Growing Spiritually

 

When I was in my 20s and heading off to seminary, I had this idea that the spiritual journey was like climbing a mountain to enlightenment. I knew very few people were said to reach enlightenment, but this was the goal. Thinking back on it now it seems like a sort of like the Olympics of spirituality. Many would compete, few would get to the top.

Eventually I remembered that I’m a universalist. Why would a loving God set up a survivor style obstacle between humans and the divine? And while it does seem that some unique people like St. Francis or St Clare or Desmond Tutu or the Dali Lama do come to a special spiritual wisdom, I postulated that a God who loves everyone would also have something like those lovely paved paths at a good state park that is accessible to everyone. A loving God would make a way for everyone.

In our church mission statement, we talk about “growing spiritually.” What I like about this phrase is that we all grow -- it’s something that happens naturally without us thinking too hard about it. Sometimes we have growing pains, sometimes it’s disorienting, but growth is the most natural thing in the world. What does it mean to grow spiritually, and what does it mean to grow spiritually as a UU? I used to think the goal was to grow into someone else, someone better, but in midlife I finally understand the goal is to grow into ourselves, to be the only person we can be, to serve the web of life with our unique gifts and capacities.

A yoga teacher in a big studio I visited out in California once said “keep practicing and eventually you’ll be pain free.” It was a good class, I was enjoying it, but that made me pause- To me being pain free is not really a spiritual goal. It’s a desire for probably every living being, but I’m very skeptical of any teacher or practice that promises the goal is to be pain free. I had studied Buddhism in seminary with a real Theravada monk, saffron robes and all, and he introduced me to the Buddhist teaching that pain is inevitable, it’s part of being alive. But how we interact with the pain, how we approach the pain, the choices we make- concerns much of Buddhist philosophy.

Sadly, we are in a time right now when there is a lot of pain in the world, and in our own lives. If we believed that the goal of spiritual growth was to become pain free, I for one would be failing right now.

Consider the story of St. Francis we heard last week, he was a veteran and a POW, and never fully healed physically from that time, but that experience was a wake up call for him, a catalyst that began a tremendous period of spiritual growth. For Francis spiritual growth looked like a desire to follow God more closely, specifically following the example of Jesus. There was no one else around him on the path he felt called to, so he had to forge a new path in his Catholic tradition. For him it that growth started with prayer and wondering and deep listening, and leaving material things behind.

Or consider the poet Mary Oliver, whose poems have inspired so many of us. She felt called to spend a lot of time in nature, noticing carefully, listening, until she began to feel a sense of mutuality among the living things. In this way she began to heal her childhood trauma.

I think of spiritual growth not as one path we all need to follow to a common goal, but more like how a plant grows. Compare the white cedar tree that grows only a few inches a year, with the goal of becoming straight and strong and tall, with the pumpkin vine growing across my friend’s front yard, which I swear grows inches a day sometimes. Zebras have kind of a dangerous childhood, so they are ready to walk a few minutes after birth. For humans it can take a year or longer. Fish of course never walk at all. Well, most fish…Unitarian Universalists honor the diversity of nature, and the diversity of humans. Pluralism is one of our 7 values. Each spiritual journey is as unique as the humans who make them.

In general plants of all species grow towards the sun, and in general we humans row in relationship -- to the divine, to ourselves, to the web of life which includes our human communities. This is the definition I would offer you today- spiritual growth is growing in relationship to the divine, to ourselves, to the web of life. And while we are always growing, by setting our intention and being mindful we can guide that growth toward whatever is sacred, towards what is larger than ourself, and towards our own deepest truest self.

In our poem today, Molly Remer says:

Be too awake
for there are lakes of longing
within you
and you know how to swim.

When I was being trained as a spiritual director our teacher often suggested we “let desire lead” – which kind of blew my mind. This kind of blew my mind, but it has turned out to be good advice. I believe there is something in us, like the desire of the zebra to get up and walk so soon after being born, there is something innate in us that points the way towards spiritual growth. Or as the Buddha says in our story [The Party, traditional retold by Sarah Conover] ”is there not a jewel within that you should attend to?”

So there’s a kind of growth that is part of our innate nature, but there is also the way we grow in response to the world around us.

Plants offer such wonderful images of that. In my back yard there is limited sun, and so all the plants lean and stretch and bend towards it. Clover in a yard that is regularly mowed will bloom at a shorter height than clover in a meadow. We grow one way in response to the presence of a caring, loving friend or community, we grow another way in response to a toxic workplace or the loss of a friend.

I think of the events in my own life that have helped me grow more loving, for example. The kind loving people who taught me something new about love by their example. Or the hard things that broke my spirit, and were healed by love. Of the experiences in my own life that taught me sometimes I could even be that loving presence to someone else who was hurting or broken.

This kind of learning lasts our whole lives. I can’t believe I had never known until last week that throughout our lives our bones deconstruct themselves so they can reconstruct themselves. So even once you stop getting taller, your bones continue to remodel themselves your whole life.[i] According to the Cleveland clinic website: “… if a bone is cracked, damaged or broken, osteocytes trigger a reaction that attracts osteoclasts to dissolve the area around the break (to resorb damaged bone tissue) and osteoblasts to lay down new bone tissue, so it can begin to heal.” I think spiritual growth can be like that too. Life wears us down, sometimes with little microscopic damages, other times bigger blows to body or spirit. Both body and spirit grow to repair and heal us. Not all new growth happens in response to damage, sometimes it’s because you started weightlifting, or walking or dancing more, and the bones grow harder to support you. Some practices we choose make body and or spirit stronger! This is just to say, you are never done growing spiritually -- your spirit, your soul continues to grow in response to what you meet and what you do and what you experience in life.

Both poems I chose for today are expressions of the poets attending the jewel within. Both describe a solitary journey, an individual journey. But one important thing about the spiritual journey is that we don’t have to do it alone. In fact, if we are growing in relationship we CAN'T do it alone- relationship requires the participation of another. I remember being little and making the visit to Gramma and Grampa. How happy she was to see us! Sometimes she would burst into tears she was so happy (we lived a long way away) I love this as an image of the divine, not like a remote God who lives on a mountain top that only the elite can climb, but one who loves us and is glad for time we spend coming closer.

Or I think of my 2 little dogs at he end of the day when I come home from being out, or stand up from my desk after a long day of work -- how delighted they are to have my attention, to just sit on the sofa together and get their ears scritchled. This is a natural response when we turn our attention towards those we care about, who know us deeply. As we spend time on our relationship to the divine, to our self, to the web of life, the relationship blooms and grows.

