A Story Ends, a New Story Begins

A story is a kind of map, shared from person to person, whether written down in a book, or remembered by heart. A story can take complex ideas, abstract ideas, amorphous feelings and changes that defy communicating, and give them a form we can remember, we can walk around inside of and see from different perspectives. A story helps us see a cohesive shape of things out of a blizzard of moments and facts and data and feelings. Religious traditions are full of stories for this reason- they give meaning and shape to our often confusing reality. Personally, I love to read fantasy and sci-fi novels, but different kinds of stories speak more clearly to some than others. I know some baseball fans look at a box score and it tells them the story of a game.

Psychologist Carl Jung posited that the stories we share help us talk about our collective experience. The really big stories shared by many people speak to many of us at the same time. When we say, for example, “Moses leading the people in the wilderness”, with just those few words millions of people around the world who have been steeped in Jewish and Christian traditions can touch into that story in their imaginations and recall the arc of the flight from slavery to the promised land. When I say “down the rabbit hole” generations of people remember Alice tumbling from the reality of 19th century England into the bewildering and fantastical wonderland.

Over the past few years, I have often felt as if I was traveling without a map. I felt as if I had come to the edge of the map I had been using and gotten to the vague part where old map makers used to write “here be the dragons.” I’ve had dreams of driving down a dark road with no light, no map, no GPS. Even the stories that I had used to guide my way when I was caught in the weeds and couldn’t see more than a few feet ahead were no longer helpful, I couldn’t find myself in those stories anymore.
 

Remember the fairy tales that all used to end the same way; “and they all lived happily ever after?” Often this happens when the young princess is married, or when the 3rd son completes the quest and becomes ruler of the kingdom. As mature adults we know that while finding your life partner and getting married can be a happy day, full of promise and possibility, no marriage is smooth sailing “ever after.” While being given a great career opportunity is also a happy occasion, full of promise and possibility, no leadership job, whether in a fairy tale or fantasy novel or history book is without conflict and challenge.

In my own story, my parents had recently divorced with much drama before my wedding day, so I knew that marriage did not guarantee any kind of happy ever after, But there was a time in my life when I completed the long arduous training for the ministry, became a minister and became a parent, and that did feel like a happy end of one story and the beginning of the next, full of promise and possibility. I was also part of the larger story which said that women could not be ministers, certainly could not be ministers and mothers at the same time, A story going back to Olympia Brown, first universalist woman minister in the 1800s, to 100 years of women working for women’s suffrage, a story that continues today as women still don’t receive equal pay. The simple story about becoming a minister and mother has been shaping my life for many years, a story I stepped into as a young woman, but as I approached 50 had come complete.

After much discernment, I realized that this moment in my own life -- approaching 50, closing our music store, of seeing my only child leave the nest for college, the death of my father, even celebrating 20 years in the ministry, came together in what felt like the end of a big story, as big as that moment in my 20s when the story of ministry and motherhood began. It felt like finishing a big thick novel, complete with sense of disorientation and loss that when you put down the story you have lived inside of for so long.

I felt this sense of disorientation in the larger world as well, in this time marked by Covid, but not just Covid, this time when our fears about climate change have turned into nightmares of fire and flood. In this time when the foundations of democracy seem to be sliding out from under our feet. In this time when so much is in flux people of conscience are demanding the long overdue end to racial oppression.

This summer I read a novel called “The Starless Sea” by Erin Morgenstern, which spoke to that part of my soul that felt like it was driving down a dark with no map. Our hero walks from his ordinary life, in which he is a grad student, into a sort of wonderland, where things are increasingly fantastical. As he moves deeper and deeper into the story, he understands that this story has been going on for a long time, hundreds of years, and is now crumbling and ending. He is sad to have arrived in this story when it is just a remnant of what it once was, but, it turns out, he is here for the very end, the story needs him in order to end. The very nature of reality crumbles and swirls as he moves deeper and deeper, He spends quite a long time walking through shadows and shifting phantasms towards, he’s not quite sure what, until the whole story, not just one story, but a whole universe of interwoven stories, a whole reality that meant so much to so many, built with love and care and story and art by generations, all of it is drowned in, of all things, a sea of honey. What we the readers, and what our hero do not know, is that even as one story is ending, the seed of a new story is already there, waiting for the old story to end, and the new story to begin.

Aha! I felt, “yes, that is where I am in my story, where we are in our story right now!” so many stories we have loved and inhabited for centuries (and lifetimes and years, big stories and little stories) are ending, the nature of reality seems unstable, because we are at the end of a very large story, at the end of an age. Doubtless seeds of the new story are here among us, right now. But we are between stories, and that is a confusing and frustrating, but also sacred and sometimes beautiful place to be. This transition from the old stories to the new ones might take quite a long time. There are parts of the new story that only our children and grandchildren will see come into being.

Pausing in the midst of unraveling my work of many hours

Imagine that you are the old woman in the story Weaving the World, come back from stirring your soup to find the tangled wreck of years of weaving on the floor? How would you feel? What would you do?  I imagine I would feel angry, I would feel bereft and brokenhearted. I would probably call some friends who would understand. I know when something I have knit is ruined, I can’t just get right back to work, I have to pause and grieve what I’ve lost, all those hours, and gather some energy before I can begin again.

What would it mean to live for a while in that story of being in between an ending and a beginning? It might allow us to let go of the status quo. This is not the time to invest in getting things back to where they were in February of 2020. Too much has already changed. It is time to invest in the new story not the old. In this place it’s okay to set down our packs and weep when we need to. It’s easy to say “let go of the status quo” but so many comforting, normal, sometimes beloved things, sometimes oppressive and toxic things are part of the status quo, but if we understand that we are in a time of great change, we must set down the old story, piece by piece as we are able, and grieve what needs to be grieved, release what needs to be released. Like the old woman in the story, we pause to honor, grieve, release all that has unraveled before we begin again.

In this place may feel adrift, but that is normal for people of in-between times, like Moses and the Israelites in the desert, like Frodo and Samwise on their long journey. It is time to set up tents, and not build palaces. In a transitional time we build flexible structures that can change as the world changes, as our stories change.

Whenever we are unsure, we let love guide us. The stories of our collective conscious agree, Love guides where we need to go, which is to our hearts desire. In the wisdom stories we see that he love we show for others on our journey matters, the connections we make are never made in vain.

We are dreaming this new story together, in the collective unconscious not only of our small community, but all the imaginations all over the world. The reason humans evolved our capacity for imagination is so that we could begin to understand something we have never experienced. Let us imagine together a future where we live in harmony with the web of life, a future where those now at the margins of our society are welcomed to the center, let us dream new structures that are anti-racist and anti-oppressive -- a liberatory future.

How many decades did the suffragettes tell the story of a time when women could vote, could own property, could be educated before that came to pass, How long did enslaved Americans dream of being free, and still we dream of a time when all are truly equal under the law. When people are wandering in the confusion of this in-between time, let us be among those holding up a lantern, shining the light of consciousness, truth, justice on the path ahead, because whatever seeds are planted in first pages of a story grows in the pages that follow.

I spent last week at a conference of Unitarian Universalist ministers, and what we all knew, as we arrived from our very different contexts all over the country, was that so many stories, individual and collective, are ending, have been ending. And one of those old stories is the story of organized religion as we know it, and the story of Unitarian Universalism. If you look at the box scores of organized religions, you will see they tell a story of steady decline for decades now. Ministers and lay leaders have wrung our hands since I was in seminary about how to get back to the status quo, back to the time some of our members remember being children in the Cortland congregation and you had to get to church early if you wanted a seat. The stories we told each other all through that conference arose from our shared experience of life in our congregations, of life in this time of Covid, all wove into a larger story that there is no going back to the status quo. We can grieve that, we can cherish and love the way church used to be, but that is not where hope lies.

