The Restorationist Controvercy (February 7, 2016)

Reading 1: from "Of Future Retribution"
This reading references a murder that was quite famous at the time: When, in 1832, a pregnant mill worker was found hanged, the investigation implicated a prominent Methodist minister. Fearing adverse publicity, both the industrialists of Fall River and the New England Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church engaged in energetic campaigns to obtain a favorable verdict. [i]

As the subject we are now laboring is of the utmost consequence to the religious and moral interest of community, we feel justified in endeavoring to illustrate it to the understanding of the most feeble minds. For this purpose we will make use of a melancholy circumstance, which has greatly agitated the people of New England, and carried grief and deep sorrow into many thousands of hearts. We mean the murder which people generally believe was committed at Fall River. Perhaps few men, in their preaching of future punishment, have been more zealous than the man who the people believe committed that deed; ... Look now at the facts of the case. Of what benefit was the doctrine of future punishment to the man, who had so long preached it, and who committed the murder? Again; of what use was the fear of punishment, in this world, to him who flattered himself that he could commit the murder, and yet screen himself from the penalty of the law? It was not in the power of the fear of future punishment, nor of punishment from the laws of the land, to prevent the crime. But had that man been half as fearful of committing that crime as he was of being found out, and punished according to the law, the poor girl, whose sad fate we deplore, would not have lost her life by his hands.  … if he was guilty, neither the fear of future punishment, nor the fear of temporal punishment, was of any avail; while it is perfectly clear, that had the crime itself been the object of fear, he would not have committed it.

By the light in which we now stand, we see that the only fear which can be sure to prevent crime, is the fear of committing it ; and therefore, that sin itself ought to be considered as the greatest evil, and the evil most to be dreaded.

[It will ] be asked why I should fear sin? Answer; because it will make me miserable if I commit it. There is no priest that I can apply to, who can prevent my suffering, if I am a sinner. If I fear a prison or a gallows, or a punishment in the future world, I may flatter myself that some way may be provided, by which I may escape them; but if I fear sin itself, I know, if I am a sinner, I must endure that evil. [ p. 33]

Reading 2: Hudson LETTER IX. 289
You say, that virtue is rewarded in this world; we believe in ail the reward which is enjoyed in this world, and also in an additional reward hereafter. And will in-creasing the reward make people less virtuous? No; the reward will be greater, the motive more powerful, and consequently will be more likely to stimulate to virtue. Our system not only exhibits a greater incentive to virtue, than yours, but it lays a greater restraint upon vice. Your doctrine tells the villain who is plotting the assassination of his fellow creatures, that if he falls in his attempt, superlative glory will be his immediate portion; ours tells him, that if he loses his life in such a horrid attempt, he will experience a state of correction and chastisement. Armed with your system, might not the robber go forth with composure, and say to himself, I am sinning, it is true, but if I succeed I shall obtain a fortune; and if I lose my life in the attempt, I shall go in an instant to the enjoyment of heaven? In either case I shall be a gainer, he might very naturally say, therefore I will embark immediately in this bold adventure*[ii]

Sermon:
It’s easy to understand why Ballou would have used the case of Methodist Minister Ephraim Kingsbury Avery to illustrate his point about sin and punishment. Here was a Fire and Brimstone preacher accused but acquitted of the murder of a young woman who may have been pregnant with his child. Tempers were hot all over New England when he was released. Trying to make a point about whether or not the fear of future punishment in the fires of hell was an effective deterrent against crime, Ballou writes “… if he was guilty, neither the fear of future punishment, nor the fear of temporal punishment, was of any avail”

Way back in the early days of Universalism, Universalists had come together around the idea that an all loving and all powerful God would not create souls doomed to hell right from the start. Surely all people had a chance to be saved from the eternal torment that preachers of the day loved to fill their Sunday mornings. Ballou held that “to argue for endless punishment would be to argue for a permanent, eternal division in the fabric of the cosmos, a dualism so monstrous that it would rout any claims of the omnipotence of God.” [Robinson p. 65] Historian Thomas Whittemore, one of the earliest historians of Universalism[iii], described Universalists as those who believed in the eventual holiness and happiness of all the human race” [Robinson p. 71]

One of the most charismatic figures in early American Universalism, Hossa Ballou challenged not only the orthodoxy of the Calvinists, but the orthodoxy of the first generation of Universalists like John Murray asking: “Is God the unreconciled or dissatisfied party, or is man?” [Robinson p. 64] For Ballou, God’s love for us never wavered, but it was we who are dissatisfied, we who need to atone and be reconciled, to renew our love for God.