I think this is why so many folks experience a sense of connection to the sacred in nature. Because looking out over that meadow, or mountain or lake, we see the aliveness of everything, we feel our connectedness to the web of life. And the more time we spend tending that relationship, whether it is sitting on the front porch watching the bird feeder, or picking trash out of the creek, or harvesting the first pumpkin of the year, the web of life meets us, reminds us that it is there all the time holding and feeding us, and being fed by us.

The poet Danush Lameris writes:

Now, all I know is that I want
to get closer to it—to the rocky slope, the orange petals
of the nasturtium adorning the fence, the wind’s sudden breath.
Close enough that I can almost feel, at night, the slight pressure
of the stars against my skin.

One has to set aside “elaborate plots, its complicated pleasures” not to cut ourselves off from the web of life, but to listen more carefully, to get closer to, that which holds us in a much larger embrace.

As Unitarian Universalists we tend to believe that much of spiritual growth is driven by our innate longing coming awake, our inner sense of integrity, our conscience, our sense of connection, of beauty and delight, of compassion, of love. Part of growing spiritually is learning to develop our capacity to listen, and to discern.

But I want to assure you there are guides and teachers, with guidance a bit more clear and specific than the wind, or the stars. As UUs in modern times we have tended to focus on living lives of integrity, of serving justice and growing love. These are good nourishment for our spirits, as we hone that inner sense of integrity, as we notice where we are uniquely called to help, to nurture, to speak up, to protect, to care, to build. And in the acting and the doing, in the discerning, we are held by community, and we learn from community. Just as how on a mountain top we might glimpse a view that brings us awe and wonder and a sense of coming home to ourselves, sometimes in community we feel love grow, we feel compassion and tenderness, we feel truth being spoken, and this too nourishes our spirit and helps us grow, and sometimes this too brings us awe and wonder. So congregational life helps us on this outward, extroverted path of spiritual growth.

There is also a more introverted path, attention to the jewel within. Part of the reason I became a spiritual director was because I felt a desire for more intention and more guidance on my inward journey. My own spiritual directors never drew me a map, but helped me notice how I was growing, especially when some big disorienting change was happening in my life and in my spirit. They have helped me listen for that inward guidance telling me which way to grow, discerning if I was growing towards the sun, towards love, towards spirit, towards connection. Since we are all unique, it can often help to have some individual guidance or companionship. If you ever have a question about your own spiritual path, your own spiritual growth, as your minister I’m here to talk with you about that, or to help you find the right teachers and guides that are the best fit for you. Your community can be one of those guides. In the Buddhist tradition the Sangha, the religious community, is an invaluable jewel. A community supports us when we feel lost, and provides collective wisdom and encouragement when we go astray.

Now if all of that feels kind of a lot, I guess it is. One of the hard things about being a UU is that supporting a diversity of paths, a diversity of beliefs is complex. So, in closing I’ll make it simple:

You are already growing spiritually, have been growing spiritually your whole life. And in fact that’s a great question to ponder, or maybe discuss with a friend- how have you already grown?

We are all growing to become who we uniquely are in service to life.

We are growing in connection to the divine, to ourselves and to the web of life.

We don’t do it alone, we have many guides and teachers, sometimes in unexpected places.

And if you ever get confused and lose your way, head towards love.




[i] https://www.osteoporosis.foundation/health-professionals/about-osteoporosis/bone-biology

Making Peace: St. Francis and the Sultan

painting by Giotto "Trial by Fire"

Story: St. Francis and the Sultan [i]

This is a true story, from long ago.

If you have ever heard of St. Francis, maybe you have heard that St. Francis loved peace. But maybe you didn’t know that Francis of Assisi was a veteran. When he was around 19 or 20 he went to fight the neighboring city of Perugia, and was captured and was a prisoner of war for a year!

That experience of war, and his imprisonment changed him. This traumatic experience made him question his life, and started his quest for meaning that set him on a holy path.

Now this time 800years ago was the time of the crusades, when the pope was sending soldiers to the middle east to reclaim Jerusalem for Christianity. In 1217 the 5th crusade began, and at this time Francis was in his 30s, this was after Francis had started his Franciscan order, those brothers who lived together simply, taking a vow of poverty and praying together.

We don’t know what inspired Francis, Some say Francis was moved by the treatment he saw of Jewish and Muslim people that got nasty as the war rhetoric turned violent against non-Christians, but Francis decided he wanted to do something to help spread god’s peace, and he wanted to do it the way Jesus might have done it. He decided if he could just go to Egypt and talk to the enemies, he could convert them to Christianity and end the war. He asked for permission from his Cardinal (Ugolino) to go, and off he went with brother Illuminato.

One of the amazing things about this journey is that the Franciscan brothers had promised never to ride a horse, or to carry a backpack or a purse. So Francis and Illuminato would have had to walk all the way to where the boats were that sailed to Damietta in Egypt. 

Cardinal Pelagius is in charge of the siege there. The plan is if they can conquer Damietta at the mouth of the Nile, they can have a clear path to Jerusalem. The Crusaders are roundly defeated in battle. The sultan offers a fair peace treaty, which would give the Christians access to their holy sites. This cardinal is actually very strongly in favor of the war, and when Francis and Illuminato show up asking to try to bring peace, at first he is not excited about letting Francis go, but he knows, and Francis knows, that walking across enemy lines to talk to the enemy is dangerous, especially since people have been saying what people always say about their enemy- that they are non believers, that they are not really humans, that they are cruel beasts[ii]. Both The cardinal and Francis know that if he goes, he might be killed, but Francis is a very devout man, willing to lay down his life for peace, and for God, so the Cardinal lets him go.

Sure enough Francis is arrested by the guards, and some say beaten. But he is brought before Sultan Malik al-Kamil.

Now what the usual retellings of this story don’t mention, is that the sultan was a wise man, a devout man. So when Francis comes before him asking that the Sultan and his followers to convert to Christianity, the Sultan declines, but does invite Francs to stay for a couple of weeks. It seems that both men are affected by the visit. Francis watches these devout men pray 5 times a day, sees they are not monsters, but people.

When Francis returns to cardinal Pelagius, the cardinal is unmoved by what Francis has learned. He still refuses the treaty. Like some people in our own time he wants to see the enemy destroyed utterly. The city of Damietta, a city of 80,000 people eventually succumb to disease and starvation, the Sultan is forced to retreat. Only a handful of people from that city survive.

