Author: Doug Slagle

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering, UCC, All Rights Reserved

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Mother Teresa is well on her posthumous way to becoming a Saint – a figure of supernatural powers to whom the faithful can pray and look to as an example. Her life long work as the founder of the Sisters of Charity, which established 519 homes throughout the world to serve the poorest of the poor, is well known. She appears to be a person driven to tend and care for thousands of otherwise forgotten and neglected persons – orphans, lepers, terminally ill street people, AIDS victims and many others. She and her fellow sisters received no pay as they worked long and difficult hours. Understandably, she is seen as a semi-divine figure who represented all of the best qualities of selflessness.

But Mother Teresa, her work and her life have also been subject to critical review. Christopher Hitchens, the well known Atheist, wrote a book about her work entitled, of all things, Missionary Position, in which he questions her motivations and the true nature of her charity. She accepted vast amounts of money from the convicted financier Charles Keating and even wrote a letter to his trial judge pleading for mercy in his behalf. She met often with the wife of the Haitian despot Jean Claude “Baby Doc” Duvalier and appears to have accepted large donations from Duvalier ill gotten wealth. She often encouraged suffering by the poor, saying they are needed as living symbols of Christ’s suffering. Hitchens claims she believed that her duty to the poor was to soothe their distress and pray for them but not to address the causes of their poverty. In that regard, her homes are said to offer kindness and basic needs but they do not offer substantive medical treatment or pain suppressing drugs. Further, Hitchens says she was motivated only to evangelize and expand the Catholic Church. Charity to the poor was a highly visible way to attract converts. Perhaps even more damning is the claim that Teresa lacked any real faith in God as evidenced by personal letters she wrote questioning divine existence. Hitchens is uncharitable is his depiction of Teresa. She was a fraud, he writes.

What we find with Mother Teresa is that she was, like all of us, a complex person with the same kind of inconsistencies and paradoxes we all tend to have. Reviewing her life work can be a lesson to us, therefore, in how we discern – but not judge – other people. We owe her not blind reverence – or angry condemnation, but the honor of her true self. Her actions should be examined in light of her motivations as well as the good she created. The world’s rush to declare her a saint may be sincere but does it reflect the truth? Did she really help others and was her charity really selfless?

And that same scrutiny should be applied to her flaws. Even if she did accept money from shady characters to fund her work, is that so bad if it helped the poor? Even if she did not set out to cure disease or poverty, is that so bad if she offered tenderness, love, and dignity to the unwashed and unwanted? Even if she had doubts about the existence of God, is that any less human than the doubts of Jesus, the Biblical character Job or any other human?

The truth of Mother Teresa is complicated. It demands that we refuse to either sanctify her or declare her a fraud. Our response to her must be nuanced and balanced. We must offer her the gift of her personal truth – she was who she was – as we also offer the gift of our open minds. Neither saint nor sinner, she was above all a human being – one who could embrace a dirty and infectious street person from the slums of Calcutta, even as she courted ruthless millionaires. But living a life of paradox can describe any person. It can certainly describe me. Who are we to close our minds about who another is? Who are we to judge? Who are we to deny another soul the dignity of their truth?

My introduction this morning, I hope, sets up my theme this month on amazing gifts we can offer others. I’ve initiated this message series because I believe one goal of all forms of spirituality is to promote lives and actions of grace – to encourage people to be ones who give away open minded understanding, compassion and inspiration. Grace, as we all know, is a gift without strings – a thing, act or gesture that is freely and unconditionally offered to another. To be people of grace, therefore, is to continuously be ones who change things for the better – from small, everyday acts of kindness, to large acts of serving, to how we think about and treat people.

Because of our cancelled service last Sunday, I’ve combined two of my suggested amazing gifts we can offer others – into one message. You get this morning a twofer! The topics are related though. I suggest we can first offer others the gift to be themselves. When we do, we will have done so because we have also offered the gift of our open minds. As simple as these seem, they are extraordinary gifts many of us do not always extend. But when we do extend the grace of respecting and celebrating another person for who they are or were, we have offered a profound spiritual gift – a gift that confers dignity for his or her deep rooted soul. That soul is an amalgam of a person’s life, good and bad – their birth, genetics, personality, life experiences, successes, failures and eccentricities. To be a person of true grace, our gift of allowing others to be themselves must be total – not based on any factor other than their humanity.

But such a gift to allow others the honor of being themselves can only come if we have also offered the gift of our open mind. Too often, we judge others based on limited facts and prejudiced thinking. We approach people, issues and situations in life with fanatical convictions and stereotypes – opinions we have formed which we often refuse to change. Few of us are completely free from such rigid thinking – my thoughts, my opinions, my views of other people – are right. I do not need to change. They do.

An open mind, however, is a spiritual quality to which we might aspire. This does not mean we abandon the right to form an opinion. Instead, an open mind is flexible, evolving and questioning. Thoughts and opinions are constantly examined, re-examined and changed – all the better to search for truth. We open our minds by reading and listening to other ideas not as a way to challenge them, but as a way to grow. We don’t isolate ourselves with people who think and act like us but, instead, embrace people with diverse lifestyles, beliefs and cultures. Those who are different from us are not enemies to be feared but ones who expand and enlighten us.

Very few people or issues in life are black and white, good or bad. Much like Mother Teresa, people and issues are complicated and full of seeming contradictions. Are all conservatives heartless? Are all liberals naive hypocrites? Are all gays and lesbians deviants who choose to be supposedly unnatural just for sexual pleasure? Are religious fundamentalists ignorant and fear filled fanatics? Are Atheists amoral and blind to evidence of a higher power? Such questions demand open minds for the persons described – as much as they demand of us a refusal to judge and condemn.

Sadly, we have become people with little grace in that regard. We are often too judgmental, with closed minds and we fail to allow others the respect to be themselves, to enjoy the possibility that their way is as valid as our way, to the fact that they may have wisdom to offer us. We often speak of spiritual ethics like unconditional love and living at peace but we fail to remember them and practice them. I met someone a few months ago with whom I was initially suspicious – all on the basis of my own fears and not based on anything he or she had done. I was soon proven totally incorrect in my initial thinking. What I had done, until I opened my mind to learn more, was deny the person the respect of accepting them as they presented. I robbed the person of their soul as I robbed myself of any claim to grace. I can do this all too easily every day – a homeless person I encounter on the street is a drug addict, lazy, dirty, scary. Someone from my previous conservative church, who I recently ran into, is a bigot, hateful and a homophobe. Why do I presume to judge? Why is my mind so fixed? Who appointed me God?

Too often we can either shun a person who is different, wag our tongues in judgment or seek to change them. We adopt the arrogant attitude that our way of thinking, acting, loving is best and the other must conform to our standards. We do this in our relationships, our families and with our friends. We nag them about characteristics we do not like as we encourage them to be something they are not. The message we implicitly tell them is “I don’t accept you as you are and I would love you more if…” We spiritually kill their souls – denying them the beauty and joy of being true to who they are.

Struggling and broken relationships are littered with people who cannot or will not extend to their partner or friend the gift of being themselves. That gift may not mean we stay with another, agree with another or initiate a relationship – but it does offer dignity and respect without trying to change them, without judging them. It recognizes the beauty of differences. It understands that none of us are perfect and that the other is not only entitled to his or her ways and beliefs, but that he or she may be right. Ideally, in all our human relationships, we can learn to embrace and honor diversity – good and bad – as a part of the colorful fabric that makes up humanity.

A recent article in Psychology Today asserts that people who are constantly trying to change others, who are judgmental and critical of others, they are ones unable or unwilling to control themselves. Failing to control their own emotions, behaviors or attitudes, they seek to control others – they fixate, as Jesus famously opined, on the speck in another person’s eye while ignoring the log in their own. Such people, Psychology Today asserts, are the emotionally immature who project their self loathing on others by being critical and judgmental of them. Such people are the jealous and insecure who demand control over another’s behavior to salve their own issues. They are those people unable to control their own anger or temper and so they try to control and change others.

Healthy people, the article suggests, are those who practice emotional autonomy. They recognize and accept that the only person over which they have practical and legitimate control is themselves and so their outward focus is open minded and rarely judgmental. These are people of grace – they listen more than speak, they never humiliate another, they put the interests and feelings of others above their own, conversations are rarely focused on their concerns but on those of the other, they are gentle, peaceable, kind and encouraging, they have inquisitive and generous minds.

Even more, they intuitively practice a form of Buddhist mindfulness which promotes simple awareness. Observations of other people, what they do and how they act are mentally noted but not analyzed. Open minds, therefore, are not empty minds devoid of thought. Rather, they discern but do not judge, they observe but do not criticize. As Buddhists note, this allows one to find greater inner peace and greater love for others. We let go of the fruitless effort to change other people. Absent critical judgement of others, we can then focus on our own growth as well as on the good that binds people together.

We need not change our ways, therefore, just to be agreeable with others. Indeed, we can disagree with others – our friends, our colleagues, our partners, our political opponents – without being disagreeable. In this time when our nation is so divided, we can remember the intrinsic personhood of political or religious opponents. Their beliefs almost always come honestly and even as we might disagree with them, we can treat them, speak to them and talk about them with grace – even if they do not extend the same. We give them the gift of being and believing as they feel called. We listen to them and seek to understand and even learn from them. We come together as one people who are mature enough to disagree in a manner that uplifts instead of tears down.

Malcolm Muggeridge, a BBC reporter, was one of the first western journalists who reported on the work of Mother Teresa. He is largely responsible for her subsequent fame. Before she was well-known, he wrote of encountering her at the first home she had established in Calcutta that served the so-called untouchables – the lowest class of Indians. Teresa was tending a very old and terminally ill man, one whose body was full of a cancer that was literally eating him alive. He had no family and even the nurses and doctors had deemed his condition hopeless as they focused on helping others. The man’s many open wounds were infected and full of worms. The smell, reports Muggeridge, was almost unbearable. But Teresa slowly and gently applied a potassium mixture to his wounds that would cleanse them and kill the parasites. This took several hours. At one point, the man opened his eyes and peered up at Teresa. He murmured a Hindu phrase which meant “Glory to you, woman.” Muggeridge reports that Teresa replied to him, “No sir, glory to you.” The man died two days later.

The contemporary well known poet Maya Angelou once said, in regard to how we treat others, “I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” I related the story of Mother Teresa not to try and discount any of the critical reviews of her work. Sincere people have legitimately removed the gauzy veil of sainthood that surrounds her. But what is clear is that Teresa, with all her faults, was a woman of grace – one who exuded a kind of peace, humility and gentleness toward others that made them feel loved and respected. When we are people of grace, we focus on how we make others feel. We concern ourselves less with how we feel than with how embracing, listening, and empathetic we can be. We walk and speak humbly and in a way that implicitly tells the world that peace comes with us, that gentleness is present. No matter the cause, no matter the provocation, no matter the differences, people of grace accept others as they are – full of complexities and flaws – but true to their own souls. That is an ethic we aspire to at the Gathering – to welcome all into our midst even as we are also conscious of our safety. To the homeless folk who walk in here, to the addicts determined to get some money from us, to the seemingly unappreciative homeless youth we often serve, to the gays or lesbians who timidly visit, to our partners, family members and friends with all their big and small flaws, to all of the eccentric and diverse ones we meet, let us not with words – but with our open minds and respect – say to them, “Glory to you.”

 

 

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

 

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Ayesha is an 18 year Pakistani woman. At the age of 8, while visiting her uncle’s home, she was raped by another man. Her screams, cries and bleeding revealed to her family what had happened. Nevertheless, to them she had become damaged, unclean and unworthy of later marriage. In Ayesha’s patriarchal culture, women and girls who are not virgins, no matter the cause, are not wanted as wives, which, unfortunately, is the only path to respectability for most women. Her rapist, while caught, was forced to apologize but then released. He’s now free, married and with children.

As a result of her rape, Ayesha soon became the victim of regular sexual abuse by her father – a convenient source for his pleasure since she was already ruined. The shame she now still feels is debilitating – a condition not of her doing but one she acutely feels – “I’m dirty. I’m a whore.”

And, while biblical scholars cannot be sure, it is surmised that the woman who tearfully anointed Jesus with costly oils and fragrances in a sign of love and appreciation was the same adulterous woman Jesus saved from stoning by a mob of self-righteous men. This woman’s tears and gratitude to Jesus are signs of a woman deeply affected by him – a woman who was restored, honored and made whole by him. She’s a woman who likely still remembered the shame of her sexual misdeed but one who was profoundly grateful for the acceptance and tenderness Jesus showed her.

A more recent story is the one of Tyler Clementi who, in 2010, jumped to his death from the George Washington bridge after a secretly recorded video of his sexual encounter with another man was played online by a homophobic roommate. It does not take much imagination to consider the shame and humiliation young Tyler felt at his public exposure and outing. His was a modern form of stoning – one that pushed him to his lonely, tragic suicide – one where just before he jumped he posted a Facebook note apologizing to friends and family for his disgrace.

Shame is a debilitating emotion. It is a feeling of being totally unworthy, inadequate, fundamentally bad and worthless. For many, shame is caused by religion which often focuses on purity as a virtue while supposed sexual sin, in particular, is worthy of eternal punishment. While one might intellectually discount Biblical verses declaring homosexuality, fornication or lust as abominations, when such declarations are repeatedly taught, over and over, by shame based religions – especially to impressionable youth, it is quite easy to understand the inner torment many feel all their lives about supposed sexual sin. Indeed, shame tears at the very fabric of one’s sense of self, one’s ability to love the self, one’s intuitive belief that he or she has value.

