Author: Doug Slagle

Delivered by Pastor Doug Slagle, The Gathering UCC,  May 5, 2011

Service-Program, 03-05-11, Jean Hodil

Memorial Services are never easy to conduct or to attend.  We use them as a way to say goodbye and to remember a beloved friend or family member.  Everyone feels a sense of loss and emptiness in their lives – a void once occupied by a vibrant, happy and significant person.  In many respects, we tend to focus on the loss instead of on the gain.  We see death in terms of its finality and as a reminder that we too will one day take its journey.

For me, however, it does not matter the faith or spirituality we practice – or don’t’ – to see death as an occasion to celebrate a beautiful and wonderful life.  And I believe that should precisely be the case with Jean May Hodil.  Gracing this earth with her presence for over 84 years, Jean was a gift, a joyful presence to friends and family, and a vital contributor to the well-being of her community and world.  Because of Jean, this city and each of our lives are richer and better off.  Yes, she has passed into an eternity of peace and she will be deeply missed.  But we also have ample reason to celebrate, laugh, sing and deeply appreciate her life, her presence with us and the large and small legacies she created.  I cannot begin to imagine the sense of loss her family, multiple associates and close friend Arlene now feel.  Nevertheless, as someone who counts it an honor and a privilege to have known her, I stand here today in a celebratory frame of mind.  Jean lived a long life.  She impacted so many.  She loved family and friends well.  She added her intelligence and her diligence to improve life for others.  Hers was a life wondrously led, on her terms, and for that we can all be very happy.

Born just outside of Pittsburgh in 1926, Jean experienced at an early age the kind of loss we all feel today.  Her mother died when she was only eight and her father passed when she was just a young woman of twenty.  But she shared her long life with two siblings – Helen who was born when Jean was beginning college, and Earl, eight years her junior.  Attending Grove City College at a time in our history when many women still did not, or could not, aspire to such education, Jean early on established herself as a smart and sophisticated woman.  Helen’s earliest memory of Jean is of her wearing one of those stylish, large brimmed hats that all of the chic and trendy women wore in the thirties and forties.  She was a confident, interesting, fun and educated woman who, as Helen says, always seemed really “cool”.   Jean did not patronize her younger sister and instead treated her like an adult.  For Helen, it was always exciting to see Jean and she remained the role model of her life.

As a young woman, Jean was going places.  A music major and vocalist in college, Jean moved from being a vocal teacher to work as a musical instruction supervisor to beginning her lifelong career with the YWCA as a youth director in Beaumont, Texas.  And from there, she climbed the ladder of success – moving to Ohio where she served, successively, as the YWCA Executive Director in Springfield, Youngstown, Columbus and Cincinnati.  During her years in Columbus, she earned her master’s degree in social work at Ohio State.  Once again, Jean was a cultural trendsetter through her work in the Executive suite at a major organization.  The YWCA has historically empowered women like Jean to assume positions of influence and impact.  Its history tells the story of social progress in the twentieth century and Jean was an integral part of the YWCA as it advocated for immigrants, factory workers, child labor laws, racial equality, and more recently, for the rights of battered and abused women and children.  Across the state of Ohio, Jean’s legacy of leadership and work for the marginalized is woven into the lives of countless women.  That is one big reason to joyfully celebrate her life.

It was in Jean’s 1978 application to be the Executive Director at the Cincinnati YWCA that she met Arlene who was on the search committee for that position.  And thus began a 33 year beautiful friendship.  Jean had a wry sense of humor which Arlene remembers.  An example of which was when Jean playfully teased Arlene – who was serving mostly as an unpaid volunteer within the local YWCA – by sending her a letter indicating that the organization could only afford to give Arlene a small raise that year but, if she worked really hard and well in the coming year, she could expect an even smaller raise the next!  As someone who faced Jean in salary negotiations for my position as Pastor, I knew her to be a kind, caring and very serious business woman – who also had a wry and funny sense of humor!

In the late 70’s and early 80’s Jean skillfully transformed the YWCA to meet a new mission and purpose.  No longer a place where young, single and proper young ladies found independent and safe living accommodations – since that was no longer in demand – the local YWCA, under Jean’s leadership, became a place of protection and safe shelter for battered women and their children.  Jean reordered the organization’s finances by transferring ownership of their residential facility – thus reducing maintenance costs – and she was instrumental in opening a Clermont County branch shelter of the Y for abused women.

Partial retirement came in 1988 when Jean and Arlene, no longer at the YWCA, joined forces to become entrepreneurs by opening a pet sitting service appropriately called “Critter Care.”  As successful businesswomen they even hired staff and thus met another longtime friend, Linda Tong.  Jean and Arlene could never be far away from social outreach and they donated the services of their business to assist AIDS patients who could no longer care for their pets.  Jean’s love for animals – and particularly cats – spanned her lifetime.  Her two cats, Charley Brown and Lilly, attest to her love for them with the sense of loss they now very clearly feel.  Jean was also a longtime volunteer at the Cincinnati Zoo and a regular docent with the Taft Museum of Art.

And this small, diminutive, sophisticated woman was passionate about the Opera; she thrilled to her favorite opera, “Rosenkavalier”; she attended faithfully every Opera season, along with the Cincinnati symphony and the May Festival.  She included in her love for music many trips to see the Chicago Opera.  She was a true aficionado of great classical music.  But Jean was also, surprisingly, an ardent Cincinnati Reds baseball fan!  She’d never attended a game in her early years and knew very little about the sport but, after attending one game many years ago at the invitation of Arlene and other friends, Jean became hooked.  She followed the Reds, attended numerous games and was looking forward to this summer when she hoped to attend again.  Famously, Arlene and friends often laughed and teased Jean about her early unfamiliarity with baseball and one particularly amusing incident.  At one of the first Reds games Jean attended, and perhaps reflecting her concern for animals, Jean asked fans seated near her about the bulls in the pen!

