A Miracle of Lights

This Tuesday is the dark of the moon. It is no accident that this falls right in the middle of Hanukkah- as the Jewish months follow the cycles of the moon, and so Hanukkah always begins in the last slivers of light of the moon, and lasts until the first slivers of moonlight return. Hanukkah always falls in the month of Kislev which in our hemisphere is also the darkest, coldest time of year.

It makes sense to our spirits to kindle lights in dark times, but these little lights on the menorah are not for illumination, they are not to be used in any practical way, like reading a book, or lighting other candles (that is why we carefully separate the Shamash, the helper candle that is a working candle). These candles traditionally remind us of the divine, and of the miracle of lights.

Often we talk about Hanukkah as an occasion to celebrate religious freedom, but there is another, old tradition that Rabi Waskow talks about in his book “Seasons of our Joy” -- the rabbis in the Talmud emphasize the spiritual meaning of the light that burned in the temple for 8 days.  Waskow writes:

 “the single bottle of oil represents the last irreducible minimum of spiritual light and creativity within the Jewish people – still there even in its worst moments of apathy and idolatry. The ability of that single jar of oil to stay lit for eight days symbolized how with God’s help that tiny amount could unfold into an infinite supply of spiritual riches. Infinite, because the eighth day stood for infinity. Since the whole universe was created in seven days, eight since the whole universe was created in seven days, eight is a symbol of eternity and infinity” [p. 91-92]

Perhaps this December your spirit is full of light and energy, overflowing with abundance. Or perhaps your spirit is burning low. These lights kindled on the menorah remind us in this the darkest time of year when we might need reminding, that the light, the fuel of the spirit is different than the fuel in our cars. That the light of our spirits can be renewed in unexpected ways, even when we cannot imagine our dim light ever being bright again. For theists, it is God that renews that fuel for the spirit. And for folks who are not sure about God, we remember the Spirt of Life, the web of life, the beloved community can surprise us with help to renew our spirit. So if you are full of energy and joy just now, perhaps you will be the source of the light for others. If you are feeling low, remember that miracle of lights, that relights our own spirit even in a season when light is scarce.

As I was watching Rev. Joanna’s video about lighting a menorah, she explained that the lights “These candles are meant to be just ornamental, just to bring joy, not to be a functional source of light and illumination to a space.” I had never really understood that before. The more I thought about it, the more I could see the wisdom of it.

This distinction reminds me of the care we have to take for our own spirits, and the light of our beloved community. It’s easy to use every last drop of ourselves in our work, and indeed the work is endless. We light these candles simply to remind us of that which is sacred. This year the lights of the Hanukkah menorah speak to me of the lights we preserve only to feed our spirits with beauty. They speak to me of the importance of things which exist in the world just to be enjoyed, not for their utility. That includes us -- each of us with our inherent worth and dignity. Though our work is important, our inner light, our life is sacred just simply being.

What the Soul Wants

Photo of the author playing Cunégonde in a High School Production of Candide

Here is a story from my own life, that some of you have heard before. It is one of the stories that I still use as a touchstone today when trying to discern my path.

When I was a little girl, I wanted more than anything to get a chance to be in a musical, like the young performers in “Annie” that was so popular at the time. Singing and dancing were sources of great joy to me. I spent hours singing or dancing along with the soundtracks to musicals, and later to pop songs and operas. I was part of the drama club in high school, and those experiences, that community provided many of my best friendships and favorite experiences. When it was time to go to college, I decided to go for it- to pursue my greatest joy. The program I chose was not what I expected -- 400 young singers all grinding through a factory- like obstacle course of a program. Only grad students, special ones at that, got to be part of the opera program that had appealed to me when I chose the school.

I worked hard- really hard. My friends and I spent most of the day every day in our practice rooms. I was unhappy. I became depressed. But it was hard to know… perhaps this was just what it took to become a singer. Perhaps grinding it out and persevering would help me achieve my dreams.

One bright spot my freshman year was a class called “Women in Ancient Israel – a feminist hermeneutic of the Hebrew scriptures.” This blew my mind. I had never been in a room full of other feminist before, and I had no idea feminism had anything to say about scriptures. The research we did was challenging and engaging. At the end of the semester the professor encouraged me to submit my paper to a competition- so affirming! I wrote in my journal” I wonder if it means anything that my favorite class is “Women in Ancient Israel”

Where music had felt like a great flood of creativity and energy before, now it felt like one of those places where the creek finally fizzles out into a shallow dry place. I grew increasingly depressed, but still I persisted. I went on to graduate school, where I still never had the chance to sing any of the music I loved in the practice room, much less get on stage with the opera. Finally I had a big memory freeze during a voice jury. My advisor encouraged me to take a year off and rethink. It was devastating. But also…

What a relief it would be to finally stop pushing against the wall, to stop dragging myself down this dry path, to stop practicing every day. There was a lightness when I thought of this decision. A cascade of decisions followed- not only would I leave school, but I would stop practicing. I would just see who I was without the disciple of practicing every day. For a year I was going to just be a normal young adult- get an office job, have fun on the weekends. It quickly became clear that this was the right choice.

But after a couple years of working in office jobs, it was clear this wasn’t right either. I had gotten a decent entry level job at a company with principled values (even if I didn’t agree with all of them) and a path for advancement. I was okay at it, but my spirit was restless. I began a period of thoughtful discernment, and the light began to slowly dawn that I would like to try being a Unitarian Universalist minister.

Here's what is important to me about that story- that experience of how it feels to be trudging down that dwindling dry path. To me, this is what it sounds like when the universe is saying “you can do that if you want, you are free to choose, but that’s not where the energy of creation is flowing.”

Another touchstone moment is that voice jury where my memory failed. It was crushing, that outcome, that moment, but now I see it as one of those turning points that released me from something when I couldn’t release myself.

I think of that restless feeling I had working in that office, that suggested something more was possible.