In my review this month of three Oscar nominated Best Picture films of 2014, we look today at the beautifully told movie “Philomena.” Based on a book entitled The Lost Child of Philomena Lee, the movie details the search by a woman for the son she bore over fifty years ago – a result of being impregnated as a very young, unmarried teen. Shunned by her Irish father, the young Philomena was abandoned to a Catholic home for unwed mothers – run by a group of moralizing nuns. Forced to face, upon her arrival, an inquisition panel of judgmental nuns, Philomena was luridly interrogated about the details of her alleged sin – “Did he pull down your knickers? Did you enjoy it? How long did it last?” Such questions were supposed to be Philomena’s confession of sin but, in reality, seemed more as a way to satisfy the interests of sexually frustrated nuns. In return for their care, the teenage girls were forced to work long hours doing laundry by hand. Their labor and birth were not salved by anesthesia, Philomena’s breech condition was not treated, and many, many girls died in childbirth. Their pain and deaths were seen as well deserved. The girls who did survive were allowed to see their child one hour a day. Life in the home, as ruled by the nuns, was harsh, disciplined and designed to regularly remind the girls of their so-called sin.

When Philomena’s son was three, he was offered for adoption to a wealthy American-Catholic couple. While adoptive parents did not pay for the children, they were tacitly encouraged to make a substantial donation to the convent. Over 450 children were adopted out of the convent – some to American celebrities like Joan Crawford and Jane Russell. Philomena, like the other girls, was never able to say goodbye or thereafter know anything about her son. At what would be her son’s fiftieth birthday, Philomena finally confessed to her daughter what she had done and her desire to know what happened to him.

Philomena and her daughter enlisted the help of a disgraced journalist who, in seeking to resurrect his career, was intrigued by this human interest story. The tabloid he worked for, attracted to tales of sex, religion and the selling of babies, financed efforts to locate Philomena’s son – an effort that eventually led the journalist and Philomena to the US. There they discovered what became of her son. In the interest of not ruining the story for those who have not seen the movie, I won’t give away any more details. Needless to say, the film describes a tale of almost unbelievable plot twists – except the entire story is true.

What I can detail is the film’s very evident condemnation of religions, the human created and deeply flawed institutions and their so called moral laws. It does not, in any way, condemn personal faith and, indeed, highlights Philomena’s abiding spirituality that she expresses through her prayers, basic humility, kindness to strangers and ability to forgive.

But shame based religions, usually fundamentalist in nature, are clearly put on trial by the movie. It is an indictment of the terrible toll such religions inflict on many people. The tortured pain Philomena still feels, decades after her alleged sin, is written across the subtly expressive face of actress Judi Dench – herself nominated for a Best Actress Oscar. Philomena’s journey to find her son is both to learn about him but also a cathartic effort she undertakes to purge herself of the persistent, nagging, scornful shame she has been taught to feel. When she does finally find him, it is clear that Philomena has not been totally cured of her shame but has found, in her Jesus-like love and forgiveness of others, a certain peace and understanding of the pain that inner guilt can cause.

But for the nuns of the convent, who essentially abused the young girls, sold their children and deceived both Philomena and her son, there is no repentance or any recognition of their sins against humanity. Theirs is the arrogant assertion by all shame based religions that they alone hold the keys to purity and the path to heaven. Theirs is the smug belief they are always right and that it is a sinful and evil society – one ruled by Satan himself – that ruins humankind. Theirs is a toxic system founded on denial of honest emotions and genuine humanity – a belief that to be morally pure, one cannot express doubt, fear, desire, or physical enjoyment of the bodies we have been given. As one nun in the film pridefully declares, she had honored her vows of chastity, her denial of the flesh was a means to be near God, and the girls, who had failed in saving their purity, they got what they deserved in their pain and humiliation.

But such assertions are not godly. They do not represent the Jesus as described in the Bible. They do not speak for the billions of faithful followers of genuine spirituality – no matter the religion – who love and treat others as they want to be loved and treated. The nuns who lied to Philomena do not practice the one eternal and universal principle of spirituality – the Golden Rule.

Indeed, the very foundations of Christianity teach against shame based religion. Jesus’ death is seen as the sacrifice necessary for humans to be totally forgiven. His atonement for human misdeeds enabled God to no longer see failure in people. At its root, Christianity is a religion of redemption and restoration. Despite some interpretations to the contrary, I assert that Jesus was a radically unique prophet – one who preached the good news of the power of love.

Such is not a syrupy, so-called Sunday school version of Jesus or his love. What Jesus taught and stood for is one of radical inclusiveness, humility, empathy and forgiveness. Love your enemy in a way that is transformative. Forgive those who hurt you in a way that promotes peace and healing. Humble yourself in a way that promotes and serves others more than the self. Understand the differences and experiences of others in a way that does not judge but instead offers respect and full acceptance.

That is the kind of love that Jesus pointed to as representative of the divine. That is the kind of love that he practiced – choosing to understand and befriend thieves, prostitutes and so-called sinners of his day. It’s a love that refused to judge alleged sexual sinners – the woman caught in adultery, the Samaritan woman who had married and divorced six times, the prodigal son who spent his inheritance on wine, women and other pleasures of the flesh. It’s a love that never once, as documented in the four gospels, commented on or condemned same sex relationships. It’s a love that was not afraid to draw close to other men – allowing his beloved disciple John to rest his head on his shoulder.

That kind of love is one Philomena sought to practice in her own life. As a simple woman in the company of a more urbane and Cambridge educated journalist, she was the one who showed him how to be kind to strangers, how to empathize with and understand other alleged sexual sinners, how to forgive and love the nuns who had abused and lied to her.

For Philomena, faith was her way to try and heal her shame. Hers was not an intellectual, theological or Biblically literate faith. It was and is a faith she believes is truly Catholic but which is, in reality, one that any Hindu, Jew, Muslim or Atheist might identify with. That faith was simple and direct: there is a universal power of love that calls us to care for, serve and forgive everyone.

I have attended many evangelical Christian services where the congregation is implored, at moments of high emotion, to come forward to the altar and literally nail a piece of paper onto a wooden Cross. On the paper one is to write a particular past misdeed or so-called sin which still haunts the individual. Such teaching moments are designed to convey the idea that one need not carry a burden of sin and shame. Nail it to the Cross in the same way that Jesus himself became sin personified and was crucified in our behalf. I did that exercise many times – tearfully writing down my “sin” of gay feelings – and nailing them to a Cross in the fervent hope that God would help me eliminate such thoughts. Of course, that did not and could not work, as much as I prayed it might.

The truth of such sin focused teaching is that people are asked to believe their own particular misdeed was and is the cause of Jesus’ death. Indeed, that is actually what is taught in most Christian fundamentalist churches. These sin focused teachings do not take away shame. They enhance it, promote it and encourage it – all the better for believers to feel, as I did, a perpetual sense of diminished value and goodness. But God does not take away shame. We must do that ourselves.

The mission of Jesus the man was not, however, to promote shame by preaching and teaching a long list of “Thou Shall Not’s”. His goal was to promote the very simple “Thou Shall Do’s”, that I listed earlier and that I continually talk about in my messages. Serve others. Forgive others. Understand others. Love others. Refuse to judge others. Humble yourself before others. Focus on correcting your own issues instead of on those of others.

That’s the historical Jesus I find in the Bible. That’s the historical prophet who remains a figure of interest, admiration and awe two-thousand years later. Who, but the greatest of persons, is able to forgive someone who has deeply hurt you, someone who has sworn to be your enemy? Who but the most saintly of persons is able to regularly serve, wash and love the dirty, smelly, ignorant, criminal or diseased? Who but the most empathetic are able to understand, without judging or condemning, the addict, prostitute, gay man, lesbian woman, drag queen, pregnant teen, pornographer, transgender person, stripper, sexual adventurer or anyone else in their so-called sins?

The path to healing shame and guilt is not to preach against all of the alleged carnal sins we can practice or imagine. It’s not to declare that a Savior or Messiah has or will die for us. It’s not to require a list of rules and regulations that reward only those who strictly follow them. It’s not to teach about a vengeful God willing to accept only those who are perfect. We all know that nobody is perfect. There is nobody without sin who can cast stones at others.
The path to healing shame in ourselves and in our world is the path that Philomena took – to admit the truth about oneself, to refuse to hide in the shadows, to love others as you wish to be loved. In doing so, one will find a love for the self that cleans away guilt and shame. If I am able to believe and practice the Golden Rule, I can then apply it to how I treat myself. I can forgive myself of any real or alleged misdeed. As long as I have loved and served others in the same way that I wish to be loved and served, then I have done nothing wrong. I have walked in the footsteps of Jesus and other prophets. I have turned away from those religions and people who judge, condemn and encourage shame. I have reached for the face of god and found pure and total love.
I wish you all much peace and joy.

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

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Amy Chua, the contemporary author best known for writing the controversial book, Tiger Mom, has written a new book, Triple Package, in which she offers her views on why various ethnic groups succeed in the US, and certain ones do not. In her view, three traits enable success in our nation – a superiority complex, a sense of insecurity and impulse control. Asians, Mormons, Nigerians, Jews, Indians and Iranians mostly have this so-called triple package. African-Americans, Latinos, Muslims and modern White Anglo-Saxon Protestants – WASPs – do not. For many people, her book has the resonance of anecdotal truth. As many Indian-Americans delight in pointing out, 38% of current US doctors are Indian, 36% of NASA employees are Indian, as are 34% of Microsoft employees. Our post-racial, post election of Barack Obama US culture is no longer a bigoted society, many people claim. People of color succeed all across the country. The reason, Chua and others claim, lies in the inherent traits within one’s ethnic culture.

While many arm chair experts and political commentators love Chua’s new book and excitedly repeat her claims, academics and social scientists of all races and ethnicities deride her book as thinly disguised racism. She explains away the poverty of African-Americans and Latinos in our nation by praising the cultural traits of ethnic groups that are succeeding. She thereby implicitly stereotypes groups that are not currently succeeding by blaming the permissiveness of contemporary white society, the lack of impulse control in many African-Americans, and the absence of self confidence in many Latinos. Drug abuse, teen pregnancy, poverty, low emphasis on education – these are all symptoms of deficient cultures – not racial groups – according to Chu. Black Nigerians, she points out, are wonderfully represented in Ivy League schools and are rapidly advancing. For me, her theories are simply uninformed.

What Chua has failed to document, perhaps due to her own myopic understanding of America, is how cultural and family history play a huge role in the success, or lack thereof, for any particular individual. People are largely products of their ancestral history. As social scientists point out, most immigrants to the US have come from situations far different from that of African-Americans. Immigrants self-select themselves out of their nation and culture. Most immigrants are relatively well educated and stable in their native lands. They are primed to succeed in the US. Indian immigrants, for instance, are the educated and middle class of India. The poor, underclass, uneducated Indians cannot possibly emigrate as it is too far and too expensive to do so.

Most immigrants also arrive as completely free individuals often with large family support networks to assist them. As the elites of their former nation, they already possess the self-confidence, education, skill levels and support systems required to succeed. If group culture is a determinant of success, why is the success of Indians in this nation in direct contrast to the difficulties of India, the nation, where extreme poverty and rigid discrimination are still evident? The same holds true for Nigerian, Iranian, Cuban and many Asian immigrants – all of whom Chua praises. Immigrant success in the US is not due to superiority of culture. It is due, as it is for all Americans, to the relative success and stability of past ancestors.

Chua thus fails to understand or explain the role American history has played in shaping the problems facing African-Americans and Hispanic-Americans. She fails to note or offer credit to them and their struggle for hard won affirmative action and anti-discrimination policies – how such advances now also help immigrants. Indeed, contemporary whites and immigrants benefit from American historical racism while that legacy still profoundly hurts African-Americans. We must reverse and correct that.

As one social scientist notes, the one institution in America that is mostly color blind is the US Army. Mandated by government decree, officer ranks are well represented by African and Latino Americans. It is the one institution where large numbers of whites serve under the command of African-Americans. Such a fact emphatically supports the notion that political and government policies can help reverse the past harm of racism by offering favorable opportunities to advance.
And the recent movie “12 Years a Slave” directly supports my assertion that slavery and racism still have deeply harmful effects on blacks. As I continue my look at three Academy Award nominated films for 2014, I am highlighting movies that hit viewers in their proverbial guts. They impact our thinking and, hopefully, our actions. The movie “Gravity”, which I discussed last Sunday, is an in your face assault on one’s senses with its destruction and death in outer space. Such calamity forces the viewer to confront spiritual issues of life, death, meaning and the question of God’s existence. If you missed that message, you can listen to it online.

The same assault on viewer senses and thinking is true for the film “12 Years a Slave”. Based on the memoir of Solomon Northup, a free African-American who was kidnapped and sold into slavery in 1841, the movie is NOT pleasant to watch. It is not a heroic film in the sense that one feels uplifted and joyful. From beginning to end, the film assaults the viewer with scenes of violence. That was precisely the director Steve McQueen’s intent. Slavery was not an institution that could be shaded with anything light and happy. It was dark, horrific and profoundly harmful to the human spirit. The movie purposefully slaps viewers in the face with reasons why our nation struggles 150 years later with issues of race – contrary to Amy Chua’s naive assertions. It also implicitly begs the question of how America can atone for and redeem its ugly racial history.

If we are to understand why many African-Americans still struggle in poverty, we need only examine the nature of slavery and how it was practiced. “12 Years a Slave” depicts many of those underlying practices which still affect African-Americans. When Solomon Northup arrived in Georgia after his kidnapping, he was sold as a slave. The auctioneer began to call him by the name “Platt” which Northup corrected. He was immediately slapped across the face. “No, your name is Platt’”. And that effort to erase Northup’s individual identity and pride is a recurring theme in the film. Any sense of self, any personal awareness of ability, any notion of himself as an autonomous person were systematically destroyed and intentionally wiped away. A slave is a thing – a blunt, unthinking, ignorant tool to be used and discarded at will.

Such an effort to degrade personhood was common for all slaves. And it was common in the decades after slavery as blacks became sharecroppers in what was a form of slavery in everything but name. So too was it expressed in Jim Crow laws designed to take away natural human rights – the right of self, the right to be treated with dignity and value. That stripping away of personhood is a profound legacy of slavery and past racism. Their effects still linger and persist – deeply rooted in the psyches of many African-Americans – feelings of inferiority, helplessness and pessimism.

