contains only 13 stanzas about Dutthagamani, more than half the Mahavamsa is devoted to the famous king. The authors are determined to glorify Dutthagamani and they design an edifying narrative framework based on the story of Asoka. The number of provincial rulers who resisted Dutthagamani is obviously exaggerated and most likely is drawn from the 32 opponents of Asoka. But the most significant similarity to Asoka is the post-battle malaise that Dutthagamani suffers over the great number of Tamil causalities. In chapter 25, a group of arhats come to console the grieving king and report a remarkable calculation concerning those killed in the war. According to the wise monks, only one enemy soldier had taken full refuge in the Dharma and another had embraced only the Five Precepts. This means that there had been only one and a half real persons killed among thousands of causalities. This demonstrates that there has been substantial anti-Tamil sentiment for centuries and it provides ready fodder for contemporary Sinhalese propangandists. Even the great Buddhist scholar Wapola Rahula uses this incident without questioning its veracity in his defense of Sinhalese nationalism.[22]

Stanley Tambiah demonstrates how Buddhist chroniclers regularly invented scenarios in order to explain the presence of so many South Indians in their midst. A very instructive example of this fictitious history is the rajavaliya (Lineage of Kings) that gives an account of a Sinhalese invasion of the Chola kingdom in South India in the 12th Century.[23] The Buddhist king Gajabahu wins a great victory and brings home not only 12,000 Sinhalese prisoners from previous Tamil campaigns but also an equal number of new Tamil prisoners. The Tamils were incorporated into Sinhalese society as low caste workers spread throughout the ancient kingdom of Kandy. The Buddhist chroniclers, sensing the national shame of one South Indian invasion (10th Century) and another from Kalinga (13th Century), established a rhetorical quid pro quo as well as explaining the presence of Tamils in their southern kingdom. Incidentally but significantly, the Tamils in the north placed their Sinhalese captives in sub-caste positions as well. The Sinhalese most likely learned caste consciousness from the Hindus and the principal motivation for marrying into Hindu families was to validate their position as authentic rulers (ksatriyas).

As strict Theravadins, the Buddhist chroniclers also failed to mention the influx of Mahayana Buddhists from South India. The Lotus Sutra has Gautama Buddha born in Sri Lanka and he is given the name Sinhala, a favor that its Mahayana authors should not have offered to Sinhalese Buddhists who did not welcome South Indian Mahayanists to their island. Nonetheless, their presence is recorded faithfully in wall paintings, sculpture, and religious practices. (Dharmapala's focus on a savior Buddha who suffered for others may have come from Mahayana as well as Christianity.) Furthermore, most Sinhalese Buddhists do not realize that Buddadatta and Dhammapala, Buddhist scholars that Sinhalese scholars used as trusted commentators on the Pali canon, were South Indian Tamils.

Mahayana Buddhist immigrants from Kerala rose to prominence in trade and political administration, and the Sinhalese king Bahu VI dedicated a shrine to their goddess Pattini, whose worship is now wide spread in Sri Lanka.[24] Significantly these South Indians stood by their Buddhist king when, in the late 14th Century, he had to defend his territory from the Tamil king of Jaffna. One Keralite family married into Sinhalese royalty, and another became so strong that it operated as a separate principality and played a key role in turning back the Tamil invasion. The historical lesson that we can learn is that during this period the motivations for warfare on all sides were not primarily religious in nature, and the notion of a pure Buddhist Sinhalese race constantly defending itself against South Indian "unbelievers" has no foundation in historical reality.

Let me conclude this section with an account of Kirti Sri Rajasinha (1747-82), who was anathemized by militant monks as "the heretic king" for doing Saivite worship in private. Kirti Sri was the most famous of the Tamil Nayakkar kings who ruled from 1739 until 1815, when the British, with aid from Buddhists aristocrats and monks, overthrew the dynasty. The Nayakkar line in Sri Lanka actually started much earlier in the reign of Rajasinghe II (1635-87), who married two Tamil women from this family. The Mahavamsa has nothing but praise for this great king, who sent an embassy to Thailand to bring back priests who reestablished the Sinhalese Sangha. (The last ordained monk had died in 1729.) He also gave lavish support to Buddhist art, monasteries, and temple building, including the establishment of the now famous Temple of the Tooth, which, sadly, has recently been attacked by the Tamil Tigers. During his reign vipasana meditation techniques were developed, which have now become popular throughout the world.

Even a prominent Buddhist nationalist R. A. L. H. Gunawardena had to concede that Kirti Sri was an authentic Buddhist king, one of "the divine lords who had come down in the lineage of Mahasammata [Buddha King] through Vijaya and other rulers of Sri Lanka."[25] One black mark against Kirti Sri was that he did put some Roman Catholic priests on trial for distributing anti-Buddhist literature, but he eventually called off the anti-Catholic campaign and ordered the rebuilding of a church that had been destroyed. Kirti Sri appeared to have good relations with the Muslim population, and he gave one Muslim trader a large tract of land that once belonged to one of the conspirators who tried unsuccessfully to assassinate him.

In his book on Kirti Sri, John Holt demonstrates how committed he was to fulfilling his duty as "the quintessential Thervada Buddhist king."[26] Kirti Sri had studied Asoka's reign very carefully (albeit via the unreliable Mahavamsa), and Holt describes one ritual that he borrowed from Asoka that had substantial dramatic effect. It is an ordination rite, still performed in Kandy today, in which the king symbolically abdicates in favor the monk who is being ordained. The monk is honored as if he were king, being entertained by the royal dancers and riding on the royal elephant. Holt claims that the art that Kirti Sri sponsored was a "superb distillation of an authentic Sinhalese Theravada Buddhist worldview that has been genuinely embraced by Kandyan Buddhists"; and he "laid the foundation for the manner in which Buddhism has become a type of civil religion in Kandy for up-country Sinhalese."[27] In addition to the Asokan model of Buddhist kingship, Kirti Sri also used Sakra (=Vedic Indra) and King Manu, the latter taken from the god-king of the Laws of Manu. Kirti Sri also styled himself as a Bodhisattva, a strategy, Holt claims, that had much appeal to the peasants and the oppressed.

Integrating the "Other" in Precolonial Sri Lanka

Despite frequent conflict and a deeply felt anti-Tamil sentiment among many Buddhists, why is it that the people of this beautiful island have lived in relative peace for centuries? The key, I believe, lies in how premodern Sinhalese socially and psychologically processed the presence of others in their midst. Obeyesekere offers a fascinating account of the worship of various indigenous deities under the umbrella of the dominant Buddhism: "In Rambadeniya, after each harvest, villagers will gather together in a collective thanksgiving ritual for the gods known as the adukku ("food offering"). During this festival the priest of the . . . or deity cults (never the Buddhist monk) pays formal homage to the Buddha and the great guardian deities and then actively propitiates the local gods. . . ."[28] After this the people trek 35 miles to a Buddhist temple where they join many other villagers, who had just paid respect to their local deities, in an exclusively Buddhist ceremony.

Obeyesekere also describes an elaborate ritual in which the Vaddas, the indigenous people who were originally hunters and gathers, are validated within the larger Buddhist society. There is a simulated battle in which armed Vadda warriors attack a Buddhist temple but are thwarted by temple guardians. They continue their fake battle until their spears are broken and thrown against the temple. After worshipping at their own altars, they purify themselves in a nearby river, and then return to the temple where a Buddhist priest anoints them with sandal water. They end their ceremony with the chant of haro-hara to the god Skanda, a god they share not only with Buddhists, but also with Hindus, because hara is a name for Shiva and Skanda is his second son. This ritual of dialectical reconciliation of identity and difference demonstrates the genius of the premodern worldview, which produces resolved polarities rather than strict dichotomies and particularized inclusion rather than complete exclusion.

Obeyesekere further describes a ritual that allows the "naturalization" of Tamils into the Sinhalese community. As in the Vadda ceremony above, the Tamils, outfitted either as merchants or deities, are stopped at a symbolic gate by two guardian deities. The Tamil actors speak with "a strong Tamil accent and they constantly utter malapropisms, unintended puns, and spoonerisms. In their ignorance they make insulting remarks about the gods at the barrier; they do not know Sinhala and Buddhist customs and the audience has a lot of fun at their expense."[29] Like the Beast in ballet versions of Beauty and the Beast, who dances more eloquently as Beauty accepts him, the Tamil players begin to speak more fluently and accurately and are then accepted by the Sinhalese community by a symbolic opening of the previously barred gate.

Not only does ritual provide a way of reconciling conflict and otherness, but so does myth. Under the section title "The Processes of Incorporation and Inclusion," Tambiah analyzes the story of Pitiye Deviyo, a Chola prince/deity, who is cursed and exiled because he killed a calf. Transformed into a demon, he invades Sri Lanka and defeats Natha, one of the four Buddhist guardian deities. (It is significant to note that the three other guardian deities--Skanda, Visnu, and Saman--appear to have Hindu origins.) Natha's defeat is mythically rationalized by his decision not "to commit sin by waging further war."[30] Natha is promoted to the status of Bodhisattva because of this vow of nonviolemce, and, significantly enough, Pitiye is incorporated a subordinate regional deity. (Here is another excellent example of premodern inclusion, whereas modern Christian missionaries, especially Protestant, would insist on total exclusion of the alien deity.) According to the legend, Pitiye established irrigation systems and rice farming and the locals turn from hunting and raising cattle. Rice farming in Sri Lanka now enjoys high caste status, whereas hunting (the original occupation of the Vaddas) and cattle raising are low caste.

Obeyesekere observes that "'nation' is an alien word that has no parallel in the Sinhala lexicon. It is sasana that takes its place."[31] He translates sasana as "church," but not in the sense of an established church where every citizen must join and foreswear all other beliefs, but more in the sense of an overarching moral community in which people find meaning without losing deeply rooted ties to their villages. This fusion of local and central worship parallels the relation between the authority of the king, who, unlike the modern nation state, allows considerable autonomy in his outlying realm. Stanley Tambiah explains: "The polities modeled on mandala-type patterning had central royal domains surrounded by satellite principalities and provinces replicating the center on a smaller scale and at the margins had even more autonomous tributary principalities."[32] Tambiah gives this type of polity the engaging name "pulsating galactic polities," and he believes that this form of political organization is better at integrating minorities and respecting their autonomy. Ironically, Buddhist nationalists frequently use medieval symbols of Sinhalese political unity that are actually more federalist in meaning than the modernist homogenous unity that they impose on them.[33]

By keeping church and state separate the modern nation state has succeeded thus far in satisfying its minorities, but serious problems are beginning to arise as Muslims in Europe feel alienated in an overwhelmingly secular society. In the United States increasing larger number of Christians are concerned about a society that has lost its values. The homogenizing effects of modern secular culture do indeed appear to be destructive of traditional values. Obeyesekere observes that contemporary Sri Lankan society is also in the midst of a moral crisis with high murder and suicide rates and that fact that there are more liquor shops in the countryside than rural banks. Obeyesekere also reports drinking, meat eating, and financial corruption among the monks and lay supporters. The ancient Buddhist sasana appeared to serve the diverse society of Sri Lanka relatively well until Europeans came with exclusivist notion of church that tore open the fabric of native religious communities.

The Misdirected Trajectory of 19th Century Sri Lankan Buddhism

The neo-Hinduism and neo-Buddhism of the last two centuries can be instructively explained as a form of "affirmative" or "reverse" Orientalism, a response to the negative Orientalism that arose out of the first Western encounters with Indian culture. Negative Orientalism viewed the South Asian people as uncivilized, irrational, superstitious, lazy, cowardly, and effeminate. (The British exempted the Pasthuns and the Gurkhas from this characterization.) While granting the technological advantage of Western culture, Annie Besant and the theosophists promoted affirmative Orientalism, a view that proclaimed the spiritual superiority of South Asian civilization and the nobility of its commitment to the virtues of peace, nonviolence, and compassion. Ironically, Gandhi learned to appreciate the value of his own Indian tradition from his association with theosophists in London. Gandhi joined most Hindus in accepting the theosophical axiom that Buddhism and Jainism were essentially the same as Hinduism. What was lost in this rather superficial universalism was a respect for the autonomy and integrity of Buddhism and Jainism, not to mention the other religions that were fused together in the unscholarly amalgam sometimes called the "perennial philosophy."

On May 17, 1880, theosophists Madam Blavatsky and Colonel Henry Steele Olcott arrived in Sri Lanka and proclaimed that Buddhism was a natural expression of their own spiritual universalism. They quickly established the Colombo Buddhist Theosophical Society one month later on June 17. Col. Olcott stayed on to inspire Sinhalese Buddhists not only to recover, but to substantially redefine, their own tradition, and to respond to what they perceived to be the destructive effects of increasing numbers of Christian missionaries. When the British took over Sri Lanka in 1815, they promised to protect the integrity of Buddhism, but instead they established English medium schools in which Buddhism was portrayed as a superstitious and other worldly religion. Under Olcott's leadership 460 Buddhist schools, including leading colleges such as Ananda, Nalanda, Dharmapala, Dharmaraja, Visakha, and Musaeus College were established. One of the results of this Buddhist Counter Reformation is that there are far fewer Christians in Sri Lanka today than there were in the 19th Century, a fact that contemporary missionaries use to counter the anti-conversion bill.

Col. Olcott's claim that Buddhism was a rational philosophy and not a religion led Sinhalese Buddhists to reformulate their faith in a way that made it more European than Asian. Olcott's Buddhist Catechism, published in 1881, translated into 22 languages and now in its 40th printing, has had a powerful effect on how many Euro-Americans understand Buddhism. More significantly, however, this fully modernist book about Buddhism is still part of the curriculum of Sri Lankan schools.

By the far the most influential Sri Lankan to come out of this historical setting was Anagarika Dharmapala (1864-1933), the founding father of Sinhalese Buddhist nationalism. Born into a petite bourgeois family, Dharmapala went to Christian schools where, early on, he was very sensitive to the negative way in which Buddhism was being portrayed. He changed his name from David to Dharmapala ("Guardian of Dharma"), and in taking on the other honorific Anagarika ("homeless") he, in anticipation of Gandhi, wanted his followers to interpret this as a form of this-worldly renunciation. Even in his asceticism he still preserved the entrepreneurial virtues-"methodism, punctuality, cleanliness, orderliness, time-consciousness," as Seneviratne lists them[34] --that he learned in his family business and subtly made part of his vision of a modernized Buddhism.

Dharmapala worked closely with Olcott and together they made a very successful journey to Japan in 1888. Although Dharmapala had some disagreements with Olcott, he followed him in the Protestant form of Buddhism that we see in his followers today. He founded the Mahabodhi Society in 1891 and initiated campaigns to return Buddha Gaya, the site of the Buddha's Tempation and Enlightenment, to Buddhist hands and to established Buddhist missions throughout the world. In this regard, Dharmapala declared that "with Buddhism Ceylon shall yet become the beacon light of Religion to the World,"[35] echoing similar nationalist sentiments of America as, in Ronald Reagan's words, "a great shining city on a hill," derived from Jesus' proclamation that his followers would be "the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid" (Matthew 5:14). Dharmapala, however, claims precedence for Buddhism as the true beacon of civilizing light, which established a land of righteousness in Sri Lanka long before the birth of Jesus Christ. It was "Semitic barbarism," which includes both Dravidian Tamils and Judeo-Christians, who destroyed this great cultural and religious achievement.[36]

The Buddhist canon does not use arya as a racial term; rather, it is an honorific for all those who embrace the Dharma. Furthermore, as Mahinda Palihawadana has argued, the Buddha believed that racism and nationalism are the result of flawed perception. Like the Body of Christ, there are no distinctions at all within the body of the Buddha. Perceiving a "difference by birth" is, as Palihawadana explains, "a mental propensity (ditthanusaya), something invested with emotional content. The classic example is the idea of me, my self; and, compounded with other conventional views, my clan, my country, my language, my nation, and not least, my creed."[37] Ultra nationalists take their own nama-gotta--name and clan-and mistakenly believe that it is an essential part of their identity.