It is nearly impossible to reflect a life like Jean’s in the few minutes we have today.  Suffice it to say that Jean, in a gentle but determined manner, was passionate about life.  But the sum of any life is not measured by deeds we have done – good or bad.  If we are each here to help build heaven on earth, then it is our impact on the lives of fellow people and fellow creatures that is the measure of our brief passage across this mortal coil.  In that regard, Jean was a bright comet across each of our universes.  And she shone most brightly in the lives of those who knew her best.

To her family, Jean was and still is: sister, Aunt, sister-in-law.  The legacy of her love for them is right here today – from Cleveland, Maryland and Florida – Helen, Tom, Alison, Whitney, Molly, Earl, Beth, David and Earl Jr. – their presence today testifies to Jean’s loving impact on their lives.  She was, as her sister Helen explains, really close to each of her three nieces and two nephews.  She followed their lives, their growing up and their becoming contributing members of society and parents in their own right.  Helen tells me her daughters became Jean’s daughters – their grand moments in life giving Jean happiness and pride.  As we will all see from pictures in a short while, Jean stood and posed proudly between the very tall Earl Jr. and David.  She loved them both with all that she could pack into her petite frame.

For Tom and Beth, Jean’s brother and sister-in-law, she was like another sister.  Arlene commented to me how poignant it was for her to see the depth of sorrow and anguish Tom felt during Jean’s last days – he too was faithfully by her side, offering prayers, hope, comfort and love.  And for Helen and Earl, Jean was truly their BIG sister.  Almost a second mother to them in their early years, Jean later became their equal – their great and glorious sister to whom they looked with pride.  The many weeks Helen has spent in Cincinnati over the past few years – helping Jean recover from various surgeries and, just recently, sitting by her side and assisting in medical decisions for over three weeks – testify to a sibling love that crosses sixty years.  Helen and Earl, we should all be so fortunate to have you as a sister and brother.  Most assuredly, we should all be as lucky as BOTH of you are, to have Jean for a sister.

To Jean’s friends, she was a great and caring and fun-loving person.  To the many who knew her at the Gathering, we cannot begin to think of our congregation without her.  Indeed, she was a founding member and her choice to support Steve Van Kuiken, in his time of trial, showed her courage and her commitment to justice and equality.  She served the church faithfully over these last eight years – working with our finance team in countless ways that help a small church remain stable and vibrant.  I was honored to serve her as Pastor for over a year and it will not be the same to look out on Sunday mornings and not see her.

After my first several messages as a new Pastor, Jean knowingly smiled at me and said, “Doug, that was ok.  You’re getting there.”  Finally, after a few months, she told me at the end of one message that I had done a good job.  From Jean, such praise was hard earned but it still means a lot.  A few months ago, as I said earlier, I sat across from Jean as we discussed my salary for this year.  She was a calming presence.  She wanted to give me a nice raise but she also knew her duty, from years as a seasoned Director of the YWCA, that she had to look out for the interests of the Gathering.  In the end, we concluded our discussion mutually happy and I, with a deeper appreciation of her strong but gentle approach.

For one friend in particular, Linda Tong, Jean was like a sister and wise mentor.   For young Vivian Tong, Jean was a grandmother and inspiring force.  Jean knew young Vivian from her first moments on American soil – greeting her and holding this gift of a child in her arms – so proud and so happy for Linda.  To my partner, Ed, who serves as Vivian’s youth Pastor, on the day before Jean died Vivian could not keep from .sharing a sense of loss coming at her young age.  I know for both of you – Linda and Vivian – Jean will never be forgotten.

How do I begin to capture the meaning and love and friendship that Jean and Arlene shared for 33 years?  It is impossible.  From their collaboration at the Y, to their business partnership with Critter Care, to shared hours at the Cincinnati Zoo, to Opera arias mutually appreciated, to common Sundays at the Gathering, to knowing moments each morning commenting on the day’s newspaper, to laughter and joy each evening at 5 o’clock sharp as they sipped a martini together, to the final three weeks of Jean’s life as Arlene watched, waited, and prayed next to her best friend – these are the precious times of a deep and close relationship.

Arlene, my dear, we cannot know or fully appreciate how much you must miss Jean.  To many of us, she was a friend.  To you, she was the BEST of friends – one with whom you shared common likes and with whom you shared many remarkable and beautiful life moments.  We celebrate your friendship and the joy it brought both of you.  When any of us, in the future, want to be around Jean, we will meet her in you – in ways that only the best of friends change our lives for the good.  You are loved by so many who also love Jean and we will honor her life and her legacies by continuing to support you.

As I said at the beginning of this homily, we are here to celebrate Jean’s life.  Yes, we each feel the sorrow and pain of her loss.  But, I hope we do not focus here or in the days ahead on how much we lost with her death but in how much we gained with her life.   Each of us hope to depart this earth having left behind changed lives.  Few of us may know – perhaps even Jean did not know – the many lives of young YWCA women she helped save and change for the better.  How many of our fellow creatures – from giraffes at the zoo to our cats and dogs – have been touched by Jean’s caring hands?  How many unknown ways do any us reflect her influence, her counsel, her strength, her wisdom, her sense of fairness, equality and justice?  Most importantly, how many of us were touched by her affection, her pride in us, her inspiring example to lead a life of integrity and grace?

It does not serve the memory of anyone to cloak them in sainthood and absolute perfection.  Jean was human like any of us.  But she lived life well.  She lived it with purpose.  She lived it with generosity in time, love and resources.  Jean may have been small in stature but she looms large in how she influenced each of us and the world at large.  Let us each joyfully remember and celebrate the many ways she touched our lives for the better and let us give thanks that we knew her and that we counted her as a loving friend, sister, aunt, confidante, and co-worker.  Jean, we will never forget you.  We know for a fact you are still here – still counseling young women, still laughing with Arlene, still spending unforgettable moments with your family.  Thank you, dear Jean, for all the many ways you made us – and still make us – better people.

