The Great Awakening (June 3, 2012)

The story of the great awakening is the perennial story of the struggle between thought and feeling. It is also the struggle between the establishment tradition and radical innovation. Now usually when I tell the story of the struggle between the establishment and the radical, we Unitarian Universalists identify with the radical. But at the time when the first great awakening swept New England beginning in  1734 our Unitarian roots were sunk into the  Boston Establishment. Those moved by the Great Awakening felt that the established religion of the day had strayed from Puritanism. One of these was Charles Whitefield who wrote in his journal that: “It has the form of religion kept up, but has lost much of it’s [sic] power. I have not heard of any remarkable stir for many years… There is much of the pride of life to be seen in their assemblies. Jewels, patches, and gay apparel are commonly worn by the female sex. The little infants who were brought to baptism were wrapped up in such fine things, and so much pains taken to dress them, that one would think they were brought thither to be initiated into, rather than to renounce the pomps and vanities of this wicked world.” [i]

But it was not just the worldliness and “lack of stirring” that concerned Whitefield, it was the theology that was emerging among the established churches.  Whitefield wrote that “Bad books are becoming fashionable among tutors and students” By this he meant the new tendency towards “Arminianism” which suggested that people are born with both the capacity for sin and for righteousness, meaning that God’s will was not the final factor; we could chose God’s grace, or we could choose to sin. These ideas, arose in contrast to Calvinism, which taught that God’s will was sovereign, and we were elect or sinners by God’s design, and became popular among Baptists, Methodists, and Congregationalists. It was those Congregationalist churches, that would one day be some of the first Unitarian churches; by the early 19th century, Unitarianism had converted 9 of Boston’s original 13 orthodox Congregational churches.

Whitefield criticized the puritan style churches of his day saying that Many Bostonians “rest in head-knowledge, are close to Pharisees”[ii] In contrast, this radical new movement, the Great Awakening, was characterized by “Great fervor and emotion in prayer”. Whitefield had grown up in England, and came to America in 1739 to evangelize. He worked here as an Itinerant Methodist preacher (traveling town to town) and is considered by many to be a central figure of the Great Awakening. Whitefield had a powerful preaching style that was quite new to his puritan audiences. He was known to preach out of doors, in part because he commanded crowds of thousands which couldn’t fit into the local churches but certainly also because in England the traditional churches would not allow him to preach within their walls. News reports of the day say that he would preach in a field, on  tree stumps, or even, one report said, on a horse. This was a movement that appealed to the lower classes, who felt that the establishment churches did not speak to them. Whitefield even preached to slaves, which scandalized many in the traditional churches. Evangelicals today believe that the Great Awakening fostered such revolutionary sentiment that it fomented the Revolutionary war.

Whitefield was a preacher who could engender great feelings in his audiences.  David Garrick, then the most famous actor in Britain said of his preaching: "I would give a hundred guineas," he said, "if I could say 'Oh' like Mr. Whitefield." Jonathan Edwards's wife, Sarah, remarked, "He makes less of the doctrines than our American preachers generally do and aims more at affecting the heart. He is a born orator. A prejudiced person, I know, might say that this is all theatrical artifice and display, but not so will anyone think who has seen and known him."

The opposition looked on this with suspicion. One of the folks at the center of that opposition was Charles Chauncy (1705-1787) minister of the First Church Boston (Congregationalist). He championed the  role of reason in religion, and was suspicious of all these expressions of emotion. Chauncey wrote on:

 “The next thing I shall take Notice of, as what I can’t but think of dangerous Tendency, is that Terror so many have been the Subjects of; Expressing itself in strange Effects upon the Body, such as swooning away and falling to the Ground, where Persons have lain, for a Time, speechless and motionless; bitter Shriekings and Screamings; Convulsion-like Tremblings and Agitations, Strugglings and Tumblings, which, in some Instances, have been attended with Indecencies I shan’t Mention; None of which Effects seem to have been … peculiar to some particular Places or Constitutions; but have been common all over the Land…” [iii]

Though Whitefield may have been a particularly skilled orator, the emotional and spiritual passions of  participants in services during the Great awakening movement, including visions and trances, seem to have been wide spread. The preachers would stress the sinful nature of humans and their utter incapacity to overcome this nature without the direct action of the grace of God working through the Holy Spirit. There was a focus, in these services, on the necessity of Conversion or “new birth.”  This conversion would be not a new understand of ideas, but a visceral, emotional, spiritual, transformative experience.

Another hallmark of this movement was the role of Itinerant preachers (often without formal ministerial training). Chauncy retorts:  “Some of these Itinerants, ‘tis evident, have travelled about the Country preaching under the full persuasion of an immediate Call form God; and as to most of them, it may be feared, the grand Excitement, at the Bottom, has been, an overfond Opinion of themselves and an unchristian one of their brethren. It has, therefore been their practice, too commonly , not only to boast of their own superior Goodness, wherever they have gone; but to insinuate suspicions against the fixed pastors, if not to preach against them, and pray for them, as poor, carnal unconverted men.” [in “Epic of Unitarianism p. 52] Chauncy worried about a preacher who “mistakes the workings of his own passions for the divine communications, and fancies himself immediately inspired by the SPIRIT OF GOD, when all the while he is under no other influence than that of an over-heated imagination.” (Robinson p. 12) Ironically one of those Chauncy mentions with suspicion  was “A stranger who has of himself assumed the character of a preacher.” This stranger was John Murray, the founder of the first Universalist church in America.

Another important preacher of the Great Awakening was Jonathan Edwards, a Congregational minister in Northampton, Mass. He had Studied at Yale, where he read Newton and Locke. He lost the church he served as their minister by stating that “a public profession of saving faith based on the candidate's religious experiences as a qualification not only for Holy Communion but also for church membership.” Dismissed from his church in 1750, got job in Indian mission at Stockbridge. Eventually he became President of the College of New Jersey (now Princeton) in 1757. He died young from side effects of small pox inoculation. [iv]

What is important about Edwards is his Influence on Congregational and Presbyterian theology. Being a learned man, he was able to put together a Defense of determinism (Calvinism)-- a sort of neo-orthodoxy. He postulated that the notion of Free will undermines god’s sovereignty. He said in his famous sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God:"

The world of misery, the lake of burning brimstone, is extended abroad under you...Hell’s gaping mouth [is] wide open, and you have nothing to stand upon or take hold of...It is only the power and mere pleasure of God that holds you up...The God that holds you over the pit of hell, much as one holds a spider or some loathsome insect over the fire, abhors you. You have offended him...0 Sinner! You hang by a slender thread, with the flames of divine wrath flashing about it, and ready every moment to singe...and burn it asunder. You have nothing to lay hold of to save yourself. There is nothing that you have ever done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment. [v]

Another who spoke out in opposition to the Great Awakening was Jonathan Mayhew (1720-1766). He was the minister of the West Church in Boston (congregational) and was a proponent of that Armenian Liberalism. Said Mayhew “God is a ‘Wise and infinitely gracious being’” by reason “we resemble God Himself.” He preached that Man can choose right and wrong (the central doctrine of Arminianism) and of the Trustworthiness of reason and conscience (a founding principle of American Democracy). Generally the tenants that held together that opposition to the Great Awakening were important tenants for Unitarians throughout our history: The belief in Human goodness and free will, the Unity of God and the importance of using Reason in studying scripture.

Rationalism, Biblicism and moral aspiration- these were the early response to 1^st great awakening. Perhaps for some the cool light of reason was a relief set alongside the heated passion of the revival meetings. For some the use of reason in interpreting the bible restored sure footing in a time when itinerant preachers teaching out of a personal sense of call, imbued with the spirit. And Moral Aspiration- the idea that we could of our own free will choose to do right, is it any wonder that this idea grew in response to the hopelessness of feeling oneself held over a fiery pit on a slender thread “There is nothing that you have ever done, nothing that you can do, to induce God to spare you one moment.”