The world has deep spiritual needs right now. The world needs spiritual community, the world needs liberation from oppressive structures, the world needs a way forward into a new story, and if our faith, if our congregations are going to meet those needs, they will have to change. Hope lies in the truth that we are changing. Look around- look at this strange new sanctuary we have created together because it met a deep need in our own hearts. If we can grow something this strange and new and useful and meaningful, I have hope that we can build something together that will have a useful role in the story ahead.

The story “Weaving the world,” which was offered at our closing worship for the conference, did for me what stories do best; it took all the statistics, all the anecdotes, all the complex feelings and events and created a simple shape, a story shape that could hold it all. Friends, things have been unraveling, there is no denying that. We have been grieving that unraveling these past 2 years, and longer. I don’t quite know where we are in the story, are we still in the unraveling? Are we, like the old woman, sitting with the “tangle of undone threads? Is it time to pick up the loose threads and begin to weave again? I’m not quite sure. I suspect the unraveling will continue for some time, and I suspect the new weaving has already begun. But this story reminds us that even the most heartbreaking and complete unraveling is rewoven into something new by the spirit of life.

The hope I offer you today is that when a story ends a new story begins. In between may be a tangled mess of loose threads, or a period of wandering in the wilderness, but I have faith that among these tangles a new story has already begun, a huge story, big enough to hold us all.

Finding Your Own Spiritual Practice

I believe that our capacity to connect with the spirit of life is innate, we all have it, it’s part of being human, being alive. It’s not something that only monks do, it’s something that everyone does often without even knowing it.

Before I offer my own thoughts, I’d like to take a moment of silent reflection to invite you to consider-

• When do you feel like you are fully yourself?
• When do you feel inspired?
• What makes you come alive?
• What gets you through hard times?

Take a moment now if you like and pause in quiet reflection, or journal...

I hope that some images or memories came to you; If not, don’t worry about it, perhaps something will come to you as we go, or sometime later in the week.

Unitarian Universalism has are no proscribed practices we all do, no special prayers for certain times of day or times of life. The gift of this is that we are free to follow our own spirit, our own path, to know the divine in our own unique way. Our faith tradition offers us the freedom to explore, and the trust that each of us can discern what is right for our own spirits. Unitarian Universalism (UU) draws from many sources, and the first of these is “Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces which create and uphold life”

In our search for a spiritual practice that is just right for us, we begin with our own direct experience. We start with what we already know about ourselves- things that inspire us, support us, ground us and make us come alive, all these are food for our spirits. Like doing the dishes in Eileen Moeller’s beautiful poem, or like going among the trees for Wendell Berry. I know that I feel different when I have been feeding my spirit and when I have been letting it languish, when I give it good nourishing food, and when I feed it junk. Food for the spirit, at its most basic, is anything that allow us to be present to our whole self, and to that which is larger than ourselves, that which connects us to the web of life, that which is sacred, and for theists, to God. Any answers that came to you during your reflection, are clues to how you naturally connect with your deeper self, your inner wholeness, and touching into a greater wholeness. Sometimes such moments have a deep sense of rightness, of “yes.”

Just as our body gives us signals of hunger and thirst, our spirits give us hints of longing. Let’s take a moment now and consider if there are things you have been longing for- this includes both the deep yearning of our hearts and also fancies, whimsies. Our spirits are both serious and playful. [pause] So I invite you to ask your deepest self, or to ask the divine if that is your way, “what is my spirit hungry for, what will bring me into deeper alignment with my true self, and with that which is greater than myself?” Notice anything that comes to mind no matter how trivial, or seemingly irrelevant.

[I invite you to pause in a moment of reflection]

In looking for our own spiritual practice, we begin by just asking this question and then listening for an answer. This discernment may start out kind of general and clumsy, and will get more subtle with time.

Our UU theology points toward a wholeness of all that is, so it doesn’t have to be something traditionally sacred. If you start listening in to yourself you might hear that you are tired. Your body is part of the sacred web of life, and if you are tired a nap might be just the thing you need for wholeness. If you feel restless, get up and start moving, But stay tuned- think of it like your GPS on a road trip- “get moving” might be just the first invitation, like how your GPS says “start going south on Fayette street” with others to follow. When you listen in to yourself, you might get lots of information- your body probably has some things to offer- maybe you are tired, or need to adjust your posture in your chair, Sometimes it’s hard to sort out all the answers- that’s the crux of it. And that’s why it takes practice, and why it often benefits from some quiet time without distractions, As Wendell Berry Suggests in his Sabbaths Poem:

I go among trees and sit still.
All my stirring becomes quiet
around me like circles on water.
My tasks lie in their places
where I left them, asleep like cattle.

If you would like to find your spiritual practice, this is how it begins, just take some piece of time to let your stirrings become quiet, to ask, to listen and then to follow that inner longing.

After much practice, I’ve gotten better at letting my stirring become quiet so I can hear that voice of my deeper self. Sometimes I hear a longing for something familiar- I often get a clear longing to get up and move, and often follow that to the yoga mat. Last spring when it was finally warm enough to sit outside, sitting on my porch watching the birds was just what my spirit was longing for most days. But recently I kept yearning for a certain color of orange. I tried out different colored pencils until I found the right one, I looked for that shade of orange in the world and noticed and enjoyed it whenever I found it.  I didn’t realize the color orange could feed my spirit, but apparently it can. The next step, once we have followed the longing out into the garden, or to a certain color we are yearning for, to that unique thing that calls just to you, just notice how that feels, notice how your spirit responds to what you have offered it. This is the practice- just spend some time in listening, trying things out and noticing.

A second way to find your own spiritual practice is to go back to those things that have fed you in the past. Gardening, walks, doing the dishes, painting, watching the birds. [anything that came up in chat] Approach it with intentionality- the purpose is not to complete a painting, for example, but to be in dialogue with your deepest self. Sometimes when we go back to an activity that has worked in the past we get that same feeling of “yes” How lovely- your soul asks for good food and you give it good food. We call our spirit back like an old friend.

Joy Harjo writes in her poem "For Calling the Spirit Back from Wandering Earth in its Human Feet:

“call you spirit back. It may be caught in corners and
creases of shame, judgement and human abuse.
You must call in a way that your spirit will want to return.
Speak to it as you would a beloved child.
Welcome your spirit back from its wandering. It may return
In pieces, in tatters. Gather them together. They will be
Happy to be found after being lost for so long”

Sometimes when we are hurting or grieving or in pain or in a challenging transition, that return when we are in pieces in tatters, is hard. That doesn’t mean you are doing it wrong, it just means that something challenging is happening for you and it needs some support. As Harjo writes “Speak to it as you would a beloved child.” The basic discernment is the same if, say, you are out on the walk that normally feeds you and a wave of grief comes over you. You ask with great compassion, what is the invitation here? How can this be a movement towards wholeness, towards connection? Perhaps the walk which is so supportive to your spirit was just the right container for the grieving your heart has needed to do.