In 1908 Dharmapala declared that Buddhism was "completely identified with the racial individuality of the people."[38] As Peter Schalk states: "This is probably one of the most conflict creating public statements made in the 20th century. It is also a statement that is detrimental nationally and internationally to the reputation of Buddhism. . . . He stated explicitly that Lanka belongs to the Buddhist Sinhalese and for the Tamils there is South India."[39] It is unfortunate that American evangelical Christian activists unwittingly spread the myth of the Aryan Sinhalese. One of their websites states that the Buddhist portion of the island's population (75 percent) is Sinhala and Aryan, obviously implying that the Sri Lankan Christians, Muslims, and Hindus are not. Incidentally, if there is any historical substance to a North Indian origin of the original immigrants to the island, then one could claim an Aryan origin, but only linguistically, for these people.

It is significant to note that in 1935, two years after Dharmapala's death, three Tamil members of the State Council supported the effort to return Buddha Gaya to Buddhist control, most likely assuming that, in addition to a gesture of goodwill, that they would receive something in return for their own projects. Sadly, the favor was not reciprocated as Buddhists hardened their nationalist prejudices. In 1936, embracing a reverse Orientalism and drawing on an alleged racial superiority of Aryan Buddhists, non-Buddhists were excluded from the Board of Ministers of the Donoughmore Constitution. Later the Citizenship Act of 1948 withdrew citizenship from the estate Tamils (not restored until the 1980s), and finally in 1956 English and Tamil were suppressed in favor of Sinhalese as the only official language. This made it very difficult for most Tamils to read and fill out government documents and to communicate their grievances. The supreme irony is that multilingualism was one of cultural ideals of medieval Sinhalese society, where the mastery of six languages was considered to be the educated norm.

The most striking evidence of reverse Orientalism in Dharmapala's thought is his attempt, one initiated earlier on behalf of Hinduism by the Brahmo Samaj in Calcutta, to show that Buddhism is fully compatible with European science and rationalism. In his History of an Ancient Civilization, Dharmapala claims that "higher Buddhism is pure science. It has no place for theology. . . . It is the religion of absolute freedom, which is to be gained avoiding all evil, doing all good, and purifying the heart. . . . It is the friend of enlightened progress, and preaches the sublimest truths of meritorious activity."[40] In his journal Dharmapala wrote a weekly column entitled "Facts That You Should Know," a modernist title that would have sounded quite alien to a medieval Buddhist. It is true that the Buddha's method can be called "empiricist," and there are constructive parallels that can be drawn to David Hume, and even better comparisons to William James, but these insights should be used to erase the negatives of European Orientalism, not to propose an equally destructive Asian exceptionalism.

Dharmapala learned much from his sojourn in Calcutta. Both he and the Indian nationalists rejected the sacred power of images, myth, ritual, and priestly mediation. Both were enamored by modernist concepts of individual reason, progress, and the importance of social activism. Both believed in a Protestant-like priesthood of all believers and that spiritual liberation would be both personal and social. Dharmapala may not have known that the Ramakrishna mission was modeled directly on the Buddhist Sangha, but its social activism derived much more, as Seneviratne maintains,[41] from Christianity than any South Asian tradition. (Similarly, ahimsa is an Indian concept, but it is clear that Gandhi's social and political use of it was due to his reading of Socrates, Thoreau, Tolstoy, and Ruskin.) Walpola Rahula's thesis that the Buddha meant his disciples to be the like the social workers of the modern welfare state has been roundly criticized as anachronistic and yet another form of reverse Orientalism.

It is significant, nevertheless, that the immediate followers of the Hindu nationalist Dayananda and the Buddhist Dharmapala went into social service not politics. Indeed, one could say early signs indicated that Hindu and Buddhist nationalism would be progressive and constructive. The darker aspects of Dharmapala's religious nationalism did not come to the fore until 1956. A first generation disciple Kalukondayave (1895-1977) did not believe that monks should be involved in party politics. Working closely with Tamil and Muslim officials, he saw himself primarily as a social worker and teacher of morality.[42] Hendiyagala Silaratna (1913-1982), another Dharmapalite monk, learned Tamil and wrote a booklet praising the Tamils for preserving their culture against European advances.[43] In comparison he thought that his own culture was far more decadent; he especially commended Tamil women for their modest dress.

Seneviratne describes the early Dharmapalite monks as "overlooking cultural and ideological differences among the lay leadership, astutely addressing their commonness rather than their differences. . . . ," and he also praises next generation of monks in the Vidyodaya monastery for their "healthy and realistic attitude towards western influences which [they] were able to creatively generate, as they bravely resisted the ethno-religious exclusivist impulse that constituted one half their progenitor Dharmapala's philosophy and activist project."[44]

Buddhist nationalism has been more successful in Sri Lanka for several reasons. Compared to India, religious authority is much more centralized and unified in Sinhalese Buddhism. In the Dharmapalite vision Buddhist monks, in the absence of Sinhalese royalty, were to do the "work of kings," the title of Seneviratne's thorough study of Dharmapala's legacy. A much higher literacy rate has allowed for an effective spread of Buddhist Protestantism through print media and the radio. A Dharmapalite monk Hinatiyana Dhammaloka (1900-81) sometimes did ten sermons a week and was considered to be the best Buddhist preacher in Sri Lanka.[45] Copying the Christian model, Dharmapala proposed that long rituals be replaced by short sermons that focused on morality and social action.

On February 13, 1946, the faculty at the Vidyalankara monastery approved without dissent a resolution declaring that monks should become politically active. There was strong reaction from the press and the government; some critics said it was a Communist plot and some proposed that political monks be disrobed or even imprisoned. The monks at Vidyodaya published their protest in a journal founded by Dharmapala. They also criticized the dissident monks on doctrinal grounds, alleging that they rejected the Buddha's omniscience and the theory of karma and rebirth.

The Vidhyalankara monks moved the Dharmapalite revolution from nonsectarian social action in the villages to a political ideology that fused language, religion, and state. In their 1946 resolution they stated: "We hope from this campaign to make Sri Lanka a dharmadvipa ("light of dharma"), to enrich Buddhism, and to make people free of suffering and disease and make them whole; and to make monks a category of people who do not simply exist [doing nothing] but who work selflessly for the good of the religion and its adherents."[46] The original intention was that this was to be accomplished outside of party affiliation. But already in April, 1946, the radical monks had formed the Lanka Eksat Bhiksu Mandalaya, the United Bhikku Organization of Sri Lanka. The seeds of a highly politicized Sinhalese Buddhism were now sown. As Seneviratne states: "By the mid 1950s [it] turned into a hegemonic Sinhala Buddhist chauvinism."[47]

Before concluding this section, some historical balance is now in order to counter the previous focus on Buddhist nationalism. In the British constitutional reforms of 1911, the Tamils, with only 10 percent of population, were given 42 percent of the representation. In a move to protect their position, high caste Tamils, previously favored by the British, did object to a more equitable formula in the first Donoughmore proposals in 1927. These high caste Tamils, distinct from the more recent tea estate Tamils, thought the Sinhalese were a "uncivilized and backward community," and their spokesman Sir Ponnambalam Ramanathan stated: "Although we may be small in numbers, in terms of caste, official power etc., we are the most powerful community in Sri Lanka. Both the Sinhalese and the Muslims have accepted this. Therefore, when the British leave, it is the Tamils who should rightfully inherit political power."[48]

In 1947 Sinhalese representation was capped at 55 percent. It is Athureliye Rathana's contention that the Tamils did not begin proposing a separate state until after they realized that they were not going to achieve majority power in the legislature.[49] The Tamil State Party was indeed established in 1949, almost a decade before the riots began, but moderate Tamils still prevailed until the Tamil Tigers came to prominence in the late 1970s. The adoption of the 1972 Constitution that strengthened the Buddhist Sinhalese majority was an event that radicalized many Tamils. Unfortunately, Tamil moderates did not fare very well among the militants and many were executed on the orders of Tamil Tiger leaders.

Constructive Postmodernism: Integrating the Modern and Premodern

In these concluding remarks I would first like to draw a comparison to similar developments in America, and also offer constructive postmodernism as a possible solution. Among the many Christian nationalists, George Grant stands out as one of the more extreme. Here is one of his clearest pronouncements: "Christian politics has as its primary intent the conquest of the land--of men, families, institutions, bureaucracies, courts, and governments for the Kingdom of Christ. It is to reinstitute the authority of God's Word as supreme over all judgments, over all legislation, over all declarations, constitutions, and confederations."[50] Grant's "dominion theology" is heavily influenced by Rousas J. Rushdoony whose movement is also called Christian Reconstruction, one that requires Christians to "reconstruct all things in conformity to God's order, not in terms of man's desire for peace."[51] This passage is from his Institutes of Biblical Law in which he proposes that all the Old Testament laws be enforced, including capital punishment for apostasy and homosexuality.

There is an ethnic form of Christian nationalism in the current neo-Confederate movement in the American South. In my own college town a booklet entitled Southern Slavery As It Was appeared in 1996. The authors, one a local Calvinist pastor and the other a founding director of the League of the South, blame abolitionists and particularly Unitarians for the Civil War. They also argue that Southern Christians had biblical sanction to own slaves as long as they treated them humanely. The authors declare that "there has never been a multi-racial society which has existed with such mutual intimacy and harmony in the history of the world."[52] The League of the South proposes that 15 Southern State should form a new Confederacy based on Celtic Calvinism and biblical law. Attempts by these thinkers to trace their Southern heritage to Scotland is just as muddled as Sri Lankan Buddhists claiming pure Aryan ancestors.[53] The neo-Confederate wish to make the Southern States a refuge for true Christianity in the same way that Buddhism desire to make Sri Lanka the Island of the Dharma.

A major difference between Buddhist and Christian nationalists is that former have, as we have seen, a modern worldview whereas the latter generally have a premodern worldview. Christian nationalists join Islamic fundamentalists in rejecting nearly all aspects of modernism-liberal democracy, the use of reason, and equal rights for all. (Interestingly enough, even though the theosophists supported modern reform in Hinduism and Buddhism, their spiritual universalism was philosophical premodern.) One would never hear of a Christian or Muslim fundamentalist disputing the truth of their scriptures, but Buddhist nationalist Dhammavihari ridicules the Mahavamsa for its historical distortions.[54] Unwittingly following Thomas Jefferson's example of reducing scripture to a modernist core, the Hindu Dayananda and the Buddhist Dharmapala wanted to rid their scriptures of ritual, antiquated laws, and incoherent dogma. (Note that Christian and Muslim fundamentalists want these laws restored.) In an exact parallel with the "Jeffersonian Bible," Dharmapala, as Seneviratne explains, "expressed the need to sift 'the pure teachings of the gentle Nazarene' from 'later theological accretions.'"[55] In light of the recent attacks on Christians, it is certainly an irony that Dharmapala urged Sri Lankan Christians to modernize their religion along similar lines and integrate fully within Sinhalese society.

Some of the greatest achievements of modernism have been protecting religious freedom and insulating the state from intrusions of religious factions. Religious fundamentalists around the world appear committed to undermine these safeguards. The anti-conversion bills in Sri Lanka and India have already been mentioned, but as early as 1956 the Sri Lankan Freedom Party (SLFP) proposed a Buddhist Department to recover and to enrich the island's Buddhist heritage. In the election of 1956 3-4,000 monks went door to door campaigning for the SLFP. The United National Party (UNP), which was defeated, was portrayed as anti-Buddhist, just as the Democrats were branded as anti-Christian in the 2004 U.S. election. Within two years time Sri Lanka erupted in violence. In 1958 some Tamils attempted a Gandhian satyagraha, but they were met with violence rather than dialogue. In the East 10,000 Tamils were fired on by police, over 100 Tamils were killed by Sinhalese goons in the Gal Oya Valley.

Recognizing the relative success of premodern peoples to integrate otherness and reconcile differences, constructive postmodernists wish to reestablish the premodern harmony of humans, society, and the sacred without losing the integrity of the individual, the possibility of meaning, the intrinsic value of nature, and the great achievements of liberal democracy. They believe that French deconstructionists are throwing out the proverbial baby with the bath water. The latter wish to reject not only the modern worldview but any worldview whatsoever. Constructive postmodernists want to preserve the concept of worldview and propose to reconstruct one that avoids the liabilities of both premodernism and modernism. If one reads carefully the works of classical liberals such John Locke, Adam Smith, Immanuel Kant, and J. S. Mill, one will find that they did not intend the state to be morally neutral in the sense of contemporary procedural liberalism.

We need to rethink the relationship between religion and politics. Both Gandhi and King brought their religious beliefs into their political activism, and yet it is usually only the fundamentalists that liberals criticize for doing this. Anti-abortionist are entirely correct that they have just as much right to perform acts of civil disobedience at abortion clinics as Gandhi did at the British salt works or King did at the whites-only lunch counters. The reason why Gandhi and King were not widely criticized for injecting religion into politics is because their message was always religiously and culturally inclusive. Fundamentalists usually divide and exclude, and we must trust ourselves and our democratic institutions to moderate such views or ban the worst as unconstitutional.

In other work I have proposed a reformed liberalism based on the works of Franklin I. Gamwell, Stephen Macedo, the later John Rawls, and William Galston.[56] This political theory is most compatible with constructive postmodernism and would have the following advantages: (1) it would insist on a logic of polarity rather dichotomy; (2) it would promote tolerant inclusion versus intolerant exclusion; (3) it would balance repetition and ritual modernist linear progression and always making a fetish of the new with repetition and meaningful ritual; and (4) it would complement the procedural bureaucratic state with a moral community of strong civic virtues. One can preserve religious liberty and prevent the dominance of one religion while at the same time maintaining the civic virtues necessary for a society in which all of its citizens can flourish according to the dictates of their own cultural and religious preferences.

NOTES

[1] Cited in H. L. Seneviratne, The Work of Kings: The New Buddhism in Sri Lanka (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999), p. vii.

[2] On April 10, 2002 the Tamil leader Veluppillai Pirapaharan stated that "the Tamil homeland belonged [also] to the Muslim people and we believe that there is no dispute that Muslims have a right to own land. At this interview the LTTE stopped short of inviting Muslims ejected from the north to come back, stating only that such an invitation would be extended in the future when the conditions are right" (quoted in R. A. L. H. Gunawardana, "Roots of the Ethnic Conflict in Sri Lanka," The Journal of Buddhist Ethics 10 [2003], p. 34). Pagination from this issue is from a Microsoft Word file in Times New Roman downloaded (with all boxes removed) from the internet text. This issue of the journal contains the papers presented at "Buddhism and Conflict in Sri Lanka. An International Conference" at Bath Spa University College, June 28-30, 2002.

[3] Translated by Seneviratne, The Work of Kings, pp. 274, 272. I have replaced "scaffold" with "scabbard" in the first line.

[4] Ibid., p. 105.

[5] Peter Schalk, "Relativising Sinhalatva and Semantic Transformations of The Dhammadipa," Journal of Buddhist Ethics 10 (2003), pp. 114-31. The term "Sinhalatva" was first used in 2001 by Nalin de Silva, a retired physics professor and fervent Sinhalese nationalist. Schalk's main task in this paper is to demonstrate that claim that dhammadipa means "island of the dhamma" is a nationalist invention started by Angarika Dharmapala. The word is used only once in the Mahavamsa (1.84), but here it means something like Sri Lanka will become the "light" of dhamma, which is connected with an earlier reference (1.20) where the Buddha proclaimed that on this island the sasana (Buddhist teachings) would shine.

[6] Bhikkhu Dhammavihari (Jotiya Dhirasekera), "Recording, Translating and Interpreting Sri Lankan Chronicle Data," Journal of Buddhist Ethics 10 (2003), pp. 13, 17.