It turns out there were 4 “great awakenings” all together, and I think the Second Great Awakening (1825-35) had the most direct impact on Universalism. This great awakening was another revival movement that emerged during the early 1800s, This second great awakening was a reaction against rationalism and desire for a church that served the needs of common people. The theology of the second great awakening embodied a transition between Calvinism and Arminianism, expressing a movement from god’s absolute sovereignty to god as “moral governor.” In this theological movement sin is seen now as a result of human action rather than predetermination by an all powerful God. There is still the immanent threat of Hellfire and damnation (which once again figured powerfully in the sermons of this second great awakening) but now the response to this knowledge is for humans to “repent.” It was called “New Haven” theology because of influence of Yale. Once again it was characterized by a  personal, emotional response to god. In Kentucky and Tennessee folks held interdenominational 4 day events called “camp meetings” which attracted thousands of people. The Camp meetings emphasized conversion with singing and shouting and dancing, and  folk style music. And once again Unitarians criticized the emotional displays of the revivals and argued that goodness sprang from gradual character building, not sudden emotional conversion.[vi]

One of the leaders of this movement was Charles Grandison Finney (August 29, 1792 – August 16, 1875) who has been called The Father of Modern Revivalism. He was an extemporaneous preacher, known for his innovations in preaching and religious meetings. For example, he  developed the "anxious seat", a place where those considering becoming Christians could come to receive prayer, and he lead public prayer for people by name. He also bucked the establishment by having women pray in public meetings of mixed gender. Finney was also an abolitionist. Perhaps it’s not surprising that a movement where both women and black persons participated, and a movement where folks were responsible for their own moral choices  would spark social action in areas like temperance and abolitionism. This was something I hadn’t realized -- I hadn’t realized that abolition was an area where liberal and evangelical theologies came together to create change. It makes me wonder how many other times liberals and evangelicals have stood shoulder to shoulder in the struggle for social change. I wonder if it could serve as an important model for us today.

This was not the only powerful religious movement  of the day that swept through Western New York in particular. It is because of this period of religious fervor that the area between Albany and Lake Erie is called the “burned over” region of New York. The term was coined during second great awakening by Charles Grandison Finney, one of those 19^th century evangelicals, who had said that “the area had been so heavily evangelized as to have no "fuel" (unconverted population) left over to "burn" (convert).”

Universalism became a major antagonist of the Second Great Awakening and evangelical culture under the leadership of  the great Universalist preacher Hosea Ballou. By articulating a doctrine of universal salvation, we pointed out and challenged the Protestant drift away from traditional Calvinist orthodoxy because this idea of repentance actually challenges god’s sovereignty. So in a way, the universalists were the orthodox Calvinists during this period, because they believed that God was still all powerful, but had a loving, rather than a judgmental character.[vii] Between the first and second Great Awakenings, that “stranger” John Murray spread his radical idea through itinerant preaching, and we saw the settlement of the first Universalist churches (including the church of the Restoration in Philadelphia and later UUCAS) Now during the time of the second Great Awakening Universalism grew from the radical fringe to be the 6^th largest denomination in the country, as folks were hungry for an alternative to hellfire preaching. It was during this period that many of the churches in the Pennsylvania Universalist Convention were born.

As 21^st century UUs, we sometimes look at the passion and drama of the revival movements, those “great awakenings” from the vantage point of cool reason. We are proud to bring our rational minds into those most important questions- of who we are, of how we are to live, of how we are saved, and for what we are saved. It feels good to know that we can figure out with our own minds the important truths of life.  But sometimes we look at the passion and inspiration of these evangelical services, both in history and in our neighboring churches, wishing we could have that much heart, that much spirit in our Sunday worship.  A few years back I was teaching a class on “religion and the media” and we showed the clip of a revival meeting from a popular movie. When the clip was over, a number of us said things like “I wish I could feel the spirit like that in worship” but one of our older members who had been a child in Germany at the time of the second world war said “Oh, I don’t like it, it reminds me of the Nazi rallies during the war.”

This is, perhaps, the natural ebb and flow of religion. We become tired of the old established ways, which seem to them boring, stale, bereft of inspiration. We worry that we and our neighbors are following their religions teachings in name only,  that “one would think they were brought thither to be initiated into, rather than to renounce the pomps and vanities of this wicked world.” Long to wake up from this spiritual sleepiness, we  long for revival. So we shake off the head-bound sermons of the learned clergy, and sing and dance and yell in a field or on a tree stump.

Sometimes this divide between those who let the heart rule and those who are ruled by the mind, the reason, can be  the deepest divide in religion, perhaps deeper than that of theological conflicts. If we understand and explore both kinds of knowledge, both kinds of spiritual truth, we increase not only our own spiritual wisdom but also our capacity to understand the spirituality, the theology of our neighbors. Our UU faith is not just the cool reason of our enlightenment forefathers. We have also in our history the passionate preaching of our itinerant Universalist forbearers. In fact, this very church, so the story goes, started out as a Baptist church. When an itinerant preacher called Noah Murray began  preaching in this area he drew such crowds that the Rev. Moses Park (minister of the Baptist church here) went to debate with him but was himself  converted and soon his congregation with him”

This morning’s service seems kind of rooted in the head. We sang kind of old timey hymns and talked about our history, (except joys and concerns, which many call the heart of our service) but those were hymns of the great awakening. The words of John Edwards of dangling over hellfire seem strange to us now, but  that same preaching sent folks into visions and trances. Yes sometimes, we are  rooted in our heads, but also in our hearts and in the spirit of life. About a month ago we gathered in a park down the street to sing and dance in celebrate the earth. So Awakening, reviving is not something that can be done once, but is something which must be done again and again, each time we fall into rote routine, each time we fall out of balance whether that be as individuals, as a congregation, or as Unitarian Universalism. Let us always be awakening.

---

[i] Robinson. p. 10- from Whitefield’s journal

[ii] Robinson. p. 11- from Whitefield’s journal

[iii] From Chauncy ”Seasonal thoughts on the state of Religion in New England” cited in  Epic of Unitarianism p. 53

[iv] [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/edwards/]

[v] [http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/sermons.sinners.html]

[vi] http://www.sparknotes.com/testprep/books/sat2/history/chapter9section1.rhtml

[vii] [From The Universalist Movement in America, 1770-1880 by Ann Lee Bressler (Religion in America: Oxford University Press) http://www.wordtrade.com/religion/christianity/universalismR.htm]

Catch and Store Energy (April 22, 2012)

Each Summer Eric and Nick and I go to a music festival up in Trumansburg. Because we like to camp, we need to get up and get on the road as early as we can stand that first morning. But no matter how early you get up, as you turn onto the road approaching the festival you will see that the line of cars already waiting at the camping entrance goes farther than the eye can see. So you pull over at the end of that line of cars, turn off your engine, and get our your lawn chairs and your cooler, because you are going to be there for a while. Last year, this coincided with the hottest day of the year, maybe the hottest day in years. In an incredible stroke of luck, at the moment when we pulled up the end of the line was in front of an old old house with a border of old old trees about 10 feet from the road. We threw down a picnic blanket in the abundant shade provided by those trees and lay there reading and daydreaming as the day got hotter and hotter, until some hours later we finally we saw signs of motion up the road and entered the parade of vehicles into the camping section of the fairgrounds. As we crawled along in our station wagon loaded down like modern day pioneers, the hot sun blazed. It turns out there were very few trees on that road old enough, tall enough, with a canopy large enough to block out the mid day sun. We had been the beneficiaries of some wise person, generations ago, who had the foresight to invest in a few saplings, and the vision to see the shade canopy those trees would provide in their maturity to grandchildren or great grandchildren playing on the lawn.

It turns out, once again, that our grandparents were right; it is critically important that we put something away for a rainy day. I remember my grandfather was the one to walk me over to our local bank to help me open a pass-book account when I was just a little girl. I’m pretty sure he gave me $10 to get it started too. Because you all are a fair compensation employer, you make a contribution to my 401K each year so that I will have something tucked away for my retirement. Saving money is one way we “catch and store energy.”

It’s easy for us to forget, however, that money is only a means of exchange for what we really want and need. Eric and I once showed up at an outdoor concert where we were sure they would be selling food, and spent the day with grumbling stomachs wishing we had brought a couple of sandwiches instead of that $20 bill in our pockets. As the bumpersticker goes, “you can’t eat money.” My dad, who lived through the depression, taught me to always have reserves in my pantry as well as emergency savings in the bank. One of the most basic things that the Red Cross recommends people do to prepare for an emergency is to have an emergency preparedness kit- a backpack or trash can filled with things we might need in an emergency- bottled drinking water, shelf stable food, prescription medication – because when there is an emergency just having money in the bank will not get us through a time when basic services have broken down. We have only to remember the impact of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and surrounding communities to know that this is so.

