Author: Doug Slagle

(c) Rev. Doug Slagle, Minister to the Gathering at Northern Hills, All Rights Reserved

I made a vow many years ago not to devote Sunday services to celebrate Mother’s or Father’s Day.  There are simply too many good people who are not parents.  But, in keeping with my message topic for today on the eight pillars of joy, one of which is humor, I offer these quotes on motherhood and life from the late, great humorist Erma Bombeck.

According to Erma, the only reason most busy moms take up jogging is so that they can hear heavy breathing again.

Her theory on housework is, if the item doesn’t multiply, smell, catch fire, or block the refrigerator door, let it be. No one else cares. Why should you?

We should always seize the moment by remembering all those women on the ‘Titanic’ who waved off the dessert cart.

Know the difference between success and fame.  Success is Mother Teresa.  Fame is Madonna.

I wonder why when our babies cutely giggle, they belong to daddy, but when they have a sagging diaper that smells like a landfill, “They want their mommy.”

For years I suggested to my husband that we take separate vacations.  But when we did, the kids kept finding us.

Always spend at least one Mother’s Day with your potential Mother-in-Law.  If your potential husband gives his mom a gift certificate for a flu shot, dump him.

I don’t think women outlive men.  It only seems longer to women.

When your mother asks, ‘Do you want a piece of advice?’ it is a mere formality. It doesn’t matter if you answer yes or no. You’re going to get it anyway.

My message theme this month has been “Our search for well-being” and I’ve used the Book of Joy, by the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, as a primary resource for three messages.  The first was on the nature of joy.  Last week’s was on obstacles to joy and today’s message topic will be on the eight pillars of joy. 

One of those pillars, or keys to lasting contentment, is to encourage in ourselves a strong sense of humor.    Echoing Erma Bombeck’s statement that “she who laughs…..lasts”, the Book of Joy tells us that humor is a primary way to diffuse sadness.  It’s a gift we share with others just as it is a gift to our attitudes.  A healthy sense of humor, a playful or slightly goofy demeanor do not mean we cruelly mock others.  Humor helps create joy by gently teasing one another or by pointing out the amusing ironies of life – much like Erma Bombeck did.

Both the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu modeled that attitude by having fun with each other and, as they say in the book, always smiling.  Those who smile a lot give evidence of their inner peace and joy.  Their smiles and laughter are contagious.  Everyone enjoys being around an upbeat, funny and joyful person.

I quoted Erma Bombeck as an introduction to my message in hopes  it initiates some humor and joy.  But as with many things, any joy created from a few funny lines will be temporary.  We need, as the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu say, ways to build not just occasional happiness, but ways to build an enduring sense of well-being.  As the book says, such a demeanor is one that is not shaken in times of trouble.  Joyful people remain peaceful no matter their circumstances. 

After defining what they mean by joy, which Is a perpetual state of mind and not mere happiness – which can come and go, and after sharing the several obstacles to joy, the two men share in the final portion of the book the 8 pillars, or ways to build, lasting joy.  I will list list them in what I believe is their order of importance.

The root of all forms of suffering, I believe, is too much preoccupation with the self.  Most religions and forms of spirituality agree.   At some point in life, people acquire the misguided belief that the only way to be happy is to look out for number one.  Life is viewed through a prism of “me” – what I need, what I want, what affects me for good or bad.  The cure for that condition, according to the Book of Joy, is to think less of the self and more about others.  What do others need, what do they want, what affects them for good or bad?  That “others oriented” thinking leads directly to one of the 8 pillars of joy – humility.

An ego driven attitude causes separation between people, the Book of Joy says.  Self-centered people think their needs or thoughts are superior to others.  Life becomes a competition to get what each person wants.  By adopting humility in our hearts and minds, we no longer feel the need to compete or feel superior.  We are content with what we have and who we are.  Engaging with one another equally is how humble people live.

Such people derive their joy from seeing other people are content.  They praise others more than they seek recognition for themselves.  And numerous studies show such humility is good for relationships.  Couples that thrive are ones where the partners regularly affirm the other.

The Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu also encourage a sense of perspective for building contentment.  One should figuratively look at the forest, and not the tree – they say.  Too often, we focus on one event that causes us to suffer, without seeing the bigger picture – that a time of pain is a minor thing in the totality of our lives and that it is only one small bit of hurt in a world awash with terrible suffering.  A sense of perspective is a pillar of joy that I believe follows directly from humility.

I love Desmond Tutu’s praise for those who remain positive and not cynical.  He shared the example of how people deal with a car salesman.  Someone without perspective sees a car salesman as an enemy.  The negotiation will be tough and one must fight to win. If we humble ourselves to the point where we have a broader perspective, we will empathize with the needs of the salesman.  We will see the potential loss of some money as a minor thing compared to remaining peaceful and content.  Our needs are not the primary factor for us.

With a better sense of perspective, we gain an attitude of acceptance – one of the other 8 pillars of joy.  When we learn to accept the flow of life as something natural and not to be fought, we enhance our sense of well-being.  Perspective allows us to recognize the things that we can change, and those we cannot.  Acceptance then asks us to let go of things over which we have no control – whether a storm will ravage our homes, or someone will hurt us for no reason.  This attitude is much like drifting down a river.  We cannot control when placid times occur nor when challenging rapids happen.  We might try to steer ourselves toward calmer waters but overall, life is something we learn to take as it comes – embracing change and challenges as good things – ones that help us grow and learn.

Emerging from acceptance comes another means to acquire contentment.  We must learn to quickly and easily forgive.  If we accept that everybody suffers, we’ll recognize that we are all fragile and flawed creatures.  Others will inevitably offend me from time to time.   And I will inevitably offend others.  In the same way that I hope for mercy when I cause hurt, I must be willing to offer the same.  Such is the Golden Rule at work. 

Forgiveness will also come when I understand why I suffer.  It’s my mind that causes me to feel wounded by thoughts that I’ve been hurt, my sense of self has been belittled or, I’m entitled to be angry when someone criticizes me.  Those thoughts are what cause me to suffer far more than the original offense.  When I let go of those thoughts by forgiving the offender, I help myself.  Anger is a poison to MY soul.  Learning to forgive is the cure.

Gratitude and generosity are two additional pillars to joy.  I believe they are closely linked.  If we are not grateful, I don’t think we can be truly generous.  When we find some sense of humility, we recognize all that we have in life.  We become aware of the gift of life, of our relative good health, of the blessing that family, friends, shelter and food are.

In response, we will then instinctively want to pay forward some of our abundance by giving away time, treasure and talent.  Generosity is also a logical outcome of humility.  When we give, we demonstrate that our focus is not on ourselves, but on the well-being of others.  In the process, we find satisfaction from giving and prove numerous studies that indicate money can indeed buy happiness – when we give it away to help others.

The capstone to all of the 8 pillars of joy is compassion.  It is the product resulting from each pillar.  Indeed, according to the Book of Joy we will never be content unless our default way of thinking, speaking and acting is wrapped in compassion.  Every interaction we have with others – no matter the situation – ought to be with a desire for empathy and compassion.  Suffering is a fact of life and it is our purpose both to feel sympathy for the hurting and then act on ways to comfort and help them.

There have been, as the Dalai Lama notes, thousands of books written about how to find happiness.  It is the life motivator for every person.  But the irony presented by the Book of Joy is that well-being does not come  by seeking happiness for oneself.  It comes by seeking it for others.  When we do that, we strangely benefit.  That fact speaks to our human nature.  Despite many cultural prompts that tell us to be selfish, something deep inside our DNA directs us to help and soothe someone else.  And doing so fills us with satisfaction.  That is not a logical result from self-sacrifice but it is true.  We are hard-wired to be most content when we think of others.

Such a truth is found in people of history we identify as being most at peace with life and with other people.  Such are people known for their compassion and humility – people of history like the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, Martin Luther King, Jr., Jesus, Anne Frank, Mohammad, Mother Teresa, the Buddha, Clara Barton, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, St. Francis and others.

Reality tells us there are countless persons just like them – some who are a part of this congregation – people whose very presence is profoundly peaceful and compassionate.  Such are winsome people to whom others are naturally drawn and want to be like. 

A spirituality for our lives and, indeed, for our eternities, is to be a person of genuine and lasting joy.  As the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu demonstrate, people of joy build legacies of kindness.  They do compassionate things in small ways – all the time.  A smile here, a gesture there, an anonymous gift, a random act of kindness, a selfless attitude – these are the building blocks of a life that has impact.  At a time when it seems the happiest person is someone who brags the most, surrounds himself with gold and luxury, and thinks only of how wonderful he is, lessons from the Book of Joy emphatically say otherwise.

Today, on Mother’s Day and with my message on what creates true joy, I think of my mom as perhaps you do too.  My mom  was and is far from perfect.  A simple woman who is now slowly moving toward death in an Alzheimer’s facility, my mom nevertheless has given a lot in her life.  Daughter, wife, mother, long-time volunteer at Hospice of Cincinnati, compassionate – and very content – resident in a dementia home, her life was and is defined by how she has cared for others and not just herself.  That’s an example set by many moms, dads and good friends, and one I aspire to copy.

       I thank you for listening.

 

(c) Doug Slagle, Minister to the Gathering at Northern Hills, All Rights Reserved

I have spoken before about my admiration for Victor Frankl, the holocaust survivor and author of the book Man’s Search for Meaning.  His theory for how to find inner peace is to discover one’s purpose for living.  We all can have a life purpose, Frankl believes, but it must be found and then developed.

Frankl relates his experiences in a Nazi concentration camp where it goes without saying that he and millions of others suffered horrible conditions.  As a student of Sigmund Freud, Frankl was forced to leave behind his greatest achievement in life, an almost finished book on logotherapy which is his theory that we are most fulfilled through finding life meaning.

Frankl realized in the concentration camp, however, that his suffering gave him the perfect opportunity to test his logotherapy theory.  In the midst of relentless hardship, could he find some meaning for his condition and thereby gain inner peace?  Were there others that did the same?

Frankl concluded that by focusing on things greater than himself, and not on his misery, he was able to find peace, compassion and even strength.  For him, that meant focusing on two things that gave him meaning.  First, he endeavored to reflect repeatedly on the great love of his life – his wife who had already been killed.  His reflections were not on her loss, but on the love and mystical connection he had with her.  He was able to sense her presence and feel as if he could hold her hand and speak to her.  The joy he felt in focusing on her – and the meaning love for her gave him – helped him greatly.

Frankl did the same with his life work on logotherapy.  He spent hours recalling all of the research he had done and the conclusions he’d made.  He endlessly pondered those and arrived at new ideas such that he was able to mentally continue his work. 

