Born Again

Spring is a difficult season. I know that seems counter- intuitive, but as winter recedes, as the ground thaws and the first green tips of tulips poke through,
it occurs to me that growing a leaf must be hard work. I have watched the first of this year’s tulip leaves emerge and be frozen again and again. The tops of their leaves are brown and misshapen. Spring is hard even for the tulips- especially if you have deer who have been hungry all winter.


It occurs to me that growing a leaf must be hard work. I have watched the first of this year’s leaves emerge and be frozen again and again. The tops of their leaves are brown and misshapen. Spring is hard even for the tulips- especially if you have deer.

During this season the earth-based traditions here in the northern hemisphere celebrate Ostara- the spring equinox which happened in March. It is the earth herself who suggests tulips and bunnies and chicks as symbols of the season. These are the signs that the cycle of the year is turning, the cycle of life is turning. The bare brown and grey earth is dotted with spots of color- of purple and yellow and green. If you or your neighbors have chickens, this is the season when a new generation begins its life, the fluffy yellow chicks as perfect a symbol of hope for the future as any.

In the Christian Tradition today is Easter. We celebrate the resurrection of Jesus Christ. This is the most joyful and important holiday in the Christian tradition. But there is no Easter Sunday without Good Friday. There is no risen Christ without the wounds. The spiritual journey is not one of ceaseless peace and joy, but about the challenging process of transformation.

The religious symbols of the season carry within them important spiritual lessons for our own journeys. Consider the babies you have known and loved. Consider teething. Most babies are grumpy as their new teeth push their way through the gums. Some even have fevers, refuse to eat or drink, or have trouble sleeping. As the parent of a small child I got used to this pattern- the increasing discomfort and frustration leading to the breaking through of a new tooth. Then I noticed this didn’t just happen for new teeth. Some kids, when they are learning to walk or learning to talk, become quite wretched, until suddenly one day they take those first steps. It occurred to me that this never really ends, though the cycles of growth do slow down. All through childhood and the teen years I see the young people I love cycle through difficult times followed by periods of synthesis and mastery when some new physical or mental milestone is reached. And though we have less tangible results to show as adults, I propose that the same cycle continues. The symptoms may still include irritability and frustration, but they also may include a sense of meaninglessness, an inability to imagine yourself in the future, a sense of ending and loss, a feeling of soul-deep tiredness.

The Episcopalian Theologian Matthew Fox called this the “via negativa’ or “the path of negation”. This is the spiritual path of letting go. Sometimes we find ourselves on the Via Negativa because what gave our life meaning before no longer gives it meaning. Sometimes we come to it through very real losses and struggles in the physical world. Our faith, our beliefs are shaken to the core. Many people use words like “dry” or “dark” or “barren” to describe this kind of experience. Sometimes it feels like God has gone missing, but if you believe in God, though we know intellectually that actually there is no place where god is not. On the via negativa we feel like someone has turned out all the streetlights on the road we are traveling, we can’t see the terrain, and we feel very alone.

But in the same way that Tulips could never compete with the tangle of June growth in my garden, after the harsh winter the tulips and crocuses have the garden all to themselves; like the winter, the Via Negativa creates space for something new to grow. Fox calls that new growth the “Via Creativa” or the “Way of Creativity.” This is a time of rebirth, a time when out of the grey landscape the tulips emerge, when out of the tomb, Christ appeared to those who followed him.

As you can see, we are deep in the realm of metaphor here. In the natural world there is no such thing as rebirth that I’m aware of. Tulips are not really born and born again, they are dormant and growing. When we talk about the rebirth of spring we are talking about trees coming out of their winter dormancy, and new generations of birds and mammals giving new life to their genetic line. Nicodemus was quite correct when he asks: “How can a man be born when he is old? Can he enter a second time into his mother's womb and be born?”(John 3:1-21)

So what does it mean to be reborn? Psychologist Carl Jung talks about it in terms of an “ego-death” some part of who we think we are must be destroyed or released in order for our true self to emerge. Therefore, says UU dream expert Jeremy Taylor, when we have a dream where we are afraid of dying, what our subconscious is warning us about is not a threat of physical death, but the real threat to our ego- the person we think we are. Jeremy would say such dreams are good news- they point to an important transformation that is possible for us. We get so caught up in who we have to be to get and keep a job, who our families expect us to be, maybe even who our church expects us to be, that our deepest truest self lies asleep within us. And when it begins to wake up it can be as scary as a bear waking from hibernation in springtime.