I remember how the energy moved in me during my feminist hermeneutic class in college, I remember how it felt similar as I thought about going to seminary, how the way opened like a crack in stone through which water trickles, and opened out into a flowing stream as I moved along it. There was a sense of invitation, of a way opening as I traveled it.

I kind of thought once I had made that big decision to enter the ministry, I was done with discernment. Here’s something else I learned; discernment is not just about the big choices, this career or that one, this place to live or that one. We make big and little decisions all the time in life, for as long as we live. Even though I feel so clear ministry is the right path for me, each day I must discern step by step the path I make by walking.

I also learned that Discernment is not just about moving towards what feels good, or easy. For example, part of ministry is being with people who are struggling, being with our challenges as a community and as a world. But I notice a kind of way I feel when we know that something is the right thing to do, even when it is hard? For me there is a feeling of deep resonance, maybe it’s that voice of the genuine speaking. I sense that staying on the hard path will matter, that it will connect me to something sacred, to the deep parts of myself, to the person I most want to be.

There are lots of ways to make decisions. You can write up a pro and con list, and total them up. You can follow the crowd, the path of least resistance. Ask for advice, or experiment. Some decisions can be made quickly, lightly. If you are getting takeout and decide to choose the restaurant with the fastest service, that’s a perfectly good choice, quickly made. But some choices deserve the time and attention it takes to hear the voice of our own soul.

For me, that is a voice that is sometimes slow to speak- it requires quiet, and patience and deep listening. What do we mean by the soul? Hard to say. Perhaps it is the voice of the genuine, as Thurman suggests in his  commencement address at Spelman College. Perhaps it is the “deep wanna” that Sr. Dougherty mentions in her book Discernment: A Path to Spiritual Awakening. I imagine the soul as a place where all of ourself comes together -- heart, mind, body—and where we connect with that which is greater than ourselves, be that the web of life, community, or the divine. These parts of ourselves don’t always agree. Like any group trying to make a decision together, you can go follow the loudest most insistent voice- I’m hungry let’s eat! But one way to think of discernment is taking the time to hear from each part of our self, and for those parts to come to some harmonious consensus.

The danger in sharing my story, is that others will apply that model to themselves. For example, I have a friend who says she is “addicted to drama” and so for her, sometimes events sweep her up in a compelling way, even though when she can really check in with her soul, she notices these seemingly important events were just a distraction. That metaphor I use about the flow of energy that is helpful to me might send her down the wrong path.

So let’s take a moment here and invite each of us to consider Thurman’s question “How does the sound of the genuine come through to you?” to discern, “when in my life have made a choice by listening to the deep wisdom of my own soul? As I remember such a time, what did it feel like, what has discernment looked like for me in my own story?”

I wonder what questions are important to your soul right now? Some big questions that came up for me as I approached the 25th anniversary of my ordination, which we celebrated last night. I am no longer the 28 year old who was ordained back in California-- who am I now? Does what I do matter? How does it matter?

I’ve found that even finding the right question requires discernment. Sometimes being able to frame the question so it feels just right opens the door to an answer, to a new path. Sometimes the question starts out as a wordless restlessness in my spirit, I don’t know what it’s about, but I begin by asking “What do I want? What do I really want?” I ask and ask, until the inquiry feels complete.

We are very theologically diverse here. Those of us who have a prayer practice, or who are prayer curious, we might invite the divine into our discernment, might bring the question into our prayer practice.

For those of us who are atheists, or for whom that doesn’t feel authentic, we can pose our question to our own souls, or our own Psyche, our own deep wisdom

I invite you to take another pause to ask ourselves “what is it my soul wants now?” or whatever question feels like your question of this moment.

Discernment is not just a single choice once made, it is a way of involving our deepest self, or connecting to what is larger than ourselves, as we find our way through our life’s journey. If we want to have a soul-oriented life, it will necessarily involve taking time to listen to the soul. And like any rich deep practice it takes time to hone and develop. At this time when so much is changing, I encourage each of us to ask what it is our soul most wants, and to bring the quality of discernment to questions big and small along our journeys.

 

Holding Hope

"The young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them? Tell them at least what you say to yourself. "

What a powerful challenge Berry offers. He was only 73 when he wrote that poem, back in 2007.

"It is hard to have hope. It is harder as you grow old,
for hope must not depend on feeling good"

And elders know deeply the reality that lives end, ours and those we love.

And if we’ve learned nothing else, we’ve learned that you can’t count on the future being how you imagined it.

When he wrote that poem, Berry was worried about a lot of the things that worry us- about war, about corruption, and especially about the earth:

“Because we have not made our lives to fit
our places, the forests are ruined, the fields eroded,
the streams polluted, the mountains overturned.”

Ugh. And it’s not better now, 16 years later.
It’s hard to hope, he says, but “young ask the old to hope. What will you tell them?”

I want to just pause for a moment, and let that question linger in the air to see if any answers bubble up in you before I offer some thoughts.

I’ve been reading Why the World Doesn’t End by Michael Meade, (68 when he wrote it in 2012) who looks at the many times throughout history when it FELT like the world was ending -- apocalyptic times. Meade invites us return to the deep old wisdom that has always gotten us through times like these. “something ancient and enduring must be touched for things to be made anew and fashioned again. It is the ancient way of the world to make itself anew from the enduring threads that have been woven and rewoven many times before.” (p. 82)

I find this reassuring, to know that humans have been through times that shook our foundations before, but somehow here we are now, despite and because of the past. Hopeful that we are connected by ancient, enduring threads to those other times of resilience and survival. These ancient enduring threads are often hidden among the weaving of daily life, but when things fall apart, we can see they have been there the whole time.