But among the Universalists the question arose, “what about people who do something genuinely harmful, something one might call evil?” Back when UUCAS was called The Universalist Society of Sheshequin, and we had not yet built our historic meeting house, this question caused a great debate almost tore Universalism apart.

On the one side were the Restorationists who believe that the soul would be disciplined or educated in a period following death, and eventually the soul would be ready for eternal holiness and happiness. For these Universalists, Hell did exist for the unrepentant and “It’s very purpose was to cause repentance” [Robinson p. 66] “Those who believed in free will reasoned that a soul could not be fully restored until it wanted to be saved and, as souls can be very stubborn, a change of heart could require a lot of time, perhaps a hundred thousand years.”[iv]

On the other side were the Ultra-Universalists or Death and Glory Universalists. Whereas early Universalists, and the more orthodox Universalists of Ballou’s time believed in a literal hell, Ballou believe “Hell is not merely a place of punishment but a state of rebellion against God and against the unity of humans and God. Heaven is the accomplishment of that unity.” [Robinson p. 65] So when Ballou claims that that the soul would experience immediate salvation upon death, he is not imagining the soul entering the orthodox heaven of pearly gates and streets paved with gold, but the reunification of the soul with God. Hosea Ballou believed that sin was its own punishment, so there was no need for punishment after death. “Since the dead can no longer sin, it would make no sense for a rational God to punish them in the afterlife”.[v]

The controversy started amiably enough. Ballou and his friend and fellow Universalist minister Edward Turner debated the issue in their correspondence. At first Ballou’s position was not that different from his friend’s but by 1817, when the debate was published in the Universalist magazine Gospel Visitant Ballou was a confirmed “Ultra-Universalist” – that is to say he believed there was no “future punishment” at all. He argued: “The only fear which can be sure to prevent crime, is the fear of committing it; and therefore…sin itself ought to be considered as the greatest evil, and the evil most to be dreaded.” [Robinson p. 68]. To Ballou, the punishment for sin was sin itself. “why I should fear sin? Answer; Because it will make me miserable if I commit it.”

The debate grew more heated. Letters of increasing sharpness on both sides of the issue appeared in the Universalist Magazine until late 1820s . Ballou’s great-nephew Hosea Ballou 2nd and Thomas Whittemore took the side of Ultra-Universalism. And on the responding side, Charles Hudson, a minster from Westminster MASS, wrote those this morning’s second reading, the full title of which is “A series of letters addressed to Rev. Hosea Ballou, of Boston : being a vindication of the doctrine of a future retribution against the principal arguments used by him, Mr. Balfour, and others” first published in 1827. Also on the side of the Restorations were Paul Dean (who succeeded John Murray at First Church) and Jacob Wood “an erratic young minister” took Turner’s side. Wood wanted to make future punishment an official part of the doctrine of Universalism and was willing to push the denomination to Schism over it.

And so Universalism split in two. A group of restorationists lead by Adin Ballou and Paul Dean split off from the main body of Universalism and in 1831-1841 this faction formed the Massachusetts Association of Universal Restorationists.

The rest of the Universalists stayed with the denomination even though most were restorationists. In 1834 Ballou wrote “An Examination of the Doctrine of Future Retribution” from which we had our readings this morning, by 1841 the break-off group had folded- even within the group there were too many different opinions, and energy soon faded to base identity on this one theological point, the cause of abolition had a much stronger pull.

