Author: Doug Slagle

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

 

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It is an interesting fact of history that the current political animosity between conservative Republicans and Democrats is not a new phenomenon. Indeed, today’s political divide extends back to the earliest days of our nation. It is exemplified in the ideological differences between John Adams and Thomas Jefferson. Adams, an ardent supporter of a strong Federal government, was opposed by Jefferson who wanted a weak central government fearing its control over common people.
Both were colleagues and collaborators during the revolutionary years. Both served as a part of the small group who drafted the Declaration of Independence. Both served together as emissaries to France during the war. Both risked life and reputation in their efforts to form the United States.
They also had a unique relationship. They were the best of friends during the revolution. They were the bitterest of enemies soon after the constitution was implemented. They reconnected and, once again, became extremely close in the final decades of their lives. The history of their friendship can be traced through 380 letters they exchanged – numbering as high as 60 one year, to none for almost twelve years when they were opponents. Such a high number of letters between them, at a time when it took weeks for correspondence to travel even a few hundred miles, offers testimony to the intimate and sincere affection they had for one another.
In one of the great coincidences of history, both men died after very long lives, on the exact same day – that being the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence – July 4th, 1826. John Adams’ last words before he died were to exclaim, “Jefferson lives!” Little did he know, in that age with no telegraph or telephone, that he had outlived Jefferson by five hours.
As we focus today on the topic of finding gratitude for our friends, we can learn a lot from the friendship between those two men. We can also learn a lot from two twentieth century female friends – two women whom most people never knew were close.
In the 1940’s and 1950’s, Ella Fitzgerald was a rising talent within African-American circles. She was a protege of such jazz greats as Duke Ellington and Dizzy Gillespie. But like all African-Americans of the time, she was thwarted in her ambitions and talent by white racism. She, and other black musicians, were limited to performing in small – often secret or underground – black lounges. Access to the wider world and media outlets was limited. Once, while performing with Dizzie Gillespie in an African-American club in Dallas, she and the other musicians were arrested simply for putting on a show. Ella later recounted the indignity of that episode along with the bald audacity of the policemen who arrested her and then, in the jailhouse, asked for her autograph.
During those early years of her career, Ella met Marilyn Monroe. They quickly became close friends. As Marilyn’s fame skyrocketed to superstardom, she and Ella nevertheless enjoyed a kind of mutual understanding and affection that only friends experience.
The Mocambo club in Hollywood was considered the preeminent venue for musical performers in the forties and fifties. Sinatra and others regularly played there. But it, too, had a policy that excluded black musicians. Marilyn Monroe was horrified by such prejudice toward her friend. She persuaded the club owner to hire Ella for a one week gig by promising him she would book a front row table and attend all of Ella’s performances. She and he knew that her superstar status would attract both huge audiences and the press. Marilyn was right. Ella’s performances were sold out and she received tremendous press coverage. Her career took off from that point.
Fitzgerald credited her friend with being the catalyst for her success. She repaid that gesture by regularly helping Marilyn with her singing voice. Anyone who studies Monroe’s movie career, knows that she was a capable singer able to musically hold her own with Hollywood greats. Marilyn gave all the credit to her friend Ella.
My purpose in citing the history of Adams, Jefferson, Fitzgerald and Monroe is not just to tell the story of their friendships, but to find insights from them to inspire us and give us greater reason to find gratitude for our friends.
Both friendships began like most do – by finding common cause and shared experiences that draw people together. Adams and Jefferson were comrades in the revolution and both knew that at any moment they, along with other founding fathers, were subject to capture, arrest and execution as traitors to the King.
Fitzgerald and Monroe were both performers who understood the joys and trials of public fame. They also shared a history of exclusion – not only as women, but as people too. As a white woman, Monroe’s experiences were nothing like those of Fitzgerald and other African-Americans. But, she too had faced derision and roadblocks to her career because of her rural, backward, small town roots. And while she exploited her blonde bombshell persona, she also knew that it stereotyped her as dumb and insignificant. She likely empathized with Ella and the prejudice directed at her.
During the careers of Adams and Jefferson, they extended the greatest of praise to one another while also harboring the petty jealousy that too often infects many friendships. Jefferson resented that Adams was elected the first Vice President and that he later succeeded Washington as the second President. Adams was bitter that Jefferson ran against him in his reelection and won. Just before he left office, Adams packed a Federal court with appointees whom he instructed to nullify Jefferson’s election. The ploy was overturned but Adams was so angry that he departed Washington in the middle of the night – refusing to attend the inauguration of his past friend.
Twelve years later, the two men reconciled. Forged by the common experience of being President and the threats they had navigated the infant nation through, they reunited and forgave each other the bitter and hateful words they had exchanged. They once again became not only friends but intimately close ones – sharing the kind of thoughts, fears and dreams that few people of that time ever shared with others.
As I’ve said, these four people can teach us a lot about friendship. So too can persons described in the Bible. From Moses and Aaron, to David and Jonathon, to Jesus and John, to Paul and Timothy, the Bible models both the value of friendships and how genuine friends should act. David even described his love for Jonathon as surpassing a man’s feelings for a woman. While some commentators mistakenly read homosexual romantic overtones in Biblical friendships, they miss the spiritual lesson we can learn. Friends, whether of the same or opposite genders, can have very real and deep affection for each other – without it being romantic.
Experts report that while having friends is vital to our well-being, like many things in life, we can take them for granted. Many of today’s social ills like poverty, stress or depression can be traced to one sad fact – some people lack close and supportive friends. In a recent Gallup poll of persons who are homeless, overweight or depressed because of an illness or failure of a marriage, a majority cited as one reason being the poor quality or nonexistence of friendships. They feel isolated and unloved.
This Gallup poll suggested that people are five times more likely to eat healthy if they have close friends who do so. Married people said that their friends are more important to them than intimacy with their partner. And a person is twelve times more likely to be productive and engaged in work if they have a close work friend.
The Mayo Clinic echoes those findings and reports that friendships are important for our health. Friendships help reduce stress, they boost our sense of well-being, they improve our self-image, they assist us in coping with life traumas and they help by encouraging change in unhealthy habits. Overall, the Mayo report found that it makes no difference whether one has a few close friends or a large number of social friends. The importance is found in the quality of relationships versus the quantity.
Similar to lessons we can learn from the friendships I’ve cited, the Mayo Clinic suggests that we avoid overwhelming a particular friend with all of our needs. We need to respect appropriate boundaries of time and commitment. We should not compete with our friends but instead cheer their successes. As in all relationships, we should listen more than talk. We should avoid judging our friends in their life choices, personalities and small flaws. We should be as positive as possible when we are with them – sharing our burdens but otherwise adopting a positive and happy outlook. And we should respect their privacy – learning the appropriate boundaries to the friendship – to pry or advise only when permission is given.
The main point of this Mayo Clinic report is that we must take our friendships seriously. That is a recurring theme in my series this month on finding gratitude for families, health and friends. If we deeply value these persons and aspects of our lives, it takes more than an annual holiday of thanks to show it. Gratitude for anything is a continual spiritual practice not only because we derive benefits from a healthy body, from family and from friends, but because these things enrich our lives and help enable our happiness.
Friendships deeply influence who we are as people – often as much as – or more – than do our families. Childhood friendships play an enormous role in determining our values – even if we have lost touch with friends of earlier years. Friends teach us life skills like empathy, sharing, and generosity. They help direct us in life priorities, they help enlarge our circle of friends, they support us in good times and bad, they offer companionship in lonely times, they advise us in our romantic relationships, they offer wisdom that help us see and overcome flaws, and they support us in our social justice and charitable inclinations.
Historical records show that it was John Adams who strongly pushed Jefferson to write the Declaration of Independence. He admired Jefferson’s writing abilities, his way with words and the respect others had for him. He knew that his friend’s stature would help convince wayward colonial delegates of the wisdom to break from England. Their friendship helped launch our nation as it also helped give the world one of its most eloquent and inspiring documents.
Marilyn Monroe helped introduce the world to one its great musicians – one who will live in music immortality. And she courageously helped break down racial barriers – showing racist white America what it is like to love and respect a person of another race. And Ella Fitzgerald returned the favor with friendship for a woman totally unlike her. Without Ella’s assistance, Monroe would only have been valued as a sex object, and not as a person, actor and singer.
If we think about our friends, we will see similar influences. I have a close friend named David with whom I often speak but am not as close as I once was. He helped push me to attend Seminary and become a Pastor and he has regularly encouraged me in my ministry and my desire to serve others. Indeed, I stand here today largely because of his early influence on me. Ironically, he is a very conservative Christian. As much as I have looked in awe at his breadth of knowledge about faith and the Bible, I have evolved from those beliefs after undertaking my own studies and examination of Christianity.
When I came out over eight years ago, most of my friends quickly abandoned me. It was heart breaking and showed me that friends are not always as reliable or as perfect as we hope they will be. Friends, like any person close to us, can hurt and wound.
But my one friend, David, did not abandon me. While I know he still does not believe homosexuality is God’s ideal, I believe I’ve helped evolve his perspective on the issue. As always, it takes knowing someone who is gay to help a person realize we are as human, flawed, good, faithful, and in need of grace as anyone else. Gays and lesbians are God’s good creation too. David remains a friend despite not agreeing with my evolved views about God and the Bible – and despite me being gay. We are not as close as we used to be. For many years he was my very best friend. But we are still friends, we still care for one another, we still cheer and praise the other. We still totally trust the other. I love David and am deeply grateful for all he has given me and meant to me in my life.
My experiences, and those of many of you, with past and present friends, reminds us what we owe them. Often, they’ve been the wind beneath our wings. They’ve been the one who spoke to us when others bullied us, who laughed at our silly jokes, who held our hands when we were sick, who listened as we poured out our hearts in grief. To be someone’s friend is a great honor. To have a friend is a great privilege.
As that Gallup poll showed, so many hurts in our world are often made worse because people lack friends or have failed to really invest in them. We do ourselves a great disservice if we take a friend for granted – if we fail to notice the small ways they support and love us; if we overlook the sacrifices they’ve made for us; if we fail to appreciate them and love them unconditionally. As we all know, a true friend is one who knows all about us – the dark recesses of our souls – but who loves us anyway.
To show gratitude for our friends, we should tell them what they mean to us. The best way is to do so in person. Another way is to send them a hand written letter. We show gratitude when we spend time with them but mostly when we offer our listening ear – not seeking to advise or judge them. The gift of simply allowing them to express themselves – their joys and their struggles – is enough. We can make something or cook a meal for them – giving them a piece of our love and labor. We can honor them by donating in their name to their favorite charity – even one we might not otherwise support. Most of all, we can value our friends by letting them know in a thousand different ways – a hug, a small gift, a talk over coffee, a phone call, an e-mail – that we are there for them. We are, for them, an ever-ready resource, a 911 call of support, always on standby.
Having an attitude of gratitude for any of life’s blessings is what grounds us as humans. Sincerely felt, gratitude reminds us of the wonder and joys of life. For each moment we live, each morsel of food, each kindness offered us, each person who has graced our lives – we owe debts of thanks. Most of all, gratitude takes us to a place of quiet awe and reverence. We are each the sum of gifts and influences and loving gestures that cannot be counted. We are blessed beyond measure.
No matter if we have one friend or ten, it is the depth of our feelings, loyalty, ability to share and level of support that matters. It does not matter if the friend is no longer close – but once was. Such people are like gold to us. Let us value them. Let us find in our hearts deep gratitude for them. Let us be someone who unconditionally loves, listens, refuses to judge, lifts up, encourages, and shouts with joy at every success and moment of glory our friends experience.

To you and to your friends, I wish you much peace and joy.