Photo album of Jean’s life: please click here.

Message 49: “Tough Love: Embracing Interdependence”, 2-20-11

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

Service-Program, 02-20-11

For any of you who may not have noticed, Ed is not here today.  He left town this past Thursday on a business trip but we will meet up again tomorrow.  At the start of this month, we were apart for almost two weeks.  Because of our schedules, we are apart at least one week a month – something which is not necessarily easy but which we have learned to accept.  Indeed, and I will say this only to you – so don’t tell Ed! – sometimes I actually enjoy my time alone!  I can eat when and what I want.  I watch shows on the Discovery or History channels – which are not his favorites – and I get the whole bed to myself.  I don’t have to share!  Of course, the downside is that I sometimes find myself lonely in the evenings and I miss his company.   We are partners, after all, because we really like each other!

What we are working through, as almost everyone does, is how to be both independent and dependent.  How can we exercise the form of tough love on each other by asserting our own identity and sense of self while still loving and serving the needs of the other?  Can we be happy alone?  Can we learn to love ourselves and our own company?  Can we develop friendships that are unique from the other?  To frame this in a somewhat ironic way, can we be relatively well-adjusted, independent singles who also happen to be in a loving, dependent relationship?

During this three week series on tough love, we have explored various ways of asserting our individual rights, personalities and needs while living in a world where how we relate with others is crucial to our happiness and well-being.  As we discussed in the first week, how can we pursue values of individualism and personal liberties while still staying focused on serving and caring for others?  Last week, we looked at how to set boundaries in our lives so that we protect ourselves and ultimately help others around us learn and grow.  And this week I want to explore how we can be dependent without being co-dependent and how we can be fully actualized individuals without being hermits and lone rangers.

A consistent theme through each of these three messages is that answers to these questions are not easy to answer nor are they found in one extreme or the other.  We have to find for ourselves some middle path between individualism and communal thinking, between establishing firm boundaries and having none and, today, between dependence and independence.  Ultimately, I believe these issues get to the essence of who we are as a species – we are social animals who also lean strongly towards finding and asserting individuality and uniqueness.

Personally, I love the fact that here at the Gathering we are a collective whole – a beautiful family of faith and spirituality – comprised of many distinct and unique people – liberal, conservative, atheist, Christian, Buddhist, agnostic, gay, lesbian, straight, transsexual, black, white, Asian, young, old, middle aged, etc. etc.  In so many ways, we are a microcosm of the larger community.  It is not easy being such a cohesive group comprised of many unique individuals but I think we are learning to model the fact that we can celebrate and respect our differences.  I can claim my gay identity and enjoy a deep friendship with a straight woman; a conservative is honored and listened to because he is loved and people enjoy his company and listen to his opinions; an African-American is welcomed and befriended not because he is a token individual within our largely Caucasian midst but because he is a genuinely good, decent and pleasant human being.  We have created here a colorful tapestry of vibrant threads – each woven together to make a beautiful whole.

But as I said, this wonderful tapestry was not easy to create and it is not easy to maintain.  Forces and opinions that make us each unique can lead us to prefer homogeneity and reject or disrespect those who are different.  Nor, for that matter, is it so simple for Ed and I to be partnered and yet assert our own individuality.  For any of us, whether we are single, partnered or somewhere in between, I hope this message series is about the tough love choices we must make in life – and that boils down to how we love ourselves while still loving others.

Co-dependency is an un-healthy way of failing to find a middle path between dependence and independence.  Two dysfunctional people at the opposite poles of individualism and selflessness come together.  A co-dependent person allows the opinions and actions of another to determine his or her own.  For one partner, it is self-limiting with a focus on taking care of the other with little or no regard for the self.  In this type of relationship, neither partner feels capable of standing alone.  One person is the care-giver and the other is the care-receiver with no reciprocity in the giving and receiving.  The ethic is “I need you to need me” and “I can’t live without you.” The care-giver only feels fulfilled if he or she is serving the other and enmeshed in his or her life.  Life is solely about the “you”.  The care-receiver, on the other hand, is fulfilled only through being needy and self-focused.  He or she has no thought or desire to give, share or serve someone else.  Life is mostly about the “me”.  In such relationships, boundaries rarely exist.  A lame – but humorous – joke about this issue asks how can one tell if a drowning person is co-dependent?  Someone else’s life is passing in front of his or her eyes!

We may laugh at this joke but it holds more than a germ of truth for too many people.  Many are single and feel that the only way they can be fulfilled is with a partner.  On the other hand, many are in a relationship and feel that they cannot exist apart from a spouse, partner or close friend.  In truth, neither is correct but we allow elements of such dysfunctional thinking to infect our minds.  As much as each of us values our own life achievements, dreams, opinions and personality, we have an intrinsic desire – something hard-wired into our DNA – for community and togetherness.  We are, many of us, such confused creatures.  We are like the mythical creature from the story of Dr. Doolittle – a pushme-pullyou creature.  “I want you and need you!  No.  I don’t need you.  I want my independence!”