Now the Crusaders march on to Cairo. They see an easy path to the city, but what they don’t know, not being from around there, is that this is the flood bed of the Nile. The sultan cleverly releases the drainage channels, and suddenly the crusaders are marching in mud, and camping in mud. They are bogged down, and disease and hunger begin to set in. Now I wonder, what would you do, if the enemy who had caused the death of a whole city, of 80000 people, that same army was totally exposed, and might die just as those innocent civilians had died of disease and starvation?...Well the sultan, despite his generals encouraging him to strike now while the enemy was desperate and vulnerable, ordered thousands of bushels of bread for the soldiers, and [barley] for the horses delivered to his enemy each day.

The crusading army’s hearts were changed, and they turned and went home. This was the moment the ended the 5th crusade.

The sultan continued to rule for another 20 years, and all that time had fair policies for Christians and the Christian holy sites in his land.

So this is the story of 2 wise, brave people who stood up for peace, Francis of Assisi who traveled all the way to Egypt at peril of his own life to share Jesus’s teachings of peace, and the Sultan who ended the 5th crusade with lifesaving generosity and mercy for his enemy.


Reflection
In the basilica St. Francis in Assisi, walls are covered with huge frescoes telling the life story of St. Francis. There is one fresco that tells the story of Francis’ trip to the sultan. The traditional story, [the version I offer here is from Timothy Verdon The story of St. Francis of Assisi in 28 Scenes] begins like the one I told you before, that Francis traveled to Egypt to convert the Muslims, knowing he risked his own life, and Sultan Melek-al Kame “listened to him willingly and strongly urged him to remain with him, but hesitated to accept Francis’s invitation to be converted with all his subjects.” The painting of this meeting with the sultan centers on a version of the story told by Bonaventure in the 1260s. In this version:

“Francis then asked him to have a fire lit, ‘the biggest possible’ saying: I together with your priests will enter the fire, and in that way at least seeing the evidence you will be able to recognize which faith should be considered most certain and most holy’ but the sultan replied, ‘I do not believe that any of my priests has the desire to expose himself to the fire, and face torture to defend his faith.’ And Bonaventure adds “that the sultan in fact ‘had seen one of his priests, famous and of an advanced age, disappear as soon as heard the words of the challenge.’ At that point Francis offered to enter the fire alone if the sultan promised to convert should the saint emerged unharmed.” [p. 32-33]

This is the moment captured in Giotto’s painting. This is the version of the story we would know if we grew up going to church with paintings of that tale.

It is only in recent decades, as Christian historians and scholars have entered into dialogue with Muslim historians and scholars, that we begin to understand the story has 2 sides.

Verdan tells us “in this fresco, Giotto splits the composition from top to bottom, with the sultan and his court on the right and Francis on the left. At the root of the insurmountable distance between these two worlds is … money because while Francis is prepared to give his life, the sultan offers only “many precious gifts”

But Paul Moses, a Pulitzer prize winning journalist and now professor of journalism, in his 2009 book “The Saint and the Sultan[i]” (made into a movie “the sultan and the saint[ii]” a few years later) brought to a western audience a fuller story- that the sultan himself was a devout man, a wise man and because of that, spared Francis’s life, though it was not a popular decision. Says Dr. Todd m. Johnson

Professor of global Christianity and mission “He was the same age as Francis and was known as a mystic, a man of culture, and a lover of religious poetry. He studied medicine and surrounded himself with scholars—astronomers, doctors, and Sufis—whom he frequently consulted.” The sultan entered into this encounter with Francis, and ultimately it was through the sultan’s generosity and mercy that the 5th crusade came to an end. The Muslim scholars knew about the sultan [Malik al-Kamil] but we never thought to ask. Christians of that time could only imagine him as a monstrous enemy, miraculously tamed by Brother Francis.

Isn’t it funny how we can be so oblivious sometimes about the other perspectives in a story we think we know?

Another thing the old stories don’t tell us is that Francis himself was changed by his meeting. Modern scholars look at a famous prayer that he wrote on retreat at La Verna, I’ll share just a portion of that:

You alone are holy, Lord, the only God;
and Your deeds are wonderful.
You are strong. You are great.
You are the Most High…

You are love. You are wisdom.
You are humility. You are patience…

You are joy and gladness.
You are justice and moderation.
You are all our riches. You are enough for us.

You are beauty. You are gentleness.
You are our protector. You are our courage.
You are our guardian and defender.
You are our haven and our hope…[iii]

In Islam, learning and meditating on the 100 names of god is a traditional spiritual practice. Notice now much Francis’s praises are similar to the Muslim 100 names of god, here is just a bit of that, see if you notice Francis’s inspiration. 

“He is Allah (God), the Creator, the Originator. The Fashioner; to Him belong the most beautiful names: whatever is in the heavens and on earth, do declare His praises and Glory. And He is the Exalted in Might, The Wise. (Quran 59:24)

Here are a few of those 100 names: 

· The Most Gracious
· The Most Merciful
· The King, The Sovereign
· The Most Holy
· The Peace and Blessing
· The Guardian, The Preserver
· The Utterly Just
· The Subtly Kind
· The Strong
· The Wise
· the Defender
· The Loving, The Kind One
· The Patient, The Timeless [iv] Scholars suggest the devotion practices of the Muslims he met inspired his own writing, his own practice.

Scholars also note that when Francis wrote his “order” for the Franciscans, in chapter 16 it specifically mentions guidelines for being among non-believers, which was a radical idea at the time:

“therefore any brother who, by divine inspiration, desires to go among the Saracens [Saracen is an old timely word for people who lived in Arabia] and other nonbelievers should go with the permission of his minister… as for the brothers who go, they can live spiritually among [ the Saracens and nonbelievers] in two ways. One way is not to engage in arguments or disputes, but to be subject to every human creature for God’s sake…” the other is “to proclaim the word of God when they see that it pleases the lord, so they may believe…” [v] 

This is what Francis himself had done; many accounts tell that the reason Francis was admitted to the sultan’s presence, and able to remain was in part because he was respectful and didn’t disparage their faith, did not argue or dispute.