I do not in any way compare my upbringing to the African-American experience. I offer my family history only as a possible example of how family attitudes are passed one generation to the next. My great grandfather on my father’s side was a hard driving workaholic. He had nine children but he was not one to nurture them. Life was a struggle and he taught his children the same. My grandfather learned that ethic from his father and he too was driven. Compassion, understanding and empathy were soft qualities – especially in men. Discipline and manly virtues of fighting and athletic competition made a man a man. My father learned those things well. Sent to military schools, captain of his football team, pushed hard and taught to scorn anything feminine – including his own mother – that was my dad. And I was raised to be the same. Only, such attitudes ran counter to who I am and they deeply affected me. For whatever reasons, I am studious, non-athletic, introspective, and anything but the guys guy my father wanted. The legacy of my past family attitudes about masculinity still haunt me – in the disappointment and even derision I’ve felt from my dad. I’ve worked to get over them but that is not easy. And, I imagine, I have passed on some of my hurts to my daughters in the form of their diminished self esteem.

I recount my family history as an example of how attitude legacies are passed down. Family histories – like those which benefitted many immigrants – can help or harm. My history was affected by my paternal ancestors. Imagine if such negative attitudes had been passed to me by both my paternal AND maternal ancestors? – as is the case for most African-Americans. The dehumanizing effect of loss of personhood for blacks has been passed from parent to child – on and on – through over 150 years. Sociologically, it explains one reason why many African-American men can lack the inner pride and self confidence that leads to success. They’ve been indirectly taught by a past slave auctioneer – “Your name is not what you think. You’re a boy, a tool to be used and thrown away.” Today’s problems of low reading and math scores, single mom families, and African-American male incarceration are likely a result.

One contemporary commentator on racism in the US puts it this way: Imagine that all people had been asked to run a race for the past 300 years. For 180 of those years, however, blacks were forbidden the opportunity to run in the race. For the next 80 years they were told they could run the race but various tricks were employed to prevent them. Only for the last 40 years were they finally allowed to run. Over the entire 300 years, however, whites and others were freely able to run the race. How long will it take for blacks to catch up and run as equally skilled with whites and other races? It is naive, cruel and arrogant to expect any group could do so in only 40 years.
Another instructive scene in “12 Years a Slave” is when Northup is nearly lynched by a gang of whites – one of whom he had insulted. He is strung up, but the executioners are chased away. Northup, however, is left hanging just enough so that he is choked but able to barely survive by pushing up with his tiptoes. The scene is harrowing. There is no music, no sound to soothe the viewer – only the desperate scraping of his feet and his gasps and chokes as he tries to breathe. But the most soul searing part of the scene is that we see other slaves near him carry out their regular duties and lives – all while Northup is left hanging. No slave rushes to help him or dares to cut him down even when no whites are present. The seeming indifference to fellow suffering – all in the name of self-preservation – is a telling legacy. This too is a recurring theme. To survive, one cannot think of anyone but oneself.

How has this legacy affected contemporary African-American culture? We see all around blacks who deeply care for others but issues of learned helplessness, stoicism and seeming indifference are too common. The attitude of self-preservation over the interests of the community still lingers. Attitudes of strong support for the group over the individual – ones learned by many Asians, whites, Nigerians and Jews because of past stable families – these have to be fostered and learned over many generations. Its not race that causes these attitudes.

For African-Americans, slavery was and is the cause.
In other scenes, Northup is kidnapped from his family. A mother has her children ripped from her arms and sold to another owner living far away. Parenthood and family were systematically destroyed under slavery. Mothers and dads were conditioned not to grow too close to children – all the better to guard one’s heart. Aunts, uncles, cousins and grandparents were often distant or unknown figures. This legacy of family break-up is still evident today. Such a fact does not define all African-Americans. Indeed, many African-American families are models of strong cohesion. But, the high rates of out of wedlock births, single mom families and absentee dads in the African-American community are not ones of racial or ethnic inferiority. They are the legacies of slavery, Jim Crow, racism and past family histories that destroyed family units. They are the fault of my white ancestors and of many of yours.

The movie “12 Years a Slave”, as I said earlier, is not entertainment. I personally turned away at many violent scenes. I hate seeing suffering and violence. But such depictions are not gratuitous. They are not portrayed to satisfy bloodlust. Rather, the director McQueen uses the unrelenting harshness of the movie for a purpose – to shock viewers into changing attitudes about current conditions in the African-American community. The viewer, particularly the non-black viewer, is asked to ponder questions of guilt and responsibility. Simply the act of watching the movie, in all of its horribleness, is an act of penance – a way to personally acknowledge not just an academic awareness of racism and slavery – but the gut wrenching, dirty, painful, horrific aspects of it that nobody enjoys seeing – but seeing we must do in order that we do not forget. I believe this film should be seen by all Americans.

In this sense, the movie asks non-black viewers to not only think about the consequences of slavery that still linger today but also the more important spiritual questions of how to atone for them and correct them. One of my January messages addressed how to practice the art of genuine apology. To do so, one must first acknowledge a wrong, deeply and sincerely apologize for it and then work to correct it. While nobody currently living is directly responsible for slavery, most whites and immigrants are the beneficiaries of it. Slavery and racism helped advance the industrial revolution which enriched many whites. It allowed white small farmers the advantages of land ownership and success. It was the foundation on which much of white wealth was made – in business, agriculture and education. Most of us have the remnants of slave associated money in our bank accounts – whether from ancestors or else from businesses and industries founded on slave or Jim Crow labor.

African-Americans are not passive victims to be pitied. Any individual is responsible for their own change and many, many African-Americans are succeeding in ways that improve our world. But it is ignorant to suggest that the problem of a black underclass today is not the fault of racist history that spent centuries demeaning and dehumanizing African-Americans. To reverse the legacies of such a history, it is not enough to simply no longer practice racism. Direct policies that offer opportunity to advance and to break out of a negative family cycle of dysfunction are critical. Affirmative action policies are not hand outs – they are hand ups enabling one the opportunity to get an education and job.

Changing white and immigrant attitudes about problems in the black community are essential. Spiritual empathy demands that we enlighten ourselves to the real causes. We cannot expect to receive forgiveness nor redemption unless and until legacies of slavery and racism are mostly eliminated. That will take time as well as proactive policies to reconcile past wrongs. If there is to be any hope of claiming a color blind, equal opportunity, productive and well educated population, we must understand that problems today are not due to deficiency of morality, character, culture or race. Indeed, if the ancestors of whites and immigrants had suffered as did African-Americans, if we were born into and raised in neighborhoods like Over-the-Rhine, we too would face the same struggles. “12 Years a Slave” asks us each to examine our attitudes about the black underclass, reasons for its problems and our spiritual responsibility to redeem our ugly and violent past.

I pray for us all – peace, enlightenment and repentance.

 

 

 

 

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

 

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My intent this month is to look at and use three 2014 Academy Award nominated movies as the basis for a message. As we each know, all art forms tell a story in sound or sight that reflect a point of view. Movies are no different. Great films not only entertain, they inspire and enlighten. I’ve chosen three Oscar nominated films that I believe offer us spiritual insight into the human condition and thus help us grow as more aware and informed people. As much as possible, I will try not to tell too much of each story that might spoil your desire to see these films – which I hope you do. Ultimately, great movies subtly change us in ways that alter how we think and act – and for the movies I have chosen to review, I hope that is for our good.

The movie “Gravity” is, in many respects, a bait and switch film. It lures many people to watch it by its heart thumping action and technological wizardry that make the viewer feel as if he or she is literally in outer space. On its surface, “Gravity” is a tour de force in merging computer generated images with real human acting. Over 80% of the movie was computer generated in a way that is unbelievably realistic. Indeed, former NASA astronauts claim the film is a masterful rendition of how it looks and sounds in the vacuum of space – all achieved without anyone ever leaving the ground. Similar to past cinematic technological advances like the addition of color or sound, the use of computers – when used effectively – adds to the overall movie experience. The makers of “Gravity” achieved that goal with stunning success.
But all of the technical achievements of this film serve a greater purpose – to draw one into pondering existential truths. In this way it is a much deeper and thought provoking movie than its action packed veneer suggests. Many have likened it to the classic film “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Personally, I was drawn to its space realism qualities because I’ve often dreamed of one day being a space tourist. But in watching “Gravity” I soon found my feet and head not in star dust clouds of inter-stellar space but instead firmly rooted on earth. The film confronted me with the kinds of questions that have interested humans since the dawn of civilization: Why are we here? Why do we live? Why do we die? What is universal Truth? What controls the cosmos and, therefore, our human destinies?
On these questions, the film is surprisingly spiritual – not in a religious sense but, instead, by asking the kinds of spirit centered questions that grasp for ultimate meaning. So too does the film implicitly ask questions about the natural and supernatural. Can perfectly natural but all powerful cosmic forces like gravity, evolution and thermodynamics have their own transcendent power and beauty and thus be considered “God”?
The movie employs a common thematic set-up much like stories with a shipwreck or disaster situation. In this case, the two characters in the film must find a way to survive the destruction of the space shuttle and space station and return to the safety of earth. The plot is therefore quite simple. The film champions ethics of persistence, innovation and determination in the face of dire calamity. A cold and lonely death, cut off from contact with earth, seems inevitable for the characters and yet the human will to survive takes over.
With this survival theme, however, comes parallel spiritual themes related to life and death as well as the existence or non-existence of a supernatural power that determines not only human existence but all creation. Is there a god and, if so, what comprises god? Is god a theological being upon whom we can personally call? Is god perhaps a distant being who has left us and the universe alone? Or, is there no theological god but, instead, a natural universe of fantastic beauty and intricate complexity that essentially functions as god?
Our answer to those questions will likely differ for each viewer of the film. Nevertheless, it seems the prevailing answer found in the film is that we exist and are governed by many gods in the form of natural laws and physical forces like gravity – Newton’s third law of motion. The title of the film points us in that direction. The characters in the film are continuously reminded of the law of gravity. No theological god can override it. And the same holds true for other laws of physics and the universe.
The ultimate law that the characters face is the second law of thermodynamics which says that the energy found in any mass within the universe continuously experiences entropy or decrease. In simple terms, and I am certainly not a physicist, this means that all creation is subject to decay. While energy is transformed into other forms, entropy is an immutable fact of existence. This thermodynamics law explicitly states that a “perpetual motion machine”, object or form of life cannot exist in its same condition forever. That is a physical impossibility. No god, no supreme force can alter that fact.
In other words, death and decay – or entropy – are inevitable. As I stand before you this very second, entropy is acting upon me. I’m slowly dying and decaying before your eyes. The wrinkles on my forehead and the bags under my eyes will enlarge as you watch! Entropy and death are brutal truths and ones we implicitly accept but choose to put into the back of our minds. But the law of entropy and transferred energy, like gravity, is one that the characters in this film must immediately confront. Death is so near they can see its face and know that it is very, very near.
Indeed, the Sandra Bullock character at one point finds herself with no apparent options to survive. She is stranded in a tiny capsule with no fuel and limited oxygen. Death and the grim reaper have arrived. She gives in to this inevitability by giving up. But the human impulse to live soon rises up in her and she then fights all the harder to survive. She experiences, in symbolic form, the birth, death and re-birth that all creation undergoes. Her old, depressed, defeatist attitudes die and she is reborn as a newer, wiser, and more determined person. The immutable and merciless laws of nature – like entropy – act against us but we must not lie down in defeat before them.
And that idea is clearly portrayed in the movie. We must hold onto and cherish the gift of life for as long as possible. Indeed, that innate will to live and survive is also a type of god. The films shows us not an outside theological god acting to save the Sandra Bullock character. No prayer, no religion, no Savior rescues her. As a strong, resourceful and intelligent woman, she quickly learns to fight and think and strategize her own survival. She saves herself. Ultimately, as a child of the universe, she acts as her own god.
Such a view has long been echoed in human thought. It was eloquently stated by Dylan Thomas in his famous poem…
Wild ones who caught and sang the sun in flight,
And learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
Do not go gentle into that good night.

Grave ones, near death, who see with blinding sight
Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay,
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

We cannot alter the truth of entropy and death. We will fall to its inevitability. But what Thomas implores of humans and, more personally, his father, is that the fact of death does not mean we simply surrender before it. Since every baby begins to die after its first breath, does that mean it should accept its ultimate fate and give up? Of course not. Does it mean any person – at any age in life – should actively or quietly let entropy win its final battle? Dylan begs us to say no to that question. The movie “Gravity” tells us the same. Death may be inevitable but let it not conquer so easily.
Physical forces acting in the universe are gods. We cannot change them. We can admire and stand in awe at their intricate complexity and fantastic beauty. But human life – much like all creation – is a part of all natural laws. Our lives came about through natural forces like evolution, gravity and thermodynamics. We exist, therefore, as a part of the much larger cosmic whole. Stars and galaxies billions of miles away exist and function according to the same laws that allow us to live and breathe. All around us are beauty and complexity and wonder. And we are intricately a part of that truth. We are the universe and it is us. The whole universe is god and, as a part of the universal order, so are we.

To live fully, purposefully and beautifully is an act of worship and obedience to universal laws that govern and define our existence. Yes, we will all die but first we must truly live. First we must hold onto life with all our strength. We must do so in ways that give us meaning and purpose. A star does not exist simply to plant itself in a corner of space and sit there for no reason. It exists to give light, to generate and give away energy, to add to the complex running of the universe.
In the same way, each human exists with a purpose and function – to serve and advance other life and insure there is a continual creation and re-creation of humanity and other creatures. Every creation in the universe has a function according to natural laws. Humans are no different. We do not live just for ourselves – to suck up energy and resources only for our individual existence. We have a role to fulfill as a part of the intricate mutuality of all things. Life and existence is not ours to throw away.