Meade feels, like Berry, that we who are older have an important role to play here. He writes:

“This world has always been at risk, and at times the only safety comes when the right risks are taken for the benefit of everyone. The traditional role of elders included remembering what was most important about life and how to hold ends and beginnings together when times become hard. … Having survived the troubles of their own lives and having grown deeper and wiser, they knew both how to survive and how to find genuine vision where others could only see disaster. Being "old enough to know better" they would know that life renews itself in surprising ways and that the greatest dilemmas can serve to awaken the deepest resources of the human soul. [p. 24 -25]”

Like the grandmother in today’s story,
My Grandmother's Journey, all elders know that life can be hard, and how hard it can be, but they also have seen seasons come and go. They know what endures. Meade continues:

“There is a deep human instinct to turn to those who are older for guidance when faced with obstacles or danger. Yet part of the problem in modern cultures is that those who are older often feel as lost as young people just starting out on the roads of life. When a culture falls apart it happens in two places at once: where its youth are rejected and not fully invited into life and where its elders are forgotten and forget what is important about life. Modern cultures tend to produce a mass of "olders” who live longer and longer, but a lack of genuine elders who know what to live for. ... Everyone born grows older but elders are made, not born.”

Wow, I feel that too. A lack of guidance for becoming an elder, a lack of societal recognition that elders are critically important to the health and hopefulness of society. And I was looking! This rang so true to me, that we all have a choice as we transition into the later stages of our lives, we can allow our culture to show us we are becoming invisible and powerless, . Or we can claim, and grow into this important role. I have been asking myself ever since I turned 50, “what is the meaning and purpose of this next chapter of my life”? So Meade’s idea was heartening to me. Perhaps I could help with “remembering what was most important about life and how to hold ends and beginnings together when times become hard.”

Perhaps for ourselves we wouldn’t do it. But the other generations need us:

“The lack of meaningfu1 elders leaves youth less protected, more isolated, and more exposed to extreme conditions, tragic deaths and wasted lives than they would normally be. Youth are at greater risk when the "olders" fail to act as elders and neglect to risk fulling living their own stories.”

And I have seen for myself the cynicism and lack of hope among Generation Z- my son’s generation. He tells me that it seems like the problems of our day only get worse: gun violence, climate change, racism, the growing wave of violence and restriction against our trans siblings.

The CDC report earlier this year said that 60% of female and non binary high school students report “persistent sadness and hopelessness” in 2021. 

The young ask the old to hope, and what will we tell them?

A superficial hope will not do; [Meade p. 57] “there are those who are overly hopeful even when tragedies occur and loss demands a deeper response. ..there is an insistence on “positivity” an avoidance of supposedly negative feelings, and a lack of the gravitas natural to the human soul and to life on earth. Some insist that “every cloud has a silver lining,” even when some clouds are lined with acid rain”

So where does real hope come from? The kind of hope that would help us get from one day to the next, the kind of hope that would help us do what had to be done? Berry suggest it comes from places, our places. And place to him means not a dot on the map, but the complex and sacred web of relationships that include the land, all the critters and beings who live on and with the land.

When I was a young minister, we often had visioning sessions that started with a blank sheet of paper, if the sky was the limit what would we wish for.

But in truth nothing starts with a blank sheet of paper -- every inch of our world is ancient and full of a unique community of life. We have so often damaged the web by imagining we can brush it aside to make space for our new vision.

So Berry suggests a grounded hope, one that literally emerges from our relationship with the land, with our ecosystem and our web of relationships. From our direct, embodied knowledge of our neighborhood and our neighbors in it. This is a solid grounding for hope, a future made by the intimate collaboration of this soil, these plants, trees, rivers, birds neighbors.

“Found your hope, then, on the ground under your feet.
Your hope of Heaven, let it rest on the ground underfoot.”

Greta Thunberg writes in No One Is Too Small to Make a Difference

“Adults keep saying: "We owe it to the young people to give them hope."
But I don't want your hope. …I want you to act as you would in a crisis.
I want you to act as if our house is on fire. Because it is.”

Ouch!

The hope we need for our times is grounded in action. Showing up, walking our talk, so it isn’t just pie in the sky. Perhaps we worry that we aren’t as strong as we used to be, can’t march or lift or push as we used to. But I remember how heartening it is to just have someone at your side, willing to roll up their sleeves and do what they can. It reminds us that we are not alone. To me, this is a great source of hope. The youngers need to know the olders haven’t abandoned them, are still showing up, still lending a hand however they can, and this is what our olders need too- to know that their lives have fresh meaning, are important in building our future together,

Part of our work in learning to be Elders, the path to becoming elders is to listen. We must Listen to “the voices that rise up …from your own heart” We have to tend our own light, shine our own light, because “When the people make dark the light within them, the world darkens.” Then we must “…Be still and listen to the voices that belong / to the streambanks and the trees and the open fields.” When we listen deeply ourselves and to our places, we see how people in other places are like us in our place. And it shows us “invariably the need for care / toward other people, other creatures, in other places / as you would ask them for care toward your place and you.”

The young ask the old to hope, and what will we tell them?

Berry suggests we cultivate a local, practical hope, that if we listen, if we pay attention, if we share our own inner light, it will matter to this place, and this place matters.

Meade holds out the ancient and enduring threads “that have been woven and rewoven many times before”, We who are older have a long view- we have seen things fall apart and come together, beginnings and endings. Our own stories have hope to offer, and the stories and wisdom of the ancestors. Generation after Generation, the teaching is the same -- we who are here in this time of great tension and change, must call forth in ourselves, we must grow the new thing that we are becoming, that our world is becoming, that our place is becoming, even this very moment, in this very place, in our hearts and minds and bodies. This is what gives me hope.