But it could also mean that your spirit needs something different today. I remember in the spring of 2020, when we were new to spending so much time indoors, so much time at the zoom screen, I would get to the yoga mat after a long day on zoom and just could not get comfortable, I was restless, and felt frustrated and trapped and was overwhelmed with all the feelings we were going through then. I turned off the gentle yoga music the teacher had suggested and put on some really aggressive music by a feminist punk band, deciding to lean into those feelings, to help them move. I did a yoga practice that matched my inner turmoil, and by the end of practice, as I lay exhausted on the mat, I knew that had been just what my spirit needed.

Back when our lives were noisy and the house was full of activity, coming and going, the quiet on my meditation cushion always felt like a relief. These days, when I have been home alone for many hours, after little Trey died and Nick went back to school and Eric back to the office, it comes time for meditation but something in me says “Ugh, I already spent the whole day sitting quiet and still, What my spirit needs most for wholeness is connection.” For a while I had been delighting in the practice of making colorful mandalas, an outlet for my creativity in a life that was otherwise well established in routine. Lately I seem to have no energy for that. I am pouring every ounce of creativity into ministry. What really feels like a drink of water to my thirsty spirit right now is the slow familiar poses of a quiet yoga class, breathing in and breathing out in a virtual yoga community.

This is part of the exploration and discernment. When you think about doing a practice and something in you says “ugh” that inner resistance can be a source of self knowledge and energy. Ask yourself “why ugh?” and see if an answer comes. Sometimes sticking with the practice where you feel resistance can help lead to wholeness, can help you be present to something challenging but important. Most days, even those quiet days at home alone, I still do the same meditation practice I started during my sabbatical training to become a Spiritual Director; I can see the difference it has made in my life to sit in silence and focus on the spaciousness between thoughts, I can see how on the challenging days it really helps me reground myself and come back to myself. But some days I choose a different path. The needs of our spirit change over time, the spirit of life is a dynamic living force, and all living things change and grow.

Once you have chosen a practice, maybe just for today, or maybe you want to try it for a longer time , the core of a practice is the return. You forget, you get distracted, you get lured away by the rhythms of frantic consumer culture, or old patterns of worry and fretting, but what makes a spiritual practice different from a spiritual experience is that you call yourself back to it each time you get distracted, each time you forget your intention.

Spiritual Director Sandra Lommasson says “every gift has a shadow and every shadow has a gift.” The shadow side of our UU way, is that sometimes we feel adrift, and unsupported in our spiritual practices. Without proscribed prayers and formal practices we get the impression that we have to go this inward path alone, but this is not so. Sometimes this kind of listening and exploring I’ve been describing is hard, the path unclear. That’s one reason I talk to my spiritual director every month, so she can help me discern my path when I feel lost, so she can help me see the big picture when I am caught in the weeds. We also have the experiences and wisdom of others who have come before us on the spiritual journey. There are thousands of years of wisdom in cultures all around the world available to us to support us, the other 5 sources of our Unitarian Universalist tradition.

It can be helpful to memorize a rote prayer, a formal practice passed down through the spiritual tradition. A memorized prayer or practice that we turn to again and again can be a relief, an anchor. When our nervous system is overwhelmed even basic discernment about what to eat for dinner is hard- I know if I wait too long to eat dinner, I look in a full fridge and say “there’s no good food in the house to eat” So I have some small prayers and practices that I hold on to in times of anxiety or need that are comforting, that are grounding, that call my spirit home. Being UU doesn’t mean we can’t use rote words or actions, it just means that my choices are between me, my spirit, and my connects me to that which is larger than myself. The ultimate authority about spirituality must be spirit, and not your minister, or the UUA.

Take a moment right now and notice all you are connected to, the sounds of your neighborhood, of nature. Notice the beautiful faces of your community in zoom this morning. Going to worship is a spiritual practice, a communal rather than individual practice. For me this weekly church service has become an anchor- it reminds me I am not alone and connects me to something larger. Being in a group together creates a container that makes it easier to hold certain joys and worries and questions. Be on the lookout for practices that enlarge your sense of connection and remind you that you are not alone, that support is available to you on this path.

I believe that we are all on a spiritual journey, and that we were never meant to do it alone. Even though we practice sometimes in solitude, so we can hear our own voice, our own Self, we need the support of community, the wisdom of tradition.

Because we are woven in a web of interconnection with nature, with one another and with spirit, anything we do with intention, with attention, can be a spiritual practice. This week I encourage you to take some time, in these shared moments right now, and perhaps also some time this afternoon, to remember what you already do that calls you home to your deepest self, to the Spirit of life, and to the love that never lets us go. In a spirit of exploration, listen for the longings of your spirit -- both earnest and playful. Offer an invitation to your deepest self and see if you hear an invitation in return. The spiritual journey is one you have already been on for a long time, finding your own spiritual practice is as simple as giving your spirit a little nourishment, a little support when it is in need, and a little play and exploration as the spirit moves.

Communities of Care

Back before the pandemic, when we did a lot of things, it was easy to get confused about what church was for- we had a lot of activities and programs and they all seemed important. But as the pandemic has dragged on, many of those activities and programs and committees we thought a church could not function without have fallen away. What we do now pretty much comes down to – we worship together and we care for one another. And a big part of what we do together on Sunday morning is caring for one another.

Even when I show up for a board meeting, someone will ask after my loved ones, medical tests or dogs. We take time in every board meeting to ask after absent friends, folks not on zoom, folks who are grieving or sick. We celebrate with each other joys of all sizes. Many times over the past 2 years I have wondered “how are people without a congregation surviving this?”

For as long as there have been faith congregations, there has been a tradition of caring for one another. I don’t know when it started, but it was clearly part of the early Christian church. The Hebrew scriptures, which are much older, include specific instructions about helping the most vulnerable in ways that show this was commonly part of community life.

We, in both the Athens and Cortland congregations, have cared for our people as long as I have known you, and in a way that shows this is an old and deep habit. Let’s not take that for granted, but celebrate and nurture this aspect of our lives together.

First, I want to celebrate that when we create communities of care, we disrupt consumer culture, we disrupt the for-profit culture. When I put “communities of care” in my search engine, it came up with several pages of fee-based organizations that you can hire to do some of the aspects of caring. And thank goodness for them- thank goodness for nurses and therapists and medical assistants and assisted living and transportation services. We’re not trying ot replace the area agency on aging. But our community of care is a little oasis that removes money from the equation, we offer whatever little bits of support we can to one another because we care. We do it as a gift of love, sometimes for people we hardly know. In our voluntary communities of care we are not consumers and providers, we are co-creators. It is a care based on mutuality.

We have seen that when the big professional structures break down, let’s say after a disaster, that the first people on the scene most times are family, neighbors, friends, strangers who instinctively look around to see who needs help. That capacity to be there for one another gives us freedom from a system where we are numbers, where we are consumers, and reminds us of something beautiful about what it means to be human beings in community. Caring community can help and hold people at the margins- people who maybe don’t have family nearby, people who have fallen through the gaps in the safety net. Our communities are human-sized, we see one another and our needs, we notice people who get lost in big systems.

We co-create a caring community because we hope there will be a community to hold us when we need care, but not with any strict accounting of what we give matching what we get, but in a “pay it forward” kind of way. I remember when I was becoming a parent, we were inundated by gifts and supplies and advice and hot meals, and I am still paying forward out of a deep awe and gratitude for that outpouring of support. When my friends and sisters were becoming parents I released everything that Nick had outgrown, because I trusted the community of parents that if we found ourselves surprised by another child, I could step back into that flow, and the support we needed would be there.