Because this is the last of this year’s sermon series on the “Principles of True Abundance” I want to talk a little bit about how nature catches and stores energy. The most basic form of energy that you and I and everyone being on this planet need is not fuel for our cars or electricity for our computers. It is the energy that runs our own bodies- food. And ultimately our food comes from the sun- the sun’s energy turned by plants into carbohydrates which we, and the animals we eat, turn into fuel. But plants also need good soil to grow. The soil itself is this amazing savings account, storing and transforming all the nutrients that arrive by rain and gravity, and the falling of dead leaves and bodies. All those nutrients of beings who have died become the ultimate inheritance for future generations. When you ask yourself, what is the best form of investment- is it stocks? Is it bonds? Gold? A mutual fund? Really, the best most enduringly valuable investment the best way to catch and store energy, is good fertile soil. Another one of Mother Nature’s good long term savings plans is seed. In these tiny packages not only all the Genetic material to create a highly evolved life forms, but also some really dense nutrition for that seed to start its life. This is why nuts and other seeds are so nutritionally dense, and also so fattening. This is why the great Indian environmental activist (and physicist) Vandana Shiva has devoted so much of her career to creating a seed saving bank, because no matter what the future holds, if you have a diverse collection of seeds and some good rich soil, you can feed your community.

Another of Mother Nature’s really long term savings plans … trees. Trees take carbon, one of the basic building blocks of life, and store it for hundreds, even thousands of years. We talk a lot about “carbon sequestration” when we worry about global climate change, because we know that carbon dioxide in the atmosphere leads to the green house effect that dramatically chances our earth’s climate. But Carbon Sequestration is not just about taking carbon out of the atmosphere. David Holmgren, one of the Co-Originators of the Permaculture Concept, reminds us what a great savings account a stand of trees can be. Wood is also a good way to catch and store energy, because not only can be used to fuel fires as humans have done for warmth for over a million years, but because homes, furniture, even battleships have been made from timber until quite recently. Trees also provide shade and habitat for birds (who, you will remember from a few weeks back, are one of nature’s best insecticides). And finally as the leaves fall to the ground or when the trees decompose and all that wealth joins the savings plan that is our humus. When I get my 401K statement in the mail, there is always a reminder to “diversifying my portfolio” Which usually means to have both stocks AND bonds. But they never mention trees. And not just trees, but all perennial plants. We’ve all enjoyed the abundance of our neighbor's rhubarb plot over the years. Rhubarb is a hardy perennial, an investment that pays off every after year as the plants catch and store energy that we enjoy in pie form.

Then of course we must consider water. There can be no life for us without water. And it just falls right out of the sky around here- for anyone to use! Sure we could go to work and earn money and take that money to the store to buy bottled water for our emergency preparedness kit, but we could also build a water catchment system to use now when we water our plants, and also to have a self-renewing source of water should our local wells become contaminated. Creating small catchment systems (which, when mother nature does it we calls lakes or ponds or aquifers) is a great way of putting aside something for when we need it later.

But this year, our series on Principles of True Abundance is not just about how we can let Mother nature teach us practical lessons, like how to make sure there is always enough to eat, but to let Mother Nature be kind of like a scripture for us, to read the bio-systems of our world for wisdom we can use in our own spiritual lives.

For example, have you ever felt burned out? You know you are burned out when you have no energy for the work you are doing, and even though you know you should care, and even though the work may at one time have been something you felt very passionate about, now it just feels like something you have to slog through. A person whose spirit is burnt out is a lot like land that has been over-farmed. All the nutrients were taken out with no system for restoring those nutrients to the soil. Sometimes burnout is caused because we just plain work too hard for too long. Our society really encourages us to do this. In some workplaces seeing a co-working still plugging away at their work at 9:00 pm is considered the sign of a committed worker. In some work places going home before 7 shows that you are kind of a slacker. In most cases your boss doesn’t care if you are living a balanced life, or if you are spending enough time tending your relationships, their job is simply to increase productivity.

Have any of you read the books of Tamora Pierce? She is young adult author who has these great strong heroines. And when the heroine comes for her great battle with evil, she uses every bit of strength she has left, and then passes out. Seriously. Then the heroine wakes up later in a hospital bed or something, and the friend or nurse or teacher who has been caring for her while she was unconscious explains that she has used up all her energy and has been resting, unconscious, for hours or days trying to “get her strength back.” And I always wonder- what if that friend or teacher hadn’t been there to drag her off the battlefield and dress her wounds and keep her safe and dry while she “got her energy back?”

So part of burn out is using up all your energy, but the other part is about not catching and storing energy as you move through life. Where does our spiritual energy come from? It’s different than physical energy, right? I am crazy about the women’s marathon, and when those women finish, even if they can barely walk, they are not “burned out” they are flying high. They are proud and fulfilled even though they are exhausted. So part of catching and storing energy is about giving our energy to something that gives back. For me yoga is one of these things. I often go to yoga at 4:00, which is a time of day when I am normally grumpy and useless. So I go invest a little time in my physical health- in flexibility and strength, and in my spiritual health, by paying attention to my breasting and centering myself. I think of yoga very like the savings club at my son’s elementary school Every Thursday he brings a dollar and his Alternatives Federal Credit Union passbook, and builds his savings a count a little at a time. When I go to yoga I rarely see a big leap in strength or flexibility, but when I look aback over 5 or 10 years I a amazed at the changes I see in what my body can do.

There are also big investments in the spirit. 2 weeks ago I spent the weekend at the Rowe Retreat center with an old professor of mine. It was a weekend filled with “Aha”s that I am still unpacking and that are still feeding my spirit. I realized the other day that my last sabbatical, about 7 years ago, is still providing nutrients and richness for both my spiritual life and my professional life.

One of the best ways I catch and store energy in my own life is by giving energy to my relationships. It is invariably true that the relationships to which I give my time and attention grow and thrive better than those I neglect. And yes, probably that friend I spend so much time with will be there for me if I pass out unconscious after defeating the giant, or when I face one of those staggering losses that life deals out to all of us. But just as importantly, really good healthy relationships feed us as we feed them. And that nourishment is something we can draw on when things get tough. We are more resilient when we are healthy and nourished and strong, and less likely to pass out at the end of that important battle.

One more way we catch and store energy is one we talked about a few weeks back when we discussed the first Humanist Manifesto. They believed very strongly that not only was working for a just world for all the right thing to do, but they also believed that it feeds our spirits and helps us develop as persons. Sometimes, for financial reasons, we have to spend our days building widgets, even if we don’t particularly are about widgets. And if we are leading a balanced life and our work environment is decent this can be fine. But when we are doing work where we believe that we are making a real difference, whether we are paid for this work or do it as volunteers, the meaning of that work feeds us. Moreover, whenever we work for an equitable infrastructure to our world this is also like putting something away for a rainy day for ourselves.

Or consider art, or music. Think of all the hours Beethoven put into writing one of his great symphonies, or the time the Beatles took recording their albums. Every time we hear Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band on the radio, Every time we go to an art museum, or the library, we are enjoying the fruits of energy caught and stored for our benefit.

One of the keys to catching and storing energy is balance. First a balance between short term yield and long term security. In balance, that family vacation that deepens relationships and creates good memories may be just as good an investment as that same amount of money in a 401K. The other balance is investing in all the different kinds of vitamins and minerals a healthy person needs to live. I have known families where both parents work 50-60 hours a week or even more. They don’t’ have time to make their own food, or clean their own homes. The children are in daycare until 6 every night, or have a nanny to take care of them. And so such a system requires a lot of money to make it go. And all of the energy is being caught and stored in the form of money. I have seen a lot of burn out in communities that demand such long hours at work. But energy could also be stored in the form of a garden where we grow some of our own food, or a big Sunday dinner made from scratch with leftovers in the refrigerator for lunch the following week. Energy could be spent mending clothing instead of earning money to buy new clothing.

Like a tree we catch and store energy in the health of our bodies, in the trunks and branches of the lives we build for ourselves, and in the seeds we grow each year as hope for the future, and ultimately in the layer of humus, the minerals and nutrients that once made up the leaves of a certain season, and now are recycled, decomposed into raw fertility for all life to use, passed down from generation to generation like a family heirloom. This week, as you move through the patterns of your daily life, notice where you are catching and storing energy like a tree, and when energy is running out of your life like rain washing fertility out of un-covered soil. Notice where energy is being caught and stored all around you, like a row of towering shade trees planted by someone as wise as my grandparents.

The Gift Multiplies (April 1, 2012)

(This sermon is part of an ongoing series on the Principles of Permaculture. The 8 principles we are using come from Starhawk's "Principles of True Abundance")

For the past 100 years or so, Unitarianism has shied away from miracles. For example, when we consider the life of Jesus, we focus on his gifts as teacher and as one who lead an exemplary life. So when we look at stories of Jesus’ miracles, we are not looking for proof of Jesus’ divinity, we are looking for a lesson, a teaching that we ordinary humans could take into our own hearts, our own lives. Do you remember the story of the Loaves and Fishes? (Luke 9:12-17)

The day was drawing to a close, and the twelve came to him and said, ‘Send the crowd away, so that they may go into the surrounding villages and countryside, to lodge and get provisions; for we are here in a deserted place.’ But he said to them, ‘You give them something to eat.’ They said, ‘We have no more than five loaves and two fish—unless we are to go and buy food for all these people.’ For there were about five thousand men. And he said to his disciples, ‘Make them sit down in groups of about fifty each.’ They did so and made them all sit down.
And taking the five loaves and the two fish, he looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke them, and gave them to the disciples to set before the crowd. And all ate and were filled. What was left over was gathered up, twelve baskets of broken pieces.