 

The Two Row Wampum and the Dish with One Spoon

The Two Row Wampum*
Last spring several members of our congregations went out to the Cayuga Share Farm to listen and learn from some of the Tribal chiefs and clan mothers. They referred again and again to the Two Row Wampum, a treaty between the Haudenosaunee ancestors and the white settler ancestors. They asked us that the spirit of our relationship begin with this treaty, a treaty which has been broken again and again by our US government, and by us settlers, and even by the churches, even the Unitarian Universalist  church. Because the key to the treaty is sovereignty- that the ship and the canoe peacefully coexist along side one another. We settlers know some of the history of the violence, the genocide that was part of the way we broke the peace of that treaty, though the more the chiefs talked about our shared history, the more I understood how thin my knowledge was.

The reason the two row was called again and again, was to affirm this agreement “The boats will travel side by side down the river of life. Each nation will respect the ways of each other and will not interfere with the other.” In part we remembered the Two Row because we had come together because of the active interference by the US Government Bureau of Indian affairs by choosing Clint Halftown as their representative, in violation of tradition and sovereignty. But we also remembered the 2 row so that it could guide how we were together. Many allies had gathered there that day because of the displacement and injustices in recent months, but the allies had a certain way of doing things, “Let’s hurry and fix this now” was the spirit of the allies. One of the clan mothers responded “this is urgent, so we must go slowly.” “Let’s call the press” said the settler allies. But the clan mothers asked that we respect their right to control their own narrative. They mentioned there were several Facebook pages, Kickstarters and websites that had been created by allies around the current struggle with Halftown, without consulting the clan mothers or the chiefs. They wanted the allies to be allies, to enter into relationship, to know one another, to ask for direction and confirmation before taking it upon ourselves to save or fix or “take charge.”

So this week as many of us prepare to celebrate the American holiday of Thanksgiving, and a national day of mourning[i]

I invite us to remember the Two Row Wampum treaty, the canoe and the ship side by side. And consider- how we might live into that treaty today:

“In one row is a ship with our White Brothers’ ways; in the other a canoe with our ways. Each will travel down the river of life side by side. Neither will attempt to steer the other’s vessel.” “Together we will travel in Friendship and in Peace Forever; as long as the grass is green, as long as the water runs downhill, as long as the sun rises in the East and sets in the West, and as long as our Mother Earth will last.”

*A summary of the treaty is here from the Onondoga Nation



The Dish With One Spoon**

I’m a huge fan of Dr. Robin Wall Kimmerer[i] who is a professor up at SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse, New York and founding Director of the Center for Native Peoples and the Environment. She wrote that book Braiding Sweetgrass, that spoke right to my heart and spirit. As a botanist, she loves and notices and understands plants, and helps weave the connections between western science and traditional knowledge. I have often preached on things I learned from her writings and talks. So when I saw she was giving a talk at Cornell last month I was dropped everything to join by zoom. Most if this reflection today is an amplification of her words and ideas from that day.[ii]

It was there that I learned about the treaty of the Dish With One Spoon. She taught us that the treaty, which binds together both her nation the Potawatomi, and those people on the lands here where we live - the Haudenoshonee, was a way we could imagine living together with the land- one land, one bowl shared by all of us, feeding all of us.

She noticed that in our western thinking the land was a resource to be used, material to be extracted for commodities. She described another way of understanding the land, the way she grew up with- nature as relatives, as family. Land as the source of identity, as sustainer, as connection to our ancestors, as library, teacher, pharmacy, home… as moral responsibility.

How we think about the land makes a big difference in the health of our ecosystems. We know and have often lamented here in worship the biodiversity that is being lost, the great extinction going on all over the world right now. Kimmerer mentioned that on land under the care of Indigenous people, biodiversity is not crashing. How we think matters, has real impact on our world.

I had been wondering what the Two Row Wampum called me, in the ship, to do. And Kimmerer had some clear ideas- to work for justice, yes, but justice for who? Not just which group of 2 legged should have how much power, but justice for the land, for all the beings. Kimmerer invited us to be part of the rights of nature movement, growing in countries, cities and towns all over the world to extend legal protections to rivers, mountains, ecosystems acknowledging their right to “exist, persist, maintain and regenerate its vital cycles.”[iii]

The Two Row invites us to work together to make sure first nations peoples have places to practice their traditional ways, to honor their relationship to land, to care for and be grounded in their sacred places. The Two Row Wampum also calls us to gather in meaningful consultation about the great environmental problems and a vision of the future that concerns all of us in the canoe and on the ship.

Kimmerer suggested that what all of us can do is to change our minds- the slow work of changing how we see the land, how we see our siblings of all species, our other than human relatives. This harmonizes with our Unitarian Universalist 7th principle which challenges us to Respect “the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” It is one small thing we can do to honor the Two Row Wampum.

This Thanksgiving as we gather in gratitude for the bountiful Autumn harvest, let’s remember the bowl with one spoon, how the land feeds us all. And whether we celebrate with a big table of relatives, or a simple quiet meal, let us remember all the relations with whom we share this web of life. Let us live well in our place and love the land who is our relative. Let us receive her gifts in gratitude, and give back in reciprocity.

** a helpful article about this treaty is here: "The Two Row Times: A paper serving the dish with one spoon territory – Great Lakes Region. September 4, 2013 "

 

End notes:

---

[i] https://www.esf.edu/faculty/kimmerer/index.php

[ii] https://cals.cornell.edu/land-justice-engaging-indigenous-knowledge-land-care

[iii] https://www.garn.org/rights-of-nature/

---

[i] https://blog.nativehope.org/what-does-thanksgiving-mean-to-native-americans

The Freedom Clause

We begin with a reading of the Winchester Profession, New England Convention of Universalists (1803) since the language is a bit old timey, we have provided  a translation.

Article I. We believe that the Holy Scriptures of the Old and New Testaments contain a revelation of the character of God, and of the duty, interest and final destination of mankind.

Translation: The Hebrew and Christian scriptures tell us something about the divine, and what it means to be human.

Article II. We believe that there is one God, whose nature is Love, revealed in one Lord Jesus Christ, by one Holy Spirit of Grace, who will finally restore the whole family of mankind to holiness and happiness.