Message 148, Finding Gratitude for Life and Health, 11-10-13

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

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When was the last time that you felt truly alive?  When did you last feel energized, aware, awestruck and ecstatic about life?  Such a moment or period of time hopefully came when every part of your body and mind felt the power of “being”.  You were without pain, fear or limitation.  Feeling alive was perhaps a transcendent experience in which you were fully grateful for life and for a body in which to enjoy a great moment.

I have to admit that I don’t feel such truly alive moments very often.  I last felt that way two months ago when Keith and I were hiking near Sedona, Arizona.  We were descending into a canyon when a vista of red layered rock walls, millions of years in the making, loomed to our left.  Huge, billowing white clouds scudded across a blue sky above the canyon wall.  Pine trees framed the scene and softly whistled in the wind.  Off in the distance there were more red rock formations that extended far into the distance.  As we stopped to quietly look and listen, I glanced at Keith and there were tears in his eyes.  “It’s just so beautiful”, he said.

As I’ve thought about that moment since then, I’m both grateful for it and sad too.  Why should it take traveling across the country to experience such an alive moment – when my mind and my body felt both a thrill and a certain peace?  Such moments of transcendence can happen anywhere and anytime.  Indeed, the miracle of the trees lining the street outside, or of all of us in our differences, these are also things to behold in awe.  Even more, the fact that my body walks, talks, breathes, thinks and functions in a thousand different but integrative ways ought to be equally stunning to me – and considered with tremendous gratitude.

Last year, the Washington Post conducted an experiment by hiring Joshua Bell, one of the world’s foremost violinists, to stand on a Washington subway platform at morning rush hour and play some of the most difficult but profound musical pieces ever written.  He played a Stradivarius violin valued at over 3 million dollars.  Thousands of people hustled by while barely noticing him or his music.  He played for over two hours and in that time, only six people stopped to listen and even they did so for only a few moments.  In the midst of a crowded, drab, concrete space devoid of any natural beauty stood one of the world’s great musicians playing music that will be appreciated centuries from now – and yet nobody really listened, nobody stopped to value, appreciate and bask in that moment of pure life.

Unfortunately, the experiment showed how we fail to have gratitude for much of what is awesome and beautiful around us; how we fail to use the gifts of our bodies to listen and feel inspiring moments of life; how we fail to simply be – and open ourselves to how our bodies integrate into, and are not separate from, the wider universe.  Too many moments pass by us without thought, notice or appreciation.  We take them for granted, ignore them and focus instead on mundane tasks, fears, or pains.  Our bodies are largely forgotten unless they shout at us in brief moments of pleasure or in more prolonged times of hurt.  All too often we simply ignore and fail to have gratitude for the world around us, for our bodies that are our real homes and for our essential health that gives us the opportunity to live.

As I contrasted last Sunday the differences in outlook that western and eastern cultures have for families, it is interesting that there are similar differences between the two cultures in how life, the body and overall health are viewed.  Sadly, our western way of thinking – once again caused by centuries old Judeo-Christian ideas – too often sees humans and the human body as separate from the natural world.  Such a notion began with early Christian thinking that the body and its flesh are temporary, dirty, decaying, and unworthy of respect.  It’s our spirits and our souls that have value and that are eternal.  In this respect, our bodies are to be rigidly controlled so we don’t jeopardize our souls.

As modern society has evolved, this perspective has not changed.  Our bodies and lives are still manipulated in ways that seek to control the natural world that threatens us – to conquer bacteria, disease, dysfunction and ultimately nature.  In western thinking, our health and our bodies are separate from and not a part of the universe.

This thinking can lead us to take our bodies and lives for granted.  It’s simply a machine that pumps and breathes and functions almost as an afterthought – unless and until something does not work.  We then react to the disfunction and seek to correct the environmental problems that caused it – a disease, a cancer, a chemical deficiency.

Eastern cultures see the body from an entirely different perspective.  The body is fully a part of, and not separate from, nature and the universe.  The very essence of who and what we are is no different from the wind that blows, the rocks that form a canyon wall, or other creatures that populate the earth.  Much like the universe itself, our bodies thrive when in balance both with itself and with nature.  Instead of seeing illness or disease as a part of nature that attacks and threatens us, easterners see illness as a state of imbalance.

The goal, therefore, in eastern philosophy is to live in deep connection with the world and for our bodies to draw on the peace, energy flow, and powerful natural forces that keep us healthy and in balance.  In other words, instead of making nature adapt to our bodies, which is the western approach, easterners adapt the body to nature.  Our bodies – along with air, water and other life forms – exist in a natural and connected equilibrium.

This eastern view of the body therefore translates into how they value health and life.  They are not to be taken for granted.  A healthy body must be daily maintained in balance with itself and with all nature.  Chinese ideas of integrating a yin and yang state of mind, of using acupuncture points to stimulate health, of meditation, of slow movement in Tai Chi are all examples of this thinking.  So too is Buddhist meditation and it’s emphasis on the energy flow between chakra points on the body.  In that regard, the body and its health are valued as a matter of daily life.  The Buddha encouraged this mindset when he said that every person is the author of his or her own health and well being.

While diseases happen, eastern thinking about them is to adapt our bodies and our minds to the natural forces that use illness to purify and balance life.  If balance cannot be restored so that our bodies can function in health, then we must submit to that fact.  Terminal illness and death are a part of nature.  They are to be respected and valued in their own way – as truths to be accepted and integrated into an overall sense of being.

This eastern approach of continual gratitude and maintenance of one’s health was exemplified in Ancient Greek and Roman mythology.  There were numerous gods and goddesses responsible for personal health.  The two most prominent were Asclepius and Hygea.  Temples were built for these gods, people venerated small home statues of them, and frequent offerings and prayers were made to them.  Much like visiting a modern shrine like Lourdes, people visited the Temples seeking a god’s assistance in maintaining or restoring health.  One would sleep overnight in a dormitory adjacent to the Temple during which time the god would supposedly visit the person in his or her dreams.  Priests would then interpret the dreams as a way to prescribe a treatment that the god suggested.

In those pre-scientific cultures, one’s personal health was of major concern.  Even so, one was encouraged to be in tune with the body and offer daily prayers or thanks for its good health.  Faith, devotion and regular religious practice were essential for one’s health.  And the same attitude is clear in the Bible.  Jesus was a master healer whose most frequent miracles involved healing the lame and sick.  But NOT everyone was cured.  He repeatedly told those whom he did cure that it was their faith that had made them well.   Those who sincerely sought God’s healing power were the ones cured.

As mystical and unscientific as that might seem, it nevertheless underscores the eastern mind / body / spirit integration for maintaining a healthy life.  That thinking translates into gratitude for life and health.  The body and its functions are not taken for granted in most eastern cultures.  Indeed, one daily maintains personal health by focusing on a mind / body / spirit balance.

Once again, we can learn from this balanced and integrative approach to health.  It leads directly to a continual appreciation for life.  Without rejecting modern medical science, we can nevertheless incorporate aspects of eastern thinking in our lives.  That means finding balance in what we eat, how we exercise, what we spend our time thinking about and how we spiritually enrich ourselves.

While I am not an expert on diet and nutrition, my personal approach is to find balance in what I eat.  I like fattening foods but I don’t overindulge in them.  If I eat a heavy meal, I limit myself the next day.  And the same holds true for what I believe about exercise.  I try to work out three times a week as well as doing some walking, biking, yard work and taking stairs instead of elevators.  But I don’t think I’m a fitness fanatic.  I spend my share of lazy days.  Experts assert that all people should be more active and they encourage simple ways to do so like walking or swimming.  Indeed, some experts encourage people to take at least 10,000 steps a day – and there are now free smartphone apps that will count them for you.  If mobility is an issue, then water exercises and swiming are suggested.  Such advice comes not just as a way to find better health, but as a means to show gratitude for the health and bodies we’ve been given.  Too often we focus on the care of our houses, cars or computers while ignoring – until something bad happens – the one machine most essential to us.

That lack of deep appreciation for my health symbolically hit me over the head last year when I suffered a knee injury.  Mentally, that relatively minor injury set me back a lot.  I was anxious and upset that the fallibility of my flesh was suddenly upon me.  My knee injury reminded me how much I took for granted my good health and the daily miracles of bodily functions and abilities.  I thought I had eaten and exercised well but I had not spiritually and mentally practiced a kind of gratitude for life and health.  I was indifferent about them.  I meditated only occasionally.  I rarely focused in prayer or in thought about the miracle of my body.

Even more, by failing to really value life and health, I failed to spiritually and mentally process, accept and even appreciate the few times in my l life when my body had suffered.  My mind, body and spirit were imbalanced.  And so when my knee injury struck me, I was not prepared.  I got angry, depressed and troubled about it, my surgery and the long healing process.

Gratitude for one’s health that includes a spiritually positive attitude when our bodies hurt is not only encouraged by eastern cultures, it is ironically now endorsed by western medicine.  Faith, prayer and a positive outlook have been scientifically shown to improve healing.  Experts therefore encourage people to use the powers of faith and a positive mindset as a proactive measure to maintain health as well as to improve it when we are sick.

They suggest, when we are sick, to take a reality check, gather as much information as possible about our individual case, and then avoid imagining worst case scenarios.  We should also manage how we think and find ways to focus not on our illness but on other thoughts, activities and events.  This involves becoming more socially connected with others – being willing to ask for help, for listening ears, and for social companionship.  As trivial as my injury was last year, Keith was a godsend to me in his support.

Overall, experts advise against isolation.  Staying as active and vital as possible when sick – visiting with others, going out, eating out, walking if possible, staying connected to friends and church – these are all important.

But of greatest importance is finding a mind and spirit balance.  Our bodies are likely being taken care of by health professionals.  But our spirits need healing too.  This involves undertaking regular times to reflect, pray or meditate.  In doing so, the goal is to find a kind of inner peace and awareness not only of our bodies but of life itself.  It is often those who are most sick who appreciate moments of great beauty like hearing a master violinist play, viewing a sunset, laughing at a funny show or book, or relishing a great meal.  Such gratitude for life and health, no matter how troubled or full of pain, is not easy, but it is essential.

If we find that we have already incorporated such attitudes of gratitude into our daily lives when we are healthy and happy, they will be much easier to practice when we are not.  Adopting an attitude of gratitude for life, body and health will lead to a positive outlook even in the darkest of times.

Josh Billings, a contemporary spiritual commentator, has said that our health is like money.  We never have a true idea of its value until we lose it.  He perfectly states the point of my message today.  Gratitude and appreciation for life, for our bodies and for our health is not to be taken for granted nor is it a one-time annaul expression at Thanksgiving.  It should be a common attitude.  That means re-oreintiing our minds to notice big and small moments of beauty – to really see the trees and the clouds; to listen intently to the birds, the wind and great music; to appreciate the stunning abilities we have to think, walk, speak and see.  It means doing all we can to live in balance – a mindset I encourage in all aspects of life – in our spirituality, politics, thinking, eating, working, exercising and entertaining.  I firmly embrace the idea that extremism in any form IS a vice.  Extremism upsets the universal order of things that all creation exists in perfect balance.  If we are a part of that universe, then we too must live in balance and shun the extremes.

Today, tomorrow, this Thanksgiving, let us each reflect deeply on what it means to value the mere fact of our existence.  Let us find gratitude for the glorious gifts of our bodies and the wonder of good health that allows us to enjoy transcendent moments of tears, laughter, wonder, peace and pure joy.

I wish all of those to each of you…

 

Finding Gratitude for Family, 11-3-13

© Doug Slagle, Pastor at the Gathering, UCC, All Rights Reserved.

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In a 1993 Florida case, Kimberly Mays asked a court to allow her to sever all ties with her biological parents and family.  Kimberly and another baby girl had their identity tags mistakenly switched at birth and they were sent home to the wrong family.  Both were raised by non-biological parents.  The switch came to light when the other girl developed a heart condition and had genetic tests performed.  Kimberly’s biological parents sued for visitation rights but those visits unsettled Kimberly.  She was forced to spend time with the parents who gave birth to her but who were otherwise total strangers.  She considered her true parents to be those with whom she had no obvious connection other than they had, by the hospital’s mistake, raised and loved her.  Kimberley’s lawyer asked in his opening statement, “What is a family?  Biology alone – without more – does not create or sustain a family.”