In Universalism at large, the Restorationist position was dominant in 19th cen. coming out of this controversy. Ballou’s thinking on the subject of the nature of sin, however, continued to be very important. It is a precursor anticipates the Natural Theology of Channing and Emerson who said in 1841 “You cannot do wrong without suffering wrong”. The argument faded with time, and it’s most enduring legacy is that it gave so much opportunity for writing. Early Universalism was mostly an oral tradition, spread and developed form the pulpit, and so this debate provided one of the main wellsprings of theological writing by early Universalists.

Today there is very little talk among UUs about hell, or about salvation. But that Universalist impulse is still there in our first UU principles, “The inherent worth and dignity of all people” It takes the old Universalist idea that God loves each and every one of us, and reframes it as a humanist idea -- without exception every person has worth. Whether we are atheists or theists, we believe the world is not divided into 2 camps- worthy and unworthy, but that we are all one.

I was teaching a class on our UU principles many years ago and we began to discuss the question “which of our principles do you like the best, and which gives you the most trouble” this first principle was the top answer to both questions.

Affirming and promoting inherent worth and dignity of all people is an idea big enough to spend a lifetime working towards. It answers the fundamentalist question “are you saved” with the refrain “no one is left behind” but also gives us a starting place to work for justice and live lives of compassion. It suggests an alternative to the popular idea some of us deserve a live of comfort and others deserve their suffering, affirming that every single one of us has worth, and so we work for the dignity of all.

The spiritual work, the internal work, comes when we look deeply at what it means for all of us to have inherent worth. Think of someone you love to hate- it could be anyone form the neighbor who always parks you in, to the political figure that makes your blood boil every time you see them on TV. When you hear that UUs don’t believe in hell, this is the person for whom you would make an exception. Consider, even, the murderer of that young woman in Fall River almost 200 years ago. I’m not asking you to condone the act, but to ask yourself the difficult theological question “did that murderer start out his life somehow marked, somehow a different kind of being than you and I?” and then we have to ask ourselves “Is he still like you and me, or is he now less than human because he committed that act? Does he still have free will to choose good over evil in any given moment?” And if we believe he is still human, and still has free will to choose good, to choose life, then his life has worth. Indeed this is one of the most challenging parts of our Universalist faith.

Just as challenging for many of us, however, is to realize that if all people have inherent worth, then I myself must have inherent worth. Worth, not just because of what I achieve at my job, or the friends I make, but inherent worth, un-earned worth; just by virtue of being part of the web of life I have worth. Like the mother in our children’s story today, God loves us even when we are slimy and smelly, stinky and scary. And as Hossea Ballou wrote 200 years ago, our task is not to convince God to love us, because God’s love for us never ceases. We reconcile and atone by a renewing our own love.

Early Universalism reminds us the God’s love is unconditional- we are all one and will all be reunited in the end. And the Restorationist controversy shows us that there is room for theological diversity in our tradition- room for those wo believed that once we die we return immediately to our source, and room for those who believe that some folks have gotten so far away from goodness and from God that their journey home may be a long one. Of course today there is room for humanism and atheism as well as all of us try to live our lives I a way that affirms and promotes the inherent worth and dignity of every person, even those who fill us with rage. We affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity even of our own self, when we feel the least worthy. The Spirit of Life holds us in love, and calls us always to atonement, reconciliation, and a renewal of love.

Resources:
http://bescofield.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/Hosea-Ballou.pdf
http://uudb.org/articles/restorationist.html
http://www.pacificuu.org/publ/univ/liturgy/ballou-discourse.html
http://img.uua.org/mfc/Ballou_Treatise_Atone_Excerpt_F.pdf
https://archive.org/stream/anexaminationdo03ballgoog/anexaminationdo03ballgoog_djvu.txt
https://archive.org/stream/areplytomrbalfo01hudsgoog/areplytomrbalfo01hudsgoog_djvu.txt
http://www.britannica.com/topic/Massachusetts-Association-of-Universal-Restorationists
http://www.fullbooks.com/A-Series-of-Letters-In-Defence-of-Divine5.html
http://www.cimmay.com/photocopy/pc_ballou.pdf
http://biblicaluniversalism.org/PDF/ballou-future.retribution.1834.pdf