[7] Robert Bellah, "Religious Evolution" in W. A. Lessa and E. Z. Vogt, eds., Reader in Comparative Religion (New York: Harper & Row, 2nd ed., 1965), p. 82. My premodern category includes Bellah's "primitive" and "archaic," and I include his "historic," "early modern," and "modern" in my "modern" category.

[8] See N. F. Gier, Spiritual Titanism: Indian, Chinese, and Western Perspectives (Albany, NY: SUNY Press, 2000), chap. 2.

[9] V. Perniola, The Catholic Church in Sri Lanka: The Dutch Period (Dehiwala: Tisara Prakasakayo, 1983), p. xxiv; cited in John D. Rogers, "Post-Orientalism and the Interpretation of Premodern and Modern Political Identities: The Case of Sri Lanka," The Journal of Asian Studies 53:1 (February, 1994), p. 14.

[10] See Athureliye Rathana, "Buddhist Analysis of the Ethnic Conflict," Journal of Buddhist Ethics 10(2003), pp. 96-100.

[11] D. Amarasiri Weeraratne, "Devolution Package and the Maha Sangha," The Observer (March 17, 1996), reprinted in The Work of Kings, pp. 331-32.

[12] The Mahavamsa: The Great Chronicle of Lanka from the 6th Century BC to 4th Century AD, trans. Wilhelm Geiger. Internet translation found at http://lakdiva.org/mahavamsa/chapters.html and downloaded as a Microsoft Word file and pagination in New Times Roman, p. 27.

[13] Ganath Obeyesekere, "Buddhism, Ethnicity, and Identity: A Problem of Buddhist History," Journal of Buddhist Ethics 10 (2003), p. 46.

[14] Dhammavihari, p. 10.

[15] Obeyesekere, p. 54.

[16] Dhammavihari, p. 21.

[17] The Mahavamsa, chapter 6, pp. 27-28.

[18] Obeyesekere, p. 61 endnote 10.

[19] Ibid., p. 47.

[20] Ibid., p. 48.

[21] See Obeyesekere, p. 18.

[22] Walpola Rahula, The History of Buddhism in Ceylon (1956), p. 79.

[23] Stanley Jeraraja Tambiah, Buddhism Betrayed? Religion, Politics, and Violence in Sri Lanka (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992), pp. 144-45.

[24] See Obeyesekere's The Cult of the Goddess Pattini (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1984). Seneviratne praises Obeyesekere's work "as particularly timely today when the extremists of both the Sinhala and Tamil ethnic groups are trying to separate the two groups. The Pattini rituals constitute one more demonstration of the cultural affinity between the Sinhala and Tamil peoples and of their synthesizing genius as opposed to the separating frenzies of demagogues of both groups" (The Work of Kings, p. 334fn.).

[25] R. A. L. H. Gunawardena, "The People of the Lion," quoted in Tambiah, p. 168.

[26] John C. Holt, The Religious World of Kirti Sri: Buddhism, Art, and Politics in Late Medieval Sri Lanka (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. vi.

[27] Ibid., pp. 41, 46.

[28] Obeyesekere, "Buddhism, Ethnicity, and Identity," p. 48.

[29] Ibid., p. 57.

[30] Tambiah, p. 150.

[31] Obeyesekere, "Buddhism, Ethnicity, and Identity," p. 49.

[32] Tambiah, p. 175. In a National Public Radio report (May, 2005) about failed attempts by the Vietnamese government to stop the spread of bird flu, a commentator cited an ancient saying: "The rule of the king stops at the village gate."

[33] See Seneviratne, The Work of Kings, seventh plate between pp. 188-189.

[34] Seneviratne, p. 29; name changing reference on p. 27.

[35] Anagarika Dharmapala, Return to Righteousness: A Collection of Speeches, Essays and Letters of the Anagarika Dharmapala, ed.,Ananda Guruge (Colombo: Government Press, 1965), p. 512.

[36] Anagarika Dharmapala, "The Unknown Co-founders of Buddhism,"The Maha Bodhi 36 (1928), p. 70; cited in Shalk, op. cit., p. 123.

[37] Mahinda Palihawadana, "Theravada Perspective[s] on Causation and Resolution of Conflicts," Journal of Buddhist Ethics 10 (2003), p. 69.

[38] Dharmapala, Return to Righteousness,p. 489.

[39] Schalk, p. 124.

[40] Dharmapala, History of Ancient Civilization, excerpted in Return to Righteousness, pp. 658-59.

[41] Seneviratne, The Work of Kings, p. 137fn.

[42] Ibid., p. 71.

[43] Ibid., p. 106fn.

[44] Ibid., p. 104.

[45] Ibid., p. 87.

[46] Ibid., p. 140.

[47] Ibid., p.131.

[48] Cited in Rathana, p. 96.

[49] Rathana, p. 96.

[50] George Grant. The Changing of the Guard (Ft. Worth, TX: Dominion Press, 1987), pp. 50-51.

[51] Rousas J. Rushdoony, Institutes of Biblical Law

[52] Douglas Wilson and Steven J. Wilkins, Southern Slavery As It Was (Moscow, ID: Canon Press, 1996), p. 24. The booklet was withdrawn from publication after it was discovered that at least 20 percent of it had been plagiarized. For a detailed account see www.tomandrodna.com/notonthe palouse.

[53] Edward H. Sebesta, "The Confederate Memorial Tartan: Officially Approved by the Scottish Tartan Authority," Scottish Affairs 31 (Spring, 2000), pp. 55-84.

[54] Bhikkhu Dhammavihari, "Recording, Translating and Interpreting Sri Lankan Chronicle Data," Journal of Buddhist Ethics 10 (2003), pp. 9-22.

[55] Seneviratne, The Work of Kings, p. 24 fn. 3.

[56] See N. F. Gier, "Non-Violence as a Civic Virtue: Gandhi as a Reformed Liberal," International Journal of Hindu Studies (December, 2005).

[8/28/05] Closet Unitarians of the Nineteenth Century

2005-08-28T12:21:00.000-07:00

By Judy b. LaLonde

Good morning everyone. Here we are! A new church year--second Sunday! And here at the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Palouse, it's traditional to take the first few Sundays to remind ourselves what Unitarian Universalism is all about? To reflect on why we choose to make a connection with this church. To think about what we get and what we can give.

Many of you, I'm sure, listen to NPR. You probably are familiar with the yearly (or is it twice yearly) joke session on Prairie Home Companion. It ALWAYS includes a section of UU jokes. For example:

What do you get if you cross a Seventh-Day Adventist and a Unitarian? Someone who knocks on your door and has no idea why.

"The Simpsons" regularly satarize Unitarians. In one episode, Lisa buys a cone of "Unitarian flavored" ice cream. "But it doesn't taste like anything," she complains. "Exactly," replies Pastor Lovejoy, righteously.

I'm a fan of the HBO series Six Feet Under, and recently watched an old episode which two youngish couples were relaxing in the evening over a campfire and had this exchange:

"UU stands for Unitarian Universalist. But it's about as not religious as a religion can get."

"That's nice--not a place that preaches but a place where we could be with other people like us."

"Right--no big God thing. No crosses or dripping blood or shit, exactly. Just people gettin' together."

"How often does Jesus come up?"

"Not oftenâ€”-pretty rarely. But when he does, they always remind us that he was black."

"Right, as opposed to the Brad Pitt Jesus America tries to sell us."

Protesting: "Jesus wasn't black."

"Yes he was; everyone was black."

So much at least for some of the public perceptions of Unitarian Universalism. Last year, there was an opportunity for members of the church to develop their own "elevator speeches"â€”-what would you say if, in a short elevator ride, a stranger asked you to explain your religion?

Anyway, I was invited to speak because, in my early days here at UUCP, I once acted the part of Transcendentalist Thomas Wentworth Higginson, beard and all. Certain folks, like (past minister) Joan Montagnes, knew I was enthusiastic about the 19th century . In fact, I moved here from Pennsylvania (a semi-practicing Catholic at the time) to work on a PhD at WSU in early 19th century LITERATURE.

Let that be my first disclaimer today! I did not study theology or philosophy or history.

But I delved rather deeply into the writers of the periodâ€”-and of course, the writing of any period is reflective of the period's history, culture and beliefs. My dissertation at first was going to be an edition of Margaret Fuller's poemsâ€”-with the appropriate academic criticism, etc. surrounding it. Three months before my oral defense, an edition of her poetry was published!

So, I moved on to Thomas Wentworth Higginson. Only those who have spent some time around me will probably be familiar with himâ€”-he wrote no "great" works of literature, but he was Emily Dickinson's mentor. He mentored other female authorsâ€”-at least one of which some of you closer to my age might rememberâ€”-Helen Hunt Jackson. I know Ramona was often required reading in high schools. He also held special classes for female workers in the factories in Lowell, Massachusetts, teaching them about Shakespeare and other literature.

He lived into the 20th century and besides being a strong abolitionist and supporter of women's rights, was involved in the early labor movement.

But anyone who studies early 19th century literature gets to be on speaking terms with Thoreau and Emerson, Melville and Hawthorne. And through them, the Transcendental Movement.

Ok, my second disclaimer of the day. When Roger Wallins (Sunday Service Chairperson) and I named this talk, I fully intended to talk about the Transcendentalists who were "closet" Unitarians. However, preparing to talk today, I re-approached the material and came to realize that the Transcendentalists were NOT closet Unitariansâ€”-most of them WERE Unitarians.

At the UI library a couple of weekends ago, I opened a reference bookâ€”a biographical dictionary of Transcendentalism. There were pages and pages of biographies of men who were Unitarian ministersâ€”-at least to start. So disclaimer two. Most of those of whom I'll talk today were at least initially Unitarian, not closet Unitarians.

BUT!! And here's the keyâ€”-the Unitarianism of the late 18th and early 19th century is not the Unitarian-Universalism of the 21st century. I believe that the transcendentalist movement, however, had a great influence on what UUs are today.

So, I hope you will be interested in hearing about some of these great thinkers, these seekers of truth, and their ideas.

Most of theTranscendentalists lived in New England, in the area surrounding Boston, or visited there often. They were admired; they were hated. They were labeled heretics, mystic fools; unbelievers; infidels, atheists, radicals. Some writers of the period (including Melville and Hawthorne) satirized the movement.

Someone wrote about Transcendentalism: "Nobody knew what is was, but it was dreamy, mystical, crazy, and infideletrous to religion." However, Charles Dickens, after visiting America, wrote, "if I were a Bostonian, I think I would be a Transcendentalist."

In The Bostonians, Henry James described the movement as "the age of plain living and high thinking, of pure ideals and earnest effort, of moral passion and noble experiment."

Joel Meyerson, a contemporary critic, writes in the "Introduction" to his Transcendental Reader that "the longer one studies Transcendentalism, the more one realizes that the looser the definition, the more appropriate it is."

The Transcendentalist did not name themselves. James Freeman Clark, a Unitarian Minister and member of the Transcendental Club, a lightly organized discussion group in which many of the Transcendentalists belonged, called the group "the club of the like-minded" because "no two of us thought alike."

Doesn't that sound like us? There was no transcendentalist creed.

One of the differences among themselves was a chicken-egg type problemâ€”-what comes first? What comes first: good laws or good individuals? Many, (Emerson, Thoreau, Fuller) believed that it was necessary to reform the individual to have good laws. Others, such as George Ripley, founder of Brooke Farm, and Bronson Alcott, founder of Fruitland, (two experiments in Utopian communities) believed that if you reformed society, individuals will see that better world and strive to become part of it.

The Transcendentalists were essentially syncretic; they borrowed whatever they needed from a variety of sourcesâ€”-from German Romanticists like Goethe, from Plato, from the Quakers, from various Eastern religions, from Kant, Carlyle, Wordsworth, Coleridge. And they admired the new biblical criticism from Germany and elsewhere.

They took what they felt was appropriate to their developing beliefs and forged them together in a uniquely American way, emphasizing the importance of the common man and the responsibility of the individual.

Philosophically, they were united in their belief that truth could be perceived instinctually, not sensually (Kant vs. Locke). They were pantheistic in that they thought that the visible world was a manifestation of an ideal spiritual reality and that the goal of the individual was to realize this reality-- a key theme was the attempt of the individual to have a greater awareness of spiritual presence. This perception of the ideal was what they were most often criticized for. But as practitioners, they sought spiritual truths in the inspiration they received from the world around them.

Transcendentalism was a blend of Christianity and rationalism--a dual faith in rational judgment and the moral sense; religion was a PROCESS of character building and self-culture.

Transcendentalism was liberating, inspiring political reform and a belief in the innate divinity of the individualâ€”-championing man over God. [Emerson: "We can become God if we follow our highest instincts."]

Transcendentalism was a reaction against science and materialism, against corrupt tradition, against a perceived lack of religion of the spirit

As I previously admitted, a great many of the people identified as Transcendentalists were involved with Unitarianism, and many of them as ministers. But they felt that Unitarianism had not lived up to its pledge to remove the limiting structure of Puritanism.

William Ellery Channing was the spiritual and intellectual leader of the Unitarian movement, which had split from the Puritan Congregationalist Church. As we know, the Unitarians rejected the trinity, embraced Arminianism, and rejected Calvinism. In its early years, Unitarianism was an honest attempt to meld the church with contemporary life. Unitarian Christianity was considered to have a liberal, rational, outlook on religious matters.

There WAS an enormous difference between the predestined universe of the Puritans, in which man was corrupted by original sin, lived in a hostile and unknowable world, and whose potential salvation had been determined by chance before birth.

The Unitarians of the late 18th and early 19th century believed in an ordered universe in which one could advance through good works while living in a benevolent environment. The quality of the life one lived would be taken into consideration on judgment day.

Still, once the Unitarians gained the upper hand, they seemed to retreat from their earlier promise that humankind possessed divine attributes. The result, according to the Transcendentalists, was a remote, orthodox, arid churchâ€”-"corpse-cold," according to Emerson.

[Channing did have an influence on transcendental thought. He spoke of the process of conversion and preached that the process of spiritual development was never complete.]

In retrospect, Henry Adams in 1907 described the intellectual and religious surroundings of the time:

"Nothing quieted doubt so completely as the mental calm of the Unitarian clergy. In uniform excellence of life and character, moral and intellectual, the score of Unitarian clergymen about Boston, who controlled society and Harvard College, were never excelled . . . For them, difficulties might be ignored; doubts were a waste of thought; nothing exacted solution. Boston had solved the universe; or had offered and realized the best solution yet tried. The problem was worked out."

So, these "new thinkers," theTranscendentalists, were frustrated when they realized that not-yet asked questions were going to be met with already-prepared answers.

There was a desire to overturn what they perceived as strongholds of spiritual usurpation, of "human" creeds, of servile acceptance--to give way to honest and devout inquiry into the scriptures. They favored tolerance over partiality; liberalism over orthodoxy, rationalisms over revelation; the strict humanity of Christ over the divinity of Christ.

Jesus, they believed, was a divine presence who provided an example through his quest for perfection and commitment to mankind. He was not the Calvinist vision of the divine person who gained atonement for man through a blood sacrifice.

Instead of accepting the authority of the scriptures as final, they recognized that humans in different times and different styles wrote the scriptures. The scriptures contained examples rather than detailed, accurate histories.

A major source of controversy between the conservative Unitarians and the new thinkers was miracles. Conservative Unitarians held that the miracles of the New Testament had actually occurred. The miracles were supernatural, fundamental to Christian religionâ€”-to deny them would be to deny the existence of God.

Liberals believed that miracles separated humankind from God. To support their ideas, they used comparative religion--showing how many themes and examples (such as a world-cleaning flood) were shared by the sacred texts of many cultures. Christianity, they said, doesn't need miracles to prove itself. It stands on its own meritsâ€”-the permanent teachings of Jesus were--are self-evidently trueâ€”-they don't depend upon Jesus' authority.