It is often claimed that western cultures are confused about how to define ‘family’.  For multiple reasons, westerners define family as any group of people related by blood, marriage or adoption who live in the same house.  Unfortunately, such a narrow definition compels us to see family as comprised of parents and children while excluding many of the diverse intimate relationships that might also be considered family.  Traditional family definitions are rooted in centuries old Judeo-Christian ethics that many sociologists believe originated as a form of economic and social control by men.  Not only could property rights be better controlled with such a family definition, so too could sexual and other behaviors.  Also, the individual and his or her needs are the focus of western thought and families are merely social groups that support the individual.

Our western definition of family affects the feelings we can have about family and family members.  In our culture, families and family members can be taken for granted, devalued and even blamed for a person’s neuroses, flaws and problems.  Ironically, traditional family ethics have led westerners to de-value family relationships and to blame them for causing personal life problems.  By defining family as a relationship based on blood ties and living arrangements alone, we’ve paradoxically given rise to a victim mentality where personal inadequacies are often attributed to genetics and dysfunctional parents.  By relying solely on biology to define family, there is little else to justify affection or deep connection between family members.  We can feel forced to love and support family out of duty as opposed to feeling intimate connection to them.  In other words, western cultures have sown the seeds for disunity, indifferent love and little grace or forgiveness in many families.

A non-western understanding of family, however, is far different and more inclusive.  Families in eastern and non-western cultures are not always defined by biology and household. Rather, they are far more diverse including as members not just of nuclear family parents and siblings but also in-laws, non-related intimate associates, aunts, uncles, and distant cousins.  Family is determined not just blood but by having a deep and supportive social relationship.

In that regard, easterners typically greatly value their families and family members – some of whom are not tied by immediate blood relationships.  Even more, the well-being of an individual is not the purpose for families to exist.  Rather, families exist to support the unit as a collective whole.  It is culturally imperative to not only support other family members but to deeply honor, love and respect the very idea of family.  In this way, connections are usually forged not based on blood ties but on affection.

Throughout much of Asia, this cultural ethic called katannu kataveti is highly regarded and it is constantly taught to children and adults.  It is embodied in Buddhist teachings to show esteem and appreciation for all family members.   It is a practice, Buddhists say, that promotes inner peace, kindness and generosity in all relationships. To express gratitude for family is not the western idea of an occasional but often insincere sentiment.  It is a primary value and way of thinking.  One supports one’s family from birth to death – no matter what.

For us, it is considered appropriate at Thanksgiving to express gratitude for many of our life blessings.  We pay homage for the things we have, for food, shelter, for life itself.  This one time a year, we think of all the good we have in life and give thanks for them.

But our sense of Thanksgiving for blessings does not always extend throughout the year.  Nor it does not often extend to the challenges we face in life.  At Thanksgiving, we express gratitude for the good and pray for the bad to go away.  And we do the same for our our families.  We adopt a western form of indifference about them – they are loved but too often taken for granted.  Our individual well-being is thought of first.  Even more, our family life difficulties are not appreciated and valued.  They are instead blamed.  We see ourselves more as products of our own individual abilities than as persons molded and shaped for the better by our families and by family events – even those that were difficult, challenging and hard.

Indeed, in an ironic twist for modern day so-called family values advocates, Jesus encouraged a non-western definition of family and love for them.   His true family, he claimed, were his followers and close intimates.  He loved his birth mother and brother – but not because of their biological ties.  His closest family members, in his eastern cultural thinking, were the twelve disciples and the many women who loved and followed him – including his mother.  They were his real brothers and sisters.  Even more, this extended family of his was far from perfect.  They were society’s misfits, criminals, prostitutes, and thieves.  They fought, they showed petty jealousies, and they even denied Jesus when they were threatened with arrest alongside him.

But Jesus honored them as his family and he modeled the katannu kataveti eastern ethic.  He loved this unique family of his despite their quirky ways or sin filled lives.  He repeatedly forgave them and called them his own even after many abandoned him.  Above all, he lived within a strikingly modern family unit – persons not just related by blood but bound instead by unconditional devotion, care, concern, support and love – no matter a member’s differences or imperfections.

We can learn from this eastern approach to family.  Family are those around us, intimately connected to us and deeply supportive of us – and we of them – both emotionally and physically.  Each of the members of our particular families may or may not be related to us by blood or by marriage.

Love of family and gratitude for it extends beyond a few verbal expressions of appreciation.  It extends to how we serve them, forgive them, honor them and remain close to them all our lives – no matter their flaws or misdeeds.  Indeed, gratitude for family in this sense goes beyond love for a nurturing dad, a supportive sister, or a kind and successful child.  Our gratitude should extend to the parent who is or was distant, to the jealous and resentful sibling, and for the angry, dysfunctional or ungrateful son or daughter.  Our gratitude can also be expressed and felt for family times of rancor, disagreement, denial, and even abandonment.  We are better people because we’ve endured the good and the bad of family life.

We honor and daily show gratitude for family because more than any other influence in our lives, it defines who we are, it molds us, grows us, enlarges us and, through good and bad ways, gives us our identity and personality.  Our families were and are the incubators in which we develop and they grow us into stronger and better people.  To deny our families and their members is to deny ourselves.

As many of you know, I have a challenging relationship with my dad.  Given a choice, I’m not the son he would have picked nor is he the dad of my ideal dreams.  Too often, however, I allow resentment and anger to cloud my feelings and my relationship with him.  He helped create me and so I extend to him a tepid love born more out of obligation than out of genuine affection.

In truth, however, our connections are more than biological.  He helped raise me.  He financially supported me and gave me my start in life with an education.  In overt and subtle ways, he greatly influenced me.  Parts of his personality, his likes, dislikes and thinking are in me.  I am my dad’s son and who I am and what I have become are substantially due to him.  To love and have gratitude for him, I must transform myself, change my thinking, forgive him his shortcomings and foster a real empathy and appreciation for who he is, the forces that shaped him and the choices he made in life.  To do so for me is not easy.  I can remember the hurts too well.

And yet, that is precisely the point.  I must love my dad and have soul deep gratitude for him not just for his sake, but for me, for my mom, for my siblings, and for my daughters.  By honoring him, I honor myself and the very essence of my family – past, present and future.  Love of family isn’t always a bed of roses.  It’s messy, difficult and full of hurt.  But I cannot abandon my work to love my dad just because it’s tough.  Family is key.  Family is central.  Family is crucial.

And experts largely agree.  Barring the kinds of family members or families that are terribly and criminally abusive mentally, physically, or sexually, the reasons to extend gratitude for our families are many.  According to multiple academic studies, persons with close family and social ties live longer.  Their mental and physical health is better because strong family ties reduce stress, promote feelings of happiness and encourage healthier lifestyles.  People in highly loving and supportive families are better adjusted, more compassionate, more generous and more forgiving.  Indeed, it has been shown that family relationships teach us how to be better people to friends, co-workers and complete strangers.  We cannot be decent human beings unless we are decent and loving family members.   Jesus used his family of disciples and followers in the same manner – to help them grow as people and to model to the wider world how to love and support others.

Family, no matter what it constitutes for each of us – blood relatives, persons with whom we are deeply intimate, or both – should be of major importance in our lives.  It is our last refuge, our castle in a scary world, a group of people who deeply know all about us, love us anyway and who will hopefully be near us in the moments we die.  Gratitude for family must reach into the depths of our souls and find there the generosity and forgiving spirit that we each possess.  That kind of love and gratitude sees a judgmental and overbearing parent with empathy – seeking ways to understand how they were raised, how they did their best in raising us and how they, just like us, are imperfect.  That kind of love and gratitude for family sees the good in a rebellious child, an angry sibling, or a judgmental partner.  That kind of love and gratitude understands how challenging family circumstances or difficult family members can help us grow, learn, mature and become better people.  Adversity makes us stronger.  Disagreeable and challenging people teach us grace.

In so many ways, to be called a member of a family is a high honor and a title of great responsibility.  No matter our situation in life, single, married, with children or without, we each have families – persons who are connected to us by concern, support and love.  This Thanksgiving, I pray we might each reflect on the value of our individual families and who are its members.  As that lawyer for young Kimberly Mays said, it takes more than a blood relationship to comprise a family.  It’s your lover.  It’s your closest friend and confidante.  It’s your church friend, it’s your neighbor, it’s your life mentor.   It’s someone you have poured your life into and who has done the same for you.  And whoever is in our families, past or present, let us find deep appreciation for them, for the good in them, and for the influence they have had in shaping who we are.  Let’s not just tell them of our love and gratitude.  Let’s show it.  Let’s forgive.  Let’s understand.  Let’s listen.  Let’s serve.  Let’s reunite with them, if they allow it, in a spirit of grace.  Let’s be near them and with them in good times and bad.  As Michael J. Foxx, the well-known actor, once said, “Family is not just an important thing.  It is everything.”

 

I wish you all much peace and joy.

 

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Mary Latham was an 18 year old woman who lived in the Massachusetts Bay Colony of 1643 – a time when the Puritans ruled New England.  During her teens and by the standards of that time, Mary was impetuous, wild and a seventeenth century version of a party girl.  She became engaged to a young man who later decided against marrying her.  Hurt and feeling abandoned at the altar, Mary vowed to marry the next single man she met.  He happened to be much older but Mary kept her word and married him.

That was obviously not the context for a good marriage.  Mary continued her wild ways and frequented places where married and unmarried men drank alcohol.  At one of those affairs, she met a young and handsome professor recently arrived from England.  One thing led to another and soon, allegedly, they had sex.  Wracked with guilt and remorse, the young professor later confessed his sin to religious leaders.  Mary was quickly arrested for adultery.

While Puritan laws were harsh, they did stipulate some standards of evidence.  Two witnesses were required for any conviction.  While the professor admitted his guilt and accused Mary of being his accomplice, nobody else could confirm the alleged dirty deed.

Nevertheless, Mary and the professor were convicted.  Mary, feeling remorse at her conviction, later confessed to adultery with twelve other men.  They, however, were never convicted.  Shocked at her serial promiscuity, the Puritan court sentenced Mary to death.  According to John Winthrop, who was the Massachusetts Governor at the time, Mary went to the gallows peacefully, claiming she deserved die.

Many of us have read Nathaniel Hawthorne’s book The Scarlet Letter about a similar Puritan conviction.  As judgmental as what happens to Hester Prynne in the novel seems, her punishment was lenient.  The majority of Puritan trials were for sex offenses since it was illegal to engage in any sexual activity that was not procreative and was not between a husband and wife.  But, since sex is a private activity, eyewitnesses were rare.  The standard requiring two witnesses was thus conveniently overlooked.  Persons convicted of illegal sex were occasionally executed but most were sentenced to a public whipping either at a stake or while being dragged behind an ox drawn cart.  Those whipped were often permanently maimed and some died.  After their punishment, men were required to wear a noose around their necks and women, like Hester Prynne, were to forever wear a scarlet “A”.

It seems ironic that the Puritans practiced harsh judgment of sex acts given the admonition against that by Jesus in the story about a woman caught in adultery.  That story describes how the legalistic Pharisees tried to test Jesus and his fidelity to standards of Jewish law.  They brought before him a woman they said had been caught flagrante delicto – in the very act of intercourse.  Jesus does not say much at first, but after hearing the accusations from the men, he began to write in the dirt.  It is unknown what he wrote.  Many surmise he detailed sins committed by the accusers.  Reminded of their misdeeds, some of which may have been sexual, the men are visibly shaken and deeply embarrassed.  Knowing the punishment for adultery was stoning to death, Jesus then uttered his famous words that only those without sin should cast the first stone at the woman.  The men, however, quietly slink away.  Jesus rhetorically asks the woman, “Where are your accusers?”  Seeing that there are none, he assures her that he does not accuse her either.  Showing empathy and compassion, he tells her to go and sin no more.