As we heard in our opening reading, many shamanistic traditions have a similar understanding of what it means to be reborn. When a shaman experiences this death of self- this loss of ego, which can be quite scary and painful, “The person is returned to spirit as a reminder that we are more than just body and mind. Who we are beyond our skin is spirit. The dismembered person experiences a state of unity with source.” [p. 138]

When our Christian friends and neighbors talk about being “born again” this is not an idea that is uniquely theirs. When Jesus says “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again[b] he cannot see the kingdom of God.” Unitarian Universalists believe that this kind of spiritual rebirth is possible whether or not we identify as Christians. In his journal, Emerson, who was a transcendentalist and Unitarian Preacher, writes: "In the instant you leave far behind all human relations, wife, mother and child, and live only with the savages-water, air, light, carbon, lime, and granite. Nature grows over me. Frogs pipe; waters far off tinkle; dry leaves hiss; grass bends and rustles, and I have died out of the human world and come to feel a strange, cold, aqueous, terraqueous, aerial, ethereal sympathy and existence. I sow the sun and moon for seeds."

Have you ever experienced anything like this? One member of a congregation I served long ago told me about the first time he saw a living cell under a microscope. The experience was ecstatic and he was overwhelmed by emotion. It changed something about how he saw the world. I think of this as a quintessential born-again Unitarian experience. As Ingerman said in our opening reading: , it typically happens spontaneously. An initiation such as this cannot be planned and has no safety net.” We can choose to open our minds and hearts to this kind of spiritual transformation, but it is not something we can replicate predictably. We can choose to be open to the spirit of life, but deep change of this kind usually comes as something of a surprise.

But I believe that being reborn is not something that happens once an dramatic fashion, instead this is happening to us constantly, like the toddler teething. Perhaps your life is going smoothly like a train on a track. The habits and rhythms of your life are dependable, maybe even satisfying, or maybe there is a hunger for something more. But then arises a feeling of crisis. It could be purely emotional and spiritual- a mid-life crisis, say, a feeling that a job or partnership is no longer a good fit. Or perhaps it is a crisis that comes from the outside- a round of layoffs at work, a car accident, a scary diagnosis, a betrayal. Often our first thought is “what did I do wrong?” We have this idea that as our parents and teachers rewarded us with a gold star when we did well, and gave us detention or grounded us when we didn’t, perhaps this crisis is a punishment for something we did wrong. When our comfortable familiar patterns of life are threatened, we kick and fight, and resist the change. Even Jesus cried out on the cross: My God, My God, why have you forsaken me? [Matthew 27:46, Mark 15:34 ]

Consider a baby in the womb, it has known nothing its whole existence but a snug warm home where all its needs are taken care of. And then the contractions begin and the water breaks and life can never be the same again. It is commonly agreed that the labor and birth process is difficult and uncomfortable work for both mother and child. And there is no safe alternative- My grandmother tells of women in her village in Estonia who never went into labor, and of the tragic outcome for both mother and child. The difficult, painful process of labor leads to life, everyone of us here in this room made it through that process. If you happen to find yourself in a room of women telling the story of how their children entered the world, you will find that each and every one was absolutely unique. And so are the many spiritual and psychological rebirths that we experience over a lifetime.