In a sense, the Transcendentalists were merely extending to an obvious conclusion the line of liberal theology that had been started by the Unitarians. They generally replaced an anthropomorphic God with a nonanthropomorphic force or spirit that was present in all things and that could be learned about by studying not just God, but people and nature as well. They removed the preacher as the necessary mediator for religious knowledge.

They opposed what they saw as an empirical and materialistic world in preference to one that was intuitive, moral and idealistic. This desire to bring about a different manner of viewing the world led to the involvement of many Transcendentalists in the great social reforms of the day. They were involved in educational and prison reform, the elevation of women; they were against capital punishment, slavery, and war and were troubled by the mistreatment of Native Americans.

And so, just let me take a few more minutes to introduce you to some of these "heretics"! I chose these few not only because they interest me and because I knew the most about them, but because they illustrate the variety of ways that transcendental beliefs became manifest.

Margaret Fuller I came to admire greatly. One of the things for which she is known is the Conversations. She gathered women together in Elizabeth Peabody's bookstore, to discuss questions of life. She encouraged women to think for themselves, to be independent. As the first editor of the Dial, the first all American journal, which was one of the outlets for the literary efforts of the Transcendentalist (the Atlantic Monthly was another), she wrote a piece called "The Great Lawsuit: Man versus Men, Woman versus Women," a manifesto calling for equality of the sexes. The essay was lengthened three years later to become her book Women in the Nineteenth Century: "There is no wholly masculine man, no purely feminine woman."

She took a summer tour of the Great Lakes region with friends, after which she wrote "Summer on the Lakes," in which she describes the degradation of the native Indians buy missionaries and settlers.

To Harriet Martineau, Fuller was too "intellectual." Martineau, an English writer and Quaker, was an active abolitionist who brought her "mission" to America.

(Andrews Norton, the Unitarian apologist, characterized Martineau as a "foolish woman" seeking notoriety and excitement).

But like some others of the time, Martineau was frustrated by the lack of ACTION by some Transcendentalists. She criticized Fuller's Conversations for spending too much time on Goethe and the planets and not abolition. After Fuller's death, Martineau "forgave" Fullerâ€”-citing Fuller's involvement in the Italian Revolution as her movement forward into reality.

But many Transcendentalists were leery of organized activity. They trusted more in the individual than complex social organizations. Many were criticized for not speaking out publicly against the evils of the day.

Emerson was one of the earliest of the Transcendentalists to actively express sympathy for the anti-slavery movement. He housed Martineau when she was attacked by a Boston mob and was a supporter of John Brown. Emerson's opposition to slavery, however, was never actively aggressive, like that of some others such as Thomas Wentworth Higginson and Theodore Parker, who might be considered second generation transcendentalists.

Higginson was a believer in nonsectarianisn. He was a strong abolitionist; had served as colonel of a black regiment in the Civil War. He was a champion of women's rights. He also felt there was a conflict between contemplation and action. He questioned the value of a spiritual life divorced from social responsibility.

Along with other Transcendentalist, he spoke out against the Fugitive Slave Law. While running as a Free Soil candidate for Congress, he insisted that those who were required to aid the enforcement of the law should DISOBEY ITâ€”-good citizenship by taking the legal consequences (like not paying a poll tax and going to jail, like Thoreau and Bronson Alcott had).

But Higginson, James Freeman Clarke, Theodore Parker, Bronson Alcott and others, took the law into their own hands at least once. Higginson led an attack on the Boston Courthouse. [A real attack! They stormed the door with a huge tree trunk/battering ram] A deputy was killed as Higginson and his followers sought to free a fugitive slave named Anthony Burns. It was an unsuccessful attempt. Higginson and three others were indicted, but because of technicalities, never came to trial.

Higginson and Parker were also members of "The Six," the secret group that raised money for John Brown, another man who claimed to be acting in accordance with the higher law.

Parker, like Higginson, was a popular agitator for women's rights. He was also a political theorist. He defined democracy as "a government of all the people, by all the people, for all the people"â€”-words that supposedly inspired Abraham Lincoln.

When Bronson Alcott worked as a peddler in North Carolina, he absorbed many Quaker doctrines, especially the doctrine of the "inner light." After returning home, he served as a progressive schoolmaster in Connecticut and drew the attention of Unitarian Minister Samuel May who was another educational reformer.

Having moved away from the Calvinism in which he was reared, he was attracted to May's Unitarian Faith and probably just as much to Abigail, his daughter. The twoâ€”-Bronson and Abigailâ€”-are, of course, Louisa May Alcott's parents.

Bronson however, grew away from the Unitarian church, finding it "too doctrinal, too little of practical thought." He found the preaching "too much an affair of another lifeâ€”teaching men how to die rather than how to live."

Alcott is known for his Temple School. The Transcendentalists did not like the educational system of the period. Teaching was characterized by rote memorizationâ€”-a successful student was one who could best memorize the material. Original, creative and synthetic teaching was less important than imitation and repetition. Besides that, most schools were drab, poorly lit, and unventilated.

Educational reformers like Alcott and Elizabeth Peabody, the sister-in-law of Nathaniel Hawthorne, replaced these classrooms with teaching areas that were well-lighted, had open windows, and contained comfortable seats. They surrounded the students with books and works of art. They used a Socratic question-and-answer technique and had the students keep journals. Education, as they saw it, was a drawing outâ€”-not an imposition of knowledge. The teacher's role was to bring out the abilities of the students.

Alcott's unusual methods, his frank discussions for the times on sexuality and religion, and finally the publication of his Conversations with Children on the Gospel brought about the ire of the Bostonians and the failure of the school. Another of Alcott's educational schools also failed--when he refused to deny entrance to a black student, other parents withdrew their children.

Abigail Alcott was an abolitionist, women's rights activist and pioneer social worker in her own right.

Peabody went on to become one of the founders of the kindergarten in America.

Caroline Dahl, another female Transcendentalist, was the wife of a Unitarian minister, who sadly abandoned her and their children to spend 11 years in Calcutta. She was active abolitionist, a leader in the woman's movement, and active in social reform of prisons, public health and education. A friend of Theodore Parker, she was one of the women who attended Margaret Fuller's Conversations.

So much for the Transcendentalists. You might be wondering: what were the Universalists doing during this period?

Throughout the 19th century, despite many similarities and shared interests, the Universalists and Unitarians kept their distance from each other. It was said that the Universalists thought the Unitarians "were insufficiently Christian," and the Unitarians thought the Universalists "made light of sin." There was another old joke about the difference: the Universalists believe God is too good to damn Mankind, while the Unitarians believe Mankind is too good to be damned. There were also differences in class feeling. The Unitarians were disliked for being associated with high-mindedness, lots of old money, and the superior air of the Boston Brahmin. The Universalists were looked down on for being raggedy, middle class at best, and anti-establishment.

But, what about transcendentalism is relevant today?

Well, some of their ideas led to the elective system of educationâ€”-started at Harvard---the setting aside of natural areas, national parks, concerns of environmentalists about green space.

What I believe is most relevant is their dissatisfaction with the world the way it was. Just as Transcendentalists asked those in the 19th century to revaluate their lives, I believe that Unitarian Universalism asks us to continue to reevaluate our livesâ€”-to ask the same questions: are we happy with American culture as it is today? What can be done to improve it?

That's why I chose those three particular UU principles for the back of today's Order of Service. I believe those principles grew in part from the influence of the Transcendentalists.

In closing, let me use words of Christopher Cranch, 'We must be honest seekers; who look, hope, and labor for something better than now is; who believe in progress; who trust in future improvement and are willing to spend and be spent in bringing forward that better time.'

[2/20/05] Brother Pain

2005-02-20T08:12:00.000-08:00
by Dan Schmidt
February 20, 2005

Opening words

It is mere nonsense to put pain among the discoveries of science. Lay down this book and reflect for five minutes on the fact that all the great religions were first preached, and long practiced, in the world without chloroform. -- C.S. Lewis , The Problem of Pain

Autobiography in Five Chapters

-- Nyoshul Khenpo

1) I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I fall in.
I am lost...I am hopeless.
It isn't my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.

2) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don't see it.
I fall in again.
I can't believe I'm in the same place.
But it isn't my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
3) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I see it is there.
I still fall in . . . it's a habit
My eyes are open
I know where I am
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
4) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk
I walk around it.
5) I walk down another street.

Sermon

First, I want to acknowledge the generous welcoming nature of this church community. You let me, a parishioner, share this pulpit with your minister, the Rev. John Montagnes and with yourselves. It speaks volumes. I am grateful.

Second, a disclaimer. This is not a sermon with answers. I do not have a miracle cure for pain. We all have suffered pain. Some of us are crippled by it. For some of us it is the hole in the sidewalk we cannot find a way out of. But I want to talk today about some of my reflections, some of what I have learned in my life is a physician, listening to people, listening to myself, and learning from pain. Martha, my wife, has given me some advice. When Martha gives me advice -- I am like Yogi Berra when he comes to a fork in the road -- I take it. She says sometimes my words are too personal, too direct, and people may take offense. So today, as you listen to me, remember the advice from Joan's first sermon of 2005. You remember The Three Things That You Need to Know... well let's just review number two today. "It's not about me" Remember how she had us repeat that so we got more exercise. Let's do that right now: "It's not about me". So when I share this talk with you today, remember, it is not about you. This is my sermon. It's about me.

I am a physician. I've been schooled in the subject of pain. We are taught in the medical tradition to list the patients "Chief Complaint" to distill the patient encounter. We ask the questions, you all know them, how long has it hurt? Where does it hurt? When does it hurt? What makes it better? Does it hurt when I do this? This is our litany of questions. But a maxim of medicine I have only recently learned, not in medical school, is: If you only ask questions, all you will get are answers.

You know how I love to show slides. Today I have a PowerPoint presentation, an improvement on my slides from my last sermon. We will dim the lights. I love a good lecture. Science. First I will show you a nerve cell. Here is an electron micrograph of the receptors of a pain fiber. Nerve cells talk to other nerve cells with chemical transmitters. We can block these receptors. Here you see a diagram of the molecule for morphine. This is a diagram of how it fits into this receptor to block it. We can block the transmission of the signal for pain from one cell to another. Simple really. We have modified this molecule with our wonderful chemical technologies to make very long-acting narcotics. If people have pain for a long time it makes sense to block the signals for a long time, doesn't it? Or at least, that's part of the thinking. There is more to this concept. This is a graph of the number of prescriptions written in the state of Washington for long acting narcotics between the years 1997 to 2002. Please note the fourfold, 400 percent rise. We also have data on the abuse of these narcotics. This is an estimated 200 percent rise in the same time. I also have a graph to show accidental deaths from these prescribed narcotics again, during these five years, and it shows about a 250 percent rise.

By the way, do you know how someone dies from a narcotic overdose? When we block these pain receptors excessively, the body no longer feels the need to breathe. It is an inescapable physiological fact, true on the tissue and cellular level, when the pain message is completely blocked we also block the drive to breathe. One step beyond bliss is the grave.

So I am speaking today because I sense a serious failure. While we physicians are treating more pain more aggressively I believe it is at a great price. Often we are mistaken about what we are treating. We do not always turned toward the pain and listen for more than answers, but for the meaning. I want to take this opportunity to turn toward the sense of failure that I feel. I want to examine this, and to do this, I want to discuss what I consider the meaning of pain. I would like to share with you a children's story. I called this The Parable of the Sandbox.

A child is playing in the sandbox. He cuts his finger. Ouch! He keeps on playing. He sees the blood. Ahhh! He runs to his mother. She bands down and hugs him. "Oh, did you hurt your finger? Let me help you." She washes the finger. She puts on a Band-Aid. She kisses him. And he goes back out to play. What just happened? What was he feeling when he ran to his mother? Pain, or fear? She asked him if it hurt. She named this feeling. And how did she treat his "Chief Complaint"? I would argue -- with love. So does he now understand fear and pain go together? I believe that the two, fear and pain are intimate. Most of us cannot easily tell the difference. I learned this when I was delivering babies. If women are able to deal with the fear of labor, the fear of childbirth, effectively through training,support and yes even love, their pain (which is real) is much more manageable.

Don't confuse my words. I'm not condemning the use of drugs to treat pain. But I am here to speak about the value of pain, the worth of pain, the meaning of pain. We live in a society that values and appreciates the technology, the wonderful creations of a rational science. And it is wonderful to be able to take away the horrible agony of injury. But sometimes, maybe most times there is a lesson, a meaning to the pain that should not be covered over. It should not be denied. We sometimes help our patients not see the deep hole in the sidewalk. And is this really the help they need? No, this is a difficult and I believe spiritual decision. It is one that I often feel horribly inadequate to make.

My observation is that we don't listen well to the patient. Often also, the patient doesn't listen well to themselves. But that part isn't about me. I'm talking today about me. So I will admit to not always listening well to the patient. The meaning of the pain and the fear associated with it are often more powerful than the actual sensation. I have come to realize the sensation of pain often means a huge sense of loss for the sufferer. A loss. It maybe the loss of function. The painful back may mean that the man who has always been strong must now see himself as weak. It maybe the loss of beauty. The headache may mean the woman does not now see herself as attractive to her spouse as she hoped to be. And the painful joints may mean the loss of activity that brought pleasure and joy. Pain can be the body's reminder of our mortality, a harbinger of the death we all wish to deny. The greatest loss we cannot come to peace with. For these pains, while a pill may block the nerve that transmits the unwanted, abhorrent message, the drug does not change the fear we have for the meaning the message carries. And though the message may be gone, the meaning stays. Like a track in the sand on a lovely beach after the Walker has left, we see and know of his presence. We know we are not alone. We know that something, our mortality, awaits us. How to deal with loss? There is really only one way. You all know it. I had to learn it as I had to accept my inability to relieve my patients suffering. Yes, Accept. Acceptance. Remember, Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, Acceptance. All normal, all stages, all part of the great wheel of life. I have to accept my patients pain. I am continually tempted to fix, offer a pill, a therapy, a surgery, alternatives. And while all of these may have some value, and I do not want to minimize their worth or their meaning, I have come to realize that true healing comes from the peace of acceptance. And my acceptance of their pain is almost as important as theirs.

So when I find pain on the road of life, my own or my patients, for all doctors have a sign on their door "Suffering Cured Here" I have learned to pause and reflect. You all know what to do if you meet the Buddha on the road of life. Yes, the Buddha and his teachings tell us, if you meet the Buddha on the road of life you are to kill him. We are meant to seek in this life. If you think you have found the Buddha and you are going to stop seeking, it would be best to destroy this illusion. But that is a different sermon. If I were to meet Pain on the road of life how should I greet this traveler? I should greet him like a brother. You know, like a brother. Like my little brother who is very annoying. Pain can be annoying. Or like my older brother who is remote or even frightening. We might even be tempted to pretend we don't recognize our brother. Honestly, we may fight. Brothers do. And, I see people fight with their pain all the time. But I believe, if I greet my brother honestly, if I turn toward my pain, I may someday, as hard as it may seem, come to accept my Brother Pain. And who knows, my brother may lead me down a different street.

Closing Words

I would rather leave you in pain then give you an answer that deprives you of seeking.

-- J. Montagnes

[7/11/04] The Ethics of Using and Changing Life

2004-07-11T08:10:00.000-07:00
by Brian Morton
July 11, 2004

Music

Hymn 207: This World Was Given as a Garden. Hymn 107: The Leaf Unfurls. Hymn 128: For All That Is Our Life. Closing Song: Shalom Havareem.

Story for all Ages

The Pied Piper of Hamelin

Opening Words

Our Opening words are from President Bush interrupting Prime Time TV to speak to the nation about Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research 1 month before Sept 11

"Good evening. I appreciate you giving me a few minutes of your time tonight so I can discuss with you a complex and difficult issue, an issue that is one of the most profound of our time.

The issue of research involving stem cells derived from human embryos is increasingly the subject of a national debate and dinner table discussions. The issue is confronted every day in laboratories as scientists ponder the ethical ramifications of their work. It is agonized over by parents and many couples as they try to have children, or to save children already born.