A Unitarian Universalist might look at that story and says “what if that was not a supernatural miracle, but a natural one?” What if, when the people saw Jesus and his disciples giving away the only 5 loaves and 2 fish they had for the good of their community, what if each was called to higher generosity? Maybe the generosity lead to more generosity until after everyone had eaten, 12 baskets of broken pieces were left over. The gift multiplies.

Some of you remember that when this congregation spontaneously started feeding our neighbors after the flood, we started with just a few rolled up sleeves and a couple of pots of soup. But once folks found out what we were doing, donations from inside the church and from the larger community poured in and allowed us to continue feeding flood-survivors and cleanup-helpers for weeks. The gift multiplies. And when they heard about us and what we were doing, the Ohio Meadville district of UUA, not having a chalice lighter grant to give this year, sent us and the Binghamton church a check that enabled us to pay for the mold treatment in our basement. The gift multiples. Ten-year-old Megan Striff-Cave from West Hartford Connecticut who has grandparents in this area came on down to bring donations form the fifth grade class in her UU Sunday school and Megan, with her brothers and sisters and parents, dropped off the first of the class donations in person last fall. Her family helped pack lunches before Megan went door-to-door with church members to deliver the lunches. In just a couple of weeks over 20 volunteers are coming from that church as their yearly mission trip to help folks still cleaning up and rebuilding from the flood, and we are opening our doors and our kitchens to them to support them in their work. The Gift multiplies.

Because I am a Universalist, I believe that everyone has gifts to offer their community-- everyone has something to give. That’s why we send out a pledge form to every member of our congregation. When the canvas team gets together every year to plan the canvas they always worry about being inclusive. They want to be clear to everyone that giving is very personal thing- that what we have to give is as unique as each of us and our life circumstances. That’s why we think of pledge time as not just a time to consider our financial commitment to the church for the year, but also to think about other gifts we have to offer. Furthermore, I believe that helping people discover their gifts is part of the role of beloved community. Giving helps us remember our inherent worth, and helps us remember that we are part of the interconnected web of life.

Maybe it’s a Universalist thing, but I don’t believe that giving is just for some small portion of humanity. A friend of mine who lived on the streets off and on for years said he found there that homeless folks were the most generous people he knew. He said that if they had only 2 cigarettes, they would give you one. Indeed statistics about financial giving bear this out. A 2010 NY times article noted that how much folks gave was inversely related to their income, that is to say -- folks who earned under $25,000 a year gave more as a percentage of their income than those earning over $75,000.

All around me I can see that giving is part of the mutuality of our life together, giving and receiving are as natural a part of life as breathing in and breathing out. Every living being has something to give. Consider that in nature every system has inputs and outputs. The Plant gives off fruit and seeds and oxygen. The oxygen, though precious to us, is given off by the plant as waste. But those beautiful summer fruits? A plant puts plenty of itself into the fruit and the seeds. Now not every fruit will create offspring. The gift of that fruit to us and to the other critters is part of evolutionary design. When you or a squirrel take the fruit far from the parent tree to eat, you help the parent tree spread its seed far and wide. We give to this church, or to the food pantry partly out of altruism but also because we know that we need this church, and we know that if we don’t need the food pantry today we may need it someday. And because we are able to imagine ourselves using the food pantry and the church, we can imagine the other people who will benefit from our gift; we can put ourselves in their shoes and feel our very real connection to them.


Each year about %20 of our operating budget comes from the Pennsylvania Universalist Convention. 200 years of generosity among Universalists gathered into a common endowment helps fund Universalist congregations all over the state of Pennsylvania. Sometimes this generosity happened under sad circumstances, like when a church had to close its doors, but each of those churches was built by the generosity of its members and friends. And their generosity when their church closed their doors helped them know that Universalism would continue here into the future. Now Sheshequin was one of the first Universalist Churches in Pennsylvania, and the first one here in the valley. Do you think any of those folks who contributed to the building of that church 200 years ago knew that we would still be enjoying that building today, that the donations they made to the PUC would someday be used to help keep Universalist in this valley strong? Their donations kept this little church going in good times and in bad. Their donations enable us to feel confident as a church, and to create more vibrant programs than we could otherwise. It’s like the songs says “it’s just like a magic penny, hold it tight and you won’t have any. Lend it spend it and you’ll have so many, they’ll roll all over the floor.” The gift multiplies.


In the Wiccan tradition, they talk about the Rule of Three (also Three-fold Law or Law of Return or threefold return) “everything you send shall return three times over” (circle round p. 395) The principle is that whatever you put out into your world will come back to you threefold. So if, for example, you are meditation about or creating the intention for the health and wellness of your friends and family, you don’t really have complete control over that energy, that intention – it kind of gets away from you. “Fate has notoriously bad aim” says one of my favorite books Circle Round: raising children in the goddess traditions. If you are working to manifest more healing in the world, you might accidentally create conditions for your own health and healing. People might say to themselves, doesn’t it feel nice to hang out with her? I just feel better when she’s around. The same is true for negative intentions. If you spend a lot of energy saying “Oh, that so and so politician! I hope they fail!” and working toward that failure, the political structures that fail might not be just the career of that one politician. If enough people did that they might create kind of a negative mood in the country, a climate where it might be harder for folks to come together to make the important changes we all need.

Think about the great heroes of the 20th century- Gandhi and Martin Luther King. I’m sure men so charismatic as that could have created violent uprisings if they had so chosen. They could have spread hate far and wide, but they chose the path of non-violence, even though sometimes the costs to them were high. Maybe Gandhi could have foreseen that he really was able to change the tide of imperialism in India, but could he even have imagined that he would inspire the American Civil Rights movement? The ripples of what he did flow out and out and out. The gift multiplies.

I suppose I’m asking you to take a leap of faith with me here. I have no empirical evidence that the gift will multiply. I certainly don’t mean that we can count on this principle in a literal way. We can all think of examples in our own lives, I’m sure, when we gave something of ourselves that was not appreciated, or fell on infertile soil. I think about all those fruit trees excited by that 70 degree weather who budded and bloomed a couple of weeks back, and then the frost came. I hear farmers saying we may loose whole orchards full of stone fruit this year. But what if those trees, feeling burned, said –okay next year no buds, no flowers, no fruit! What if Susan B Anthony had put her head down on her desk in frustration and despair and just given up? Once we give a gift it is no longer ours to control. We have to trust, not only that our gifts will be received but that they will grow and multiply.

When I was a new mom, I had just come to serve the congregation in Palo Alto. They did not have a lot of new moms there, folks most joined when their children were ready for preschool, but they did have one new baby born into the congregation the year before I came. This birth inspired them to create some thing called the “Baby Café” whereby members of the congregation would sign up to bring the new family a hot meal once every couple of days so that the sleep-deprived new parents would not also have to worry about feeding themselves. It was a lovely way to show the love and caring of the congregation. As a minister I thought this was a great idea that fit with my ideas about shared ministry and pastoral care. But then it was my turn, and I was sleepless and recovering from a 5 day labor and then an emergency surgery. And those folks started showing up at MY door with good hot food… it’s hard to even describe how overwhelmed I was by their generosity. Day after day this outpouring of care changed something about how I look at the world. As more and more members of our congregation started having babies, I always wanted to be part of the baby café. One time I was late to sign up and the list was full- too many people wanted to bring dishes to the new family- I pleaded ministerial privilege “Please, I have to bring them a dish. I’m the minister! Just tack me on to the end of the list.”

A couple of years back a new friend of mine in Ithaca had her first child. Her community rallied with hot food and piled her with all the things you need when you first have children in your home. I passed on to her some gear Nick had used when he was a baby. “Can I pay you for that?” she asked “No”, I said, “this is just how it works with babies. You take all the help you can get now while you need it most, and pass it on as you are able.” We both knew it could take a lifetime of giving to pass on all we had been given. The Gift Multiplies.

