At this time of year, our whole consumer society is set up to make us itch for more. I mean, don’t you kind of feel like you should be shopping right now? The advertisements, the promotions, the coupons have been coming fast and hard, and I confess to you that I am a sucker for a coupon. I go into the store to replace the mittens with the holes in them, and I totally lose hold of my senses. Suddenly I’ve got my arms loaded down with good deals and sales. Sometimes it only takes the walk outside through the parking lot to come back to my senses. By the time I have my keys in the ignition, I suspect there will be some returns in my future. I know I’m not alone in this, because when I friend of mine posted on Facebook “I went to the store for milk and somehow spent $100” and he got almost 50 sympathetic comments on his status. It is just hard to say “Enough!”
Today, we turn to the wisdom of Buddhism to help us bring some sanity to the season, to return us to our senses as we inhabit a culture that encourages us to want more and more until it is too much.
It is said that the first truth given to us by the Buddha when he rose from his meditation under the Bodhi tree where he achieved enlightenment were the 4 noble truths. These are also the kernel, the most basic of teachings of Buddhist philosophy, and yet also the most advanced. The 4 noble truths are:
1. Thus is the Noble Truth of Suffering
2. Thus is the Noble Truth of the Accumulation of Suffering
3. Thus is the Noble Truth of the Elimination of Suffering
4. Thus is the Noble Truth of the Path that Leads Away from Suffering
So the first truth of Buddhism is that suffering exists. It is further analyzed this way in one of the longer sutras: “Birth is stressful, aging is stressful, death is stressful; sorrow, lamentation, pain, distress, & despair are stressful; association with what is not loved is stressful, separation from what is loved is stressful, not getting what is wanted is stressful.” And what causes this stress, or suffering? According to the second noble truth it is suffering is caused by carving. We “cling to a certain sense of existence, to selfhood, or to the things or phenomena that we consider the cause of happiness or unhappiness.” Or we have craving that things were not as they are. The word for Craving is Tanha, which literally means Thirst, but can also be translated as desire.
I think what happens when we encounter the American Marketing Machine, is that it speaks to our thirst, our craving. We become dissatisfied with what we have and long for more. But the Buddha is talking about not just thirst for superficial pleasures, but the suffering that comes from losing things we love, people we love, our health, it comes from realizing that someday we will lose our lives.
And he says, in the 3rd noble truth, there is in fact an end to suffering, which is good news. In the 4th noble truth he tells us that there is a path to follow to lead us away from suffering. That path is called the Eight Fold path. That is: right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness and right concentration. Obviously, if we are doing or saying things that are causing harm to ourselves and others, this will cause us stress or suffering. But the inner work we do with our own thoughts and how we focus our attention is part of that path as well. Cultivating mindfulness helps us retain our equanimity. It cultivates that “inner strength that allows us to be with things the way they are instead of how we wish they could be. Mindfulness practice does not involve trying to change who we are, instead it is a practice of seeing clearly who we are…”
But despite our best intentions, suffering and stress are inevitable. American Buddhist teacher Gil Fonsdel teaches that “It is possible to experience the inevitable pain of life in a straightforward, uncomplicated way….The suffering addressed by the Four Noble Truths is the suffering and stress that arises from the way we choose to relate to our experience. When we cling, it is painful. When we try to hold our experience at a distance, to push it way, that too is painful. We cling to or push away from our experience in an infinite variety of ways”
I propose that in this season of rampant consumerism, business, and dearly held expectations, I think cultivating mindfulness can help us come to a place where we can finally say “enough”. It is not through doing more that we will find that sense, because we know there is always more we could acquire, more we could do. To break the chain of wanting, the Buddhists tell us that we must turn not to more buying or more doing, but inward to our own minds. This is where the wanting begins, this is where suffering and stress arise. I know from personal experience that shopping never leaves me MORE satisfied than when I started. Does this ever happen to you? I go to the store for those new mittens, and realize that there is a new kind of scarf without which I am now itching to have? Now I am dissatisfied, I have another action item on my to-do list and my stress is increased, not decreased.
That example shows the most superficial kind of wanting. But the concept is the same for the big wants- I want a home to call my own. I want a partner when I am single. Perhaps I always wanted to have a child, but never had any children. But Says Buddhist teacher Gil Fonsdel, we can use our small every-day experiences to help us with the big ones when they come. He writes: “If we attend to the small ways that we suffer, we create a context of greater ease, peace, and responsibility which can make it easier to deal with the bigger difficulties when they arise.” [P. 13].
This is where mindfulness comes in. Mindfulness is the practice of bringing all your attention into the present moment. We don’t judge the present moment, we are just aware of it. If something happens that we don’t like, instead of saying “I hate long lines at the cash registers!” we notice the line. We notice our response to it. We observe the anger rising, but we don’t cling to the anger, we just observe it. When we find the “perfect” gift, we don’t get attached to that either. We notice what thoughts and feelings arise without clinging to them, noticing “excitement is rising, pride is rising” Because all things that rise also pass away. If we get too attached to our great prize we won shopping, think how much greater the suffering will be when we drop it on the way to the car and it breaks, or the person we got it for already has one.”
Says Fonsdel, “In mindfulness practice, we learn how to pay attention in the present in moment so that when suffering arises we’re able to notice it. We can take an interest in it instead of running away from it. We can learn how to be comfortable with suffering, so that we don’t act inappropriately because of our discomfort. Then we can begin understanding its roots, and let go of the clinging.” So as we are standing in the mall and notice the craving, the clinging, the stress, we breathe in and breathe out, observing each breath, observing our experience and our reaction to it, without clinging and without judging. We develop an inner observer which exists with equanimity. The more we practice, the easier it is to find that observer. The desire for a new smart phone is fleeting, but the presence of the observer, this will endure, can be with us our whole lives.
Mindfulness also helps us navigate the business of the season. There are an infinite number of actions we can take this time of year- so part of the challenge is to choose the “right action” -- actions which are going to be the best for our emotional and physical health, and for the health of our communities. We choose wisely which of the 100 activities are going to make the healthiest difference in our lives. And then once we have chosen, we mindfully inhabit those choices. Over the Thanksgiving holiday, there was one night where I thought “I’m so glad I passed up the opportunity to see that wonderful show, because I really needed a night home with the family” and there were other days when I thought “I can’t believe I scheduled a day where I have so much to do and visitors on the way” But on good days and bad days, I can be mindful and breathe.
The real danger is not that we won’t have enough time to “get it all done” over the holidays, but that we will not be present to the time we have. In his book “Miracle of Mindfulness” Buddhist monk Thich Nhat Hanh writes about a friend who was a father of 2 small children who told the monk one day “I’ve discovered a way to have a lot more time. In the past, I used to look at my time as if it were divided into several parts. One part I reserved for [my son] another part was for [my wife] another part of r household work. The time left over I considered my own. I could read, write, do research, go for walks. But now I try not to divide my time into parts anymore. I consider my time with Joe and Sue as my own time. When I help Joey with his homework, I try to find ways of seeing his time as my own time. I go through his lesson with him, sharing his presence and finding ways to be interested in what we do during that time. The time for him becomes my own time. The same with Sue. The remarkable thing is that now I have unlimited time for myself.”
How do we have enough time in this busy season? we breathe. In… and Out… Each breath is my time. Each breath is enough. “Breathing in I calm my body” Breathing out I smile. Breathing In it is a pleasant moment. Breathing out is a wonderful moment.
It is very simple, but not easy. I challenge you throughout the holiday season, to remember to breathe. To continuously draw yourself back into the present moment. Not so that you can experience perfect equanimity, but so that you can just be. Observe anger and frustration as it rises and falls away. Observe joy and satisfaction they rise and fall away. Observe your wanting as you see the new car commercials on tv. Observe that thirst as you see images of happy families, and you know this winter is a time when your family is in crisis. Observe the wanting as you see the ornament your grandmother gave you and you anticipate your first Hanukah without her. Observe the good times too, mindfully, without clinging or judging. Observe the times you get caught up and forget to breathe, and choose to bring yourself back to your breath.
Thich Nhat Hanh talked about eating tangerines with is friend Jim. He said “Jim became so immersed in [his thoughts about the future] that he literally forgot about what he was doing in the present. He popped a section of tangerine in his mouth and, before he had begun chewing it, had another slice ready to pop into his mouth again. He was hardly aware he was eating a tangerine. All I had to say was, “You ought to eat the tangerine section you’ve already taken.” Sometimes we celebrate the holidays in this way. Young children give a perfect expression of this when the open one present after another without stopping to enjoy any of them, and when they are sitting in a pile of wrapping paper ask “is that all?” We adults often feel the same way about time. We are disappoint to find we will have only a short visit from our mother or grandson, and as they come to an end think “it’s a shame we didn’t have more time together” As Hanh says “If you can’t eat a single section, you can’t eat a tangerine” If we can’t enjoy one gift, one moment with a friend, one bite of Grandma’s apple pie, the holiday season will pass away without our ever having tasted it. But sometimes just one moment of connection with someone, one moment listening to the snow fall under the stars can be enough. This present moment is enough.
Silent meditation
“Breathing in I calm my body” Breathing out I smile. Breathing In it is a pleasant moment. Breathing out is a wonderful moment.
Endnotes:
1) http://www.accesstoinsight.org/lib/study/truths.html The Four Noble Truths: A Study Guide by Thanissaro Bhikkhu © 1999–2010
2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism#The_Four_Noble_Truths
3)The issue at Hand: Essays on Buddhist Mindfunless and Practice by Gil Fronsdal p. 17
4) The issue at Hand: Essays on Buddhist Mindfunless and Practice by Gil Fronsdal p. 4
5) The Miracle of Mindfilness! A manual opn Meditation Thich Nhat Hanh Beacon Press 1975 p. 2.
6) The blooming of the Lotus Thich Nhat Hanh
7) The Miracle of Mindfilness! A manual on Meditation Thich Nhat Hanh Beacon Press 1975 p. 5
8) The blooming of the Lotus Thich Nhat Hanh
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Morality and Politics (November 7, 2010)
Morality has become kind of a dirty word these days. It smacks of nosy neighbors trying to see past the hedge into your bedroom window. But I think it is a word we should not give up on. Morality means relating to principles of right and wrong in behavior -- thinking about what is good and bad. But maybe that still feels uncomfortable for us as a culture; maybe we think of ourselves as a post-moral culture, and “right and wrong” as outdated. I know we often like to use the word “ethics” instead, as somehow more humanist or scientific, but actually ethics are just a system or set of moral values and issues. For example, in the Buddhist tradition “non-harming” is a moral value, and falls within a whole set of Buddhist Ethics. When it comes to Ethics in our own life we have a choice- we can observe a an ethical code grounded in a tradition we trust, or we can use community standards and laws. As Unitarian Universalists, we have our common principles, and a tradition of ethical action to guide us. We don’t have a clear set of rules for every situation, but a set of principles to help us find our way. For example, our principles don't tell us we can't kill, but if we truly “affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person” and “respect the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part” then some kinds of behavior are “right out.”
Laws also help us stick to our shared ethics as a society. They clarify what behaviors are clearly crossing a line that our society has agreed upon, and back them up with our legal system. We have started to notice that the law doesn't really help us in all areas, so when we encounter murkier ethical areas, our religious community helps us clarify our highest ideas. It's right there in our mission which is “to provide a forum for liberal religious expression in an atmosphere which encourages spiritual growth and ethical living.” For example: we as a congregation and as a movement have spent a lot of time this past year thinking about the ethics of eating, so that we can live out our principles. We have noticed that there is a huge gap between what the law allows us to eat, and law around how food is produced, and what we believe shows respect to the interdependent web of existence. As a community which encourages ethical living, it's not enough for us to say “do what you want as long as you don't break any laws.” We call ourselves to something higher, knowing that sometimes our own integrity and principles can call us to be leaders in creating a just and compassionate world, when the law is slow to respond, or is downright unjust. IN the same way that we cannot assume that whatever is legal is moral, we must not assume that social norms describe what is moral. Sometimes our community standards do help us keep track of what is ethical. If you park in a handicapped parking spot without a permit, even if you don’t get a ticket, you are going to get a lot of dirty looks. But segregation was socially acceptable in the southeast even after it was not longer legal. “Everyone else is doing it!” didn't even fly with your mom when you were in high school.
Morality is about doing what is right, not what you can get away with. I have a bumper sticker on my car that exemplifies this point: it says “A Living Wage is a Moral Value.” The law says that employers have to pay their employees $7.25 per hour. Now it happens that the Tompkins County Worker's Center where I got this sticker learns with surprising frequency of folks who aren't making that $7.25 for some reason – this is called wage theft, it is illegal and a fine can be levied by the Department of Labor. You might get voted “Goat of the year” by the worker's center if you are guilty of wage theft- you are violating not only the law but societal norms. But if you do the math, you will find that people living in Tompkins County cannot actually live on $7.25 an hour. The Credit Union has calculated that in order for workers to be able to provide for their basic needs, a living wage is $11.11 per hour. And there is a group of employers in Tompkins County who are committed to being moral leaders around this issue- even though they could probably get away with paying folks minimum wage. They have decided the moral thing to do is to commit to paying this higher wage.
Now in American Ethics, there is another “guiding hand” at work - the “free market.” If you hear folks talk about the free market long enough, you will realize the faith folks have in the market is like that which generations past had in the divine. “If we just have faith in the market, and trust in the market, and let it do its work our lives, everything will turn out for the best” we are told. We have a similar faith in technology- that it will lead us onward and upward forever. In his analysis of agribusiness and the academic fields which supports it Wendell Berry writes: “They have no apparent moral allegiances or bearings or limits. Their work thus inevitably serves whatever power is greatest… Lacking any moral force or vision of its own.” [Berry p. 156]. The market is just a tool, like money is just a tool. It is only as good or bad as the moral vision which guides it. It does not reflect the whole of life. It does not reflect the love and care we give to one another. It does not reflect the health of the earth. It does not reflect the strength of our communities, or the sustainability of our futures. It does not reflect awe and wonder, or beauty or justice or even truth. I submit to you that the market is not an appropriate moral center- profit, money is not the best thing to put at the core of who we are as persons or as a society. And when we ask our government to put this at the center of value, there will be no morality in government.