Interestingly, as in so many things about life, the wisdom and insights from spirituality can guide us.  While I have often noted that each of the major world religions speak of the Golden Rule, many of us – and I am the worst at this – fail to recognize the main ethic of the Golden Rule – love others AS you love yourself.  Do unto others AS you would have them do unto you.  Jesus made it his purpose in life to serve and teach others – to reach out to the poor, the oppressed, the weak and the outcast.  He surrounded himself with friends and colleagues.  He sought his disciples almost immediately after he began his ministry and he directly asked them to follow him and hang around him.  He went to parties, weddings and festivals.  He enjoyed serving others and he enjoyed their company.  But just as important, Jesus was not afraid to express his opinions or to manifest his unique identity – his individuality and his independence.  He was not afraid to be alone and he frequently looked for places where he could be by himself.  He grew so frustrated with the crowds who would not let him be that he rowed himself in a boat out into the middle of the Sea of Galilee just so he could be by himself.  Jesus understood the tough love approach to both dependency and independence.  He needed both.  In truth, however, he was interdependent.

Paul echoed Jesus’ ethic when he challenged the churches in Corinth to grow up and act with greater unity.  Even in the very first churches, members gravitated towards small cliques and like-minded friends.  Many began to shun those who did not hold their same beliefs.  In the Corinthian case, there was a dispute over whether animals that had been sacrificed in pagan temples could be consumed by Christians.  Some said “yes”, some said “no” and thus began one of the first church doctrinal fights over a matter contrary to the ethics of their faith – love and unity.  Even worse, many of these early church cliques began to hold communion dinners at which only a select few – the supposedly right people – were invited.   Finally, many members began to assert that some abilities like prophecy and speaking in tongues were superior to skills like teaching and wisdom.  Exclusion, arrogance and division infected these churches.  Paul sternly and wisely called them to task.  He implored them to see the beauty in their independence but, most importantly, NOT to allow that to cause disunity.  After all, they needed one another.

Comparing the church to the human body, Paul wrote, and I quote from the New Living Translation, “The Divine One put our bodies together in such a way that even the parts that seem the least important are valuable. She did this to make all parts of the body work together smoothly, with each part caring about the others. If one part of our body hurts, we hurt all over.   If one part of our body is honored, the whole body will be happy.  Together we are all a part of the same Divine body.” Paul said that we are each like an independent part of the human body – like a hand, foot or eye.  Each part has independence in that it serves different functions and is important in its own right.  But no part can operate without the others.  Manifested in our own human bodies there exists dependence, independence and interdependence.  And it is the latter that Paul advocates just as Jesus lived out.  We are unique persons each living interdependently with one another.

As in the ancient world, so it is today.  And perhaps interdependence is even more important today than ever before.  We live in a world of instant communication, we can travel half-way around the world in less than a day and our individual and national interests are deeply intertwined with those of other cultures and nations.  When the Greek economy shuddered a few months ago, our own stock market dramatically fell.  When there were fears of the bird flu in China several years ago, we knew that as quick as it takes a plane to fly from Beijing to New York, we too could be infected.  The very gasoline that enabled us to be here this morning was likely far underground in Saudi Arabia only a few weeks ago.  Symbolically, when India catches a cold, we sneeze.

And I hope that is the same here at the Gathering.  As our dear friend Arlene has lost her close friend, Jean, all of us feel her loss.  And all of us will come together to support her.  When Paula Emerson found a new and much better job recently, many of us shared her joy.  None of us are islands drifting in an empty sea.  As the author Steven Covey has written, interdependence is the only effective strategy in life and work.  Confident and independent people come together with unique skills to create a more effective whole.  Interdependence creates win / win situations for both the individual and the group.  As the group succeeds, so too will each person.  And, as each person individually grows and succeeds, so too will the group as whole since his or her gifts are brought into that mix.  Interdependent people learn to synergize their independent abilities and personalities so that, combined, they are even more effective than alone.

If we are to assert our independence so that we can become interdependent and thus ever more capable, how do we reduce our bonds of dependence and neediness in life?  How can we learn to love our singleness – any of us – so that we find satisfaction and joy?  Experts, therapists and armchair psychologists offer a number of ways for people to assert their independence.   Most importantly, we must learn to love ourselves.  On a larger scale, we should live with passion and purpose and meaning.  Each of us should find the unique ways we work and serve the wider world.  What is it that I want to do to change the world for the better?

We can set our own life agenda, within certain boundaries.  On a day to day basis, we are each responsible for our own plans – not for those of others.  We should set our schedules and not be co-dependently chained to the demands of another.  We should not do for others what they can do for themselves.  In other words, we must apply boundaries so that others can learn and grow for themselves.  As I said last week, with gentleness and a certain amount of flexibility, we can allow others in our lives to experience the consequences of their own actions.  They will become more of an individual, as will we.

We must be willing to leave our family and friends behind from time to time.  Finding opportunities – like going to a movie, a party or out to dinner alone – is good and healthy and builds self-confidence.

We should be our own role models – and that means having confidence in our own opinions, actions and preferences.  This is not arrogance but confident individuality that is still respectful of others.  We must not settle for anything that contradicts our own beliefs and boundaries.  We listen to others, we seek understanding, we are gentle but we are also firm in who we are.  No person, no man, no woman – nobody – has the right to expect us to be different from our honest selves.  We do not sublimate ourselves to the needs of others but rather come alongside another in a complimentary way.  Our personalities, skills and gifts work together with the different but complimentary skills and personalities of a friend, partner, family member or co-worker.  That is interdependence.

Another point for living more independently in life, several experts agree, is to, as much as possible, secure our own finances.  This does not mean we don’t monetarily support others or that we never receive support from another.  In today’s world, however, independence and self-confidence comes from having the means or ability to support oneself.  One is therefore better able to be interdependent by adding to the financial welfare of a marriage, partnership, family, church or community – by adding to its combined resources.  One is neither dependent nor independent.  The welfare of the whole depends on the capability of each able individual to stand on his or her own.