Communities of care also disrupt isolation. I’m sure you’ve heard the studies about an epidemic of loneliness in our society. We were growing lonelier before the pandemic, and research affirms what we already know, that we have grown lonelier during the pandemic. I bet all of us have struggled with loneliness and isolation during these past 2 years. That’s one of the best things about church, and this congregation in particular- anyone of good will can join this community, no matter how unlovable you feel, all you have to do to be welcomed into community is show up with an open heart and mind. And because we are so small, there is pretty much no chance that you will be invisible, we see you, and we welcome you with open hearts.

I think it’s no accident that faith communities are so often caring communities. Not only are faith communities a place where we challenge ourselves to live out our highest values, of which care and love are among the most important, but love and care are also a spiritual path, a spiritual practice. I hope that each of you have experienced the special kind of warmth that Mr. Nick felt as he was knitting that blanket thinking of his friend, as he embodied his caring in a thoughtful and personal way for her. In our physical and emotional acts of caring we have a chance to connect more deeply to the divine that is present in relationship, The place between persona and person is a scared place of connection. The web that binds living beings together is sacred, and when we live into that web, embodying care, sometimes the web reveals itself to us in a beautiful and numinous way.

The spiritual practice of care is also challenging. Relationships are hard because people are different, needs are different. Sometimes people need more than we can give, sometimes what we can give doesn’t help. The spiritual practice of care helps us learn non-attachment to outcomes. We can make soup for our sick neighbor, but perhaps they have no appetite. We find a rehab center with a bed, but only our friend struggling with addiction knows if they are ready for recovery. We drive our neighbor to the doctor, but we can’t find a cure. Sometimes people in pain, in fear, in grief are grumpy or impatient or having trouble seeing the big picture. We care anyway, paying attention to our own limits. We can’t take away another’s pain. We offer, we act, and we let go.

It’s a spiritual practice that does not always feel good but invites us to grow in wisdom. The ocean of need is endless, none of us alone can meet that need, not even when we come together as our little congregation can we satisfy all the need. Instead, we must trust to something larger, to the large web that if we do the little things we can do, other people, other communities will do the same. As the dog rescue volunteer we’ve been working with signs all hear emails “until there are none, save one.”

Our community of care will be as unique as our little communities. It’s okay that we don’t have warehouses of supplies or our own unemployment insurance like the Mormons. The Athens congregation established a Minister’s Discretionary fund where many members have donated generously over the years for short term emergencies- like help with a heating bill, or a rent payment, or that technology you need to keep you connected to your community or to the workforce. We heard in "Singing the Soup"by Meg Barnhouse  how they came, in her congregation, to make soup when the power went out in an ice storm. In the Athens congregation we remember the time we set up our own lunch center after the floods. Just last month the Cortland the tradition of bringing poinsettias to folks in nursing care brought joy and connection to our own members and people we have never met.

In our congregations we don’t have specific pastoral care programs, we have a simple caring circle, where we let one another know about folks who might need our support, and those who are able respond spontaneously with food or rides or a comforting call or card. You don’t have to know one another, you can just say “I heard through he caring circle what you were experiencing. Here’s how I’d like to support you, is that something you would like?” and then listen for the answer.

The greatest challenge of our spiritual practice of caring community is that the more we care, the more we love, the more we open our hearts, we give up the protective numbness of detachment. Our congregation has lost 2 members this winter in death, and if we had not taken them into our hearts, and if we had not opened our hearts to their loved ones, perhaps we would not have felt the pain of their passing. But then we wouldn’t have had our friends who were so dear to us. If you take the challenging spiritual path of love, you will know joy and connection and care, but you will also know loss. And both are profoundly sacred.

Our congregation has been a community of care for a long time, it’s deep in our collective DNA. Today we celebrate and affirm this part of our life together. When we give, when we receive, when we witness acts of care, we remember that there is a love that is greater than any one of us, that we are invited to serve and co-create with our own care, with own hands and hearts.

Keeping the Dream Alive

 How shall we keep the dream alive? This is not a rhetorical question. In the warm months of 2020, we were in the streets witnessing the need for change in our criminal justice system. We created marched and kept vigil, studied and discussed, we called on our political leaders for specific legislative change. We felt a wave growing so large that change seemed inevitable.

Right now, we face the most contagious wave of the pandemic, legislatures who are passing more laws to take away voting rights than to create a more just world, and the change we called for in 2020 to our justice system has been grudging and incremental where it has come at all.

In his famous “I Have a Dream"  speech at the march on Washington, that he gave on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial to that massive gathering in support of civil rights, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us of the passage in the Jewish scriptures [Amos 5:24]: “we will not be satisfied until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like a mighty stream.“. Back in the spring of 2020 we could feel the growing power of that stream, the momentum. Today it feels like a trickle.

How shall we keep the dream alive? Because it’s an important dream- it’s a beautiful dream. As a people who affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person, it is our dream. And that dream needs our steady attention and support both when the realization seems close at hand, and when progress is slow, when we can’t see the way forward. We must keep that dream alive in our hearts until it is finally realized.

How shall we keep the dream alive? We honor the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. this week for his heroism and inspiring words, but we also honor all those thousands who worked and sacrificed in service to that dream, through thousands of acts, large and small. One key, I think, to keeping the dream alive is not to imagine that there is one heroic act that we could do, as individuals, as a congregation, that will finally bring racism to an end. We must be willing to do all the humble invisible things that are part of great social change.

Racism is part of our collective shadow, it is bigger than any one of us. When we face our collective shadow as a nation, as a civilization, it can be overwhelming. My teacher Br. Don Bisson gave us this advice, at the first meeting of our class on the collective shadow: to be careful of inflation and deflation. Inflation is whenever we think that we ourselves can single-handedly defeat something in our collective shadow, like racism. That we can swoop in like a super hero, and slay the evil in a single great battle. Racism is real, and tenacious, and bigger than any one of us, that is why it persists. He also warned us not to deflate ourselves, not to see the size of the shadow, and give in to despair, thinking there is nothing we can do. Despair, he said, is what the shadow wants from us. As Margaret Mead is in our hymnal “never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committee citizens can change the world, indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.” Let that water of justice trickle through our own hearts, through our little community, trusting that like the creeks and tributaries all over this land that feed the great rivers, Susquehanna and Chemung the Chenango, our small acts, our small lives feed that great river of justice.

King got involved in leadership in the civil rights movement back in 1955, with the bus boycotts. He was a young minister in his 20s at his first church. During that movement his house was bombed, he spent his first nights in jail, but real change was won, as the courts ruled bus segregation unconstitutional. In 1961 King was involved in the movement that lead to the desegregation of lunch counters. But 1962, 60 years ago from this year, was actually a difficult time in the civil rights moment. People made many sacrifices, but saw no concrete change that year. Perhaps it’s helpful to remember that even during the great Civil Rights era, there were years like 1962 when the flow of justice slowed to a trickle. The following year, 1963, was the year of the great march on Washington, where King gave that famous" I Have a Dream" speech.

It wasn’t until the march on Selma in 1965 that the Unitarian Universalists really got involved in number. When those UU ministers and white folks showed up, we were able to offer the kid of support to the movement that made a difference. It was a proud day for our UU Faith, and our public stance drew in a wave of black members who were moved by our actions. In 1967 the momentum swelled in our denomination, and we made a significant commitment of funding and action in 1968, but almost immediately that mighty swell receded.