The issue is debated within the church, with people of different faiths, even many of the same faith coming to different conclusions. Many people are finding that the more they know about stem cell research, the less certain they are about the right ethical and moral conclusions."

Sermon: The Ethics of Using and Changing Life
It's not often that I get a chance to agree with President Bush, but I too think that human embryonic stem cell research is a complex, difficult but profound topic that ought to be talked about in our churches.

A few months ago we had a speaker who explained to us much of the science behind Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer Cloning, a technique that is also common in Embryonic Stem Cell Research, but he said only a little about the ethical dilemmas involved. Since I have done some work on bio-ethics, I was asked to speak to the church about the ethical side of some of these issues.

Bio-Ethics is literally Greek for the customs a society has for using life.

What counts as using life well, as using life rightly?

In bio-technology what is possible, and what is economically feasible or tempting changes so rapidly that usually we need to do a lot of ethical reflection just to keep pace with the changing technology. Lets think about some examples: Bio-technology came a long way in the 20th century. Here's a short list of 20th century innovations. IQ Testing, Blood Banks, Electroshock Therapy, Insulin Injections, Penicillin, LSD, vaccines for polio, and other diseases, Birth Control, improved abortion technology, Organ transplants, In vitro fertilization, and many other reproductive technologies, and more recently the Cloning of Mammals. More general developments in our understanding of the human brain, or the role of genetics, and of diet have had equally huge impacts that we cannot summarize in simple breakthroughs. We have had tragically disastrous innovations, like Thalidomide or cigarettes, and we have had triumphs like the World Health Organization's worldwide eradication of smallpox in 1979.

Just thinking carefully about one of these, say IQ Testing, would take a whole sermon or more. IQ testing did a lot of good for our society, but it was also misused, intentionally sometimes, and accidentally in other cases. Intelligence testing has been around since 1905, but still the Supreme Court is debating its role in death penalty sentencing. And most bio-tech developments are like this, with some clear advantages, several avenues for potential abuse intentional and accidental, and often raising new questions or re-raising old questions with a further twist.

Sometimes the philosophical implications are even more profound. For example, because of advances in our understanding of how breathing, heart function and brain function interrelate in death, every state in the US has changed its legal definition of death from cardiac oriented definitions of death to brain-function oriented definitions of death since the 1970's. Death literally does not mean the same thing it did 40 years ago in the United States, and indeed most of the world.

The 21st century will almost certainly have a similar list of society transforming bio-technology breakthroughs, and serious ethical reflection on them is likely to be just as important and controversial. Its hard to see too far ahead, but in the next 20 years we will almost certainly be facing advances in: lifespan extension, behavior control of children via drugs, enhancing rather than therapeutic medicine such as cosmetic surgery or sports enhancements, memory boosting and suppression techniques, human cloning, Human Embryonic Stem Cell technologies, sex selection technologies, and increased use and complexity of genetically modified agricultural products. Even more radical genetic engineering technologies might become available this quickly. Likewise, new wrinkles on older technologies will probably keep coming to light. For example, California just heard a case trying to decide the inheritance rights of a child conceived from frozen sperm after the father's death, a technology that is now decades old.

Bio-ethics problems frequently come back to the same themes again and again, where do we want our society to be going? What does it mean to be a person? How much intervention is appropriate in reproduction? How much do we trust humanity? How much do we fear human arrogance? And most basically, which uses of life are appropriate ones, and which are misuses?

The work that I have done is on Human Embryonic Stem Cell research, so I'm going to focus on it, but in reality it is just one example of much broader issues of personhood, sacrifice, and societal change.

Human Embryonic Stem Cell Research has a lot of potential to perhaps someday provide cures many diseases such as diabetes or Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, but at the moment the only ways currently known to culture human embryonic stem cells all involve destroying a fetus, embryo or pre-embryo. So the first set of worries about HESCR (although not the only one) involve questions of personhood.

Just like in the abortion debate, many people object to HESC because they see it as destroying very young children in an attempt to get medical benefits for the rest of us. That is basically the current position of the Catholic Church.

On the other hand, because the medical benefits of HESC are potentially so large, many people who oppose abortion will nonetheless allow HESC in some cases. There are basically two ways to get this kind of argument to work

One way involves thinking about overdetermination and complicity. This gets complex quickly, but the basic idea is that if the embryos are going to be killed anyway, they might at least help save people's lives in the process. This is why Bush's official position is that abortion is wrong, but that federal dollars can be used to fund stem cell research based on existing stem cell lines, where the embryos have already been killed, but cannot be used to fund killing new embryos to create new stem cell lines.

The second argument for opposing abortion, but still supporting HESCR is say that embryos are persons, but that even adult persons are sometimes sacrificed in warfare if the benefits are high enough, and thus it is morally permissible to sacrifice embryos in the "war against disease," even if the embryos are full moral persons.

A lot of my work has focused on the sacrifice argument, and it's a theme I'll come back too, but many aspects of it are pretty disingenuous. The "War against Disease" isn't really very similar to other kinds of warfare, and many of the safeguards we put in place to prevent immoral sacrifices in other contexts are not often applied to sacrificing embryos in HESCR.

I could talk a lot more about those arguments, but my guess is that most UU's probably aren't very tempted to think of embryos as persons.

UU's have covenanted to affirm and promote the "inherent worth and dignity of every person," but the UUA takes no general position on what counts as a person, or whether personhood is absolute or a matter of degrees.

It is worth thinking seriously about whether or not embryos are persons and thus protected by our most solemn covenant...

And how we can know whether they are persons or not...

And to what extent we can be certain about whether they are persons or not...

But I leave that as an exercise for each individual conscience.

Instead, let's look at some of the moral issues surrounding embryonic stem cell research, when we are not assuming that the embryos are persons.

Issues of sacrifice and of societal direction remain even if human embryos are not persons.

One position on the question of moral worth is called Gradualism, and is popular among bio-ethicists and was the foundation of the legal compromise at the heart of the famous Roe vs. Wade decision. Gradualism, suggests that there is no magic line between being a person and not being a person, but rather than a being acquires slowly more moral worth the more it acquires the features central to personhood. Thus a pre-born being gradually becomes more and more like an adult human in moral worth as it passes important developmental landmarks, like individuation, sentience, gender differentiation, social interaction, viability etc. Gradualists think that pre-born beings are more morally important the more developed they are.

Likewise, In Jewish law, the pre-born is often considered to be "as water" before the 40th day of the pregnancy, but to be "the thigh of the mother" afterwards so that harming an fetus is considered comparable in moral seriousness to maiming the mother; not as serious as taking a life, but pretty serious nonetheless. Thus, gradualists and Jews often allow harvesting stem cells from very young pre-born beings, such as excess fertility clinic embryos, which are typically frozen after only a few days of development, but disallow fetal gonadal harvesting techniques, which involve destroying much older and more developed pre-born beings.

Essentially the way these arguments go, is that that even if embryos are not full persons they still might be valuable enough that we should not sacrifice them lightly, and there are several other ways to argue the same point.

Perhaps embryos have "symbolic personhood" and thus like corpses or flags deserve some modicum of respect. Certainly embryos are at least symbols of our hopes for the future.

Perhaps "potential personhood" is quite valuable even if embryos do not have full actual personhood yet.

Perhaps all living things whether they are persons or not deserve not to be sacrificed lightly: thus

Some people oppose ESCR for much the same reasons as they oppose killing or torturing lab rats or other animals for the sake of science. Moral Vegetarians often oppose ESCR on the same grounds as they oppose killing animals for food. Wiccans sometimes oppose ESCR for the same reasons as they oppose animal sacrifice in religious rituals.

Even if embryos aren't very valuable at all, some people argue that we should delay sacrificing them, until we have exhausted the possibilities of Adult SCR, especially bone marrow work, which might allow us to extract stem cell lines without having to destroy embryos.

Of course, what we hope to gain in ESCR is pretty morally significant as well, so many people think that human embryos are quite valuable, but are still worth sacrificing for the sake of possible serious medical advances. Even advocates of this position ought to put some safeguards in place to minimize sacrifice, especially needless sacrifice, or premature sacrifice.

Once we've thought about personhood, and sacrifice, there is still the third big issue of where we are going as a society.

So for example one worry that has been raised about HESCR, is that even if successful it is most likely to produce expensive treatments that will enhance the well being of the already fairly well-off, especially folk who are both well-off and elderly.

Maybe our society should focus on extending medical care to those with sub-standard medical care, rather than focusing on improving the high quality of care available to those who can afford it.

Likewise in HESCR the young and powerless are sacrificed for the benefit of the old, often especially the old and rich. So there are potential justice worries surrounding HESCR, related to both class issues and age issues. Another worry is that HESCR is a step further in the direction of turning human life into a commodity.

Can humans be bought and sold like slaves or animals as long as they are unborn?

Can human cells be patented? Human tissues? Human organs? Whole human organisms?

Because governments have been shy about public funding of HESCR, much of it is being done by private venture capital bio-tech firms, thus opening weird questions about what kinds of knowledge and techniques can be owned privately. Likewise, big business and big money are not well known for adhering to restrictions put in place by ethicists, so there is good reason to worry that even many of the minimal restrictions on Bio-tech that are all ready in place may not be well followed.

Indeed the thought of powerful bio-tech research in the hands of big-money corporations used to cutting corners is enough to give one nightmares of modern re-plays of the Hamelin myth.

Who will own the fruits of this research? Worries about commodification and the economics of bio-techology are another common theme in HESCR ethics.

Finally, bio-tech forces us to confront the possibilities of a future in which humanity and human nature are profoundly changed, and those are dizzying possibilities.

We have already changed the meaning of death once in the last few decades, what if new technology changes it further? What if we have to re-define human or person? What if the people living a decades from now are so different than us that they are barely recognizable as humans?

Already we can transplant blood and organs, surgically alter many aspects of our own bodies, and chemically alter even more. Humans are already artificial, re-making ourselves as we want to be rather than as we were born. Body piercing, tattoos, cosmetic surgeries, and transgender surgeries are already viable, as are such neurochemical alterations as LSD, and Prozac.

Philosophers and science-fiction writers sometimes speak of a future of "post-humanity" in which technology is used to alter people further and further away from the old fashioned standards of human nature.

Bio-tech forces us to confront our freedom, which always involves angst. We may soon be able to choose to alter things that in the past have always been dictates of fate and birth. Likewise in seeing our freedom it is easy to fear our own arrogance and hubris.

When we have advanced genetic screens that allow us to choose among a large variety of embryos for implantation how will we choose? When we can genetically manipulate embryos how will we alter them? When tissue and organ replacement is cheap how will we use it?

It is easy to imagine many bio-tech nightmares like Hamelin's fate, in which we make mistakes, or use the technologies for evil: people engineered for obedience, reproduction in the hands of a private monopoly, agriculture transformed into a cash crop monoculture business to put even the 20th century to shame, a whole generation of babies accidentally born with a subtle genetic error that doesn't show itself until too late. Etc.

Even the good scenarios can just be so different from our world that they are frightening. How will society adapt if average life spans continue to increase at an exponential rate and tops 130 by the end of the century? What if the gaps in lifespan between the rich and poor keep pace? What if medical immortality is within the life-horizon of the young people alive today?

UU's are called on to have a certain optimism, and faith in humanity, that despite our power and failings, it will all work out and we will succeed more often than we fail.

Nonetheless, Stem Cell research of any kind brings us one step closer to being able to alter fundamental biological facts, and thus raises a host of worries about post-human futures.

I've been using HESCR as an example, but it is just one of many similar bio-ethics issues. If ESCR doesn't worry you along these lines, then just wait, the next bio-ethics problem will push things further.

So what thinking about ESCR is really for, is to try to examine the fundamental problems of bio-ethics. How should we use life? Or to put it another way: Is life a tool? Is a human life a tool? And I think the answer must be both Yes and No!

We are called on to use life for good But also to enjoy life and to value it. Life is a gift from the ultimate. Life must in some sense be more than a tool!

In the end I have no clear answers, about HESCR or the related problems. But I hope that every UU can feel the moral tensions, and agree with at least the minimal point of each side of the ESCR debate.

On the one hand: all life is a gift that we are called to use to build a common good.

On the other hand: all life, human embryos or otherwise, must be somehow more than just a tool to be exploited economically, more than just a commodity, more than just a raw material, more than just a sacrifice.

I don't know the best way to balance these two insights, but in HESC and many other issues in Bio-ethics, I think that is the task before our society.

I've had my say; lets have some responses.
Closing Words

Closing words come from the end of the Bush Speech mentioned earlier: "As we go forward, I hope we will always be guided by both intellect and heart, by both our capabilities and our conscience. I have made this decision with great care, and I pray it is the right one."

[3/16/03] Civilization and Religion

2003-03-16T08:08:00.000-08:00
by Rev. Harold Rosen
March 16, 2003

Meditation: The Greatness of the Soul

Adapted from William Ellery Channing, Likeness to God, c. 1831

Within us, is the greatness of the soul, inward power that can mould the outward, spirit that can mould civilization.

Let us behold, in reverence, the greatness of the soul, this infinity within, our capacity to burst limits, in pursuit of the noble, the virtuous, the advancement of civilization.

Let us consider our higher actions -- nurturing young lives, kindness between strangers, reverence for nature, and love of beauty. We can sacrifice in devotion to worthy causes, and our love can be unfathomable.

Ours is the capacity for original thought, soaring imagination, ingenious creations, and the heights of culture. But other, and opposing elements are within us as well -- passions that oppose our reason, impulses that violate our conscience, fears that weaken our courage, and our creativity.

We are 'free' beings, and therefore, tempted by the lower, called by the higher.

In silence, now, let us contemplate this summary truth -- we are fashioned for perpetual progress, and so we may choose, we may choose to unfold: the greatness of the soul.

Sermon: Civilization and Religion

This will always feel like home to me, even though I love where I'm living, and am fully devoted to what I'm doing.

For those who might be shocked or disappointed by my transition from Unitarian minister to Bahai interfaith educator, I invite us to look briefly at some of the vast common ground shared by Unitarians and Bahais. I'll simply list some of the many principles held in common, without comment:

basic dignity of human nature
searching for truth
complementarity of science and religion
equality of women and men
acceptance of ultimate mystery
continuing revelation
perception of historical progress
unity-in-diversity
wariness of creeds, superstitious and outmoded rituals
democratic decision-making
equality of the great world faiths
ethics of love and compassion
importance of universal education
respecting the interdependence of life-forms and the earth
peaceful conflict resolution
racial and ethnic equality
social justice
and a united world community.

This is indeed a wide basis upon which to cooperate.

A primary difference between Unitarians and Bahais is the status given to this list. For Unitarians, these are 'good ideas and chosen principles'. For Bahais, these are 'divine guidance, revealed truths, and the agenda for humanity in our coming age of maturity'. Thus, we have differences regarding spiritual authority.

This morning, we focus on 'Civilization and Religion', raising the questions: What is civilization, and where does it come from? Does civilization have a direction? Is it declining, or re-emerging? Are major civilizations clashing? And if so, is global civilization really possible?

Since September 11, 2001, many have said that 'civilization is under attack'. This is said both in the West and in the Muslim world. Here in the West, many are continually aware that certain 'terrorists' have distorted Islam, and certain leaders of so-called Muslim countries have supported our attackers -- bringing fear, economic instability, and anxieties about the future. In Muslim countries, many are continually aware that the West has attacked and oppressed them -- threatening their way of life with unwanted technology and materialism, threatening their deepest principles and beliefs.

These are 'outside' threats. But also 'within' the Muslim world, and 'within' the West, there are deep concerns about civilization's decline. High-minded Muslims worry about whether their civilization is on the wane, and whether Muslims might have permanently failed to fulfill their high religious destiny. As well, conscientious Westerners, like you and me, worry that our civilization has exhausted itself, become too shallow and materialistic, and is now morally unfit to advance any further. What is this precious thing called 'civilization' that seems to be under attack (externally), and may be on the wane (internally)?