There is abundant controversy surrounding this story.  Many Christians who struggle with Jesus’ non-judgmental attitude, question its authenticity or its meaning.  They argue that some early Bible manuscripts do not contain the story, although some do.  And, several early church leaders referred to the story in their writings.  As such, the story is deemed sufficiently a part of the established Bible canon that almost all translations include it.

But the story is still unsettling to many.  Adultery is a sin listed in the 10 commandments and Jewish law is clear about its punishment.  Why did Jesus protect the woman?  What did Jesus write in the dirt?  Perhaps the woman was innocent or a victim of rape and Jesus knew that.  He would therefore have been condemning not only hypocritical attitudes but also the rush to judgment and the illegality of an impromptu trial since, despite Jewish law, the man involved was not also accused.  Perhaps the story was far more nuanced than was presented to Jesus.  Maybe the woman was a prostitute and desperate for money to feed herself or her family.  Maybe she was a rape victim, maybe she was from a broken family or, perhaps she was legally married but abandoned by her husband.  We do not know all of the details since such facts are not presented – only that she was caught in a compromising situation.

Whether or not the story was a part of the original Gospel of John, it does not matter.  Nor does it matter if is actual history.  The story resonates because of its universal teaching about judgment.  It was included in the Bible for a purpose and it legitimately reflects other teachings by Jesus against hypocrisy.  It echoes his teaching and that of the apostle James that only God is to judge moral character.  It also deeply reflects Jesus’ views on forgiveness and redemption.  Many interpreters see a direct similarity of the story with Jesus’ trial and execution by a group of self-righteous accusers.

What the story does do and what the history of the Puritan trials also do are to highlight the scary mask people often wear – that of a judgmental attitude.  Within a few minutes of meeting someone, almost all of us have not only formed an impression of him or her, we have often judged that person to be good or bad.  Learning of a behavior we disapprove by a friend, family member or stranger, we are quick to judge the person – pronouncing a sentence much like a mob of stone wielding men.  He or she is immoral, indecent, unkind, lazy, bad, unworthy.  We apply labels.  We demean.  We condemn.  We arrogantly presume, all by ourselves, to act as policeman, judge, jury and executioner for any person, action or situation we disapprove.

These stories which I have recounted offer us insight, however, to the scary mask of judgment that many of us wear.  By understanding problems with being judgmental, we can better see how to instead live.

When making any determination of another person or situation, we must operate with as complete a set of facts as possible.  Mary Latham was convicted solely on the testimony of her partner in crime.  Other Puritan convictions for illicit sex were based on innuendo, no eyewitnesses and few facts.  The woman dragged before Jesus was said to be observed in the act but even such visual confirmation does not prove willful adultery.  She could have been raped or coerced as a young, immature and impressionable female.  There could be mitigating factors for her actions or for the action of Puritan women – their poverty, their lives as powerless women in cultures where single women were lower in status than slaves, or their being abandoned physically and emotionally by husbands.   What we see are judgments rendered with few facts, no compassion, no empathy and no desire to understand the background and context.  When we judge another, that is a primary clue to the evil we have perpetrated – we don’t have all the facts!

Herein lies the challenge not to judge others.  Judgment of other people involves an emotional response and rush to conclusion about perceived flaws and misdeeds.  We render an opinion about an action or situation that derives from anger, jealousy, insecurity or fear.  We view a person or situation with tunnel vision.  We are narrow minded, intolerant and anti-intellectual.

Discernment, however, relies on an accumulation of facts and evidence.  It does not rely on emotion but rather objectively determines the truth.  Judging another, for example, labels a person convicted of a crime as a bad person.  Discernment, on the other hand, simply concludes that a bad action was committed by another. It is the crucial difference between the discerning actions of our sober, lengthy and deliberate justice system versus mob anger and rush to judgment shown by the men who confronted Jesus and the pious courts of Puritan Massachusetts.

Our call is to practice discernment in our thinking.  Refusing to judge others does not mean we abandon rational, reason based thought.  We have unique intellectual abilities to marshal facts and arrive at close approximations of truth.  We’re asked to seek a complete set of facts BEFORE we form an impression and thought.  And that takes time.  It cannot be immediate.  There is no malice, condescension, dislike, jealousy or anger in objective discernment.  Emotions cloud our thinking.  Calm reasoning offers clarity.

Buddhists suggest an additional method to discern and not judge.  We practice mindfulness when we allow thoughts and observations to flow through our minds without focusing on them and allowing them to dominate.  We can observe other people, their actions and other situations without taking the mental energy to analyze and form conclusions.  Buddhists find inner peace not by closing themselves off from people and the world but by simply and gently observing what goes on around them – and refusing to judge.  Observations without analysis can thus flow in and out of the mind in an endless but peaceful stream of simple awareness.

A second concern with judging others, as Jesus implicitly points out in the Bible story, is that nobody is morally equipped to render an opinion on the goodness of another.  Who among us is free of wrongdoing, misbehavior or so-called sexual sin – the standard being any form of sex outside of marriage?  Even more, as Jesus taught at other times, the sin of adultery need not be one of action.  Jimmy Carter memorably confessed to adultery of the heart – calling attention to Jesus’ teaching that simply thinking about and desiring sex with another – whether or not it is acted upon – is a sin.  There are very few people who are absolutely pure by such a standard.

As Jesus taught, real sin lies in our hearts and not just in our actions.  Lust is lust whether it is in our minds or our behavior.  Hate is hate whether it is in our hearts or in how we act.  The point is crystal clear.  We are all flawed.  We have all misbehaved.  We are all adulterers.  How dare any of us presume to render moral judgment on another, therefore, when our accusing finger points menacingly back on us.

Even more, who among us should act like God or any other universal force for goodness?  I have not been elected or appointed the God-like judge of anyone’s innate character and morality.  I doubt very much that you have either.  I also don’t have the ability to see the totality of other lives.  Someone who appears to me as a good person may well be full of inner hatreds and prejudices.  The opposite is also true.  I know many people whom the world might judge as sinners, criminals or bad people but who, in their humble speech, compassion, generosity,  kindness and redemption are not perfect but are far more moral and good than any self-righteous soul who believes himself or herself the determiner of who and what is moral.  As one anonymous commentator once said, “Even God does not judge a person until their death.  Why should we?”

A third warning is also implied in the stories I’ve told.  What motivates the accusers and the judges?  Why did Mary Latham’s alleged lover confess when he knew full well the severity of punishment for adultery?  Was he angry at Mary for turning down his sexual advances?  Was he disturbed with his own inadequacies as a man – and thus taking them out on she who had tempted him?  Why did the group of angry and self-righteous Pharisees drag a poor girl before Jesus?  What were their attitudes toward women?  Were they protecting one of their own in his adultery?  Were they really concerned about morality, or were they motivated by a desire for vengeance against Jesus and women in general?  Were they motivated by an all too common subconscious compensation for their deficiencies as men, husbands and moral persons?  While we can speculate forever about their motivations, the facts as presented leave us in doubt.  The same is true in ANY judgmental situation.

We must therefore ask ourselves what really motivates us in our critiques and opinions of others?  So often judgment of others reflects more about ourselves than it does the other person.  We subconsciously dislike something in us and so we project that self-condemning thought on another.  Many psychologists assert that those who are overly critical and judgmental of others are symbolically acting and speaking as if in front of a mirror.  As examples: If we are shy and dislike it, we condemn those who are extroverts.  If we are secretly gay, we condemn homosexuality.  If we ourselves have acted improperly in the past, we viciously condemn others who do the same.  If we live in fear, we decry those who don’t.  If we feel inadequate and insecure, we hate those who succeed and achieve.  What we do, in reality, is judge others with the same critical spirit we subconsciously have for ourselves.

We also project our shallow attitudes, prejudices and stereotypes about wealth, race, gender, power, status and appearance on others.  An overweight person is judged less competent and less intelligent.  One who is friendly and seems flirtatious is promiscuous and immoral.  An African-American man has criminal intentions.  A woman is weak, overly emotional and unstable.  A conservative is uncaring.  A liberal is a sentimental sap.  A poor person is lazy.  A rich person is greedy.

We must ask ourselves, what biases lie in the recesses of our hearts that lead us to judge and critique others and their lives?  If we are honest with ourselves, we will realize that our critical opinions are ego strategies to make ourselves feel better, salve our fears, or soothe our jealousies.  Instead of confronting issues inside of us, we lash out, condemn, and maliciously judge another.  Indeed, as Jesus teaches with his skillful use of symbolic analogy, it is the log in our own eyes that we willfully ignore when we point out the tiny speck in someone else’s eye.  Wayne Dyer, a contemporary social commentator, has said, “When you judge another, you do not define them, you define yourself.”

That calls us to not only examine our motivations but also our moods and emotional outlook.  Those who are frequently critical of others often operate according to a rhythm of how they feel.  When tired, stressed, fearful or insecure, they can respond with judgment and criticism of others – most often with those closest to them.   When we feel the bile of judgment and condemnation rise within us, we can ask ourselves, how am I feeling right now?  Should I take a rest, should I take a deep breath, read a book, go for a walk or seek some form of finding inner peace?

My topic and messages this month on scary masks people wear – hate, indifference, judgment – are ones to contemplate this Halloween.  None of us want to be hateful, indifferent to the suffering of others or judgmental in attitude.  And yet, most us often are.  I know I have hated and can hate.  I have been indifferent and still am.  I have judged others and still do.  They are the most evil masks I could possibly wear.  I pray your help in taking them off.

We see so much pain around us – people who are lonely, hungry, depressed, poor, afraid, hurting.  Why would we ever wish to add our hate to that mix?  How can we be indifferent and fail to do what we can for such suffering?  Who are we to judge anyone based on false, incomplete or hypocritical thoughts and facts?  Our families, our friends, the people in our communities desperately need, instead, our compassion and our understanding.  We have been blessed with intelligent minds.  Let us use them with wisdom and discernment.  But let us also use our hearts and the grace they’ve been shown, the compassion that causes them to beat, and the love that makes them larger.

 

I wish you, and those listening online, much peace and joy.

 

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A few months ago in a provincial city of China, a young toddler wandered into a busy street.  The scene was captured by a surveillance camera.  The child was struck by a white van, run over and left injured and bleeding on the street.  Numerous people on bicycles and walking on the sidewalk clearly saw the injured child and even looked directly at her – but all went by without helping.  After a few minutes, the child was run over by another van.  Once again, many cyclists pedaled by – many within mere feet.  Over five minutes passed before a trash collector ventured into the traffic to rescue the girl.  She later died from her injuries.

The video spread virally throughout China.  It sparked a national dialogue about whether the nation’s rush to modernize had sapped the Chinese of a sense of morality and responsibility to help others.

Just last month, the Hartford, Connecticut police released a video showing a 78 year old man step off a curb into a street.  One car sped around and swerved to just barely miss him.  A second car, however, struck the man and sent him flying like a rag doll.  He fell to the street and lay motionless.   Over ten cars drove around the injured man but did not stop.  Some slowed down as the drivers looked directly at the injured man but nobody got out to help him.  Several minutes passed before a police car pulled up and the officer got out to render assistance.  The police chief later commented about the incident, “At the end of the day, we have to look at ourselves and understand that our moral values have now changed.  We have no regard for each other.”