By 1970 the UUA board voted for a reduction in funding due to a financial crisis and some factions pushed for a leadership structure that would make sure there was white oversight of how the funds earmarked for black empowerment would be used. There was a great controversy and many black members and other folks committed to anti racism and black empowerment left our churches. Our work on anti-racism slowed to a trickle.

We, as a denomination, have that in our collective shadow. We must learn from our history, and keep the dream of an anti-racist, anti-oppressive faith alive. In recent years the momentum, the commitment for anti-racism swelled again, and we have to ask ourselves, are we a denomination who shows up for anti-racism when momentum is at high tide? Or are we a denomination who has taken the calling to work for anti racism into our identity, who shows up day after day to do the steady work of change? That is where we are now- can we keep our steady attention and support on this dream?

We are called to keep this dream alive- not only that beautiful dream MLK shared in his speech, the dream of all those who fought for civil rights in the60s, but our UU dream of truly being an anti-racist, anti-oppressive organization. To do that, the people most impacted by the work must be making decisions, must give input, must be in leadership. UU is making progress with this. We have the report from the commission on institutional change that we called for during the swelling of passion for justice in our movement, but can we commit to the steady and often invisible work of implementing their suggestions in every part of our lives together?

We Unitarian Universalists are not called only when the streets are full of protestors, not only when anti-racism is in the news each day. We are called to do the slow work of justice, day after day. We are called to keep learning and growing our capacity. To show up and keep showing up.

How can we keep the dream alive when we are weary? When we are stuck at home? There are few marches in the streets this weekend, because Omicron is at high tide. As a denomination we have made choices to protect the most vulnerable by social distancing, by masking, by following CDC guidance. Our commitment to stay home this morning, to have this very worship online was informed by our commitment to protect the most vulnerable, knowing that people of color are disproportionately impacted by this pandemic.

In times like this, when we are dealing with illness and grief and weariness, the way we keep the dream alive will look different than it did in the summer of 2020, or 1963. If you are full of energy for justice right now, and looking for new places to roll up your sleeves, here are some wonderful places to get start today: 

• Showing up for Racial Justice
• The BLUU Housing Initiative
• Criminal Justice Reform 
• Black Lives Matter
• Protect Voting Rights  

...let us know what you learn and we will do everything we can to support you. 

But if you are weary, if you are overwhelmed, I invite you to simply keep the dream before you in the things you are already doing. Racism is truly in all the aspects of our shared life, and so our attention is needed in all those small tidepools of life as well.

A few years ago I gave a sermon encouraging folks to find ways to listen for voices they don’t normally hear. I suggested that if we love poetry, we can seek out poetry in voices different than our own. That if we love science fiction, we might check out afro-futurism, that if we love movies, we could support movies with black directors and writers, that if we love classical music we could see out black and brown performers and composers. I received feedback from one white person who said “is this really the most important thing we could be doing to end racism?” No, of course not. But how many days of the year do we get the opportunity to do that one heroic act? We may never get a chance to make history, like Rosa Parks, or Dorothy Cotton or James Reeb. On days when we don’t have the opportunity to do the most important thing, we can do something. Like a musician who practices every day so they are ready for the big concert, I encourage us to practice anti-racism everyday, perhaps when the moments come when we can do the hard thing, we can recognize it, and be ready to act skillfully.

How can we keep the dream alive? The thing we keep learning about racism, is how it is woven into almost every aspect of our lives together. It is not only in the criminal justice system, but in housing, in our schools, in our churches, in the arts. I stumbled upon an article this week explaining that black hair in video games is terrible (I had no idea), and that game design companies never seem to have the resources or motivation to fix the problem, so some enterprising folks are creating an Open Source Afro Hair Library of black hair styles that are beautiful, that encourage pride for all those touched by the gaming industry.

Or…Since the pandemic I’ve spent a lot of time watching birds. My interest in poetry and birds and anti-racism lead me to this wonderful poet: J Drew Lanham who introduced me to the black birder movement, - I had been completely ignorant of the challenges and dangers for black people who love watching birds like I do.

On all the ordinary days of the year, days when we are stuck at home, or weary, there are still opportunities to weave that vision of a world free of racism into our lives. We can support the dreams not only for our justice system, where things are among the most terrible, but also all the dreams that make up a complex and rich life- in our colleges, in our symphonies, in our video games, in our children’s libraries. In our parenting, and grandparenting and aunting and uncling, in our workplaces and football stadiums.

If you don’t know where to begin, type something you love, something you do every day into your favorite search engine with the word “racism in” before it. Or the word “black” or “native American” before it. Begin to learn how racism has been, still is part of the fabric of our daily lives, begin to learn the gifts and contributions and dreams of black people and other marginalized people to the things you care about. Don’t let the big things beyond our control keep you from doing the things you can do, touching the lives you can touch.

If you are the praying type, bring this to prayer, Ask for guidance about how your life can be part of that mighty stream:

“Spirit of life, weary and discouraged as I am today, help me find my own way to keep the dream alive.”

If you are not one who prays, follow your conscience, and see where it leads you.

Remember that board of directors of the Nashville public library who quietly voted to integrate all their facilities in the 1950s, and what a big difference it made to author Patricia McKissack, and many untold others.

In the words of 3D artist Jovan Wilson who contributed some really cool looks to the Open Source Afro Hair Library “I hear a lot of people say, ‘Why does it matter?’ Because it means a lot, you know? You want to see yourself. I’ve seen so many kids faces just light up when they see dolls and characters that look like them. It means something,” Wilson said. “So seeing this project for the first time was like time for me to heal my inner child.”[ii]

When we do the small things we can do, we may never know the difference we make, but we can help keep that dream alive, Let us protect that dream like a precious family heirloom, until it is finally realized.

---

[i] https://www.gilderlehrman.org/sites/default/files/inline-pdfs/Abridged%20MLK%20Dream%20Speech_0.pdf

[ii] https://www.vice.com/en/article/5dgdwz/black-hair-in-video-games?

Who We Are and Who We Are Becoming

The poet Mary Oliver writes:

“’We are what we are, you
are what you are, love us if you can.’"

This is the core of what I want to share with you today. What would it be like to arrive at a place where you know what you are, and love it?

I’ve spent a lot of my life trying to be what I’m not, to address my weaknesses. As a child I got extra tutoring in areas where I was struggling, like hand eye coordination and spelling and memorization. I’m conflict averse, so I spent a lot of energy going into situations that I was afraid of and saying hard things that needed to be said.

But something magical happened when I turned 50- Magical and hard. I realized that my memory was definitely not going to get better, that as a Highly sensitive person I was never going to enjoy conflict management, that even in an area like yoga where I do pretty well, I was never going to get into some of the pretzels because I just wasn’t built the right way.

When I was a kid, I had a whole bunch of visions of who I might become and other visions I had when I was a young adult, when I was a seminary student, many of which I can see now are never going to come into being.

I am never going to become a ballet dancer

I am never goign to be a brain surgeon

I am never going to be the first woman president

I am never going to become a professional singer

I think this is part of what the poet
David Whyte means when he writes:

“Give up all the other worlds
except the one to which you belong.”

I did, in fact, become a minister. I used to think I wanted to be Rev. Lindi Ramsden- the fearless and tireless Unitarian Universalist minister who worked 80 hour wees to create the UU Justice ministry of CA, creating a model that we is used all around the country. I tried to be like Rev. Rob Eller-Isaacs or Rev. David Keyes who don’t take any nonsense from anyone, who act boldly fearless of the conflict that may follow. It was something of a relief, as I celebrated 20 years in the ministry, to realize that I would never be Lindi, or Rob or Dave, that I could only, in fact be me.