Because what we put at the center of our own life, at the center of the ethical system we use to guide our life must have a broad glance. Compassion, that’s a pretty safe choice. A Buddhist Monk once explained that compassion is something all persons must hold on to until the moment of enlightenment, even when they have relinquished everything else. If you put compassion at your center you are bound to make sure that not only your life but those around you will be respected in the living of your life. There are other values that are worthy too- beauty, justice, truth but you can see how easily they can go awry if compassion, if respect for the inherent worth and dignity of each life, and of the interdependent web are not there to guide their unfolding. Even Justice as a guiding principle could be wielded like a weapon if not paired with compassion.
In all the ancient religions of the world, I have yet to encounter one that put money at its center, at it’s heart. I believe the reason we see such a fuzzy moral center in our political life is because we have for too long abdicated our own moral responsibilities to market, as if had a heart and a soul and was looking out for all of us. As if the choices we make don’t matter. As if we are all just tumbleweed blown about by its winds. I say, it’s time for us to put a stake in the ground, no better- a tree. Let us sink our moral roots deep into things that really do matter, really do endure. Like this religious tradition- it has turned out plenty of heroes worth emulating- Susan B Anthony, Clara Barton, The Waitsil-Sharps who personally helped evacuate hundreds of persons during the Nazi occupation before WW2, and so founded our UU service committee. Beacon press, which has been a voice of truth even when it had to choose between that and profitability. Linus Pauling who was not only a Nobel prize winning scientist, but also an activist. And when it comes right down to it, there are a lot of ethical, principled people in this room whom I admire deeply for the integrity with which they live their lives.
Our roots must not only go deep in to the wisdom of the past, but out into the neighborhood, into the community. There is more and more research to suggest that trees connect and even share resources through their roots and through the mycorrhizal fungi that links networks of trees below ground to share nutrients and water among them. This connection enhances their chances of survival, and of regeneration . Now imagine the strength of a trunk that has grown straight and true, that won’t fall in the first storm. That straight trunk is like our own integrity, how we grow ourselves according to our moral center. From there we can grow all kinds of leaves and branches, changing season by season, taking in the nourishment of the sun and shaping the winds that pass through the canopy, but by growing straight and true and sinking our roots deep and wide, we become people of character.
It’s easy to say “everyone does it” or “it’s legal” but it is often hard to ask ourselves “is it moral?” and “Is this compassionate to my community and to future generations?” Brian and I share a disappointment that so many of our political leaders today do not seem to be moral leaders. I think it is time for us as people of integrity, as people of character, to change the conversation -- from one of mud slinging to one of integrity. Let us provide the moral leadership that seems so absent in our world today. Let us raise our children to be leaders with integrity, and let us continue to support one another in this small community as we which encourage one another to spiritual growth and ethical living.
Laws also help us stick to our shared ethics as a society. They clarify what behaviors are clearly crossing a line that our society has agreed upon, and back them up with our legal system. We have started to notice that the law doesn't really help us in all areas, so when we encounter murkier ethical areas, our religious community helps us clarify our highest ideas. It's right there in our mission which is “to provide a forum for liberal religious expression in an atmosphere which encourages spiritual growth and ethical living.” For example: we as a congregation and as a movement have spent a lot of time this past year thinking about the ethics of eating, so that we can live out our principles. We have noticed that there is a huge gap between what the law allows us to eat, and law around how food is produced, and what we believe shows respect to the interdependent web of existence. As a community which encourages ethical living, it's not enough for us to say “do what you want as long as you don't break any laws.” We call ourselves to something higher, knowing that sometimes our own integrity and principles can call us to be leaders in creating a just and compassionate world, when the law is slow to respond, or is downright unjust. IN the same way that we cannot assume that whatever is legal is moral, we must not assume that social norms describe what is moral. Sometimes our community standards do help us keep track of what is ethical. If you park in a handicapped parking spot without a permit, even if you don’t get a ticket, you are going to get a lot of dirty looks. But segregation was socially acceptable in the southeast even after it was not longer legal. “Everyone else is doing it!” didn't even fly with your mom when you were in high school.
Morality is about doing what is right, not what you can get away with. I have a bumper sticker on my car that exemplifies this point: it says “A Living Wage is a Moral Value.” The law says that employers have to pay their employees $7.25 per hour. Now it happens that the Tompkins County Worker's Center where I got this sticker learns with surprising frequency of folks who aren't making that $7.25 for some reason – this is called wage theft, it is illegal and a fine can be levied by the Department of Labor. You might get voted “Goat of the year” by the worker's center if you are guilty of wage theft- you are violating not only the law but societal norms. But if you do the math, you will find that people living in Tompkins County cannot actually live on $7.25 an hour. The Credit Union has calculated that in order for workers to be able to provide for their basic needs, a living wage is $11.11 per hour. And there is a group of employers in Tompkins County who are committed to being moral leaders around this issue- even though they could probably get away with paying folks minimum wage. They have decided the moral thing to do is to commit to paying this higher wage.
Now in American Ethics, there is another “guiding hand” at work - the “free market.” If you hear folks talk about the free market long enough, you will realize the faith folks have in the market is like that which generations past had in the divine. “If we just have faith in the market, and trust in the market, and let it do its work our lives, everything will turn out for the best” we are told. We have a similar faith in technology- that it will lead us onward and upward forever. In his analysis of agribusiness and the academic fields which supports it Wendell Berry writes: “They have no apparent moral allegiances or bearings or limits. Their work thus inevitably serves whatever power is greatest… Lacking any moral force or vision of its own.” [Berry p. 156]. The market is just a tool, like money is just a tool. It is only as good or bad as the moral vision which guides it. It does not reflect the whole of life. It does not reflect the love and care we give to one another. It does not reflect the health of the earth. It does not reflect the strength of our communities, or the sustainability of our futures. It does not reflect awe and wonder, or beauty or justice or even truth. I submit to you that the market is not an appropriate moral center- profit, money is not the best thing to put at the core of who we are as persons or as a society. And when we ask our government to put this at the center of value, there will be no morality in government.
Because what we put at the center of our own life, at the center of the ethical system we use to guide our life must have a broad glance. Compassion, that’s a pretty safe choice. A Buddhist Monk once explained that compassion is something all persons must hold on to until the moment of enlightenment, even when they have relinquished everything else. If you put compassion at your center you are bound to make sure that not only your life but those around you will be respected in the living of your life. There are other values that are worthy too- beauty, justice, truth but you can see how easily they can go awry if compassion, if respect for the inherent worth and dignity of each life, and of the interdependent web are not there to guide their unfolding. Even Justice as a guiding principle could be wielded like a weapon if not paired with compassion.
In all the ancient religions of the world, I have yet to encounter one that put money at its center, at it’s heart. I believe the reason we see such a fuzzy moral center in our political life is because we have for too long abdicated our own moral responsibilities to market, as if had a heart and a soul and was looking out for all of us. As if the choices we make don’t matter. As if we are all just tumbleweed blown about by its winds. I say, it’s time for us to put a stake in the ground, no better- a tree. Let us sink our moral roots deep into things that really do matter, really do endure. Like this religious tradition- it has turned out plenty of heroes worth emulating- Susan B Anthony, Clara Barton, The Waitsil-Sharps who personally helped evacuate hundreds of persons during the Nazi occupation before WW2, and so founded our UU service committee. Beacon press, which has been a voice of truth even when it had to choose between that and profitability. Linus Pauling who was not only a Nobel prize winning scientist, but also an activist. And when it comes right down to it, there are a lot of ethical, principled people in this room whom I admire deeply for the integrity with which they live their lives.
Our roots must not only go deep in to the wisdom of the past, but out into the neighborhood, into the community. There is more and more research to suggest that trees connect and even share resources through their roots and through the mycorrhizal fungi that links networks of trees below ground to share nutrients and water among them. This connection enhances their chances of survival, and of regeneration . Now imagine the strength of a trunk that has grown straight and true, that won’t fall in the first storm. That straight trunk is like our own integrity, how we grow ourselves according to our moral center. From there we can grow all kinds of leaves and branches, changing season by season, taking in the nourishment of the sun and shaping the winds that pass through the canopy, but by growing straight and true and sinking our roots deep and wide, we become people of character.
It’s easy to say “everyone does it” or “it’s legal” but it is often hard to ask ourselves “is it moral?” and “Is this compassionate to my community and to future generations?” Brian and I share a disappointment that so many of our political leaders today do not seem to be moral leaders. I think it is time for us as people of integrity, as people of character, to change the conversation -- from one of mud slinging to one of integrity. Let us provide the moral leadership that seems so absent in our world today. Let us raise our children to be leaders with integrity, and let us continue to support one another in this small community as we which encourage one another to spiritual growth and ethical living.
Monday, November 1, 2010
A Spooky Universalist Halloween Story (October 31, 2010)
I want to tell you a family secret, a secret the Universalist historians don’t want you to know. Have you ever seen a movie where a bunch of well dressed old-timey people are sitting around a table holding hands while a medium calls on the spirits of the dead: “rap on the table if you can hear us” the medium says. Well, chances are that at least one of those folks at the table were Universalists. In fact, there’s a decent chance the medium was a Universalist, maybe even a Universalist Minister. Then you know how later in that movie, someone will say, “Bah, this is hogwash! You’re tapping on the table yourself!” Chances are that guy was a Universalist too.
You see, back in the 1800s there was a new religious movement sweeping the nation- it was called spiritualism. Now it was nothing new for folks to have experiences in which they understood themselves to be having visions of those who had died, or to have communications with celestial spirits. It seems to me that over the past few thousand years of western culture, depending on the current fashion, these visions have been treated either as demonic and evil, mystical, or signs of mental illness. It was generally the position of Christian folks before this time that all voices or visions were demonic; so most folks did not mention their experiences to any but a trusted friend. But in the mid 1800s several different persons, such as the Rev. John Dods, Universalist minister, began to speak of their experiences.
As a 13-year-old boy, Dods had seen a vision of his father, who had died 2 years before. His father said “The spirit world was not what people supposed- that great darkness and error hung over the religious world – that the sects differed as widely from the truth as they did from each other – but that a new era of light was soon to dawn on earth.” When Dods told his family, they laughed, and when Dods was next visited by his father, the vision advised him not to tell anyone about the visits saying “The world is not yet prepared to receive them” And so Dods hid his experiences for many years, though they caused him to re-think his conservative beliefs. Dods beliefs changed particularly about the fate of souls after death, since the ones who appeared to him seemed glorious, not suffering in hellfire as his old theology would lead him to believe.
In 1824, the “hauntings” began. “Sounds like the striking of heavy stones forcibly thrown against the building, rumbling sounds, explosions as of a cannon near the house, violent shakings of the whole building, the movement of various articles of furniture, even to that of a bed with a heavy man upon it, across the room, with great force.” Even relatives and visitors noticed the strange happenings “One of the curious gentlemen visitors encountered something like an invisible cannon ball, which fell from the ceiling; rolled, hopped, and bounded about the room, up and over the furniture and careening off the walls; and then hopped up on a bed, where the apparent depression of its weight on the bedclothes moved from the head to the food of the bed. A gentlemen in the room walked towards the bed… but one of the company caught hold of his arm, and said ‘Do not touch it for your life’ It then dropped on the floor, and rolled out of the side of the house.”
So it was his experience of these visitations, or hauntings, that drew Dods to convert to Universalism and to become a Universalist Minister. To Dods these hauntings were “Evidence of a providence whose saving grace extended to all” Then in 1836 Dods saw an exhibition of the French Mesmeric Charles Poyen St. Saveur. He became enthralled both with mesmerism, and with electricity, which was considered a related field. Remember, the study of electricity was an exciting new field in the 19th century, and by the second half of the century, the field of Electrical engineering was emerging, with such greats as Thomas Edison turning this field of study into a viable electrical light bulb in 1879. Dobs believed that “Electricity was the body of god, and all spirits God’s emanations.” He worked for a while with the theory that these visions were actually an electrical or mesmeric phenomenon- that they were in some way all in the mind, and worked for years to prove his theory, until in the 1850s a new series of spirits revealed themselves to him, He became a speaker and preacher in the field of “electrical psychology” just as the brand new spiritualist movement was emerging.
What is spiritualism? It was a movement growing out of Christianity that in some ways thought of itself as a scientific movement. Science was going through some exciting revelations in those days; such luminaries as Charles Darwin were in the midst of their groundbreaking research. “[Spiritualism] treated even the spirit as natural phenomenon susceptible to scientific explanation and manipulation.” [p. 17]What if we could use science, use direct experience to prove once and for all the nature of God? What if we could use the brand new knowledge of electricity or speak directly with St. Peter to pose our theological questions to him directly? And in fact Spiritualism did seem to provide external validation of the Universalist idea that all souls could be saved, since many of the spirit messages were of the Universalist theology even when given by non-Universalist mediums. [p. 93]
This was at the time, the cutting edge of religion. And the churches in the area now called the St. Lawrence District were the hotbed of religious radicalism. Elmira, Utica, Glens Falls, Poughkeepsie, Canandaigua, Buffalo, Albany, Oswego, and Auburn are all congregations who play a role in the Spiritualist movement. Remember this was the heady days of the Abolitionist movement and women’s suffrage, and both Universalists and Spiritualists were active in these movements for justice. Their radical egalitarianism and sense that a new progressive theology was in harmony with their work for progress in the world. Dozens of Universalist ministers became spiritualist mediums or healers. They felt that Universalism had begun to calcify, relying on revelations from other generations. They felt that any generation could encounter new revelations of religious truth, and that the truth learned from interactions with the spirits would help them connect past present and future. They could use these modern spiritual techniques to help clarify religious truth, and guide us all into the future. Their visions were not only theological in nature, but often scientific, since they believed things of the spirit were subject to natural law. In fact, it was the spiritualists who were strong advocates for Evolution, often lecturing on paleontology and archeology during a spiritualist lecture. Some of the more conservative Universalists found this uncomfortable in their theology. What did this mean for the progression of human souls after death, if all animals were on a path of evolution?