That’s what I love about the PUC. They provide a substantive support for this church and it’s ministries from that endowment built by 200 years of the generosity, built by Universalists just like you and me, some of whom sat in this same sanctuary. That grant is a real help in hard times, and I know it has kept Universalist churches in this state from closing their doors in the lean hard years. But that other 75% comes from you and me, from the gifts we give our church each year. For me that PUC grant provides inspiration for my own giving. Because I know this church will be here for a long time, and so I know that my own giving will make a difference here in this valley, providing roots and wings for my son’s generation of Unitarian Universalists and all those around the valley who have yet to find us. My gifts will make sure there is a place where we know that each and every person is precious -- a beloved community where the gifts we see shining all around us inspire us to reach out to our neighbors when they are hungry, when their homes are flooded, when they experience discrimination, or when they feel lonely and disconnected and need a tangible reminder that they are part of a web of life that will never let them go. The gift multiplies.

What if this is the miracle of the loaves and fishes; whatever we give grows in ways we may not even imagine, and ripples out into the world, some say for 7 generations. As with all miracles, we have to make a leap of faith that this is so. Each of us has gifts to give, and though there may be only five loaves and two fish, we believe that the gift multiples. May our loaves and fishes feed 5000 and when what left over is gathered up, there may be twelve baskets more.

That Direct Experience of Transcending Mystery and Wonder (March 25, 2012)

Because I am a Universalist, I believe that everyone has the capacity for a spiritual life, that everyone is on a spiritual journey. In fact, because I am a Universalist, I believe there is no part of our lives that happens outside of our spiritual journey -- it is the nature of life. So I preach about washing the dishes, because this is part of our spiritual journey. I preach about social justice, because this is one of the main spiritual practices of Unitarian Universalism. But sometimes there comes a longing to know spirit in its distilled form. The name our tradition gives to this is: “Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life”

This Unitarian Universalist faith tradition holds, as the very first source of our living tradition, our own direct experience. We believe a person does not need a religious authority to mediate their relationship with the divine. We believe, with the humanist Curtis Reese “that every age must achieve its own faith.” The Muslim tradition holds that Mohamad was the last of the prophets and in Judaism it is said to be Malachai. Both traditions hold that with these prophets there is a seal on revelation. But traditionally Unitarian Universalists don’t believe this. We believe that revelation is ongoing, we, like the younger siblings in a large family, don’t want to settle for a “hand-me-down” revelation. We want to be pioneers and explorers ourselves. We, with the Psalmist, want to “Taste and see” (Psalm 34:8)

But part of the reason we talk about washing the dishes and working for justice as a way of seeking the spiritual life instead of climbing to the proverbial mountain top is that not everyone feels called to climb that mountain. Some folks pursue wisdom and insight from the stories and writings of the great prophets and teachers, others by doing good work in the world. Right at this moment, that’s all I want. A quiet moment of reflection now and again, a thought provoking story, and good work to do. But when I was in seminary I wanted to taste for myself. I felt a deep seated desire to know more. Last week I talked about how those early humanists did not deny the existence of God, but “were in a distinctly anti-metaphysical mood” Well, this is the exact opposite impulse. For me the hunger that drove me to seek direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder was a hunger to know God.

I had spent already a couple of years in graduate school trying to know God through the intellectual search, reading and studying theology and all the other things folks need to know for the ministry. I had spent some time trying (and mostly seemed like failing) to learn to meditate. But at some point I wanted more than to write and think about the divine, I wanted to know for myself. When I was studying in Berkeley, there was then as there are now a group of teachers who lead “Satsang” which means “being in the presence of truth.” One of those teachers talked about this hunger, this craving to experience spiritual truth, and she said that this hunger is the prerequisite for this kind of seeking. Without this hunger, one cannot experience the truth.

I went to see one of my professors- Prof. Yielbanzie Charles Johnson, one of the only professors who talked explicitly about the life of the spirit. He had said often enough in class “If you want to have spirit in your life, you need to invite spirit into your life.” Even so, I felt a little crazy asking him my questions- both about how to invite spirit into my life, and how to grounds that search to keep from drifting away into the ether. Most of the esoteric spiritual practices come from outside our UU tradition, but Yielbanzie reminded me that being deeply present with the natural world is one path that has been part of our UU tradition for generations. Immersing oneself in nature, listening and emptying and being filled in a forest or in a desert like the girl in this morning’s story. Yielbanzie advised “ask earnestly, pay attention.”

All of the major religions traditions have these seekers of direct experience, they are called mystics. (Our UU mystics are the transcendentalists.) If you read some of the poetry or writings of mystics from very different traditions you will notice tremendous similarities in what they describe. Many traditions suggest that one needs a teacher of some kind, a guide. Many recommend a community of learners. Because if you go on this journey you are specifically seeking something beyond your understanding, you are seeking something powerful. It is good to have people to talk with and keep you company on the way, to keep you on the right path.

Most traditions suggest that the first step is living an ethical life. For example in the 8 limbed path of yoga, the first limb is “Yama” which means ethical living. If you are going on a journey up the spiritual mountain, you don’t want to be carrying a lot of baggage. If you are stealing from your boss and cheating on your wife, this is the very first thing that is going to jump out at you on your journey – the demons of not being right with yourself and your community.

It is also recommended that one have some kind of spiritual practice, or discipline. When I was at the University of Creation Spirituality on my sabbatical, we would have a seminar each morning, then for 3 hours each afternoon we would have “art as meditation.” During one of our intensives I studied chanting and meditation with Russill Paul who called this practice the “technology of ecstasy.” Because this is not a new search, folks have been on this path for as long as there have been people. There are helpful guideposts and teachings passed down to us for generations. One could spend one’s whole life following these different practices and noticing different energetic sensations and trance states not usually found in the ordinary experience. But as the Buddha and so many spiritual teachers have pointed out, there are a number of traps and detours on the way to pure experience. For example, I practice Hatha yoga. This is only one part of the 8-limbed path. It would be easy to get trapped in trying to do poses perfectly, or in accomplishing that cool pose on the cover of Yoga Journal, but the actual goal of yoga is “Samadhi” or union with the divine. Any path you take has the risk of sidetracking you from your real journey. I heard a student of meditation explain how after practicing for years he finally reached a state of pure bliss. He rushed to his teacher to share the good news and the teacher gives them a good whack on the head, because bliss is not the goal- pure awareness is the goal.

For myself, I spent a number of years devoted to this search. I didn’t have children to care for, and my work was preparing for and then beginning to serve the UU ministry, so such a search fit very well with the other factors in my life. I am so blessed to have had that time, a time I think of as my climb up that proverbial mountain. Yielbanzie had suggested that I “look for that thing that may not appear to be obvious… your help may come from where you least expect it.” I took his advice seriously. Instead of looking for confirmation of what I already thought I knew, I changed my focus to those things which surprised me, and realized I was thrilled to know there was still something in the nature of our experience that could surprise me. One fellow traveler said “whenever things get really weird or confusing or difficult, you know that you are really in it- you are right there in the mystery.”

I began a habit of listening to everything as if it was that help coming from some place I wouldn’t expect it. And I kept up my practices- I was at this time keeping a journal of my journey, I was keeping a dream journal and participating in a regular dream group, and I was studying Kundalini yoga, which included some very interesting and exciting things and also sometimes just the mind-numbing process of focusing your attention on a single point until you wanted to climb out of your skin. I never did get to the top of the mountain, but just high enough up to get above the tree line where the air is clear, and where you have a clear view of everything around you. I came away with a feeling that we were all part of something so much bigger than ourselves, that we were held in love. I finally had answers to some of the questions I had been asking my whole life, and also just became comfortable just being in the presence of mystery.

Theology, which had seemed so complicated in my systematc theology text books, started to seem simpler and simpler, and eventually it occurred to me that there is no you and I, there is no other to search for because all are one. How far I had to travel to come home to this very Universalist truth. But, as Gangaji says “to hear it, even to understand it, to memorize it, to hope it’s true is not enough. It has to be discovered Directly.”

When Yielbanzie preached at my ordination, he preached about getting lost, because I had taken so fully to heart this idea that if I wanted to find truth I had to follow the spirit even if it lead to strange places. And in particular because when the seminary class went to do our final ritual at a nature preserve, and the whole class followed the sign that said “I took the path less traveled by” I assumed that meant I should take the other path, and went tromping deep into the brush by myself. On that very real journey, as on my spiritual journey I eventually realized that if I was ever going to rejoin the community of persons, I was at some point just going to have to turn around and head back-- that eventually I had to go back down the mountain. Some folks are called to be holy men or women living on the side of the mountain, making camp in the desert, but it became clear to me that I had to ground my spiritual life in the daily fabric of living. The 15th century Sufi poet Kabir writes “Be strong then, and enter into your own body; there you have a solid place for your feet. Think about it carefully! Don’t go off somewhere else!”