At first this letting go was just grief, an unexpected sadness for all those possibilities which, it was time to admit, were no longer possible.

But then I began to ask myself, what if I treated these imperfections not like bugs in a computer program, but like features? What if God was calling me not to be someone else, but exactly who I am? I began imagine that grief about all I would never be was like a cleansing rain, rinsing away the debris of who I never was, washing away who I used to be, and revealing the bones of who I really am.

Here’s one example- I am a slow reader. I sit down to read the 500 page book assigned for a class and 2 pages later I need a break. My whole life I thought this was due to lack of will, or laziness. My hero bell hooks said she made herself read a whole nonfiction book in the morning before she would let herself read fun fiction in the afternoon. I’m lucky if I get through a handful of non-fiction books a year. Recently I attended a workshop on “spiritual reading” that gave exactly this instruction: read just a few pages at a time, until you reached something that strikes you, that speaks to you, and then to just sit with that insight and let it soak in. It’s a great way to read poetry, or scripture, or anything really if you want to really touch layers of deeper meaning and integration. Oh! I realized with a shock of recognition- that’s the way I read naturally. In that moment I decided to stop being embarrassed by reading slowly, that’s just who I am.

Part of the journey in the second half of life is about owning who we have been, who we are not, and who we are right now. What things do I want to grieve and release- the things we wanted to be, hoped to be, felt we should be?

Are there things about yourself that maybe you were embarrassed about or sad about that you have come to peace with? Take a moment to consider  ...

A crucial element to the journey of discovery in the second half of life is asking: What do we really know about who we are right now? Consider all those thousands of things you know just from being alive in your mind and body all these years- from the foods that give you indigestion to how you respond in a conflict, to what has brought you joy. I often share Walter Burghardt's definition of contemplation “a long loving look at the real” and it applies here, in our contemplation of our own selves. We take our gaze off of all that we are not (and everyone, no matter how accomplished, has things that they are not – that’s part of being human) And invite your loving attention to who you actually are- right now. You don’t have to like the fact that cheese gives you health troubles, you may even need to grieve that loss, but can you gaze on your whole self, cheese problems and all, with love?

As Rev. Theresa Soto encouraged us: “The thing you must be is yourself.”

This kind of reflection and integration takes years, a lifetime even. Insight matters, but also intuition, preferences, feelings. In this kind of inventory it is less important what you scored on your SAT or your elementary school teacher told you about your bad spelling, and more important to notice, as the poet says:

“anything or anyone
that does not bring you alive
is too small for you.”

What brings you alive? What do you love, right now at this time in your life? Or simply prefer, if it’s too early in the morning to really get excited about things.

I Know that I love really dark chocolate,
I love reading sci-fi fantasy novels
I love when birds land at my feeder
I love lingering over my coffee in the morning.
I prefer having a regular schedule and getting enough sleep most nights.
I’ve recently developed a fondness for this particular shade of orange

How about you- what do you love at this moment in your life? Take a moment to consider ...

I used to think I wanted to be a brave warrior minister, going into the heart of conflict, but really what I love is peace. I love being part of peaceful congregations full of kind people who support each other and manifest love in the world. How lucky I am to get to do that. And if we have a conflict, I screw up my courage and use all my years of ministry experience with past conflicts to help us navigate it, but I know myself, I know that I love peace, and that’s a feature, not a bug.

Once we have begun this inventory, this loving reflection on who we are now, it enables us to move into the future in a choice-ful way.

A few years back a preacher at the UU minister’s institute from the Pentecostal tradition (Rev. James Forbes) reassured us that if God wants you to do something, God will provide a way. I’m an agnostic about things like that, but I decided to try it on. What a relief this idea has been. Last year I had a lot of theological questions about the hard things going on in our world. I realized that I had gotten to the end of where my theological understanding could take me- this new world we were in requires a new map, a new vision. I longed for a teacher, a mentor- I kept having dreams of going back to school. I had dreamed one day of getting a doctorate, but friends told me about the stacks and stacks of reading- 5 books a week in some programs. I decided that I can’t read fast enough for a doctorate, then probably the work God is calling me to do does not require a doctorate. It turns out that the kind of reading I do naturally is better suited contemplation than academics, so I signed up for a year-long program that has only 8 required reading books, and encourages deep contemplation, and already the insight I’ve gained from the course have helped me make sense of this life, and helped support me in my ministry to you.

By accepting who I am I was able to choose a path forward that feels like a good fit for me. The calling I feel matches precisely who I am and who I am becoming.

We Unitarian Universalists are a diverse group theologically. We are Theists and Atheists and Agnostics. So whether you believe in the providential hand of God active in your life, or the power of intention, or aren't sure what to believe, we UUs all affirm the inherent worth and dignity of every person. That’s an unconditional worth- based on who you really are, not who you should be or an ideal standard you might someday achieve.

At the start of this new year, I invite you into this reflection, this long loving look, at who you are, right now. I invite you to release what you are ready to release, to love the parts of yourself that feel unloved, to follow the sparks of aliveness that come from your true self, and to move choiceful-ly into this next part of your life with faith that each of us can best serve this hurting and beautiful world by becoming more and more who we are.

“’We are what we are, you
are what you are, love us if you can.’"

Waiting

 Waiting is hard. If you celebrated Christmas as a child, perhaps you remember the agonizing wait for Christmas morning. I remember having trouble going to sleep the night before and waking throughout the night wondering “is it here yet?”. When my son was little we used to have a pact about what was the earliest he could wake us up Christmas morning.

Now that we are adults our Christmas celebration is more subdued. We still honor our Christmas morning tradition, but it’s often light out by the time we get up, we make coffee, start the cinnamon rolls, and then begin the discussion about when we should wake our 20 year old son.

We made a decision a few years back, when my son had grown too old for the intense Christmas magic of early childhood, to scale back, to do less for the holidays. It was a relief to let go of many of the stressful expectations and preparations. The first year I tried doing less in the build up for Christmas I noticed that feeling of “getting ready,” of nervous anticipation was still there. I realized that the feeling came not from the ambitious deadlines I set myself, the stressful preparations of gifts and cooking and cleaning and preparing worship, but that there was a feeling waiting that was just there, even once the preparations were done. It occurred to me that maybe the waiting I felt is instinctive,. As they say in the fictional world of Game of Thrones: “Winter is coming”

I feel like this “waiting” aspect of advent resonates with the larger cultural moment we are in, waiting and waiting and, waiting for an end to the pandemic. Perhaps the advent tradition has some wisdom to offer about how to navigate this less joyful waiting we have been doing.

What is waiting anyway? Really, if you had to explain it to someone, how would you explain it? There are so many kinds of waiting, Jan Richardson listed many of them in her beautiful Blessing for Waiting. Clearly the quality of waiting for Christmas morning is quite different from, for example, waiting for test results.

Part of what makes waiting so uncomfortable is that it splits our attention. We can’t keep our attention fully in the present moment, because there is something in the future we need to pay attention to. If I’m waiting for cookies to come out of the oven, I need to pay attention to the timer or I might have burned cookies. If I’m waiting for a bus, I need to pay attention or I might miss it.

Waiting also implies that some part of what I’m waiting for is out of my hands. Once the cookies are in the oven there’s nothing I can do except wait. If we are waiting for a child to be born, if we are waiting for the return of the sun, we don’t control the timetable, So waiting is kind of a “yin” activity, a passive, receptive activity which is hard for us active busy folks.