Finally, independence that leads to interdependence is created by each person finding their own community of friends and activities.  Experts advise us that it is not healthy to have only shared friends or shared activities.  We must be willing to get out on our own – away from our families or our relationships – and find other ways to express ourselves.  We must get involved in new things and separate communities of friends.  Surprisingly, I believe that includes any of you regarding this church.  A few of you sheepishly tell me that you visit other churches from time to time.  In total honesty, I think that is wonderful.  Doing so will broaden your perspectives and strengthen you as an individual.  According to the theory of interdependence, that will only work to help the Gathering.  Contrary to popular belief, this church and this Pastor are NOT the sources of all wisdom and all truth!  I encourage you to sometime experience a different church, synagogue, mosque or temple but, of course, I hope you’ll come back here!  We are so lovable!

In our vision of an enlightened community of individuals building together a world of justice, equality, and compassion for all people, I believe we will have to abandon some of our more rigid beliefs.  Moral imagination and community cooperation will never succeed unless we as individuals are free to grow and develop.  We need boundaries to keep us focused and self-aware and to protect us and others from harm.  We cannot be shackled by the constraints of our own dependence or of people who harm us by their fears and unwillingness to grow.  As we hear that high call to build heaven on earth, we cannot do it alone.  Marshalling our strengths, our independent spirit and our yearning to find purpose and meaning in life, we come together to work interdependently and cooperatively.  This is the Golden Rule in action – serving and loving others as much as we serve and love ourselves.  Our personal relationships will prosper.  Our emotional health as independent, healthy adults will grow.  Ultimately, we will all be better off as a community, nation and world.  Tough love calls us and others to be less dependent.  Self-love calls us to be more independent.  Genuine love calls us to greater interdependence.   I win, you win, we all win…

Message 48, “Tough Love: Setting Boundaries”, 2-13-11

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

Service-Program, 02-13-11

I vividly recall a minor but nevertheless heartwarming story about my youngest daughter Amy when she was probably one or two years of age.  Amy has always been full of life and energy with an easy laugh and playful demeanor.  She also freely admits to being a bit of a drama queen.  She feels things deeply and is not afraid to show the heights or depths of happiness and sorrow.

At a very early age Amy discovered how fun it was to play with the dog we owned.  Brady, our dog, was by that time settling into her retirement years – content to sleep a lot in between brief forays outdoors.  She had always been a gentle dog who would nevertheless sometimes bark or growl when she sensed something amiss.

One day, Amy began to playfully pull at Brady’s ears and fur and crawl on top of her.  This was just one big, animated stuffed animal to Amy.  And Brady was long suffering for quite a while – enduring repeated ear pulls and pokes in the eye.  Despite several admonitions by me to be gentle, Amy persisted.  Eventually, Brady growled at Amy and this, of course, alarmed me.  Amy just giggled.  I feared Brady might snap at or even bite Amy if she was too persistent.  I raised my voice, “No, Amy.  Be nice.  Pet Brady.”  And then I showed her how.  Amy laughed and tried petting but soon began pulling hair once again.  Brady let out a low growl.

Finally, after several unsuccessful attempts to change Amy’s behavior, I quickly scooped her up, pulled her away, and swiftly but lightly spanked her hands.  “No Amy!!  That hurts Brady!”  And I sat her down many feet away.  And this is what I clearly remember.  It was one of the first times I had been really stern in discipline with Amy.  She looked up at me with tears welling in her eyes, her lower lip quivered, her face darkened a deep red and then she began to sob and cry pitifully and loudly.  It broke my heart.

We can all relate, in some manner, to this story – when we have had to firmly establish a safety boundary with a child too young to understand the consequences of his or her actions.  With children, we cannot expect them to experience natural consequences but we have to teach them certain boundaries around their behavior – for their safety and for that of others.  Kids cannot play with matches for instance or play in a busy street.  If they do, we cannot simply say they should suffer the consequences as a way to learn.  But we do practice a form of tough love.  We could allow them to be free spirits – in a perverse way of saying we love them – or we can set protective boundaries because they are too young to understand how they can be hurt by their actions.

In our interactions with teenagers and adults, however, setting boundaries is much more complicated.  In human relationships, we often think we love if we accept and tolerate certain behaviors that hurt us or hurt others.  We can allow a friend to be habitually late, for instance, or we can firmly but gently indicate that we have time boundaries.  We’ll wait on them for ten minutes or so but that is all.

Establishing boundaries is about clearly stating what it is that we want and desire in life.  As I said, too often some of us confuse love for another person with mushy, inconsistent or non-existent boundaries.  We think that by not clearly stating our own interests, we are being kind and gentle.  After all, we are often told that being selfless is the highest form of love.  I believe, instead, that without boundaries such love is sometimes false and cruel.  It enables bad behavior, it prevents growth and it limits the full potential of the other person.  Failing to clearly identify what we like also leaves others guessing and unsure about what we want and who we really are.  And that prevents true intimacy and connection.

On this eve of Valentine’s Day, I hope to examine with you what I have called tough love but which, in many respects, might be called genuine love.  We can all understand that I showed love for Amy by preventing her from being bitten even though I finally had to use discipline.   How can we as adults use personal boundaries to express real love for another – to teach, create growth, express identity and ultimately encourage authentic intimacy?

Two Christian therapists, John Cloud and Henry Townsend, in their book When to Say Yes, When to Say No, How to Take Control of Your Life, have used a Bible verse to explain why boundaries are important.  They call it the Law of Responsibility.  The apostle Paul said in his letter to ancient Galatian churches, those located in modern day Turkey, and I add some of my own language here – “Do not be deceived.  The Divine One cannot be mocked.  A man or a woman reaps what he or she sows.” While in some respects such a statement seems harsh, it bears closer examination.