And this I think is the core of my message to us today. We live in times when sides are entrenched – one side against one another, and violence is increasingly common way to interact with folks “on the other side” folks who are “non believers” in what you may hold dear. This story of Francis and the sultan might be a touchstone for us. Perhaps we might feel called to go among folks who believe differently than us. The story shows us that there is a sacred something that can happen when 2 or more people willingly come together to meet without argument or dispute. There may be times ahead when we may summon the bravery to try to bring peace to places that seem dangerous to us, to be inspired be the example of Francis. Or perhaps we may be inspired by the example of the Sultan, who received Francis, and be open to the surprise that someone from the enemy camp may have wisdom, compassion and mercy, may be looking for a way to reduce suffering, to stop the warring. Not everyone is called to that path, but we who stand in the Universalist tradition may find ourselves to be so called.

Consider also the scholars and journalists who finally after many centuries came together with their incomplete pieces of the story, to make a deeper, more complex understanding of that famous moment 800 years ago. Perhaps there are stories we need to hear from people we haven’t thought to ask.

“Why did Francis undertake such risk?” asks professor Johnson
Remarkably, this encounter was rooted in Francis’ vision of universal human fraternity, what we might call today the imago Dei—the fact that every human is made in the image of God and therefore worthy of honor and respect.”[vi]

That sounds a lot like what we Universalists believe. We believe that there are not 2 kinds of people, good and evil, saved and damned, but just imperfect human people who sometimes do good things and sometimes do bad things. And often get caught up in oppressive systems that do great harm. And so we covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person[vii].

Our divided world needs our Universalist faith, May we be inspired to bravely seek out and nurture sacred connection between beings. And perhaps the story of St. Francis and the sultan will help us stay open to the possibility that out there among the “non believers” could be a St. Francis, A sultan Malik al-Kamil who could transform our own hearts and help us create peace.

modern icon by Br. Robert Lentz, OFM

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[i] https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/6726087-the-saint-and-the-sultan?

[ii] https://www.sultanandthesaintfilm.com/

[iii] St. Francis wrote "The Praises of God" in September 1224 on Mount La Verna, also called Parchment to Brother Leo

 [iv] https://www.pro-quo.com/99-names-of-god-islam.html

[v] From Francis and Clare the complete work p. 121 from the earlier order chapter 16

[vi] https://www.gordonconwell.edu/blog/damietta-francis-and-the-sultan/

[vii] https://www.uua.org/beliefs/what-we-believe/principles

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[i] Sources:

Film- the sultan and the saint: https://www.sultanandthesaintfilm.com/about-the-film/

https://www.gordonconwell.edu/blog/damietta-francis-and-the-sultan/

here’s a cool resource worth diving into: https://ofm.org/uploads/SGME_Dialogo_Francesco_Sultano_2019_EN.pdf

[ii] https://ofm.org/uploads/SGME_Dialogo_Francesco_Sultano_2019_EN.pdf p. 29 citing de

Vitry as related in the Historia occidentalis

Butterfly Wings

Today my goal is to make you feel hopeful using math. Are you with me?

In these challenging times, it’s easy to look at the news (the climate, rising facism, gun violence, all the big problems that make our hearts heavy) and imagine a straight line plotting our course inevitably towards doom. This is called determinism, and lots of things do work that way. If you push a ball at the top of a hill, it’s going to roll towards the bottom of the hill. If you spend all day Saturday cleaning your house, your house will be cleaner. If you never mow your lawn, the plants will take over. It’s generally cold in the winter here in the twin tiers, and hot in the summer. Except… this August it was in the 40s some nights. Because actually things are pretty complicated, and don’t always do what we think they are going to do.

There’s a theory in Math called “chaos theory.” Contrary to the name, this doesn’t mean things are truly chaotic, it means that some things are really sensitive to their “initial conditions” Here’s a cool example of that- in this video by Veritasium [pendulums start about 8’22’], 2 double pendulums were started at the same time, but slowly at first, and then more dramatically they take totally different paths.[i]  you’ll notice if you watch carefully that it starts out with one yellow line, and then soon you’ll begin to see two different lines, yellow and green, the lines of two paths that started very similarly and then get very different.  The narrator tells us that no matter how hard you try, you can never get the pendulums to do the same path twice. It’s that sensitive to tiny differences right at the start.

Edward Lorenz was a meteorology professor at MIT in the 1950s[ii] working on long term weather simulations on his computer. One time he wanted to re-run a simulation, and to save time (because computers used to take much longer to run back then) instead of starting over from the beginning he decided he would start partway through, and manually typed in the numbers from a printout at the point where he wanted to restart. Then he left the computer to run and went out to get a cup of coffee. When he came back, the new weather forecast was totally different. Why? It turned out the printout he was using to enter the numbers only went to 3 places after the decimal point, but the computer went to 6 places after the decimal point. So that tiny tiny rounding difference totally changed the results.[iii]

Lorenz wrote a famous paper back in 1963 explaining what he noticed, about how just those tiny differences in initial conditions grew over time, like we saw with those pendulums. When he presented the paper at a conference in 1972, he called it "Predictability: Does the Flap of a Butterfly's Wings in Brazil Set Off a Tornado in Texas?" and that is where the saying “butterfly effect” came from.

It turns out that what Lorenz discovered was useful not only in forecasting the weather, (turns out that’s part of the reason that any forecast longer than 8 days is notoriously inaccurate- perhaps you’ve noticed this? ) but also economics and biology and other stuff.

This idea took hold in our imaginations- there are may wonderful stories out there about how one tiny change, one tiny choice or accident set someone’s life off in a new direction. Do you have a moment like that? Do you ever ask yourself- what would have happened if I hadn’t gone for a walk that day? If I hadn’t bought that book, or made that u-turn in front of the library?

The idea of that little butterfly flapping their wings reminds us that not all actions have the same impact, that even tiny variations at a key moment can make a huge difference in outcomes.

There are tons of stories out there of these tiny changes with big impacts. Here’s one from Reddit:

“My husband- He found out after 18 years that his moms side of the family was Spanish, not Mexican. He found this interesting and changed his country to “Spain” on MySpace instead the US where he really was. Meanwhile in Australia, I was helping my friend find Spanish people to add as a friend as she was learning the language. I came across my now husband and decided to send him a friend request as well. We got along really well and met in person after 3 years. Have been together 11 years, married for 7. If he didn’t change his country to Spain (and only for a day or so) we’d never know each other existed.”