But we do have choices we can make while we are waiting. Generally I deal with the discomfort of waiting by filling up my time with work. My husband uses the other technique, getting everything ready early and then setting everything down to wait. What’s your technique? How do you manage the waiting process?

If you are the kind of person who likes to fill waiting time with activity, you can choose to stay busy to help the time pass. Some folks prefer a more contemplative approach- if the cookies are important, you might wait in attentive stillness- you don’t want to get distracted with other tasks and miss the perfect moment to take them out. Part of the reason my husband is never late for anything is that he doesn’t fill the waiting time with distracting activity, and is always ready by the door with his shoes and coat on well before it is time to leave.

The advent tradition encourages us to use the waiting time to prepare our spirits for the coming of Christmas, to prepare our hearts for new life. Father Bob, from the Eastern Point Retreat House I often visit, sent this Advent reflection:

“What we may want to pay attention to on this Advent journey, is the interior movement of the Spirit within; that desires to bring us closer to God as we go about our “busyness.”. We may also want to pay attention to the interior movements of the Spirit that may surprise us with joy in the midst of the pain and suffering that we see all around us.” - Robert Vereecke, SJ

In the Catholic tradition, advent is a time of contemplative preparation, taking time to notice those “movements of the spirit.” Just as a baker who is carefully watching the cookies in their transformation is likely to notice when they are at precisely the right done-ness, if we take time to notice the interior movements of spirit, Advent will be a more spirit-centered season. This quiet approach to preparation is different from just “doing nothing” because of that intention, attention and awareness. As Father Bob says Advent is “the invitation to be “awake, vigilant, attentive” to God’s working in the world?”

Another way we can prepare is more active, more exterior. I know in my own life that when I am anxious, doing something physical like cooking or washing dishes can really help ground me. Preparing for Christmas by decorating and baking and connecting with friends and families will not make it come any faster, but it definitely increases the odds that there will be cookies, and lights, and a feeling of connection when it finally comes. This more embodied approach to preparation also benefits from our attention and intention. I suspect all of us have experienced a “too busy” advent season, in which the acts of preparation, the expectations of having certain things in place so overwhelm that we just end up agitated with burnt cookies or a burned out spirit. If we choose to engage in those active, external acts of preparation, we might do them with the clear intention of creating a holiday celebration more in line with our values, in line with what our hearts need this year.

But of course, part of what makes waiting hard is that there are no guarantees about what will happen. My friend found out this past Thanksgiving after her turkey had been in the oven 2 hours already that her oven was broken. The thanksgiving dinner they were waiting for turned out very different than they had anticipated.

Back in March of 2020 I imagined our lives would be constrained by Covid for just a few weeks. But we waited as the virus spread and spread. This summer I was sure we were through the other side, I celebrated this summer with hugs of relief; my friends and I were vaccinated and the Covid numbers were the lowest they had been and I wanted to celebrate the milestone. And then Delta, and now Omacron, and the heartbreaking losses we have felt. How all this will turn out no one knows. It’s so much harder to wait when you don’t know how much longer the wait will be, or even what you are waiting for.

Maybe there are better times ahead, maybe worse, probably some of each. This is called a liminal” or “interstitial” place- an in-between place like being in the waiting room at the hospital, the bus stop as the scheduled time passes and there is no bus in sight.

For Christians observing advent, the tradition focuses on the coming of the savior foretold in the books of the prophets. One of the readings in the lectionary this past week was from the book of Isiah,

The desert and the parched land will exult;
the steppe will rejoice and bloom.
They will bloom with abundant flowers,
and rejoice with joyful song. …

Strengthen the hands that are feeble,
make firm the knees that are weak,
Say to those whose hearts are frightened:
Be strong, fear not! …

Streams will burst forth in the desert,
and rivers in the steppe.
The burning sands will become pools,
and the thirsty ground, springs of water;
sorrow and mourning will flee. [from I Is 35]

Each day in advent, the lectionary is full of scripture reminding Christians about the promise that is fulfilled on Christmas.

This season offers a promise for all of us, Christian or not, in the Nativity story. Mary the pregnant mother waiting for new life. Telling the story of that miraculous birth reminds us that life finds a way. That even in these discouraging times, life finds a way, and new life emerges. Mary and Joseph set out to Bethlehem as the gospel of Luke says “being great with child” or the more modern translations “soon to give birth.” Advent is a gestational time, waiting for something new to be born. Even now expectant parents are getting ready to welcome new life into the world, new, miraculous, utterly unique persons, babies of untold potential.

Waiting for even the most planned for, most anticipated baby has complexity to it. Even if everything goes perfectly, at the end of the process the new parents’ life will be changed forever as they welcome a new being into the world. Even if everything goes exactly according to plan, there will be pain and hard work and sleepless nights.

And we all know, and try not to think too hard about, that it doesn’t always go perfectly, some pregnancies end in loss and sadness. But life itself continues, entering the world again and again. Even in this time of loss and grief and uncertainty, new life makes its way into the world every day.

There’s a lot we can’t control, so much that is out of our hands, but we do have choices about how we use this time. Think about it- advent takes a whole month, and depending on how fast kids unwrap the presents, the Christmas morning present ritual kids pine for can be over in 15 minutes. How can we best inhabit this in-between-time? How can we use this liminal time to prepare ourselves for whatever is coming? Whether that is quieting ourselves so we can watch those subtle inner movements of the spirit, or doing the embodied work of putting our values in action, of preparing the things that we want to have ready when the future finally arrives?

Consider that all this time we have been “waiting to go back to church” we have never stopped going to church, and in fact we have created something new we could never have imagined. Whatever the future may hold, we now have the tools to gather in a meaningful way even if we can’t be in the same space. We have new friends, and all the relationships we have strengthened during this time. We have losses too, and part of the preparation for whatever is coming is that we must grieve those losses, so that when good times come again, our hearts are ready.

What does your heart need in this time of waiting- this month of advent as the nights grow longer and longer and we wait for the promised light to return, as we wait for the Christmas miracle of birth? What does your heart need in this longer time of waiting-- waiting for Covid to pass, waiting for heaviness of grief and loss to pass, waiting for the promise of new life to be fulfilled?

Last year as I was decorating for Christmas I pulled out literally every decoration I had and put them up until our dining room looked like a shop window, and any remaining decorations I donated to families who needed a little Christmas. This year as I was decorating for Christmas, I left whole tubs of the decorations in the closet. A sprig or 2 of holly from my garden on a plane wreath felt uniquely right to honor this unique year. What feels just right to you as you prepare your home, your hearts your spirits? What old or new rituals or practices would you like to include?

My spiritual director, Janet Corso, says that Advent is “a time of deepening interiority, awaiting birth - a time of active waiting, simplicity, nesting, preparing, quiet expectation, surrendering in preparation for receiving.” Together we wait, and prepare, open to new life in all its forms. Trusting in the promise of life always giving birth to life.

 

 

Why Dreidels?

 Each year as we approach the winter holiday season, Unitarian Universalists have their own ritual, which is asking ourselves “What do we celebrate and why do we celebrate it?” How do we authentically live out our common UU tradition, and our diversity of heritage and belief? Over many years of this annual reflection, we in the Athens congregation came to the conclusion that we wanted to find a way to honor Hanukkah for a few reasons.

First, because members of our congregation are Jewish, and asked us to. The simple act of lighting a menorah and telling a story in our shared worship has served as a reminder that who we are in this congregation and who we are as UUs includes those of us who are Jewish.