Ultimately our knowing, our search for the divine must be grounded in our body- in our very particular time and space. So my husband and I bought a house, we had a son, and I got a full time job, and I committed myself to building a just world. For me such mundane acts as working in the garden, helping my son with homework, cooking – these are right at the heart of spiritual living. Even though I am no longer blinded with the brightness of the spirit within them, I know from my time on an explicitly spiritual journey, from the insights I gained during that part of my life, I know that these things are infused with spirit. I would go so far as to say they are brimming with God. Whereas before I started an intentionally spiritual journey these things may have seemed boring or beside the point, today they seem infused with meaning and purpose. Even on those days where I feel stressed out or uninspired, that knowing lingers. The simplicity of the vision that grew for me on my journey supports me on my path even in the ordinary time when I can’t even see the mountain from under the grove of trees I call my life.

While I was at Satsang one evening, back in Berkeley so long ago, a middle aged man mentioned that when he was young he had had experiences of being overwhelmed with the presence of God, with the spirit in his life. He had lived in that feeling for a while, but then it had receded and he, all these years later, missed it very much. The teacher said that this was not uncommon to have an intensity of experience as we first come to know God, but that later in a mature part of the journey, we don’t need to be hit over the head, we can listen for the divine in more quiet everyday places.

This brings me to the two main points I want to leave you with this morning. First, because I am a universalist and I believe that everyone has access to that transcending mystery and wonder, I believe that one does not have to follow complicated or esoteric teachings to reach truth. The simple breathing meditation is both appropriate for beginners and a practice that leads to enlightenment. One of the central teachings of Gangaji is that we can, in any moment, cut through our normal way of thinking and get to the truth of things. It is fine to follow the esoteric teachings, the scenic route through the realms of spirit, but there is always a direct path, a simple path, because there are no elect, no chosen who have the special skills to achieve union with the divine. WE are all on the path, but not all of us choose to climb this particular part of the mountain. I believe that those who hunger can find the spirit, as Lalla (a 14th century North Indian Mystic) says:

No ritual,
No religion,
Is needed.

Just cry out one
Unobstructed cry.”

Second, the heart is the best door to this journey. When I was studying Kundalini yoga, we spent time each class meditating on our heart center --literally on this area in our chest, which is also the location of the heart chakra. We would practice centering our attention there and cultivating a certain kind of feeling, or energy. I’m making both a metaphysical and a humanist point here; the heart is the node of the energetic system where the spiritual and the physical meet. But more importantly, it is the seat of compassion. No matter what kind of journey you are no, no matter where you are your journey, always start with your heart, always ground yourself in compassion. Compassion for yourself, and compassion for all living beings. This is why in a beginning meditation class, one will practice observing the breath, and loving-kindness meditation. Truly this is all one needs for the journey. Paying attention, and compassion. Says the great Christian Mystic Teresa of Avila, “if you are not certain about your relationship with God, stop worrying about it, focus on loving your neighbor, and the God-question will take care of itself.”

Everyone is on a spiritual journey all the time. We cannot escape it. The monk on his meditation cushion, the mystic in her cell, the householder at the sink filled with soapy water. Because God, the spirit, the meaning of life, are fully present in the faces of our neighbors, in the quiet of the forest. They are as close as our own breath moving in and out. But if a hunger comes for more, for knowing more closely, for a direct experience of that transcendent mystery and wonder, treasure that hunger, nurture that hunger, and see what new place it might lead.

Three Gifts of Humanism (March 18, 2012)

Earlier this winter we were gathered for a class about early Unitarianism and Universalism, reading excerpts from the sermons of our earliest fore-parents who were explicitly Christian and believed in the authority of scripture and the saving power of Jesus, someone asked “so how did we get from there to where we are today?” This is the story of one huge turning point in our movement, the bend around which we turn to find a clear view of the Unitarian Universalism of today. This is the story of the dawn of modern humanism.

It begins with a minister born right here in Pennsylvania, in Chambersberg to be exact. A John Dietrich who grew up and started his career as a minister of the Reformed church, but was tried by his church for heresy and defrocked. And so he did what so many good heretics have done, he converted to Unitarianism and moved to the west coast where he began his career as a Unitarian Minister in Spokane Washington in 1911.

It begins with a Baptist preacher called Curtis Reese who, while he was in seminary found that the new theories of biblical criticism undermined his fundamentalist upbringing, his belief that the bible was the literal unerring truth. He too converted to Unitarianism in 1913 and worked for a more “democratic” religion as opposed to what he thought of as the “autocratic” Christianity.
It begins with Charles Potter, another Baptist preacher, whose colleagues questioned the theology in his preaching. He preached a sermon for the AUA national secretary Lewis Wilson about Jesus, and after hearing the sermon Wislon “Declared him a Unitarian.” Potter also converted to Unitarianism in 1914 and was called to us first Unitarian church in Edmonton Canada, where he was introduced to the ideas of Dietrich, and realized that he was not alone in his crazy ideas. Potter was called on as a witness for the defense in the famous “Scopes” trials.

One of the things you will notice about all these folks, aside from the fact that they were “come-outers” that is to say, folks that left another religion to become Unitarians, is that they all served Unitarianism in the west. Whereas on the East Coast many Unitarians had grown up in the faith which embraced the older UU theologies and practices, Western Unitarianism (which included the mid-west) was a hotbed of new thought populated mostly by other “come-outers.”

This is the first gift of Humanism. “Religion must formulate its hopes and plans in the light of the scientific spirit and method.” In this time of great scientific advance, people wanted a faith that harmonized with the teachings of science, and demanded a higher burden of proof for their belifs. In the words of Reese, folks “who are afraid to face the facts about their own beliefs lest they lose their faith altogether…such people are building their faith upon the sand” (Reese in Robinson p. 150) At a time when the shape of modern life was crumbling some old beliefs, humanism emerged as a strong place to stand, a faith based on the hard physical laws of reality, rather than the metaphysical beliefs which required a leap of faith. we see in the First tenant FIRST: Religious humanists regard the universe as self-existing and not created. And SECOND: Humanism believes that man is a part of nature and that he has emerged as a result of a continuous process. These humanists refused to profess anything that they couldn’t’ stand firmly on. As AUA President Frederick May Eliot (president from 1937-1958) remarked of the humanist “He may not believe very much as measured by orthodox standards, but what he does believe he believes with his whole mind” (Frederick May Eliot in Robinson p. 148).

The existence of God is not denied by these earliest humanists- this is a common misunderstanding by folks who use the words “humanist” and “atheist” interchangeably. Instead these humanist tenants show us a faith where religion had a “natural character” as

As Curtis Reese wrote in his “The Content of Present Day Religious Liberalism” “This is not the denial of the existence of significant and objective worths, but only the removal of the sat of authority from an indefinite something somewhere, to a definite self known to be native ot human existence.” (in Parke p. 135)

The debate that arose between the (mostly) west coast humanists and the (mostly) east coast opposition. The Humanist theist debate raged throughout the 1920s and 1930s and nearly split the denomination apart. One of the leading proponents of Unitarian Christian Theism was William L. Sullivan who was raised Roman Catholic and was ordained as a catholic priest in 1899 Roman Catholic Priest). It was a 1907 encyclical of Pope Puis X condemning modernism that caused Sullivan to leave the church, feeling like he couldn’t stay and feel honest. Despite his love for his church, he entered the Unitarian Ministry in 1912. He preached here on the east coast, in New York City and in Germantown Pennsylvania, and was an influential defenders of theism in 1920s. When Reese spoke of theism as “a monarchic view of religion that placed God in the role of master and humans in the role of slaves” Sullivan responded with a character of Reese’s God as “The Big Democrat whom we are to clap upon the back with an equalitarian ‘Howdy do, Camarado!”

When these early pioneers of humanism were going to seminary and starting out in their careers, Raymond Bragg was just a small boy, growing up in a Congregationalist family- Congregationalism is one of our closest religions neighbors- in fact we have often teamed up with them on things like women’s suffrage and abolition. While he was at college he was exposed to Unitarianism, and after graduating applied to Meadville theological school for seminary- one of the 2 Unitarian Universalist seminaries still training our ministers today.

It was Bragg whose name is headed up the effort to create the first Humanist Manifesto. He commissioned Roy Wood Sellars (another Unitarian who was a professor and prolific writer of philosophy) to make the original draft. Bragg and committee of other Humanists, revised and expanded the document. 34 humanists co-signed it, all men (it is assumed that no women were invited to sign) and of those 15 were Unitarian. The document had only 1 universalist signer- Clinton Lee Scott (who wrote our opening words and our closing words for worship today) . The Manifesto was published in the New Humanist, of which Bragg was then an editor.