Historian John Buescher in his book "The Other Side of Salvation" compares the early spiritualist movement to the early history of universalism, when pietistic small groups and study circles formed the core of the movement as the message was spread by itinerant preachers. Spiritual séance groups could be seen the same way, gathering in a circle in a member’s home, hands held around a circle calling on the spirits together. Buescher remarks that “spiritualism renewed the sense of the spirit that had begun to disappear from their faith. Heaven was not far way from earth; the spirit (and the spirits) was close by. Angels were busy in the world” Some Universalists found Spiritualism a natural evolution of Universalism. Others were not so sure- not sure how much to believe, not sure what to make of the séances and speakers they heard. Said Rev. William Allen Drew of the much-touted Rev. Andrew Jackson Davis, a spiritualist medium “His whole art is shown to be the art of humbuggery and nothing else.”
The Universalist church was split over these events. There was a strong reaction from the more conservative of our brethren. In a Universalist publication based in New York called “The Christian Messenger” Rev. Thomas Jefferson Sawyer proclaimed “They know themselves to be rank infidels, and yet persist in claiming to be Christians.” He said, “Let Universalists be on their guard” against this “duplicity “ and “Knaves” [41] He was one who called for all the Universalist associations to withdraw their fellowship from ministers who associated with Rev. Davis. And many did. It lead, in fact, to a time of creedal tests, if you can believe such things possible in our movement. In fact much of this debate happened here in our home territory; the New York Convention of Universalists voted that no minister could come from another Universalist district into their convention unless they “subscribed to it’s creed” [p. 60] And the Buffalo association of Universalisms adopted a creedal test in the early 1850s. Many Universalist ministers were either “De-fellowshipped” or withdrew from fellowship when their Convention adopted such creedal tests. Many went on to be freelance spiritualist lecturers. Some congregations left the association to become Spiritualist congregations. By 1948 Dod, the minister who experienced the hauntings in our story, was no longer in fellowship with his Universalist Convention.
But the Susquehanna Association of Universalists resolved “Several of our ecclesiastical bodies have established tests of fellowship hitherto unknown in our denomination, and in our opinion inconsistent with the freedom of human mind and the liberty of thought, speech and opinion.” A reporter in 1879 asked a Universalist Minster, who himself was a spiritualist and his wife a ‘partial medium,' and who estimated 1/3 of his congregation were spiritualists, “Why don’t you call yourself a Spiritualist” and her responded “I could not get a living, I have 4 children and they must be educated. Were I to leave my pulpit and become a traveling lecturer, what would become of my family?” [p. 119]
So why would Universalist clergy risk their livelihood with this movement? Universalist Minister Rev. Byron Brittan retorted on behalf on the spiritual camp that they believed “the granted old prophets, Jesus and his Apostles, absorb and monopolized all the revelations of God; and hence, that [all] we poor followers of the 19th century get is second-handed, stereotyped forever!” [p. 43] Theodore Parker was not a spiritualist, but was interested in the movement. He wrote about it “Every man bearing within ‘lively oracles’ the present witness of God.” “The Spritualists are the only sect that looks forward and has new fire on its hearth.” [140]
Other Universalist ministers took the route of trying to evaluate the rappings and furniture movement at séances. Some worked actively to expose frauds. Daniel Mason Knapen exposed local mediums that were found to be stealing jewelry and other valuables from those at séances. [p. 98] Rev. Charles Chauncey Burr toured denouncing spiritualism and “expose[ing] its adherents and practitioners as “weak, insane, deluded creatures.” 2 magazines expressed the poles of the movement The Banner of Light “made little effort to distinguish sincere mediums from deliberate frauds.” On the other hand the Religio-Philosophical Journal steered away from the more sensational phenomena like levitation and disembodied voices and noises. In the late 1800s they turned their attention to investigating séances to expose frauds. They championed a “more scientific psychical research” [p. 124]
There are 2 themes I see in all this. First, it reminds us of the perennial tension between religious establishment and novelty even within so radical a religion as Universalism within a couple of generations from its settling on these shores. Now they were instituting creedal tests, de-fellowshipping ministers, and refusing to rent their buildings to Spiritualists because they were not proper Christians. They expressed strongly that the bible was all the spiritual wisdom that any proper Christian needed. The spiritualists on the other hand, found the church had become stuffy and calcified. They were returning to the small circles of the early days of Universalism, where they could be comforted by their sense of connection to loved ones who had died. They were craving that “direct experience” that is our first source of our tradition today. They believed that a new generation could still discover new truth, and experience new revelation.
But even in the biblical times folks rarely believed the prophets and visionaries. How is a person to tell the difference between newly revealed truth and ordinary claptrap? This is our second theme, and it’s the theme I was trying to get at with my silly children’s story today. Sometimes those in authority refuse to listen to us, even when we are right, so how can we tell when the authorities are right and when we should trust ourselves? Whether that authority is the church, or a spiritualist telling of a vision she has seen. Or even, if we ourselves have strange visions, how can we tell what to make of them?
Many contemporary UUs have had powerful spiritual experiences they would be hard pressed to explain. Many folks keep these secret for fear of being judged. It is also true that many UUs have also been betrayed or hurt by religious experience, and so are skeptical of all such things. This is a particularly important tension for us as a movement today- to keep our minds open, while also guarding against “idolatries of mind and spirit”. I think this is a question that can never be resolved one way or the other. Instead we live into that tension, and keep our minds open and also questioning.
The spiritualist movement has largely been left out of our history books, even the history of our own movement. Seances are not so popular any more, and we no longer us the electrical engineering to try to understand the nature of god. We leave these unfashionable practices out of our story when we tell it. But surely the creedal tests, the de-fellowshipping of ministers and the loss of many Universalists from our movement left their mark on our history. Mediums and Mesmerism are completely gone from our religious tradition. But let us keep the wisdom we gained from that part of our history - the lesson about the importance of not letting our movement become calcified and rigid. Let us be open to new revelation, and let us be wary of humbuggery even as we are open to new truth.
You see, back in the 1800s there was a new religious movement sweeping the nation- it was called spiritualism. Now it was nothing new for folks to have experiences in which they understood themselves to be having visions of those who had died, or to have communications with celestial spirits. It seems to me that over the past few thousand years of western culture, depending on the current fashion, these visions have been treated either as demonic and evil, mystical, or signs of mental illness. It was generally the position of Christian folks before this time that all voices or visions were demonic; so most folks did not mention their experiences to any but a trusted friend. But in the mid 1800s several different persons, such as the Rev. John Dods, Universalist minister, began to speak of their experiences.
As a 13-year-old boy, Dods had seen a vision of his father, who had died 2 years before. His father said “The spirit world was not what people supposed- that great darkness and error hung over the religious world – that the sects differed as widely from the truth as they did from each other – but that a new era of light was soon to dawn on earth.” When Dods told his family, they laughed, and when Dods was next visited by his father, the vision advised him not to tell anyone about the visits saying “The world is not yet prepared to receive them” And so Dods hid his experiences for many years, though they caused him to re-think his conservative beliefs. Dods beliefs changed particularly about the fate of souls after death, since the ones who appeared to him seemed glorious, not suffering in hellfire as his old theology would lead him to believe.
In 1824, the “hauntings” began. “Sounds like the striking of heavy stones forcibly thrown against the building, rumbling sounds, explosions as of a cannon near the house, violent shakings of the whole building, the movement of various articles of furniture, even to that of a bed with a heavy man upon it, across the room, with great force.” Even relatives and visitors noticed the strange happenings “One of the curious gentlemen visitors encountered something like an invisible cannon ball, which fell from the ceiling; rolled, hopped, and bounded about the room, up and over the furniture and careening off the walls; and then hopped up on a bed, where the apparent depression of its weight on the bedclothes moved from the head to the food of the bed. A gentlemen in the room walked towards the bed… but one of the company caught hold of his arm, and said ‘Do not touch it for your life’ It then dropped on the floor, and rolled out of the side of the house.”
So it was his experience of these visitations, or hauntings, that drew Dods to convert to Universalism and to become a Universalist Minister. To Dods these hauntings were “Evidence of a providence whose saving grace extended to all” Then in 1836 Dods saw an exhibition of the French Mesmeric Charles Poyen St. Saveur. He became enthralled both with mesmerism, and with electricity, which was considered a related field. Remember, the study of electricity was an exciting new field in the 19th century, and by the second half of the century, the field of Electrical engineering was emerging, with such greats as Thomas Edison turning this field of study into a viable electrical light bulb in 1879. Dobs believed that “Electricity was the body of god, and all spirits God’s emanations.” He worked for a while with the theory that these visions were actually an electrical or mesmeric phenomenon- that they were in some way all in the mind, and worked for years to prove his theory, until in the 1850s a new series of spirits revealed themselves to him, He became a speaker and preacher in the field of “electrical psychology” just as the brand new spiritualist movement was emerging.
What is spiritualism? It was a movement growing out of Christianity that in some ways thought of itself as a scientific movement. Science was going through some exciting revelations in those days; such luminaries as Charles Darwin were in the midst of their groundbreaking research. “[Spiritualism] treated even the spirit as natural phenomenon susceptible to scientific explanation and manipulation.” [p. 17]What if we could use science, use direct experience to prove once and for all the nature of God? What if we could use the brand new knowledge of electricity or speak directly with St. Peter to pose our theological questions to him directly? And in fact Spiritualism did seem to provide external validation of the Universalist idea that all souls could be saved, since many of the spirit messages were of the Universalist theology even when given by non-Universalist mediums. [p. 93]
This was at the time, the cutting edge of religion. And the churches in the area now called the St. Lawrence District were the hotbed of religious radicalism. Elmira, Utica, Glens Falls, Poughkeepsie, Canandaigua, Buffalo, Albany, Oswego, and Auburn are all congregations who play a role in the Spiritualist movement. Remember this was the heady days of the Abolitionist movement and women’s suffrage, and both Universalists and Spiritualists were active in these movements for justice. Their radical egalitarianism and sense that a new progressive theology was in harmony with their work for progress in the world. Dozens of Universalist ministers became spiritualist mediums or healers. They felt that Universalism had begun to calcify, relying on revelations from other generations. They felt that any generation could encounter new revelations of religious truth, and that the truth learned from interactions with the spirits would help them connect past present and future. They could use these modern spiritual techniques to help clarify religious truth, and guide us all into the future. Their visions were not only theological in nature, but often scientific, since they believed things of the spirit were subject to natural law. In fact, it was the spiritualists who were strong advocates for Evolution, often lecturing on paleontology and archeology during a spiritualist lecture. Some of the more conservative Universalists found this uncomfortable in their theology. What did this mean for the progression of human souls after death, if all animals were on a path of evolution?
Historian John Buescher in his book "The Other Side of Salvation" compares the early spiritualist movement to the early history of universalism, when pietistic small groups and study circles formed the core of the movement as the message was spread by itinerant preachers. Spiritual séance groups could be seen the same way, gathering in a circle in a member’s home, hands held around a circle calling on the spirits together. Buescher remarks that “spiritualism renewed the sense of the spirit that had begun to disappear from their faith. Heaven was not far way from earth; the spirit (and the spirits) was close by. Angels were busy in the world” Some Universalists found Spiritualism a natural evolution of Universalism. Others were not so sure- not sure how much to believe, not sure what to make of the séances and speakers they heard. Said Rev. William Allen Drew of the much-touted Rev. Andrew Jackson Davis, a spiritualist medium “His whole art is shown to be the art of humbuggery and nothing else.”
The Universalist church was split over these events. There was a strong reaction from the more conservative of our brethren. In a Universalist publication based in New York called “The Christian Messenger” Rev. Thomas Jefferson Sawyer proclaimed “They know themselves to be rank infidels, and yet persist in claiming to be Christians.” He said, “Let Universalists be on their guard” against this “duplicity “ and “Knaves” [41] He was one who called for all the Universalist associations to withdraw their fellowship from ministers who associated with Rev. Davis. And many did. It lead, in fact, to a time of creedal tests, if you can believe such things possible in our movement. In fact much of this debate happened here in our home territory; the New York Convention of Universalists voted that no minister could come from another Universalist district into their convention unless they “subscribed to it’s creed” [p. 60] And the Buffalo association of Universalisms adopted a creedal test in the early 1850s. Many Universalist ministers were either “De-fellowshipped” or withdrew from fellowship when their Convention adopted such creedal tests. Many went on to be freelance spiritualist lecturers. Some congregations left the association to become Spiritualist congregations. By 1948 Dod, the minister who experienced the hauntings in our story, was no longer in fellowship with his Universalist Convention.