One year as we discussed this question, Marcia asked us specifically to honor Hanukkah in our morning worship, despite the fact that usually the Hanukkah candles are only lit at night, because one of her own neighbors had said he didn’t think anyone Jewish lived in the valley, where the Athens congregation is located. So we honor Hanukkah to proudly embody our religious diversity here in our congregations and in our larger communities.

We remember Hanukkah to remind ourselves of the relationship of UU and Judaism.  In 1980 a group called Unitarian Universalists for Jewish Awareness (UUJA)  was founded, committed to supporting Unitarian Universalist Jewish multi-religiosity. They offer resources to: “those who have come to Unitarian Universalism from Judaism” UUs like Rev. Joanna Lubkin who offered our Hanukkah blessing this morning, and Rev. Lynn Ungar whose beautiful poetry inspired us today and on many other occasions, who are living out what it means to be both UU and Jewish.[i] Our UU community is committed to supporting “interfaith/multi-religious individuals and families.” I know that many of you have shared with us that you were raised in another tradition, be it Jewish or Catholic, Buddhist, Methodist or Hindu. Some of us choose to leave behind those other traditions, but some of us authentically feel those formative traditions are still part of who we are. We strive to make our UU communities a place where such “multireligiousity” can be supported and explored.

It is because we are a multireligious community that we find ourselves asking year after year “what do we celebrate and why do we celebrate it?” A touchstone phrase I find helpful in this inquiry is “not about us without us.” Not being Jewish myself, as I prepared this service, I went to visit the UUJA site, and I checked in again with our Jewish members and friends, and asked if they had any concerns, preferences, or guidance they were willing to offer for this service today. Marcia wrote back and offered this reminder: “Chanukah is so not an important holiday. It is barely celebrated in Israel. Of course, there is the lighting of the menorah. Chanukah is only celebrated as it is in this country because of its proximity to Christmas. Jewish kids need something special this time of year. It is almost like a secular Jewish tradition, instead of a real Jewish holiday.”

Jeff offered this reflection: “The story of Hanukah appears in the Book of Maccabees, which is not in the Old Testament. Nor the New Testament. It's in the apocrypha. This was considered a minor holiday, and not really the big deal that modern times have made it out to be. It was illegal to be Jewish during the reign of the Greeks in Israel. So when folks gathered to study the Torah, they would have someone on lookout and when the cops came by, he would warn the scholars. They would put their Torah away, and take out the dreidel… The scholars would act like they were gambling -- small change ("gelt"), nuts, anything one could use as "chips". That is why gifts are given for the eight days. But these gifts are supposed to be (if we were following the tradition) something small that can be gambled - coins, nuts, M&Ms, etc. Giving a video game console is NOT in the spirit of Hanukah (or some other expensive gift) The idea of giving expensive gifts, I believe, was co-opted by Christians, to "include" Jews in the Christmas holiday.”

Indeed, many of my Jewish friends and family over the years have expressed frustration with the way their Christian and UU neighbors conflate Hanukkah and Christmas as if they are equivalent, and our society promotes that idea in many subtle and not so subtle ways. So one reason we mark Hanukkah today is to promote religious literacy, to give us a slightly deeper understanding of the holiday, including misunderstandings about it. It’s a reminder, for those of us who are not Jewish, to be respectful about what this season means to those of us who are Jewish. So, for example, making a big deal out of Hanukkah if you are not Jewish can be a micro-aggression, since traditionally it is a minor holiday. If we are not Jewish, we de-center ourselves, let our Jewish friends and neighbors take the lead, and respect their wishes. If your Jewish friends have a different take on the holiday, listen to that too. It’s not about getting it “right” and doing it one way forever, it’s about relationship. Jewish UUs have all kinds of ideas and feelings about this holiday, and about their relationship of Judaism and UU, So as part of our UU practice we listen with open minds and hearts, and learn, and grow.

Marcia sent me an article by Rabbi David Golinkin which told me something surprising about the dreidel tradition:

“The dreidel game originally had nothing to do with Hanukkah; it has been played by various people in various languages for many centuries.
In England and Ireland there is a game called totum or teetotum that is especially popular at Christmastime. In English, this game is first mentioned as “totum” ca. 1500-1520. The name comes from the Latin “totum,” which means “all.” By 1720, the game was called T- totum or teetotum, and by 1801 the four letters already represented four words in English: T = Take all; H = Half; P = Put down; and N = Nothing.
Our Eastern European game of dreidel (including the letters nun, gimmel, hey, shin) is directly based on the German equivalent of the totum game... In German, the spinning top was called a “torrel” or “trundl,” and in Yiddish it was called a “dreidel,” …
Thus the dreidel game represents an irony of Jewish history. In order to celebrate the holiday of Hanukkah, which celebrates our victory over cultural assimilation, we play the dreidel game, which is an excellent example of cultural assimilation!”[ii]

So this year for us the dreidel can be a symbol of that cultural mixing that happens whenever we live in community together, and that tension of loyalty to our heritage and that natural sharing and growing that happens in community.

Finally, we honor Hanukkah because Judaism is one of the sources of wisdom for our UU faith. Without appropriating the holiday if we are not Jewish, we can still see the important religious values and symbols in the story of this holiday. The holiday, and the traditions and stories which surround it can have many meanings, but this year I am drawn to the importance of Hanukkah as a story of religious freedom. Of the courage it takes to practice your own faith when you are a minority, when you are encountering oppression. The story of Hanukkah reminds us to be grateful that we are able to practice our UU faith openly today, and reminds us of our commitment to fight for religious freedom for everyone so that our children and their children can practice their faith. As John Sigismund, the Unitarian King of Transylvania, wrote in his edict of tolerance back in 1586, if people are not free to practice their own faith “no one shall compel them for their souls would not be satisfied”… “ for faith is the gift of God, this comes from hearing, which hearing is by the word of God.” — Edict of Torda

Today I want to encourage those of us who have always been able to worship freely, have always had the freedom to claim our religious identity and heritage to notice that privilege, and imagine what it would be like to live without it. There are many interpretations and stories about the origin of the dreidel, but this year I am resonating with that 19th-century rabbinic story “that Jews played with the dreidel in order to fool the Greeks if they were caught studying Torah, which had been outlawed”[iii].

Let the dreidel from your goodie bag be a touchstone for these ideas- for religious freedom, for respect and gratitude for the ancient faith tradition that is Judaism, for the way our traditions transform us and are transformed by us in community, and (for those of us who are not Jewish) for navigating how we respectfully engage with one another’s traditions. To quote Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks, Jewish philosopher and theologian “We need, in the 21st century, a global Chanukah: a festival of freedom for all the world’s faiths. For though my faith is not yours and your faith is not mine, if we are each free to light our own flame, together we can banish some of the darkness of the world.”[iv]


Notes:

Even the spelling of  "Hanukah" is different from source to source, since it is a transliteration of a Hebrew word. I have included here whatever original spelling was used in my source material. 

 [i] Another moving testimony about being multi faith is here: https://www.uuworld.org/articles/orthodox-jewish-wisdom-religious-liberals

[ii] "The Surprising Origin of the Dreidel The well-known Hanukkah symbol has Christmastime roots."
By Rabbi David Golinkin https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-origin-of-the-dreidel/

[iii] https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/the-origin-of-the-dreidel/

[iv] https://rabbisacks.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/CandC-Chanukah-5.pdf
"Why Chanukah is the Perfect Festival for Religious Freedom", The Washington Post
(7 December 2015).