By focusing on his wife and his work, and the meaning that each gave him, this enabled Frankl to survive and even find some joy.  As he wrote in his book about the concentration camp, “People forget that often it is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself.”  Meaning, he believed, comes when we transcend ourselves to instead think about others.

Frankl noted that it was not Nazi against Jew, but rather simply people against people.  He saw guards exhibit great compassion toward the Jewish captives just as he witnessed brutality by some Jews toward fellow inmates.  Those who were at peace, who defined the best in humanity, were those who helped others.  They were kind, shared their meagre food rations and lifted up the spirits of others.  Such people found satisfaction not in feeling sorry for themselves, but in love and compassion for fellow inmates and guards.

And that simple concept is the basic premise of the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu in their Book of Joy.   Compassion for others is the foundation for overcoming obstacles to joy – which is my topic for today.  Indeed, that is the stated purpose for their discussion and book – to offer specific ways people can overcome suffering, fear, anger or envy that prevents a deep contentment with life no matter one’s circumstances – a state of mind they call “joy”.

Fittingly, the Dalai Lama concluded the discussion about obstacles to joy by jokingly saying he hopes to go to hell instead of heaven.  In hell, he said, he will still be content because there are people whom he can help!   That comment highlights what the book tells us is the key to finding joy.  Life is not about us and our needs.  We were not born, we are not the products of millions of years of evolutionary development, just to seek pleasure and suck up resources.  We live for a purpose to help others and help make the world better because we lived.  We must discover our answer to the single most common spiritual question people ask: why am I here? 

How we answer that question will not only guide us in how we live, it will determine our quality of life.  As both the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu agree, life is about loving others at least as much as we love ourselves.  It all boils down to the Golden Rule shared by every world religion.  The meaning of life, and the way to overcome obstacles to joy, is to think less of self and more about the other.

That is a simple prescription, but it is not simple to achieve.  Thinking less of self and more about the other, according to the Book of Joy, is an attitude and way of living that develops slowly and with dedicated intention.  We can’t expect to immediately and perfectly be compassionate in all we do.  We must strengthen our compassion muscles, so to speak, by continually reminding ourselves – and meditating – to step away from thoughts and emotions about the self.

For every obstacle to joy that the two men discuss, the bottom line solution is always the same: find empathy for others.  When we are anxious or stressed, that is almost always caused by fears for personal well-being.  But the cure to those fears is to instead think of others – how they suffer and the compassion one feels for them.  When our boss is too demanding, our partner has a few imperfections, someone pulls out in front of us, or we feel overwhelmed by the busy-ness of life, we can step away from the anxiety those circumstances cause by cognitively reframing our thinking.  We might compassionately think: “My boss has life challenges too and I must think of ways to help her.”  “My partner is not perfect because of past hurts he experienced.  I must love him all the more.”  “The person who cut me off in traffic is probably rushing to the hospital or a similar emergency.  I must think compassionately toward him.”  The irony of stress is that it leads us to think and worry about ourselves – which leads to even more anxiety.  We can step out of that vicious cycle by thinking of others.

The same is true when we are angry.  We need to ask ourselves, why are we so upset?  In almost every case it is because we feel offended or challenged.  To feel hurt by another is a natural response, but the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu ask us to turn our anger into compassion for the one who hurt us.  As it is with stress, anger is a poison to our minds and bodies.  Anger causes more anger.  Why would we not want to feel a positive emotion instead? 

Dispelling anger was the amazing example set by Desmond Tutu and black South Africans when they held reconciliation councils after the end of apartheid.  Tutu asked white oppressors to publicly and truthfully confess the full extent of their past hateful actions.  By doing so, he helped initiate feelings of forgiveness toward the whites that allowed black people to move past their anger – feelings that could not continue if they hoped to heal.  Honest confession and contrition by some of the whites allowed them to unburden themselves and develop love and respect for blacks.  Both groups purposefully sacrificed their needs for the sake of reconciliation and peace.

We can do the same with jealousy and envy.  Such feelings are again caused by selfish desires and a feeling we deserve what others have.  It is a difficult task to undertake, but the antidote for envy is to develop joy for another’s well-being.  When someone drives by in a beautiful new car, the answer to jealousy is to instead be happy for what the other person does have.

Sadness is another obstacle to joy.  Much like suffering is the pathway to growth, sadness is an emotion that directly leads to compassion.  “We don’t really get close to others if our relationship is made up of unending hunky-dory-ness,” Desmond Tutu says.  “It is sadness and grief that knit us together.” 

This is best exemplified at funerals.  We find in shared grief with others an intimacy that is comforting.  We also find, I believe, greater appreciation for the one who was lost.  That is why I encourage people not to be afraid of mourning – if it is focused on remembering the deceased individual and the blessings they gave.  That is what Victor Frankl did.  He could have sunk into despair over his wife’s horrible death, but he instead continually meditated on his abiding love for her.

The greatest fear and cause of suffering most people have, according to the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, is the fear of illness and death.  I’ve been sadly honored to officiate at many funerals.   One was for a former member of the Gathering, Mary Jo Campbell, who also attended here and whose funeral was held in this sanctuary.  She suffered from Type I diabetes.  She’d already had a kidney transplant but that was failing and she was left with no options for getting better.  In the months before she died, she began talking with me about death and remembering the good things in her life.  She had once been a minister so she and I formed a close friendship. 

Mary Jo faced death matter of factly.  “It’s my time,” she told me.  “I’ve had a really good life.”   Several months before she passed, she performed the marriage ceremony for her son and his new wife.  She asked me to attend so a current minister could legally sign the marriage certificate.

A month before she died, the couple gave birth to Mary Jo’s first grandchild.  She was once again thrilled.  She was failing quickly but she told me one day that performing the marriage ceremony and meeting her first grandchild reinforced the satisfaction she felt about life.  She spent years joyfully serving and thinking of others – and she died doing the same.

Unfortunately, we think the pathway to joy is to pursue pleasure and thus eliminate pain.  But the Book of Joy tells us it is paradoxically the opposite.   Contentment comes by looking past our pain.  Suffering is all in the mind.  It’s we who tell ourselves “poor me” or “he makes me so angry”, or “why can’t I have a bigger house and take exciting vacations?”  That whining voice in the head only makes one hurt even more.  We must tell that voice to shut up and replace it with one emanating from our better selves – “I’m blessed to have all that I do.”  “I want to help those who suffer.”  “I love my partner and friends – despite their few flaws.”  “I forgive those who have deeply hurt me.  I will hope the best for them.”  Let us fill our hearts and minds with compassion and love.  By doing so, we will create an attitude of peace and joy toward life, and toward the entire one human family.

(c) Doug Slagle, Minister to the Gathering at Northern Hills, All Rights Reserved

 

 

Eight months after the 2011 tsunami that devastated Japan and killed over ten-thousand people, the Dalai Lama travelled to one of the most ravaged towns.  He visited one temple that had miraculously been spared ruin.  Hundreds of people gathered to see him.  He was greeted at the Temple gates by three children who were orphaned by the disaster.  Lined up in the Temple were hundreds of boxes of victim’s cremation ashes.  The town had brought them to be blessed by the Dalai Lama.

When he personally greeted those in the assembled crowd, many of them sobbed uncontrollably.  “Bless these victims, bless us” they cried.  The Dalai Lama was deeply moved.  All around him was human tragedy on a massive scale.  As he often does, he held the faces of many in his hands while he looked into their eyes.  “Please,” he asked, “help everyone else and work hard.  That is the best offering you can make to the dead.”  As he turned to walk back to the altar, tears were in his eyes.

This great man of peace and wisdom was himself struggling with grief.  It is likely he related to their pain.  At age 23, only days after ascending to be spiritual and civil leader of six-million Tibetans, the Dalai Lama was forced into exile to stop the killing of his people by mainland Chinese invaders.  He left behind close friends and even his small dog – one he cherished.  Two days later, he heard they had all been killed.  In the fifty-nine years since, he’s never been able to return to his beloved Tibet.

In times of suffering, the Japanese often turn to one of their most revered poets – Issa – who lived and wrote in the 18th century.  Issa’s life story is almost mythic in the extent of suffering.  His mother died when he was two.  Later in life, his first son, a daughter and then his father all died in a typhoid epidemic.  Still later, his one-year old daughter died, he became partially paralyzed and then his wife died in childbirth.  He remarried but his house was destroyed in a fire.  That wife soon became pregnant and all signs pointed to a healthy birth – but Issa died a month before his last child was born.

Issa’s most famous haiku poems compare life to droplets of dew.  Appearing as sparkling jewels that dot a morning landscape, dew drops nevertheless quickly vanish with a rising sun.  Life is like that, he implies.  There are great bursts of beauty and happiness, but then all is over.  We disappear into vapor.  In a poem entitled “On the Death of a Child”, Issa wrote, “Dew Evaporates, And all our world is dew…so dear, so fresh, so fleeting.” 

Issa captured a common Japanese mindset toward pain.  Outwardly stoic, many Japanese bottle up their grief until it is too much and they pour it out.  Instead of finding ways to understand and be at peace with what befalls them, the Japanese suffer like all people.  We perceive tragedies all around us, we realize we are not immune, and we spend life working to avoid hurt or putting bandaids on our fears.  In the end, we die without ever understanding what brings lasting joy.

As many of you know, Buddhism identifies four noble truths which are its foundational beliefs and designed to address the pattern of human existence.  The first of Buddhist noble truths is that tragedy is a fact of life.  Whether it be physical or emotional injury from acts of nature, or the hurt caused by other people, nobody can escape the unfortunate circumstances of life.  They happen to everyone and we are fools if we think otherwise.

The second noble truth is that humans suffer because, in an effort to avoid the inevitability of tragedy, they put their trust in things that do not last.  We desire houses that will protect us or make us happy because they are large and well decorated.  We seek foods that please our palates and offer momentary pleasure.  We do the same with alcohol, drugs, cars, clothing, cell phones and romantic relationships.  We somehow think we can acquire happiness and thus inoculate ourselves from the inevitability of the first noble truth. 

But this second noble truth is what causes us to truly suffer.  It’s our minds and not our circumstances that makes us feel sad, anxious or fearful.  Consuming a good meal or glass of wine may grant us momentary happiness, but their pleasurable effects are fleeting.  The same with a big house, expensive car or sex.  As soon as we get it, we usually want something better or we find the toll such things cause in terms of anxiety – we have to maintain a house and worry about whether it will be broken into, cars break down and need repair, they get scratches and are even destroyed.  We eat food, have a drink or engage in sex – the pleasures of life – but we soon want more only to find what we once desired brings us instead frustration, worry and more desire.  We want, we get, but then we want even more.  We embark on an endless cycle of pursuing happiness because we never discover the keys to satisfaction with life itself.