In this way, the film “Gravity” reminds us to see the universe with profound gratitude. Yes, it’s merciless forces might destroy us, but so too do they sustain us. Gravity and entropy both bless and take away. They are simply the rules of existence and we can futilely fight them or else embrace and accept them. Indeed, without the forces of gravity, thermodynamics and evolution, we would not exist. As I said before, they are the face of God to us.

David Brooks wrote in his New York Times column last Tuesday that the problem with almost all contemporary religions is that they have lost the transcendent wonder upon which they were initially founded. In his mind, the ultimate form of spirituality is to feel and experience peace, wonder, awe and ecstatic joy at being a part of and experiencing the wider universe. All of existence is a great cathedral of wondrous beauty in which we are called to worship and serve.

Religion, however, turns our hearts and minds away from the sublime. Religion tells humans to dwell on the mundane and trivial acts of legalism and so-called morality as a way to honor and obey god or goddesses. Instead of manifesting love and rapturous awe at the powerful forces and diversity of created things, religion commands that we think small, that we focus on ourselves as the pinnacle of everything. Instead of embracing and worshipping an awesome universe and our place within it, we become consumed with saving just ourselves. No god that claims to be the master of the universe would think so small as to be preoccupied only with humans. We are but one very small and very insignificant part of a much greater and much more fantastic realm of existence.

And the movie “Gravity” ironically confirms this truth. The earth and all of creation are gifts to us – much like life itself. They are to be worshipped and deeply honored. The George Clooney character at one point marvels at the glory of a sunset reflected on the river Ganges – a spiritual moment he experiences while looking down from outer space – much like we imagine god doing.

Natural laws created life such that we were not destined to be specks of dust drifting in the cold of space but that we could be born and grow to consciously experience the universe and it’s profound beauty. Physical laws birthed us and we must honor those laws by fulfilling our purpose for as long as possible. To do so, we must act as our own saviors, as our own gods. We are masters of our destiny – for good or bad. But our true destiny is to live out our allotted time in useful ways – to serve our function – to love, sustain, nurture and care for other life – other humans – as a part of the wider and interconnected universe. Let us see ourselves, our universe and the natural laws that govern it with awe and reverence worthy of being called God.

I wish you all many moments of ecstatic peace and joy.

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

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In 1932, the United States Department of Health began a study in Tuskegee, Alabama.  It was to examine and note the affects of untreated syphillis on the human body.  The study recruited 600 African-American men to participate – most of them from rural areas where they had never before seen a doctor.  399 of the men were found to have syphillis but they were told instead that they had “bad blood”.  They were purposefully lied to in order that the study produce desired data – symptoms of untreated syphillis.  Even after penicillin became the standard treatment of the diseased in the early 1940’s, the men were not told either of their diagnosis or of a way to cure it.  Over a hundred of the men died of syphillis.  Many more went insane because of it.  Over forty wives and 19 children were infected also as a result.

The scientists involved demanded that participants remain in the study until its final conclusion – in other words, until death and final autopsy.  It was not until 1967, when a Department of Health employee learned of the study and protested to his superiors, that any question was made about its morality.  The employee was told to keep quiet.  The study continued since several infected men were still alive.  But the employee finally shared his knowledge with the New York Times which published the shocking story and brought about its conclusion.  A 1.8 billion dollar class action lawsuit was filed in behalf of the remaining survivors but it was quietly settled for 10 million dollars.  The story was soon forgotten.

It was not until 1997 that any official US apology was offered.  President Clinton assembled the five remaining survivors, the press and all of the Congressional Black Caucus at the White House.  He made the following apology:

“The United States government did something that was wrong — deeply, profoundly, morally wrong. It was an outrage to our commitment to integrity and equality for all our citizens.

To the survivors, to the wives and family members, the children and the grandchildren, I say what you know: No power on Earth can give you back the lives lost, the pain suffered, the years of internal torment and anguish. What was done cannot be undone. But we can end the silence. We can stop turning our heads away. We can look at you in the eye and finally say on behalf of the American people, what the United States government did was shameful, and I am sorry.

The American people are sorry — for the loss, for the years of hurt. You did nothing wrong, but you were grievously wronged. I apologize and I am sorry that this apology has been so long in coming.

To Macon County, to Tuskegee, to the doctors who have been wrongly associated with the events there, you have our apology, as well. To our African American citizens, I am sorry that your federal government orchestrated a study so clearly racist. That can never be allowed to happen again..”

          Immediately after his statement, Clinton appropriated funds to establish a memorial to the men in the study as well as money to build the Center for Bioethics in Research at Tuskegee University.  The governemnt then established a Department of Health and Human Services bioethics fellowship for minority medical students.  Clinton finally substantially strengthened and amended the charter of the National Bioethics Advisory Committee which examines the morality and ethics of all federally funded research.  Not content with mere words of apology, Clinton tried to insure that the government could never, ever sponsor such a study again.

This story certainly exemplifies one of the horrors perpetrated by our nation on African-Americans.  But, it also highlights one of our nation’s redeeming moments – President Clinton’s apology.  Whatever one thinks of Clinton politically, it is clear that he was and is a master at showing and expressing empathy.  Using blunt words and phrases like “racist, morally wrong, and shameful”, his apology is a case study in how sorrow ought to be expressed by a nation, organization or individual.  It was perfectly done.

Just this past October, the apparel manufacturer Lululemon showed how an apology must not be done.  After millions of pairs of its women’s yoga pants had to be recalled because they became see-through while women wore them, the company founder and CEO, Chip Wilson, issued a YouTube apology.  While saying his company was sorry its customers were angry, he noted that many women’s bodies “do not work well” with stretch pants and went on to imply that women were buying and wearing pants too small for their figure and this was the cause for the defect.  He only apologized to the company’s employees who would lose wages because of the problem.  What he never did was to accept blame for poor design and manufacture of the garment.  Nor did he apologize to the real victims – the humiliated customers who paid almost $100 for the pants.  His corrective solution was not re-design the defective fabric but to add extra material to certain areas of the pants while still charging the same high price.  Just this past week, earnings reports for Lululemon showed a dramatic decline.  It’s stock price plummeted.

This is my third and final message on uncommon New Year’s resolutions that we might adopt for 2014.  Much as I did last year, I’ve tried to choose resolutions that, in my opinion, are rarely undertaken but nevertheless represent significant issues in our culture.  Failing to genuinely apologize to those we have hurt or wronged is one such issue.

In an op-ed piece published in the New York Times this past December, the English writer Henry Hutchings bemoaned the extreme overuse of the word “sorry” by many Englanders.  He recounts being rudely bashed by a backpack worn by a careless teenager who quickly muttered “sorry” as he rushed by.  A mother steered a baby carriage over his foot and she too said “sorry” without stopping – and Henry found himself saying “sorry” to her as well.  He spilled a cup of tea at a restaurant as the waiter rushed over and said “sorry” – for an act clearly not his fault.  A British newspaper wrote recently that it believed the average middle class Brit says “sorry” eight times a day while Hutchings believed that figure far too low.

The cause, he writes, is that the English use the word as a way to defuse and deflect guilt. Saying “sorry” absolves one of guilt even as it is uttered in such an offhand manner as to lose all meaning.  This same trend is noted in Japan where expressing sorrow is a culturual norm.  Even so, many Japanese now routinely say “I’m sorry” before they intentionally do something rude like cutting someone off in traffic.

As much as we might say this is a problem unique to other cultures, the failure to express genuine apology is endemic in the US too.  From politicians to businesses to everyday citizens, people often fail to either apologize or they do so in a way that is not sincere.  This phenomenon is a product of ego and glorification of the self.  Not only do many fail to recognize they have hurt others, others are almost pathological in not caring if they do.  To error is clearly human but to admit error, apologize for it and then work to change the behavior is something that is nealry superhuman.  Bad apologies blame shift by making someone else the wrongdoer.  There is no humility in a bad apology.  Excuses and self-defense are often the focus of a bad apology when it should, instead, be direct, simple and blunt in admission of total wrong.  Indeed, as much as failing to apologize is bad, it is much worse to offer a false apology that only makes feelings worse.

Most of you are familiar with the hymn “Though I May Speak with Bravest Fire” which we often sing in here.  The song paraphrases the Biblical Paul’s famous words in his first letter to the ancient Corinthian church.  If I speak words of great courage, but do not love, I am like a clanging cymbal.  If I have tremendous knowledge, or spiritual faith that can move mountains – but do not love others, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor – but am not motivated by love, I have offered nothing.

A similar condemnation of hypocrisy was echoed by Jesus.  Don’t pray in public or act as if you are a good and pious person if you harbor inner jealousies, anger, hate or bitterness.  Jesus’ brother James wrote much the same – if one professes to be a Christian, show it with deeds of love, humility, gentleness and compassion.

As a Pastor, I fully support such declarations.  They should define each and every church congregation.  Don’t just sit in your Sunday pews, warm and comfortable, and listen to the Pastor speak what you like to hear, as he or she preaches to the symbolic choir.  Don’t just speak of social justice, compassion and love for others.  Show it.  Act on it.  Do it.  Get your hands dirty.

These declarations implicitly support my topic for today – that apologies for the mistakes we make, the hurts we cause – they should be honest, heart felt and backed up not just by words, but by actions that give evidence of a desire to change.  Though I may speak words of apology for mistakes I make, but feel no real sorrow, I am a callous hypocrite.  Though I may claim to be a good and decent person, but fail to apologize for how I have hurt others, I am haughty, arrogant and indifferent.

As with many other spiritual disciplines, practicing genuine apology demands basic humility.  It demands the foundational ethic people should live by – that life is not about the self.  In that sense, an honest apology begins with oneself and one’s full admission of a mistake.  There can be no self-justification in admitting a wrong: “I am sorry for speaking in anger but he is such an irritating person.”  No!  Accepting blame for causing a hurt does not justify it in any way.  A wrong is still wrong no matter what.

In our mistakes, we must admit that truth and feel it.  We must increase our empathy cues so that we are able to intuitively sense and know when we have hurt another.  Too many people have callous or indifferent hearts that fail to perceive how they have hurt another.  Instead, we must be able to examine how we have acted from the Golden Rule perspective: Is my behavior how I would like someone to treat me?

After admitting to ourselves that we have made a mistake, we must then directly apologize to the injured perso – and do so in person if at all possible.  Again, there can be no excuses or blame shifiting in the words we use.  An honest apology should be simple and direct.  I was wrong.  I hurt you.  I will work to see that it never happens again.

Employing our empathy muscles, one should state in a genuine apology an awareness of the hurt that was caused.  This involves understanding the feelings of the other – how words or actions caused the other to suffer.  I understand how my anger made you feel frightened and demeaned.  I understand how my language was not respectful of you as a person.

Next, one should briefly detail steps one will take to insure the mistake won’t be repeated.  Honest sorrow for a mistake involves a desire that it never happen again – why would I want to again inflict pain on you?  After the verbal apology, concrete steps should then be taken to prevent further mistakes.  In this way, we make our words of apology have real meaning – my sorrow at having been verbally abusive of you is translated into learning anger management strategies and gentle speaking techniques.  Words are meaningless in love, in faith, in charity, in social justice AND in apologies – unless they are backed up by action.

Finally, one must be prepared for an awkward conclusion after an apology.  The offended person may not immediately offer forgiveness.  It takes time to process hurt feelings as well as the apology.  To forgive is a wonderful spiritual practice but it is rarely instantaneous.  Our apologies should be clear, direct and relatively short.  We should know when to shut up and allow the other to simply think.  An apology is, after all, not about us but about the person who was hurt.

In sum, we recognize three important steps for any apology.  Fully and completely admit wrongdoing.  Second, deeply and empathetically apologize without excuse or blame shifting.  Third, take steps to prevent a repeat mistake.

To truly say we are sorry is the ultimate form of humility.  Instead of living by the false adage that one should never say “I’m sorry”, believing that to do so is to show weakness, we must learn that being honest and authentic is the greatest form of strength.  It takes courage to give up the control of our offensive words or actions and admit we were wrong.  It takes strength to give control to the one we wounded – to allow them the power to forgive us.  We refuse to deeply and sincerely apologize because we don’t want to appear weak or soft but, the opposite is true.  Arrogantly holding on to false pride by refusing to accept blame is cowardly. To say I’m sorry is, instead, very brave.

I ask us to imagine a world at peace with no conflict, no wars, no hate.  To achieve that, we can begin by imagining our better selves – people who may not be perfect but who are willing to acknowledge and correct our imperfections.  Practicing genuine apology is a way to bathe the world in a soothing balm.  It is a way to diffuse anger and hurt.  It is a way to humbly accept that we are flawed but that our work in life is to improve ourselves so we can better improve the world.  Being able to apologize is about self-awareness, empathy and humility.  These are foundational spiritual practices that we too often deride as soft, un-manly and weak.  Let us, however, give evidence of our true strength and power by resolving to practice the art of genuine apology.

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

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There is an old joke that has been often told about why Moses and the Jewish people wandered lost in the desert for forty years.  Had the Jews been led by women, instead of by men, they would have asked for directions almost immediately and saved themselves all that time!  Indeed, the joke pokes fun at men as it stereotypes them as too stubborn and arrogant to ask for help.  While there is some truth to this stereotype, it’s also clear that many women have bought into the idea that dogged independence is the mark of true strength.

A more recent story is told about a feminist life coach who had just spent a few days at a conference listening to arrogant men speak of their abilities.   After boarding her airplane home, she went to lift her heavy roller bag into the overhead bin.  Tired and weak from a long day, she struggled to get the bag off the ground.  A man behind her reached out and offered to help.  She brusquely pushed him aside and struggled even harder to lift the bag.  Eventually, she did get it over her head but her arms buckled and the bag nearly crashed onto the head of a seated passenger.  Luckily, the Good Samaritan who had earlier offered his help quickly grabbed the bag before it did any harm.  He swiftly lifted it into the overhead bin.  The female life coach suddenly realized that her stubbornness and wariness of cocky men had made her arrogant and cocky.  She’d been unwilling to accept or ask for help even as she clearly needed it.  Her attitude had nearly caused someone to get hurt

The fundamental issue with ancient Jewish men, as the joke suggests, was one of arrogance and pride.  That same issue affected the female life coach who believed that as a self-empowered woman, she had the strength and independence to take care of herself, thank you very much!