But the Susquehanna Association of Universalists resolved “Several of our ecclesiastical bodies have established tests of fellowship hitherto unknown in our denomination, and in our opinion inconsistent with the freedom of human mind and the liberty of thought, speech and opinion.” A reporter in 1879 asked a Universalist Minster, who himself was a spiritualist and his wife a ‘partial medium,' and who estimated 1/3 of his congregation were spiritualists, “Why don’t you call yourself a Spiritualist” and her responded “I could not get a living, I have 4 children and they must be educated. Were I to leave my pulpit and become a traveling lecturer, what would become of my family?” [p. 119]
So why would Universalist clergy risk their livelihood with this movement? Universalist Minister Rev. Byron Brittan retorted on behalf on the spiritual camp that they believed “the granted old prophets, Jesus and his Apostles, absorb and monopolized all the revelations of God; and hence, that [all] we poor followers of the 19th century get is second-handed, stereotyped forever!” [p. 43] Theodore Parker was not a spiritualist, but was interested in the movement. He wrote about it “Every man bearing within ‘lively oracles’ the present witness of God.” “The Spritualists are the only sect that looks forward and has new fire on its hearth.” [140]
Other Universalist ministers took the route of trying to evaluate the rappings and furniture movement at séances. Some worked actively to expose frauds. Daniel Mason Knapen exposed local mediums that were found to be stealing jewelry and other valuables from those at séances. [p. 98] Rev. Charles Chauncey Burr toured denouncing spiritualism and “expose[ing] its adherents and practitioners as “weak, insane, deluded creatures.” 2 magazines expressed the poles of the movement The Banner of Light “made little effort to distinguish sincere mediums from deliberate frauds.” On the other hand the Religio-Philosophical Journal steered away from the more sensational phenomena like levitation and disembodied voices and noises. In the late 1800s they turned their attention to investigating séances to expose frauds. They championed a “more scientific psychical research” [p. 124]
There are 2 themes I see in all this. First, it reminds us of the perennial tension between religious establishment and novelty even within so radical a religion as Universalism within a couple of generations from its settling on these shores. Now they were instituting creedal tests, de-fellowshipping ministers, and refusing to rent their buildings to Spiritualists because they were not proper Christians. They expressed strongly that the bible was all the spiritual wisdom that any proper Christian needed. The spiritualists on the other hand, found the church had become stuffy and calcified. They were returning to the small circles of the early days of Universalism, where they could be comforted by their sense of connection to loved ones who had died. They were craving that “direct experience” that is our first source of our tradition today. They believed that a new generation could still discover new truth, and experience new revelation.
But even in the biblical times folks rarely believed the prophets and visionaries. How is a person to tell the difference between newly revealed truth and ordinary claptrap? This is our second theme, and it’s the theme I was trying to get at with my silly children’s story today. Sometimes those in authority refuse to listen to us, even when we are right, so how can we tell when the authorities are right and when we should trust ourselves? Whether that authority is the church, or a spiritualist telling of a vision she has seen. Or even, if we ourselves have strange visions, how can we tell what to make of them?
Many contemporary UUs have had powerful spiritual experiences they would be hard pressed to explain. Many folks keep these secret for fear of being judged. It is also true that many UUs have also been betrayed or hurt by religious experience, and so are skeptical of all such things. This is a particularly important tension for us as a movement today- to keep our minds open, while also guarding against “idolatries of mind and spirit”. I think this is a question that can never be resolved one way or the other. Instead we live into that tension, and keep our minds open and also questioning.
The spiritualist movement has largely been left out of our history books, even the history of our own movement. Seances are not so popular any more, and we no longer us the electrical engineering to try to understand the nature of god. We leave these unfashionable practices out of our story when we tell it. But surely the creedal tests, the de-fellowshipping of ministers and the loss of many Universalists from our movement left their mark on our history. Mediums and Mesmerism are completely gone from our religious tradition. But let us keep the wisdom we gained from that part of our history - the lesson about the importance of not letting our movement become calcified and rigid. Let us be open to new revelation, and let us be wary of humbuggery even as we are open to new truth.
Sunday, October 17, 2010
Keeping the Sabbath (October 17, 2010)
When I was in 2nd grade, I went for a while with my Friend Suzanne to her Presbyterian Sunday School. That year the class was studying the commandments, (we were awarded a scroll if we memorized all 10!) I was a little put off by the commandment to keep the Sabbath. I was raised in a solidly Humanist UU church, and was suspicious of anything we were supposed to do because God commanded it. It was a time when Pennsylvania’s blue laws kept stores closed on Sunday, and this seemed inconvenient and silly to me.
Then I got a job. It only took one Memorial Day shift, sitting in an empty restaurant while my family went to a picnic, mentally adding up the $1.67 an hour I would make while the tables sat empty to make me realize that I would gladly eat at home a couple of days a year so that waiters and waitresses could have a day with their families. When that national department store chain advertises that it will be open on Thanksgiving Day, I don’t feel grateful that I get some extra time to shop; I feel sympathy for all the staff who will be required to work instead of taking time with their community.
But this is not the message we get from our culture. You are almost never going to hear your boss or client say; your life has become too focused on doing, go rest and renew yourself. It is easy for busy-ness to fill up every nook and cranny of our lives if we don’t carve out time for rest and renewal. So it is time to ask ourselves- do we believe that rest has value? Do we believe that our quality of not only our own lives, but of our society improves if we take at least one day a week for renewal and reflection?
We live in a culture that values profit and productivity very highly so to answer those values in their own terms I offer you some wisdom I learned during a Franklin Covey time-management seminar. It turns out that leaving one’s desk for lunch increases productivity for the afternoon. They also claimed that productivity drops off at the end of an 8 hour day. And I believe it. We can rest knowing that time away from work increases the quality of our work, but that also misses an essential point, because I believe there is more to leading a full and balanced life than work. Things like healing, connecting, learning, reflecting are higher functions on Maslov’s hierarchy of needs. They come long after eating, drinking, and running from tigers. But these are the things that turn surviving into living. Robert Reich, form secretary of labor under Bill Clinton, believes that one of the 3 fundamental principles of our democracy is that people have the right to develop themselves. William Ellery Channing, one of our Unitarian forefathers also held that self development was a basic human right. It is part of our liberal religious heritage to believe that we are called to grow, learn and become our best selves.
So I try to set time aside bringing balance to my life, but it takes a conscious effort. It’s hard to patiently wage a Pokemon battle with my son when the energy of busy-ness is still driving me like an inertial force. That’s why this morning I want to turn to the wisdom of the World’s religions, the 3rd source of our UU Tradition, to help us find our own way to create space for stillness and renewal in our lives.
The famous commandment which guides the Jewish Shabbat tradition is found in Exodus and says: "9Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns." So conservative and orthodox Jews set aside the time from just before Sundown on Friday night until just after sundown on Saturday evening. They set aside that time for rest and for “Sacred Assembly.” This is a time where you not only don’t go into the office, but refrain from "all and any kind of creative 'generative' endeavor, changes to the environment or any object" because on the 7th day God refrained from God’s creative work. There’s a list of 39 such activities, like writing, plowing, building, sewing, or kindling a fire, I think it’s interesting despite all those prohibitions, the Sabbath is also a feast day, a day of celebration.
Terry Goldstein, who wrote the first of this morning’s readings, made a choice to observe the Sabbath, and has built her life around that. And I wonder, would you believe me if I told you that your religion offers this commandment in the same spirit? As a religious and observant Unitarian Universalist, you have the same authority to take time to reconnect with others, with yourself, with the earth (and for the theists, God as well). Could I give you the courage to say to your boss “as part of my religious observance, I will no longer be calling in to check messages or e-mail one day a week. I will not be available for meetings or overtime on that one day.”
A few years back when my Junior High class was studying Islam [through the neighboring faith curriculum], they had a chance to speak with a Muslim man and ask some questions about his life and faith. The students and teachers were all struck by the fact that this observant Muslim prayed 5 times a day, every day. One of our bright children asked “What if your boss didn’t let you stop work to pray” and the guest responded “I would have to find a new job.” This man believes that his religion requires him to take time every single day to pray, to reconnect if you will. He takes this assumption as a basic given in his life, and shapes the rest of his life from there.
Not long ago I was reading Nadine Gordimer’s novel “The pickup” and was struck by the religious observance of the mother. When she is in prayer, the household knows not to disturb her. It strikes the protagonist as it struck me- those times of prayer were probably the only moments of quiet in the life of a mother of several children. 5 times a day she could count few moments of quite reflection, for that which was most holy to her. No one would tell her she was being a bad mother, but a good Muslim.
If we Unitarian Universalists had the courage to set time aside, how would we use it? Shopping and mowing the lawn are definitely not in the spirit of these religious practices.
I consider the practice described in this morning’s reading by Tich Nhaht Hahn. He doesn’t mention it, but it seems to harmonize with a Buddhist observance called Uposatha which has been observed since Gautama Buddha's time (500 BC), and is still being kept today in Theravada Buddhist countries. It occurs every seven or eight days, in accordance with the four phases of the moon. Buddha taught that Uposatha is for "the cleansing of the mind", resulting in inner calm and joy.
Hanh writes “you might do household work such as washing dishes, dusting and wiping off the tables, scrubbing the kitchen floor, arranging books on their shelves. Whatever the tasks, do them slowly and with ease, in mindfulness. Don't do any task in order to get it over with. Resolve to do each job in a relaxed way, with all your attention. Enjoy and be one with your work. Without this, the day of mindfulness will be of no value at all. The feeling that any task is a nuisance will soon disappear if it is done in mindfulness.” For Hahn, it is not so important WHAT we do on a day of mindfulness, but that whatever we do it, we bring our attention, bring our whole self into that very moment.
Over the past few years I have tried to find a Sabbath practice for myself. For ministers, Sundays are specifically NOT a day off, and Saturdays inevitably involve some final editing of sermons or memorizing stories. So when Nick was just a small child I took Fridays as my day off. We called it “special Ma Nick Day” because while his father was still at work, I would have a couple of hours of quiet alone time in the morning, then I would pick Nick up from preschool at around noon and we’d head off on some adventure. For a while we were in the habit of stopping at a coffee shop for mini-scones and milk, then driving over to the library that had a wonderful children’s section, and about an acre of gently rolling hills out back past the bronze statues of characters from “the wind in the willows.” I tried to avoid e-mail and business calls all day, even though this often meant people were quite exasperated with me when I tried to get caught up on Saturday.
Now that Nick is in Elementary School, I have to re-think how I want to set time aside. I thought at first I would make Monday a Sabbath, which is what most ministers do, but because I really need some quiet time alone to write a sermon, I just can’t give up that Monday writing. I’ve decided instead to try to really focus on that time from 2:30 when I pick Nick up at the Bus stop and dinner time as a time to turn off the computer, to help Nick with his homework and find a way for us to connect. We still enjoy a trip to the library together, and now that he’s older we have found new things to do. It’s working pretty well so far these first couple weeks of school. It provides an important balance to all those times I regretfully have to say to my son “not now honey, wait until I finish this e-mail.”
Then a couple of weeks ago my husband was out of town, and Nick and I were home together with no car and some gloomy fall weather. In my search for a Unitarian Universalist Sabbath I decided it was time to apply a piece of wisdom I picked up at this year’s general assembly of UUs, which had come to me in the lyrics of a song by Peter Mayer, the one who wrote that beautiful song “Blue Boat home” in the teal hymnal. As he sang this song the light of new wisdom dawned:
You can sleep till afternoon
Make some chocolate chip pancakes
Wake up with Einstein’s hairdo
And let it stay that way all day
You can be an unclean slob
Skip the shower, skip the shave
As if you don’t have a job
Not even a resume
On Jama Day…
Now I had always felt a little pretentious saying to friends or co-workers “I can’t do that today, I’m observing the Sabbath” Because UUs don’t have a specific Sabbath tradition, and I felt like maybe I was culturally appropriating a neighbor’s traditions. But Jama Day I knew in my heart was a holiday I could observe. Not every week, mind you, but maybe a couple of times a year:
Read a book by Dr. Seuss
Play canasta, play ping pong
Make a list of jobs to do
Then do none of them at all
I want to tell your our jama day was awesome, even though we did put our jeans on and walk to the park when the sun came out. And when my friend called to see if I wanted to come help can some tomatoes, I said without any fear of pretension or cultural appropriation, “I promised Nick we would have Jama Day” The friend completely understood.
Work, whether paid or unpaid, is important. Each dish we wash, each time we diaper a child, we help create this world we share. But as the Judeo-Christian creation story models, after 6 days of creating, comes a time of rest. This is part of what it means to live a balanced life: work and rest, action and reflection. Whether we follow the Sabbath laws in Exodus and Leviticus, or take time each day for meditation or prayer, Whether we set aside time for mindfulness, or create something unique in keeping with our own natural rhythms for health and balance, what is important is that such a balance is a part of our lives. As the great poet Wendell Berry writes:
"Then workday
And Sabbath live together in one place.
Though mortal, incomplete, that harmony
Is our one possibility of peace."
Then I got a job. It only took one Memorial Day shift, sitting in an empty restaurant while my family went to a picnic, mentally adding up the $1.67 an hour I would make while the tables sat empty to make me realize that I would gladly eat at home a couple of days a year so that waiters and waitresses could have a day with their families. When that national department store chain advertises that it will be open on Thanksgiving Day, I don’t feel grateful that I get some extra time to shop; I feel sympathy for all the staff who will be required to work instead of taking time with their community.
But this is not the message we get from our culture. You are almost never going to hear your boss or client say; your life has become too focused on doing, go rest and renew yourself. It is easy for busy-ness to fill up every nook and cranny of our lives if we don’t carve out time for rest and renewal. So it is time to ask ourselves- do we believe that rest has value? Do we believe that our quality of not only our own lives, but of our society improves if we take at least one day a week for renewal and reflection?
We live in a culture that values profit and productivity very highly so to answer those values in their own terms I offer you some wisdom I learned during a Franklin Covey time-management seminar. It turns out that leaving one’s desk for lunch increases productivity for the afternoon. They also claimed that productivity drops off at the end of an 8 hour day. And I believe it. We can rest knowing that time away from work increases the quality of our work, but that also misses an essential point, because I believe there is more to leading a full and balanced life than work. Things like healing, connecting, learning, reflecting are higher functions on Maslov’s hierarchy of needs. They come long after eating, drinking, and running from tigers. But these are the things that turn surviving into living. Robert Reich, form secretary of labor under Bill Clinton, believes that one of the 3 fundamental principles of our democracy is that people have the right to develop themselves. William Ellery Channing, one of our Unitarian forefathers also held that self development was a basic human right. It is part of our liberal religious heritage to believe that we are called to grow, learn and become our best selves.