Translation: God is love, and eventually the whole human family will be restored to the happy holy starting place where they began the whole journey

Article III. We believe that holiness and true happiness are inseparably connected, and that believers ought to be careful to maintain order and practise good works; for these things are good and profitable unto men.

Translation: Being happy and being holy are connected. Do good works, you’ll like it.

 ...Yet while we, as an Association, adopt a general Profession of Belief and Plan of Church Government, we leave it to the several Churches and Societies, …within the limits of our General Association, to continue or adopt within themselves, such more particular articles of faith, or modes of discipline, as may appear to them best under their particular circumstances, provided they do not disagree with our general Profession and Plan.

Translation: we think this is a good statement, but if your congregation or cluster wants to come up with a different one, that’s fine, as long as it doesn’t directly contradict this one.

And while we consider that every Church possesses within itself all the powers of self-government, we earnestly and affectionately recommend to every Church, Society, or particular Association, to exercise the spirit of Christian meekness and charity towards those who have different modes of faith or practice, that where the brethren cannot see alike, they may agree to differ; and let every man be fully persuaded in his own mind.

Translation: Churches are free to be their own boss, but pretty please, be humble, kind and respectful when you run into folks who do or believe differently. please agree to disagree. Let everyone be true to their own inner wisdom.

Reflection:
What do Unitarian Universalists believe? It’s a hard question to answer. Rev. Douglas and I spent some time compiling lists of the many statements of belief that have evolved over our UU history, and the long list  illustrates that that this has been hard to answer for a long time, and that the answer keeps changing.

One thing that we often seem to agree about, is that folks have the capacity within them to discern what is true. We tend to agree that we want to be free to follow that inner compass. Over 450 years ago in Torda, now Romania, the first and only Unitarian monarch issued the Edict of Religious Toleration, which included this line: “no one shall compel them for their souls would not be satisfied”

I love that… “their souls would not be satisfied” it implies a certain belief about the soul, that it can be satisfied or dissatisfied, and that the soul is a trustworthy guide.

There’s a corollary I heard in my spiritual director training; that one hint we are headed towards the sacred is that we feel we are growing in freedom.

In his lovely book Everything Belongs Richard Rohr  helps parse out a bit what we mean by freedom:

“We have defined freedom in the West as the freedom to choose between options and preferences. That’s not primal freedom. ... The primal freedom is the freedom to be the self, the freedom to live in the truth despite all circumstances.”

The freedom to be the self. The freedom to live in truth- even when circumstances are hard.

Back in 1803, Universalists in the New England convention were asking themselves “what do Universalists believe?” when they wrote that Winchester profession of faith we heard a moment ago. First they made a list of things folks found important, a list I bet they spent quite some time arguing about and wordsmithing. But then they put in this “freedom clause” which tells us that that none of these principles are more important than each person being fully persuaded in their own mind.

What do UUs believe? At least this- we believe in the freedom to be yourself, to be true to your own inner wisdom.

Reading:

Things Common Believed Today Among Us, William Channing Gannett, Western Unitarian Conference, 1887 (Translation by Darcey Laine and Douglas Taylor, 2023)

The Western Conference has neither the wish nor the right to bind a single member by declarations concerning fellowship or doctrine. Yet it thinks some practical good may be done by setting forth in simple words the things most commonly believed among us—the Statement being always open to re-statement and to be regarded only as the thought of the majority.

Translation: Everyone in our group is free to disagree, but generally speaking – most of us believe something similar to what we wrote down here.

Douglas: All names that divide "religion" are to us of little consequence compared with religion itself. Whoever loves Truth and lives the Good is, in a broad sense, of our religious fellowship; whoever loves the one or lives the other better than ourselves is our teacher, whatever church or age he may belong to.

Translation: If you love truth and are a good person, we feel you. If you do it better than us, we’d like to learn from you.

The general faith is hinted well in such words as these: "Unitarianism is a religion of love to God and love to man."

Translation: A good meme for this would be “Love to God and love to Humanity”. 

Because we have no "creed" which we impose as a condition of fellowship, specific statements of belief abound among us, always somewhat differing, always largely agreeing. One such we offer here:

Translation: there’s no statement of belief to be a UU, so we have lots of different ways of saying what we believe in common. here is one version:

We believe that to love the Good and to live the Good is the supreme thing in religion;

Translation: Being a good person is more important than anything else;

We hold reason and conscience to be final authorities in matters of religious belief;

Translation: You are the boss of your own beliefs

We honor the Bible and all inspiring scripture, old and new; We revere Jesus, and all holy souls that have taught men truth and righteousness and love, as prophets of religion.

Translation: Jesus and the Bible are among the inspiring resources available to us

We believe in the growing nobility of Man;

Translation: We are growing into better people.

We believe that this self-forgetting, loyal life awakes in man the sense of union here and now with things eternal—the sense of deathlessness; and this sense is to us an earnest of the life to come.

Translation: Humbly working for the good of all will awaken in us a sense of connection with everything, a sense that we are all in this together.

We worship One-in-All—that life whence suns and stars derive their orbits and the soul of man its Ought—that Light which lighteth every man that cometh into the world, giving us power to become the sons of God,—that Love with which our souls commune.

Translation: We honor a sense of connection with our amazing universe; we are part of it. That same light in the sun and stars is in every person in the world. That is why we have the power to become amazing too. We are connected to the divine through the love in our souls.

Reflection
A few years back, I asked my congregation why people so rarely talked about what they believed. A few insightful folks said it was because they were afraid of disagreeing with one another.

I think not talking about our deepest beliefs because we might disagree is a bad compromise for a church. Instead, I believe our job is to create a circumstance where each can speak their truth and feel heard and held even if and when they disagree. When we get together for Soul Matters, or other discussion groups, we make a covenant about what it would take for us to do just that. Obviously, no insults, no telling people they’re wrong, not even giving each other advice. We each speak from our own heart and experience. And then each of us listens with an open mind and heart, as others speak from their life and their experience. It actually works pretty well.