A brief personal testimony. I've been fascinated with the whole concept of 'civilization' most of my adult life. In college -- when I studied philosophy, the social sciences and religion -- in the back of my mind were questions about civilization: its essence, its purpose, its rising and falling. I became a minister and a religious educator, as a way to contribute to civilization, and civilization is another name for 'global peace and justice', or 'heaven on earth'.

Civilization is the highest collective achievement of humanity, suggesting certain images, images of religiously inspired architecture, beautiful gardens and parks, schools and universities, flourishing arts and sciences, effective social services, humane and wise government, kind and trustworthy people, creative developments and opportunities for all, the world over.

And there are also particular historic civilizations, achievements that have blessed humanity's journey through time -- Chinese or Asian civilization, Hindu-Buddhist civilization, Egyptian, Jewish, Persian, Greco-Roman, Middle Eastern Islamic, Byzantine Christian, and Modern Western, to name a few. Why do civilizations rise and fall? And why do they come into conflict?

There is a book that, for many North Americans, explains what led up to September 11, and what should happen next. The book's title: "The Clash of Civilizations & the Remaking of World Order"; and its author, Samuel Huntington, from Harvard. This book is likely to be very influential, for better or worse, over the next few decades. I say 'for better or worse', because it contains both insights and oversights.

Huntington's thesis is that the central and most dangerous dimension of the 21st century will be the conflict between 'civilizations', and he offers a theory of international relations after the Cold War. He says that 'history' is mostly about civilizations, and civilizations are the largest 'we' within which we feel culturally-at-home, as distinguished from all other 'thems' out there.

It's true that September 11 made many of 'us' in North America and Europe acutely aware that 'we' are different from 'them' in the Muslim world. But I believe Muslims are part of the 'us' who identify with the world community. Indeed, 'identifying with the world' seems more and more essential for humanity's salvation.

Huntington says the balance of power among civilizations is shifting today. The West is declining in relative influence. Islam is exploding demographically, with de-stabilizing consequences for both Muslim countries and their neighbors. Asian civilizations are expanding their economic, political and military strength.

What is 'the West', according to Huntington? Ours is the classical legacy of Greece and Rome, the Renaissance, Catholicism and Protestantism, European languages, separation of spiritual and temporal authority, rule by representative bodies, social pluralism and tolerance, capitalism and individualism. He says that 'modernization' is now bound up with capitalism and global communications, but modernization does not seem to be unifying or westernizing the world, as many westerners had hoped. Rather, the West's 'universalist pretensions', he says, are bringing it into conflict with other civilizations. I agree.

Among other important points, I believe, is what he calls the Commonalities Rule -- people in all civilizations (this includes you and me) should search for and attempt to expand the values and practices we have in common with other civilizations. The world's religions, he notes -- to whatever degree they have divided humanity -- also share key values in common. And if we are ever to develop a universal civilization, it will emerge gradually through the exploration of our common ground.

Huntington's final sentence clarifies his central thesis: "In the emerging era, clashes of civilizations are the greatest threat to world peace, and an international order based on civilizations is the surest safeguard against world war".

I believe Huntington has two major blind spots: the first is under-estimating the universality and power of religious vision (the strongest force in history); and secondly, under-valuing the U.N.'s potential in the 21st century. I believe that some day the world community will look back at the 20th and 21st centuries, and wonder what took us so long to realize that world government, and a spiritually-grounded ethic, are requirements for global peace and justice.

Does any modern authority understand civilization better than Huntington? I believe the answer is Yes. Arnold Toynbee, the great 20th century historian, understood the role and power of religion. Toynbee identified over 20 major civilizations that were powered by spiritual vision and purpose. He showed how these civilizations declined when leaders lost their spiritual vision, and "sunk into the sins of nationalism, militarism and materialism". In other words, for Toynbee, history is directed by spiritual forces -- not political or economic or social forces. It is the 'higher religions' that carry civilization forward in a process that is 'not cyclical but progressive'. He said, "In and beyond and behind the universe, as well as in a human being's conscience, there is some spiritual power that is making for good".

A quite beautiful definition of civilization was offered by Toynbee:

"I should define civilization in spiritual terms, as an endeavor to create a society in which the whole of mankind will be able to live together in harmony as members of an all-inclusive family. This is", said Toynbee, "the goal at which all civilizations so far known have been aiming, unconsciously, if not consciously".

Now I offer my own theory of civilization, which follows directly from Toynbee, from the history of the great world religions, and most especially from the Bahai Faith. Civilization, I believe, is the highest and most universal form of society, made possible by the spiritual, social, and material teachings of the Founders of the great world religions. The rise of civilization has been powered by revelations, cyclically and progressively. I refer to the teachings of Moses, Zoroaster, Krishna, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad and Bahaullah. These are humanity's primary spiritual heritage, I believe. Some day, all children everywhere will be taught this precious heritage.

The specific seeds of civilization are three sets of 'virtues' -- material, social, and spiritual virtues -- all promoted by the great Founders of Faith. Let me comment briefly on these three aspects of civilization.

From a 'material' perspective, civilization aims to achieve freedom from survival needs, and freedom to develop the higher human capacities. The goal is adequate food, shelter, and clothing for everyone, as well as meaningful work and effective health services. This means appropriate technology, recreation, and vigorous but trustworthy world-trade. It means sustainable development, global economic interdependence, and a commonwealth of nations. It means scientific advancement, earth stewardship, as well as planetary beauty and prosperity. These are the 'material' aspects of true civilization, all made possible by virtue like 'honesty' and 'integrity'.
From a 'social' perspective, civilization aims to achieve healthy families, excellent schools, and vibrant communities. The goal is quickened morals, highly consultative societies, and abundant 'creative development' opportunities. This means that racial and gender prejudices must be transcended, and just laws established at the national and international levels. It means a trustworthy world government that eliminates the extremes of wealth and poverty, while maintaining world peace. These are the 'social' aspects of true civilization.
From a 'spiritual' perspective, civilization brings about the flowering of art and philosophy beyond all previous imagination. True civilization always promotes ethical and spiritual virtues, and universal compassion. It fosters sublime reverence, gracious devotion, as well as expanding and deepening consciousness. It generates love and unity and planetary cooperation. It means an ever-advancing culture, continually learning and perfecting itself. This is none other than the co-creation of heaven on earth.

To see the power of virtues, try this thought-experiment. Imaging that we wake up tomorrow morning, and all heads-of-state were: 'kind', they embody the moral and spiritual truth of that small, innocent-sounding word. Virtues like kindness, love, wisdom, peace and justice are 'human' powers, but require spiritual guidance to be developed. All great religions, in their purest form, lift up a common vision of civilization. How could it be otherwise, when One God is the source of all that is true and good? God makes religion 'one'; people and ideology make religions 'many'.

A final look back at Western Civilization, from this lofty perspective, reveals that we have become all-too-fixed on a secular view that might be called 'liberal relativism', and all-too-fixed on a socioeconomic view that might be called 'capitalistic globalization'. These views have offered many benefits to humanity in the forms of personal freedom, social prosperity, and scientific progress. They definitely contributed to civilization, as did all their predecessors. But, like these predecessors, the West, by itself, is impotent to deal with the needs of a new world, needs and possibilities never imagined by the 18th century thinkers who conceived most of its elements.

I'm saying the ultimate issues are ethical and spiritual. Therefore, 'virtues' light the way to civilization. Each individual, each organization, each society, is called to develop their God-given virtues, and thereby contribute to humanity's maturity, the Great Peace to come, or 'heaven on earth'.

To sum up, I'll answer briefly and directly all the questions raised earlier. What is the essence of civilization? spiritual, social and material guidelines used and developed by humanity. What is the origin of civilization? revelatory teachings from the Founders of faith, the Teachers of Humanity. What is civilization's connection to religion? they are defined in terms of one another: civilization (at its best) fulfills religious vision; and religion (at its best) inspires the building of civilization. What is the direction of civilization? toward one family of humanity, unity-in-diversity, a dynamic global harmony. Is civilization declining? Yes! Materialistic and militaristic Western civilization is declining. And yes! Rigid and defensive Islamic civilization is declining. Is civilization re-emerging or broadening? Yes! A New World Order is in the making, a planetary culture, an ever-advancing world civilization.

Are major civilizations clashing? Yes, the dying forms of out-dated civilizations are clashing; but new forms of 'universalism' are cooperating. Is universal civilization possible? more than possible, it is inevitable -- the only serious question being whether universal civilization will arrive for humanity 'before' or 'after' another global catastrophe like World War II (this is humanity's choice). And finally, how can we (individually) contribute to global civilization? by using our God-given talents (or virtues) to lift up a better world, an earth that is a little more heavenly.

I close now with a passage from the Bahai Writings, linking virtues to civilization:

"Universal benefits derive from the grace of the divine religions, for they lead their true followers to sincerity of intent, to high purpose, to purity and spotless honor, to surpassing kindness and compassion, to keeping of their covenants, to concern for the rights of others, to justice in every aspect of life, to humanity and philanthropy, to valor, and to unflagging efforts in service of humanity. It is religion, to sum up, which produces all human virtues, and it is these virtues which are the bright candles of civilization".

So may it be!

Harold Rosen is a Bahai interfaith educator, who lives and works in Vancouver, Canada. For nine years (1978-1987), Harold served the Unitarian-Universalist Church of the Palouse as its first called minister.

[9/1/02] Holy Cows!

2002-09-01T08:04:00.000-07:00
by Rebecca Rod
September 1, 2002

Some of my most religious experiences as a young person took place in a basement in Iowa. Every summer, for a week or two, I got to go to Decorah to stay with my Grandma. Fortunately, for me and Grandma, there were two sisters who lived down at the end of her block on Maple Avenue, Mona and Jeanie, who were the same age as me and my sister Jenny. Theirs was the brick house on the corner, nice and big, with white trim, neat as a pin and cool inside, and the coolest place to be on a hot summer afternoon, was their basement. Unlike my Grandma's rather spooky cellar where I helped her wash clothes, Mona and Jeanie's basement was finished and clean, and the playroom had some benches and chairs and tables and books in it.
Sometimes we would play school down there, but it seems even more often we would play "Church." We would put the benches and chairs in rows, one of us would become the Pastor (we were all Lutheran), and the rest of us would be the congregation, sitting attentively with our play-hymnbooks neatly on our laps. The "pastor" would drape a long, white, winter scarf around her neck and stand in front of us holding an open Bible, and pretend to sermonize about who-knows-what. Sometimes we would have a bowl of water and the "pastor" would "baptize" us by dabbing water on our foreheads and making the sign of the cross, or we would play Communion, and pass around wafers we'd made from slices of squished and flattened white bread. Kool-aid served as wine. After the ritual, we "congregants" would open our hymnals, raising them high, and sing some of our favorite hymns, but mainly [sing it] "Holy, Holy, Holy, Lord God Almighty...bless-ed Trinity."

Interestingly enough, when we played school, we usually goofed off more, slapping each others hands with rulers and being silly, but when we played "Church," it seemed that we would be pretty "religious" about it, playing it fairly straight and solemnly.

I attended a Lutheran elementary school, so religion was a pretty serious thing to me, not to be messed with. After all, God was watching all the time, and being sacrilegious could put you on the fast track to hell, especially if you had enough points against you already, from all the other stuff you just did normally.

Ironically, it felt more religious to me to play church, than to go to church. Maybe it was because in playing, there was choice and direct participation involved. Going to church was another matter. No choice involved. And, in a family of six kids, just getting ready for church could be pretty hellish. I'm afraid we were not very cooperative for our mother when Sunday morning rolled around, and the older you got, the more resistant you were to get up, much less get ready. Finally, after a lot of yelling and waiting turns for the bathroom, we would all squeeze into the car, fight over the window seats, finally get to church, and then all eight of us, if our Dad had decided to go too, would file down the aisle 10 to 15 minutes late, to the front rows, the seats most Lutherans avoid taking till last. It would take most of the service just to live down the embarrassment of it all. Not the most religious experience.

And yet, I grew up with a lot of "religious" aspirations. I yearned for God, for acceptance, for salvation, for assurance, and especially for an end to all my questions about religion and the meaning of life and other things that didn't make sense. So, as an adult, I tried a few churches out, and this is where I landed, -- smack dab in the middle of this rolling Palouse -- in the Unitarian Universalist Church, a religion that is jokingly associated with having a question mark as its symbol, and one that some people don't even regard as "religious."

It seems we're a somewhat misunderstood lot, maybe in part because we don't proselytize, -- which makes me think of the joke about the UU's going door-to-door, asking, "So, what do you believe?" Most often you find we have the name recognition problem where people confuse us with the Unity churches, or Rev. Moon's Unification Church, which can also lead to people thinking we're just another new Cult on the block.

Let me assure any of you who are new here, Unitarian Universalism was not built in a day! Our religion has been around as long as the Lutherans and many of the other Protestant off-shoots whose beginnings are also rooted in the Radical Reformation days of the 1500s. However, our particular heretic, Michael Servetus, who proposed the idea of God as One and not a Trinity and was burned for it, seems not as well-known as a couple of his contemporary heretics, Martin Luther and John Calvin. Now, this is not a sermon on UU history, so today I will just jump you ahead a few hundred years, from the 1500's to 1961, when the Unitarians, whose basic heretical belief was in the Unity of God, joined up with another group of Christian troublemakers, the Universalists, who, in the 1700s had come up with their own heretical belief of Universal Salvation, -- and, presto! -- you got your Unitarian Universalists, a denomination that does not have a stated doctrine, but, ironically, has a name derived from the two heretical doctrines that separated each of them from the rest of the Protestants.

We have so much interesting evolutionary history that it can not be easily condensed here, but the upshot of all of it is that we have come fairly far afield from our early Christian roots. We have become a liberal, living, breathing, changing faith, with no memorizable doctrine or creed to repeat when someone asks a question like, "What's religious about your religion?" So, it's normal to feel a little daunted at first. But I happen to think we have our own Very Good News, so my own exuberant inclination when asked that question is just to jump right in with both feet and say "Why, Everything!" Now, our dear minister, Joan, has reined me on that over-statement, but let me tell you what I mean by that -- now that she's gone on sabbatical.

My perception of the meaning of "religious" has expanded by leaps and bounds in the more than 10 years that I've been a Unitarian Universalist. Before, admittedly without consulting a dictionary, the term "religious" would conjure up associations in my mind with certain of the traditional trappings of religions, such as symbols, vestments, holy books, rituals, liturgy, men with beards, -- especially God. This sounds silly and simplistic of course, but I think some of the folks who put this question to us are thinking in similar terms, and I think many of them are quite curious about what we do in our church - without God and the Bible being central to our religion.

Again, ours is a liberal religion. It is not limited by one idea of God, or one text, or one doctrine. We derive our truths from many sources, which happen to be listed this morning on the back of your Order of Service (also in the first pages of our hymnal). For instance, today we began our service with the Call to Worship, the text of which was written by the 13^th century Sufi mystic, Rumi. Our Opening Words were by the American poet Mary Oliver, our Meditation Words were written by Reverend Carter Heyward, an Episcopal priest, who is also a lesbian, and our sermon is by an artist/layperson who has a degree in Library Science. Only one bona fide religious scholar in the bunch (Heyward), but I believe you will find that all our words contain religious truths.

While Unitarian Universalists don't ascribe to a doctrine or creed, we do have our seven Principles which can be found inside the first pages of our hymnal. No one is required to memorize these, but they are statements of our common faith which were drawn up over a period of three years by lay and ordained people in our denomination, and enacted by the General Assembly in 1986. Most of these principles, like our sources, are embedded in our service elements today.

Our Call to Worship by Rumi, "Come, come, whoever you are" is a direct affirmation of our Number One UU Principle that recognizes "the inherent worth and dignity of every person," inviting all to join us, from wanderers, to worshippers. And it also embodies the spirit of our Third Principle, which is the "acceptance of one another and encouragement of spiritual growth in our congregations."