The consequences we experience in life are usually the natural by-product of our own actions – the choices we alone make.  We reap the consequences of what we sow or create. We are each responsible for how we think, act, feel and speak.  When we establish personal boundaries, we are simply saying to others that we are going to allow them to experience the results of their choices.  If one chooses to repeatedly be late, a consequence might be a meeting will be canceled or someone waiting will simply leave.  Experts and counselors emphasize this is not a form of punishment, retribution or manipulation if you have clearly identified and spoken your boundary beforehand.  If I choose to act otherwise, to think that I will show love by endlessly tolerating someone’s lateness, I am really preventing that person from reaping the consequences of being tardy.  I am enabling his or her behavior such that it will continue and he or she will not hopefully learn to correct it.

If we reap what we sow, we learn that what we choose to do produces either good or bad results.  Since most of us are not masochists and don’t like bad consequences, we will adjust our actions so that only good things happen to us.  We learn.  We grow.  If I want to enjoy your company, I will learn I’d better not always be late.  And that is the ultimate purpose of boundaries: they are to teach.  As T.S. Elliot wisely observed, “If you haven’t the strength to impose your own terms upon life, you must accept the terms it offers you.” In other words, if we do not set our own boundaries in life, we must be prepared to reap what we sow.

To understand the full range of boundaries, we must keep in mind that using common sense and understanding the context of a situation should determine how we set our personal limits.  For whom are we setting boundaries:  for a child?  A competent adult?  Someone in the midst of a crisis?  For someone who can reasonably make choices?  For a handicapped or oppressed person?  Context and understanding is essential for determining our boundaries.

Experts talk about several forms of boundary problems we might exhibit in our lives.

First, many of us can be too rigid in setting boundaries with others.  This is a “my way or the highway” type of approach.  One is stubborn and inflexible with their personal boundaries and allows no room for choice.  A solution to this problem is to understand when to set firm OR flexible boundaries.  On certain crucial matters in our lives, we must be firm.  As an example, it is rarely appropriate for another to be sexually aggressive, overly suggestive or provocative with a non-partner.   Our boundaries should likely be firm in such instances.  Families of alcoholics must often set firm boundaries that they will not be around the other when he or she is drunk.  Again, this is not punishment.  It leaves the choice to the other.  Drink and be alone or choose sobriety and enjoy the company and support of friends and family.

On other minor matters, flexibility is important.  For instance, Chinese food may not be your favorite but it is for your partner.  If he or she suggests going to a Chinese restaurant that evening, you can refuse and assert a firm boundary.  Or, you might be flexible and negotiate:  Tonight Chinese, tomorrow night Italian.  In other situations, offering a choice is a way of being flexible but still setting a boundary.  We’ll eat either Chinese or Indian – your choice.  Such is an insignificant example of understanding and knowing when to stand firm and when to be flexible.  A person who has healthy boundaries knows the difference and executes them accordingly.  In support of flexibility, a Japanese proverb says, “The bamboo that bends is stronger than the oak that resists.”

A second problem for many people is having invisible or non-existent boundaries.    These individuals know what they want in life but refuse or fail to identify them to others.  They allow others to act or express needs without being willing to express their own.  They go along with or they accept another’s opinions or actions but then resent the fact that their boundary was crossed.  They might think they acted with love when in fact they have done the opposite.  They did not go along due to love but out of some inner fear to voice their opinions.  And then many times they act resentful or hurt – often just angry at themselves for failing to express a boundary.

A solution is to be assertive or engaged in setting a boundary.  Those who are assertive with boundaries do so with gentleness and often with a sense of humor.  They are not rigid boundary setters as I mentioned earlier.  They state something that is important to them and then work to creatively and gently convince others.  If an ethical standard at work has been crossed, one does not set an invisible boundary by ignoring it and then later criticizing the situation.  The assertive person lays out a positive case for why the ethical line should not be crossed.  Assertive boundary makers understand the context of a situation, the possible weaknesses of others, and then firmly but politely state their case.

One can also avoid setting invisible boundaries by being actively engaged with another.  This involves asking questions, seeking insight and showing genuine interest in the needs of a situation.  In my previous scenario regarding what type of food two partners might eat, when Chinese is proposed, one might ask why the other wants to eat that food or what particular needs he or she is feeling at the moment.  This example is simplistic.  One usually engages in matters of greater significance.  In dealing with someone who is alcoholic, for example, setting healthy boundaries might involve getting engaged in that person’s life – helping to proactively prevent drinking by establishing  a curfew or driving boundaries.  Steven Covey says about those who are assertive and engaged but gentle in their boundaries, “I am personally convinced that one person can be a change catalyst, a “transformer” in any situation, any organization. Such an individual is yeast that can leaven an entire loaf. It requires vision, initiative, patience, respect, persistence, courage, and faith…”

Even more profound, an inscription at the Holocaust museum in Washington D.C. states, “Thou shalt not be a victim.  Thou shalt not be a perpetrator.  Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.” People with healthy boundaries are rarely victims.  They do not consistently hurt others because they are flexible and gentle.  Most of all, they engage the world in ways that create positive change.

And this speaks to the usefulness of establishing healthy boundaries.  Instead of reacting – often with anger or negative attitudes to the hurts and challenges we face, clear and consistent boundaries are proactive protections for us.  While difficult to put in place, they work to prevent conflict in our relationships.  Each person knows in advance the consequences that will result from certain actions.  If you get drunk, I will not be around you.  If you emotionally abuse me, I will leave.  If you steal from me, you can no longer enter my home.  Again, these should not be punishments but ways to open up natural consequences.  Persons who establish boundaries do not sit idly by the wayside allowing them to be victimized by others or by life.  It takes courage and tough love – genuine love – to tell others what we will accept and what we won’t.

An additional boundary problem area is when people simply choose to avoid setting boundaries altogether primarily because they fear conflict.  This is why I frequently fail to protect myself.  I often do not want to confront others and so I avoid potential conflict.  I will unwillingly say “yes” or “no” – depending on the situation – as a way to avoid their disappointment in me.  This comes from insecurity and a deep need to feel liked.  Fortunately, I know this is a problem of mine and so I am working to, as Jesus said, let my yes be yes and my no be no.  I am trying to grow and to set healthy boundaries.  Whatever I choose to do, it must be sincere and based not on avoiding conflict.