Or this one: 

“When I was in 8th grade (13 years old) I had a really long bus ride home so would pass the time by reading. One day I faced the very serious situation of nothing to read and a minute to grab something in the library, and for whatever reason I grabbed a book on astronomy. That book was amazing and grabbed me like nothing else had before. I remember being excited to realize every astronomer on Earth was 13 years old once too, and that was a career you could actually do, even if you were from Pittsburgh.

Anyway, today I am a professional astronomer who studies gigantic space explosions for a living. There was a lot of work to get from that moment to this one, but I’m always grateful that I picked up that library book!”[iv]

Whenever you get discouraged, thinking “there’s only one way this can end” it’s important to remember, we don’t even really know what the weather’s going to be like 9 days from now.

I like to use this mathematical theory as a metaphor, a symbol that sometimes small actions can lead to unexpected outcomes. Once I was sharing with a spiritual director friend about something I felt SURE was going to go a certain way- the pattern seemed clear. And she asked “have you made room for the God of surprise?”

It gave me pause- “have you made room for the god of surprise?” well that conversation happened in January of 2020, and nothing turned out quite how I had expected.

In the Hebrew scriptures, the book of Isaiah 43:19 God says to the prophet Isiah

See, I am doing a new thing!
Now it springs up; do you not perceive it?
I am making a way in the wilderness
and streams in the wasteland.

There are many similarities between the time that the book of Isiah was written, about 700 years BC, vast income inequality, oppression of the poor[v] and corruption in high places, and yet Isiah reassures us that God is doing a new thing, making a way in the wilderness.

Now we Unitarian Universalists are theists, atheists, agnostics, so if scripture doesn’t give you comfort, remember those 2 pendulums, and how even something as simple as a double pendulum doesn’t take the same path twice. It’s not all written in stone, and while the die may be cast at the first instant, the way it begins to roll is wildly unpredictable.

Oh no, you might be thinking, that’s too much pressure! What if I do something tiny that breaks earth? Remember how during the Covid lock-down, a lot of us thought the world had changed forever, in massive ways. And it turned out that some things did change, but other things moved back towards their old familiar forms. For example, here we are, sitting in these same maroon chairs in this same building we’ve been meeting in for 34 years, but who could have predicted that we’d have friends and members joining us on Zoom?

It turns out Chaos is not the only force at work. Thomas Cotterill wrote in his blog in 2013[vi]

“At the ecosystem level, life is subject to endless dampening effects that limit the impact of changes. There are checks and balances. No virus or bacterium can run amok completely; organisms have immune systems. No species multiplies endlessly; predator numbers increase to exploit the increased food supply. Life forms are limited to specific environments. Nothing lives forever. Localized damage may occur, but the web of life is resilient and adapts. It is capable, not only of resisting change, but of repairing itself, re-establishing a pre-existing status quo.”

I find that comforting too. We are living in a time of great change, but Cotterill reminds us that things tend to bounce back. Nature is resilient, nature can repair itself. Nature tends to return to balance when it is thrown off balance. 

For example, the ocean is sometimes described as the planet’s thermostat[vii] because it holds a lot of heat. This is why, when I lived near the San Francisco Bay, it never got quite as hot or quite as cold there as it did over the hills. That’s because there is a powerful stabilizing impact of a giant body of water that hovers in the 50s (in the winter) and 60s in the summer. Not that change never happens in the ocean, but it’s an example of a stabilizing force that slows down big temperature changes for places nearby. 

It is often comforting to me, when I worry about the fate of the world, to remember that We are all part of the web of life, and when one part of the web weakens the other threads hold.

For folks who draw comfort form scripture, there is another passage in the book of Isaiah 46:4 (NIV) where God says:

Even to your old age and gray hairs
I am [God], I am [God] who will sustain you.
I have made you and I will carry you;
I will sustain you and I will rescue you.”

The power of chaos, of disruption is tempered by the web of life, by large stable forces like the ocean.

And theologically, both are sacred -- the power that allows new thing that springs up, and the power that sustains and carries us -- both are within the power and promises of the divine.

And we are part of that too. Perhaps in some moment we might be part of a tiny action that changes the path of our own lives, or someone we never even meet. In some other moment we may be part of the web that holds our family, our congregation, our ecosystem in place when some the ripples of some initial condition, large or small, flutters like a butterfly. In all of it, we are never alone.



References
[i] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fDek6cYijxI Veritasium, the science of the butterfly effect
[ii] https://www.technologyreview.com/2011/02/22/196987/when-the-butterfly-effect-took-flight/
[iii] This podcast was a big help to me in understanding this topic https://www.iheart.com/podcast/1333-mind-jungle-podcast-273448494/episode/the-butterfly-effect-how-one-tiny-action-changes-everything-273448498
[iv] https://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/jzfe7v/whats_the_craziest_butterfly_effect_that_happened/?chainedPosts=t3_ttsdgn
[v] https://rsc.byu.edu/covenant-compassion/poor-needy-book-isaiah
[vi] https://thomascotterill.ca/2013/04/10/debunking-the-butterfly-effect/
[vii] https://ocean-climate.org/en/the-role-of-the-ocean-in-climate-dynamics/

Taking Up Space

Has anyone heard of Taylor Swift? For the uninitiated, she’s a pop star and savvy business woman who has won about every award a musician can win, is followed by an extremely devoted group of fans, and sadly, by some very verbal haters.

I bring her up not because I have her 2019 hit “You Need to Calm Down” stuck in my head (it's a fun and catchy pride anthem and pointed repudiation of the attacks on trans folks) but because a Swiftie and mother named Jordan LeVeck took on Taylor’s haters on social media, writing:

“I'm SO disappointed in so many of you who think that "not being a fan" of someone means you're entitled to [crap] all over them...
I want to remind you of something.
Your children are… watching you judge a woman for literally just EXISTING and taking up space happily.”[i]

I came across her post as I sat with my morning coffee scrolling, and more than a year later, her post sticks with me. I remember it whenever I see people being judged for just existing. For just taking up space happily.

I thought about all the ways we are taught not to take up space with our authentic selves. And how we are taught to police one another when we do take up space, even someone like Taylor Swift -- a temporarily able bodied white cis woman who is a staple of mainstream culture.

Our reading today was by Rabbi Julia Watts Belser, a queer disability activist, from her book Loving Your Own Bones. What a powerful description of that moment  her brand new mobility scooter "clipped the corner of a cardboard pantyhose display and found myself suddenly surrounded by a thousand runaway nylons in their little plastic balls. I wanted the earth to crack open and swallow me up, scooter and all." When the earth did not swallow her up,  "that moment when my body on wheels was so obviously too big for the place I was allotted" she realized that she would have to take up space. Not because she was hungry for the limelight, but because her body, her scooter, takes up more space than society allotted, and just to inhabit her own body was going to require more space than she had taken up before.