Our desire for things that don’t last is thus the cause of most suffering, Buddhists believe.   The third noble truth of Buddhism, however, offers us those keys to finding contentment. We can eliminate our desires by meditating on and practicing what is permanent and universally good – peace, compassion and generosity.  This third truth logically follows from the first two.  Most importantly, it is the way to find lasting, soul deep satisfaction.  Pleasing our physical selves is the way to instant gratification – but long term misery.  Pleasing our essential humanity, our inner selves, offers us the possibility of infinite joy.

And that concept, finding lasting joy, is the theme for this message and my next two.  As I’ve announced over the past month, I’ll use as the touchstone for these messages The Book of Joy by the Dalai Lama and Archbishop Desmond Tutu.  If you have not read the book, that’s perfectly fine.  I hope there will be insights you gain and thoughts you can share.  If you did read the book, I trust you will offer your own interpretation of its primary points.

While it might seem odd that a Buddhist monk and a Christian Archbishop could agree on something as significant as lasting joy, they do.  And that speaks to the broad agreements most forms of spirituality have.  It also speaks to our Unitarian Universalist belief that people take different paths to find ultimate Truth – be that nirvana, Allah, Yahweh, Christ, Brahmin, the unifying scientific theory of the universe, or whatever.  Many paths, as we say, all heading toward the same One goal.

What I related earlier about the beliefs of Buddhism are remarkably similar to those of Christianity and, for that matter, to Judaism and Islam.  Dysfunction in the world, these religions believe, comes from selfishness.  Our inclinations often lead us to think only of our wants.  But when we focus on that which is greater than ourselves – on the essentials of good in the world like love, compassion, peace and gratitude – we approach the ultimate Truth we all seek.  For Christians, that is understanding the heart of God and the example of Jesus; for Buddhists its nirvana, for Pantheists and Pagans, it’s oneness with all creation.

As Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama relate in their book, focusing on things that last is how we can find lasting joy.  It’s not found in the material things of this world but in the mystical satisfaction of letting go of self and experiencing communion with other people, with nature, and with a deep love for all.

In the first section of the Book of Joy, one that is labeled “the Nature of Joy”, Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama quickly find common ground about the definition of joy.  It’s not being happy they agree, which is fleeting.  Joy is a kind of contentment, satisfaction and peaceful way of life that exists whether we are happy or in pain.  It’s an overarching demeanor that continually defines how we talk and act.  Desmond Tutu compared it to the kind of deep joy mothers often find after childbirth.  Emerging from a cloud of suffering comes a deep wellspring of love for the newborn and satisfaction in nurture and compassion for the child.  In some ironic way, suffering is the springboard to real joy – not the momentary happiness at first seeing and holding the infant, but in the contented moments of caring for and serving another human being.  If we think about it, raising a child is one of the great sacrifices a human makes.  Parents discover lasting treasure in the act of pouring their lives into another.  Others discover it in similar ways through serving family, friend or stranger.

The Dalai Lama agreed with the Archbishop on that essential truth.  Throughout life we experience pain, but real joy comes in making sense of it through compassion, service and letting go of self.  The Dalai Lama dismissed the trials of his own life because, he said, he realized people around the world hurt too.  Such knowledge that others are in pain is the means by which we move past it.  We become united with all human pain.  Our hearts open wide with compassion for others.  We are driven to love, serve and give.  No longer is life about me, my small pains and the pitiful plans I lay to prevent them.  Life is about the well-being of all humanity.  It’s about you, my love for you, and the ways you hurt that I might help alleviate.  Life is about meeting the purpose for which I was born – to make the world better because I exist.  And when I do that, as the Archbishop says, God smiles. 

       We should ponder that a moment.  Whatever we believe God to be, she smiles at our goodness and compassion toward others. And we smile too.  Joy is found in that simple but profound experience.

This universal truth about the sacrificial pathway to joy does not mean, both men agree, on total self-denial.  We must, the Dalai Lama says, take care of ourselves without doing so selfishly.  Compassion, he relates, will not fill his stomach.  But when we do eat, we must do so without attachment and selfish desire.  Christians believe much the same.  We are incapable of serving others if our basic needs are not first met.  That’s a small symbolic needle to thread but it’s a task we each must practice.  When do I have enough?  When should my attentions turn away from me and toward another?  When I’m offended or hurt by another, how can that incident become not about my hurt feelings, but about empathy and compassion for the offender?  As the Dalai Lama says on page 47 in the book, “Too much self-centered thinking is the source of suffering.  A compassionate concern for others’ well-being is the source of happiness.”

To enable compassionate thinking and a reduced focus on the self, the Dalai Lama and the Archbishop agree we must train our minds.  Joy is a state of being that we learn to achieve.  We can undertake mediation,  reflection or prayer to turn our minds to thoughts of gratitude – for being loved, finding our life purpose, or for having opportunities to give and serve.  We consciously humble ourselves so that in any of our thinking, we do not think of the self – such as: Why am I in pain?   Why have my feelings been hurt by another?  What pleasures can I find?  How much money can I earn?  Etc. etc. 

Instead, through letting go of our egos, through thinking about others and ways that they hurt, we train our attitude to be outwardly focused.  We don’t, to paraphrase John F. Kennedy, ask what the world can give us.  We ask instead what we can give the world.  We simplify our lives and our needs as much as possible.  We encounter a stranger on the street and we wish them a good day.  We don’t judge and try to improve someone and their flaws.  We don’t think we are better then they, or that they unfairly have more than us.  We empathize with them, try to understand the why behind their flaws, and then we simply love them.

I don’t believe it is a coincidence that the Book of Joy was written by two men of color.  Indeed, the Dali Lama and Desmond Tutu have personally suffered extreme oppression because of their skin color.  They have also responded with what Desmond Tutu calls righteous anger – the kind that does not focus on the self but is angered in behalf of others.  Their call to us is that real joy is found not in a cocoon of indifference, or focus on the self, but in advancing compassion and service to others.  This congregation and the UUA in general can live out that teaching in how we respond to inequality and discrimination against all people – especial those of color.  That’s a way to build a lasting legacy and in the process create inner satisfaction in the knowledge we served the interests of others.  To do that will require deep introspection on how you and I are not only part of the problem but can be part of the solution – through humility, listening and kindness.

Quite simply, joy comes from how we exist in quiet, humble simplicity, in generous gratitude, and in sacrificial serving.  Only by pouring out ourselves into others do we ironically pour into ourselves – and thereby find the source of all truth, goodness and joyful well-being.

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(c) Doug Slagle, Minister to the Gathering at Northern Hills, All Rights Reserved

 

Professor Randy Pausch, of Carnegie Mellon University, wrote a book in 2008 entitled “Last Lecture.”  He had recently been diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic cancer and was given, at the most, six months to live.  It’s a tradition at Carnegie Mellon to have professors, at the end of their career, deliver a final lecture to students and colleagues.  Randy’s last lecture was so moving, so upbeat, and so full of wisdom, that the YouTube video of it went viral.  Millions around the world watched it.  He then turned it into a book which was published after he died.

In his remarkable lecture, Professor Paush apologized for not being morose and depressed, given his condition.  “If that disappoints you,” he laughingly said, “I’m sorry.”  His lecture is full of life lessons that had served him well.  To be lucky in life, he said, is simply matching hard work with opportunity.  We are all dealt a symbolic hand of cards in life.  Some get a lot of aces.  Others get too many deuces.  But the success and well-being we find in life, he said, does not depend on the cards we are given, but in how we play them.

Professor Paush was a big advocate of positive thinking.  Whining and complaining are not practices he endorsed.  Indeed, he believed that if people spent the time and energy they use to complain about a problem to instead figure out a solution, they’d be surprised at how much they could accomplish.

After he was diagnosed with terminal cancer, he and his wife resolved to enjoy one day at a time and not think about the future.  What helped him be positive throughout his life was to regularly practice a gratitude ritual – one where he spent a focused hour reflecting on the good in his life.  As he said, everybody – no matter how seemingly bad their circumstances – still have countless things for which to be grateful.

For me, Professor Paush’s thoughts and practices are appropriate ones for Unitarian Universalists on Easter Sunday.  Many of us, me included, don’t quite know what to do with this holiday.  It’s an explicitly Christian one that has mostly avoided becoming secularized like Christmas.  People all around us celebrate Easter and yet its central idea, that Jesus was miraculously resurrected from death, does not resonate with those who honor human reason and  ideals of compassion and charity over ancient religious stories.

But as a story or myth, Easter offers an important lesson much like Randy Paush’s last lecture.  From the horror and shock of Jesus’ crucifixion comes the unexpected surprise of Easter morning.  Life triumphs over death.  Morning light breaks the darkest of nights.  Good overcomes evil.  Ultimately, joy emerges from the depths of sorrow.

Indeed, Professor Paush’s terminal condition at age 47 was like all of our conditions – only sped up.  We are each, if we think about it, dying.  We just don’t know when.  And we are each, in the meantime, experiencing challenges, heartaches and disappointments.  To use Jesus’ story as an analogy, we too suffer the beatings and tortures of life.  And ultimately, our Cross awaits us.

But Easter offers us something surprising.  Paush’s “Last Lecture” book says the same.  In the midst of dying, there is renewal, life abundant and a type of resurrection.  There is work to be done, families to raise, people to love, charity to extend, gratitude to be shown and, most of all, joy to celebrate.  It might seem that life is a series of so-called Good Friday periods of suffering, but we are wrong.  Living is about Easter attitudes of changing ourselves, contentment and gratefulness.

My message series this month has been on the topic of rituals that define us.  As regularly practiced actions, rituals are full of symbolic meaning.  They are markers for major life events like a baby dedication, a graduation, marriage or memorial service.  They are weekly practices we do here – to honor our heritage, unity, and commitment to serve others.  Rituals can also be fun practices like family meals, a ridiculous family dance created by yours truly, or our regular social events.  They are also holiday practices we do at Christmas or, today, for Easter.  Rituals are not unthinking routines with little meaning.  Rituals, instead, define our beliefs and who we are.

For today’s purposes, rituals define us in how we live.  Do we endeavor to be like Randy Pausch – people who understand what it means to really live?   Are we Easter people – those who pluck something good out of bad, who persevere in spite of challenge, who continually renew themselves in order to become better?