I use this metaphor with caution, because birth is sometimes smooth and joyous, and sometimes scary and dangerous. As a woman who carried my child for 10 months and then finally gave birth only with medical intervention, I called Matthew Fox on this- during a seminar one afternoon. The formulation so commonly find in theologies of birth and rebirth is that the birth of the new child is worth the pain and risk to the mother. But that is not my theology. I would never say that to a woman who struggled in childbirth, and I would never say to you that your painful divorce, or cancer was ultimately a fair price to pay for what growth follows. The rebirth of tulips in the spring does not necessarily balance out the harsh winter that makes way for it. The one is not the price to be paid for the other. The marshmallow candy-ization of Easter covers over Easter’s real gift; during those darkest hours when it seems that all we love is falling away from us, the Easter story offers us hope. (It is a hopeful thing that we are never fully formed)

This is one of the reasons for religious community- because we need support in the pains of rebirth, in the struggle of transformation. And we need hope when we feel like all we know and love is dying. As the women experienced with birth have traditionally gathered to support the laboring woman, so we support one another when we are in transition, encouraging us to push when it is time to push, to rest when it is time to rest, and to reassure one another with the knowledge in our own bodies and spirits that even where it seems the struggle will never end, new life can come of this too.

Practice and All is Coming (March 6, 2016)

I grew up in a music school- that is to say our home was filled most afternoons and evenings with music teachers and students playing scales and etudes. A couple of times a year our living room was transformed into a recital hall for those students to show off what they had learned, and to practice performing.

Over those 16 years I studied music at the Hegvik School of Music I would occasionally ask my mom if I could quit. We argued the various merits of learning to play an instrument, but ultimately she believed there were benefits to studying music beyond the music itself. One of those was being able to stand up in front of people confidently, and the other was learning how to practice.

As a child growing up in a house full of music students, I heard examples every day of the most common misunderstanding beginners have about practicing (one I often made myself). Folks think “If I want to learn to play this piece fast, I should practice it fast” What we don’t realize at first, is that what we are actually doing by practicing this way training our fingers to stumble and trip [Katie practices scales faster and faster until they are sloppy] but if you slow it down until every note is just the way you want it, [Katie plays it slowly and carefully] your body and mind are creating neural pathways to play it just the way you want it. Another mistake beginners make is that they want to play the piece the whole way through over and over, mistakes and all. Again, by doing that we are training those mistakes into the brain and the muscles. At some point you just have to stop and do the thing in little bits and pieces until body and mind really understand, then and only then do you put it back together in bigger and bigger pieces until is second nature.  Music students learn as they move from being beginners to intermediate players is that if you practice the piece without beauty, without tone, without feeling, that is how you perform it. 

If we practice joylessly, the music we make will be joyless. If you hate practicing, it’s time to make a change. It’s so much easier to sit down and practice a piece you love than one that doesn’t speak to you. Sometimes it’s more fun to collaborate with friends, when our solo practice has lost its vitality. Sometimes you just have to practice goofing around, improving spontaneously, making silly sounds. If we want Joy and creativity in our music, we must practice bringing joy and creativity into your music. This is the opposite of what so many young musicians learn- they somehow learn that playing music should be difficult joyless work, and no wonder they quit.

Perhaps the most important lesson is not to get attached to your mistakes. I would so often hear moans and groans from the lesson rooms (and have myself slammed my fingers down on the keys of the piano in frustration) [Katie demonstrates] Practice is specifically TIME to make mistakes. We must learn compassion for ourselves and patience while we practice; we need a safe space to make ugly sounds, to play things imperfection as we begin to smooth and polish and shape. Make all the possible mistakes in the practice room and you won’t make them on the concert stage. After many years of practice you being to trust the process- you know that this repetition and careful mindfulness will lead to transformation.

Knowing how to practice is useful in unexpected parts of our lives. I remember when we got a brand new video game called “Spyro” and all my friends took a turn playing it. Most of my friends, when it was their turn at the controller, raced forward toward their goal until they plunged accidentally off a cliff and had to start over with a new life. When my friend Akire, who had studied classical cello for many years, took the controller, she pulled over to a meaningless clearing and started running in circles and making little jumps into the air. “What are you doing!” we all cried impatiently “there’s nothing over there!” “I’m practicing” she replied. Her strategy was to learn to jump and glide in a safe area where death would not be the consequence of messing up.