It was difficult for me to tell a homeless woman last week, who entered our church during coffee time, we could not give her the money she needed for bus fare to another city.  She was cold and desperate and she got angry.  It was hard to set a boundary – to say “no”.  Perhaps I was wrong.  I often assist folks who come in asking for help when I am here during the week – but I don’t think I can help everyone.  On many occasions I dig into my pocket to give away money out of some desire to be liked instead of wanting to really help.   Sometimes, tough love involves having to say “no” in those situations or in other matters.  I am learning it is OK if everyone doesn’t always like me or my boundaries.

A final boundary problem with many people is when one enmeshes himself or herself in the boundaries of others.  A partner or friend’s boundaries – or lack thereof – become one’s own.  This is not the same as having invisible boundaries that are unstated but cause resentment when they are crossed.  Instead, enmeshment literally involves assuming the likes and dislikes of another person.  If they don’t like Chinese food, one does not like it either.  This form of dependency and co-dependency is our subject for next week.   It is a form of false love.

Dear friends, tough love is never easy.  It was so hard for me, about twenty years ago, to abruptly scold my daughter when she came close to being bitten by our dog.  It is even more difficult for us to set boundaries that seem to hurt or challenge people we love.  Ultimately, setting boundaries is a form of individualism which I addressed in last week’s message.  We are claiming our individual rights and liberties through our boundaries.

It is important to remember, though, that boundaries are only relevant when they are applied in context.  Those who establish rigid protections without regard to the person or to the situation do so without compassion or understanding.  Many times I believe we set far too tough of boundaries for those who are NOT fully capable of making reasonable choices.  These are people who are not reaping what they have sown but instead reap what others or outside forces have sown for them.  Just as my daughter was too young to reap the consequences of taunting an innocent animal – even though I still had to set a boundary for her, so too are those who have been beaten down by the ravages of poverty, mental illness, a handicap or lower level of intelligence.  Indeed, we all know that life is often not fair and many people reap consequences which they did not cause.  While everyone should experience some form of boundary or expectation in their life, people born with two strikes against them before they even have a chance to grow up are unable to make the same choices in life that I have had.  For such persons, more flexible boundaries should be applied.  Those born into hardship can still rise above their misfortunes and we should never patronize them by not applying boundaries.  But for them, I believe we must be flexible, engaged and compassionate.  For most of us, however, the Law of Responsibility and reaping what we sow is a fair deal.

For ourselves, for our partners, spouses, children, friends and fellow church members, we all need boundaries to grow.  As easy as it is for me to stand up here and speak about boundaries, it is much more difficult to apply them in real life.  This is a flesh and blood issue involving deep and sincere love for people in our lives.  Indeed, it is called tough love not just because it is tough on the receiver but also for the boundary maker.  It is hard to see ones we love experience painful consequences from the choices they have made.  Ultimately, I believe almost everyone wants to receive love that is honest and challenging – even if it seems harsh.  In our heart of hearts, none of us want love that is weak, false or patronizing.  We all want to grow.  We all want to learn.  We don’t want to remain stuck in the ruts of life.  We each, deep inside ourselves, want to reach for the lofty heights of happiness and self-fulfillment.  As difficult as it is, I can only encourage us to express the kind of love and boundary setting that helps others to do just that.  May our love be gentle whenever possible but tough when necessary.

Message 47, “Tough Love: American Idols?”, 2-6-11

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

Service-Program, 02-06-11

Watch below video link first…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RgtRdp9Xs7o

As Americans, we struggle with the choice framed in these dueling mock political ads.  Indeed, I believe this struggle is what humans have faced for thousands of years.  As President Calvin Coolidge once said, “Liberty is not collective, it is personal.  All liberty is individual liberty.”  In other words, the greatest of all freedoms is the right to pursue our own idols of money, fame and material goods.  That freedom has been the engine of growth in our nation.

The other side of this debate might best be described by Susan Powter, a contemporary motivational speaker, who said, “What’s natural and right is interconnectedness, not individualism. What is natural and right is respect for the social good. What’s natural and right is love for all.”  Ultimately, in this debate we confront the essence of our contemporary political and economic discussions: how much do we accept the ideal of American idolatry expressed best by freedom of the individual versus a concept of social altruism and the idea that meaning and purpose in life is not to live for oneself but to live for the good of all people.

In the message series for this month of love, I want to look at some of our tougher choices in how to best love and honor the people and material things we have in our lives.  Today, we will take a non-political look at trying to resolve ideals of individualism and altruism.  Must we choose sides or is there, as I sometimes say, a middle path of living for ourselves and our own individual idols while also serving the greater good of all people and all creation?

Next week, we’ll look at another tough love choice – how to do we establish appropriate boundaries in our relationships so that our love is genuine and real?  How do we practice love in such a way so that we do not enable a weakness, addiction or sense of selfishness in another?  How can our love encourage growth and learning?  Finally, in the third week, we will consider false or co-dependant love.  Is it possible to think we love another when, in fact, we really serve some inner need within ourselves?  I will leave all of the romantic, sensual and heart-warming expressions of love during this month to Valentine’s Day!  For me, I hope to be brave enough to confront and learn from the more difficult ways to love.