Over a year ago in a Brooklyn, New York hospital psychiatric ward waiting room, another camera recorded a woman fall off her chair, land directly on her face and begin convulsing.  Two patients sitting nearby stared at the woman but did nothing.  A hospital staff member entered the room, observed the woman convulsing, saw her hospital gown pulled above her waist, but then casually watched TV for a few minutes before walking away.  The woman stopped convulsing but still lay on the floor.  A long time passed before another staff member entered the room, saw the woman, nudged her with his foot and then also walked away.  Many more minutes passed before finally a gurney was brought into the room, the woman was given oxygen and wheeled away.  She was soon declared dead.  The woman was a Jamaican immigrant here to work and send money to her two children.  Over one hour passed between her initial fall and when help was finally rendered.  What is not seen in the video is that she fell only a few feet from the reception desk window where many staff continued to work.  Many staff members were reprimanded and four were fired –  including one doctor – all of whom had seen the woman’s condition but did nothing.

Such harrowing tales of indifference to human pain and suffering are common.  We know of many such examples in history, the most extreme of which occurred during the Holocaust.  The documentary film “Shoah” attempted to understand why so many Germans did nothing during that time.  Most people in the film answered defensively in interviews that they did not know the Holocaust was going on.  One Protestant minister who spent seven years in a concentration camp would later write, “First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out because I was not a communist.  Then they came for the labor leaders, and I did not speak out because I was not a labor leader.  Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew.  Then they came for the Catholics and I did not speak out because I am a Protestant.  Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me.”

As the famed Nazi war crimes hunter Elie Wiesel once said about the failure of so many to do anything to stop the Holocaust, “The opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference.   Indifference is the epitome of evil.”

The epidemic of bullying in our schools occurs precisely because of such indifference by school administrators, teachers, parents and a majority of students.  In the documentary film “Bully”, Alex, a teenage boy who was born premature and remains small, thin and developmentally different in appearance, is ruthlessly teased and taunted with the name “fishface.”  Pushed into lockers, poked with pencils, nearly strangulated and constantly laughed at by other kids, the documentary shows the boy trying to stoically persevere.  The assistant principal is indifferent to his plight, claims she will take care of the problem but then simply asks the bullies to stop.  The boy’s parents seem indifferent to his suffering and ignore his troubled demeanor.  Mostly, we watch a few bullies regularly torment the boy while the vast majority of kids watch and do nothing.

Another teenage boy in Mohawk County, New York committed suicide due to constant harassment by bullies after he came out as gay.  His cell phone was forcibly broken, food was often thrown at him in the cafeteria and he daily endured vulgar insults within full earshot of teachers.  His parents complained to the school and offered evidence of the psychological damage done to their son, the changes in his personality and the sharp decline in his grades.  The school district claimed that as an open gay teen, the boy was not protected against harassment since homosexuality is not a legally protected classification like race, gender or disability.  Indeed, it appears many of this boy’s tormentors knew that due to the indifference of adults, they faced little risk of punishment.

Just last week Pope Francis, of whom I am a growing fan, commented in his Sunday message about a lack of widespread concern for the hundreds of undocumented immigrants who recently died when their boat sank off the coast of Italy.  He said, “There exists a globalization of indifference; we’ve grown accustomed to the  suffering of others;  it doesn’t concern us;  it’s none of our business.”  Citing mothers who drowned still clutching their children and fathers who died in a desperate effort to find a better life for their families, Pope Francis asked where are the tears for these people and others like them?  As he said, too many people in our world suffer from an anesthesia of the heart.

The pope echoes what is a disturbing isolationism in our communities and nation.  Even as cultures and economies become more diverse and global, too many people react with fear at this trend, pull up their proverbial drawbridges and withdraw into the seeming security of their own group.  The poor, the homeless, the hungry, the immigrant, the disabled – they are no longer persons deserving of compassion and assistance.  They allegedly sap the economic vitality of a community and nation.  A cold indifference grips our culture.  Social safety nets are undone, reasonable taxes are condemned as theft instead of as ways to help the most vulnerable, and charities beg for donations and volunteers.  Millions suffer under dehumanizing poverty, through no fault of their own, while too many fellow humans isolate within a smug cocoon of indifference and pretended ignorance.

As one anonymous commentator said many years ago, “we must all fear the actions of evil people.  But the kind of evil we must fear the most is the indifference of good people.”

The important question we should ask ourselves is how we react when faced with a decision to help others?  Is the indifference we see in the world a disease that infects us too?  Deep inside any of us, is there an apathetic little creature that often fails to serve the plight and need of others, or, is there a hero waiting to boldly act to save the wounded, defend the tormented and serve the needy?

Psychologists and sociologists maintain that indifference to the suffering of others is a common attitude.  It’s reflected in what many call a bystander effect.  As social creatures, few of us are willing to act alone or in very small numbers.  We tend to act only when many others act too – whether in our heroism, hate, or deliberate indifference.  Indeed, according to social psychologists who have studied the bystander effect, large numbers of bystanders tend to discourage individual heroic action.  When we see those around us not act, we fear acting alone.

Reasons for this are many.  We see that others are not acting so we comfort ourselves by doing the same.  We tell ourselves that others are better trained, have more time or more money to act and serve.  We also fear acting while others are watching – fearing being judged in how we help.  This diffusion of responsibility allows individuals to be indifferent to doing something themselves.  We reassure ourselves that our inaction, our apathy, our laziness, or our indifference are OK because many others are not helping, and those who do help, they are the ones who are most capable.

Experts assert that the vast majority of people act with indifference in situations of need.  We are herd oriented creatures.  We care deeply what others think of us and so we conform to what the mass does.  Only a very few are willing to step outside the herd to act, serve or give.

According to Paul Loeb, who is a lecturer on ethics and author of a book entitled “Soul of a Citizen”, most people believe bad things that happen to others are not their personal responsibility.  They transfer responsibility to unknown others – police, charities, hospitals, experts, or simply someone’s family and friends.  People do not believe the pains in this world are their responsibility as a fellow human or citizen.  We can watch women and children in another nation be murdered and poisoned by gas but believe its not our responsibility to do anything about it.  We know that children in poverty in our own community lack the home environment, parenting and community resources to learn basic skills but we assume it is not our fault and not our responsibility.  We witness other people, agencies and charities doing the work to assist people in need and believe it is their job and not our own.

Even more, says Loeb, is a common belief that our duty as individuals is to just take care of ourselves.  Personally, I hope others will not get sick, suffer in poverty or be injured – and I despair when they do.  I’m happy when people do help others but transferring my hope into action by myself is difficult.  Helping people in need is not my duty or my moral imperative, I can tell myself.  I’m not a person’s relative, I’m not his or her fellow citizen, I’m not their doctor, I’m not their Pastor, policeman, fireman, emergency medic, social worker, fellow church member or rich friend.  Those people can and should handle the problem.  Not me.

But when does the proverbial buck stop at my door?  When do my excuses, my apathy, my indifference become sins not against any god but sins against universal laws of compassion and common goodness – laws that I know deep in my heart?  I make no excuses for myself.  I’ve done many things in my life to help others.  I know deep in my soul, however, that I could have done more.  I am guilty of the sin of indifference.  I must take off that scary mask.  I must do more.

Jesus, according the Biblical book of Luke, is said to have told a story about a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus.   The rich man dressed in expensive clothing, lived in a large and luxurious house, ate extravagantly and spent his days in leisure.  Outside the gates to his home, the beggar Lazarus sat and hoped for scraps of food or glimmers of compassion from the rich man.  He got nothing.  After both died, the rich man appealed to God to relieve his unending misery in hell.  God answered him by saying he had lived his life of ease and indifference.  He was now reaping what he had sown.

While I reject the idea that there is a literal reward and punishment system at work after we die, that is not the message to be learned from Jesus’ parable.   We build our own heavens and hells.  The rich man had built his own hell – one of arrogance, aloofness, indifference and greed.  Physical indulgences and material wealth offer fleeting pleasures but they are not lasting.  We deceive ourselves with an alleged heaven of comfort and luxury.  We ignore the hell-like consequences of hate, indifference and judgment.  Failing to do all we can, failing to serve, failing to give, failing to act when we have the time and ability, no matter how small, to help others in need – those little failures can add up to a life of little worth, a soul with little warmth, an ego with little humility and a hellish existence with little meaning or purpose.

Experts tell us we can avoid this hell of our own making.  To banish an attitude of indifference and failure to act, they recommend several choices to make.  First, we can endeavor to teach others the skills and knowledge we have acquired.  Teaching throughout our lives gives us purpose and the opportunity to build a legacy that will reach far into the future.  Second, we can be creative by building and beginning new ways to serve and give.  Such bold creativity in charity allows us to step away from our herd instincts to instead be leaders and creators.  Third, we can connect with like minded people who share our vision to serve and give.  As we all know, churches are perfect places to meet those who selflessly give and serve.  Churches are one of the few institutions where service to others is made possible.  It is one of the key reasons to belong to a church.  None of us should therefore fail to participate in the many ways to regularly serve others here at the Gathering.  Fourth, we can stay informed about world issues, world poverty and world-wide needs.  News and information about hurt and pain in the world keeps us grounded and alive to the needs others have.  Finally, we can decide here and now to always act when we see incidents of hurt or injustice.   We can decide to never excuse such incidents as unintended, normal or none of our business.    We can decide to banish fear from our minds – choosing, no matter what, to act, serve and give when we perceive a need.

A life worth living, a life worthy of all that we consume, a life worthy of being called a human being, is one of continuous, active and concerted care for others.  Such a life is one of true heroism – a life where we step outside fear and apathy.  The timid, the weak and the uncaring are the ones who wear scary masks of indifference.  The superheroes are the ones who act, serve, and give even though the crowd all around them are frozen in their inaction.

The Gathering, while I serve here, will not be a place of indifference to the needs and injustices of this world.  We will do our part to build a form of heaven for others in need.  While I serve here, I pray it will not be a place where the few do more than their share – filling in for the indifference and inaction of others.  As I said earlier, we each owe a debt – for our lives, for countless blessings, for the good that has been given us, for the privilege of each and every day.  This debt we owe continues until the day we die.  Some people are takers in life.  Some are givers.  The same is true for churches.  This place, this congregation, this little collection of heroes and doers – we will be givers.

 

 

 

 

Message 144, Scary Masks We Wear: Hate, 10-6-13

 

 

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In a startling scene from his classic novel “1984”, George Orwell describes a large audience watching a film showing a traitor to the Party and that man’s critical views of it.  Within mere seconds, the happy and docile crowd transforms into a vicious mob that throws anything it can at the film screen image.  As Orwell writes, “A hideous ecstasy of fear and vindictiveness, a desire to kill, to torture, to smash faces in with a sledgehammer, seemed to flow through the whole group of people like an electric current, turning one even against one’s will into a grimacing, screaming lunatic.”  Even the novel’s protagonist Winston Smith, who himself opposes the dictates of the Party, joins in with the mob in their mass display of visceral hatred.

Such a scene in the book is described as a hate session when people were ordered to participate in an exercise designed to promote the Party’s agenda.  Orwell based these fictional sessions on literal fact –  modeling them after two minute hate sessions held at mass rallies when Stalin ruled Soviet Russia.  But “1984’s” hate sessions find parallels in episodes of mob hate that were fomented in the United States after screenings of  D.W. Griffiths film “Birth of a Nation” in which African-Americans are depicted as lazy, menacing and stupid.  These scenes were juxtaposed in the film against the virtues of the Ku Klux Klan as defenders of morality and the American family.  So too does Orwell draw comparisons with the German Nazi film “Jud Suss” which depicted Jews as greedy and treacherous.  It was required viewing by all of the German SS troops and helped to inspire in them a mass hatred of Jews.