To be spiritual, in my mind, is to explore the great questions of life. Why are we here?  What purpose do we serve?  How can we somehow make a difference in the world and thereby symbolically live forever?  And all world religions therefore practice rituals that provide their answers to those spiritual questions.  Christians ritually practice communion in which they symbolically express the ideal that with sacrifice and service comes greatness.  The Jewish people annually celebrate Passover rituals of a Seder meal in which justice and hope are remembered.  L’chaim – to life – is more than just a Jewish exclamation.  It captures the joy Jews feel at the abundance one has – love, life and good cheer.   Muslims practice the ritual of Ramadan fasting to purify their hearts and minds as a way to inspire personal renewal.  Buddhists do the same with their ritual of mindful meditation.  Hindus practice ritual samskaras throughout their lives honoring birth, coming of age, marriage, illness and death.

What links each of these many spiritual rituals is their affirmation of life renewal.  Today’s Easter holiday is no different.  Christians celebrate it in memory of Jesus’ resurrection.  We celebrate it in it’s broader meaning – one that can apply to everyone.  No matter the pain one might feel, no matter the challenges faced, there is hope and joy in the morning.

Too often we get stuck in what some psychologists call a negative mental loop.  For instance, someone might complain: life is so unfair – my boss does not recognize my abilities, I don’t make enough money, my dog doesn’t like me, wah-wah-wah.  He or she then becomes sad and upset.  Work and relationships suffer, and a repeat of the same negative thought loop occurs.

But a daily ritual to give thanks for the good one has, the Sunday rituals we practice here to symbolize commitment to unity, compassion and  truth, or a seasonal rituals to celebrate the renewal of nature, these are life enriching and life defining practices.  They remind us that life is not about us, our desires, and negative thinking. 

Life is instead about acts of kindness and service to others.  It’s about building a better world for future generations, and it’s about deep love for those in our midst – friends and family who support us, children in whom we pour ourselves, or the partner who holds us and lies by our side.

I understand the complexity of mental health.  For some, it is not about changing the way one thinks, but about serious chemical imbalances in the brain – things not easily corrected.  For the rest of us, however, the solution to our problems is not external, but internal.  The solution is in having a type of Easter mentality – that we can transform the inevitable pains of life into something meaningful and good.  It’s living as if we are like Randy Paush – or Jesus for that matter – people who exult in every moment of life even as they are dying.

Will we spend the finite time we have to complain, be angry, unforgiving, selfish, and small-minded?  Or will we build legacies of goodness – empowering and encouraging others, giving generously, loving lavishly, and laughing out loud at whatever comes our way?  As Professor Pausch asked in his last lecture, are we an Eeyore, or are we a Tigger?

Martin Seligman, a famous psychologist and author of many books on positive thinking (and, by the way, a frequent collaborator with our own Tom Lottman) says in his most recent book “Flourish”, that psychology is incorrectly focused on addressing the negative.  In other words, it is usually concerned with ways to eliminate depression, anger, or anxiety.  It is reactive instead of proactive.

Psychology, he writes, ought be more about fostering overall well-being and emotional health.  The goal should be to encourage living at peace with ourselves and others.  Are we fulfilled, engaged, and in mutually supportive relationships at home, work and play?

To find that all encompassing life satisfaction and thereby renew ourselves, Seligman says we should undertake personal rituals to 1) identify our individual strengths, 2) find the good in life, and 3) feel gratitude. 

In order to know our strengths, Seligman’s first suggestion, we should  remember and then write about a time in life when we literally flourished – when work, love and play all went well.  What were the successful things we did during that time?  What did we specifically do at work that made us feel fulfilled?  What about in our love lives – were we especially giving, attentive and romantic?  How did we play and recreate during that time?  What acts of kindness did we undertake that made us feel good?

Once we remember and identify our strengths – the things that help us feel like we are flourishing, we can better re-introduce them into our lives now – and thereby renew ourselves.

Second, Seligman says we can find the good in life by ritually every evening writing down three things that happened to us that day which went really well.  What task did we successfully accomplish?  What sense of intimacy and empathy did we build with another person?  What episode made us smile and feel enriched?

By keeping such a diary, ritually writing in it and ritually reading past entries, we’ll foster contentment in our minds and souls.  We will have no need to obsess over disappointments because we will have adopted a positive mindset.  No matter how bad things may be for any of us, there are good things in our each of our days.  Just getting up in the morning is a good thing.  Seeing the sunshine, laughing at a funny TV show, or eating a food we enjoy – these are small but rewarding joys.  We need to daily remember them and write them down to remind us in the future. 

Finally, Seligman suggests we regularly – as a type of ritual – practice an act of gratitude.  We might not only thank someone, but then we should specifically tell them how and what they did that prompted our thanks – they cooked a particularly delicious meal, made us laugh with a good joke or showed us love with an action or gift.  We could, as Randy Pausch did, ritually reflect on life’s blessings – no matter how small or trivial.  Finally, I try to pay forward the good that I have been given.  Basic gratitude prompts us to recognize all that we have.  True gratitude guides us share our blessings with others.

Even thought celebrating Easter can also be a life renewing ritual, I don’t believe its story is literally true.  Indeed, from what I’ve studied about early Christians, many of them (like the Gnostics) did not believe Jesus’ resurrection to be fact.  Its story was for them much like a fable – one intended to inspire.  My hope is that instead of rejecting this holiday as  based on fiction, we will embrace Easter for its symbolism that reminds us about renewal, hope and the triumph of good.

I hesitate to say this, but there is much more beauty in pain than we realize.  It’s an ironic truth, but adversity can build in us the kind of character, humility and gentleness that transforms us into ironically powerful people.  That power comes not from any strength we find, but in our ability to figuratively resurrect ourselves.

       Personally, I am blessed beyond merit.  I have two beautiful and compassionate daughters, a man I love, parents and siblings who care for me, a job that deeply fulfills me – and all of you whom I count as dear friends.  I must honor and remember those blessings by becoming an Easter person – someone full of hope, gratitude and joy.  I hope you will join me in that endeavor.

       

(c) Doug Slagle, Minister to the Gathering at Northern Hills, All Rights Reserved

 

On October 31,1517 Martin Luther, a professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg in Germany, published his ninety-five theses of criticism against the Catholic Church.  Protestantism, literally meaning “those who protest” was born.

Luther was primarily against widespread Church sales of indulgences to finance the building of St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.  An indulgence was a purchased decree, ritually offered by a Priest, Bishop or Pope, that declared a deceased person should immediately enter heaven.   A popular phrase at the time said that a gold coin no sooner rang in the bottom of an indulgence collection plate, then the soul for whom it was given would enter paradise. 

Luther was rightly horrified at the practice not just because it exploited fears of the illiterate and poor, but because it had no basis in anything Jesus taught.  Indeed, much of Jesus’ teachings were against such greed and exploitation.

Fundamentally, however, Luther was also against the Church’s use of rituals as the way to gain favor with God.  His understanding of verses in the Bible was that a person’s faith was the only determining factor for salvation and heaven.  Whether or not someone is baptized, regularly confesses sin, regularly partakes of communion, regularly tithes money to the church, or is given last rites before dying – these are rituals that have symbolic value, but are not essential to being a good and faithful person.  The Church, Luther said, had turned rituals into man-made requirements while draining them of their purpose to initiate reflection, humility and charity.

For me, Martin Luther is one of the great figures in history.  He not only fundamentally changed the understanding of God, but his protests changed prevailing thoughts about individualism, human rights, and the ability of people to think on their own – without relying on the Church to do that for them.  The Age of Reason, the Enlightenment and all advances in human rights can be linked to Martin Luther and his 95 theses.

Because I admire Luther and his courageous acts against a Church that could have burned him at the stake, I have had a skeptical view of spiritual rituals.  My concern is similar to Luther’s.  Jesus often pointed out the hypocrisy of those who pride themselves on regularly practicing rituals of praying, giving, or attending church, but who forget the purpose and meaning of those actions.  Religious hypocrites of Jesus’ day piously prayed in public, but their words were repetitious and designed to puff up the person.  Such people ritually gave to, and sacrificed for the Temple, but it was only for display.  They’d forgotten that the intent of rituals is to symbolize ethics of forgiveness, kindness and devotion.  As Jesus is alleged to have said, such hypocrites are like whitewashed tombs that appear from the outside to be clean and beautiful, but who are actually filthy, dark and full of cobwebs on the inside.

That’s the danger of spiritual rituals for me, and it’s why I still am cautious when using them.  If they are practiced or recited regularly, and always in the same way, they are in danger of becoming something done by rote memory and not with heartfelt purpose.  They start to be practiced only to seem spiritual and not with the mindset to think about what one is doing – and why.   If and when that happens, the ritual becomes meaningless and mindless.  Sadly, that is often how I practice some of our rituals.  I can appear to be like a whitewashed tomb but am instead unthinking and neglectful on the inside.  I’d rather do nothing than falsely appear to be spiritual.  As a minister, I worry about leading any of you fall into that trap.

But that does not mean I consider rituals to be bad.  Indeed, I think what we and other Unitarian Universalists ritually practice is good.  But like anything that is helpful, rituals can also be taken for granted, or they can become so repetitious that they become meaningless.  They can become empty of their symbolic power. 

What is key for me is to not forget the reasons behind our rituals.   From the dawn of history, rituals have been an integral part of human behavior.  While some religions believe they have mystical power to influence the future, we don’t think that way.  But like all people, rituals have their place in our lives.  They implicitly tell a story that what we believe is important.  They are markers for major life events – ones like a child dedication, a graduation, a marriage, or a funeral.  They also help guide our spirituality by reminding us every Sunday of values like tolerance, compassion, social justice, humility, and many others.  Rituals are so important in our lives that, as my title of this month’s message series says, they define us.

But they are useful to us only as long as we diligently remember their meaning.  None of us want to be compared to the hypocrites of Jesus’ day who, for instance, prayed but did not believe in prayer’s ability to show empathy.  Or, we don’t wish to be compared to the sixteenth century Church that greedily used rituals to collect large sums of money by manipulating members to feel fear and guilt.  Nor do we wish to be compared to some modern churches whose services are full of rituals, but empty of any life giving inspiration, warmth or thought.

For any ritual practiced in our services, I hope its purpose is not only well understood, but also well remembered.  As I said in my message last week, practices we do routinely are distinctly different from practices we do ritually.  A routine is any action done regularly but has little or no symbolic meaning.  We brush our teeth as a routine, and that’s important, but it has no meaning in our lives other than promoting oral health.  A ritual, however, is done regularly and is full of symbolic value.  We drop small colored pebbles in a bowl of water every week as a way to express a private joy or concern.  We don’t think that act has magical power to influence life.  It’s a small act, but one that has a powerful meaning.  In our minds and hearts, we remember with gratitude the richness of life, and the challenges of illness, death or heartache.  Loved ones come to mind and we are both comforted and encouraged.