The manifesto laid out clearly the substance of what I offer you today as the second gift of Humanism- the idea that human life, far from being sinful and something to be denied in favor of a glorious afterlife, human life is of deep value. The Seventh tenet of the manifesto reads “Religion consists of those actions, purposes, and experiences which are humanly significant. Nothing human is alien to the religious. It includes labor, art, science, philosophy, love, friendship, recreation--all that is in its degree expressive of intelligently satisfying human living. The distinction between the sacred and the secular can no longer be maintained.” This idea that the sacred and the secular were not distinct was not a new idea. We remember this idea from the transcendentalists who believed that God could be found in nature. In fact many of the transcendentalist ideas opened the way for humanism in the following generations. The eight tenant holds that “Religious Humanism considers the complete realization of human personality to be the end of man's life and seeks its development and fulfillment in the here and now.” As Curtis Reese wrote in an address he gave at Harvard divinity in 1920 “He is not willing to accept the promise of a distant estate of doubtful character and location in lieu of concrete worths and measurable values here and now. He believes that whatever the future may hold for him it must be the outcome of his own spiritual achievements.” (in Parke p. 134) No longer is our goal to earn an eternal reward, but to fulfill our human personality- and it is not just the fulfillment of a few intellectuals or historic figures the humanists are pointing to – but each and every human on the planet. "Believing that religion must work increasingly for joy in living, religious humanists aim to foster the creative in man and to encourage achievements that add to the satisfactions of life."

This is part of what makes humanism an essentially optimistic way of looking at the world. They put their faith in a belief that at the core human nature is good and worthy of being “of supreme worth” (Reese in Robinson p. 146), a belief in progress both of the individual spirit and of society. But this was also the source of the primary critique of humanism as well. Folks who looked at the atrocities humans have committed in our world, or folks who had experienced great tragedy in their own lives felt that this faith in humankind was not enough to, as it were, get them through the dark night.

Well, you can see why if the development of every human personality is the sole purpose of the human enterprise, you can see why a commitment to social justice would be so important. How could we stand by and see our brothers and sisters degraded, starving, or sitting behind a machine in a factory making $9 for 56 hour weeks as was the custom in industry at the time. (more on that when I speak on worker’s rights next month) How could one develop the human personality in such circumstances? Says the manifesto: “Humanism will… endeavor to establish the conditions of a satisfactory life for all, not merely for the few” If we believe in progress of the self and of society we must role up our sleeves.

So the third gift of humanism is its commitment to social action and the betterment of all. In this first manifesto we see a shining vision of what life should be for us all: “ The humanists are firmly convinced that existing acquisitive and profit-motivated society has shown itself to be inadequate [does this sound familiar? Still resonates with our political landscape today, doesn’t it] and that a radical change in methods, controls, and motives must be instituted. A socialized and cooperative economic order must be established to the end that the equitable distribution of the means of life be possible. The goal of humanism is a free and universal society in which people voluntarily and intelligently cooperate for the common good. Humanists demand a shared life in a shared world.” Wow. I want to live in that world. I want to work for that world. Moreover, this work we do for the betterment of society helps us to develop ourselves, the great end of human life. This work for social justice is the spiritual practice of the humanist. The NINTH tenant of the manifesto reads: “In the place of the old attitudes involved in worship and prayer the humanist finds his religious emotions expressed in a heightened sense of personal life and in a cooperative effort to promote social well-being.”

The name of this document is “A Humanist Manifesto” not “The Humanist Manifesto” and indeed two more manifestos followed, one in 1973 and one in 2003. The 1973 manifesto explicitly acknowledges that: “Events since then make that earlier statement seem far too optimistic. Nazism has shown the depths of brutality of which humanity is capable. Other totalitarian regimes have suppressed human rights without ending poverty. Science has sometimes brought evil as well as good. Recent decades have shown that inhuman wars can be made in the name of peace.” But if you take a look even at the 2003 manifesto you see that the core tenants are still the same – a religion based in science and in the physical, natural world, an elevation of the role of humanity to provide their own meaning and fulfill their own lives, and a knowing that we are all in this together, and that it is up to us to improve society for everyone.

It was just about 100 years ago that the first Humanist sermons were given in our Unitarian pulpits. Humanism changed our Unitarian and Universalist traditions forever, describing a bend in the road of modern thought. Today in this room we are humanist and Christian, Jewish and Pagan, but these humanist gifts are a legacy for all of us.

References:
David B. Parke, ed. The Epic of Unitarianism: Original Writings from the History of Liberal Religion. Skinner House Books, 1985.

David Robinson. The Unitarians and the Universalists . Greenwood Press, 1985.

At the Edges of the Garden (March 4, 2012)

(This sermon is part of an ongoing series on the Principles of Permaculture. The 8 principles we are using come from Starhawk's "Principles of True Abundance")

Growing up in Pennsylvania, there were many things that amazed me when we moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, but nothing more than the coast where the Pacific Ocean meets the land. Now as you might imagine, growing up outside Philadelphia I had been to the jersey shore on occasion, but the Pacific coast is different. Instead of these long stretches of beach where hundreds of families put up their beach umbrellas, the Pacific is edged with rocky cliffs, and the distance from water to cliff is often quite short. Those cliffs provide a more fruitful home for vegetation and wildlife than a wide expanse of sand. The most amazing thing of all was tide pools. I didn’t think I would see a real tide pool in my lifetime; I thought that was something only National Geographic photographers got to see. But within an hour or two from my house there were several different state parks where at low tide you could see these tiny eco-systems inhabited by hermit crabs, snails, lipids, muscles, even occasionally a starfish and most amazing of all, anemone- those colorful ocean flowers. Each of these little tide pools is its own world – sometimes only a couple of feet in diameter. I read in a children’s book in the state park gift shop that if you were to pick up, say, a lipid from one tide pool and put it down in another it might not survive. These amazing little critters can only live on the edge where the land and sea meet. You could see how tide pools only a few inches deep was a great habitat for a hermit crab, but only in tide pools a foot or deeper would you find a starfish. Each anemone needed it’s own piece of edge to call home, preferably in the shade, and would only open when covered by the tide.

It turns out that the edge between water and land creates the most productive eco-systems on earth [Permaculture in a nutshell p. 48) for example, plants growing immediately adjacent to rivers and streams (they call this riparian vegetation] has greater diversity and grows more densely than just a few yards further away fro the waterway. I learned a new word- “ecotone” which is an overlapping edge between two bioregions, where there is greater diversity than one bioregion could produce on its own – the mixture not only of each of the two bioregions but also those special species that can only survive in such transitional space. For example, David Holmgren, one of the originators of Permaculture, reports that in his native Australia you normally see only 2 different species of eucalyptus trees in any given area, but in the Towamba Valley where 2 bioregions overlap, he counted 13 different species [p. 225 Permaculture Principles and Pathways beyond Sustainability]

But our industrial culture doesn’t value edges. We try to reduce the number of edges, for example, by creating huge multi-acre farms, or by building houses in big residential developments. Consider those suburban areas where there are literally no mixed used areas, where you must drive past a mile or more of residential housing to get to stores or libraries, or to anything besides just residential housing. This is what we are used to- it feels efficient, and tidy and safe to us. It’s easy to see the benefits – if you are a farmer with a huge field of corn you can set a giant agricultural machine to go back and forth in neat horizontal passes. If you are a developer, you can buy a big tract of land, maybe an old farm, and just fill the whole thing in with houses without having to worry about all the complexities of city planning. Permaculture, which is a theory of agricultural and cultural design focused on sustainability, shows us actually the farms I pass on my way to work with a patch of farm next to a stand of trees may have environmental benefits. The edges of farms have great habitat for birds who provide pest control, the edges are allow for cross-pollination and hybridization that might provide needed diversity in times of drought or other farm disasters.

But many of us actually moved to the suburbs because we wanted to be on that edge between the farm or the wilderness and the city. Many of us would love to live around the corner from a state park or pedestrian business center, yet we build to minimize edge. In permaculture we are advised to actually try to create more edges. Now I learned the hard way in my 5th grade math class that a square or rectangle is not the way to make the most edges. A big block of housing or a large rectangular field has the least edge possible. IN my 5th grade math class I was stuck for weeks on the assignment to “Draw they shape with the greatest perimeter (that is to say, the most edges) with an area of 25.” I sat with my graph paper day after day drawing different shapes until finally the teacher took pity on me. It turns out that the shape with the greatest perimeter is a shape like a set of stairs- those open construction where you can walk underneath. Making nooks and crannies creates the most perimeter, the most edge. Think about the clean lines of the beaches in Atlantic City, and the many nooks and crannies of the tide pools on the pacific coast. The more edge, the more robust diversity of life. So the most diverse, productive farm or garden is going to be a patchwork of plants and trees and ponds and hedges.