In fact the skills you learn practicing apply to just about every part of your life. This is never clearer than watching a toddler practice walking, or obsessively opening and closing doors, or putting things into a box and then dumping them out and starting it over. It takes hours of repetition to develop skills that now seem second nature to us- walking, talking, closing and opening doors, putting keys in your pocket and taking them out again later when you need them. This is why we do fire drills- so that in the moment of an actual emergency the procedure is second nature. I went to a master class many years ago with the great singer Leontine Price, and when a student asked if she thought about technique while she performed, she told the packed house that the time for thinking about technique is in the practice room. When you perform you just think about the music you are making and the character you’re playing. 

Spiritual Practice is no different in this respect than any other kind of practice. You want to play that song you heard on the radio at your first guitar lesson, but learning a new skill takes time and patience. Some days it will not seem like much is happening but things we repeat day after day have a way of sinking down deep into our muscles and spirits. There are many stories among healers and ministers of visiting an elder who has lost much or all of her memory. She doesn’t recognize family or friends, but when the old hymns of her childhood are sung, or the rosary beads placed in her hands, something old and deep wakes up. Her fingers start to move on the rosary, she nods or even sings along with the hymns. What we practice most we know in a deep way, our bodies remember even when our minds are distracted or diminished. 

There was a funny headline in the satirical paper the Onion the other day: “Man Who Downloaded $2.99 Meditation App Prepares To Enter Lotus Plane Of Eternal Serenity.” [i] This could have described me at my first meditation class. I, like many other new meditators, was constantly frustrated by my early attempts. I wanted to power through to enlightenment the same way I had, as a beginning flute student, wanted to power through to the end of the piece, without taking time in the difficult spots so they could become smooth and clear. I chose forms of meditation that were very challenging for me right off, rather than choosing forms that were enjoyable, so I dreaded my spiritual practice rather than looking forward to it. I was so miserable in my meditation practice at one point that I took a class called “Removing Obstacles to Meditation” which was full of other people who were also having trouble meditating. The best advice the teacher gave in that class was “encourage yourself” -- it turns out beating yourself up for your perceived failings in your spiritual practice is not actually helpful. It’s important to be compassionate with yourself as you practice.
Then I discovered yoga, which I looked forward to and dreamed about and no matter how much I practiced I wanted more. I took a break from meditation that lasted almost a decade. I realized that meditation was just one of many spiritual practices. Sure the Buddha realized enlightenment sitting under the Bodhi Tree, but meditation is not temperamentally or developmentally appropriate for everyone. 

Perhaps it was because of all those years practicing music that I took so readily to practicing yoga. I knew but learned again the power of repetition. As I entered a pose called “Down Dog’ the other day, I considered that if I have been practicing yoga for about 12 years at least 3 times a week, and took Down Dog about 10 times each class, I had been in the pose about 20,000 times. When you do something 20,000 times, not only do you learn it more deeply, it changes you. Not everyone is going to be able to twist themselves into all of those yoga pretzels you see in photos, but everyone will change and grow with Practice. As we saw in the opening video, “Practice, and all is coming.” 

An old yoga teacher of mine called this “slow surgery” because the capacity it has to change muscles and joints and connective tissue is that powerful. This is why form and alignment are so important in yoga. Yes, if you practice carefully you can become more flexible and strong. But if you don’t practice mindfully you can easily blow out a shoulder or acquire an array of injuries.
Think of all the things you have done 20,000 times so far in this life. That probably includes brushing your teeth, which is why the humans alive today have better teeth than any humans who have ever lived before. It also probably includes sitting at a computer- which is why we have problems like carpel tunnel syndrome that millennia of humans have never had in this magnitude before. 