Our Opening Words, Mary Oliver's poem, "Wild Geese," could practically be a UU mini-doctrine, if we had any, because, in addition to its message of inherent individual worth, and compassion and acceptance instead of judgement (principles 1, 2, and 3), it offers the hope of a kind of personal grace to be found by aligning oneself with nature and the creatures in it. This kind of connected relationship with nature is mirrored by our Seventh principle, "Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are all a part."

The Story for all Ages, "Calico Cows" which we adapted a bit by running it through the Unitarianizer, demonstrates in microcosm the democratic process utilized in our congregations, where we all are equal in our access to leadership positions and at liberty to have our say (Principle 5).

The Meditation words by Carter Heyward, about our relational power and common strength creating love in the world, reflect principles 2 & 6, where striving for "justice, equity and compassion in human relations" can help to realize the goal of "world community, with peace, liberty & justice for all."

And the Meditation music Heather sang, our hymn #112, "Do You Hear" is a call to commitment and action in taking up the causes of others as our own, which is also Principle 2.

My Sermon today is rooted in principle 3 "the encouragement to spiritual growth" - my own growth, by the challenge of taking it on, and it took me a lot of #4 " a free and responsible search for truth and meaning" to pull it all together! So you see more clearly how it all works when you do some analyzing with our sources and statements of belief at hand. These Sunday services aren't just designed to entertain.

However, as good as all these Principles and lofty ideals sound, ours is not always an easy or smooth religious road. A membership with such diverse beliefs and points of view, experiences, desires, and aspirations, can frequently be at odds with itself. Even in our worship desires and styles, we run the gamut. We can be too spiritual for some tastes, and not spiritual enough for others; for some, too rational, while others want more ritual; using the word God can offend some of us, while others would like to hear it, or words like it, more, and so on. It is an interesting mix to try to balance all these, and sometimes we're more successful than others. But, our mandate as a liberal religion is to be a place where freedom, reason, and tolerance reign, made possible through love and respect, and consensus. Because each of us has been drawn to this faith that allows us so much choice, we must keep our hearts and minds open to others, and we must participate. This, to me, is one of the cornerstones of our religion, -- what is "religious" about it - our gathering together, to seek and to share.

One of the Latin roots of the word "religion" is the verb, religare, "to link, or unite." Religion is at its best done together, in relationship. Together, we test it and try it and see what it's made of. This is where our strength and sustenance comes from, -- connecting with each other, whether it happens in a service or a meeting, a potluck or a party, a class, a lecture, a discussion group, a work group, a play group, a computer group, a support group, a quilting circle, or a vespers circle, -- all of these comings-together, and all that they contain and generate is the "religious" part of our religion, the Divine and the Mundane, the "everything" I speak of when I answer the question, about our liberal, expansive, inclusive, living, writhing, religion. -- Child's play, for adults.

[8/18/02] Social Action

2002-08-18T08:03:00.000-07:00
by Tami Moore
August 18, 2002

My task today is to explore social action as spiritual practice. This flows from one central premise - whether you become active in working against the welfare reform efforts of some of our more misguided legislators, or volunteer at the animal shelter, or participate in the next gay pride event, if you participate in this activity with integrity . . . if it flows from your highest ideals . . . you are engaged in religious practice.

Some of you are likely thinking "What?! I'm not a religious person." Far be it from me to argue with you, but maybe I could suggest another way to look at this.

In the opening words, we heard from Martin Luther King, Jr., that "we are all tied together in a single garment of destiny."

In our meditation reading this morning Mark Morrison Reed told us that "the central task of the religious community is to unveil the bonds that bind each to all."

Our minister has been known to tell us that "as soon as you realize you are in community with another person or being, THAT is an act of radical love."

James Luther Adams - one of the leading theologians of the Unitarian tradition in the 20th century -- talks of the "interdependence of spiritual destinies."

But the central question here is not our connectivity. This morning, I am asking you to consider social action as a spiritual, or religious practice. This is about the personal first, and only then about the community that we build with one another. We are not exploring that "single garment of destiny." Instead, we must take a step back and consider first our own individual responsibilities. Julie and ??? brought to us this morning information about a growing movement in response to welfare reform. Many of you are very likely thinking "what can I do to help?" or "Where do I go from here to make a difference?" But the real - and first - question that we need to ask ourselves is "what does all this mean on a personal, spiritual level?"

I've been a member of this religious community for almost five years now, and I can tell you that for much of that time I saw the work of the Social Action Committee as very helpful suggestions for how to spend the time I was away from the church. When Joan - or a guest speaker - brought to me a message about injustice, I appreciated the reminder that I really did need to make time to help other people during the week.

For me, church served as a more or less gentle kick in the pants. I received messages which suggested that if I could make time to do something for someone else, it might be a good thing.

Notice there all the conditional language. "IF I could make time . . . "It MIGHT be a good thing."

Now, let me present that notion to you as a straw person. I said essentially, "IF I have time outside of church maybe it would be a good thing for me to make time to do something for someone else." But, if Mark Morrison Reed, Martin Luther King, Joan, and James Luther Adams are right, we are all in this together. Social action is not just about presenting church-goers with opportunities - it is about helping us to fulfill our individual responsibility.

What is that responsibility? I'll rely on James Luther Adams to answer that question for us this morning:

"It is our social responsibility" to extend the care and community in our church to build a world in which Everyone can make a contribution."

He would continue by saying that by virtue of our membership in the community of humanity, we have a responsibility to engage in the social and political processes that maintain that community. His language would include talk of Agape - the "community forming power of God's love".

In the diverse world of Unitarian Universalist thought, we can say that this all comes from our seven principles.

This is about the inherent worth and dignity of all people, with in the "interconnected web of all existence." Regardless of your belief about how the web was made manifest - the underlying principle of inter-related spiritual destinies" is inherent in our belief system as Unitarian Universalists of whatever ilk.

It is, according to the theologists we have heard from this morning, our responsibility to build and to maintain communities which nurture everyone. And we are engaged in religious -- and sometimes spiritual -- practice when we do it.

Consider these definitions that Joan offers:

Religion: vehicle

Spiritual: experience of riding in that vehicle.

So social action can be a religious experience if you are engaged in pursuit of your highest ideals. And the way you feel when you are engaged in these activities is the spiritual element of social action.

Whether it is in response to today's presentation, or an issue that drives your passion for social justice, I encourage you to become involved!

[3/31/02] UU Christianity

2002-03-31T07:54:00.000-08:00
by Rev. Joan Montagnes
March 31, 2002

A true story: Once upon a time, there was a Lutheran minister who served six little towns in New Iceland, an area of land on the shores of Lake Winnipeg in Manitoba, Canada. This minister, Magnus Skaptason by name, woke up one sunny Easter morning prepared to preach a sermon on the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ. But, this was no ordinary Easter sermon, because he was going to daringly depart from the orthodox doctrine.

The good pastor preached his sermon in the towns of Hecla, then Riverton, then Hnausa, then Arnes, Gimli, and Willow Point. And by the time he returned to his home base in Riverton, they had changed the locks on the church door. He was no longer welcome. Shortly after Magnus Skaptason preached his Easter sermon, he and four of his congregations left the Icelandic Lutheran Church and joined the American Unitarian Association. I can only hope that I'm not as effective or provocative a preacher as Magnus Skaptason lest you lock me out of the church after I finish my Easter message.

So what was the orthodox doctrine from which Skaptason was departing? It's not an unusual doctrine; it's the doctrine which is preached in most mainline Christian congregations and certainly in the more conservative churches:

First, that God exists in a trinity: a father, son and holy spirit, a single God-head in three persons, indivisible, yet separate. That's the doctrine of the trinity.

Second, that Adam and Eve sinned against God by eating the apple in the garden of Eden, and since they had sinned against infinite God, their sin was infinite - to be born by all humanity for all time. This is the doctrine of original sin.

Third, that all humanity could never atone. We could never make it up to God, because we sinned infinitely and yet we are mortal, finite beings. So, God, ever-merciful, sent Jesus down, his only begotten son, both god and man, to be sacrificed like a lamb on the altar. And Jesus' sacrifice was the infinite sacrifice necessary for God to forgive humanity for our transgressions in Eden. This is the doctrine of the atonement.

Finally, only some of us are going to be good enough to get to heaven, right? And since God is all-knowing, God knows which of us are going to go to heaven even before we are born. And as for the rest of us, by far the vast majority, well the rest of us are going to hell to burn for eternity. These are the doctrines of pre-destination, the elect, and damnation.

I find this pretty scary theology. That's pretty spooky stuff. I don't think that's really a world I want to live in. And yet most people felt, and lots of people still feel, like they don't have a choice. It’s a pretty scary thing.

There are, however, other Christian theologies which are preached here on the Palouse and elsewhere, and some of those Christian theologies are believed and cherished right here in our congregation. These other Christian theologies also have roots that stretch deep into the good nourishing soil of our movement.

After Roger Lynn, the minister of the United Church spoke here a few months ago, I received a few disturbing phone calls from our members. They were couched in terms of "crisis of faith." And they said to me, "Joan, I'm a closet Christian." These people were coming out to me. "I'm a closet Christian, and I don't know if there is a place for me here in this congregation."

I can't tell you what kind of sadness I felt that our brothers and sisters in faith didn't feel welcome in our beloved community. It's true, and it needs to be celebrated that the humanists of the 1950's and 60's built this congregation and a good number of congregations in our movement. But the Christians started our movement. Surely there's still room for them in our communion.

Let me tell you a little about the roots of our movement in this nation. The old Puritan churches built by the passengers of the Mayflower and all those other early folks grew into Congregationalist churches, and the Congregationalist churches became the established religion of Boston and Massachusetts and New England and surroundings. These Congregationalist churches were similar to us in their grassroots polity, but they continued to spout the orthodox Calvinist doctrines of the trinity, original sin, the atonement, predestination, the elect, and damnation.

Over time, the Enlightenment blossomed to full bloom and society became more benevolent and more reasonable. Hence, some theology also became more benevolent and more reasonable.

The Congregationalist churches began to see a divide in their ranks between the orthodox Calvinists and the new liberals with their kinder, gentler God. Regardless of the widening gap, the orthodox and the liberals remained friends. They exchanged pulpits and shared the lord's supper and basically hung together.

But then one day, in 1805, Henry Ware, a liberal, was elected Hollis Professor of the Harvard Divinity School, thus delivering control of the school, the shaper of all young Divines in America, over to the liberal camp. Well, the orthodox were outraged, and not only stopped mingling with the liberals, not only did they build another theological school, but they also began accusing the too-big-for-their-boots liberals, of being Unitarian in their theology. Well, the name stuck, and here we are.

So the question is this Easter morning - the highest holiday on the Christian calendar - the question is "what did our Unitarian Universalist forebears have to say about the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, if they weren't preaching the orthodoxy anymore than we do today?" The answer lies in two tracts written at the beginning of the 19th century. The first is Hosea Ballou's "Treaties on Atonement" and the second is William Ellery Channing's "Unitarian Christianity".

The Enlightenment's effect on these two preachers, with its emphasis on reason and its kinder and gentler God, can not be understated. Hosea Ballou brilliantly argued his points using comparative biblical passages and clear logic to knock down one orthodox doctrine after another. William Ellery Channing took advantage of the modern German biblical criticism which stated confidently that the bible was indeed the revealed truth of God, but it was recorded by men and for men. So when we interpret the bible, we have to use cultural and historical lenses. It's just the way we interpret the Bible today. Reason, logic, rationality were extremely important to Ballou and Channing. But make no mistake, both the Universalism and Unitarianism of the 19th century was primarily a biblical faith.

This was a time of great religious interest and public debates held all kinds of attention. Understanding a well argued point could mean the difference between one's eternal salvation and damnation. You could imagine that feelings ran fairly high over these discussions and contrasting doctrines. There's a story of a Universalist preacher giving a lecture one evening on the good news of Universalism. He was busy giving his lecture and a rock came hurtling through the window. It landed in a shower of glass beside the preacher. Well, he stooped down to pick it up, he hefted it in his hand, and he said to the congregation, "My friends, this is indeed a weighty argument, but it is neither scriptural nor rational."

So, what was Unitarian and Universalist Christianity in those 19th century days, and What is it today? Let's start at the top. Let's start with God. Both Unitarians and Universalists agreed that the doctrine of the trinity had no foundation in the Bible. Furthermore this three-in-one business just didn't make any sense. And moreover, the trinity detracted from wholesome worship. In Trinitarian worship, God the father - that mean old guy in the sky, the judge - had to play bad cop to the son's sweetness and light good cop - when everybody knows of course that God is all-loving and ever-forgiving and ever-welcoming and ever-beneficent. The bad cop thing just didn't work.

And what about Jesus? Well, both the Unitarians and Universalists agreed on biblical and scriptural grounds, that Jesus was sent by God on a divine mission - that's no different from anyone else - but while the orthodox said that Jesus was both fully human and fully divine, the Unitarians said that Jesus was fully human, but no more divine than the rest of us.

Unitarians and Universalists also both made arguments, clear arguments, against the doctrine of original sin. It was simply unjust, unscriptural, and irrational. How could a finite Adam sin infinitely? That just doesn't make sense. How could a finite sin deserve eternal punishment? That's just not fair. And how could a loving parent God punish a child eternally? That’s just not right. Rather, the Unitarians said that we have the choice to do good or to do evil at any moment of the day. And the Universalists said we only sin because we live in these craving, carnal, mortal bodies. Once we shed these mortal coils, we'll sin no more, and we'll all be welcomed into our heavenly home. Moreover, the Universalists said sin is its own punishment. If we choose to sin, that's its own punishment, it's an estrangement from God. And if we choose to do good, well that's its own reward, that warm fuzzy feeling of communion with the Divine.

Both denominations were adamant that God was ever-loving, ever-beneficent, ever-welcoming, ever-just. And both denominations agreed that Jesus was in no way sent to earth to suffer in unmitigated agony to placate an angry God. That's just not the way it happened. Rather, Jesus was sent here to wake us up, to remind us to love God, and to remind us how to love again. Channing wrote that while "we gratefully acknowledge that he came to rescue us from punishment" - hell - "we believe that he was sent on a far nobler errand: namely, to deliver us from sin itself"; that is, to teach us how not to sin, how to love instead.

And as for the doctrine of the pre-destined elect who get to go to heaven while the rest of us burn in hell for eternity, well the Unitarians and the Universalists just rejected that outright. I mean, what kind of all-loving parent creates a world with more misery than happiness? And what kind of an all-loving parent sends a savior for everyone and yet only accepts a few home when we all knock on the door? Ballou wrote "Why the above ideas should have ever been imbibed by men of understanding and study, I can scarcely satisfy myself. Their absurdities are so glaring that it seems next to impossible that men of sobriety and sound judgment should ever avoid seeing them." Although Ballou wrote that in 1805 it seems very likely that our own Ralph Nielsen could have written it today for the Daily News.

So, in this Unitarian Universalist Christianity, we have:

A single, loving, moral God;

People like you and me and Adam and Eve who make mistakes and are punished for our errors in proportion to our errors in this life;

A remarkable teacher, Jesus, who came to teach us in word and deed how to love each other and our God;

And, the promise of eternity in which we will breathe the air of unbounded benevolence, knowing that heaven is big enough for all of us and universal nature will eventually be brought into perfect harmony with truth and holiness.

Oh, that is such good news! That's the good news. That's our forebears' good news for us and for everyone. For what then, in heaven's name, do we need Easter? Why the bloody and horrible crucifixion? Why the miraculous and irrational resurrection?