So I try to set time aside bringing balance to my life, but it takes a conscious effort. It’s hard to patiently wage a Pokemon battle with my son when the energy of busy-ness is still driving me like an inertial force. That’s why this morning I want to turn to the wisdom of the World’s religions, the 3rd source of our UU Tradition, to help us find our own way to create space for stillness and renewal in our lives.
The famous commandment which guides the Jewish Shabbat tradition is found in Exodus and says: "9Six days you shall labor and do all your work. 10But the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns." So conservative and orthodox Jews set aside the time from just before Sundown on Friday night until just after sundown on Saturday evening. They set aside that time for rest and for “Sacred Assembly.” This is a time where you not only don’t go into the office, but refrain from "all and any kind of creative 'generative' endeavor, changes to the environment or any object" because on the 7th day God refrained from God’s creative work. There’s a list of 39 such activities, like writing, plowing, building, sewing, or kindling a fire, I think it’s interesting despite all those prohibitions, the Sabbath is also a feast day, a day of celebration.
Terry Goldstein, who wrote the first of this morning’s readings, made a choice to observe the Sabbath, and has built her life around that. And I wonder, would you believe me if I told you that your religion offers this commandment in the same spirit? As a religious and observant Unitarian Universalist, you have the same authority to take time to reconnect with others, with yourself, with the earth (and for the theists, God as well). Could I give you the courage to say to your boss “as part of my religious observance, I will no longer be calling in to check messages or e-mail one day a week. I will not be available for meetings or overtime on that one day.”
A few years back when my Junior High class was studying Islam [through the neighboring faith curriculum], they had a chance to speak with a Muslim man and ask some questions about his life and faith. The students and teachers were all struck by the fact that this observant Muslim prayed 5 times a day, every day. One of our bright children asked “What if your boss didn’t let you stop work to pray” and the guest responded “I would have to find a new job.” This man believes that his religion requires him to take time every single day to pray, to reconnect if you will. He takes this assumption as a basic given in his life, and shapes the rest of his life from there.
Not long ago I was reading Nadine Gordimer’s novel “The pickup” and was struck by the religious observance of the mother. When she is in prayer, the household knows not to disturb her. It strikes the protagonist as it struck me- those times of prayer were probably the only moments of quiet in the life of a mother of several children. 5 times a day she could count few moments of quite reflection, for that which was most holy to her. No one would tell her she was being a bad mother, but a good Muslim.
If we Unitarian Universalists had the courage to set time aside, how would we use it? Shopping and mowing the lawn are definitely not in the spirit of these religious practices.
I consider the practice described in this morning’s reading by Tich Nhaht Hahn. He doesn’t mention it, but it seems to harmonize with a Buddhist observance called Uposatha which has been observed since Gautama Buddha's time (500 BC), and is still being kept today in Theravada Buddhist countries. It occurs every seven or eight days, in accordance with the four phases of the moon. Buddha taught that Uposatha is for "the cleansing of the mind", resulting in inner calm and joy.
Hanh writes “you might do household work such as washing dishes, dusting and wiping off the tables, scrubbing the kitchen floor, arranging books on their shelves. Whatever the tasks, do them slowly and with ease, in mindfulness. Don't do any task in order to get it over with. Resolve to do each job in a relaxed way, with all your attention. Enjoy and be one with your work. Without this, the day of mindfulness will be of no value at all. The feeling that any task is a nuisance will soon disappear if it is done in mindfulness.” For Hahn, it is not so important WHAT we do on a day of mindfulness, but that whatever we do it, we bring our attention, bring our whole self into that very moment.
Over the past few years I have tried to find a Sabbath practice for myself. For ministers, Sundays are specifically NOT a day off, and Saturdays inevitably involve some final editing of sermons or memorizing stories. So when Nick was just a small child I took Fridays as my day off. We called it “special Ma Nick Day” because while his father was still at work, I would have a couple of hours of quiet alone time in the morning, then I would pick Nick up from preschool at around noon and we’d head off on some adventure. For a while we were in the habit of stopping at a coffee shop for mini-scones and milk, then driving over to the library that had a wonderful children’s section, and about an acre of gently rolling hills out back past the bronze statues of characters from “the wind in the willows.” I tried to avoid e-mail and business calls all day, even though this often meant people were quite exasperated with me when I tried to get caught up on Saturday.
Now that Nick is in Elementary School, I have to re-think how I want to set time aside. I thought at first I would make Monday a Sabbath, which is what most ministers do, but because I really need some quiet time alone to write a sermon, I just can’t give up that Monday writing. I’ve decided instead to try to really focus on that time from 2:30 when I pick Nick up at the Bus stop and dinner time as a time to turn off the computer, to help Nick with his homework and find a way for us to connect. We still enjoy a trip to the library together, and now that he’s older we have found new things to do. It’s working pretty well so far these first couple weeks of school. It provides an important balance to all those times I regretfully have to say to my son “not now honey, wait until I finish this e-mail.”
Then a couple of weeks ago my husband was out of town, and Nick and I were home together with no car and some gloomy fall weather. In my search for a Unitarian Universalist Sabbath I decided it was time to apply a piece of wisdom I picked up at this year’s general assembly of UUs, which had come to me in the lyrics of a song by Peter Mayer, the one who wrote that beautiful song “Blue Boat home” in the teal hymnal. As he sang this song the light of new wisdom dawned:
You can sleep till afternoon
Make some chocolate chip pancakes
Wake up with Einstein’s hairdo
And let it stay that way all day
You can be an unclean slob
Skip the shower, skip the shave
As if you don’t have a job
Not even a resume
On Jama Day…
Now I had always felt a little pretentious saying to friends or co-workers “I can’t do that today, I’m observing the Sabbath” Because UUs don’t have a specific Sabbath tradition, and I felt like maybe I was culturally appropriating a neighbor’s traditions. But Jama Day I knew in my heart was a holiday I could observe. Not every week, mind you, but maybe a couple of times a year:
Read a book by Dr. Seuss
Play canasta, play ping pong
Make a list of jobs to do
Then do none of them at all
I want to tell your our jama day was awesome, even though we did put our jeans on and walk to the park when the sun came out. And when my friend called to see if I wanted to come help can some tomatoes, I said without any fear of pretension or cultural appropriation, “I promised Nick we would have Jama Day” The friend completely understood.
Work, whether paid or unpaid, is important. Each dish we wash, each time we diaper a child, we help create this world we share. But as the Judeo-Christian creation story models, after 6 days of creating, comes a time of rest. This is part of what it means to live a balanced life: work and rest, action and reflection. Whether we follow the Sabbath laws in Exodus and Leviticus, or take time each day for meditation or prayer, Whether we set aside time for mindfulness, or create something unique in keeping with our own natural rhythms for health and balance, what is important is that such a balance is a part of our lives. As the great poet Wendell Berry writes:
"Then workday
And Sabbath live together in one place.
Though mortal, incomplete, that harmony
Is our one possibility of peace."
Monday, October 11, 2010
Called to Justice (October 10, 2010)
[Note- this reflection was present along with 2 given by lay-leaders in the congregation]
I suppose it began for me one spring day when I got home from shopping at the Target, and began unpacking my purchases. I couldn’t believe the volume of waste- the amount of packaging I pulled off everything from moisturizer to my son’s new toy was more than 3 times the volume of the products themselves- and I don’t mean the bottle the moisturizer was in, but the plastic shelf hanger that the bottle was in that the moisturizer was in. Or course this was something I had probably experienced many times before- but on this day it just made me feel bloated with waste. I felt guilty and impotent.
This was in the time right before we invaded Iraq. There were some massive marches in San Francisco, and I felt powerfully moved to participate. I taped anti-war signs to my son’s stroller and off we headed. He was completely overwhelmed, poor thing, by the energy of 40,000 people who were, frankly, full of righteous indignation. I had to carry my 2 year old in my arms for the whole march because he didn’t feel safe in his stroller. Thankfully I had found the UU contingent, and a friend pushed the stroller the whole way so I could carry Nick.
When I got to church the next day, a long time activist explained that organizers of that march often had kind of belligerent-feeling rallies, and that I might check out the upcoming march by the local peace center. It was there my son and I found a woman sitting on a quilt with a hand lettered sign “story time for peace” There she sat with a cluster of preschoolers around her as she read stories about peaceful conflict resolution. It slowly dawned that even though I was the mother of a toddler I could still find ways work for justice.
I craved my own sense of calling- a cause I felt passionate about, for which I had the means to respond. I remember standing in line at the Subway sandwiches and offering a inglorious plea to the universe “please help me find a calling of my own.”
It started with those plastic packages, and turned into canvas bags. I made a resolution that I was going to bring those darn canvas bags to the store every single time I went grocery shopping, and if I left them in the car, I would walk back and get them no matter how far away I parked. I joined the green sanctuary team just being formed at church. I chose for my sabbatical the University of Creation Spirituality, where I could study a theology that had sustainability and justice at it’s heart: I knew it would be hard to make the changes in my own life unless the work I was called to do would was grounded in my own sense of love for the earth, grounded in my own deep beliefs and values, and in the same sense of motherly protection I felt for my own son.
Bit by bit I noticed that the environmental movement was a good fit for me- because, for example, I like long-term thinking, and really there is no movement that thinks more long term than the environmentalists. Moreover, there were ways for me to take action while still being a good mom. I made a vow to stop buying individually wrapped cheese sticks and renounced bottled water. We instituted a monthly program at the church called “Cool deeds for kids” in which all our children and youth would spend their RE time together learning about an issue and then doing something to help with our own hands. That might be making bag lunches for the local homeless shelter, or making models of erosion and permafrost in baking tins, then writing letters to our senators to ask for funding to save the disappearing village of Shishmaref Alaska.
I heard Julia Butterfly Hill say once that really there is only one movement. The anti-war movement and the environmental movement are not 2 separate factions vying for our time. We prevent wars when everyone has clean water to drink, when we reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. And war is incredibly destructive to the environment, destroying ecosystems and agricultural lands for generations. Nick and I kept attending our local peace marches as the war began, and when someone said “they are cutting down the boreal forest in Canada to print catalogs” I heard that call too. We held a “Cool Deeds” about reducing and recycling paper, we changed the paper policy through the church board, and I started a personal practice of writing letters to every mailing house that sent me a catalog to explain the issues and ask to be dropped from the their lists.
At the beginning, each time I heard the call it was like following a thread in a mystery as I looked for the work that was meant for me. Today my e-mail in-box is stuffed with calls to action every morning, and I have to pick and choose which call to answer. I feel bad that I can’t be at every lobby day, but I no longer feel guiltily and impotent. I have my work, and part of that work is leading a balance life with my family. I am proud to be part of of the Community Shale network, and that some of us will be headed to Syracuse on October 30 to present a picture of what it’s like in a county where drilling is a reality to folks in New York who are at a critical point in legislative decisions that will have ripples for many years. I still carry my canvas bags to the grocery store, and have switched to cloth napkins and locally laid eggs.
Rev. Rebecca Parker, one of my seminary professors, said in her childhood Methodist home she was taught that if there is work that needs to be done, and you can do that work, that this is your calling. I believe that this world needs each of us, that each of us is differently called, and that that calling changes over the course of our lives. Even in our busy complicated everyday lives, there are ways for each of us to act for justice if we listen closely for the call. I invite you to take a moment quietly to consider how you are uniquely called to help create a more just world.
[moment of silent meditation]
I suppose it began for me one spring day when I got home from shopping at the Target, and began unpacking my purchases. I couldn’t believe the volume of waste- the amount of packaging I pulled off everything from moisturizer to my son’s new toy was more than 3 times the volume of the products themselves- and I don’t mean the bottle the moisturizer was in, but the plastic shelf hanger that the bottle was in that the moisturizer was in. Or course this was something I had probably experienced many times before- but on this day it just made me feel bloated with waste. I felt guilty and impotent.
This was in the time right before we invaded Iraq. There were some massive marches in San Francisco, and I felt powerfully moved to participate. I taped anti-war signs to my son’s stroller and off we headed. He was completely overwhelmed, poor thing, by the energy of 40,000 people who were, frankly, full of righteous indignation. I had to carry my 2 year old in my arms for the whole march because he didn’t feel safe in his stroller. Thankfully I had found the UU contingent, and a friend pushed the stroller the whole way so I could carry Nick.
When I got to church the next day, a long time activist explained that organizers of that march often had kind of belligerent-feeling rallies, and that I might check out the upcoming march by the local peace center. It was there my son and I found a woman sitting on a quilt with a hand lettered sign “story time for peace” There she sat with a cluster of preschoolers around her as she read stories about peaceful conflict resolution. It slowly dawned that even though I was the mother of a toddler I could still find ways work for justice.
I craved my own sense of calling- a cause I felt passionate about, for which I had the means to respond. I remember standing in line at the Subway sandwiches and offering a inglorious plea to the universe “please help me find a calling of my own.”
It started with those plastic packages, and turned into canvas bags. I made a resolution that I was going to bring those darn canvas bags to the store every single time I went grocery shopping, and if I left them in the car, I would walk back and get them no matter how far away I parked. I joined the green sanctuary team just being formed at church. I chose for my sabbatical the University of Creation Spirituality, where I could study a theology that had sustainability and justice at it’s heart: I knew it would be hard to make the changes in my own life unless the work I was called to do would was grounded in my own sense of love for the earth, grounded in my own deep beliefs and values, and in the same sense of motherly protection I felt for my own son.
Bit by bit I noticed that the environmental movement was a good fit for me- because, for example, I like long-term thinking, and really there is no movement that thinks more long term than the environmentalists. Moreover, there were ways for me to take action while still being a good mom. I made a vow to stop buying individually wrapped cheese sticks and renounced bottled water. We instituted a monthly program at the church called “Cool deeds for kids” in which all our children and youth would spend their RE time together learning about an issue and then doing something to help with our own hands. That might be making bag lunches for the local homeless shelter, or making models of erosion and permafrost in baking tins, then writing letters to our senators to ask for funding to save the disappearing village of Shishmaref Alaska.