Endnotes
[i] http://www.upenn.edu/pennpress/book/1005.html
[ii] https://archive.org/stream/aserieslettersa01hudsgoog/aserieslettersa01hudsgoog_djvu.txt
[iii] http://uudb.org/articles/thomaswhittemore.html
[iv] http://uudb.org/articles/restorationist.html
[v] http://uudb.org/articles/restorationist.html
[vi] An excellent introduction to Metta Meditation http://www.wildmind.org/metta/introduction/metta-prayer

Body & Spirit (January 17, 2016)

It’s finally cold out there. Like really cold. All I want to do most days is curl up under a big pile of blankets and nap. Humans don’t hibernate, but for those of us who live this far north, winter is a time of hunkering down. We just accept that some days we are not going to get as much done, because the weather will keep us from it, and there are fewer daylight hours to get things done. We moderns, of the electric light and the gas furnace can keep working after dark, and the cold is rarely a life threatening emergency, But the body knows what it wants in the winter. And lately my dog has taken to finding me in my study where I sit answering e-mail and shepherding me downstairs to the sofa. He is very particular that I should sit right next to my husband, and he on my lap, where I cover us all with a blanket, as is proper for mammals on a cold wintry evening.

For some reason centuries ago, humans began to say to “This body, this most concrete, tangible, visible being is not the most important part of who you are.” “In fact” we decided “you are not your body.” That must have been a really important liberating idea. Because bodies are limiting. They get sick. They break. They die. Perhaps this idea that “I am not my body” allowed us to find a spiritual wholeness when our bodies were broken, to feel a part of the future even when we knew our bodies would die. Perhaps it allowed us to think big thoughts and dream big dreams our individual, limited bodies could never realize. I dare say if we had spent our winters hibernating, we might never have invented the electric light, or climate control, or opera.

But it wasn’t enough to notice the difference between body and spirit, body and mind- we had to set one over the other. Something in us loves to rank things, to create dualities of black and white, good and evil, and so way back in the high-thinking days of the Hellenistic period, we decided that spirit was good, and the body was bad. Scholar Elizabeth Johnson sums it up this way:

“On the one hand, spirit is a transcendent principle expressed in act, autonomy, reason, the soul, whatever is light, permanent, infinite. Matter, on the other hand, is an inferior principle manifested in passivity, dependence, emotions, the body, whatever is dark, transitory, finite.” [p. 125]

Some of you close readers may have noticed a pattern in some of my recent sermons: “intention and grace, intuition & proof, body & spirit” . These are all polarities – diads that live in tension with one another. Buddhism teaches us that such dualisms are co-arising. There is no day without night, there is no life without death. Like 2 sides of a coin, the 2 cannot be separated. Right now in western culture, the approach to such dualism we are most likely to hear on the news is that in any pair of opposits one must be better and the other worse. In this way of thinking we talk not of life and death co-arising, but of life “overcoming death” or “defeating death” . We talk about conservative vs. liberal, and know that my side is better, and the other side is worse. The anti-Islamic sentiment we hear in the news is also part of this way of looking at dualisms, - we know we are good, so they must be evil. “The spirituality typically associated with this thought pattern was propelled by the metaphor of ascent: To be happy a person must flee the material world and rise to the spiritual sphere where the light of divinity dwells. One must turn away from nature in order to have communion with God.” [Johnson p. 125]

Let’s think about the relationship of body and mind. When the two are joined together there is a rightness to experience. When we are doing work that is good there is a sense of wholeness that emerges. Gardening, for example, feels this way to many people. Hiking, walking or running is a spiritual practice for many people because when body and spirit are joined, there can be a sense of one-ness, of presence that emerges. This is the primary goal of hatha yoga- to align body, mind and spirit. When the body and mind are joined in a task that the spirit freely enters, there is a quality of rightness.