It is hard, right now, to take up space if you are trans, if you are queer. The change in political climate means that many people feel more empowered to be haters, including the legislators who are supposed to be serving the needs of all their constituents, but instead are scapegoating those whose gender requires space than the strict binary boxes of some imaginary norm.

Back when I was growing up, most queer folks were in the closet because they knew they would face discrimination and even jail if they claimed that space to be their authentic selves. In 1978 Harvey Milk called on all queer people to come out, and gradually more and more of us did. The rights we have today come in no small part to all the LGBTQAI+ people who bravely came out, and took up space.

And… and…

There are real challenges to being out, in fact some new laws and executive orders would legally send people back into the closet – The white house has 2 orders that require you to use the gender on your birth certificate on your legal ID[ii], [ LAMBDA legal has a great resource on how to navigate this ] Several states such as Montana, south Dakota are requiring folks to use the bathroom of the gender on your birth certificate, and a number of other states are restricting bathroom access in government owned buildings, including schools. [iii] More bills are in the legal pipeline.

How shall we respond as a congregation? Our Unitarian Universalist values of Equity, Generosity, Interdependence, Justice, Pluralism, and Transformation, and Love. Call us to continue to stand up for the most vulnerable, to make space for people to be their authentic selves. First we do that here, in our little community. We must continue to be committed to making this a space where people of every gender can take up space. We’ve actually been working on this as a community for quite some time, and we’ve made real progress but this is not an achievement one and done, it’s something we must continuously live into – if you are wishing you had more space to be yourself in this church, come talk to me or someone on your board of trustees- let’s talk, and listen, and become the community we want to see in the world.

As UUs we also partner with organizations like UU Justice PA[iv] to fight this hateful legislation. We show up at one of the many pride events in our surrounding communities with respect and gratitude for the great diversity of people in our community. The reason Pride is traditionally flamboyant and colorful, is because very early on the organizers wanted “to develop courage, and feelings of dignity and self-worth” in the queer community.[v] Our congregations must “come out” again and again in solidarity and support for the LGBTQAI+ members and neighbors.

But each of us, individually, are called to discern how and where you want to take up space in any given moment.

Because we don’t just come out once, we have to make choices everywhere we go. Is this a place I can take up space? Maybe you’re loud and proud with everyone you know, but now you have to travel to Idaho, and you are feeling like you want to put safety first. Or maybe you really take up space around your dear friends that really know you. Or maybe you are still trying to figure out who you are, and you are not feeling loud and proud just now. That’s okay too. I wonder, can you just quietly give yourself the space you need? I’m talking to queer and straight, cis and nonbinary, every soul here- Can you just .. in this moment… see and honor yourself just exactly as you are. Can you allow yourself to take up space in your own heart, all the space you need. Maybe sit up a little taller if you feel it, give yourself that space to be yourself. Each of us here this morning is totally unique, no one like you has ever lived, nor ever will again. You are holy.

 Our service ended with the beautiful Glitter Blessing written by Caitlin Collier Coillberg, I would encourge you too to anoint yourself with something sparkly to "marvel at...how fabulous we are"

 

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[i] https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10228177033343943&set=a.1749933381033

[ii]  https://lambdalegal.org/tgnc-checklist-under-trump/

[iii] https://19thnews.org/2025/05/anti-trans-extreme-state-laws-2025/

[iv] https://uujusticepa.net/lgbtqia/

[v] https://www.loc.gov/ghe/cascade/index.html?appid=90dcc35abb714a24914c68c9654adb67

Francis and Clare- Making a New Way

[Fresco by Giotto, from the St. Francis Basilica]

St. Francis
St. Francis was not always very saintly. He grew up the son of a rich merchant, and if stories are to be believed, he was the stereotypical spoiled rich kid, who loved expensive things and living the good life.

The very first biography of Francis says:

“He was the admiration of all, and in pomp of vainglory he strove to surpass the rest in frolics, freaks, sallies of wit and idle talk, songs, and soft and flowing attire, for he was very rich. He was not miserly but prodigal, not a hoarder of money but a squanderer of his substance, not a shrewd trader but a most ostentatious spender; a man, however, very kindly in his dealings, very easy and affable.”[i]

When he was about 19 he went away to fight the rival city of Perugia, with the idealism of one who has never actually seen battle. Francis was captured and spent a year as a prisoner of war. That time changed him- body mind and spirit. He was sick for a long time, and his body was never quite healthy again after that. Francis began to have powerful dreams and visions.

One time, he was praying in a little chapel outside the city of Assisi and heard a voice say “Go, Francis and repair my house which, as you see, is well-nigh in ruins”

So Francis went, took some cloth from his father’s inventory, and sold the cloth and his horse, then brought the money to the priest of that little chapel.

The priest wouldn’t take the money, so Francis threw it out the window.
Francis then went to live away from home, and began a life of poverty and devotion.

Francis’s father was so mad that once he found Francis, he locked his son in the cellar, not only because Francis had stolen the cloth, but because it was embarrassing having a son who didn’t act like a proper wealthy young man.

When his father left town, Francis’s mother unlocked the chains and set Francis free, which sure made his father mad. He brought Francis to the bishop, to formally cut him off from his family’s wealth and inheritance, but Francis went one further, he took off his wealthy clothing, stripped naked, and handed the clothes to his father.

“When brought before the bishop, Francis … immediately put off and cast aside all his garments and gave them back to his father. Moreover he did not even keep his drawers but stripped himself stark naked before all the bystanders. But the bishop, observing his disposition, and greatly wondering at his fervor and steadfastness, arose forthwith, gathered him into his arms and covered him with the mantle which he himself was wearing.”

It's a powerful image of letting go of the old to make a new way

St. Clare
Clare grew up in the same town as Francis, she was 12 years younger, and probably would have known him by reputation even before he began his ministry. I mean, stories of a young man naked in the courtyard of the Bishop’s house probably get around.

Clare was born to nobility, of higher status even than Francis’s wealthy family. She was the daughter of a count and was described as a sensitive child, prayerful and devout. The opposite of what we heard about Francis.

When she was 12 Her parents wanted her to marry, which was the standard path for a noble woman in her time. They had a count all picked out to be her husband, but she convinced her parents to wait until she was 18.