Later in our services, we have the opportunity to publicly share a joy or sorrow.  As your programs say, I believe this is our version of shared prayer.  Someone’s brief words at the microphone are not a plea to some god, nor do they have an ability to change anything.  They instead do something important for our inner selves.  We get to communally share something good and positive – or we can collectively grieve, reflect, and feel empathy.  That’s a powerful practice and one that initiates greater togetherness and more compassion.

I, however, admit to ongoing concern about that practice.  I believe in Joys and Sorrows beautiful ability to add love and celebration to our services, but I worry its purpose can be forgotten.  Indeed, about a year ago, I experimented with us not practicing Joys and Sorrows every week.  I was, however, reminded by several members that those services lacked the kind of heart and soul we want to feel.  I was wrong for undertaking that experiment and I apologize for it. 

But my equal hope is that we remember the purpose of the Joys and Sorrows ritual.  It’s purpose is implied in the name we give it.  We might broadly interpret anything that happens in life as a joy or concern.  But that broad understanding misses the original intent.  What recent personal event in your life sings in your heart, or weighs on your mind?  How can one state such feelings in a way that is spiritually motivated – to bring us together, to share, and also to respect time boundaries – those of fellow attenders who plan on the service ending after about an hour………or of our RE teachers who teach our children only for the 45 minutes they have planned?

I say all of this because I believe the intention and meaning of Joys and Concerns has always been as an opportunity to concisely share one’s innermost dreams, celebrations or laments.  That intention is in keeping with the larger values we hold dear – to support one another, to be compassionate, to foster unity, and build responsiveness to our world.  When we remember those, when they are our only motivation in its practice, we are true to why we come here.    

As I earlier said, I too often engage in some rituals by just going through the motions.  I sing the words, or do an action without remembering their meaning and value.  My mind sadly too often gets caught up in the logistics of our services – are they running smoothly, are all the elements in the right order, is the PowerPoint correct, is my message too boring, and, yes, will the service end within five or ten minutes of an hour?  I think of all those things and forget why I’m here.  How can any sense of reflection or inspiration be felt by you if I don’t feel those too?  This other-mindedness in me is something I’m working on.  I want to be present in the moment and live up to my role. 

One important ritual I confess to neglecting is our lighting of the chalice.  It’s a wonderful ritual but I often fail to ponder its purpose and symbolism as it is done.  Fortunately, the lighting ritual is for Unitarian Universalists not only a defining one, it is widely open to multiple understandings.  Its symbols are historically familiar ones – the chalice and the flame, but how we each interpret them are widely different.  Some see the chalice as representative of the so-called Holy Grail – Jesus’ communion cup.  It can thus be emblematic of our Christian roots.

Others see the chalice as representing ancient pagan cups used to ritually drink wine and joyfully celebrate life’s abundance.  Others interpret the chalice as symbolic of communal unity and togetherness – that we symbolically drink from the same cup of wisdom every Sunday.

Lighting a flame within the chalice speaks to universal concepts of purity and goodness.  Fire is an eternal force that’s existed since the beginning of time.  Hindus, Jews, Muslims and Christians all see it as a powerful emblem of their faith.  For us as UU’s, the flame can represent any of those spiritual traditions – or newer ones like Humanist and Atheist appeals to rational thinking.    

What’s important is that the comfort and tradition of regularly lighting the chalice should also lead us to reflect on what that means.  I love the fact that we usually have a child light it.  That speaks to our commitment to children and their own discovery of what is true and good.  As someone who appreciates rationality, the flame for me is symbolic of refining fact from superstition.  Fire burns away anything false and is therefore a truth agent.  More than ever, I want to be reminded of that imperative – that Unitarian Universalism stands for objective truth, that we commit ourselves to its pursuit, and that we reject rigid dogma precisely to keep our minds open for new or different insights.  (Rick Duncan’s chalice).

The national UUA organization expressly states that there is not an  official way to interpret the flaming chalice or its ritual lighting.  That statement is, in itself, emblematic of our denomination.  We purposefully do not practice rituals that are identified with other religions, we do not endorse any creeds, and we are gladly welcoming to people of all spiritual beliefs, or no beliefs.  Our spirituality derives from universal principles and practices that literally any person, anywhere in the world, could and would endorse: dignity, respect, compassion, democracy, service to others. 

When we light our flame every Sunday, we each can appreciate and reflect on it in our own way.  That’s an implicit freedom I hope we will remember.  We are not told what to think, but instead encouraged to think on our own.   I hope most of you will try, as much as possible, to arrive on time for this important ritual.  And then I hope both you and I will remember to truly honor the chalice lighting – and other rituals we practice –  by focusing on what they mean.

As much as I hope I am of some assistance to you in my minister role, I ask for your help to me.  Rituals are tools we invented to prompt us to remember, reflect and honor.  Please remind me to never let them become hollow and empty.  The ones we practice here – from those done every Sunday, to ones done annually or on special occasions, they symbolically remind us of our values and they bring us together.  They are full of symbolic meaning and, as a result, they define us.

(c) Doug Slagle, Minister to the Gathering at Northern Hills, All Rights Reserved

About twenty years ago, when my two daughters were much younger, I decided that our small family needed something that would uniquely identify us.  I thought about writing a funny and memorable song or poem.  My girls were indifferent to the need for such a thing, but I was determined.

I eventually self-choreographed a Slagle family dance as our identifier.  It was over-the-top ridiculous but nevertheless got the message across.  I introduced it on my birthday, tried to teach it to my girls and declared that it would henceforth be danced at all family occasions – public or private.  The dance is a combination of the chicken dance done on one leg, arms flapping like wings, barking like a seal, and a cheerleader finale spelling out our name and a loud “GO Slagle” at the end.

My girls thought it was horribly lame, and they half-heartedly learned it.  Later, they declared they would absolutely never dance it outside the family.  I was not deterred and for many years regularly reminded us to do it.  It did not matter they usually refused and I danced alone.  Whenever I suggested we do it in a public place, like at the end of sporting event in which my girls participated, they were so horrified they literally ran away.   

I was not a sadist, however, and made sure to do the dance privately  – even though I threatened otherwise.  I had my dignity to protect after all.  I’m even telling this story today with some fear, knowing you will want to see it.  No way!  It is soooo ridiculous that if I were to perform it here, you would immediately take a vote to find a new minister.

But the Slagle family dance took hold and, as my girls got older, they sometimes reminded me to do it.  They enjoyed seeing me make a fool of myself.  On a few occasions, they even danced with me.  I’ve not done it in many years and that’s too bad.  I need to do it again and with a family Easter dinner coming up, I just may do that.  I look forward to resurrecting it with future grandchildren.

The dance has become a part of our family lore.  We laugh about it and that makes me happy.  If I am remembered by my girls for anything, let it be that dance.  Even though it has never been something serious, it has helped bring us even closer.  It’s symbolic value lies in its up-front declaration that we are united, that in a very silly way we pledge our mutual support, no matter what.  In many ways, the Slagle family dance is our ritual.  I need not tell them that I love them.  Instead, I ritually – but in a funny way – show them.

And that helps introduce my April message theme – “Rituals that Define Us.”  When I suggested that theme to our Sunday Planning Team several weeks ago, I said I was reluctant to do it since it seemed perhaps too religious and boring – coming after my relatively intellectual March theme – “What is God?” 

The team, however, liked my suggestion.  It was Ann Bobonick who said that rituals need not only be solemn ones.  A ritual, she said, can be as simple as her regularly picking up her grandson Troy from school – or something else done often.  I therefore want to focus on a larger idea of rituals.  How broadly can we define them?  Why do we perform them?  How can they be both meaningful AND joyful?  Since First Sundays here are informal and lighthearted, today is a perfect one for me to consider rituals that define us for fun.

A ritual is described as an action which is regularly performed to symbolically remember or honor an occasion or idea.  Barbara Fiegs, who is a PhD psychologist at Syracuse University, says that things we do regularly are usually called routines.  They are important to us but what is different between a routine and a ritual is the degree of meaning we attach to them.  When performing something routinely, we apply very little afterthought to the action.  It has no strong symbolic value.  A ritual, however, is an action full of meaning.  Rituals are expressly intended to inspire. 

We don’t drop pebbles in a bowl of water every Sunday thinking such an act will literally do anything.  People we remember as we drop the stones into water will not be happier or healthier as a result.  Instead, WE are happier and emotionally healthier.  A dropped pebble represents the concern or joy we hold.  And, as we each practice that ritual, we are bound together in our thoughts for others.

As my message title today implies, rituals can be uplifting and fun much like my Slagle family dance.  Our First Sundays service, what we do today, is something very new but one I hope will also become a ritual – one Sunday a month when we let our hair down and are less traditional.  These services symbolically say that worship can be fun and that we are open to change.  This family we call the Gathering at Northern Hills, we ritually practice each Sunday shared beliefs in the dignity, diversity and equality of all.  But on First Sundays, we just do that in a way that is, I hope, slightly more relaxed and fun – even for those who plug their ears whenever the band rocks and rolls!

Experts assert that fun family and community rituals are vital to our well-being.  For children especially, family rituals are practices they not only can enjoy, but which implicitly convey to them identity, unity and universal values.  It may be an old adage, but the one that says: “a family that eats together, stays together” is often true.  Indeed, dining together is the number one family ritual child psychologists suggest.  A routine meal that is eaten quickly and with the TV on, can be transformed into one that is instead an enjoyable ritual.  That’s done by making family meals fun and a priority – by cooking together, recounting what everyone did that day, sharing inside jokes, trying new foods – and never making meals a time to rebuke or discipline.  Some families allow each child to pick the dinner food on a particular day of the week – for instance Taco Tuesdays, Waffle Wednesdays or, maybe for some kids, Spinach Sundays (probably not!)

We practice dining rituals here too.  We are a spiritual family after all.  The food we eat and the new people we meet every Sunday after the service, at our potlucks, on Souper Sundays, at the annual Auction, at our annual Holiday party, at Pub Nights, or at next Saturday’s Passover Seder meal, these are not routine, practical events.  They hold a spiritual significance.  They are rituals that define us. 

We don’t just say we are a beloved community.  We show it.  It’s why I say that what happens in the Quimby room after every service is far more important than what happens in here during a service.  It’s why I hope we will continue to strongly support and attend our social meals and events.  In this Sanctuary, you listen to me blah, blah, blah while you catch up on your sleep.  During social times, you get to enjoy yourselves!  We may not think them to be rituals, but they are.  Indeed, most of you say that it is the sense of community here, above all else, that brings you back.