Throughout our UU history there has been this tension between wanting to get down on paper what we believe in common, and allowing each of us the freedom to know our own mind and heart and soul. The Winchester profession gives us some words to hold this tension. First of all, “we earnestly and affectionately recommend …[that we] exercise the spirit of Christian meekness and charity towards those who have different modes of faith or practice“. That word --“affectionately” --Love that.

They earnestly and affectionately recommend that when we find ourselves disagreeing we approach one another with “Christian meekness and charity” Those wouldn’t be my words, so Douglas and I came up with “be humble, kind and respectful when you run into folks who do or believe differently. Please agree to disagree. Let everyone be true to their own inner wisdom.”

There have been many times over our history when parts of the UU movement have disagreed vehemently with one another. There are great historical controversies when people cancelled each other and wrote insulting unkind things about their opponents in pamphlets and magazines and sermons. Really, once you’re using the word “opponent” you know you are way past affection, meekness, charity, humility. For many, this moment in UU history is one of those times.

In the Western Conference statement, they point us towards actions rather than statements of belief: “Whoever loves Truth and lives the Good is, in a broad sense, of our religious fellowship” Perhaps this is good advice to us today, to encourage one another to love truth, to live the good, and to encounter our differences with humility and a generosity of spirit. Agree to disagree.

Many of that long list of statements throughout our history include some word about love; it was important to both Unitarians and Universalists. IN many different ways they expressed that love was sacred, and part of the nature of the divine. Way back in 1790 at that first convention of Universalists in Philidelphia, before Binghamton, Athens or Cortland universalist churches even existed, they spoke of God as “infinite, adorable, incomprehensible and unchangeable love.” In 1935 the Universalist bond of fellowship used the phrase “God as Eternal and All-Conquering Love. In the western conference statement we just heard, they end with the phrase “that Love with which our souls commune.” And Unitarians and Universalists have often agreed that one of the most important things we could do to express our faith was to cultivate love with one another.

In Hosea Ballou’s long career as a Universalist minister I bet he knew something about theological differences that seem like they could tear our faith apart. perhaps that is why he said: “If we agree in love, there is no disagreement that can do us any injury, but if we do not, no other agreement can do us any good. Let us endeavor to keep the unity of the spirit in the bonds of peace. “ (Treatise on Atonement 1805)

And so I encourage us in times when our differences of opinion and belief seem ready to tear us apart, to remember that at our core is love. Let us practice a freedom of belief that does not tear down those who disagree, but frees us to return to our center which is love. 

Note: This service was prepared in collaboration with Rev. Taylor as part of the partnership between UUCAS, UUCC and UUCB.

Coming Home

Carolyn McDade wrote her song "Coming Home" for the November 1980 “Women and Religion” continental convocation of Unitarian Universalists.”[i] She reflects that she and the other organizers were searching for “new and inclusive symbols and rituals that speak to us of our connectedness to one another, to the totality of life, and to our place on this planet.”

We're coming home to the spirit in our soul,
We're coming home and the healing makes us whole;
Like rivers running to the Sea.
We're coming home, we're coming home.

What does it mean to come home to the spirit in your soul? What does it mean to come home to yourself?

In her book, Traveling Mercies, Anne LaMott shares a story about a friend who got lost as a little girl. “The little girl ran up and down the streets of the big town where they lived, but she couldn’t find a single landmark. She was very frightened. Finally a policeman stopped to help her. He put her in the passenger seat of his car, and they drove around until she finally saw her church. She pointed it out to the policeman, and then she told him firmly, ‘You could let me out now. This is my church, and I can always find my way home from here.’”

LaMott picks up on the metaphor and says, “That’s why I have stayed so close to mine – because no matter how bad I am feeling, how lost or lonely or frightened, when I see the faces of the people at my church, and hear their tawny voices, I can always find my way home.”[ii]

I tell you, back in the spring of 2020 I felt like that the words of that old spiritual “a long way from home… a long way from home.” Even though I was, most of us were, stuck in my house pretty much all the time. It’s not just hardship that takes us away from our soul home, it also happens that we get distracted by the way of the world, by the needs of others, the expectations of our school, our job, even our church. So one of the jobs of religious community is to remind us to come home to ourselves.

It's okay that we leave home- like how we leave our house to learn new things, to connect with others, to do our work, to have adventures. But it can feel so good to come back home- a place where we are accepted, a place where we are safe, a place where we are free to be our own wild selves. We go away, we come back. Clarisa Pinkola Estes has a beautiful description of this process of coming home to the soul, writing: "Every animal I know has a place or places like that – even migrating animals have places they come back to." [Estes p. 268]

But this song is also about the community- “we’re coming home” those women sang together, and we sing together. One of our most noble aspirations as a congregation is to be a place that feels like home, a place where we are accepted, where we are safe, where we are free to be our wild selves. And, I’ve noticed over the years that communities have their own spirit, their own heart. I was trying to explain to Rev. Douglas the other day what the spirit of Athens feels like, and what the heart of Cortland feels like, because each has a unique spirit I have come to know and love. It was really hard when we started to meet together on zoom and we had trouble feeling that spirit, but over those weeks and months, we did begin to feel that spirit of community, even over the internet.

And it was hard when we came back together in our buildings, and it didn’t feel like it did in the fall of 2019. But I have felt it since, our spirit, our heart. We are coming home.

Like the lost princess in today's story*, we might forget our true self, we don’t know how to get home. This is why we gather in community, to listen for the sound that calls us home. “something stirs deep, deep within us, and we long to return to our true home, the home of the soul.”