Well, it seems even the optimistic Channing, Ballou and the rest of all those liberals thought that human nature was recalcitrant, stubborn, belligerent, unwilling to change. Especially if the alternative to change is to stay in our comfortable rut, to satisfy the cravings of this carnal body, to avoid risk, or to act for short term gain. Humanity does seem just a little unwilling to change at times, doesn't it? Especially if change means facing that incredibly difficult task of living in loving community with our neighbors, our friends, and our enemies. Especially if change means feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, and aiding the poor and the sick.

Now most of us, most of us here, when giving a divine mission like saving our public schools, or working to provide affordable health care for the elderly, or working for human rights and world peace, or teaching new forms of communication or being a fair and loving parent, spouse, citizen - most of us when giving a divine mission will work hard for our cause. We will stand up for what we believe, we will do what is necessary to be heard. Some of us will even go to great lengths for the cause of truth and justice and love.

The Easter story tells us that Jesus was given a divine mission, and he simply would not stand down. He would not stand down because he so loved the world. He would not stand down because he so loved us, regardless of the consequences of human nature. The crucifixion was merely a matter of killing the messenger. There was nothing sweet or saving about it. It was Jesus' life that was saving, not his death. Moreover, Jesus' life could not be restricted by death. He would not linger in death. Even if death was a secure insulating refuge from a cruel and imperfect and broken world as it must have been for him.

Jesus' story, Jesus' message tells us that he thought it was time to roll away the stone. Time to awaken new possibilities of life for himself and for all of us. The resurrection - the pinnacle of Christian theology, the Easter message - the resurrection, according to our forebears, bore witness to Jesus' message, his divine mission. The resurrection proved that love and justice can conquer death. We are stronger than death. Even our very rational forebears gave into the irrationality of hope.

Now whether or not Ballou and Channing believed literally in the resurrection, I don't know. In spite of their extremely detailed comments on just about everything else, they're kind of hazy on this one. But they claimed the resurrection, and they owned the resurrection, and they called themselves Christians for it.

These are the roots of our Unitarian and Universalist movements. Roots that nourish us into a something, roots that enable us to spring hopeful green shoots up from beneath the rotting leaves of despair, roots that enable us to bloom into the multi-spirited congregation that we are today, with leaves enjoying the light of truth and the warmth of love from all directions, all directions, including a leaf or two towards Christianity. So Happy Easter. And I beg you now, not to change the locks.

Sources and Further Reading

Ballou, Hosea. A Treatise on Atonement. Skinner House Books, Boston, 1986.

Cassara, Earnest. Universalism in America: A Documentary History of a Liberal Faith. Skinner House Books, Boston, 1971.

Gumundson, V. Emil. The Icelandic Unitarian Connection. Wheatfield Press, Winnipeg, 1984.

Mendelson, Jack. Channing: The Reluctant Radical. Unitarian Universalist Association, Boston, 1979.

Wintersteen, Prescott B. Christology in American Unitarianism. Unitarian Universalist Christian Fellowship, Boston, 1977.

Wright, Conrad. Three Prophets of Religious Liberalism: Channing, Emerson, Parker. Skinner House Books, Boston, 1986.

[2/3/02] Why Music Matters

2002-02-03T07:49:00.000-08:00
by Rev. Joan Montagnes
February 3, 2002

Some months ago, Dan Schmidt came up to this pulpit and stared at us for what seemed a good long time...and then he began to speak. Dan said he was illustrating one of the experiences of addiction: withdrawal. He called our discomfort, when he stood in the pulpit and said nothing, "speaker withdrawal." This morning we are experiencing "music withdrawal." You have come to church and all you are receiving is words.

Each year at the Service Auction, I offer the "Sermon Topic of Your Choice" to the highest bidder - a chance to put your words in my mouth. Last year, Sandra Haarsager, our Music Director, purchased the sermon and asked me to speak on "Why Music Matters." We figured the best way to give her her money's worth was to a) give her the day off, and b) make the initial point that when there is no music, we experience a very uncomfortable music withdrawal.

Why does music matter? Why are we addicted?

It is believed in many cultures that the cosmos was created with the first sound. In our own Judeo-Christian-Islamic-Secular culture, some say that it all began with God's voice saying, "Let there be light!" -- or even before creation there was the "Word" - and some say it all began with a Big Bang. As our opening words and meditation suggest, there is a sound, a pulse at the heart of the universe. All is in motion from the humming vibrations of atoms to the slower beats of equally repeated seasons, cycles of days and nights, growth and decay, the migrations of birds, moon and tides, and our own hearts beating in our chests. Though the universe is full of myriad multiplicity, it sings in a unity of music.

In the seventeenth century, physicist Christian Huygens developed the Law of Entrainment. The Law of Entrainment states that if two rhythms are nearly the same, and their sources are in close proximity, the two rhythms will lock up. Why do rhythms entrain? Who knows? Perhaps because nature is efficient and it takes less energy to pulse together than in opposition. Perhaps because music matters right down to the ground of being.

Maybe music matters to us because this dance of the universe is as much a part of us as is our blood, our sense of humor, our tears. We instinctively react to music. The most primitive part of our brains, the reptilian cortex, responds to music by noticing the noise and giving the body a hit of adrenaline. The reptilian cortex says, "Uh oh music! Pay attention!".

The mammalian cortex builds on information given by the primitive brain. The mammalian cortex hears the music, pays attention, gets the hit of adrenaline, and notices the rhythm. The mammalian cortex says, "Hey this music has a groove! Let's entrain, let's tap our toes, dance and snap our fingers!"

The cerebral cortex, the part of the brain that makes us human and makes us self-reflective, not only notices the music, gets the adrenaline hit, and gets into the groove; the cerebral cortex is also aware of the music's larger meaning. The cerebral cortex says, "Hey, this music matters."

Music has always mattered. As early hominids we listened to the songs of the birds, the wind in the trees, waves on ocean, trickling brooks, beat of rain, crashing thunder, and the cries of animals. We listened to gorilla-like beasts pounding on their chests. Maybe music began to matter when we began to make tools with percussive strikes of stone on stone. And music really began to matter when we started to understand the ways of Heaven and Earth; when we began to understand that if we wanted good weather, successful hunts, to celebrate life, or to appease the gods, we had to make music. We had to clap our hands, stamp our feet, sway our bodies, and make new and repetitive sounds with our voices. Singing may have been our first attempt at expressing our feelings.

Around the fire we gave birth to music, poetry, dance, painting, and drama woven together in a tangle of symbols and meanings. At first we probably just used our bodies to shape our art. But soon we began using instruments to make music - banging a couple of sticks together or on a hollow log. Logs became drums, drums became rattles, and soon we discovered that even the stalactites of our holy caves rang like long-echoing gongs when struck.

Thirty thousand years ago, about the time we began making tools, we also began painting religious icons on rocks and cave walls. By 15,000 years ago, those painted figures were clearly dancing to a tune that yoked religion and art in a way that only mystics understand today. The word "religion" comes from the Latin re and ligio, meaning to bind again, to entrain one rhythm to another, to entrain our rhythms to the rhythms of the cosmos. Maybe that's why music matters.

Religion is historically a font of great art. Almost all historic art from anywhere in the world was dedicated to religious expression. In our religious pursuits we crave not only Truth and Goodness, but also Beauty; that is, we crave aesthetics as much as understanding and ethics. We crave these three: Beauty, Truth, and Goodness, because, with their opposites, they paint the entire picture of human experience. Music, at the heart of the arts, permeates religion today as it did before we could even speak.

There is something transformational about music. From the earliest days we sat in drumming circles and other symphonies, listening to our inner selves and our outer instruments join, entrain, and enter into dialogue with the music of the spheres - intoxicating rhythms suspending normal experience, urging dancers to focus on the Transcendent, whirling dervishes into mystical trances, coaxing monks as they chant their sutras and psalms. Music is transformative.

Even in our little Friday night Vespers Services, we get a taste of the transformative by singing repetitively until we are both centered and humming with the vibrations of our own voices and our own harmonies. It can be very calming and dare I say, prayerful, and at the very least, like a full internal body massage.

Music is transformational. Depending on the pitch, rhythm, harmony, and tone, music can be rousing and exciting or soothing and calming. It can be joyous and celebratory or poignant and pained. Music can alter our state of being. Music tells us to notice and to be a lover of this moment of the Universal; and by noticing this moment, to become a lover of the Universal in its entirety. Music tells us to entrain, to bind ourselves again to the Transcendent.

In beautiful music we realize the hope of mysticism. We lose ourselves in perfect satisfaction. Time vanishes and we are transported, while living very much in the temporal, to the Eternal. Music surges through us and becomes part of us and we it.

And when all is sung and done, when the skins of the drums are stilled, when the electric guitar strings stop vibrating, when the opera house echoes with its last note, we reflect on the world anew and bow our heads in awe.

Music matters because it is part of the existence we are. It is the singing of all nature, the stars, and the humming of the molecules in our skin. Music is part of what we have become. We all come from musical families, as far back as our prehistoric grandparents. Music matters because it links us to the Eternal, the Divine, the Transcendent, something larger than our narrow selves, and in so doing, music transforms us certainly momentarily and sometimes permanently.

So let's end this dreadful withdrawal beginning with one note, hummmm, change it to a phrase and sing with me now...

"There is more love Somewhere..."

[9/16/01] Responding to Fear

2001-09-16T07:38:00.000-07:00
by Rev. Joan Montagnes
September 16, 2001

This has been a week of terror. Four planes crashed; two towers fell burning to the ground. The number of dead and missing is rising. Casualties from the crash scenes have stopped coming to the hospitals, and now they go directly to the morgue. Hospitals have stopped treating people for injuries and are now treating police, firemen, and other emergency response professionals for post-traumatic stress. In New York, there are startlingly few identified bodies and only a few more unidentified bodies, and only a few more than that of body parts coming out of the wreckage. Relatives of the missing are wandering the streets with photographs of their loved ones, pleading for information. And this week we have found a whole new picture of terror - painted more clearly for us than ever before - because of cell phone calls. Phones were used from doomed planes, from burning buildings and even from deep within the rubble. And our terror today is shifting from the events of Tuesday to the uncertainty of the future.

The last time I spoke to you from this pulpit, I lifted up the lessons of James Luther Adams who told us that if we are to be a viable religion today, we need to have a response to human evil. Little did I realize how soon we would be confronted with human evil. And I don't want you to understand me too quickly. I believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person, including terrorists. I also believe the terrorists' actions are desperate and evil. They deny life. They say 'no' to life. They say 'yes' to a destructive force that lies latent in all of us.

The goal of terror is to disable us with fear. The antidote to terror is to find a way not to be disabled: to build a house out of bricks, to use our wits, to have a response to terror. And we've seen many responses to terror this week, many different responses.

The international community has shifted its anger at the U.S. trade and foreign policies and withdrawal from the summit on racism to full support in our grief and solidarity in condemning terrorism, as hundreds of citizens from other countries died in the World Trade Center attack.

The federal government has responded to the terror by assigning 7000 personnel to the investigation, calling up 50,000 reservists, and approving 40 billion to clean up the crash sites, beef up security, hunt up terrorists, and help out victims and their families. President Bush says he weeps and mourns with the country. He has spoken of a quiet anger in America and asks us not to target our anger at American Muslims and Arabs. The President said that this was a new kind of war and that the government was going to adjust to it and call other governments to join in the response. The President declared Friday as a national day of prayer and mourning and in his address at the national prayer service he said, "Our responsibility to history is already clear: to answer these attacks and rid the world of evil." Tall order.

The public has also responded in terror. Eighty-three percent of an NBC poll support a response of "forceful military action". We've seen thousands volunteer at every kind of duty. We've seen long lines of blood donors and the Red Cross has received millions of donations. We've also heard of a Texas mosque and Islamic school which has been firebombed.

Locally, we've responded to terror with all kinds of vigils - four in this building alone this week. And every other congregation on the Palouse is experiencing the same kind of activity. Not to mention the University of Idaho, Washington State University and all high school vigils. We sang the Star Spangled Banner at the farmer's market, had a minute of silence at the county fair. President Hoover has asked us as a congregation to find emergency housing for foreign students should they be harassed in the days to come. (And if you're interested in opening your house to a foreign student who may be harassed in the days to come, there is a sign-up for you out in the foyer. Please sign up after the service.)

Well all this information - all these responses to terror: political, social, economic - they're all widely available to you on the tv, radio, newsprint, Internet. But how are you doing? How are you doing? How are you responding to the terror? Maybe you find yourself preoccupied with Tuesday's events and subsequent news reports. Maybe you have trouble focussing on daily tasks and remembering little things here and there. Maybe you feel guilty because you're coping best with humor, or by getting back to work, or by sitting dumbfounded on the couch, and somehow think that those are bad ways to respond. Maybe you are feeling anxious, numb, sad, distressful, irritable, vengeful or helpless. Maybe you find yourself wanting to talk to and be with other people. Maybe you're feeling a little more protective than usual of your loved ones. And perhaps you are having bad dreams. These are all healthy and normal responses to extraordinary situations. Let's forgive ourselves and each other for dealing with this stress in all the different ways that we do deal with it. Let's be kind to each other. Especially now.

A very common response to terror is anger. Because anger is a mask for fear. Anger is an expression of fear and pain. Unfortunately, as we all know, one of the first responses to terror - to violence - is lashing out in kind, lashing out with random acts of violence that threaten the lives of more innocent people. And many of us fear for the Muslims and the Arabs in our community. We heard about that from the Human Rights Task Force. Joann Muneta was telling us about the flier she has for us.

If we can learn anything from the story of the three little pigs it is that violence begets violence. Now you need to know that I truncated the story this morning, and probably most of you do know that I truncated the story a little this morning. In the end, after a few more mishaps, the pig ends up eating the wolf. And it's gory. I figured we'd all been exposed to enough gore for one week. Sometimes it's hard to tell who is afraid of who. Sometimes it's hard to tell who is going to get gobbled up in the end. Violence begets violence.

A first response to terror may be anger and thoughtless violence, but it need not be. I think we all know that. Should we look deeper, past our anger, into the pain and the fear, we might begin to see things that we do not want to see: a pain deeper than anguish; a fear deeper than terror. A piercing truth born from what we have failed to say, failed to do, failed to overcome, born from the reality of the situation. Beneath the terror is a core of sadness.

"What did I do, my brothers, to provoke you to such horror?"

"How, my brothers, could you be so mistaken?"

Touching that core, that sadness, that inner self, we can begin to renew our lives. Apathy to action; provocation to collaboration; misunderstanding to understanding. For after we have touched the core of our humanity, after we have dug deep into ourselves, after the towers have fallen, the world can not - will not - ever be the same. Once we have gone deep into ourselves like Orpheus into Hades and returned forever changed, forever seeing the world and our brothers and sisters on this planet in a new light, once we returned to the world transformed others may turn from us enraged, in pain, in vengeance, in victimhood, but we, we can, as we said in our meditation today, we can chose to belong to the generations who refuse to give up their humanity in times of terror. I refuse to give up my humanity in times of terror. In this time of desperation and lamentations, my response to terror is deep sadness. And sadness opens me to the possibility for change. Sadness becomes hope, and I begin anew the legacy of caring.

Our very first response to terror may be pain and fear. But pain and fear can almost instantaneously become bravery and love. In this tragedy our picture of terror was painted more clearly than ever before by the cell phones. Our understanding of how to respond to terror was also painted more clearly than ever before. We heard people in doomed planes, burning buildings and even deep within the rubble not only telling us that they were striving to save the lives of their brothers and sisters, but they called to us, and they said "I love you", "be brave".

In this time of terror - terror not only at the crash sites at New York and Washington and Pennsylvania, but also terror at what our future may or may not hold - in this time of terror let us say "yes" to life, as hard as that might be. Let us say "yes" to truth, as awful as it might be. Let us say "yes" to love as dangerous as it might be. Let us invoke the spirit of life that it might help us find our compassion, our rooots, our freedom, and show us the larger face of justice. Let us invoke the spirit of life that we may respond to terror with bravery and with love.

Let's join now in singing Spirit of Life.