By the time Clare was a teenager, Francis had begun preaching in Assisi, and she snuck out of the house to heard him preach. She was inspired by Francis’s teachings, and met secretly with Francis about her vocation[ii]. One Palm Sunday, when she had turned 18 and the time for her arranged marriage loomed close, she snuck out of her home with a servant in the dark of night. This was not a spontaneous act, she had been talking to the bishop about it, that same bishop Guido who had helped Francis face his father.

Clare and her servant walked several miles down the mountain to the chapel where Francis had helped repair, Francis and his few new followers were waiting there for her.

Painting by Antonio Carnicero 1787

Clare asked Francis cut her hair, as was the tradition for women entering religious life, and took her vows.[iii]

It's a powerful image of letting go of the old to make a new way

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[i] https://dmdhist.sitehost.iu.edu/francis.htm

[ii] https://www.franciscanmedia.org/franciscan-spirit-blog/st-clare-of-assisi-a-path-of-her-own/

[iii] https://www.porziuncolaproject.com/the-life-of-saint-clare

What About Scorpions?

Photo credit Chris Parker

Story 1   - Zen traditional
As two monks were washing their bowls by the river, one monk reached into the river to save a drowning scorpion. Just as he placed it on land, the scorpion stung him and fell back into the river. The monk once again scooped the scorpion out, and the scorpion again stung the monk and fell back into the river. As the monk saved the scorpion a third time, the second monk cried out, "Why are you saving that scorpion when you get every time?" The second monk replied, "It is the nature of a scorpion to sting; it is the nature of a monk to be compassionate."

Story 2 - Aesop’s Fables
A Farmer walked through his field one cold winter morning. On the ground lay a Snake, stiff and frozen with the cold. The Farmer knew how deadly the Snake could be, and yet he picked it up and put it in his bosom to warm it back to life.
The Snake soon revived, and when it had enough strength, bit the man who had been so kind to it. The bite was deadly and the Farmer felt that he must die. As he drew his last breath, he said to those standing around:
Learn from my fate not to take pity on a scoundrel.


Reflection - What About Scorpions?
There is a paradox in our Universalist heritage and values. The word universalist comes from the idea of universal salvation -- that God loves everyone, and all return to the divine source when they die. It was a refreshing point of view at the time of the birth of our faith tradition, a time when many preachers spent all their time preaching hellfire and damnation.

Modern Unitarian Universalists don’t tend to worry much about the salvation of our souls after we die, we tend to focus more on how to live a good life while we are still alive, a life that spreads our arms wide to include all people. You can see this in the new UU value statement: “Equity: We declare that every person is inherently worthy and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and compassion.” You can hear this is not too different from the UU principle “The inherent worth and dignity of every person.” 

Last week I preached about how each and every one of us belongs, just as we are. Each and every one of us is connected to the holy right now.

But what about scorpions, for example? What about all the different kinds of living beings that don’t have our best interests at heart? What about the corona virus? What about people who do harm to us or to others? The idea that each and every person is inherently worthy and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and compassion seems a bit naïve when we think about some of the things going on in the world today. If this faith is going to serve our spirits and our communities in times like these, we need a faith that acknowledges that not everyone has our best interest at heart.

We’d better start with Evil. What do we believe about evil? UUs tend to believe, by looking at the news, by looking back at history, that humans are capable of evil acts. What makes an act evil? [pause] The point of our scorpion story is that the scorpion was not being cruel to the monk, he was just being a scorpion. I wouldn’t call that evil. But when we think about the great Rwandan genocide, when we try to fathom the holocaust the word “evil” seems like a clear eyed naming of those terrible and terrifying events. Evil acts were committed by individuals, and by the collective. My theology professor, Rebecca Parker, suggested that maybe UUs believe this; we don’t believe that some people are evil and others good, we believe that both systems and individuals are capable of evil, and as ethical people we must resist, both the potential within ourselves and in the larger world. Think of the systemic racism that the civil rights movement rose up to oppose, and which we still struggle with today. We’ve talked a lot about racism in this congregation, because we long to live in a world free from racism, and we have noticed that even with our best intentions, we sometimes accidentally do racist things, because it is baked into our culture and our history, not because we ourselves are evil.

I believe most of the obstacles we face in our lives are not due to evil. Consider for example the guy taking up too much space in the grocery story aisle. That’s not evil, that’s just annoying, perhaps thoughtless. When I began studying Buddhism in seminary, our teacher encouraged us to notice the stories we tell ourselves about what is happening in our daily life. Did that car cut me off in traffic because he’s a jerk? Or maybe he’s late to pick his daughter up at daycare, or just didn’t see me and come to think of it, I have also cut people off in traffic for similar reasons.

Consider bees. If you’ve ever been stung by a bee, you know it’s no fun, especially if you are allergic. You might also have noticed that some stings hurt a lot more than others. There’s a meme going around dividing pollinators into friends and enemies. This led to a wonderful discussion and backlash series of memes like this one: [meme shows the image of 3 yellow and black striped pollinators. The first caption says"Friend who make wax and lots of hone. The second says "friend who is extra fuzzy and really loves flowers" the third says "Friend who pollinates and eats pests but needs more personal space"] I think this is important- a wasp is not our enemy, it is a friend to the environment, if not to us personally, who will sting you if you get in their business.

So I’m not trying to say you have to love wasps, or hang out with them, but we can acknowledge the complexity that they both help with pest control in a way we actually really like and need, and they do have a weapon that we are right to watch out for.

Consider scorpions. Everyone agrees their sting, while not deadly to humans, is painful. But scorpions have their role to play too- they eat insects and other pests, and feed cute animals that make us say “aw” like meerkats, mongooses and owls. Again, you don’t have to like scorpions, and if you pick one up you probably will get stung like that Monk, (so be smart) but they do have their job to play in the ecosystem.

In the book of Matthew 10:16 from the Christian Scriptures, Jesus says to his disciples: “See, I am sending you out like sheep into the midst of wolves; so be wise (or cunning) as serpents and innocent as doves.” Jesus councils Wisdom- I think this is good advice. I like that analogy of sheep and wolves. He doesn’t say “slay the wolves” or “the wolves are your enemy” he just notices this is the kind of relationship where one must pay attention, be careful. Be cunning. Be wise.