I heard Julia Butterfly Hill say once that really there is only one movement. The anti-war movement and the environmental movement are not 2 separate factions vying for our time. We prevent wars when everyone has clean water to drink, when we reduce our dependence on fossil fuels. And war is incredibly destructive to the environment, destroying ecosystems and agricultural lands for generations. Nick and I kept attending our local peace marches as the war began, and when someone said “they are cutting down the boreal forest in Canada to print catalogs” I heard that call too. We held a “Cool Deeds” about reducing and recycling paper, we changed the paper policy through the church board, and I started a personal practice of writing letters to every mailing house that sent me a catalog to explain the issues and ask to be dropped from the their lists.
At the beginning, each time I heard the call it was like following a thread in a mystery as I looked for the work that was meant for me. Today my e-mail in-box is stuffed with calls to action every morning, and I have to pick and choose which call to answer. I feel bad that I can’t be at every lobby day, but I no longer feel guiltily and impotent. I have my work, and part of that work is leading a balance life with my family. I am proud to be part of of the Community Shale network, and that some of us will be headed to Syracuse on October 30 to present a picture of what it’s like in a county where drilling is a reality to folks in New York who are at a critical point in legislative decisions that will have ripples for many years. I still carry my canvas bags to the grocery store, and have switched to cloth napkins and locally laid eggs.
Rev. Rebecca Parker, one of my seminary professors, said in her childhood Methodist home she was taught that if there is work that needs to be done, and you can do that work, that this is your calling. I believe that this world needs each of us, that each of us is differently called, and that that calling changes over the course of our lives. Even in our busy complicated everyday lives, there are ways for each of us to act for justice if we listen closely for the call. I invite you to take a moment quietly to consider how you are uniquely called to help create a more just world.
[moment of silent meditation]
Saturday, September 25, 2010
Getting Right (September 19, 2010)
These past 10 days Jewish people around the world have been celebrating the Days of Awe- the period from Rosh Hashana (the new year) to Yom Kippur (The day of Atonement) During this time observant Jews are engaged in a process of worship, fasting, prayer, and tzedakah (performing righteous deeds and giving money to charitable causes). It is also a custom, as Paul mentioned last week, to ask forgiveness form anyone you have wronged. The great Maimonides said that when we hear the sound of the shofar during this time of year it’s call says, “Awake, you sleepers, from your slumber…examine your deeds, return in repentance, and remember your Creator.”
The focus of all these customs is the process of teshuvah, or repentance, whereby a Jew persons recognize their sins, asks for forgiveness, and resolves not to repeat their errors. This is not something one is expected to do in a single hour of worship, it is, in some traditions, a 40 day process culmination on Yom Kippur, which is a day devoted entirely to fasting and repentance.
We Unitarian Universalists do not have a ritual of our own for atonement, and I think this is sometimes problematic for us. We tend to question authority, and generally we feel a little uncomfortable with the idea that we need to ask God for forgiveness. But I think we kind of throw out the baby with the bathwater here, because surely none of us believe we have never done anything that needs to be forgiven. So this is a crucial question for us- a practical question not a hypothetical one, how do we ask for and receive forgiveness if we are atheist or agnostic, or just have one of those theological constricts of the divine that are more egalitarian? I recognized that same question in the song by the great country singer Lucinda Williams:
I would burn the soles of my feet
Burn the palms of both my hands
If I could learn and be complete
If I could walk righteously again
'Cause I want to get right with God
Yes, you know you got to get right with God
I think this is a basic human yearning regardless of our spiritual tradition or theology. Whether or not we believe in God, how do we get right?
So I turn to our Jewish neighbors, as one of the sources of our own tradition: “Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves” and “Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;” I turn to this tradition to see what wisdom they can offer our yearning to get right. I see a lot of wisdom in the ritual and tradition of the days of atonement, because I have found in my own life that setting aside time for intentional reflection, and engaging in ritual acts have the power to transform our hearts, and maybe the power to help us “get right” with ourselves and with the community of beings of which we are a part.
One tradition in particular is very moving to me. It is the tradition of Tashlikh which in the Hebrew means "casting off" and has been practiced since the 13th century. It is usually performed on the afternoon of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, but we are not too late this year, because it can be said up until Hoshana Rabbah, the seventh day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, or this year September 29 on the solar calendar. In this ritual people throw pieces of bred into a body of flowing water to “cast off” all their sins from the previous year. The name "Tashlikh" and the practice itself are derived from the Biblical passage (Micah 7:18-20) recited at the ceremony: "You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."
18 [God] does not retain his anger for ever,
because he delights in showing clemency.
19 He will again have compassion upon us;
he will tread our iniquities under foot.
You will cast all our* sins
into the depths of the sea.
Now I know I have to stop here and talk about the word sin. [I know, it’s the first sermon of the year and already I’ve mentioned God and Sin] As far as I’m concerned sin is just a really old fashioned word for any of those things that I’ve done that I regret, that I feel I need to seek forgiveness for, anything that keeps me from being right with myself or with the community of all beings. But I know a lot of people, probably some of the folks in this room, were really wounded by the word sin. Over the centuries it has been used like a weapon to make people feel judged, unworthy, cut off from God if they believe in God, and cut off from other people. I’m pretty sure doing science was considered a sin at some point, so was playing cards, or using birth control. So if you don’t want to use the word “sin” I don’t blame you. Unitarian Universalists believe that no persons is inherently sinful. We’re just human. Even if we try hard to create a world of justice and compassion, at some point we are going to do something that falls short of the person we want to be.
So instead of “sin” we might say “imperfections” I bet every one here could come up with a quick list of those things. I’ll tell you a couple of mine- I still eat conventionally farmed meat sometimes even though I know it’s not ethically produced. I didn’t vote in the primaries. I was more than half an hour late for the Shale Network meeting because I didn’t heed the detour signs. Everyone has this list of things they know they have fallen short. Some of those imperfections we are able to cast off pretty easily, but some really weigh on us; we know we are not acting as our highest self calls us to be, and we long to “get right.” I don’t mind using the word sin because it leaves the same bad taste in my mouth as the actions I live to regret, like saying an unkind word in anger to someone I love. I want to reclaim that theological language from those who wield it like a weapon. But I know that word is never going to feel right to many of you, so please feel free to use language that feels like a better descriptor to you.
But one way or another we will have an incomplete world view if we don’t have a way to talk about the theological idea of “sin” (whether or not we use that word) and we don’t know how to talk about “repentance” that is to say- how to get right once we have gone wrong. Without those ideas, I am going to have an impossible job of dealing with my human imperfections. I might just stick my fingers in my ears and sing “lalala” because knowing you are not right with yourself and your community feels bad, but if there is no way to talk about it, and nothing you can do to fix it, that’s even worse. Then it feels like that badness is part of me, and always will be. But if I could let go of all those things? If I could put down the weight of all my failings and screw-ups from the past year and start fresh
“If I could learn and be complete
If I could walk righteously again”…
We need to create a language and a process in our UU tradition to come face to face with our humanness, to own our imperfections and to get right with the community of beings. Let’s take a moment in mediation now to honor our human-ness, and our desire to get right.
Now Imagine if our congregation stood up and walked to the river and you had in your hands or pockets some bread crumbs each one representing some failing, some regret, imperfection, or disconnection in your own life. Feel the crumbs in your pocket, and then one at a time, you scatter a crumb for each one into the river that flows by our Sheshequin church. What crumbs would you wash away this year?
[pause in meditation]
Then you shake out your pockets to make sure you got every last bit (in some traditions folks observing the ritual actually immerse their whole bodies lest any crumbs be left, so imagine that if you choose, immersing yourself in the river and washing away every last crumb in the rushing water. [pause] Then you turn back to shore, walking with your community back to this sactuary.
As you return from this imaginary journey, notice if there is unfinished work for you to do. Are there people you want to apologize to? [pause] Are there actions you want to change in your life?
Though our mediation is over, this process of letting go, of getting right is a process that Jewish tradition allows days or even weeks to unfold. If you feel so moved, you might want to continue this work, maybe repeating the ritual we just visualized with real crumbs and living water. Participating in a ritual like this one is a way of putting more of yourself into a psychological process that you have chosen. Your intention to let go penetrates more deeply when those ideas are put into your mind but also your body. Many Jewish congregations hold a tashlich service formally together, but a ritual of letting go can also be quite simple and private. I encourage you to take a few quiet moments in these coming days and think about the things you would like to cast off, and maybe walk to a creek or river near you with a piece of bread. Cast your crumbs on the running water to help the process of letting go, of starting the new year with a clean slate, and of getting right with your self and with the community of all beings.
Resrouces:
“The High Holidays” http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Jewish_Holidays/Rosh_Hashanah/High_Holidays.shtml
“Tashlikh: A Rosh Hashanah ritual for the whole family.” By Lesli Koppelman Ross http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Jewish_Holidays/Rosh_Hashanah/In_the_Community/Tashlikh.shtml
The focus of all these customs is the process of teshuvah, or repentance, whereby a Jew persons recognize their sins, asks for forgiveness, and resolves not to repeat their errors. This is not something one is expected to do in a single hour of worship, it is, in some traditions, a 40 day process culmination on Yom Kippur, which is a day devoted entirely to fasting and repentance.
We Unitarian Universalists do not have a ritual of our own for atonement, and I think this is sometimes problematic for us. We tend to question authority, and generally we feel a little uncomfortable with the idea that we need to ask God for forgiveness. But I think we kind of throw out the baby with the bathwater here, because surely none of us believe we have never done anything that needs to be forgiven. So this is a crucial question for us- a practical question not a hypothetical one, how do we ask for and receive forgiveness if we are atheist or agnostic, or just have one of those theological constricts of the divine that are more egalitarian? I recognized that same question in the song by the great country singer Lucinda Williams:
I would burn the soles of my feet
Burn the palms of both my hands
If I could learn and be complete
If I could walk righteously again
'Cause I want to get right with God
Yes, you know you got to get right with God
I think this is a basic human yearning regardless of our spiritual tradition or theology. Whether or not we believe in God, how do we get right?
So I turn to our Jewish neighbors, as one of the sources of our own tradition: “Jewish and Christian teachings which call us to respond to God's love by loving our neighbors as ourselves” and “Wisdom from the world's religions which inspires us in our ethical and spiritual life;” I turn to this tradition to see what wisdom they can offer our yearning to get right. I see a lot of wisdom in the ritual and tradition of the days of atonement, because I have found in my own life that setting aside time for intentional reflection, and engaging in ritual acts have the power to transform our hearts, and maybe the power to help us “get right” with ourselves and with the community of beings of which we are a part.
One tradition in particular is very moving to me. It is the tradition of Tashlikh which in the Hebrew means "casting off" and has been practiced since the 13th century. It is usually performed on the afternoon of Rosh Hashanah, the Jewish New Year, but we are not too late this year, because it can be said up until Hoshana Rabbah, the seventh day of the Jewish holiday of Sukkot, or this year September 29 on the solar calendar. In this ritual people throw pieces of bred into a body of flowing water to “cast off” all their sins from the previous year. The name "Tashlikh" and the practice itself are derived from the Biblical passage (Micah 7:18-20) recited at the ceremony: "You will cast all their sins into the depths of the sea."
18 [God] does not retain his anger for ever,
because he delights in showing clemency.
19 He will again have compassion upon us;
he will tread our iniquities under foot.
You will cast all our* sins
into the depths of the sea.
Now I know I have to stop here and talk about the word sin. [I know, it’s the first sermon of the year and already I’ve mentioned God and Sin] As far as I’m concerned sin is just a really old fashioned word for any of those things that I’ve done that I regret, that I feel I need to seek forgiveness for, anything that keeps me from being right with myself or with the community of all beings. But I know a lot of people, probably some of the folks in this room, were really wounded by the word sin. Over the centuries it has been used like a weapon to make people feel judged, unworthy, cut off from God if they believe in God, and cut off from other people. I’m pretty sure doing science was considered a sin at some point, so was playing cards, or using birth control. So if you don’t want to use the word “sin” I don’t blame you. Unitarian Universalists believe that no persons is inherently sinful. We’re just human. Even if we try hard to create a world of justice and compassion, at some point we are going to do something that falls short of the person we want to be.
So instead of “sin” we might say “imperfections” I bet every one here could come up with a quick list of those things. I’ll tell you a couple of mine- I still eat conventionally farmed meat sometimes even though I know it’s not ethically produced. I didn’t vote in the primaries. I was more than half an hour late for the Shale Network meeting because I didn’t heed the detour signs. Everyone has this list of things they know they have fallen short. Some of those imperfections we are able to cast off pretty easily, but some really weigh on us; we know we are not acting as our highest self calls us to be, and we long to “get right.” I don’t mind using the word sin because it leaves the same bad taste in my mouth as the actions I live to regret, like saying an unkind word in anger to someone I love. I want to reclaim that theological language from those who wield it like a weapon. But I know that word is never going to feel right to many of you, so please feel free to use language that feels like a better descriptor to you.
But one way or another we will have an incomplete world view if we don’t have a way to talk about the theological idea of “sin” (whether or not we use that word) and we don’t know how to talk about “repentance” that is to say- how to get right once we have gone wrong. Without those ideas, I am going to have an impossible job of dealing with my human imperfections. I might just stick my fingers in my ears and sing “lalala” because knowing you are not right with yourself and your community feels bad, but if there is no way to talk about it, and nothing you can do to fix it, that’s even worse. Then it feels like that badness is part of me, and always will be. But if I could let go of all those things? If I could put down the weight of all my failings and screw-ups from the past year and start fresh
“If I could learn and be complete
If I could walk righteously again”…
We need to create a language and a process in our UU tradition to come face to face with our humanness, to own our imperfections and to get right with the community of beings. Let’s take a moment in mediation now to honor our human-ness, and our desire to get right.