That feeling of soul home is elusive, when we are away from our soul home for too long our heart aches. We feel thirsty for it, dry, parched. But it is there inside us, like the well of living water. Let us set our hearts on that journey each to our own soul home deep inside us, and let us set our hearts on our collective journey, toward the heart and spirit of our community’s soul home, the living waters that quench spirit’s thirst deep inside.

---

[i] https://www.uuwr.org/new-store/40-books/253-coming-home

[ii] Paraphrase from  Soul Matters 

* Gordon-Zaslow, Debra “The Journey of a Lost Princess” Chosen Tales: Stories Told by Jewish Storytellers. Northvale, NJ: Jason Aronson, an Imprint of Rowman & Littlefield, 1995. pp. 126–131.

 

Meditation on a Flower

This meditation was offered at our annual Flower Ceremony, but it can be done anytime you find yourself with a flower to enjoy deeply.

Take a moment now to appreciate the flower at hand.

Perhaps it is just a blossom, or perhaps you ave more than just a flower-- perhaps it has a stem with leaves or maybe a whole plant.

Is this a flower you’ve seen many times before, or is it new to you?

What does it smell like?

If you like, gently touch the different parts, are they smooth, or rough?

Do the parts feel different from one another?

How many colors does it have?

If you were going to paint it what colors would you choose?

How many petals does the flower have?

Can you figure out where the stamen are- the part that produces the pollen?

Can you see any pollen there?

Are any parts of the plant withered?

Are there any buds that have yet to open? 

Take another moment to mindfully enjoy and to gaze on this very flower with gratitude. 

Blessed be

Laying Down Stones

When my son was little, he loved picking up stones everywhere he went. I remember the time he came out of the lake and all the pockets of his life vest were filled with stones. Or the time he walked out of the woods with his after school primitive pursuits club tired and sweaty. We offered to take his backpack- what’s in this? We asked- it was so heavy! Rocks. Some of them huge. Why did you pick up this one, we asked. Because it was so big! He answered. We had to create a special place on our porch, and then our garden, for all his special stones.

Our sprits are like this, I think. We pick up all kinds of things in our daily lives. We pick up shiny sparkly things because they delight us, we bear the heavy weights of grief, of anger, or resentment. We can’t carry it all indefinitely, we need sometimes to pause and lay things down.

These stones here are from once I picked up last summer at Lake Ontario, because they delighted me. I spent hours on end walking the shore, admiring, inspecting, choosing, discarding that unique diversity of rocks. Even after I returned and set down many others, these were so compelling I had to take them home with me. I thought perhaps they could help us work on letting go, on laying things down together. When I empty my pockets after a day of collecting- there is a lightness, What might be worth letting go to feel a bit lighter?

I invite you to come up take a handful to help us focus our time this morning. (or if you are at home, to gather some stones or other objects you’d like to use for our ritual today). Sometimes it helps to have an embodied way to focus our intention and attention.

Once you’ve got your stones, I invite you to inspect them, notice them, and silently begin to consider, as you hold your stones, what is heavy for you right now? What feels like it is weighing you down?

This will be the practice. Choose a rock, and as you hold it, look at it, imagine that it represents the thing that is heavy for you. Maybe choose a rock that reminds you a bit of the thing. Once you decide what it represents, ask yourself if you are ready to lay it down. Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t. You can hold it as long as you like. Follow your own inner sense. IF you feel moved come up to the altar and lay down something with or without speaking a word or phrase you can do that at any time. I will alternates questions and silences, the goal is not to find an answer to every question, but to notice what comes up for you.

I’ve noticed for my own inner journey, that deep things can take time to move, so please don’t worry about matching your rock with my question. Just take your own time and come up whenever you are ready. Or not.

• First -- things that have served you well that you no longer need. Old beliefs, habits, stories, patterns, practices?
• Next --  self judgement. Is there something you are too hard on yourself for? I, for example, over-pack when I travel. I’m a nervous traveler, and it helps me to feel ready for uncertainty. Is there some self judgement you’d like to lay down?
• Forgiveness is another way of laying things down. Are there old hurts, old resentments you are carrying around?
• Grief or sadness; is there some heaviness in your heart you are carrying? Whether or not you are ready to lay it down, it might be helpful to notice the weight of what you are carrying
• Are there unfinished goals, projects, visions, wishes that you are wanting to release?
• Is there anything you have completed and are ready to set down? Accomplishments, milestones, chores?
• Last- are there things you are not ready to lay down, that you would like to lay down someday, but the process is not yet complete? … Feel free to hang on to, and take with you one or more stones to represent those processes, to let them go in a week or a month or however many years it takes to be ready.

As I stood at the edge of the lake looking at those stones sparkling I felt, somehow, responsible for seeing, tasting, enjoying and being grateful for it all. There is so much when you gaze on the world around us; some days it overwhelms me. It is too much for our human hearts- it is simply too immense. We cannot carry it all.

When we come together in worship, we practice setting down what we need, even if it’s only for an hour. Perhaps in this beloved community, it feels safe to haul out, to release, to let go what we are ready to release, all at once, or a bit at a time.

I hope your metaphorical pockets feel a bit lighter now, and there is room for whatever you feel called to pick up or hold in the present moment.

Sensing the Web

Earth day was created in 1970 to encourage all of us to protect the earth. Yet since that time our sense of hopelessness and grief about the challenges and changes to our earth have led not to the kinds of collective action needed to change course, but to a sense of hopelessness and helplessness.

Robin Wall Kimmerer writes:

“One otherwise unremarkable morning I gave the students in my General Ecology class a survey. Among other things, they were asked to rate their understanding of the negative interactions between humans and the environment. Nearly every one of the two hundred students said confidently that humans and nature are a bad mix. These were third-year students who had selected a career in environmental protection, so the response was, in a way, not very surprising. They were well schooled in the mechanics of climate change, toxins in the land and water, and the crisis of habitat loss. Later in the survey, they were asked to rate their knowledge of positive interactions between people and land. The median response was “none.”