Breaking bread together, whether at family meals or congregation social events, are rituals that do define us.  But experts say there are other fun rituals to practice.  Things we regularly do to celebrate holidays are examples.  My former wife, continuing practices begun by her parents when she was a child, continued them with our girls.  Every Christmas Eve the family reads the book The Night Before Christmas with each person reading a few lines until everyone says together the last lines – “Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night!”  Christmas morning is then begun by everyone opening their stockings filled with inexpensive gifts.  Bigger presents are later opened one person at a time – so that both the giver and the receiver share the spotlight.  When many family members are together, this process can take a very long time. But these are rituals practiced without question and are greatly enjoyed.  They define who that family is.

Birthdays are other events psychologists suggest as possible occasions for fun family rituals.  They are symbolically meaningful in how they are celebrated – perhaps by making the birthday person King or Queen for a day who picks whatever they and the family do.  The symbolism – and fun – are obvious.  This person is special and their life is one to celebrate.

Annual family vacations are the same.  It’s not the getting away that is important but the memories and the unity vacations build that are important.  I have a love for the western US because my family always took summer vacations out there when I was young.  My mom planned the trip for months in advance, we packed the family car and took off for two or three weeks to camp or stay in cheap motels, cook over a campfire, hike, and see wonders of nature like Old Faithful, the Grand Teton mountains, or the rugged coast of Canada’s British Columbia.  My siblings and I laughingly remember long hours riding together in the backseat, playing highway versions of scavenger hunt, or heeding the call of nature by the side of a road as passing cars honked at us.

My parents, with the time they took to plan and take annual summer vacations, told me and my siblings without words that family was important.  The ritual was in the long communal drives, the shared campfires, and the excited awe we felt in the midst of mountains and forests.  My parents rarely took us to Sunday churches.  But they did take us to nature’s cathedrals.  With our shared reverence for the outdoors, with our jokes, our car riding games, and our meals of burnt hot dogs, we ritually worshipped at the altar of love and togetherness.

A more serious but still fun ritual I began with my girls was to serve others together.  Partly due to my work as a minister and partly being intentional as a dad, I forced my teen girls to join me and other church folks to serve at charities.  Every month my daughters and I participated in a Sunday evening meal preparation at the City Gospel Mission homeless shelter in Over-the-Rhine.  I also forced them to join me on charity work trips – several to rural Appalachia to paint and repair homes, and others to Mexico to build homes, in a week’s time, for families living in crude shacks.  Like many teenagers, my girls were upset I took them away from their friends and the comforts of home, but once on these serving trips, they enjoyed themselves.  Today, they look back on them with gratitude. 

My daughter Sara has seared into her memory a young Mexican girl, whose family we helped, possessing a prized collection of bottle caps which she played with as her make-believe toy cars, trucks and people.  At the time, seeing such a thing taught Sara a lesson about materialism that I never could have imparted.  I believe those rituals of service to others, done together, symbolically told them in a mostly fun way that our family has a responsibility to give back.  These rituals of service helped make my girls who they are today – compassionate women with beautiful hearts. 

Families can do acts of service together as enjoyable ways to bond and build memories.  As a spiritual family, we do the same here.  As I hope you know, rituals of service to those in need are cornerstones of our ministry.  When volunteers here join together to cook a meal for homeless teens, assemble hygiene kits for them, or work at a the Freestore food bank, we have fun!  There is a great sense of comraderie and friendship building.  Words often attributed to Francis of Assisi are meaningful to me and ones I believe most rituals should echo.  I paraphrase them here: Preach the ethic of goodness as often as possible…………..and only when necessary, use words.

Next Sunday I plan to examine our unique UU spiritual rituals and find in their practice the symbolism and meaning I hope we can think about every time they are practiced.  In two weeks, I plan to consider rituals that relate to Easter – not as religious acts, but as ways the holiday speaks about life, death and ideals of non-violence or forgiveness.

For today, I hope our takeaway is the value of transforming routine practices into rituals that are enriching and fun.  I encourage all of us to break bread with family and friend, dance with abandon, sing out loud with joy (off key in my case), or find a loved one to serve a charity together – but do these things regularly and with meaning.  They are, indeed, fun rituals that define us.     

  

  

(c) Sue Cline, Guest Speaker at the Gathering at Northern Hills, All Rights Reserved

 

Good morning. Thank you for being here to hear my thoughts on a topic that seems all

too pertinent today. I have absolutely no academic credentials to make such a

presentation, so I am even more grateful for your presence. I am a qualified cynic,

however, having been reprimanded for same in a job performance review.

So, I knew I could not stand before you and rant about my decidedly one-sided

opinions. I needed to be better informed and a bit more objective, and informative. So in

preparation I have done some reading, questioning, and reflection to try to present some

thoughts on the topic of greed, and leave you with perhaps one thing to think about

going forward. I do offer apologies to economists and historians in the room: something

I have learned in this process is that I have certainly bitten off more than I can

chew—YEARS of study are required to get a proper handle on this subject, to

understand it in an historical perspective, and to speak with any authority. So we are

back to observations and opinions, which I hope can at least spur on some thought for

others in my particular boat.

Years ago Luke Scott Peck, the author of a popular self-help book, The Road Less

Traveled posited at the conclusion of the book that the “original sin” was/is laziness.

This made sense to me at the time and still does, IF one believes, so to speak, in original

sin.

Over time, as I’ve become better read, more reflective, and thoroughly psychoanalyzed,

my own “conclusion,” if you will, is that “original sin” is greed.

Thinking that original sin is greed is fairly easy – it seems to be everywhere and in

everyone, to some degree; it’s pretty obvious in most instances; and, for ME, it provides

a foundation – and an excuse — for my own greed, for my own natural and well

cultivated cynicism, and gives me ammunition to be highly judgmental of others and

personally conclusive about all our global problems.

The problem with this view, however, is greed itself. I don’t believe original sin is any

more than a myth created, first, to explain “bad” people, and then, to keep the common

poor under the thumbs of those whose “greed” for power had put them in positions in

which they could benefit from the human condition of the “common man.” So there

goes my excuse for my own greed.

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Of course, as we know, greed is not all about money. Greed for power comes to mind,

for fame, for notoriety, also. I think one can also be greedy for love. This is a big topic,

and a subjective one. When does enjoying life’s pleasures honestly become greed?

My former pastor and friend, Rev. Steven Van Kuiken, was a huge help to me. I

actually have a copy of his 2000 sermon on Greed, which he delivered at Mt.Auburn

PC. It is so good, I was sorely tempted simply to begin with a big quotation mark and

read it to you. But I know better.

Greed, defined as excessive or rapacious desire, especially for wealth or possessions, is

a topic that has occupied me for quite some time. I think my obsession began when I

would read the annual articles in local and regional news about “the wealthiest people in

Cincinnati, etc.” I would go on a days-long rant, saying “NOBODY needs that much

money”, etc., “What do they do with all that money?” I took names, and personally

boycotted their businesses. Years later, during an hours-long procession of a local

businessman’s hearse through the streets of Cincinnati (so that all the people he affected

could pay tribute) an African-American friend and cafeteria worker at Cincinnati

Children’s, where I was working, countered my incipient rant about his apparent racism

with, “I don’t know about all that, but he did a LOT of good for the poor in downtown

and Avondale—we are grateful to him.”

That caused me to reflect on my opinions, and even on some of the facts about this man

and his family, and try to look at the larger picture. So, my biased blinders slightly

opened, I will confess that while I resent the establishment of suburban schools in the

name of religion, that allow the wealthy and white to escape the “OTHER,” I no longer

boycott UDF. I am not sure whether to be proud of that.

And I am striving, as I begin to make a personal judgment about someone based on

appearances, to remind myself that, unless it has been made public, no one’s personal

story is known to me.

I worked several years for an advertising agency in Cincinnati, and there began to grow

a bubble of questions and doubt about our motivation and methods. Advertising, most

basically, exists to create and sway opinion, and furthermore, to create desire for the

objects being advertised; the objective is to promote sales and, therefore, to increase

income for the purveyors and returns for the investors. How many things do we see

advertised that no one really needs, after all, and how many ads do we endure that

advise us to “Talk to your doctor about this miracle medicine, etc.”

Advertising isn’t all bad; it is deployed to promote the United Way, Artswave, pet

adoption, awareness of racism and xenophobia, and a myriad of important and good

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causes, but these are, in my opinion, mere sidebars to the real goals of advertising.

(There’s that cynical cap creeping up again….)

So I went from advertising to selling beer and supporting first-hand the establishments

that carried our brands. I ended my working career at Children’s Hospital, a worthy

institution whose mission is undeniable (but one which, sadly, is beholden to the bottom

line, just like so many, even “non-profit” institutions).

Greed is mentioned in the sacred writings of all the major world religions. And not in a

good way.

In the Quran greed is condemned, as is usury and even charging interest on loans.

“Greed makes men ignorant towards all the suffering around them.” Charging interest

on loans was condemned also in the Hebrew Scriptures and the Bible.

There are many references to greed and covetousness in the Hebrew Scriptures: In

Psalm 10, Verse 3 we hear “For the wicked boasts of his heart's desire, And the greedy

man curses and spurns the LORD.”

In the story of Job, Job confesses his greed "If I have put my confidence in gold, And called

fine gold my trust, If I have gloated because my wealth was great, And because my

hand had secured so much…”

In the New Testament, Jesus and his disciples had a great deal to say about greed. “For

the love of money is at the root of all evils.” And another, “For where your treasure is,

there also is your heart.” And the memorable analogy, expressed by Jesus himself:

“Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich

man to enter the kingdom of heaven.”

I could go on…

Native American lore is full with references to greed, avarice, and inequality. There are

too many to choose or quote. With this, Google is a help….

In Buddhism, there are three “poisons” which prevent us from reaching contentment:

GREED, aggression, and delusion.

In my reflections on this topic, I considered the opposite of greed, and determined that it

is perhaps the Buddhist principle of detachment from material goods and the cares of

the world. Another clear opposite is generosity, about which, without surprise, much is

written in all the sacred writings.

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Recent history is rife with examples of greed. (This is my favorite part – a mini-rant.)

Banks grant loans to those who, clearly, cannot afford to repay them; stock brokers

receive millions in pay even when the funds they manage crash and burn; CEOs of

public corporations rake in 150 times the pay of their front line workers; insurance

executives become wealthy while the average worker cannot afford to purchase their

products and has to rely on government and taxpayers (if that fund is not stolen from us)

to receive medical treatment; senior government executives are willing to put citizens’

lives at risk, ignore real and urgent danger to our planet, extract fuel with dirty and

dangerous methods, dismiss scientific facts, ignore sacred lands of our ancestors,

decimate the world’s animal, fish, and bird populations, and more, of course, ALL in the

name of profit for the corporations, their CEOs and their shareholders. Universities,

publicly or privately funded, hire disproportionate numbers of adjunct faculty rather

than provide the salaries and benefits that accrue to tenured experts. Churches’ pastors

live lavishly while exhorting their congregants to pray, and to give more to the church,

to secure eternal life.