Learning to ask for help is the uncommon New Year’s resolution I ask us to consider today.  On the surface, asking for help from others appears to be needy and self-focused.  It’s an ironic twist on the ethic of helping others more than we help ourselves.  Indeed, how is asking for help NOT a form of selfishness and arrogance?

The truth is that failing to ask for help is a pervasive problem in American culture and history.  Americans have long honored the rugged individual and the independent cowboy who can do it all without any help from others.   It’s an ethos that is a part of our mythology that the true greatness of our nation lies in the “can do” spirit of the individual as opposed to the cooperative abilities of our diverse population.  This individualist mindset hungers to be in control.  It refuses to admit weakness or vulnerability.  It believes strength and success are achieved only by the person who pulls oneself up by his or her bootstraps, no matter the circumstances.  It is a belief rooted in pride of the self – believing that the individual is the center of the universe, instead of the wider creation.

I can suffer from this condition myself even as I believe I am compassionate, cooperative and want to help others.  Too often, I fail to ask for help when I need it or, even worse, I reject help that is offered me.  I fear being judged if I’m seen as weak or needy.  I want to be a helper more than someone who is helped.  My root issue is pride.  I don’t want you or others to see my flaws.  While I am getting better at recognizing when I need help and then asking for it, it is still an issue for me.  As I’ve said before, I often pick message topics that speak to me as much as they might to you.

Refusing to ask for help is the same problem that causes people, usually men, to drive around lost.  It leads far too many people to ignore symptoms of health problems and refuse to see a doctor until its too late.  Emergency rooms are daily filled with men and women who ignore early heart attack signs thinking they can tough out a bit of chest pain.  It causes some to wait until they are deep in debt before going to a credit counselor.  It causes managers and leaders to take on too many tasks while failing to delegate responsibility or admit they need help.  The result is burn out or mediocre performance.  It leads nations into arrogantly believing they can act alone in financial or military action while failing to negotiate, compromise or cooperate with other nations.  Sadly, Japanese nuclear managers would not admit they needed help during the Fukishima nuclear reactor meltdown crisis a few years ago – thus allowing the situation to spiral out of control.  It’s an issue in our own lives when we play the stoic martyr and push away people who deeply want to love and serve us.  Refusing to admit weakness and failing to ask for help is a significant problem in our culture.  Paradoxically, it is not a sign of strength but instead one born of insecurity.  Learning to ask for help is an uncommon resolution many of us ought to consider for the New Year.

It was Benjamin Franklin who coined the phrase that God helps those who help themselves.  Many people wrongly believe the statement is in the Bible.  While hypocrisy, cheating and theft are condemned throughout the Jewish and Christian scriptures, it is a sign of faith if one admits to being weak, vulnerable and in need of help.  Indeed, the Bible soundly condemns those who arrogantly believe themselves to be sufficient on their own.  Blessed are the meek and the humble who admit their needs.

Jesus told those he healed that it was their trust and goodness that made them well.  Implicit in what he told them was the notion that only those who know and confess their needs, only those who do not rely on intelligence, wealth or power as false security blankets – only these people can find true healing.  They are the ones who do not rely on external supports like money or intelligence but inner emotional health.  And, that inward health is based on an awareness of the self – it’s strengths AND its weaknesses.  The rich, haughty, arrogant and proud – they have their security in their material bounty and in their superior attitudes.  The poor in spirit, however, have their security in knowing they are weak and knowing when they need help.

Ultimately, the lesson of Jesus is that being vulnerable is not a weakness.  It is an ironic strength.  Strength through weakness is a sign of confidence in what is true.  It’s an honest confession of frailty and failure.  It is a mark of one’s flawed humanity.  Truth has set one free to be real and to acknowledge genuine need.

And that is a first key action in learning to ask for help.  We must admit to ourselves our own limitations.  We must humble ourselves.  We must admit our need for help in any area of life – in work, relationships, home tasks, our health, ways to self-improve like losing weight, stopping smoking, or sticking to a New Year’s resolution.  Believing we are all intelligent, all powerful superheroes with no need for help from others is a path to destruction.

Sadly, as much as it is part of our American culture to try and go it alone and not ask for help, that ethic is largely taught to young boys all over the world.  It is a part of supposedly teaching boys how to become men through tenacity, sucking it up, endurance and never, ever showing weakness.  Such is one reason why many men choose to go through life as lone rangers.

Hershel Walker, the famous football running back and  Heisman trophy winner, describes an event shortly after he had won the Heisman when he was still in college.  He was a macho guy seemingly at the top of the world – all achieved by supposedly his own strength and ability.  But one day he got into a telephone argument with his ex-wife.  He became enraged, hung up on her, grabbed his gun, loaded it, got in his car and headed for her apartment.  On the drive to her place, he stopped behind a car with a bumper sticker on it that implored people to seek spiritual help for life problems.  Fortunately, Walker took the message.  He was able to suddenly see himself in his rage and recognize he needed help.  He was able to realize he was not superman.  He immediately called a friend who came and took away the gun and then arranged for Walker to meet with a therapist the next day.  Hershel continued therapy for many months and says today that episode was both frightening for him and life changing.  Had he not been able to suddenly admit his rage issues AND his need for help, he says his ex-wife might well be dead and he a convicted murderer.

Spirituality teaches the opposite of arrogance and selfishness.  Asking for help and admitting weakness is a practice almost all religions advocate.

There is a Muslim story about a young boy who finds a large rock in the middle of his play area.  He digs and struggles, pushes and pulls to remove the rock.  He strains his young muscles to just barely move it out of the way – only to finally beat against it in anger that it is too heavy.  As he does so, a shadow looms over him.  The boy looks up and it is his father sternly looking upon him.  “Why haven’t you used all of your strength to move that rock?” asks the dad.  “I have tried as hard as I can and I have used all my strength,” protests the boy.  “No, you haven’t,” says the father.  “You have not asked me to help you.”  And with that, the dad scoops up the rock and moves it away.

While the story is intended to teach the virtues of seeking Allah and his help, it is also illustrative of spiritual humility which the boy needed to learn.  When we truly need help, it is a sign of wisdom and honesty to seek it.

And that is the second key in learning to ask for help.  We must ask in a way that is direct, clear, and specific.  It does us no good to play small, beat around the bush and fail to truthfully state our needs.  Too often I will coyly let it be known that help would be nice but then I diminish my request by failing to be specific or direct.  Someone will sincerely tell me they are available to me if I need assistance but I will fail to tell them how.  I will assume they should know, or that they, on their own, will begin to help me in a way that I need.  But my friends are not mind readers.  If I need a ride, I must say so.  If I need help cooking, I should say so.  If I need someone to just listen to my laments, I must say so.  If someone offers to render assistance when I am sick, depressed or lonely, I must respond to their gesture and tell them exactly how he or she can help.

Our duty to family, friends and stranger is to grant them the gift of serving.  Too often we fail to realize that it is a gift to serve others.  In serving others, we really do receive more than we give.  We derive deep pleasure and satisfaction in helping other people.  Indeed, we can show our love for others by graciously allowing them to serve us – to humble ourselves and allow them to be in control for a time.  It is an ironic form of pride to always be a giver and never a receiver.  It is an equally ironic form of humility to ask for and accept help when it is genuinely needed.

The final key to asking for help is knowing how to express gratitude for it.  Too many simply take the help of others for granted without speaking of its value and its expression of love and care.  There should not be a quid pro quo when we serve others – we do not offer our help in return for reciprocal help or expression of thanks.  The one who is helped, the one who does ask for assistance, however, should give evidence of full humility by expressing sincere gratitude.

In sum, learning to ask for help involves three key steps.  First, we must admit our need and we can only do that if we recognize what holds us back – our insecurity, our fear, our pride, our desire to always be in control, whatever it is.  The solution to those problems is relatively simple – we resolve to honestly recognize our limits.

Second, we must then ask politely but as directly, specifically and clearly as possible.  It is not enough to accept help.  We must ask for it.  To do so, is to truly show our humility.

Finally, and third, we must give thanks for our helpers.   An attitude of gratitude, as I’ve said before, is the ultimate form of humility.

Life is, from its very beginning, hard.  We, along with all creatures, struggle and work to survive.  The glory of almost all living animals, however, is that the fight for survival is not a lonely task.  Humans are wired to be in community and to share the unique abilities given to each person.  This is the ethic of moral imagination and cooperation.  We do better as a species when we sublimate the selfish desires of the individual and channel them, instead, into common work for all humanity.  And the only way that can be fully accomplished is if each person serves others more than the self and if each person is also willing to allow others to serve and help them.  Such is the mutuality of life.  I will live and thrive only if you do too.  I need you.  You need me.  Together, we can then build a form of heaven on earth.  Let us resolve in 2014 to ask for help when we truly need it.

 

 

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

 

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Saint John of the Cross was a sixteenth century Spanish friar who became famous as a counter-reformation thinker.  As a mystic, he believed that the pathway to God, and thus a true meaning in life, was not through Martin Luther’s precepts of Bible study, prayer and moral piety but rather through the times in each person’s life when one experiences, what he called, the “dark night of the soul.”  Such times were described by John as a form of death – a journey that one’s inner self takes as it wrestles with the profound questions of existence, meaning and purpose.

As a Pastor, I am sometimes asked to listen to anguished stories of personal difficulties or troubles – and perhaps offer some help.  A few months ago, I listened to someone pour out terribly negative emotions and thoughts.  It was heart wrenching to hear.  This person described feeling totally worthless, dirty, shameful, a loser, as someone with no hope, no expecation of goodness, and no feeling of being loved or cared for by anyone.   These were not the words of a mere pity party but were soul deep descriptions of total defeat, despair and worthlessness.  This person believed God had not only turned his back, but had given up and closed off any chance for redemption of him or her.  It was the bleakest, saddest, and most hopeless self-description I have ever heard from anyone.

What struck me was that this person’s descriptions of being a loser were not the judgements or words of others.  They were the product of how this person thought about the self.  They were the stuff of a dark night of the soul and an inner voice.  That voice was controlled by a figurative demon – a personally created devil that tore down, mocked, ridiculed and judged.  This person could never – and will never – rise out of a dark night of the soul unless that demon – that destructive inner voice – is somehow changed or silenced.

We each have an inner voice that is constantly speaking to us.  For many people, that voice is our worst critic.  It is a creation of the human mind that people have sought to control since humanity first began to process complex thoughts and emotions.

One example of this phenomenon is Moses, a Biblical character who is not likely historical, but who is nevertheless described in the Exodus and Passover stories as having his own dark night of the soul experiences when he doubted his abilities, his purpose, and his plans.  Moses protested against being seen as a leader, he claimed he was unskilled, unworthy, and common.  Like many people, he was filled with self-doubt and low self-esteem.  He had a violent temper, he vacillated in his leadership, he was often unstable in his decisions.  His protests to God about his flaws echo those of our own inner voices that judge our failures, disappointments and flaws in ways that prevent us from acting and achieving.

It is now a historical fact that Mother Teresa experienced her own darkness of the soul during parts of her life.  Indeed, some critics point to her self-doubts as proof that she was a fraud, a self-promoter and a closet Atheist who used charity as as a means to be famous.  I do not judge her in that harsh light.  She was a flawed human even as she acted as close to a saint as I can discern.  I read in her private letters, which were made public several years ago, the same kind of voice that speaks to my soul and the same voice as the one I listened to a few months ago from a deeply anguished person.  It is the same harsh voice that speaks to many of us.

Teresa wrote in one of her letters to her spiritual confessor, “Darkness is such that I really do not see — neither with my mind nor with my reason.  The place of God in my soul is blank.  There is no God in me.  He does not want me.  He is not there.  Heaven, souls, why these are just words which mean nothing to me.  My very life seems so contradictory.  I help souls to go where?  God does not want me.  Sometimes, I just hear my own heart cry out: “My God” and nothing else comes.  The torture and pain I can’t explain.”

          Such soul darkness also affected another modern prophet.  On April 4, 1968, the day Martin Luther King, Jr. was assasinated, he too was in the midst of doubt and despair.  King was in Memphis, Tennessee to help with a sanitation worker strike.  It had not gone well.  Many angry black youth resorted to violent acts during the protest march in which King participated.  His non-violence movement had mostly been forgotten in the anger and turmoil of the late 1960’s.

He had become an advocate for the poor as well as an anti-war activist – two outgrowths of the Civil Rights movement but ones which earned him increased scorn.  President Johnson was furious at King for his anti-Viet Nam war statements – seeing them as unfair coming from someone whom Johnson had helped tremendously by advancing Civil Rights laws.  The FBI had King under surveillance, his phones were bugged and many conspiracy theorists have wondered if J. Edgar Hoover or Johnson had a role in his death.  King was also planning a poor people’s march on Washington but it was getting little attention and even less support among the poor he was working to help.  King, too, was a man of tremendous courage and insight but who had his own flaws.  He had no interest in making lots of money but he liked silk suits and other small luxuries.  He preached a call to civil morality even as he also had a wandering eye for other women.  Such possible defects in his character make him even greater in my mind – a man who was not perfect but who rose above his flaws to pursue a more perfect world.

All in all, King had come to seriously doubt himself, his purpose, his non-violence movement and any hope he could continue to change things for the better.  He was contemplating leaving his activist work and retiring to be President of Morehouse College.