Let’s move outside the garden into the community of persons. We can all probably call to mind a housing development or area that is single use only. They tend to be pretty quiet, and there is a singleness of purpose. I went walking near a friend’s home recently and we saw maybe one person who wasn’t in a car. Unless you are or out for a jog or a kid biking over to your friend’s house, there is no reason to go outside your house in such a neighborhood except to get into your car. But in what we call “mixed use” zoning, we might find retail stores and businesses mixed in with homes and you will find a greater bustle of activity. I moved from a neighborhood in California that was designed as a bedroom community. It was dense tracts of houses bordered by huge multi-lane roads to help people on their commutes to workplaces sometimes an hour away. Today I live in a neighborhood where people can live, and work and play and shop. It is a diverse and productive neighborhood which maximizes its edges much like the community of plants and animals we find alongside a pond or creek.

At the other edge of things, a lot of folks live out her in Bradford county because they want to be on the edge of agriculture and wilderness. I know a number of folks in this congregation have land where they raise their own food or animals, and other folks who live where they live because they can walk out their back door and right into a hike on uncultivated lands. Life is drawn to the edges.

I remember learning in high school about several different philosophical movements of western history. They always seemed start with the merchants- as the merchants opened up new trade roots or port cities, cultures from new places would meet and interact, ideas were exchanged and cross-pollination happened. It always seemed to happen the same way -- that these great intellectual and cultural growth spurts happened at the edges and overlaps of cultural eco-systems. And when I got to the San Francisco I realized that this was exactly what was happening there. At the edge of the pacific people from all over the world, but especially from the U.S., Latin America and Asia met and created amazing leaps in spirituality and theology and technology. I think it is no coincidence that West coast spirituality is considered so “far out” -- because it is born in a unique place where eastern and western theology meet and live together. I think it is no coincidence that there have been such massive technological advances in what we might call a cultural “ecotone” or that California has an the 9th largest economy in the world – it may be in part because of this tremendous cross-fertilization. Just as Holmgren found 13 species of Eucalyptus in costal eco-tone areas, there was tremendous cultural and racial and religious diversity in the valley where I used to live. My son went to a preschool in Cupertino, the town where Apple computers was born, and he was one of only 2 children in his preschool class who only spoke English. I think maybe 5 or 6 different countries of origin were represented just in his 3-year-old class.

In our political discourse right now, when we talk about “borders” the political rhetoric is all about defending them- defending them from the very diversity that makes borders valuable. We as a nation are saying that having 13 species of eucalyptus tree in the border where eco-systems meet is scary, that we feel more comfortable with the 2 species of tree we are used to.

Our US borders used to be mostly open. Until the 1790s any free white person became a citizen after 2 years. The Page Act of 1875 (Sect. 141, 18 Stat. 477, 1873-March 1875) was the first law to really single out immigrants to exclude, and particularly focused on women from China. We were eager to have immigrants from China to bring desperately needed income and labor into California, but most analysts say that we as a country excluded Chinese women, and in fact women from all over Asia, from immigrating because of, well racism – we were afraid that Chinese families would put down roots and bring the very cultural diversity that has over the centuries been so enriching to our nation. Then in 1882 the Chinese exclusion act singled out immigrants from china who had provided so much of the labor for mining during the goldrush, and for building our railroads – this act said that Chinese Immigrants could never become citizens, and if they left the country for any reason they could never return. It was not repealed until 1943!

Then in the 1920s that we began instituting the quota system based on country. According to the U.S. Department of State Office of the Historian, "In all its parts, the most basic purpose of the 1924 Immigration Act was to preserve the ideal of American homogeneity.” Though the diversity in our country has grown, the obstacles faced by recent immigrants to our country today are exponentially more difficult than those faced by immigrants when my grandfather and my husbands father and grandfather were entering this country.

Diversity is not an unequivocally better- there are strong, stable forests that have a simple mix of species, and there are certainly strong stable communities of humans that are homogeneous. And I think I understand why, when it comes to communities of humans, we are scared of margins and edges, why we are scared of the diversity it brings. Because diversity does change a local culture. When biology or culture mixes and mingles, it creates hybridization, which creates “new local cultures of place” (Holmgren p. 219)

Think about how when someone new joins our church, it changes us. When we add a new kind of plant to our garden it changes the garden. Holmgren writes “The change and transformation of the culture mainstream is an implicit part of multiculturalism” (p. 220) And all those immigrants who have come to America over the past 400 years have made our country into what it is today. What would the America we know and love be like without our Irish heritage? Our German culture? Italian? Chinese? African? Mexican? We could not be the country we are without any of these folks. Yet back in the early days of our country Ben Franklin remarked “Why should Pennsylvania, founded by the English, become a Colony of Aliens, who will shortly be so numerous as to Germanize us instead of our Anglifying them, and will never adopt our Language or Customs, any more than they can acquire our Complexion.” We are stunned now by Franklin’s racism against Germans, yet it is so strangely familiar that we might not be surprised to hear it on the television today. The principles of permaculture ask us to look at the margins, to look at diversity in a different way.

When we look to the garden we see that diversity creates stability. I’ve spoken often enough from the pulpit about the vulnerability of farming with a mono-culture of crops, and how poly-culture protects against disease and pests, but let’s think about, for example, a diversity of ages. Have you ever noticed how teenagers sleep late into the morning, whereas toddlers wake at the crack of dawn? There is some research now that it is beneficial to a community for different generations to have different sleep patterns, so that someone is always awake to mind the store. Or I think of an example from a campus ministry near a church I served. When I arrived at the church I inquired at the local college about the campus ministry there. They said they had had a good group but then the leaders had all graduated. The very next year a new group of leaders matriculated, and we worked to connect them to the local congregation where folks could give them rides to church, and where our ministry team could reach out to the new leaders and support them through transitions. The campus ministry became more stable as it became more diverse with regards to age.

Another benefit of diversity, whether we are talking about diversity of biology or of ideas, is that diversity provides new solutions to problems. I’ve seen independent bands who couldn’t afford mainstream gear create sounds using anything they could use their hands on- music boxes, drums, tanks (that’s where the steel drums come from - Caribbean musicians transforming old biscuit tins or paint pans or steel oil drums into an amazing new form of instrument ) If you have infinite financial resources there is always a solution for a price, but musicians at the margins must bring creativity to their sound. Or consider the GLBT pioneers whose growth at the edges of our culture just a generation ago have changed the way we see the world. They have made this a much safer time and a place for GLBTQ folks, and just as important, their pioneering presence creates space for all of us to more freely express gender and sexuality, it creates a more diverse numbers of models and ways for us to express ourselves. Says Holmgren, “Diversity provides alternative pathways for essential ecosystem functions in the face of changing conditions.” (P. 205)

It is the edges that provide habitat for diversity, not the great rolling fields of corn and soy, but the old English gardens divided by hedgerows, gardens with a diversity of fruits and vegetables edged by woods and residential areas, a patchwork of diversity that maximizes the edge, much as I learned in my 5th grade math class. Great diversity can be supported as we increase the edge, giving a niche, a tide pool, a “local culture of place” While the dominant culture steers us toward what Holmgren calls the “Global culture of no-place “ (p. 220) in which all local languages and cultures are inevitably lost in the “melting pot,” it is up to us in the local communities where we are rooted to value and enjoy the benefits of a diverse ecology of flora and fauna, of cultures and ages. Communities with diversity have more resources and flexibility as things change.

This principle- of valuing diversity and honoring the edges, is not one which matches cleanly with one of our UU principles and purposes. And yet it seems to me an important part of who we are and how our tradition has always grown. As a people of open minds, UUs have often been at the growing edge with our ideas and have often helped bring them into the mainstream. But we also see in our history for our institutions to codify those now mainstream ideas, and to forget that the edge itself is valuable, that It produces ever more novelty and diversity and growth. Our religious tradition is not just about those ideas and principles we learned at the margins, but is also a process of remembering to turn to the edges for solutions and creativity, instead of mowing them down to create uniformity.

True abundance can be found by honoring the edges, both of our gardens, of our waterways, and of our communities. True abundance is found when we value diversity; when we think of ourselves as one living organism we don’t need to fear the competition or change diversity brings, but be grateful for the both the stability and flexibility it adds to our community, to our ecology. Consider the abundance of the thousands of unique people in our little valley, the hundreds of thousands of unique species all over the world. If that’s not abundance, I don’t know what is. Whether we are in our gardens, in beloved community, or considering national immigration policy, let us remember always to honor the edges, to see what wisdom may be found there.