Right now, we can currently witness examples of mass expressions of hatred towards political opponents – as Republicans voice hateful words toward Democrats and they return the same.  Some have called President Obama a Marxist, the Anti-Christ, and a closet Muslim bent on destroying democracy and Christianity.  Just a few years ago, President Bush was labeled a village idiot, a baby killer, a war criminal and a fake Christian.  Washington Post columnist Walter Milloy has said he would like to spit on members of the Tea Party, saying they are a faction full of bile, anger and venom – even as he displayed those very attitudes with his words.  Senator Al Franken wrote a book entitled “Rush Limbaugh is a Big, Fat, Stupid Idiot”.  Glenn Beck on his TV and radio shows often refers to Progressives and liberals as nefarious thugs and bullies bent on destroying the US Constitution and indoctrinating young school children.   As Orwell himself said, “In our age there is no such thing as ‘keeping out of politics.’  All issues are political issues, and politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, schizophrenia and hatred.”

We witness it around the world with Jews hating Arabs, Hindus hating Muslims, Muslims hating Christians, straight people hating gays, ethnic groups despising other ethnicities, the rich hating the poor and, in most of these cases, those who are hated returning the very same sentiment.  Such hate would not be so bad if it was not manifest in most of the above cases by murder, torture and unspeakable cruelty against fellow human beings.

This extreme and violent emotion of hate is in our homes, our schools, our places of worship and in our government offices.  Indeed, hate is in this room and likely resides, in some form, in each and every one of our hearts – a kind of deep rooted antipathy toward another person or group of people that hungers for physical, mental or emotional harm to come another.   We nurse hatred in our souls and we manifest it in the words we use, the attitudes we have and how we act toward the object of our hate.  Merriam Webster dictionary defines hatred as having an intense hostility and aversion toward someone, usually stemming from fear, anger or sense of injury.   Who among us can claim to be free of having felt such an emotion in the past – or even right now?  I ruefully confess I have been a hater and, too often, I still am.

In a startling study about the biology of hatred, it’s been shown that love and hatred are not opposite emotions but are instead closely related in terms of the brain areas and biochemistry responsible for them.  MRI scans of people show that both love and hate come from the same insular cortex area of the brain.  A distinction arises, however, when people feel a strong sense of love.  The frontal cortex, that area of the brain associated with judgement and critical thinking,  largely shuts down.  It is a common truth that passionate love is usually irrational.  But when hate is felt, the frontal cortex of our brains lights up and is quite active.  Hate is thus guided by reason and thought.  In other words, we consciously choose to hate.

While some assert hatred is an evolutionary phenomenon originating from a tribe’s need to justify taking scarce resources from other people in order to survive, others believe hatred is a largely human emotion that goes beyond mere survival.  It’s rooted in jealousy, envy, fear and anger but it is not a feeling over which we have no control.

The masks of hatred we often wear are hideous to behold.  Caught in the throes of my hatreds, I can barely recognize myself.  I can inwardly seethe and dream that my version of justice will befall the one I believe has injured me.  I hope for their downfall.  I think about it, hope for it and delight in it if it should happen.  I want those I hate to suffer.  Even such an admission is a horror to me.  I do not like that ugly me.

It is remarkable, given the widespread existence of hatred in our world, that the prophets of all major world religions taught and preached against it.    Jesus radically called people to a totally new way of thinking about people we consciously choose to hate.  He called his followers to think and act against their hating nature and against thoughts of revenge and anger.  As he taught, “You have heard it said ‘you shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’   But I say to you, ‘love your enemies,  do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you. To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak, do not withhold your tunic either.’”

Jesus taught that we can act as he did – to allow ourselves to symbolically be crucified on the altar of hate as a sacrifice for love, decency and the common good.  By choosing to act totally counter to our lust for revenge, we can crucify our baser thinking.  We can kill it.  We can act against the selfish ego that hatefully seeks retribution and punishment.  Instead, we must counter-intuitively forgive the one who hurts us, act kindly to the one who hates us, and understand the one who disagrees with us.  Just as the Buddha said hatred can only be eliminated with love, and the prophet Muhammad said that hatred is no excuse for actions of violence, Jesus boldly declared that hate in any form, especially that which dwells in our hearts, is a form of murder.  We cannot allow ourselves to self-righteously claim we are not murderers and purveyors of violence when we harbor hate toward any person or group of people.

The causes of hate, experts say, are often subtle.  This extreme and intense emotion comes from our fear, envy or anger towards another.  Allowed to ferment unresolved, these initial emotions turn violent in our minds whether or not we have any intention of acting violently.  Just the mere thought of hatred is a cancer within – denying us peace of mind and causing forms of stress and angst that harms us more than the person we hate.  Indeed, when we hate we have symbolically climbed down into the pit of violence from which we were originally harmed.  We become just as evil and just as violent as the one who hurt us.  Even more, we have not exercised the opportunity to stop the cycle of hate and violence.  Our hate and our retribution against one who has harmed us will only feed a response.  Hatred begets hatred begets hatred – in an endless spiral of evil.

We deceive ourselves, however, that acts and words of retribution are a show of strength but, in reality, they are evidence of weakness.  As Jesus modeled with his breathtaking examples of counter-intuitive teachings and actions, forbearance in the face of violence, forgiveness to those who hurt us, and gentle empathy for those with whom we disagree, these are marks of greatness and strength.  It is easy to lash out, to label an opponent with nasty words, or to harbor bitter resentment and violent thoughts.  It is far more difficult to channel anger in appropriate directions, choose ways to empathize, deny emotions of hate, and act with grace.  Indeed, I propose that when we choose not to hate – in any form – we have chosen a radical, holy, divine and miraculous way of thinking.

Experts assert that like any human emotion and thought pattern, we have the ability to not only control hate but to choose healthier ways of thinking.  Most psychologists, for example, indicate that those who hate are often manifesting a deep hatred for themselves.  While some turn self-hatred upon themselves with harmful addictions, isolation or self-mutilation, many turn their self-hate outward as a way to lash out at the very demons inside themselves.  Carl Jung, the famed psychologist, termed this a projection of one’s inner shadow when he or she disowns parts of themselves and projects them on another who must then be hated and fought.  Indeed, it’s been shown that the degree of love or hate people show others is a measure of the love or hate they have for themselves.

By understanding this diagnosis, we can then examine why it is we feel hate.  What am I projecting on another that which I inwardly harbor in myself?  If we often lash out against others using hate filled speech or actions, can we first examine if such words are subconsciously meant for ourselves?  If we can, we will not only see how we project hate on others but also then understand our unhealthy thoughts about the self – I’m inadequate, I’m unloved, I’m a failure, I’m unhappy.  If we are willing to be honest with ourselves, we can begin to change those thoughts about the self and thus our thoughts towards others.

A second solution to our hate is to move away from an “us versus them” way of thinking.  As many of you discussed here last week with Stuart Blersch, we too often divide ourselves into factions and tribes, believing that the one to which we belong is superior.  We dehumanize the other person or group and attach labels to them that not only demean them but stereotype them in ways that are false – I’m good, he is bad, I’m hardworking, she is lazy, I’m moral, he is immoral.  Such labels are easy and simplistic.  They derive from our hate.  Psychologists identify this behavior pattern as one where the other group cannot simply be disliked, they must be made an enemy to be aggressively fought with words and deeds.  Take a look at a chart depicting “us vs. them” thinking and the various hate filled word labels we often use.  (Show chart.)   

Words we use about others lack nuance, understanding or empathy.  They are simple generalizations that fail as descriptions.  Further, these labels dehumanize the other and overlook the links that bind people together – our shared humanity, our common goals to build a family, to be loved and to love, to seek the betterment of society and the world.  Conservatives and liberals, for instance, may disagree on methods, but both groups are American, both are interested in the well-being of the nation, both want the best for all people.  When each side descends into a spiral not just of policy disagreement but of name calling, personal attacks and outright hatred, we have gone too far.

If we are truly introspective about ways we are purveyors of hate, we might see our inconsistent and often hypocritical attitudes.  Just as the Washington Post columnist exhibited with his words about the Tea Party, we are often blind to how we exhibit the very same qualities we say we hate.  It is the other who is irrational, uncaring, or deceitful.  Me?  I’m the good one!

Such hypocrisy angered Jesus more than any other attitude.  Don’t point out the speck in another person’s eye, he famously taught, when you symbolically have a log in your own.  Don’t decry another’s adultery when you secretly lust in your heart.  Don’t condemn those who physically act with violence when you nurture hatred in your heart and mind.  Don’t judge the sin of another when you have sinned thousands of times yourself.  (As Pope Francis famously said a few weeks ago about gays and lesbians, “who is he to judge them?”)

Don’t arrongantly display your good deeds and your charity when all you really want to do is show off how good you are.  Don’t openly display your acts of piety, religion and prayer when all you really want to do is appear as a moral person.

Jesus asked us to first heal ourselves – to first seek our own personal goodness and to stop the hypocrisy.  Give to others in secret.  Pray in private.  Address our own hate filled thoughts, our own flaws, our own subtle prejudices first.  So often we spew our hatreds on others when it is each of us who need the most help to speak and act with gentleness, empathy and love.  As the Buddha and Gandhi both eloquently taught, the hate we see in the world, the injuries and offenses perpetrated against us, these things will not be solved by returning hate with hate.  They will only be solved with love.

My friends, it is normal and fun at Halloween to celebrate mythological frightening creatures – vampires, ghosts, witches and monsters.  Indeed, part of the fun of Halloween is that it allows us to make light of our fears.  But a far more real and sinister evil in the world is not a cartoon monster or devil that hides under our beds.  The real devil is in us.  Every time we mock or speak nasty words about others, we perpetrate evil.  Every time we fail to forgive, when we nurse inner feelings of resentment, when we dream of violence or humiliation against a perceived enemy, we perpetrate evil.  All of the acts of extreme hate throughout history and witnessed in the world today began with simple thoughts of envy, anger or fear.  Allowed to fester and grow, they evolved into hate and a desire for violence and harm upon the other.  Such hate is easy to spread.  People do not like to be alone in their hate and so they use lies and propaganda to stir it up in others.  We want company when we hate.

I pray we might each begin to change our ways, our language, and our inner hearts.  We must be honest with ourselves and admit to ways we hate.  I pray we will also admonish one another to change – gently pointing out when someone uses hate language or actions.   The high ideals we hold in this congregation are worthless unless we too practice them.  Hate is a mask I can too often wear.  It is ugly and foul.  Help me take it off.  Help me to throw it away.  Help me to replace it with the face of who I aspire to be – a person of peace, joy and love.

I wish the same for each of you here and listening online.

 

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We all know the Frank Baum story of the Wizard of Oz and its themes of fantasy, discovery, and personal empowerment.  A theme that is central to the story, but one which we often overlook, is Dorothy’s growth from thinking like a child.  Finding life in Kansas to be strict, boring and, literally, very grey, Dorothy imagines a brightly colored world of fantasy, populated with happy people, an emerald city, and figures who love and protect her.  In her dreams, she is carried away to Oz only to find that it, surprisingly, is far from perfect.  Its yellow brick road and gleaming city are facades constructed by people with everyday fears and neuroses.  It has its share of evil with nasty witches and flying monkeys all ready to do battle against the forces of good. Even in her imaginations, Dorothy comes to understand the adage that the grass isn’t greener on the other side of the fence.  A fantasy place is just that – fantasy.

Caught in a world of her own imaginations, Dorothy realizes that home in Kansas may not be perfect, but it is not so bad either.  And she soon desperately wants to return.  She then relies on the further fantasy that a mythic being, a great and powerful wizard, will miraculously grant her wish and send her home.

But the wizard proves to be a fraud – a little man hiding behind smoke and mirrors to cow and control a gullible population.  Not only can the wizard not miraculously transport her home, he cannot even manage the everyday, simple means to do so.  The basic science of a hot air balloon is beyond his understanding even as he claims great powers.