But then, and this is important too; be innocent (or harmless) as doves. This reminds me of the non-violent approach of Ghandi, of the American civil rights movement. The fact that those movements were able to make real changes shows the wisdom, shows the cunning. But that they were able to achieve it without resorting to violence reminds me of the doves- those people, those movements could retain their integrity, their values while in the struggle. That they didn’t let the struggle change them.

There was a study recently about the effectiveness of nonviolent protests.[i] One study said “53% of major nonviolent campaigns were successful as opposed to only 26% of violent campaigns being successful” and while there has been some debate about these numbers among researchers, it does seem clear that non-violent moments are more likely to lead to non-violent outcomes. That makes sense. “non-violent resistance is approximately 10 times more likely to lead to democratization than violent resistance.” As Martin Luther King preached in his sermon “Loving Your Enemies” -- “Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

This new value statement is a challenging one: “Equity: We declare that every person is inherently worthy and has the right to flourish with dignity, love, and compassion.” That seems pretty easy we think about the people in this room, but the challenge begins when faced with the person cutting us off in traffic, or taking our parking place … when their flourishing and our flourishing require the same parking space? This value encourages us to turn the temperature down by remembering there is a good chance that the person blocking the shopping aisle is not evil, but just a tired person, like us, trying to get home. A lot of disagreements are just part of what it is to be a community, balancing different people with different needs.

When we divide the world into enemies and friends, good and evil, we do great damage not only to individuals, but to our society. Remember, wolves were considered enemies because they occasionally took a sheep or other livestock from a farm, and so were completely eradicated from many eco-systems, which turned out to be profoundly damaging to those communities.

That’s enough of a challenge on a good day, but what about those who abuse others? Those who are cruel? What about people making executive orders right now that directly threaten our lives, our flourishing? What about those who take more resources than they need, leaving others in poverty? This is where we must be wise as serpents. It’s sweet that the farmer in the story wanted to save that snake, but he was not very wise, and it cost him his life.

It would be easy to say “everyone who doesn’t go to this church, everyone who doesn’t believe like we do is evil” but a lot of us have been on the other side of that, been judged for being different, for being liberal, or queer, or trans, or neurodivergent. At the heart of our Universalist heritage and faith, we challenge ourselves to draw the circle wide, even though we know there are folks out there who are not committed to our flourishing.

When facing scorpions, snakes, wolves, it’s important to have boundaries. Effective boundaries. When we faced the Covid Pandemic, we had to make some new boundaries fast. We used distance and quarantine, and we learned that the N-95 mask is a really good boundary against respiratory viruses. A family counselor explained in a video about interpersonal boundaries “you need to be nice to me” is not a boundary. That’s a request. A boundary is “if you can’t speak kindly to me I’m leaving the room” and then you do it. Think of the boundaries the Civil rights movement set up- that bus boycott for example. They set up a clear line of what they thought was fair, and what they were willing to do if the unfairness continued.

Hate is not an effective boundary. In fact, hate riles up our amygdala and actually reduces how cunning we can be, how wise we can be. Instead of declaring we hate scorpions, we could do a bit of research and learn that if you pick them up with tweezers or forceps right behind their bulb, their tail can’t reach us to sting us. One Youtuber I watched uses a carry cup to move her scorpions. A carry cup is a more effective boundary than hate. We have a waiting room on zoom worship because it’s an effective boundary against zoom bombers. We have a safe congregations policy that we share with all newcomers, because that helps us keep a boundary about sexual misconduct, because we know the sad truth that in the past churches have not had good enough boundaries about that and people have been deeply harmed. DEI is a boundary against institutional racism and bias. The Environmental protection agency defends boundaries for our environment. It is a scary time to see these boundaries being threatened, being dismantled.

What we have in the country right is too much hate and not enough effective boundaries. This is why we feel so unsafe. This is why Unitarian Universalism focuses so much on social justice- because we see with our own eyes, feel with our own bodies the impacts of injustice. Love without justice perpetuates a world where only some can flourish. In this time of broken covenants, broken laws, broken boundaries, we are called to be part of the resisting, the turning towards what is life giving for our communities and our world.

Each value in our new UU value statement has a covenant, what are we going to do about it? Our covenant around Equity says: We covenant to use our time, wisdom, attention, and money to build and sustain fully accessible and inclusive communities.

Buddhist Activist Joanna Macy says[ii] there are 3 kinds of activism that help with this turning. The first is “Holding actions in defense of life on earth. These activities may be the most visible dimension of the great turning. They include all the political, legislative, and legal work required to slow down the destruction, as well as direct actions – blockades, boycotts, civil disobedience and other forms of refusal.” The second is analysis of structural causes and creation of alternative institutions” – this is part of the wiliness. We need to figure out -- what is really happening here? (no easy task these days) We need folks to pay attention and think it through. And then we build the world we want to see.

The third, says Macy is “shift in perceptions of reality, both cognitively and spiritually.” This is why we gather on Sunday to remind each other of our values, and to figure out, together, how on earth we are going to live those values in this chaotic time. I saw this wonderful meme the other day from Ilya Prigogine, Nobel Prize willing chemist “when a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order.” Let’s be one of those small islands of coherence. This is a kind of boundary, not from the outside, but from within. Our strength of intention, of remembering what is important, what we value, who we are… is a protection from the forces of chaos who would wash us off our moorings.

I know I’d like to live in a world where all of us can “flourish with dignity, love, and compassion.” But I know we have a diversity of ideas about how to live out this value. Some of you have told me you are (justifiably) wary that this value could allow those who would be cruel to flourish at the expense of others. You are right to be concerned- we must be wily as serpents. Universalism must be a grown up faith that acknowledges cruelty, evil and harm, and defends the flourishing of the most vulnerable. The challenge of Universalism, is to co-creates a loving world. I practice standing in the truth of love not only because I want to live in a loving world, but because I want to be a loving person. That’s something worth defending, with our integrity, with our actions. To defend our right to love and be loving, let us be "smart as serpents." We need to learn the difference between a bee and a wasp, We may want to learn how to pick up a scorpion safely, and when to let a snake lay. We need to learn what makes an effective boundary to protect us from those who would do us harm. And as we grow in wisdom, we get to choose how we respond with integrity from our own core values, because as Universalists, it is in our nature to care.

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[i] https://ls.wisc.edu/news/the-enduring-power-of-nonviolent-protest

https://www.visionofhumanity.org/the-power-of-peaceful-protests/

[ii] in Coming Back to Life” practice to reconnect our lives, our word p. 17-19