Even if you don’t practice ukulele, or meditation, or yoga, you are practicing something. You already have a spiritual practice right now, whether you think of it that way or not. The question is- what are you practicing? Some people who might not realize they have a spiritual practice, have shown kindness, or shared a warm smile 20,000 times. It now comes so easily to them they don’t even have to consciously choose to be kind; it arises naturally out of habit. Some folks notice the natural world around them on their daily run or their walk to work, or watch the slow growth of a tree through the kitchen window while they sip their coffee. They know just by looking at the fresh green shoots whether spring is early, or what tree is fighting off parasites. One spring when the birds and the butterflies come back in reduced numbers, they notice the change and wonder what is wrong – they have become that in tune with their eco-system through years of practice. 

But the power of repetition goes the other way as well. For 7 years on my long commute up and down the congested highway 101 I practiced impatience and petty anger at the other drivers. Those 3,000 impatient, angry commutes surely left their mark on me as surely as any yoga class. Be careful what you are practicing, because it shapes you. One of the things we practice in this congregation is compassion for one another. We practice this not only in our outreach and caring for one another when we are sick or troubled, but even in the everyday decisions our board makes, or in simple acts of kindness during coffee hour. This is my eighth year with UUCAS, and I believe I have slowly grown in compassion over these 8 years we have practiced together. 

Our worship theme for March is re-birth, in honor of the slowly emerging spring, and the Easter Season. Practice is one of the ways we form and re-reform ourselves. The theological term for this is “co-creation” because we never do anything alone; our world shapes us just as surely as we shape it. Much of what we are is a gift of biology or circumstance, but with the raw clay of that gift, what we practice, and how we practice each day shapes us. 

Practice is the patient expression of our intentions. In the same way that devout practitioners in Hinduism, Buddhism or Catholicism use a rosary to help them stay connected as they repeat prayers to the divine, so can our repetitions of scales, downward dogs or compassionate acts help us stay connected to ourselves and to our intentions to grow and bloom. Depending on our intention, the action itself becomes a prayer. In fact many UUs understand their work helping others, or working for Social Justice as their Spiritual Practice, as their prayer. Every life is filled with repetition. All those thousands of repetitions of simple things -- flossing, walking to the corner store, practicing scales, practicing equanimity and compassion in traffic -- when taken all together have power. Like the drops of water that wear away a stone, we are shaping ourselves every moment with the simple repetition of our daily lives, whether we are conscious of it or not. Let us choose carefully what we practice, because that is what we are becoming. Let us have faith in the slow, patient change that comes with practice, as Guruji advises “practice, Practice, practice and all is coming.”

Endnotes
[i] http://www.theonion.com/article/man-who-downloaded-299-meditation-app-prepares-ent-52384

another illustrative video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsbwAjrQTh4

Altruism and Evolution (February 14, 2016)

This week the week of Darwin’s birthday, we join congregations around the world in talking about the Theory of Evolution, because it helps us understand how we, and every other species with which we share this earth, came to be. We take time to talk about evolution because, despite the fact that it is backed up with centuries of verifiable scientific research, evolution is under increasing attack in our schools and in our public discourse. We also celebrate evolution Sunday because the science of our physical reality is not just for “experts” with advanced degrees -- the story of your body, your eco-system is a story every one of us should know in order to understand ourselves and the world in which we live. That’s why we list as one of our sources: “Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science.”

Today is also Valentine’s Day, so I wanted to tell you a love story. Not a story of romantic love, but the love of other living beings that binds us to one another. I know Vampire bats don’t seem that romantic on the surface, but the precious gift they give one another is eminently more practical, and more precious than a heart shaped box of chocolates. These creatures out of our nightmares, who suck the blood of large mammals, such as cattle, are actually one of the most selfless animals we know of. Researcher Jerry Wilkinson, chair of biology at the University of Maryland-College Park, discovered in 1977 that if a bat is not able to find food, say because of illness or lack of large mammals or because a researcher has put her in a cage, that other bats in her group will share their dinner with her by regurgitating into her mouth. [i] So, just like humans, bats can choose to give their own food to help another hungry being.