Now Imagine if our congregation stood up and walked to the river and you had in your hands or pockets some bread crumbs each one representing some failing, some regret, imperfection, or disconnection in your own life. Feel the crumbs in your pocket, and then one at a time, you scatter a crumb for each one into the river that flows by our Sheshequin church. What crumbs would you wash away this year?
[pause in meditation]
Then you shake out your pockets to make sure you got every last bit (in some traditions folks observing the ritual actually immerse their whole bodies lest any crumbs be left, so imagine that if you choose, immersing yourself in the river and washing away every last crumb in the rushing water. [pause] Then you turn back to shore, walking with your community back to this sactuary.
As you return from this imaginary journey, notice if there is unfinished work for you to do. Are there people you want to apologize to? [pause] Are there actions you want to change in your life?
Though our mediation is over, this process of letting go, of getting right is a process that Jewish tradition allows days or even weeks to unfold. If you feel so moved, you might want to continue this work, maybe repeating the ritual we just visualized with real crumbs and living water. Participating in a ritual like this one is a way of putting more of yourself into a psychological process that you have chosen. Your intention to let go penetrates more deeply when those ideas are put into your mind but also your body. Many Jewish congregations hold a tashlich service formally together, but a ritual of letting go can also be quite simple and private. I encourage you to take a few quiet moments in these coming days and think about the things you would like to cast off, and maybe walk to a creek or river near you with a piece of bread. Cast your crumbs on the running water to help the process of letting go, of starting the new year with a clean slate, and of getting right with your self and with the community of all beings.
Resrouces:
“The High Holidays” http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Jewish_Holidays/Rosh_Hashanah/High_Holidays.shtml
“Tashlikh: A Rosh Hashanah ritual for the whole family.” By Lesli Koppelman Ross http://www.myjewishlearning.com/holidays/Jewish_Holidays/Rosh_Hashanah/In_the_Community/Tashlikh.shtml
Thursday, August 19, 2010
Water is Life (August 8, 2010)
Who owns the water? It sounds like a rhetorical question, doesn’t it. Like “Who owns the air?” or “How can you hold a moonbeam in your hand?” But as a culture that takes private property seriously, people know what I mean when I say that I own a little piece of land, of earth, on the south side of Ithaca. It means that I can say who comes and who goes, I can dig it up and move it around. I can plant herbs and harvest them, and no one will challenge me about whose herbs they are. So what about the rain that falls on my land? What about the wells that provide drinking water to residents of the city of Ithaca?
The water system is one of the most profound ways that we are connected one to another as living beings on this planet. We learned as children the science of the water cycle, that the water from the glaciers melts and runs down into creeks, and then rivers, into Marshes and lakes and oceans. We know that all water exposed to air evaporates and becomes the moisture in our air, clouds, rainfall, frost and the snow that melts in the spring to feed our creeks. You look at a weather map and see the great sweeps that air makes, carrying the water that evaporated off the Great Lakes, and off of my back eastward toward the Atlantic ocean. And so water is a profound metaphor for inter-connection. This is one of the reasons our annual water communion is so powerful. Once again this fall we will each pour our own portion of water into a common bowl as we regather in our sanctuary in Athens. And once those waters mingle, the nutrients, the organisms, the toxins that were brought by each become part of the whole.
I first became concerned about water justice when I was volunteering with The Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry in California which has embraced Water as one of their key for the past few years. They adopted a set of 7 principles to guide their work that I think will be helpful in organizing our thinking about this crucial set of issues.. The first is this:
• Water is essential for life, and holds spiritual meaning for many.
Every living being in our biosphere needs water, is in some part made of water. It is written in the Koran "We have made of water everything living." Water is such a fundamental building block of life, that every religious tradition that endeavors to sorts the world into its most essential elements includes water among them. It’s a powerful part of story, ritual and archetype in all cultures whether island or desert peoples.
Is water sacred to Unitarian Universalists? We might as well ask ourselves “is life sacred?” because water is the source and substance and sustenance of all life as we know it. Surely we must treat with reverence anything that sustains life, treat with respect that which when withheld causes life to wither and die. This year we have decided to include some earth science in our children’s Religious Education program. When our children here at church have a lesson about their local watershed, we should be ready to explain what is sacred about water, why we would spend time at church thinking about it, because water is so completely ordinary. But I believe that the ordinary everyday life is sacred, and worthy of our awe and our respect. I want our children to experience the joy and wonder of water, whether that comes from unlocking its scientific mysteries , or by running under a sprinkler. And I want them to respect water, because it cannot be separated from life -- our lives and the lives of the other beings who share this biosphere with us. I know of nothing more sacred than life.
A Second principle of water justice is that:
• Access to clean water for basic human needs is a fundamental human right and is essential for human health and dignity.
Just a couple weeks ago, on July 28, 2010, the United Nations adopted a nonbinding resolution that recognizes the human right to water and sanitation. The resolution “declares the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights.” Proponents of water rights were very careful to not allow the phrase “access to water” into the resolution, because that could imply that as long as water is for sale in your area the government has done it’s job. Instead they pushed for water itself as a human right.
The resolution passed by a vote of 122 to 0 with 41 countries, including the United States, abstaining. In a recent interview after the passage of the UN Resolution, Maude Barlow, director of the Council of Canadians, a citizen’s organization which has been a long time supporter of the right to water, spoke about the politics around those 41 abstentions this way: “…really, what you’re seeing is a split between those countries that see water as a public trust, although that wasn’t in the language of the legislation, but that see water as a public trust and a human right and that should belong to all, as opposed to those who are going to move to a market model. And I think that’s the truth behind what happened.”
Which leads us to our third principle:
• Water is a public trust and part of the global commons; it should not be treated as a commodity.
Are there some things so basic to life that they should be governed by different rules than those of private property? Like air? Like sunshine? Like water? Like our genetic code? I believe there are. The phrase that is used to describe this idea is “reclaiming the commons.” has argued that water isn’t a private good and shouldn’t be in any trade agreement.”
The idea of a commons arose in counterpoint as an increasing number of countries are moving towards water privatization, including New Zealand and Australia. In the United States a number of local communities fight the drawing down of their aquifers by water bottling companies like Nestle. according to The Economist (August 27, 2008) “Nestlé, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch and Danone consume almost 575 billion liters of water a year, enough to satisfy the daily water needs of every person on the planet,” Across the globe the world Bank makes water privatization a condition of loans and debit relief, and encourages sale of public water utilities to private corporations rather than helping fund public utilities. Between 2000 and 2003, 94% of World Bank loans for water and sanitation required recipients to sign contracts with private companies. As of 2006, Three European corporations: Veola, Suez and RW Thames controled over 70 percent of private water systems worldwide. Water has been removed from the “essential services” category and made a commodity available for profit.
This is what happened in Chualar, an agricultural community in Monterey County. There the California American Water Company (owned by RW Thames, one of those giants I mentioned before) bought the town’s water system in 2001. Local residents had been paying a flat rate of $21, but then bills jumped as high as $400 a month. Rebecca Trujilo, a local resident, reported that “All of a sudden we got a bill for over $100. Now our wages are pretty low. We earn $280, or at most $300 a week. If we have t o pay a bill of $280, will that’s a week during which we can’t eat, we won’t have money to buy food” Community members rallied, and presented community demands to the California Public Utilities Commission. As a result of this mobilization, Cal-Am went back to a flat rate, and CPUC supervised the private utility more closely with local community advocates.
Each time you or I buy bottled water, we are passively supporting water privatization. And if we’re buying it in the little sport-sized bottles we are paying more per gallon than we pay for gas. Companies like Nestle and Coke a Cola are buying public water rights (that’s my water and your water). They are within their rights as private property owners to overdraw the ground water, emptying local wells which provide drinking water to local residents, and then selling our water back to us at seriously inflated prices, in plastic bottles that some say will make us sick if we re-use them.
So what’s a thirsty citizen to do? Go back to your tap. That’s what most bottled water is anyway- tap water. Reconnect yourself to the water that comes out your faucet- each time you bottle your own you are making a political statement. It’s your right as a being on this earth to have access to clean drinking water. Do you have confidence in your tap water? A few minutes on-line at the EPA website could help. Find out where it comes from. If you don’t like what you find out, remember your right to have a vote and a voice- assert and reclaim that right.
This leads us to a third of the basic principles of water justice that :
• All people, including those in low-income and marginalized communities, must have meaningful input into water management decisions in their own communities.
Currently water is governed in very different ways across the country. In some states they are governed by “Special Districts” which are often controlled by real-estate developers and corporations. In some districts called “landowner districts” property owners are entitled a number of votes based on the number of acres they own. This means that while we all need water to survive, we can only participate in the democratic process if we own land, and our vote counts more depending on how much land we own. So next to the loud voices of industrial agriculture and developers, homeowners speak in a whisper and renters have no voice at all.
Here in Bradford County, I know that decisions about our water are made by the Susquehanna River Commission, and the Conservation Commission, but I’m going to admit my ignorance about where the water that flows out our taps at the Athens church comes from, and which public agency is responsible. So I hereby issue a challenge to you all here- the first person who can explain the source of and governance over the water that ends up in our church building gets a dozen homemade cookies. I will also award a cookie to anyone who can tell me the story of the water that comes out of the tap at your own home.
That will help us better ensure justice for our families and our neighbors, as Thomas Jefferson said “An Informed citizenry is the Bulwark of democracy” But what other beings who need water to survive? They also have no voice unless we give them one. There is a movement afoot to give rights to local ecosystems. The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, was founded right here in Pennsylvania, and is helping local governments all over the country pass laws granting rights to Mother Nature. In 2006 Tamaqua in Schuylkill County was the first in the nation to pass such an ordinance. Executive Director Thomas Linzey put it this way: "What we're advocating is a wholesale paradigm change: that Nature is not just property. We're saying natural communities have an inherent right to exist and flourish.”
This leads me to a 4th guiding principle that:
• The health, integrity, and stability of ecosystems must be respected and preserved.
Do we believe that other beings have rights? I do. I believe that water is not only a right for humans but for all beings. We have lived long enough with our 7th principle to know that the decisions we make about the path of a river effect more lives than our human lives. We also know that Our fate is inexorably intertwined with the other beings with whom we share this eco-system, but our laws do not reflect this reality.
For example, the California Water Code’s definition of “reasonable and beneficial use” acknowledges no intrinsic worth to such beings as the Salmon of the Klamath river. Hydroelectric dams along the river block salmon from 350 miles of spawning habitat. The once abundant Klamath salmon runs have now been reduced to less than 10% of their historic size. Some species, such as Coho salmon, are now in such low numbers in the Klamath River that they are listed under the Federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). As the health of the salmon population is threatened, so is the health and viability of the Karuk tribe of Northern California who have lived in and with the Klamath Basin for thousands of years.
A fifth of the basic principles of the Legislative Ministry’s water justice work is that :
• Public control and regulatory oversight are necessary to ensure the public's interest is protected.
Let’s go back to the water that falls on my yard. That doesn’t have anything to do with you, does it? It’s my land! But of course, all the water in this watershed, and in fact on the planet, is interconnected. This leads to 2 different kinds of concerns. First, anyone can put a well on their private property- ‘cause, hey, it’s my land. But the groundwater doesn’t pay attention to property lines. When we pump groundwater to sell for bottled water or to turn into fracking fluid, it can lead to an “overdraft” of groundwater- meaning that more water is pumped out of the ground than is replenished by rainfall or runoff.
Second, what you do to the water on your property doesn’t stay on your property. There are many examples of this, but one that has so many of us worried right now is what happens to the water used in hydrofracking. I just don’t feel confident that when known carcinogens and endocrine disrupters are pumped into the ground in the hydrofracking fluids that they will stay where we put them. Many of us in the congregation went to see Gasland over at the Elmira Theater and were shocked by film footage of folks lighting their water on fire. Apparently just a few days ago the cap blew off a water well in Monroe Township, and subsequent tests found methane in 3 wells at the private residence less than a mile away from a natural gas drilling pad. The DEP has investigated, and Chesapeake Energy is taking remedial action.
This is why we need to keep working to close the Halliburton Loophole by keeping the pressure on our federal legislators to pass legislation such as H.R. 2766/S. 1215 “The Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2009 which has been stuck in committee for over a year. We have a right to clean, drinkable water, and need oversight to make sure our watershed stays pure.
The last of the UULM guidelines is this:
• Water conservation, responsible use, and stewardship should be a top priority for all.
This summer my son and I have taken every chance we could get to swim in the gorge at Treman State Park- it’s a favorite place of his. Last week as we were swimming there a worried look came over his face: “Mom, is the water from the Gulf Spill going to get in this water?” “No, honey” I assured him “That is very far away from us, it’s in a different watershed” (I didn’t want to worry him too much by talking about how water from the gulf would certainly evaporate and join the weather systems that move around the planet) “But let’s work to keep this and all the other creeks and lakes near us safe and clean” I replied.