I recount such stories – the person I listened to, Moses, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Jr. – as a way to describe that force we each have inside us that can either advance or defeat us.  That force – our inner voice – talks to us all day long.  We hear it in our dreams and it is often the first thing we hear as we wake.  It helps guide our lives, plan our actions and remind us to be our better selves.  In its positive form, it can boost our confidence, empower us and help us perceive our true life purpose.  In its negative manifestation, it holds us back, tells us lies, judges us, condemns us and causes us to discount our life purpose.  For some, a negative inner voice constantly demoralizes.  For others, the negative voice is temporary – only occasionally rising up out of brief sadness or trauma.  For others, a constructive and helpful voice predominates.  For still others, the inner voice acts in a negative way by overly boosting the ego – leading one to arrogance, over-confidence and insensitivity to others.

Changing our inner voice is the lead off subject in this, my third annual January series on uncommon New Year’s resolutions we might consider practicing.   Last year, if you remember, we looked at the uncommon resolutions of accepting others as they are, lengthening our anger fuses and, finally, staying teachable.  You can find those messages on our website.  I don’t know if you resolved to practice any of those but I sought last year, as I do this year, to find overlooked ways we can resolve to improve ourselves.  Most New Year’s resolutions – while still very good – are common – stopping smoking, losing weight, exercising more, saving money, etc.

But how many of us even perceive that our inner voices are a problem?  It’s clear that the person I listened to a few weeks ago did not.  Eckart Tolle, a contemporary writer and commentator on spiritual matters, says that it is one’s inner voice that brings about a dark night of the soul.  That negative voice questions motives, values, and meaning in life.  Every mistake one makes, every flaw in character are highlighted not by external enemies but this nagging, deceitful, nasty voice.  That voice can condemn us to feel small, impotent and deeply troubled.

Other experts assert that this inner voice in us is often an echo of a parent or other person who has diminished us as a way to boost the critic’s own fragile ego.   We repeat their words over and over – “you’re nothing, you’re no big deal, you’re a disgusting faggot, you’re hopeless, you will never amount to much, nobody really likes you, you’re ugly, you’re dumb” – whatever it is that we heard from another person which our inner voice then repeats over and over.

Most of all, experts assert that our propensity as humans is to judge other people and ourselves.  It is one reason why the Bible, the new Pope and I all advocate efforts to stop judgmental attitudes.  Who am I?  Who are you?  Who is the Pope to judge anyone else? – especially as we each have our own failures to correct.  As I mentioned in a message on that subject this past October, judging and discerning very different.  There is no malice or negativity in discernment.  Such thinking merely observes facts.  Judging ourselves and others involves applying labels of good, bad, moral, immoral, beautiful, ugly, smart, stupid, etc.  It is motivated by jealousy, insecurity and a desire to tear down instead of uplift.  The target of our labels and judgments is all too often our very selves.  And the result is not good.

If we have labeled ourselves as stupid, what hope is there that we will speak up to others with a thought, apply for a challenging job or task, or believe what we think has value?  If we tell ourselves we are hopeless failures, how can we nourish dreams and goals for a better future?  How will we be able to act when opportunity does knock?  If we believe we are ugly, we won’t notice the attention others pay to us, we’ll isolate and find ourselves endlessly lonely.  Too often, for many of us, the inner voice is more subtle.  It may not tell us we are total losers but it will plant seeds of doubt in our souls – doubts that hold us back from being and doing many things.

That voice, for me, has held me back from a lot in my life.  It almost kept me from accepting this job even as part of me wanted the challenge and oppportunity.  But my inner voice whispered to me I might fail, that I’m not good at public speaking, that people would dislike me.  Our inner voices tell us a story we repeat in our minds – and, if we allow such thoughts to persist, they become self-fulfilling prophecy.  Experts call this our mythology of the self – one that is not based on reality but is rooted in personal criticism, doubt or, on the opposite side, an inflated view of the self.

A negative inner voice too often sees everything in black or white.  An event or a personal mistake are seen as either all good or all bad.  This voice also overgeneralizes – believing that if we say or do something one time, we always act that way.  Our voice tells us we are never good and always bad.  And, as such, this voice discounts or ignores anything positive.  We might do many wonderful things in life, in our jobs, in our families.  But one mistake is overblown and generalized.  There is nothing good in us.  It’s all bad.

The negative inner voice jumps to conclusions by determining a bad outcome even before it happens.  It magnifies minor problems beyond any sense of reality and it uses emotional reasoning – “I feel guilty, therefore I am a bad person.”  Again, such statements to the self can be sly and subtle – quietly insinuating a possible failure, negative outcome or judgment of character.

The most important thing we can do to quiet or change a negative inner voice is to begin to realize when it talks to us.  That is not an easy task.  I’ve tried and I could do it for a while but I soon forgot to note when my voice spoke to me.  Many experts believe we should keep an inner voice diary by writing down exactly what our voice tells us.  We can take an inventory each day and write down exactly – without any censoring – what it is that our inside voice has said.  After a week or more, we should look back and identify patterns in what we tell ourselves.

Once we identify the negative ways our inner self talks to us, we can then apply our reason to correct it.  We should reality test it.  What evidence is there to support what I just told myself?  Is it fact based or an interpretation?  What is the liklihood such an event will happen?  What are alernative explanations or ways to understand an event, problem or personal mistake?

We should stick just to facts and avoid labels.  “Oh, I forgot my mom’s birthday.” instead of “I’m a neglectful and bad son.”  We should also engage in what some experts call ‘possible thinking’.  Instead of “I’m fat”, one can say, “I want to lose ten pounds.  I have the ability to do that.”  Just in this one example we see the difference between discernment and judgement.  One statement labels the self, tears down the self, despises the self.  Such negativity is unlikely to lead to any kind of positive action.  The other voice simply discerns a fact – a desire to lose some weight.  It then uplifts the self by acknowleging an ability to accomplish a goal.   This form of possible thinking does not guarantee success but it is far more likely to stimulate action.  That is how we must learn to talk to ourselves and to others – to encourage, to lift up, to support, to be gentle.  Harsh and judgemental words to ourselves and others are destructive and are never kind.

A true test to apply to our inner voice is to ask what would one’s best friend say about a situation or mistake?  Best friends love us as we are.  Best friends know our flaws but see tremendous good in us.  Best friends speak truth in gentle ways.  Best friends want good things for us.

And that ought to be how our inner voice treats us.  Indeed, our inner voice ought to be our very best friend – one whose love for us is reality based and not overinflated with ego.  But it also should see who we really are in all of our goodness.  It should see our potential and cheer us forward.  It should love us uncondtionally – not flinching from the need for improvement and admission of flaws, but loving us anyway.

I don’t know if the person in despair who I listened to has been able to change the inner voice.  I hope some first steps have at least been taken.  We see in the story of Moses that he persevered despite his negative self-talk.  Something inside propelled him onward – giving him the confidence to act and lead.  So too with Mother Teresa.  She came to find that her dark night of the soul was actually a good thing – a way for her to better understand suffering and to reach out in ever more profound ways to alleviate the despair all around.  As she came to believe and write, poverty and hunger create physical pain.  But the greatest pain is experienced by those who are alone, unloved and unwanted.  She could identify with those who felt deeply alone and thus she redoubled her effort, and those of her fellow sisters, to be the faces of love to the leper, the aged, the dying man with no family.

And so too did Martin Luther King, Jr. rise out of his dark night.  In the sermon he had prepared for the Sunday after he died, he wrote of pursuing his non-violent goals, of knowing that the battles against hate, violence and poverty would be long ones but that hope must still prevail.   As Julian Bond said after he had read the sermon, King preached his way out of despair.  His positive inner voice took control.

We have that ability too.  An inner voice in us waits to be heard that will champion our lives, our dreams, our abilities.  Let’s listen to that voice.  Let’s resolve in this New Year of 2014 to muzzle the negative voice.  There is a light of great goodness and potential in each of us – no matter our age, health or condition.  But that light will never shine to its full brilliance unless and until we believe in its power.  In order to believe it has great power, we can first tell ourselves over and over that good things lie ahead, that we can literally change the world, that we can and will make a difference.

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering, UCC, All Rights Reserved

 

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It is a time honored cliche but there is truth in the saying that out of the mouths of children comes a lot of wisdom. The University of California at Berkeley conducted a study on differences in wisdom between adults and children under the age of 15. What they found were obviously higher levels of intelligence in adults but a remarkably similar level of wisdom between youth and adults. Even more, the study noted that children do not filter their intuitive sense of what is wise and true through a prism of acquired facts which, as we know, can be manipulated in adult minds based on belief systems. Instead, children have a fluid sense of intelligence that translates into wisdom and cleverness which they have obtained simply by viewing the world around them. Without adult filters, therefore, young people have a purer sense of truth as they offer us wise words that merit our attention.

Here are a few gems of wisdom on love and life from children.

From Megan, age 8, “If someone gives you free ice cream, you should clean their room for them.”
An unknown child says: “When your mother is mad and asks you, ‘Do I look stupid?’, it is best not to answer her.”
Ricky, age 7 says: “Tell your wife she looks pretty even if she looks like a truck!”
and, he also adds, “Love is like an avalanche where you have to run for your life!”
from Jonathon, age 8: “Nothing hurts more than guilt.”
from an unknown child: “No matter how much you cry at night, things won’t change unless you help them change.”
with all due apologies to Teri Emerson, Jack, age 9 says: “Piano lessons can make fifteen minutes feel like an hour.”
Angie, age 10, says: “Most men are brainless, so you might have to try more than once to find a live one!”
Mae, age 9, said: “No one is sure why love happens, but I heard it has something to do with how you smell. That’s why perfume and deodorant are so popular.”
from another unknown child, “Life is too short to waste time matching socks.” I agree with that!!!
and, finally, Dave, age 8, says: “Love will find you, even if you are trying to hide from it. I been trying to hide from it since I was five, but the girls keep finding me.”

The wonderful thing about all of these statements is that each one rings true and is wise. Be nice to people even if you have to tell a white lie. Be generous. Be a peacemaker. Practice the Golden Rule. Spend your time doing things that matter. Personal pity parties do not change anything. And, romantic love is an eternally hopeful emotion even as it is one of the hardest things we practice in life.
Such wisdom expressed by children is one reason why the holiday television classic “A Charlie Brown Christmas” has been so successful. Indeed, it is also a reason why Charles Schultz’s Peanuts comic strip remains popular around the world over sixty years after it began.
In Schultz’s Christmas television show, we watch as children – Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy, Schroeder, Sally and others – work through all of the emotions adults have about the holidays. But they do so as children while they engage in uniquely child focused activities – like writing letters to Santa, putting on a Christmas pageant, or simply playing in the snow. Charles Schultz’s brilliance as a comic strip writer was that his children characters deal with very adult issues. Charlie Brown must work through his holiday depression. Sally expresses the greed many feel in wanting big and lavish gifts. The other children simply want to party, sing and dance as a way to express their holiday joy – events that we adults try every year to create. And Linus is the wise one in us all who is able to see beyond the superficial and frivolous activities of the holidays to find the real meaning of Christmas – one of hope, generosity, peace and love.

By excluding all adults from his comic strips and from his television specials, Shultz created a world where the wisdom of children predominates. Indeed, there are no adult characters or voices used in any of the Peanuts comic strips or television shows – only a wah-wah-wah voice for adults symbolizing both the gap in communication between adults and kids as well as the sometimes arrogant and far too complex speaking styles of most grown ups. I imagine kids here today are hearing the same sound from me as I speak: blah, blah, blah…..wah-wah-wah-wah!

How Schultz used only kids to express his humor and his ideas perfectly captures a major theme of the Christmas holiday. We celebrate the birth of a baby conceived out of wedlock to two teenage parents. The story of that child’s birth is the reason for the season. The babe born in a manger has come to symbolize, much like all children do, the innocence, purity and hope of youth. Indeed, that child as an adult prophet taught that we should have faith like a child – a faith that is wide eyed with wonder, a faith that is grounded in the inherent goodness of all people, a faith that is just, fair and understanding.

Children, as we all know, are not perfect people. We all seem to be born with the inherent human desire to think of the self over the interests of others – a character flaw we spend lifetimes working against. But like adults, as the Berkeley University study has shown, children possess a knowing wisdom that it is unfiltered by grown up biases, fears, hatreds, disfunction, arrogance and self-consciousness. Children intuitively know what is good and just. They know what constitutes real joy. They perceive nature and the universe not with jaundiced eyes but with the awe and respect that they deserve. They know how to live in the moment – not fearing the future or regretting the past.

I’ve described before the first few Christmases of my oldest daughter Sara. As a young toddler, she delighted on Christmas morning not in all of the toys Santa had brought her, but instead in the opened boxes, torn wrapping paper and colored ribbons all around. A teddy bear that moves its mouth and says a few recorded words? Big deal! But, oh! those boxes and all that paper – they were the stuff of houses to build, hats to wear and bright necklaces to put on herself and others. She taught me a great lesson. Adult attitudes and adult seriousness should not be allowed at Christmas. Have fun! Be silly! Stop focusing on the perfect meal, the expensive gift or creating manufactured merriment. Simply be. Simply stare in wonder at all the lights. Laugh at Uncle Fred’s corny jokes. Act like a child. Have faith in the hope that all will be good. Celebrate the here and now.

And so, in that spirit, I ask everyone here to put on a party hat under your chair, take the noisemakers in hand, act silly – shout out in celebration of the morning – for just a moment, right now, take on the spirit of a child!(noisemakers, hats, child like fun!)

What I hope to convey this morning is that young children intuitively “get” the real meaning of the holidays. Whether or not they know or understand the religious meanings, they do know it is a season about hope, about fun, and about joy. Just as my daughter Sara understood Christmas morning was not about the elaborate gifts but instead about play, about the lights, the festive ribbons, cookies, and time with others, so too can we as dour adults give in to our inner child.