But many hours a day most people are trained from a young age to ignore their body’s impulses. Think of a school day for a kindergartner. Part of the challenge for the teacher is to help kids learn to sit when the activity is sitting, and be quiet when quiet is called for. The school schedule tells kids when they get to be wiggly, when they get to eat. This may or may not have anything to do with the needs of the body. At one point in his school career my son’s school day was from 8-2:30, and his class ate lunch at 10:30 am. Not because that was half way through the school day, or because the kids needed food then, but because that was when the cafeteria was free for his class. We train kids “eat when it is time to eat” not “eat when your body needs food.” I believe the tremendous upswing in eating disorders in this country emerged in part because we have been so good at training people to ignore their body’s requests about what to eat and when to eat. But these are things we must learn to succeed in this culture, because most of us sit at a computer all day, and so the body must be trained to sit in one position without complaint for long hours. On the one hand, we are able to accomplish things we never could if we listened to our every body complaint. On the other hand perhaps fewer of us would end up in the doctor’s office complaining of carpel tunnel syndrome if our culture valued body wisdom. Perhaps in this sleep deprived culture, instead of drinking another cup of coffee when we are tired, we would sleep the true amount our bodies need.

On a beautiful spring day walking the endless mountains it is easy to bring body and mind to one purpose. This is much harder when the body is suffering. When our body is not free, say because our job requires our body to do things that harm the body, our mind drifts off and we day dream. When the reality of our physical life is discouraging, we imagine something else. When we are truly in physical pain, it is a great gift that the spirit can escape the body. Today we do that through anesthetic drugs, but there are also techniques of meditation which have been proven in scientific study to reduce the experience of pain. [i] The mind and spirit can provide comfort to a trapped or hurting body.

Moreover, in the same way that the mind and spirit can comfort and sustain us when the body is hurting, the body can ground and heal a wounded spirit. This is why many UUs have a spiritual practice rooted in the body- because there is something about a brisk walk, or an afternoon with hands in the soil of our garden, that brings us back to ourselves.

Our bodies like to be challenged, like to learn new things just as the mind and spirit do. As any marathon runner will tell you, the challenge of pushing past the body’s limits to run 26 miles can be a life-defining experience. But there is a consequence when the mind subjugates the body. Running a marathon causes damage to the muscles, to the cells and compromises the immune system. [ii] We can only ignore the body’s wisdom for so long.

The Humanist Manifesto 1 (written in 1933) puts forward as its third tenant: “Holding an organic view of life, humanists find that the traditional dualism of mind and body must be rejected.” Perhaps you are not surprised that this document rooted in the findings of science would value the physical world. You would probably not be surprised that EcoFeminist theologians link this hierarchy of mind over body, to our notion that we humans are more important than the body of earth, They suggest that this world view that allowed us to get into this climate change mess. If we are willing to ask our own bodies to do things that are at odds with their body wisdom, it only follows that we would ask of the earth things like mountain top removal mining that are bad for the health of the earth. We have lots of ideas and dreams about what we need from the earth, but these must be grounded in the reality of the body of the earth. There is no getting around feeling depletion and ache after a long run, but it is too easy to avoid those deep gashes in the earth where the mountains of West Virginia used to be.[iii] [iv] How different might we feel if we put on our hiking boots and hiked the 10,000 acres of barren land that used to be the lush mountains that inspired singers and poets and is now the Hobet Mine. How much more powerful an idea becomes when it is grounded in the body.

And now Pope Francis is also calling for a healing of this rift between mind and body.  In his Encyclical on the Environment, Pope Frances writes:

98. Jesus lived in full harmony with creation, and others were amazed: “What sort of man is this, that even the winds and the sea obey him?” (Mt 8:27). His appearance was not that of an ascetic set apart from the world, nor of an enemy to the pleasant things of life. Of himself he said: “The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard!’” (Mt 11:19). He was far removed from philosophies which despised the body, matter and the things of the world. Such unhealthy dualisms, nonetheless, left a mark on certain Christian thinkers in the course of history and disfigured the Gospel.

To Pope Francis, the dualism of body and mind is “unhealthy” and is had “disfigured the gospel.” Here the Encyclical and the Humanist Manifesto agree.