Bats are not alone in their altruism. The Vervet monkeys cry out to warn their neighbors of a predator, even though they increase their own personal risk by revealing their position with that cry. [ii] There are even stories of altruism in Bacteria, like our nemesis e coli. Scientists have found examples of special drug-resistant bacteria sharing something called “indole” (\ˈin-ˌdōl\ ) with its neighboring bacteria who aren’t drug resistant and so can’t produce Indole on their own. ( Indole is the compound that helps bacteria fight off antibiotics). These altruistic super-bacteria share even though it weakens their own reproductive capacity when they give away this precious resource. [iii]

The Vampire Bat, the Vervet Monkey, the e coli bacteria are all engaged in Altruism. When we talk about human altruism we use the term pretty loosely, to mean anything from pulling a fellow subway rider off the track in front of an oncoming train, to bring a put of soup to a neighbor who has the flu. But in evolutionary biology, there is a very precise definition. “An organism is said to behave altruistically when its behavior benefits other organisms, at a cost to itself. The costs and benefits are measured in terms of reproductive fitness, or expected number of offspring. So by behaving altruistically, an organism reduces the number of offspring it is likely to produce itself, but boosts the number that other organisms are likely to produce.”[iv]

Since the earliest days of our thinking about evolution, altruism has stumped scientists. If what propels evolution is the competition for limited resources, altruism seems to throw a monkey wrench into the theory. Even Darwin was troubled by this. About 13 years after he first published “ON the Origin of Species” Darwin wrote in his book The Descent of Man,: “he who was ready to sacrifice his life, as many a savage has been, rather than betray his comrades, would often leave no offspring to inherit his noble nature” (p.163). Darwin began to wonder if sometimes a behavior that was risky for the individual could provide an advantage to the larger group of which he was a part: “a tribe including many members who...were always ready to give aid to each other and sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection” (p.166). [v]

Later scientists, dissatisfied with this explanation, began to realize that the individuals who were the beneficiaries of altruism tended to be the kin of the altruist. So even though I might end my own life before reproducing, if my close kin survived to reproduce, like sisters and brothers who share 50% of our genes, I would still have been genetically successful. A fellow called George Price even worked out an equation to show the mathematical relationship between genetic benefit and closeness of relationship (because cousins, for example, are not as beneficial to preserving your gene pool as your siblings)[vi]

Then in 1984 Wilkinson challenged the link between kinship and altruism with his research into the Vampire Bats. Over the course of the study he tracked which bats helped one another, and found that if you were a hungry bat, the neighbor bat who was most likely to help you was a bat you had helped in the past. It’s a remarkable, though relatively unique, example of altruism among unrelated neighbors. In a really wonderful “Radiolab” program on the topic, Wilkinson extrapolated that maybe 40,000 years or so ago something happened to all the large mammals in the area where the bats lived. There was a crisis in the bat food supply, and bats evolved this altruistic behavior so that they could survive as a species.

Scientists and philosophers argue that if there is any potential benefit to you, say the survival of your gene line, that results from your helping act- then this is not true altruism. They argue that perhaps true altruism does not really exist. But I disagree. The fact that altruism is a tool we have evolved help us survive is a hopeful thing. We have so often wondered if human nature isn’t, at its core, “red in tooth and claw.” We worry that the true nature of life is a fight to the death. But the fact that we are hard wired to help one another, and that in helping one another we help ourselves, shows that altruism, is part of our nature. Altruism is a piece of our survival story and built-in to who we really are.

Professor Abigail Marsh has spent her career studying altruism in humans. What makes people help another person at some cost or risk to themselves? In a recent study at Georgetown Marsh tested 19 altruistic people, the kind of person who would, for example, give a kidney to a stranger, and found everything she tested looked pretty normal except for the amygdala- the part of the brain that helps process emotional reactions. She found this part was “significantly larger” in the altruists she studied than in the regular population.[vii] She concluded that “The results of brain scans and behavioral testing suggest that these donors have some structural and functional brain differences that may make them more sensitive, on average, to other people's distress,”[viii] So Marsh’s research suggests that we help one another because we empathetically read their pain, their distress, and we act to alleviate that distress as we would our own.