Through the kindness of Glinda the good witch, Dorothy finds that wizards and supernatural powers are the stuff of myth.  Trust in such abilities is worthless.  Instead, Glinda tells Dorothy she has within herself the power and the light to return home and, more importantly, to enable her to find an elusive contentment.

Dorothy is amazed that she can control her destiny.  “I have that power?”  she asks.  “Well,” Dorothy finally concludes, “I – I think that it, that it wasn’t enough just to want to see Uncle Henry and Auntie Em, and it’s that if I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard because, if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.”

Dorothy has her epiphany and her key to a life of happiness.  The Ruby Red slippers are the symbolic means to her self-realization – contentment and her home are found in the here and now.  They’re found within one’s own heart and mind.  No wizard, no god, no Oz, no mythological heaven, no alleged paradise on earth or in the hereafter will bring true contentment.  There is no place like home and, for Dorothy, home is in Kansas, home is where she began her journey and where, ironically, she had never left.   That old and worn farmhouse, that flat and dull prairie, that place of rules and structure, are all Dorothy ever needs – a place of loving family and friends, a place of security, a place of shelter.  Home is not perfect and it never will be.  But in the power of her mind, it can be her refuge.  It can meet all her needs and grant her the contentment and the peace she so desperately wants.

As we intuitively know, but generally fail to believe, happiness is not found in the circumstances or places of our lives.  It is not found in hoped for heavens, wondrous scenes of great beauty, large and luxurious mansions, in perfect, flawless people or in fleeting moments of physical pleasure.  Home and happiness are not found in places, people or things.  Home and happiness are states of mind.

And so I ask my second question for this month of imagination messages, “have you ever dared to imagine…that home is where you are right now?”

Some people don’t distinguish between the words ‘house’ and ‘home’.  They both seem to imply the structure in which we live.  I, however, understand these words to have two very different meanings.  A house is the physical structure in which one eats, rests, recreates and sleeps.  It offers physical security, nourishment and shelter.  A home, on the other hand, is a more abstract concept.  Home is where one feels loved.  It’s where one feels emotional security.  It nourishes, protects and shelters the soul.  Ultimately, we find houses on maps.  We find homes in our hearts.

Paul, the writer of much of the New Testament, had a lot to say on the matter of contentment.  From his life experiences he gained insight and wisdom on how to be at peace.  On most other matters, I am not a fan of Paul.  I believe he was a fanatical early convert and interpreter of Jesus as Messiah but he was not an Apostle – one who personally saw and followed Jesus the man.  He has no eyewitness credentials like Peter or John, other than very dubious claims, to be an authority on the meaning of Jesus’ teachings, life and death.

Sadly, however, much of modern Christian theology is based on the writings of Paul.  Many Christians, for instance, quickly turn to Paul’s denouncement, in his letter to the Romans, of gays and lesbians as worthy of hell and eternal death.  Christians grant Paul the authority of teaching on a subject that Jesus never mentioned.  The namesake of their religion is ignored on the issue of homosexuality – one that was obviously not important to him – while accepting the views of a false Apostle.  Paul’s teachings about women, Jesus’ alleged second coming and other matters are equally unfounded.

My intent is not to demonize Paul but rather to frame what he wrote and taught in its proper context.  Some of it has merit, much of it does not.  In that regard, Paul’s teachings on contentment nevertheless have the ring of truth.  He lived a life of great hardship in his zeal to spread the new Christian faith.  Having always wanted to proselytize in Rome, he instead made it there as a prisoner – an enemy of the state who had tried to convert Jews back in Jerusalem.  Facing the judgment of the notorious Emperor Nero, Paul languished in prison awaiting his fate – one that appears to have been his execution.

Before his conversion, supposedly after seeing a vision of Jesus, Paul had been an elite Jewish official of wealth.  As a Christian missionary, he courted the wealthy for their support and he lived in many fine homes during his travels.  As a result, in one of his letters he confessed to struggle with coveting and wanting the nice things of life.  But, locked in a dank Roman prison cell facing likely death, he also wrote, “I am not saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty.  I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

Paul’s words in this instance are key to my message today.  By imagining the feeling of being at home and of being at peace in every place and in every situation, good or bad, we can like Paul learn to be content – and the key word is “learn.”  Despite his desire for the easy things in life, Paul was able to learn how to be content.  Too often we simply don’t dare to imagine we can be at peace, content in our home, when we are in the midst of hardship, when we are visiting or living someplace we don’t like, or when the world is seemingly set against us.   We tell ourselves that home is not a hospital room, a dirty motel room, a jail cell, our work desk, the house of our in-laws, or any other place we would rather not be.  Instead, we hold our personal pity party, we convince ourselves life has been unfair, and we harbor seeds of anger and resentment at our current situation and the people we blame for causing it.

But as I discussed in my message last week, imagining ourselves in new and better ways is crucial to escaping our prisons of depression, addiction or discontent.  To imagine ourselves at home and at peace in each and every situation of life is to change our reality.  As we think, so we are.  This is not the idle fantasy that Dorothy first engaged in – to create a make believe world that suited her liking.  It is, instead, a way to step outside our present feelings of discontent and imagine the feelings we connect with being at home – peace, love, security, happiness.  As Glinda the good witch told Dorothy, all she needed to do to get home was to imagine that there is no place like home.  The key to her happiness was in her mind all along.

Tad Williams, an award winning contemporary science fiction writer, once said, “Never make your home a place.  Make a home for yourself inside your head.  You will find what you need to furnish it – good memories, friends you can trust, love of learning and other such things.  That way, home will go with you wherever you journey.”

Finding contentment is not easy and I do not mean to imply that it is.  I have struggled all my life with finding genuine and lasting contentment.  I often place too much importance in my circumstances – where I live, the job I have, the friends around me, to determine whether or not I am happy and at peace.  Once again, in choosing a topic for today’s message, I chose one that speaks to me as much as anyone else.  For many of us, genuine and lasting peace of mind is as distant as the farthest star but, in reality, it is as close our next thought.

Many experts, philosophers and spiritual prophets encourage a pursuit of contentment.  Jesus taught that we should follow the wisdom of nature and see how the birds of the air and the lilies of the field, for instance, do not spend their time worrying about physical well-being.  Simplicity and security are necessary, but that is all.   Birds find the shelter they need in simple nests and the food they require in basic seeds.  Flowers are adorned with natural beauty and they do not worry that it is fleeting – here today and gone tomorrow.  Our treasures in life, Jesus taught, are not found in our inanimate possessions that will one day rust away or end up owned by someone we don’t even know.  All of the things on tables in the other room – set out for our rummage sale – are testimony to that fact.  Things we once believed we needed and wanted are now rummage and cast-offs that this congregation will sell for 50 cents an item.  Our treasures in life, instead, are found in gestures and actions that last – the legacy and positive impact we have in building a heaven on earth for all to enjoy.

Muhammad taught much the same as Jesus.  “Wealth,” he said, “does not come from having a great amount of property.  Wealth is finding self-contentment.”  Balance is crucial according to the Koran.  Those who are cheap and hoard all their earnings are just as broken as those who spend it all on material possessions.  Indeed, Muhammad’s implicit message was to understand what motivates our discontent.  Do we desire things that bring us fleeting pleasure or the kinds of things that offer lasting contentment?

Buddhism is even more explicit on this point.  Craving is the source of our unhappiness.  We desire a life without struggle, the ease of a rest filled retirement, the luxury of a nice house, the joy of perfect family members and friends – all to find that such things and people are illusory.  As we discover the latest thing we buy or the newest object of our affection is flawed and soon outdated, we move on to wanting something newer, bigger or better.  Contentment is found in our soul and not from any object or person.

Experts echo this same thinking.  By letting go of, or scaling back on our desire for physical things and pleasures, we ironically discover greater happiness.  If we find that we always want new and better things, we can, psychologists say, scale back on those desires and seek a balance point between what we desire and what we already have.  And this is something we intuitively already know – most of us are blessed beyond compare.  We have so much.  We bask in immense wealth of things, money, food and good people.  If we adjust our scales in life to acknowledge and measure all that we already have, we will no longer feel discontent.  We will no longer desire that which we already have.

In order to count our blessings, experts encourage us to first be willing to admit to the cause of our bitterness, anger or discontent.  Dorothy had to realize that she yearned for a more perfect place like Oz because she was not satisfied with her supposedly boring and strict Kansas home.  Admitting that, she could change her perspective and see that not only was Oz not as perfect as she had dreamed, but that Kansas was not as bad as she had once complained.  Indeed, Kansas was full of loving friends and family who cared about her and protected her.  The story is a classic promotion of positive thinking and of seeing all the good in life that we already possess.

Even more to the point, some philosophers assert that in an imperfect world, we often have an unrealistic expectation that we deserve to live in perfect situations and with perfect people.  The reality is that life is difficult for everyone and who am I to believe that I am special and thus immune from heartache, hurt or pain?  Will I retreat into my pity party when confronted with hardship?  Will I cover up my discontent with opiates that mask my dis-ease – drugs, alcohol, food, sex, material things, depression?  Or, will I imagine, and thereby create, a better me at peace, a me at home wherever I am, a me who is happy and loving and giving?

I have told this story before, but it bears repeating in the context of my message today.  Mabel lived in a nursing home after suffering a severe stroke.  She was paralyzed, unable to speak, feed or take care of herself, and she was confined full time to a wheelchair or bed.  All day she would sit in her chair and stare blankly ahead, her mouth half open and drool running down her chin.  To any outside observer, her life seemed pointless and so very, very tragic.

One day, a computer was placed before her and she was slowly taught how, with the slightest twitch of her hand, she could move a joystick connected to the computer and type out words and sentences on a monitor.  As she gained the ability to form written words, the staff and others in the nursing home were amazed.  Nobody realized her mind was still alert and aware.

At one point, she was asked how she felt.  With painstaking slowness, Mable carefully typed out: “I am wonderful.  I am surrounded by people who love me and take care of me.  Life is good.”

Have you ever dared to imagine that right here, right now, in whatever situation you are in life at this very moment, you are at home?  You are at peace?  You are content and happy beyond compare?  Let us imagine that beautiful self.  Let us see ourselves in all of the abundance, goodness and joy we already possess.  And, then let us be that imagined, content self.  Let us no longer hunger for an Oz-like paradise that does not exist.  Let us, instead, bask in the heaven of right here, right now.

I wish us all great peace and joy…

 

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Back during the long ago time period when the internet was still in its infancy, when cell phones were the size of shoe boxes and when people were transitioning from musical cassette tapes to compact discs, the music industry faced a crisis.  New technology was allowing people to copy CD’s onto their computers and then give away songs, for free, to friends and family.  The new internet was even allowing people to transmit copied music to complete strangers – all for no charge.  If music could be had for free, why bother buying a cassette or CD?  The entire multi-billion dollar music industry was at risk of financial ruin.

One man, however, had a different image of how things could be.  The public wanted cheap music but it also wanted simplicity, easy access and quality ways to listen to it.  While digital music players had already been invented, they were clunky and difficult to use.  Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple, envisioned an entirely different scenario.  He imagined a simple and easy storage and playback device that could acquire the digital music – for a nominal price – from an internet based store.  The IPod digital music player and ITunes internet store were born of his imagination.  Since the debut of the device and the new way to sell music, the recording industry has experienced a resurgence and the idea was born that almost any form of artistic content could be bought and delivered instantly via the Internet.

It’s reported that Steve Jobs was always a visionary – a person with the imagination to see in his mind situations and products that were totally new in ways that upended the status quo.  He was inspired by growing up in a Joseph Eichler designed house – one that was reasonably priced for average families like his, simple in design, and elegant in its clean lines and basic utility.  When he and Steve Wozniak built the first Apple computer, it was Jobs who dreamed how to market it with the now familiar logo, saw its potential as a device of great utility and how to design it in a way that was pleasant to look at and highly functional.  Wozniak was a technical genius but his vision was limited – he wanted to give the computer away to other scientists and techies.