Even more amazing, the Pope’s words agree, at least on this one point, with the eco-feminists, proposing that there is a link between our relationship to our own bodies and our relationship to the natural world we share with all living beings:

155 … It is enough to recognize that our body itself establishes us in a direct relationship with the environment and with other living beings. The acceptance of our bodies as God’s gift is vital for welcoming and accepting the entire world as a gift from the Father and our common home, whereas thinking that we enjoy absolute power over our own bodies turns, often subtly, into thinking that we enjoy absolute power over creation. Learning to accept our body, to care for it and to respect its fullest meaning, is an essential element of any genuine human ecology.

Therefore I propose that finding ways to bring body, mind and spirit back into harmony are valuable not only for the health of our own body and spirit, but also for the health of the interdependent web of life, our green earth home. Not only by laying under a tree on a beautiful summer day and feeling the warmth on your skin, not only by snowshoeing on a crisp winter afternoon, but also listening when the body complains. Lately I have been struggling in my yoga practice. I have some physical pain in certain poses. In my thirties I would have pushed through this pain, “mind over matter” but through hard experience I have learned this usually makes injuries worse, and makes recovery longer. Last week I went back to yoga for the first time after an injury, and committed to refrain from any pose that caused the body pain. So the yoga teacher would lead us into a pose, and if I felt even the beginning of pain where my injury was I would come out. Nope. Not that one. Nope, not that one. Not that either. Not any of those. Sigh. In frustration I dropped to my mat and rested in child’s pose. I felt frustrated and sad, but my body felt just right. And as I let myself rest into that pose, my mind and body felt better too.

Mary Oliver has an evocative line in one of her poems: “You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves.” This is so different than the message we get from our culture; we are taught to push through discomfort towards our goals. We begin to imagine that if we listened to body wisdom we would live in a constant state of debauchery and sloth. Instead I believe the body and spirit not only co-arise, but that when the two dance together in a balanced dance, both body and spirit flourish and grow. Sometimes I resist my dog when he herds me towards the sofa- there are so many things marked with red flags in my inbox! But once I am sitting among my family in the quiet of a winter’s evening, the rightness of it is understood in body, mind and spirit.

For Unitarian Universalists a spiritual life is not about escaping or even transcending the body but, as the song suggests “body and spirit, united once more.” And so as UUs we are called to heal this old rift, what Pope Francis called an “unhealthy dualism” in our own lives. And we are called to join with all the other living beings- body and spirit, for the healing of our world. May it be so.

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[i] http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/04/treating-chronic-pain-with-meditation/284182/

[ii] http://runnersconnect.net/running-training-articles/how-to-recover-after-a-marathon/

[iii] http://ohvec.org/high-resolution-mountaintop-removal-pictures/

[iv] http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Features/WorldOfChange/hobet.php

Intention & Grace (January 10, 2016)

It’s New Year’s resolution time again. Over the past several decades I’ve made many resolutions- some of which have resulted in a real change in my life, most of which were forgotten by the second week of January. Clearly not all New Year’s Resolutions are equal.

When we make a New Year resolution, we are clarifying our intention. This can be a powerful act. We spend much of our responding to things that are outside our control. Our boss asks us to do something and we do it. Our family expects certain things from us and we try to fulfill those expectations. The driveway needs to be shoveled, the rent needs to be paid, dinner needs to be made and eaten. We can go through days or even years without asking ourselves “what do I really want?” Not that there’s anything wrong with shoveling the snow or making dinner- this is the stuff of life. But when you step back from all those hours spent sitting at the computer or doing the dishes we see that viewed all together they form a picture of the life we’ve lived and shape of the roads we’ve traveled. And some small choices we make along the way provide a certain shape and direction to the larger picture.

A few months back son and I were on a car trip together. We were just heading into Harrisburg and navigated our way through a complicated interchange. I thought we were almost to his grandmother’s house, but instead of getting more urban, the road got more and more rural. We were having a great conversation so I was not too worried that the next turn, which was supposed to happen in a few miles, kept not appearing. In fact there were no signs or turns at all. Finally we saw a sign with the name of a place on it, and I pulled over to look at a map. I realized to my horror that we had spent the last half hour headed in exactly the wrong direction. We had missed one turn and had added a full hour to our trip. It was already late at night, and our host had been waiting dinner for us. I was very discouraged.