Water is not a commodity, it is the very substance of life, it is sacred, and it is precious. We study our watershed, our water cycle knowing it offers as much wisdom about sustaining life as a sacred text. Let us make sure that justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Endnotes:
1. For a discussion of some water rights in Pennsylvania see: “FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Public Rights in Pennsylvania Waters” by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat commission http://www.fish.state.pa.us/water/public/faq_public_waters.htm
2. The Koran (21:30)
3. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2010/ga10967.doc.htm “General Assembly Adopts Resolution Recognizing Access to Clean Water, Sanitation as Human Right”
4. Democracy Now July 29, 2010 “In Historic Vote, UN Declares Water a Fundamental Human Right” http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2010/7/29/in_historic_vote_un_declares_access
5. Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry, California, “UULM-CA Water Justice Guiding Principles”
http://www.uulmca.org/programs/water.html
6. http://www.emagazine.com/view/?5067
7. UUSC,Right to Water.” http://www.uusc.org/pdf/WATERfs_v3B_WEB.pdf
8. The Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, Thirsty for Justice: A people’s Blueprint for California Water p. 50
9. http://www.epa.gov/safewater/dwinfo/ca.htm
10. Ibid p. 47
11. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_513236.html Pittsburgh Tribune-Review “Ecosystem rights move forward in Washington County” by Mike Cronin, June 19, 2007. More about CELDF can be found at http://www.celdf.org/index.php
12. THE PACIFIC COAST FEDERATION OF FISHERMEN'S ASSOCIATIONS “THE STRUGGLE TO SAVE SALMON IN THE KLAMATH BASIN“ http://www.pcffa.org/klamath.htm
13. Ibid p. 22
14. Thirsty for Justice p. 48
15. http://thedailyreview.com/news/methane-found-in-well-water-in-monroe-twp-1.942868 “Methane found in well water in Monroe Twp.” The Daily Review. BY JAMES LOEWENSTEIN.August 12, 2010
The water system is one of the most profound ways that we are connected one to another as living beings on this planet. We learned as children the science of the water cycle, that the water from the glaciers melts and runs down into creeks, and then rivers, into Marshes and lakes and oceans. We know that all water exposed to air evaporates and becomes the moisture in our air, clouds, rainfall, frost and the snow that melts in the spring to feed our creeks. You look at a weather map and see the great sweeps that air makes, carrying the water that evaporated off the Great Lakes, and off of my back eastward toward the Atlantic ocean. And so water is a profound metaphor for inter-connection. This is one of the reasons our annual water communion is so powerful. Once again this fall we will each pour our own portion of water into a common bowl as we regather in our sanctuary in Athens. And once those waters mingle, the nutrients, the organisms, the toxins that were brought by each become part of the whole.
I first became concerned about water justice when I was volunteering with The Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry in California which has embraced Water as one of their key for the past few years. They adopted a set of 7 principles to guide their work that I think will be helpful in organizing our thinking about this crucial set of issues.. The first is this:
• Water is essential for life, and holds spiritual meaning for many.
Every living being in our biosphere needs water, is in some part made of water. It is written in the Koran "We have made of water everything living." Water is such a fundamental building block of life, that every religious tradition that endeavors to sorts the world into its most essential elements includes water among them. It’s a powerful part of story, ritual and archetype in all cultures whether island or desert peoples.
Is water sacred to Unitarian Universalists? We might as well ask ourselves “is life sacred?” because water is the source and substance and sustenance of all life as we know it. Surely we must treat with reverence anything that sustains life, treat with respect that which when withheld causes life to wither and die. This year we have decided to include some earth science in our children’s Religious Education program. When our children here at church have a lesson about their local watershed, we should be ready to explain what is sacred about water, why we would spend time at church thinking about it, because water is so completely ordinary. But I believe that the ordinary everyday life is sacred, and worthy of our awe and our respect. I want our children to experience the joy and wonder of water, whether that comes from unlocking its scientific mysteries , or by running under a sprinkler. And I want them to respect water, because it cannot be separated from life -- our lives and the lives of the other beings who share this biosphere with us. I know of nothing more sacred than life.
A Second principle of water justice is that:
• Access to clean water for basic human needs is a fundamental human right and is essential for human health and dignity.
Just a couple weeks ago, on July 28, 2010, the United Nations adopted a nonbinding resolution that recognizes the human right to water and sanitation. The resolution “declares the right to safe and clean drinking water and sanitation as a human right that is essential for the full enjoyment of life and all human rights.” Proponents of water rights were very careful to not allow the phrase “access to water” into the resolution, because that could imply that as long as water is for sale in your area the government has done it’s job. Instead they pushed for water itself as a human right.
The resolution passed by a vote of 122 to 0 with 41 countries, including the United States, abstaining. In a recent interview after the passage of the UN Resolution, Maude Barlow, director of the Council of Canadians, a citizen’s organization which has been a long time supporter of the right to water, spoke about the politics around those 41 abstentions this way: “…really, what you’re seeing is a split between those countries that see water as a public trust, although that wasn’t in the language of the legislation, but that see water as a public trust and a human right and that should belong to all, as opposed to those who are going to move to a market model. And I think that’s the truth behind what happened.”
Which leads us to our third principle:
• Water is a public trust and part of the global commons; it should not be treated as a commodity.
Are there some things so basic to life that they should be governed by different rules than those of private property? Like air? Like sunshine? Like water? Like our genetic code? I believe there are. The phrase that is used to describe this idea is “reclaiming the commons.” has argued that water isn’t a private good and shouldn’t be in any trade agreement.”
The idea of a commons arose in counterpoint as an increasing number of countries are moving towards water privatization, including New Zealand and Australia. In the United States a number of local communities fight the drawing down of their aquifers by water bottling companies like Nestle. according to The Economist (August 27, 2008) “Nestlé, Unilever, Coca-Cola, Anheuser-Busch and Danone consume almost 575 billion liters of water a year, enough to satisfy the daily water needs of every person on the planet,” Across the globe the world Bank makes water privatization a condition of loans and debit relief, and encourages sale of public water utilities to private corporations rather than helping fund public utilities. Between 2000 and 2003, 94% of World Bank loans for water and sanitation required recipients to sign contracts with private companies. As of 2006, Three European corporations: Veola, Suez and RW Thames controled over 70 percent of private water systems worldwide. Water has been removed from the “essential services” category and made a commodity available for profit.
This is what happened in Chualar, an agricultural community in Monterey County. There the California American Water Company (owned by RW Thames, one of those giants I mentioned before) bought the town’s water system in 2001. Local residents had been paying a flat rate of $21, but then bills jumped as high as $400 a month. Rebecca Trujilo, a local resident, reported that “All of a sudden we got a bill for over $100. Now our wages are pretty low. We earn $280, or at most $300 a week. If we have t o pay a bill of $280, will that’s a week during which we can’t eat, we won’t have money to buy food” Community members rallied, and presented community demands to the California Public Utilities Commission. As a result of this mobilization, Cal-Am went back to a flat rate, and CPUC supervised the private utility more closely with local community advocates.
Each time you or I buy bottled water, we are passively supporting water privatization. And if we’re buying it in the little sport-sized bottles we are paying more per gallon than we pay for gas. Companies like Nestle and Coke a Cola are buying public water rights (that’s my water and your water). They are within their rights as private property owners to overdraw the ground water, emptying local wells which provide drinking water to local residents, and then selling our water back to us at seriously inflated prices, in plastic bottles that some say will make us sick if we re-use them.
So what’s a thirsty citizen to do? Go back to your tap. That’s what most bottled water is anyway- tap water. Reconnect yourself to the water that comes out your faucet- each time you bottle your own you are making a political statement. It’s your right as a being on this earth to have access to clean drinking water. Do you have confidence in your tap water? A few minutes on-line at the EPA website could help. Find out where it comes from. If you don’t like what you find out, remember your right to have a vote and a voice- assert and reclaim that right.
This leads us to a third of the basic principles of water justice that :
• All people, including those in low-income and marginalized communities, must have meaningful input into water management decisions in their own communities.
Currently water is governed in very different ways across the country. In some states they are governed by “Special Districts” which are often controlled by real-estate developers and corporations. In some districts called “landowner districts” property owners are entitled a number of votes based on the number of acres they own. This means that while we all need water to survive, we can only participate in the democratic process if we own land, and our vote counts more depending on how much land we own. So next to the loud voices of industrial agriculture and developers, homeowners speak in a whisper and renters have no voice at all.
Here in Bradford County, I know that decisions about our water are made by the Susquehanna River Commission, and the Conservation Commission, but I’m going to admit my ignorance about where the water that flows out our taps at the Athens church comes from, and which public agency is responsible. So I hereby issue a challenge to you all here- the first person who can explain the source of and governance over the water that ends up in our church building gets a dozen homemade cookies. I will also award a cookie to anyone who can tell me the story of the water that comes out of the tap at your own home.
That will help us better ensure justice for our families and our neighbors, as Thomas Jefferson said “An Informed citizenry is the Bulwark of democracy” But what other beings who need water to survive? They also have no voice unless we give them one. There is a movement afoot to give rights to local ecosystems. The Community Environmental Legal Defense Fund, was founded right here in Pennsylvania, and is helping local governments all over the country pass laws granting rights to Mother Nature. In 2006 Tamaqua in Schuylkill County was the first in the nation to pass such an ordinance. Executive Director Thomas Linzey put it this way: "What we're advocating is a wholesale paradigm change: that Nature is not just property. We're saying natural communities have an inherent right to exist and flourish.”
This leads me to a 4th guiding principle that:
• The health, integrity, and stability of ecosystems must be respected and preserved.
Do we believe that other beings have rights? I do. I believe that water is not only a right for humans but for all beings. We have lived long enough with our 7th principle to know that the decisions we make about the path of a river effect more lives than our human lives. We also know that Our fate is inexorably intertwined with the other beings with whom we share this eco-system, but our laws do not reflect this reality.
For example, the California Water Code’s definition of “reasonable and beneficial use” acknowledges no intrinsic worth to such beings as the Salmon of the Klamath river. Hydroelectric dams along the river block salmon from 350 miles of spawning habitat. The once abundant Klamath salmon runs have now been reduced to less than 10% of their historic size. Some species, such as Coho salmon, are now in such low numbers in the Klamath River that they are listed under the Federal Endangered Species Act (ESA). As the health of the salmon population is threatened, so is the health and viability of the Karuk tribe of Northern California who have lived in and with the Klamath Basin for thousands of years.
A fifth of the basic principles of the Legislative Ministry’s water justice work is that :
• Public control and regulatory oversight are necessary to ensure the public's interest is protected.
Let’s go back to the water that falls on my yard. That doesn’t have anything to do with you, does it? It’s my land! But of course, all the water in this watershed, and in fact on the planet, is interconnected. This leads to 2 different kinds of concerns. First, anyone can put a well on their private property- ‘cause, hey, it’s my land. But the groundwater doesn’t pay attention to property lines. When we pump groundwater to sell for bottled water or to turn into fracking fluid, it can lead to an “overdraft” of groundwater- meaning that more water is pumped out of the ground than is replenished by rainfall or runoff.
Second, what you do to the water on your property doesn’t stay on your property. There are many examples of this, but one that has so many of us worried right now is what happens to the water used in hydrofracking. I just don’t feel confident that when known carcinogens and endocrine disrupters are pumped into the ground in the hydrofracking fluids that they will stay where we put them. Many of us in the congregation went to see Gasland over at the Elmira Theater and were shocked by film footage of folks lighting their water on fire. Apparently just a few days ago the cap blew off a water well in Monroe Township, and subsequent tests found methane in 3 wells at the private residence less than a mile away from a natural gas drilling pad. The DEP has investigated, and Chesapeake Energy is taking remedial action.
This is why we need to keep working to close the Halliburton Loophole by keeping the pressure on our federal legislators to pass legislation such as H.R. 2766/S. 1215 “The Fracturing Responsibility and Awareness of Chemicals Act of 2009 which has been stuck in committee for over a year. We have a right to clean, drinkable water, and need oversight to make sure our watershed stays pure.
The last of the UULM guidelines is this:
• Water conservation, responsible use, and stewardship should be a top priority for all.
This summer my son and I have taken every chance we could get to swim in the gorge at Treman State Park- it’s a favorite place of his. Last week as we were swimming there a worried look came over his face: “Mom, is the water from the Gulf Spill going to get in this water?” “No, honey” I assured him “That is very far away from us, it’s in a different watershed” (I didn’t want to worry him too much by talking about how water from the gulf would certainly evaporate and join the weather systems that move around the planet) “But let’s work to keep this and all the other creeks and lakes near us safe and clean” I replied.
Water is not a commodity, it is the very substance of life, it is sacred, and it is precious. We study our watershed, our water cycle knowing it offers as much wisdom about sustaining life as a sacred text. Let us make sure that justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like a mighty stream.
Endnotes:
1. For a discussion of some water rights in Pennsylvania see: “FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS Public Rights in Pennsylvania Waters” by the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat commission http://www.fish.state.pa.us/water/public/faq_public_waters.htm
2. The Koran (21:30)
3. http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2010/ga10967.doc.htm “General Assembly Adopts Resolution Recognizing Access to Clean Water, Sanitation as Human Right”
4. Democracy Now July 29, 2010 “In Historic Vote, UN Declares Water a Fundamental Human Right” http://www.democracynow.org/seo/2010/7/29/in_historic_vote_un_declares_access
5. Unitarian Universalist Legislative Ministry, California, “UULM-CA Water Justice Guiding Principles”
http://www.uulmca.org/programs/water.html
6. http://www.emagazine.com/view/?5067
7. UUSC,Right to Water.” http://www.uusc.org/pdf/WATERfs_v3B_WEB.pdf
8. The Environmental Justice Coalition for Water, Thirsty for Justice: A people’s Blueprint for California Water p. 50
9. http://www.epa.gov/safewater/dwinfo/ca.htm
10. Ibid p. 47
11. http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/news/s_513236.html Pittsburgh Tribune-Review “Ecosystem rights move forward in Washington County” by Mike Cronin, June 19, 2007. More about CELDF can be found at http://www.celdf.org/index.php
12. THE PACIFIC COAST FEDERATION OF FISHERMEN'S ASSOCIATIONS “THE STRUGGLE TO SAVE SALMON IN THE KLAMATH BASIN“ http://www.pcffa.org/klamath.htm
13. Ibid p. 22
14. Thirsty for Justice p. 48
15. http://thedailyreview.com/news/methane-found-in-well-water-in-monroe-twp-1.942868 “Methane found in well water in Monroe Twp.” The Daily Review. BY JAMES LOEWENSTEIN.August 12, 2010
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