We live in an economy, a global economy, of institutionalized greed. The US, and

indeed most of the global economy, actually are dependent on greed to keep going, and

growing. Economic growth, or GDP-Gross Domestic Product, is the global

measurement of success. Unfettered, deregulated free market capitalism is the enemy of

the workers who are the foundation of that GDP, and is a friend only to those for whom

wealth is the only measure of success. Without greed at the top, there is no motivation

to grow, or even to work. As one can see, greed is a slippery topic: would we be

motivated to work, for instance, if there were no greed? Interesting question.

Yes, I am little bit of a socialist. I am all for capitalism that pays a fair and just wage for

the services that a person performs or the goods that they produce, but we have strayed

far. In preparing this talk I have read about Andrew Carnegie’s “Gospel of Wealth” in

which those who amass great wealth have a duty to share it with those who have less.

There are a few examples of those today—Bill and Melinda Gates come to mind, as

does Warren Buffet (But here comes that subjectivity again – when one observes the

luxurious lifestyles of these individuals, could one / SHOULD one conclude that there is

some hypocrisy there? I don’t know.)

And then there is Ronald Reagan’s “Gospel of Greed,” which describes riches piled on

the tables of the wealthy, with mere crumbs trickling down to the floor for those less

fortunate (or less intelligent, or less worthy), according to this philosophy. To provide

more crumbs for the lesser people, just pile more riches on the tables of the wealthy.

I also have been reading a rather dry, but ultimately fascinating book titled From Greed

to Wellbeing: a Buddhist Approach to Resolving Our Economic and Financial Crises by

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Joel Magnuson. It explains the movement toward institutional change based on

Buddhist economic ideals, SEBE, for Socially Engaged Buddhist Economics. It offers

hope for change of our institutions through first changing ourselves and then changing

our local communities before attempting to take on the entire globe. A huge effort, and

not easy, to be sure.

There is another measure of success, employed in a few places on the planet where the

business of wealth-gathering is conducted with the wellbeing of the people at the

forefront. The small Himalayan country of Bhutan measures its success on the Gross

National Happiness Index, which takes into account the general wellbeing of the

country’s citizens. Now, Bhutan is a Buddhist country and its government and its

spirituality are deeply intertwined. The four pillars on which Bhutanese government

policy is established are: equitable economic development, environmental preservation,

cultural resilience, and good governance. There’s nothing particularly Buddhist about

those principles, however, but there is basic morality.

We read frequently about “the happiest places to live,” etc. In fact, Monday, March 20,

was International Day of Happiness, (I had no idea….) according to the fifth edition of

the World Happiness Report, an initiative of the Sustainable Development Solutions

Network (SDSN), created by the United Nations. This report ranks 155 countries on the

variables of income, healthy life expectancy, having someone to count on, perceived

freedom to make life choices, freedom from corruption, and generosity. Not a word

about GDP, or top executive salaries, or the stock market. Norway is no. 1 and the other

9 in the top ten are: Denmark, Iceland, Switzerland, Finland, Netherlands, Canada, New

Zealand, Australia, and Sweden. Interestingly, each of these countries provides

healthcare and education, including higher education, for the wellbeing of its citizens.

The U.S. is no. 14, and quite frankly I am surprised it is that high in the list, given the

current general morale of the populace.

There is a movement among Buddhist economists to change the entire paradigm of the

global economic systems, measuring wellbeing of the people, not the wealth of the top

1%, or the GDP, or the stock market. This begins, as with most things Buddhist, with

individual change, for institutional change cannot come from without. There are

communities where inhabitants take wellbeing of citizens and the planet seriously and

where even alternative economic systems are being established. I am eager to learn

more about these.

We know that change must come from within. We as individuals need to adopt an

attitude of mindfulness about all things economic, and that includes the economics of

fairness and justice, the economics of sustainability, of environmental responsibility, of

equality across all facets of our lives. Solely as individuals we can be mindful of our

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spending, our use of cash vs. credit, the “need vs. want” motivation for shopping, the

motivation for gift giving, our acquisition of things. And not only our material

resources—we need to be mindful of how we spend our time: is it purposeful, is it

healing or destructive, is it selfish or generous?

We need to detach ourselves from our obsession with possessions and acquisitions. We

need to be generous. We need to use our resources, be they many or few, for good.

“For where your treasure is, there also is your heart.”

Thank you for this opportunity.

 

(c) Doug Slagle, Minister to the Gathering at Northern Hills, All Rights Reserved

Murray Pantirer was born in 1925 in Cracow, Poland.  After the Germans invaded Poland in 1939, Pantirer and his family were confined with other Jews.  His parents and sister were sent to Auschwitz where they were killed.  Murray and his brother were sent to a work camp.  Somehow, Murray was then put on a list to work in a weapons factory owned by Oskar Schindler.

Schindler was an avowed Nazi who described himself as being motivated by three ‘w’s’ – wealth, women and whiskey.  Nevertheless, Schindler undertook to protect 1098 Jews by employing them in his factory.  When he was asked later in life why he risked himself to help others, Schindler replied that the treatment and killing of Jews had been inhumane.  He determined to save as many as possible.

Despite horrific accounts of brutality by the Nazi commandant who oversaw the factory – daily taking out a rifle, for amusement, to shoot Jews below his office, or literally feeding people to his German Shepherds – none of the Jewish employees under Schindler’s care suffered from such acts.  Schindler would not allow it.  Nearly all of the persons he brought to work in his factory survived the war and were freed.

Murray Pantirer was one of them.  He moved to New Jersey where he used skills acquired in Schindler’s factory to start a construction business. He built it into a prosperous company that employed hundreds.  He contributed heavily to causes in Israel, to Holocaust remembrance charities and he was a founder of the Holocaust museum in Washington DC.  Presidents Reagan and Bush, Sr. personally honored him. 

Pantirer married and produced three children, nine grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.  Others of the so-called Schindler Jews now have over ten-thousand descendants.

In the Jewish mishnah, which is a book of commentary on verses in the Torah, there is an often repeated phrase.  “Someone who saves even one life, saves the world entire.”  That phrase clearly applies to Oskar Schindler but it’s also been applied to other heroic individuals who undertake acts of courage and sacrifice to save or serve others.  We might think of charity workers who serve in the slums of Haiti, those who tutor inner city kids in our nation, or doctors and nurses who rushed to Africa two years ago to treat and care for victims of the Ebola virus.

I’ve said in some of my past messages that an act of service for others is much like dropping a pebble into a large lake.  Concentric ripples move outward from that point to gently touch distant shores far removed from where the stone was first dropped.  I use such an image as an analogy for how we impact the universe in ways we often do not know.  One small act of goodness is propagated into the world to impact persons and places we will never know.

I also use the ripple analogy for how we build a life legacy – one that influences lives long past our deaths.  Any act of service we do for others will ripple across time, far into the future, so that we figuratively live forever.  When we save, nurture, care for, or serve even one person today, we save the world entire for tomorrow.  That is how we live eternally.

As I’ve often said, I don’t believe God is a grey bearded figure sitting on some cloud controlling the universe.  Instead, God is us.  We are the human gods and goddesses called to love and care for the lame, the hurting, the distressed and the oppressed.  It’s us, not a religious God, who build a version of heaven on earth.

I say this to set up my final message this month on the theme “Who or What is God?”  I’ve said over the past month that she is a unifier.  That concept of God is found in all of nature and in the physical laws that control it.  Everything is interconnected such that the universe is, I believe, God-like. 

I said last Sunday that God is Truth.  All that is objectively real, verifiable and proven by empirical evidence can be called capital ’T’ Truth.  This is of such importance, especially in our nation today, that I assert Truth is worthy of the title God.

Today, I claim a final concept of God – that she is timeless, and so are we.  She’s the forever standard of goodness like the Golden Rule.  She is the lasting power of physics, science and Truth.  She is all that is forever.  I believe she is all these things………AND, she is also us.

What we do today, in big or small ways, will influence the world for eons.  The universe will barely know our names, but it will know we existed – that we loved, served, and helped build a better future.  As Jonas Salk, the inventor of the polio vaccine once asked, “Are we being good ancestors?  In other words, we have a responsibility for the future and when we meet that challenge in this life, we become eternal.

A common definition of ‘infinite’ says that it is something limitless or endless in space, extent, or size.  It’s impossible to measure or calculate.  That fits my belief in a God concept.  She is, as Albert Einstein once said, “the infinitely superior spirit that reveals itself in the little that we, with our weak and transitory understanding, can comprehend of reality.”

Einstein arrived at that understanding of God through his theory of relativity.  He said time is an abstraction.  It is a measurement humans created so that we can better understand ideas of existence.  We cannot see or feel time.  Indeed, Einstein proved that it is infinite.  It is not a finite thing.  It’s changeable and flexible depending on where it is measured.  Time on a spaceship, for instance, is slower than time on earth.  A clock on the space station runs slower than an identical version of that clock on earth.  Persons on the space station therefore age at a slower rate due to factors related to both speed and gravity.  A Russian cosmonaut holds the record for most time in space – and thus the most that any human has gotten younger – by 20 milliseconds.  If engineers ever devise a way to travel at a velocity approaching the speed of light, time travel will be possible.  A human, traveling at the speed of light, could venture to distant galaxies, return to earth hundreds of years later, and yet be only a few years older.

The universe and the concept of all Truth are also infinite.  The universe has been proven to be expanding.  Powerful telescopes show that the distance of objects billions of light years away continues to increase.  The universe moves into eternity. 

Regarding the idea of Truth, an Italian mathematician named Bernard Balzano showed that it too is timeless and can even be used to define the idea of infinity.   

When we think of capital ’T’ Truth, it can only be true if there is also a corollary idea that Truth is true.  That corollary idea requires its own corollary that IT is also true.  In other words, the second truth corollary must prove the first, which must prove the original concept of Truth.  This extension of one truth…needing another truth…to prove capital ’T’ Truth…that sequence extends infinitely.  (This is heady stuff so I apologize if you feel your mind about to explode.  I feel the same.)

So, before I get too “far out”, I want to bring my thoughts back to something more practical.  If we think of ourselves as one with the universe, with Truth, and with infinity, and are thus God-like, then we can aspire to a higher goodness in how we act and think.  Hindu and Buddhist yogis have suggested that a sense of oneness with everything (the universe, Truth and time) that is a way to detach and let go of the self.  We can liberate ourselves from our self-centered egos – the part of us that thinks of “me, me, me”.  