I was stunned. How is it possible that in twenty years of education they cannot think of any beneficial relationships between people and the environment? Perhaps the negative examples they see every day— brownfields, factory farms, suburban sprawl—truncated their ability to see some good between humans and the earth. …. When we talked about this after class, I realized that they could not even imagine what beneficial relations between their species and others might look like.

How can we begin to move toward ecological and cultural sustainability if we cannot even imagine what the path feels like?” [Braiding Sweetgrass p. 6]

This Earth Day I want to disrupt the idea that nature is better left alone. The web of life holds all living beings, including us. We have always been connected to that web, we still are, and we always will be.

This Earth Day I want to encourage us to pay attention the delightful, interesting and curious parts of the web of life, because it is a rewarding and important practice for noticing and healing our relationships to our neighbors, and because it is just fun. When I hear Mary Oliver’s poem about the toad, Look Again, I imagine her raptured gazing at her neighboring critters, noticing those little delightful things she had never noticed before.

Where we place our attention has power. Power to shape our own thoughts feelings and actions, power to nurture relationships, power to act effectively in the world.

My husband is always giving me updates about the construction projects he sees in downtown Ithaca on his walk to work. How did I not notice? I wondered as I made my own walk downtown to the library- and found my attention gravitating to the birds calling in the trees, and the new flowers planted by the city garden volunteers. Eric knows which cars our neighbors drive, I notice which trees the squirrels live in. Both of us discover good information about what’s happening in different aspects of our community. As a people who include among our UU Principles “Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” It’s good to pay attention to what’s happening in the non-human parts of the web as well as the human.

Julie Good, wrote after participating in a program called “Sense of Place “All my life I’ve been an urban person. I learn where I am on the grid of sidewalks and freeways, and feel a bit lost if I am away from the grid. Through [Sense of Place] I’ve come to see how we inhabit and share a watershed. To think of my place, and to see the grid fading and the watershed standing out, has been an amazing shift in perspective for me.” [Exploring a Sense of Place p. 48]

When we shift our attention, it can shift our perspective. Over the years I have been amazed that when I pay attention to just about any living thing it reveals itself, and its relationship to others, in surprising ways. So, I invite you to consider a practice of paying attention, noticing, wondering as a way to connect to the web of life, to spirit of life, and to yourself.

One tried and true practice is to find a “sit spot” – a place where you can just sit quietly for whatever time feels right to you- maybe just a few minutes, or maybe you could really settle in for 20 minutes or half an hour to let the birds and other critters relax and go back to their normal behavior. Some folks will do this out in nature, but I’ve found even on my front porch in downtown Ithaca I can learn a lot about trees and squirrels and birds and what it’s like for them to live in our little city.

My friend Aileen had a similar practice- she took the same walk every day for years, and noticed the cycles of the seasons and the cycles of the years as she walked- how trees grew, how the peepers peeped.

Whether we chose a sit spot, or a regular walking route, we just open our awareness to the living things we see, and get to know them in their particularity.

Earlier this year I told you about the trees on my block, and how I’ve grown to know them, to admire them and see the gift they are to the neighborhood, to humans, squirrels, birds and lichen of my little ecosystem.

When I hear, then, about clear cutting of old growth forest, I sometimes feel sad and powerless. I can send a check or write a letter, now that my heart has been touched by my neighbor trees, but the problem feels too big for little me to fix.

But when I turn my attention to the honey locust, the stately maple, the flowering plum who are my neighbors, I feel more empowered. When I pass a young tree that has outgrown the protective cage the city puts around a new planting, it’s easy and natural to snap a photo on my phone and send it to the City Forrester. How lovely to come back around later in the week to see the constrictive cage gone. Like how if you know which car your neighbor drives, you can text them if they accidentally leave their headlights on.

Not everyone loves to geek out on trees- what interests you?

Some of you garden, some of you fish. It’s hard not to love gazing at a lake or wading in a creek if you are lucky enough to have one handy.
Is it toads? Birds? Fireflies?
Clouds? Wind? Don’t get me started!
What interests you? What do you want to pay attention to this season?

Starhawk encourages us, while we are practicing paying attention to the web, “with your attention on what is around you, say to yourself, “I wonder…”

I wonder what attracts that bug to that flower?”
I wonder why there are 2 different colors of rock in that streambank?

Starkhawk says “This is a great exercise to use with kids. You might ask then, “How many I wonders can you find in five minutes”’ [ The Earth Path p. 67]

It can be nice to learn the names of things, or researching the answers to your wonders but it’s not required if that bogs you down. I often just use descriptive names for things- puffy clouds – the little purple flowers, little brown birds. And of course there are books and Facebook groups and YouTube videos on just about anything you could love, but the practice is always go back to the thing itself. As John James Audubon wrote “When the bird and the book disagree, believe the bird.” Remember, the goal here is not to become an expert, just to be a friendly neighbor. Ordinary people like us are forever learning new things about their niche in the web of life. For example in 1973, a fencing contractor in Australia spotted the bridled nail tail wallaby, which everyone had thought was extinct, and alerted authorities. “The Queensland Government bought the property to protect the few hundred wallabies that remained, and it became part of Taunton National Park.” [i] Your neighborhood, your ecosystem is amazing and precious. The same way we keep an eye out for our human neighbors, it becomes natural to keep an eye out for all our neighbors in the web of life.

Mary Oliver writes in her beloved poem “The Summer Day” shares an encounter with a grasshopper:

“This grasshopper, I mean--
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,
the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,
who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down --
who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.
Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.
Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.
I do know how to pay attention,…”

This year as spring unfolds and turns into summer, I encourage you to pay attention to the web around you. To notice your non-human neighbors, and let them reveal themselves to you in all their unique beauty.

---

[i] https://www.australiangeographic.com.au/topics/wildlife/2018/04/meet-the-wallaby-that-was-saved-by-womans-day-magazine/