It’s all of us adults who have made Christmas so commercial, so busy, so elaborate and so serious. If we left the holidays in control of children, or of the child in us all, we’d let go of trying to impress others with big parties, fancy meals, expensive gifts or perfect celebrations. We’d be like my young Sara – putting on silly hats and laughing and playing with friends and family. We would spend Christmas Day in our pajamas, play games, eat candy canes, decorate our trees with handmade ornaments, happily reminisce and share meaningful hopes and dreams of the future. There would be no worry about money because we would not have spent a lot. There would be no regret over past Christmases, departed loved ones or imperfect celebrations. Instead, whether we are alone or with fifty people, we’d live in the moment and celebrate the hope and exuberance we have inside us – that life right now is good, that the world around is beautiful and something to be enjoyed, that connecting with other people is what brings true joy. That is what the babe born in a manger should represent. Jesus was and is an every-child. And all children are symbols of hope and promise. All children are simple in their needs and wants. Feed them. Keep them warm. Love them. If we admit it, that is all we really want this Christmas or any other day – to have the basic securities of life, to be loved and to love, to embrace our existence and celebrate it right here, right now.

Like Charles Schultz, we should banish the adult in us from Christmas – and perhaps from life itself. I need to stop worrying so much. I need to take life and other people less seriously. I need to open my heart to innocence and forget cynicism. I need to be gentle with myself and others. Just as Charles Schultz did, I need to take the complicated matters of life and reduce them to their bare essentials. I’m not perfect. I’m broken. I make mistakes. But, deep inside, I know how to love. I know how to laugh. I know how to be silly and have fun. I know there is a child in me that yearns to be set free.

Charlie Brown represents for us a perfect, ironic success story. He’s someone who never succeeds in life even though, in truth, he does. His perseverance, his dogged determination to win a baseball game, to kick that football, to love a pathetic, unloved little Christmas tree, to retain an intuitive trust in other people, these are hallmarks of children. Don’t give up. Stay positive. Find success in how you live and how you treat others. Those are the same ethics of the baby Jesus – born to poverty and with seemingly no future.
(ending) That child calls us to live simply and humbly, love and serve others, embrace hope, live in the moment with happiness and fun in our hearts.

To all of the children here today, to all of the children in each one of us, I wish a merry, a silly, a laughter filled Christmas of great peace and much joy.

Message 151, “A Charlie Brown Holiday: Battling the Blues”, 12-15-13

(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

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Many of you have enjoyed hearing one of our past guest speakers – Bart Campolo – who is a local Pastor.  He is well known for his speaking abilities but he is perhaps most known for being the son of the internationally famous minister Tony Campolo.  Tony has written several best selling books, has spoken at hundreds of large events and he served as the spiritual advisor to President Bill Clinton during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

Tony has long been admired by many evangelical Christians – and he considers himself an evangelical.  What I like about Tony is that he is a progressive evangelical – one who has supported equality for African-Americans, understanding for gays and lesbians, and service to the poor.  One of his primary ethics is that people of faith should express their spirituality more through acts of service to the poor and outcasts than through piety, Bible study or prayer.

He has also made many controversial statements and one of them is that depression should not be seen by Christians as a spiritual flaw – one due to a lack of faith or trust in God.  Tony was an early Christian advocate of the notion that depression is often a medical condition and needs to be treated as one.

For himself, Tony writes in his book “Let Me Tell You a Story: Life Lessons from Unexpected Places and Unlikely People” that he personally tries to be outwardly joyful even if he doesn’t feel it.  For him, joy and happiness are contagious.  One is able not only to pass it along to others but to begin to actually feel real joy if one simply undertakes to speak and act joyfully.  Such an attitude, along with his many controversial statements, led his young son Bart to once tell him, as Tony relates in his book, “Dad, you know, you are dangerous!”

Tony says that he is most dangerous – from a sharing joy perspective – when he is out in public.  He often rides in elevators in New York or Philadelphia skyscrapers and, when entering a crowded one full of serious business people, he will often say to everyone, “Well, we are going to be stuck together for the next several minutes.  Let’s make the best of it.  Let’s sing!”  And then he leads them in some upbeat song.

He also writes that, since he frequently crosses a toll bridge outside of Philadelphia, he will pull up to the toll booth, pay his toll and then also pay for the car behind him – telling the toll collector that this is payment for his friend in the car behind.  He then enjoys watching in his rear view mirror as the befuddled toll worker tries to explain to an equally confused driver what just happened.

I’ve heard similar stories of folks who find joy in paying for their order in drive thru lanes at fast food restaurants while also paying for the food order of the car behind.

Tony tells an instructive story about a member of a church he used to attend.  The Pastor at that church was a very serious and proper preacher.   The church congregation was equally dour and humorless – afflicted by being terminally white, uptight and Protestant.  A few African-Americans joined this church and one of them, a man named Frank, would loudly and joyfully shout out a ‘Hallelujah’, ‘Praise the Lord!’ or ‘Amen’ every time the Pastor made a meaningful point.

But such spontaneous shout-outs annoyed the prim and proper Pastor as well as members of the congregation.  This Pastor approached Frank one day and begged him to be quiet for an entire sermon – in return for which the Pastor would buy him a new pair of winter boots that Frank wanted.

During the next Sunday sermon Frank visibly squirmed as he tried to suppress his joyful outbursts.  But, as the Pastor made his summation point at the end of the sermon, Frank could contain himself no longer.  He loudly and happily exclaimed, at the Pastor’s final point, “Boots or no boots, I don’t care.  Praise the Lord!”

Tony says he discovered his secret to finding real joy after one boyhood Christmas.  All year he had wanted and begged for a new Lionel model train set.  He even told Santa at Gimbel’s department store that this is what he most wanted.

On Christmas morning, when he opened the large box with his name on it, he shouted out when he discovered it was his long desired train set.  For the next few hours he gleefully worked to assemble the trains and their tracks.  After doing so, he turned it on and then watched as the train made endless circles, round and round, until it hit him – his joy had evaporated.  His excitement was over.  The train was actually boring to him.  This thing, this object on to which he had placed all of his Christmas hope – was not so great – not so joyful.  He quickly understood that the things of Christmas to which we attach happiness are mostly empty – they have no real meaning.  Joy, for him, had to come from something more sustainable – someplace not connected to gifts, events or situations.  Implicitly, Tony supports what I often advocate.  We are usually able to choose the emotions we feel by how we cognitively think.  By actively choosing to speak and act joyfully, Tony feels joyful and imparts that emotion to others around him.

As we turn our attention today to the theme this month of a ‘Charlie Brown Holiday’, the subject of Christmas depression is one that is dealt with openly and honestly in the Charles Schultz television special.  First airing in 1965, the show, which is a holiday classic, confronts Charlie Brown’s persistent holiday blues.  As Charlie says in the show, “I think there must be something wrong with me, Linus. Christmas is coming, but I’m not happy. I don’t feel the way I’m supposed to feel. I just don’t understand Christmas, I guess. I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards, and decorating trees and all that, but I’m still not happy. I always end up feeling depressed.”

Interestingly, CBS television executives who saw the show before it aired were upset at this depiction of seasonal blues. Such subjects were simply not discussed in that day and age.  People were programmed to suck it up and hide any discontent they might feel.  For Charles Schultz to use it as his central theme was revolutionary – but one which the viewing public approved and liked.  Holiday depression is a common phenomenon and Schultz used humor as a way to address it and offer a solution.

Much like Tony Campolo challenged fellow Christians to re-examine their attitudes about depression, the honesty of Charlie Brown’s blues are culturally significant.  A majority of the Peanuts comic strips deal with issues of Charlie’s self-esteem, disappointments, and failures.  We all know about the endless times he tries to kick a football that Lucy holds for him.  We remember the many times Charlie’s baseball team loses – and during its nearly fifty years, only wins nine times – and those came when Charlie did not play!  Charlie does not get any Valentine’s cards, he can’t fly a kite, he constantly seeks psychological advice, he seems perpetually alienated from the rest of the world.

In so many ways, Charlie’s difficulties mirror those of a shy and awkward young Charles Schultz who was deemed a failure before he reached twenty.  But for us, Charlie is an Everyperson – someone who struggles to understand himself, the world and his place in it.  Life is cruel and harsh, it’s overly competitive, it rewards the beautiful and strong, and it is often profoundly disappointing.  By middle age years many people suddenly ask themselves, “Is this all there is to life?”

Christmas and the holidays bring such feelings to the fore.  We remember past Christmases that were bright and happy as we compare those to more modest present ones.  Or, we recall past ones that deeply hurt us and leave us emotionally scarred.  We remember and mourn loved ones who have passed and are not there for us this holiday.  We experience profound loneliness whether or not we are in a relationship.  We see all around us images and expectations of happiness and, yet, for us, those emotions seem forced.  Our finances may be tight and, yet, we are told to spend and be extravagant.  For gays and lesbians, the holidays are often difficult as they often must face families who disapprove of them.  Added to such holiday blues are medically verified season issues.  Christmas falls near the winter solstice, the shortest daytime of the year.  Many people, including myself, suffer from seasonal affected disorder when a shortage of sunlight profoundly affects mood.

Whether our depression is holiday related or not – it has distinct symptoms.  Clinical depression is marked by persistent feelings of sadness, anxiety or emptiness.  Eating habits significantly change – either one eats too much or loses all appetite.  Sleep is affected as depressed persons either sleep too much or too little.  Depression is also identified with irritability, an inability to concentrate, a lack of energy and a focus on death or suicide.  Overall, depressed persons feel an overwhelming sense of hopelessness.  And that is exactly what Charlie expresses in the holiday TV show.

For any of us who experience such symptoms, without let up, for more than a few days, experts advise getting professional help.  Sucking it up and trying to fake oneself through depression is not good.  Therapy and medications do help.  Clinical depression is not a defect in character.

And Charlie Brown follows such advice.  He seeks the assistance of the dubiously qualified Lucy and her lemonade stand form of roadside therapy.  As with many amateurs who try and offer advice, hers is more focused on her own issues than on empathy for Charlie’s.  But, she offers a nugget of wisdom by encouraging Charlie to catch the holiday spirit by agreeing to direct the school Christmas pageant.

For many of us who experience bouts of holiday depression in mild form, there are ways to cope.  Some experts suggest remembering a holiday coping acronym of  R  –  E  –  S  –  T  (rest).  First and most importantly, we must Recognize our feelings and thus understand that our expectations for the holiday need to be limited.  Other people, including our families, will disappoint us.  We can learn to accept that and offer others the grace to be flawed – much as we are also flawed.  We can also learn to accept that creating a perfect celebration experience of beautiful decorations, meaningful gifts and memorable events is not possible.  If we Recognize that culture has set the holiday bar too high for anyone to possibly reach, we will be content in a more relaxed, quiet and less than perfect holiday.

Second, for the E in REST, we should try and Eat well and Exercise.  Eating well does not mean denying ourselves holiday treats but it also means that, as much as possible, we don’t change our eating habits by overindulging or starving.  The same goes for alcohol consumption.  Moderation and balance in all things is best.  Exercise is most important.  If possible, we should get outdoors, take walks and engage in anything that is physically active.  Exercise increases endorphin hormones in our bloodstream which helps boost our mood and helps us feel better.

The S component in REST is to simplify our holidays as much as possible.  Suggestions include the swapping of nice but unused things we currently own – as a way to exchange gifts.  We can hold very simple celebrations with just a few close friends or family members with whom sharing and talking is uplifting and happy.  Overall, as Charlie Brown affirmed, simple is not bad nor is it Scrooge-like.  Without trappings of excess and money, true holiday meanings of peace, hope, love, and humility can prevail.

Finally, the T in REST focuses on our gift of Time.  We should set aside time both for ourselves to relax and, most importantly, for volunteering.  Countless experts advise that the best way to battle the blues is to serve others – visit an elderly or sick person, offer to drive a shut-in to the store,  make an event out of selecting, buying and giving a gift to someone in need, working at a local food bank or homeless shelter, inviting someone who lives alone over to dinner, writing a note or card of appreciation to a friend, co-worker or person you value.  Volunteering our time in ways that help the least of God’s children is not just a moral obligation, it is a conscious way to find purpose and meaning – and thus joy.

To summarize REST for the holidays, Recognize your limits, Eat well and Exercise, Simplify, and volunteer Time to others.

While depression and the holiday blues are real conditions, they are curable. We find that when we are depressed, we mostly focus on our needs and our problems.  While, those concerns are real, they can be put in proper perspective by thinking of others.  A life well led and a life of lasting legacy are ones of grace, generosity, compassion and gentleness toward other people.  I firmly believe that many of the problems in today’s world would be solved if every person worked to diminish their ego while boosting their concern and empathy for the condition and feelings of family, friend and stranger.  Love and charity in the world must begin in each and every human heart and each and every home.

As I said earlier, depression is not a spiritual defect.  Jesus got depressed at the death of his friend and at his own impending execution.  The biblical David experienced lasting depression over his failures as a person and at how his enemies treated him.  Job shouted out in desperation at how God seemed to have abandoned him.  The prophet Jeremiah is known as the weeping prophet for his lament at the evil he saw around him and at the seeming indifference to it from people of faith.  Mohammad experienced several bouts of sadness and frustration.  Great modern figures like Gandhi and Mother Teresa lapsed into a crisis of the soul.  Mother Teresa doubted God’s reality and was in deep distress over her inability to effect lasting change in poverty.  Gandhi was deeply saddened when India divided into sectarian violence pitting Hindu against Muslim.

But for each one of these prophets, depression was not the final condition of their lives.  Each one found ways to rise above it – choosing gratitude, trust, love and hope in life, in faith and in other people.

For me and for many others, mild depression is a state of mind that I can choose to embrace or work to defeat.  Like Tony Campolo, I can choose to speak, act and think joyfully – even when I don’t feel that way – or I can choose to sink into a funk and treat myself and other people in ways that are cruel and mean spirited.  Tony Campolo discovered that joy can be shared with others by his attitude and actions.  Charlie Brown found joy in choosing to love the seemingly unlovable small, pathetic tree.  In it, he saw himself.  He purposefully chose to love and serve something beyond himself.