Liberating ourselves from our egos means we let go of the demands of our bodies to move into a spiritual awareness of what is called the universal self.  This universal self is itself an all encompassing idea of God.  A universal self exists without boundaries of space or time or matter.  It intuitively senses communion with other people and creatures.  It knows what is objectively real, and it rests in the peaceful equilibrium of eternity.

This universal self, which we can become, experiences what, as Einstein said, can only be called an awareness of being.  This universal-spiritual self is what Oskar Schindler became for moments in his life when he saved other lives.  It’s what we are whenever we move outside ourselves to give and serve and love.  It is who we are when are at peace with everything. 

The more we become a timeless, universal, ego-less self, the more we are able to recognize our God-like attributes of oneness and the less we will fear, hate, feel sad, or judge others.   We can find an all-encompassing concept of God – one far beyond what religions describe – by simply letting go of our egos. 

I have not come anywhere near being a universal self – much less being God like.  Indeed, as an imperfect person, I hate that I have petty wants, small minded fears and hurtful anger.  But that does not mean I can’t strive to become a universal me – one that selflessly serves and cares for others, one that does not worry, one that loves without boundary.  I want to be fully at peace with death, but I also want to celebrate a glorious eternity that awaits me when I will commune with all humanity, all of nature and all of the shooting stars above.

If I do that, I can create a lasting legacy with every word I speak and every action I undertake.  How good of an ancestor am I?  What pebbles of compassion and love do I drop into the lake of time?  What ripples of impact will I send into the future that help insure a world of equality, justice and opportunity for my children’s children?  What one life – or many others – will I save and thereby save the world entire?   

When we are at one with everything, when we embody Truth, when we become ego-less selves who live forever in the good we do, we are holy and divine.  Immersed in eternity, we will speak and act with love, peace and joy. 

Who or what is God?…………….She is you…..and she is the person next to you.  And I worship in your presence.

            

     

(c) Doug Slagle, Minister to the Gathering at Northern Hills, All Rights Reserved

President George W. Bush, you may recall, publicly claimed on several occasions his absolute certainty in the existence of God.  He had, he said, experienced her work firsthand.  In his thirties, Bush was a wayward man with little direction.  Although he was married and had two daughters, he still acted as if he was a college frat boy.   Despite being born to privilege with the opportunity to learn from persons of prestige and accomplishment, Bush was washed up at a young age.

When he turned forty, however, his wife persuaded him to join a men’s Bible study.  The group thrived on bringing others to God.  For whatever reason, the group appealed to Bush.  He quickly became a regular and was taken with the group’s lessons on forgiveness and change.  Later, after his father arranged for him to meet Billy Graham, Bush had an emotional born again experience.  As Christian evangelicals say, he recognized his sinfulness, admitted he was powerless to change himself, and accepted Christ as his savior.

From that point onward, Bush was a different man.  He gave up alcohol, dedicated himself to work, became a successful Texas oilman, and was soon a rising politician.  By age fifty, he was elected Governor of Texas twice and on his way to be President.  As he claims, all of that was due to God.  God, for Bush, is demonstrably true because she dramatically showed herself in his life.

I related last week that I had a slightly similar experience.  I had turned to Christianity and God for many of the same reasons as Bush – to change me.  I’d had same sex attractions for much of my life and I hated the supposed sinfulness of it.  I wanted to be what is mistakenly considered normal.  God was the solution I turned to in my fear of eternal judgement.

I thought, at first, that God had changed me.  But over time, it was clear she had not.  Being gay is not a disease.  It need not be a destructive part of one’s life.  It is not a sin or flaw in any reasonable understanding. It can be – and is – uplifting and empowering.  Love is love is love.

This realization that God did not and could not change me was its own epiphany for me.  It made me question the truth of God and led me to rigorously examine faith in general – an inquiry that was unafraid to consider religious inconsistencies, misdeeds and hypocrisies.  Through intensive study I arrived at what I perceived to be a concept of God as capital ‘T’ Truth.  The God concept of an all powerful Being who either condemns or forgives – I determined is NOT true.

I relate these stories because they help set up the topic of my message today.  Last week, I examined the theme of “What is God?” from the perspective that she is a part of everything and thus a unifier.  Today, I propose the idea that God is Truth.  As I said last Sunday, I use the word God very loosely and place it within quotation marks to indicate a non-traditional definition.  I also use the feminine pronoun to indicate my distaste for implying God has male attributes – ones I believe can be  paternalistic and domineering.

Getting back to my opening stories, they are evidence of opposing ways to determine what is true.  One approach is to find Truth through emotion and  fear.  The other is to study, observe and inquire.  A classic definition of ‘truth’ states that it is anything in accordance with fact and reality.  It is the opposite of anything false.  But as we see, George Bush  is convinced he found Truth because of an emotional response to life change.   I believe I found Truth because my life did not change – and that, THAT most importantly in my mind, prompted me to study and use my reasoning abilities to determine the difference between opinion and fact.

       I believe the ideal of capital ’T” Truth embodies God-like qualities because it is founded on objective fact and proven empirical inquiry. Truth is the good force that can and should guide our lives – since we logically reject what is false.  It’s a common cliche, but appropriate to say, that if the devil is real, he would be the father of lies.  Conversely, we can also say the opposite: if God is real, she would be the mother of Truth.

Modern philosophers have boiled down three primary ideas on how Truth can be defined and thereby discovered.  A coherence theory says that truth is found through interconnected true beliefs.  Something is true if it coheres with other beliefs one may have.  An example used by one philosopher says that the proposition John Wilkes Booth shot Abraham Lincoln is true if we believe historians report facts they learned from previous historians; if we believe newspapers in 1865 reported accurate information; and, if we believe modern encyclopedias are trustworthy.  In other words, the original proposition is true because it coheres with the other beliefs we hold – all of which report Booth shot Lincoln.

A correspondence theory of truth says that something is true only if it corresponds to reality and what actually is.  Something is true if it is consistent with what is verifiably seen, heard and touched. 

       Plato and Aristotle initiated this approach by calling Truth “aletheia” which literally means to un-hide.  The ancient Hebrew word for Truth was “emeth” which literally translates into firmness or constancy.  Both words implied that Truth is a reality that is unchanging and open for anyone to perceive.  Indeed, reality is defined as something that exists objectively and independently from opinion.  I cannot assert that this podium does not exist and have you accept that as truth.  It’s here.  You see it.  You can touch and feel it.  No matter that I might opine it isn’t real, its existence corresponds with objective reality.

The third primary theory of truth is called a practical or empirical one.  This says that truth is only found through inquiry, examination, experiment, or discovery.  This theory began in the last two centuries with the rise of both journalism and advanced science.  Rigorous standards for these forms of inquiry require multiple sources of validation to be true – through eyewitnesses, documentary evidence, or positive results in scientific experimentation. 

I might say, for example, that President Obama broke the law by illegally wire tapping his opponents.  But such a statement is not true unless it is verifiably proven by multiple eyewitness accounts or by several forms of media evidence – like written, video or audio recordings. 

       I might also say that there is water on the planet Mars.  That statement has always been implicitly true, but we didn’t know it to be so until satellites orbiting the planet recently detected frozen water at its northern and southern poles.  In each of these cases, empirical evidence is required to prove truth.

What is troubling for these three widely accepted standards for determining truth is the rise of what is called a post-modern theory of truth.  That says something is true if a large community of people believe it to be true – even if other methods for determining truth say it is false.   This approach allows opinions and emotions to determine truth.  As we all know, this theory has emerged only within the last ten years and was particularly highlighted during the last election and in the current Presidential administration. 

For instance, this year’s inauguration crowd was claimed to be the largest in history because many people believe that to be true – no matter that photographs of the crowd, when compared to photographs of other inaugural crowds, indicate otherwise. 

On a more serious level, human caused climate change is believed to be false.  This is believed by millions even though the overwhelming evidence from science indicate human carbon dioxide emissions cause global warming and climate change.

Or, take the issue of immigration.  Millions of people believe as true that immigrants harm our economy because they take the jobs of citizens, they use social services like schools and healthcare without paying for them, and they commit large numbers of serious crimes.  These assertions have nevertheless been proven false.  Most undocumented immigrants take jobs nobody wants, they pay taxes at the same rate as others and they commit far fewer crimes than native born.  Even more, immigrant buying power and strong work ethic actually produce a substantial benefit to the economy.

The concept of alternative facts is not just an amusing statement.  It’s a real assertion by many people who say truth depends on what a large portion of the community believe. 

        As I said last week, fear is the primary motivation for most religious beliefs.  I add today my assertion that fear is also a primary motivator for denying truth.  No matter the reality of a situation, if enough people feel honest fear about immigrants, African-Americans, Muslims, women or any other people or issue, their understanding of what is true will be strongly affected.

But this new approach to truth directly affects human well-being.  I believe it is a danger not only to the stability of our government and culture, it is an existential threat to our very survival.  This is why I submit that the ultimate power in the universe ought to be defined as capital ’T’ Truth and we ought to honor it as something God-like. 

No religion, no supernatural God, no physical law, no science, no math, no humanist belief – all the things people say are God-like, these cannot be and, are not, real unless they are firmly grounded in what is factual and true.  In other words, the foundation for how we understand ourselves and the universe is meaningless unless it is true.  We each must be able to symbolically stand on solid ground – that being capital ’T’ Truth.    

Factual relativism, on the other hand, – what is true for you may not be true for me – this is an untenable way of thinking.  It will lead to human destruction.  If is it widely adopted and not fought, humanity will have evolved to a point where it has ironically regressed to be lower than other animals.  They at least have concepts of Truth hard wired into them through instinct.  Humans will have rejected the great ability we’ve evolved to possess – to use reason, logic, science based inquiry and empirical deduction to discover Truth.  We will have transformed into creatures who reject the power of our brains to instead be governed by the primitive, fear causing organ at the base of our brains called the amygdala.

Just as I proposed last Sunday that fear is the opposite of love, I claim today that it is the opponent of Truth.  Fear leads to irrational thinking and actions.  It overrules the brain and stimulates knee-jerk behavior to fight or flee.  Fear emphatically stops any reason based thought.  Allowed to dominate, fear prevents any of the three primary ways to discern what is true.

Spiritually, Truth is the beauty discovered in distant galaxies, the intricate complexity of a beetle, the profound reality of things we cannot see – cells, atoms, quarks and dark energy, the majesty of a complex mathematical equation, the prompt to love and defend the oppressed, or simply the accurate reporting of what IS.  Truth is all that is good in the universe – since that which is evil is implicitly false.  From the dawn of time to the infinite boundary of this universe, Truth stands alone in its singular nobility.  It is worthy of our everlasting pursuit……….and honor.  Truth is worthy of the title God.

I wish you all much peace and joy…