This was not the first time something like this had happened, and I asked myself once again, why I waited so long to pull over and look at the map. I always think I don’t have time to double check the turn I’ve taken, but if you are headed in the wrong direction, each mile you drive before you look at the map adds 2 miles to your journey. In the same way, it can be worth metaphorically pulling over from time to time and asking “Where is my life headed- and is that where I want to go?”

There are many different strategies and resources for clarifying your intentions, but despite my love of lists and post-it notes I’m going to resist the temptation to get too technical in our time this morning. ( A favorite resource of mine is First Things First by Steven Covey.) The basics are the same whether you are talking about your plan for the day, or your vision for the rest of your life. The first thing is to take some time to reflect. If you are just trying to remember what you intended to do when you came into the kitchen, the reflecting process can just take a moment. But if you are really trying to determine what you want for the coming years, you might set aside anywhere from several hours to several days to discern what is truly important. Because if you believe that creating an intention has the power to guide your life, you want to use that power thoughtfully. The meditation form we used today can be helpful for this kind of reflection. It is a way of looking at your metaphorical map, and determining whether you are headed where you really want to go. Was there anything in your meditation today that suggested what you wanted to move toward, or away from?

Once you have clarified your intention, there are many ways to stay true to that intention. The visioning group Marcia has been leading writes down their visions of the future and then repeats them every day. Alternately, a friend of mine writes his intention in a book and then leaves it alone like a souffle in the oven so it can cook without the disturbance of the conscious mind always checking in on it. I have kind of a spotty memory and am easily distracted, so I like to have something concrete to remind me. My new year’s resolution this year is to meet with someone about my 401K to make sure that is headed in the right direction. So I’ve got a bright green folder full of all the notices they keep sending explaining how to schedule that.

But more important to me is the intention I created before my sabbatical to have a deeper spiritual life, and to become a spiritual director. Sure I have some new books on my shelf that remind me of that intention, and the journal for Spiritual Directors that arrives in my mail, but more important are the things I have in my calendar. I affirm that intention with a daily spiritual practice, and by seeing my own spiritual director each month. I clarify my intention with my actions, and by setting aside time in my calendar. I’m guessing most of you have shiny new calendars that still have some empty space in them. How might that calendar serve as a reminder of what you intend for the coming year?

Even with shiny new calendars filled with shiny new resolutions, there is still no guarantee that things will turn out as we plan. I’m sure some of you can remember a time when you sat down with some committee or other and filled easel pads with goals that were never met. Why does that happen? It happens sometimes because there are too many goals, or because the goals were not clear, but mostly it happens because our heart is not really in them. The reason that my 401K is my only new year’s resolution this year is because, truth be told, it’s been on a post it note for several years, and that green folder has been collecting those letters for longer than I care to mention. If it gets done it will be an act of will, not an act of passion and purpose. My real intention, though-- to deepen my spiritual life-- this one has plenty of passion behind it, and that is probably why it grows in momentum instead of petering out. Sometimes the intentions that are never fulfilled show us something about where our passion and desire really lie.

Sometimes it’s good that our intentions are never manifested. Some intentions are in line with our highest self, and others are going to take us off our true path. This is the “be careful what you wish for” warning we get so often from folk tales. Our libraries are full of stories about people wishing for wealth or power or beauty or immortality and when they finally have their wish, realizing they are no happier.

But the most difficult reason we are not always to achieve our intentions is because we are not as in control as we think we are. We tend to think that everything will go according to our plan, and any deviation from that plan is a personal failure. And we are in fact in control of many things in our lives; by then time I finish my morning chores and have fed myself and my son and gotten him off to school and myself to work I feel pretty in control. I wield such power to accomplish things in my home. But some mornings the construction crew down the block is working on the water line suddenly all the water is running red. I can’t wash dishes or shower or even make coffee! That’s when I realize all that control I have is temporary and local. One has only to imagine the morning of Syrian Refugees trying to find sanctuary in Europe to understand that even our limited power to start the day with a warm pot of coffee is not something we can take for granted, it is a privilege and a gift.

Some of the best moments in our lives together as a congregation come not as part of a carefully crafted 5 year plan, but from a shared intention that emerges as life is unfolding.