In his Ted Talk Buddhist Monk Matthieu Ricard extends this idea further[ix]. He reminds us that empathy is a normal part of being a mammal, an extention of the instinctive mammalian drive to care for our young. ( Mammels are, by definition, those animals that nurse their young after birth instead of, say, laying eggs in the mud and leaving our young to fend for themselves once they hatch). Richard suggests that the problems facing us now- such as economic inequality and global climate change, will require altruism- will require people working for the good of future generations sometimes at the expense of our own present gain. Let’s take a moment to acknowledge some of these problems in our world that you think would altruism would be part of the solution. Go ahead and call our from your seat. ….. Richard wonders if our natural mammalian empathy could be expanded wider and wider to call forth such altruism.

I was amazed to learn recently that Lichen ( you know those crusty flowery plants that grow on the bark of trees or rocks?) are a mutualistic symbiosis. That means lichen are actually two totally different life forms, algae and fungus, living together as one organism. Both the algae and fungus can live alone, and in fact it stumped scientists for a long time what might make them come together as lichen. As Biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in her beautiful book Braiding Sweetgrass:

“when researchers put the two together in the laboratory and provide them with ideal conditions for both alga and fungus, they gave each other the cold shoulder and proceeded to live separate lives, in the same culture dish, like the most platonic of roommates. The scientists were puzzled and began to tinker with the habitat, altering one factor and then another, but still no lichen. It was only when they severely curtailed the resources, when they created harsh and stressful conditions, that the two would turn toward each other and begin to cooperate… When times are easy and there's plenty to go around, individual species can go it alone. But when conditions are harsh and life is tenuous, it takes a team sworn to reciprocity to keep life going forward. In a world of scarcity, interconnection and mutual aid become critical for survival. So say the lichens.”

I thought back to those bats, 40,000 years ago, when some hypothetical catastrophe caused a crisis for their species, and in response they evolved the altruistic behavior that allowed them to survive. Life-saving changes are possible when we need them most. And I argue that this is one of those critical moments in the history of life on this planet. Richard notes that while it may take 50,000 years to make an evolutionary biological change, personal change and societal evolution can happen much faster. He reminds us that there is hard scientific data showing that structural changes[x] happen in our brains when we practice altruistic love, or loving kindness. Richard has thousands of hours of meditation practice in his life as a monk, but such structural changes are possible with as little as 4 weeks practicing loving kindness meditation just 20 minutes a day.

Mammals evolved empathy so that we would be hard-wired to care deeply about our offspring and others in our family group. And we know that for some extraordinary altruists that same empathy and compassion can extend all the way across the continent to a stranger who needs a kidney, or a refugee from a war far away. Could we extend that altruism to the next 7 generations of children yet to be born? Could we take Richard’s challenge to cultivate our own loving kindness as individuals and as a society? Could we extend our circle of loving kindness beyond our own kin, our own friends, to hold all of life itself?

When you are discouraged about human nature, remember that altruism is just as natural as competition. It is an important adaptation that is in our hard wiring. It is not only part of our nature, but part of the nature of Vampire bats, Vervet monkeys, and even e coli. Giving selflessly is not only the sappy stuff of Valentine’s Day stories; it is part of the scientific story of how we survive together.

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[i] http://www.radiolab.org/story/105440-blood-buddies/

[ii] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/

[iii] http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/09/02/hints-of-altruism-among-bacteria

[iv] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/

[v] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/#AltLevSel

[vi] http://www.radiolab.org/story/103983-equation-good/

[vii] http://www.npr.org/2014/11/23/366052779/why-people-take-risks-to-help-others-altruisms-roots-in-the-brain

[viii] http://www.georgetown.edu/news/abigail-marsh-brain-altruism-study.html

[ix] http://www.ted.com/talks/matthieu_ricard_how_to_let_altruism_be_your_guide#t-895224

[x] http://phys.org/news/2008-03-compassion-meditation-brain.html

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