The personal computer – a device that was inexpensive and available to anyone – changed our world.  Suddenly, computers and their immense data storage and computational abilities were accessible to all.  Without the personal computer, none of the technological advances like the internet or smartphone would have been possible.  It is not hyperbole to say that the imagination of Steve Jobs fundamentally changed human history for the good – much like Robert Fulton, Thomas Edison, or Alexander Graham Bell did.

Great persons in history have all been visionaries – from Plato to Jesus to Marie Curie to Martin Luther King to Steve Jobs.  Imagination involves thinking of something that is not presently perceived but which has the potential to become reality.  It is not idle dreaming or fantasy.  It involves a creative effort and mental ability to envision something no others can foresee.  Everyone has the capability to imagine but only a few have trained their minds to consciously and regularly step outside the past and the present – to see creative potential.

For this month of September, I want to explore with you the power and importance of imagination in our lives and our thinking.  It is a function of the mind that is vital to our progress as individuals, communities, nations and as a species.  Imagination is a progressive characteristic.  In its positive form, it is rooted in love and the divine force of goodness.  Fear, on the other hand, is the enemy of imagination and progress – it holds back, it clings to the past, it imprisons one in seemingly safe thinking that can harbor seeds of hatred or prejudice.  Love and imagination take us forward.  They envision the possible and the good.  Albert Einstein said it best, “Imagination is more important than knowledge.  For while knowledge defines all we currently know and understand, imagination points to all we might yet discover and create.”

And so, over the next three Sunday mornings, we will embark on a journey to imagine three scenarios about ourselves and our lives.   In two weeks I will ask, “have you ever dared to imagine that every experience in your life has happened, and will happen, for a good reason?”  Next Sunday, “have you ever dared to imagine that home is where you presently are?”   Today, I ask, “have you ever dared to imagine that YOU are the light of the world?”

And that last question echoes what Jesus taught to his many followers.  As an itinerant rabbi and preacher, Jesus stood out from many others who travelled and spoke to crowds.  As a visionary, he painted pictures in the minds of his listeners that were dramatically different from anything previously heard.  His parables, aphorisms and word images were masterful ways to teach and they were used in ways that could be remembered and retold to exponentially greater numbers of people.  Whether or not we believe he was the Christ, it is clear Jesus taught ideas that resonated.  Despite his humble background, his lack of wealth and holding no formal means of power, his teachings captured the imagination of people in such ways that a lasting movement was created.  Countless other persons have taught in profound ways but Jesus totally revolutionized human thinking. It’s clear that almost immediately after his execution, followers formed a narrative about him that soon became mythological in nature.  Within three hundred years, his teachings – both authentic and mythological – became the predominant spiritual philosophy throughout the known world.  We often take for granted the immense influence of his visionary ways – even if we reject his alleged miracles and supernatural attributes.

Just after Jesus’ famous Sermon on the Mount, when he extolled the virtues of the meek, the poor, the humble, the persecuted and the peacemakers, he immediately told those very same people that they are lights to the world.  Such a statement flies in the face of common sense.  Poor nobodies, outcasts, thieves, prostitutes and those struggling to eke out survival in a backwater area – they are lights to the world?  Such an idea would be laughable if it was not supported by Jesus’ implicit message – that each human has a god-light within, a power and potential to touch other lives, change the world and envision new possibilities.  Our individual life purpose must be, according to Jesus, to uncover our light – whatever that might be – and figuratively let it shine.

Our failure and our problem is that we listen to the narrative that plays in our heads and that we often hear from others – that we are weak, that we are deficient, that we will be laughed at, scorned, and not taken seriously.  Our fears of our own abilities, our fear of failure, and our fears of how others will judge us act like prisons.  But so too does our fear of success.  Shining our light is frightening to many of us.

Marianne Williamson, a well-known author and commentator on all things spiritual, wrote in one of her books, “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’  Actually, who are you not to be?  Your playing small does not serve the world…And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others.”

Williamson touches on a vital point about the human condition – one that Jesus spoke to in his Sermon on the Mount and following comments.  We are weakened by our fears.  The source of any of our neuroses, flaws, compulsions, depressions, addictions, prejudices and angers is fear.  We fear success.  We fear the unknown.  We fear the other tribe.  We fear progress.  We fear emotional intimacy.  We fear love.  We fear death.  Ultimately, we fear life itself.

And so we dim our lights.  We hide them.  We fail to try new things.  We fail to move to new places, undertake new endeavors, speak to large crowds, try a new job, fall in love, forgive someone, extend ourselves in service, draw meaningfully close to another, etc, etc.  All of our outward flaws and personal issues are ways we react to those failures.  Fear is the cause.  Inaction is the result.  Harmful behaviors and thoughts are the cover up.

To the poor in spirit, meek, humble and persecuted – to everyone dealing with inner demons, Jesus had a simple cure.  Let your light shine.

As trivial and cliche as that might sound, it is profound advice because it got to the cause of most human misery.  In a threatening world, humans naturally react to threats with fear.  Instead, we must counter-intuitively react with love – with our inner light.  And that light can be shined and expressed in countless different ways but it is our calling as individual human beings to discover what our light is and then shine it.  As Jesus taught, we are not candles to be placed under a bowl.  We are bright beacons born to be raised high.

The specific ways we shine our light to the world is something we must discover.  What are my gifts, what are my passions, what are my unique abilities that enable me to impact other lives for the better?  Even more, what are the normal human expressions of love that I can shine to the world that will help?  How can I teach a child, feed the hungry, defend a victim?

As most of you know who have been here since I began four years ago as Pastor, I undertook this role with experience and training in pastoral care, in leading outreach efforts and in church administration.  But I had limited experience as a Sunday morning speaker.  And, in my first weeks and months, it showed.  I’m sure it still does!  What held me back in the past was my fear of public speaking, of being judged, criticized and ultimately failing – the kinds of fears Pastors should not have.

But confronting my fears and allowing my light to shine was not as easy as simply saying I must do them.  Because of a few friends at the time, and because I had a vision of myself serving and succeeding here, I was able to apply for, accept and find a level of capability in this role – things that never would have happened otherwise.   And being a Pastor is a role that fits my abilities and passions.  I’m practicing a profession that I once imagined doing – and I’m shining whatever light I have.

And that is precisely the message I hope to convey today.  Shining our light into the world is not just a matter of saying it should be done.  We must take the leap of imagination to see ourselves as a light for change and goodness.  We must see ourselves in ways nobody else might see – acting, doing and then succeeding at whatever it is that we can imagine succeeding at – in love, in new work, in our relationships, in serving, in new friendships, self-improvement, or being a person that makes a positive impact.

Every time Jesus told a parable or painted a word picture, he was asking his listeners to imagine themselves in that role – and to imagine others in that role too.  Those we forgive are much like the woman caught in adultery.  Those we love and treasure are like a lost sheep.  Unconditional love is like that of a father who smothers his wayward child with hugs and kisses.  Freely opening our arms and our hearts to others is much like the man in one of Jesus’ parables who goes out to the streets to invite the dirty, diseased, disabled and immoral into his home for a lavish banquet.  Jesus painted the pictures – he cast the visions – and then asked his listeners to imagine themselves as characters playing those roles – to imagine they are a shepherd who has lost a lamb, a poor widow searching for a lost coin, or a parent overwhelmed with tears, joy and love when a rebellious child returns.  Imagine, he asked, the feelings and the hunger to be a force of goodness.

And countless experts and psychologists agree with his solution.  Imagination is a form of self-empowerment.  It confirms the adage that as we think, so we are.  Studies say that those who can actively imagine themselves thinner, they succeed in losing weight far more than those who do not regularly so imagine themselves.  Beyond being a visual motivational cue, maintaining an image of a thinner or more successful you casts away self doubts and narratives of defeat.  A self-image of success creates success.

Carl Jung, the great psychoanalyst, encouraged this form of what he called “active imagination.”  By casting wonderful visions of ourselves in new and different ways, we can examine who we are now and what we want to become – and thus find the steps to do so.  We will find the self-realization we have been too afraid to become.

Jung encouraged a form of inner dialogue with our imaginations.  He asked that people imagine alternative, but positive, scenarios, selves or beings.   By conducting an imagined conversation with the subject of our imagination, we can discover clues to who and what we are now and how we might change.  The process is not easy or simple and it must be regularly undertaken.  Therapists are usually needed to help guide one in the imagination process and in asking the right questions.  For persons beset with stress and self doubt, a therapist might ask one to imagine a more peaceful self, free of worry.  What would that feel like?  What is it about this imagined, peace filled you that does not have stress?  Why does the imagined you feel so secure?  Much like Jesus did with his word pictures, we are asked to imagine our feelings and our thoughts in our alternative, better selves.  One question that might be asked of the imagined, stress free you is if that alternative you can accept what can be controlled in life, and what cannot?  If so, you might determine that this is one key to your current dilemma and to your goal to be stress free – to accept the few things that you have control over and let go of the many things you don’t – like death, illness or the actions of others.  And that is but one simplistic example of how the process might work.

The key to Jung’s form of psychology, one that has many advocates, is the ability to see and imagine beyond one’s present condition to envision a better situation – the kind of you that you want to be, the kind of you that is not afraid, the kind of you that is self-realized and lives up to your potential.

As our nation celebrated this past Wednesday the 50 year anniversary of the March on Washington and Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech, we are reminded of the power of imagination.  That march and that speech were focused on the imperative of achieving Civil Rights for African Americans, but they were, ultimately, much more than that.  In its size and in its breadth of people from all races, religions and genders, the March cast a vision of what America can be.  Invoking the ideals of Jefferson and Lincoln, Martin Luther King entered the pantheon of history’s great prophets with his plea for imagination, with his yearning words calling America to be America.  His dream became our dream – one that did not simply envision a nation of greater racial justice but a nation true to its high ideals and true to the human spirit of equality, liberty, opportunity.  By imagining the vision that King cast, America could imagine its better self and understand how far it had yet to grow and mature.  And in President Obama’s speech this past Wednesday, when he invoked King’s words that the arc of the moral universe bends toward justice but, as Obama said, it does not bend on its own, we are reminded of our purpose and of the eternal teaching of Jesus: our lights must shine.

George Bernard Shaw famously said that the fearful look at the current world, its many problems and ask “why?”  The visionary, however, looks at things that never were and asks, “why not?”  Let us each imagine, let us each continue to dream, and then let us together build for all humanity a shining heaven on earth, right here, right now.

I wish you all much peace and joy…

 

As an alternative to our regular talk back time and celebration of communion, I ask that you – and those listening online – to indulge me and engage in just a few minutes of reflection, meditation and imagination.  In just a moment, I will ask that you close your eyes, listen to Don’s playing of a Nocturne piece, and ease your minds into a place where it is free to dream and imagine.  As you do so, begin to imagine an image of yourself or your life that you want to be.  Imagine your better self, imagine you are guided by your better angels, imagine your life that is completely at peace, perfectly content, and active in doing the things that give you meaning and a sense of accomplishment.  Imagine yourself in that life, what you will do, how you will speak and, importantly, how you will feel.

If you have time, ask that imagined and better you why it is so happy?  Why is it so fulfilled?  And then imagine what your imagined self would answer.  Remember those answers and write them down later.  You can engage in this process at a later time when you have more time to fully analyze your imagination, your questions and the answers.  Most importantly for this time, see if you can imagine the you that you deeply want to become – the you that fully shines your beautiful light.  Hold onto that image of yourself, remember it and go back to it often.  That image of yourself is the you that can become a reality if you take the time to not only believe it is possible but also to explore ways to grow from who you are now.

Let us engage in this time of meditation and imagination – for around four minutes.  I ask that everyone please refrain from talking or making noise during this time so that all can peacefully engage in this process.  Please close your eyes, remain quiet and begin…