 A few years back after the Valley was flooded and most of our neighbors had standing water in their homes. Mud was everywhere, and members of our congregation had a clear vision of this building being a clean, dry, mud free place where our neighbors could come to rest and share some lunch. This intention was so clear and compelling that within 24 hours we were making lunch for hundreds of neighbors and did so for weeks until things started to return to normal.

The word “Grace” as theological term means “God’s unmerited favor, love or help.”[i] “Grace” is a theological construct that we UUs don’t talk too much about. Perhaps because our humanist roots emphasize the importance of our human agency to make the world a better place. The word “Grace” can be used very narrowly to refer to salvation- when used this way it means that we can be saved even though we are not perfect. That’s certainly something that Universalists have always believed. Back when this congregation organized (150 or 200) years ago, this was the most important idea bringing us together- that every single person is loved by God, even if they make mistakes. “Grace” can also be used in a larger way, to refer any “favor, love or help” that comes to us as a gift. It is the acknowledgement that I am not more deserving of a fresh pot of coffee in my warm dry kitchen than a Syrian shop-keeper bombed out of his home. A the Buddhist teacher and Activist Thich Nhat Hanh reminds us “Every morning we have 24 brand new hours to live. What a precious gift!” The most mundane and ordinary parts of our lives we usually take for granted but Grace reminds us that some parts of our life our un-earned gifts. As the hymn says:

“For all life is a gift, that we are called to use to build the common good and make our own days glad”

The Steven Covey book First Things First helps us break down our intentions into goals and action items so that we can create a step by step map of how to get where we want to go. When we set an intention we must be careful not to become attached to it. So much frustration and suffering comes to people when we get expect a certain outcome. Perhaps we push and push in a way that makes us tired, or ruptures relationships around us. Perhaps we judge ourselves harshly when we are unable to achieve this intention we have set. When my friend writes his intention in a book and then leaves it alone, he acknowledges that this world is a complex place, an interconnected web of life where our wishes and desires are not always achieved with even the most detailed plan.

This is good news and bad news. The bad news is that no matter how carefully we eat, and exercise and take care of ourselves, there is no guarantee we will live a long and healthy life. The good news is that we are not alone. In this complex interconnected web of which we are a part, there are things that may come into our lives that we never imagined were possible. That’s why Marcia advise her visioning group not even to consider how one might reach one’s vision, because sometimes a way opens, or things change in ways we can’t possibly imagine. Because we never really do anything by ourselves, we are not alone in anything we do. When we set an intention we are not simply dedicating ourselves to an act of personal will, but inviting a collaboration with the whole web of life.

I believe that all of us, right now, have what we need to do whatever it is God or our truest self is calling us to do. Consider the biology of creatures. How the teeth of carnivores are different form the teeth of herbivores. Consider how the breathing mechanism of fish are different from those of us land dwellers -- how a tree can turn sunlight into food for its body, and for us, in a way you and I never will.

Consider this little congregation. We already have everything we need to do what we are called to do. Just as we would not expect a cow to go hunting or a fish to run a marathon, there is a purpose for which we are uniquely suited. We need not wait until we are bigger or the new sounds system comes or the roof is repaired. What if we set an intention together to share the universal love of God in this community? What if we set an intention together to serve the Spirit of Life right now, and in the months to come? While I’ve heard people tell stories of frustration at not being able to meet a goal, no one has ever told me that they set an intention to serve the Spirit of Life, and no opportunity arose. I believe that part of being a Universalist is having faith that every single being serves the web of life. I have known people that bring comfort and wisdom to those around them even while lying in a hospital bed

Whether it comes at the start of the new year, around the coffee pot at social hour, or spontaneously some summer afternoon as you stare up into the branches of a tree, creating an intention is a way of listening to the wisdom of our deepest self and committing to following that wisdom. Then we must find a way to balance keeping that intention before us and letting go of the outcome. Because we recognize that we are not fully in control of even the simplest of intentions- as simple as making a pot of coffee. So we set our intentions and then we are open to and grateful for grace.

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[i] http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?allowed_in_frame=0&search=grace