And that is the enduring appeal of Christmas.   Its message calls us to humbly love others.  In the nativity story, God expresses his love for humanity with the gift of his Son.  In the same way, we can find ways to escape sadness with the gift of ourselves – of our time, our empathy, our generosity, our kindness, our service, our gentleness.  We have these simple gifts inside us and we must share them.  In doing so, we will find the ironic truth that happiness is often a decision and that with the gift of ourselves, the true meaning of the holidays are found.  In this season of hope, let us choose to be a presence of joy to all we encounter.

And to each of you, here and listening online, I wish you much holiday cheer.

Message 150, “A Charlie Brown Holiday: It is About the Tree”, 12-8-13
(c) Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

 

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Robert Hoge was born in Brisbane, Australia in 1972 with two severely deformed legs and a large, fist sized tumor in the middle of his face. The tumor altered the development of his skull so that his eyes were pushed to the outside of his head and his nose was an indistinguishable mass of flesh. He was the fifth child to his parents but his mother reacted to his appearance with shock. She was overwhelmed by how he looked. She did not want to bring her son home. A supposedly helpful pediatrician encouraged Mary Hoge to quietly put her child in a home for disabled children and forget about him. She almost did.
But Mary and her husband consulted their four children. All of them did not hesitate – they begged their parents to bring Robert home. He was their brother. Mary documented her reactions over succeeding years in a remarkably honest diary. As Robert grew older, she allowed he and his siblings to read the diary to understand for themselves Mary’s struggles and emotions about her son. She described deeply loving Robert and being fiercely protective of him, as most mothers would be. But she also could not keep herself from despair at his terrible disfigurement. Robert underwent numerous surgeries to try and remove the facial tumor and reshape his face. At age 14, doctors reported they could do more to improve his looks but that with each succeeding surgery, the risk grew that the procedures would render him blind. Robert’s brother pointedly asked what good would it be to improve his appearance if he could not even see himself. For the young Robert, that was an epiphany moment. He chose not to have more surgery as he also began the long effort to come to terms with his appearance. As he said, “This is actually a conversation I’d like to have about disability, and about beauty and about ugliness, and the first person I had to have that conversation was with myself.”
Robert is an amazingly understanding man. Now being a father himself, he says that he sympathizes with his mother’s reactions. Every parent wants their child to be perfect, he says. Robert became a journalist, later moved into politics and now serves as the media adviser to the governor of the Australian Queensland province. He and his mom wrote a bestselling book which includes many entries from Mary’s diary. He regularly speaks throughout Australia as he honestly accepts how society uses appearance as a primary criteria to judge a person. He rejects the notion that everyone, no matter their appearance, can easily be accepted. But his attitude, his warm, friendly, intelligent and wise demeanor directly confronts the notion that he is somehow ugly. As his boss, the governor of Queensland put it, most people very quickly no longer notice Robert’s outward appearance. It seems the real beauty inside Robert clearly shines through.
As we launch into a three week message series using the theme of a Charlie Brown holiday, I want to look at some of the ideas expressed in what is now considered a classic television special. The show, “A Charlie Brown Christmas” was created in 1965 after CBS executives asked the Peanuts comic strip creator Charles Schultz to develop a seasonal special based on his cartoon. The show was quickly written and animated – within about six months time. Even its music, which many consider to also be classic, was quickly composed. CBS executives, after first viewing the show, were upset. They did not like the story, its inclusion of the character Linus reciting from the Bible and its focus on holiday depression. They predicted a flop but went ahead with airing the show. It was watched that first year by over two-thirds of all homes in the US – by far the most watched TV show that year. Its been translated and shown in many countries around the world as it also won both an Emmy and Peabody award. In the almost fifty years since its debut, it has been shown on American TV during every holiday season. Its simple story of how Charlie Brown and the rest of the Peanuts gang find the real meaning of the holidays still strongly resonates.
As most of us know, the story is about Charlie Brown being deeply depressed with Christmas and its emphasis on commercialization and mindless frivolity. Even his dog Snoopy gets caught up in holiday commercial euphoria by entering a home decorating contest. His sister Sally brazenly tells Santa in her wish list letter to him, “If it seems too complicated, make it easy on yourself – just send money. How about tens and twenties? All I want is my fair share!” And Charlie’s friends are solely focused on creating a celebration pageant replete with perfect decorations, music, food and dance.
Charlie finds himself seemingly alone in a world gone mad as it forgets the intrinsic values of the holiday. Suffering from deep holiday depression, a subject which was groundbreaking for its time when such subjects were not openly shared, Charlie cannot understand why his feelings about the holiday are so dissonant with the culture. Why is he the only one who does not share a striving for Christmas excess – gifts, money, lights, parties, uninhibited merriment? Is the problem his, or that of the culture?
After agreeing to direct the school Christmas pageant, Charlie still faces roadblocks to his vision of the holiday. His classmates want rock and roll music, dancing and a Hollywood style retelling of the nativity story with Lucy, Charlie’s arch nemesis, demanding to play the Queen of Christmas. Throwing up his arms in disgust, Charlie plaintively asks if anybody understands the real meaning of the holiday. His friend Linus then recites from the Biblical book of Luke the account of the first Christmas. Charles Schultz insisted on including this scene, against CBS objections, believing that it best represented his own quest, like Charlie’s, to rediscover holiday values.
With Lucy, Sally, Schroeder, Pig-pen and all of the other Peanuts kids still wanting a huge Christmas party show, they put Charlie in charge of finding a suitable tree to decorate the stage. Charlie and Linus travel to a tree lot where they find countless large trees plus many artificial ones – trees of the 1960s that were a made of shiny aluminum. Charlie rejects all trees until he spies one sad little tree in a corner of the lot – one that is barely a pine twig stuck on a stand. Proudly, he buys it and returns to his friends with the tree he had chosen. He is immediately laughed at, scorned and mocked for his inability to do anything right – even picking out a tree. Charlie picks up his ugly tree, is followed by Linus clutching a blanket and sucking his thumb, and the three misfits walk out into the snow – only to come across Snoopy’s garish and brightly decorated dog house with a first prize ribbon affixed to it. For Charlie, that is the final insult. Even his dog, supposedly a boy’s most loyal and understanding companion, has rejected him. He drops his tree to the ground in final defeat.
While Charles Schultz’s Christmas TV show has obvious Christian themes and symbols, ones that subtly underscore that religion’s interpretations of Jesus’ birth, it nevertheless highlights more universal values similar to those that Robert Hoge and his mother struggled to find. Ultimately, the two stories – one fiction, one true life, describe the eternal human quest for authenticity, dignity and power in the face of a very strong human propensity to worship the superficially beautiful and fake.

The Charlie Brown Christmas story is all about that pathetic little tree. Robert Hoge’s life story is all about his outwardly horrifying appearance. The story of the first Christmas is all about one born into poverty, with no belongings, no money, and no family status. Indeed, the theme of Jesus’ life story is about how weak and ugly things are made beautiful – the unwed mother visited by God, the baby born in a barn, the poor laborer who becomes a famous itinerant preacher, the lepers and outcasts who are made whole, the enemy of Rome nailed to a Cross who is resurrected. Three stories about ugliness and weakness – the Charlie Brown tree….Robert Hoge….Jesus. For each of us, our stories are much the same. Our lives are, ultimately, about the ugly little tree in us.

But that little tree in the Charlie Brown story ironically has power. It is immeasurably strong. It’s greatness is found not when the Peanuts kids decorate it and turn it into one of beauty. Instead, it’s found in it’s transformational power to change hearts and minds. It is far more powerful than any twelve foot high tree or one made of metallic durability. Robert Hoge, likewise, is an amazingly beautiful man. The ugliness of his deformity has become something powerful as he, his mom and society confront uncomfortable truths about how we judge others – mostly based on outward qualities like beauty, wealth or power. And so too was the prophet Jesus scorned and humiliated, one who triumphed not by strength and status but by humility, non-violence and advocacy for the poor and sick.
Christmas reminds us, then, of an eternal truth. To be fully human is to be vulnerable and frail. To be fully human, is to be much like a helpless child, one in need of nurture, community, love and attention. To be fully human is to be riven with imperfections – troubled with fear, doubt, insecurity, denial and sadness. One of the human affects we adopt is to put on a mask to be more than we are. We hunger for validation and security in things superficial – money, power, knowledge, beauty, status, material possessions, entertainment, drugs, sex, food, religion. We make our holidays into episodes of excess with expensive gifts, extravagant decorations, and of mindless busy-ness, all in a futile attempt to find real meaning and lasting joy. We grasp and claw and work to be anything but who we really are – pitiful, limp trees – ugly, misshapen bodies – lonely, misunderstood seekers. That is our reality. That is us.

But Charlie Brown, Robert Hoge, the helpless babe in a manger, the naked prophet nailed to a tree, they all tell us a different story about humanity and about ourselves. There is strength in weakness. There is greatness in frailty. There is power in lowliness. There is beauty in the ugly. Blessed are the meek, the poor in spirit, the hungry, the poor, the addicted, the depressed, the outcast. The world calls you ugly, a failure, a misfit. But inside us all is a mustard seed of redemption – one of beauty, truth, service to others, goodness and love.
Those who are outwardly wealthy, arrogant, intelligent, beautiful or strong – they find false security in life. Smug in trappings which hold no lasting greatness, they fail to see how they too are hungry and poor. We must therefore embrace our ugliness and weakness. Out of the depths of despair, in the pit of loneliness, in the pain of disease or poverty, we can discover lasting truths that transcend all our masks and all of the superficial things of this world.
Being in authentic community with others heals.
Sacrificially serving people and causes beyond ourselves is a real path to meaning and purpose.
Humility is a way to find grace.
Forgiveness brings redemption.
Empathy creates understanding and peace.
And, unconditional love for ourselves and for others is the greatest power in the universe.
In this message, I speak to each one of you individually. I also speak to myself. In our heart of hearts we know our struggles, our flaws, our disappointments, our excuses we use to cover up pain. Some of us mask ourselves better than others. But we are all weak little Charlie Brown Christmas trees. We are all as ugly or uglier than Robert Hoge.

We are all running from something – fear of being unmasked, insecurity about our own potential – sadness in our loneliness – regret and despair over past lives and decisions. This holiday season – for the next three weeks – for the new year – we can default into what Charlie Brown fought against. We can run to shopping malls and restaurants and parties and vacations in a vain attempt to find satisfaction and joy. We can cook and decorate and spend our way into a numbed sense of fulfillment that will soon feel empty. We can celebrate the superficial all around us – in people, in events, in things. We can console ourselves in a stupor of depression, isolation, overeating, overwork, soul-less charity, empty religion, or mindless use of alcohol, sex or drugs.
To you the addict, to you the one depressed, to you the fearful one, to you who has built walls around your heart, to you who is angry at family or friend, to you who cries silently in the night over unmet needs and broken relationships, to you who wraps yourself in a smug cocoon of superiority, to me who hungers to feel liked and loved, there is hope this Christmas. There is hope, after everlasting hope, after hope. A resurrection awaits.
There is strength and greatness and dignity in each of us. But we must first admit it and believe it. We must believe it. There is goodness and beauty in each of us. But first we must show it. We cannot be loved unless we first love ourselves. How many of us self-destruct in so many ways with anger, isolation, addiction, arrogance, self-hate? We cannot truly love and respect ourselves unless we practice the timeless human verities of which I listed earlier. We each know those truths. We know they are a means to overcoming our weaknesses. At any time of year, they are more essential than ever. Deeply connect with people. Serve and give to others more than to yourself. Humble thyself. Let go of anger toward anyone. Listen to and understand your enemy. Love yourself and others. Simple to say. So difficult to practice.
This holiday season, indeed for the next new year, let us tap into what is authentic and great in us. Let us embrace and love who we each are as flawed individuals. But let us see the wondrous beauty in us. May we find our quiet dignity. We each have so much more to give the world. We each have so much yet to do in life. Inside you, inside me – is a small, pathetic little Christmas tree waiting to burst forth – waiting to be crowned with a shining star on its top – waiting for its time as a thing of authentic strength and beauty and power…
I wish you all very happy holidays.

I want to make some brief comments about the passing of Nelson Mandela. In so many ways, he exemplified the topic of my message this morning. Tried for crimes against the South African state, he was convicted at age 41 and sentenced to prison on the notorious Robben island – a former leper colony located seven miles off of Cape Town – for the rest of his life. It was a bleak existence where inmates spent their days in hard labor and confined at night to small, cold prison cells.

But Mandela refused to allow his situation to defeat him. During the 27 years of his life in prison, reduced to the humblest of living conditions and at his seemingly weakest, he somehow triumphed. His quiet dignity, his force of mind and spirit – such attributes ,drew whites and blacks to him. White government cabinet members and other officials began traveling to Robben island to negotiate with Mandela – a man they thought they had banished forever. He became a leader not by his call to hatred, revenge or revolution – but by his humble yet insistent demands that the black majority be given equal rights. In return, he personally promised reconciliation with whites and a refusal to seek revenge by blacks once they took power. From the the bleak conditions of his prison cell, his stature increased until the African National Congress and other South African black leaders made his plight and his words the rally cry for an international movement. “Free Mandela” echoed around the world.
Mandela will live forever because of his legacy – a prophet and advocate of non-violence equal to Jesus, Mohammad, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. If we are to honor him in any way, I believe it is to live out his ethics in our own lives – to pursue non-violence, to refuse – as he long advocated – to hate anyone, particularly our enemies, and to reconcile with and forgive others. He championed such ideals on the world stage but we have smaller stages on which we can act – with others in this church, with our families and friends, in our politics and how we act in daily life. Banish anger. Rise above our petty demons. Forgive. Act and speak with peace. Work in the cause of justice for all. Mandela was a great man despite white efforts to diminish and eliminate him. His life exemplifies the truth that strength is found in humility and weakness.

I welcome your comments on my message about the Charlie Brown Christmas tree or about Nelson Mandela.