We are all familiar, I think, with the Bible stories about the Garden of Eden and the Ten Commandments.  In each story, written, I believe, not as actual history but as lessons to instruct, humanity must choose between an altruistic view of life involving cooperation and obedience to a higher good, or choosing to go one’s own way – to eat of the tree of knowledge or to worship a golden calf.  Both of these latter choices symbolize humanity’s decision to glorify the individual over altruism and a higher good.  Most world religions encourage us to suppress our desires to satisfy the self and to, instead, work for others.  Indeed, I have often spoken of that higher ideal.  In many respects, religious altruism asks that the individual give up his or her idols and a pursuit of personal needs and replace them with communal and cooperative goals of equality, social welfare and concern for society as a whole.  Rampant individualism is seen as a sin within almost all religions.

Beginning in the 17^th and 18^th centuries, however, philosophers, artists and writers began to encourage a new ethic of liberty and freedom.  Martin Luther revolutionized Christianity by asserting that popes and priests and the Roman Catholic church are not the arbiters of truth but that each individual has direct access to Divine truth.  We do not need to be told what the Bible says – we can read it and interpret it for ourselves.  Other thinkers took ideals of human rights to new heights by asserting we are individually given universal rights to pursue happiness, education and wealth.  The right to self-fulfillment according to our own thinking is a natural right.  And, this right extends to economics where liberty and human development are given full voice when each person freely pursues advancement, property and wealth.  The rise of today’s most flourishing economies has come because of such individual freedoms.  The drive to get ahead, succeed and enjoy the financial and material benefits of one’s work has allowed our American economy to grow to a size not seen before in history.  As a whole, we are the wealthiest nation ever to exist.  On a personal level, each of us has risen to our station in life due to our own efforts and our own desires to enjoy the fruits of our labor.

How do we reconcile these two seeming inconsistent high ideals of communal altruism which calls for the well-being of all people versus individualism which champions liberty and the personal pursuit of happiness?   Recently, the Economist magazine posed the question this way: how do corporations reconcile shareholder interests versus those of the employee and customer?  Profits and wealth can increase for the shareholder if employees are exploited and the customer is cheated by an inferior product.  On the other hand, employee and customer interests can be advanced with higher wages, benefits and products which contain superior, but more expensive, components.  Taken to extremes, shareholders will ultimately lose out and see their profits decline if they exploit their employees and make inferior products.  Should employees and customers demand excessive rights and benefits, shareholder profits will decline, innovation and investment in the company will fall and ultimately the company as a whole will cease to exist.  Either extreme creates a no-win situation.  Corporations, like individuals, cannot be extremely greedy but they also cannot be extremely altruistic either.

On that personal level, how can we as individuals help others if we ourselves are not happy, fulfilled and able to enjoy the fruits of our labor?  Ultimately, our motivation to help others will cease if we are not also motivated to work harder for a better life.   To put it bluntly but honestly, personal greed, at some level, is a strong motivator for hard work, innovation and economic advancement.  If we do away with such a motivation in the name of charity and altruism for all people, then ultimately everybody will, I believe, lose.

And so we face this tough love choice.  Love of things and of money or love of others and the society at large.  Some contemporary conservative theorists have even said that spiritual ideals of altruism and social justice are wrong because ultimately they are opposed to the ethic of individual liberty.   And, vice versa, some extreme liberal thinkers have encouraged doing away with individual rights because they work against the interests and needs of society as a whole.  What is the answer to each of these seemingly good but inconsistent ideals?

I believe unrestrained individualism and personal liberty leads to rampant greed, evidenced by our recent economic collapse and put in stark perspective when one looks at a nation like Haiti where a few oligarchs control all of the wealth while the vast majority literally scrounge with pigs for scraps to eat.

To the other extreme, I believe unchecked communal altruism leads to a tyranny of the whole against the rights and freedoms of the individual – something many of us here at the Gathering would particularly abhor since I, for one, am a part of a maligned GLBT minority.  Can we still love others and work for their well-being while still enjoying a comfortable home, a nice car and personal fulfillment?  How we reconcile these two ideals is crucial.  Spiritually, politically and economically, I believe there is a middle way – a cut the baby in half way, if you will.  The Economist magazine calls it “ethical or rational egotism.”  We must find the right balance between individual rights and self-interest versus the high ideal of social welfare.

I often find myself warring against two sides within me.  Like many of you, I have worked to find self-fulfillment in life and, as such, have been fortunate to acquire a comfortable – certainly not wealthy – lifestyle.  I chose the ministry as a career many years ago not to enrich myself but because I wanted to be more of a servant than to work within a corporate world where money and profit predominate.  I do not reject business and corporations but, for me, such an atmosphere was not healthy.  My demeanor is more suited to my current role.

As one who will continually repeat the ethic that our purpose in life is greater than to merely serve ourselves, I find guilt and tension within in my own soul.  Can I enjoy my home, my car and the pleasures in life I have earned?  Should I not be more of a servant to others?  What about those who are less well off and shouldn’t I sacrifice more or even all of my own comforts for the sake of others?  To what extent I give and serve is a personal decision for me as it is for all of you.  Nevertheless, my spiritual sense of meaning and purpose calls me to give more than I receive.  What I hope to practice and find in life is some sense of balance – a way to live out the individual liberties I enjoy to work and save and enjoy life while still keeping a laser focus on not letting that get out of hand.  I must constantly encourage myself to love others, to serve, to give and to volunteer my time and talents for the well-being of our church, our society and our world.

Buddhists, as some of you know, seek a continual reduction of desire and need in their lives.  Simply put, human wants are the source of unhappiness, according to Buddhists, and so we achieve greater personal happiness the more we relinquish those desires – those impulses to worship personal golden calves if you will.   But Buddhists also acknowledge that we cannot escape living in a world where desire and temptation are all around us.  As humans move toward a nirvana state of perfect peace, we are encouraged to live in balance.  Kama, or worldly desire, will diminish as much as we allow dharma, or personal peace, to predominate.  In this regard, concern for other humans and other creatures creates in us more and more a sense of wholeness and purpose.  In many respects, Buddhism understands the spiritual implications of individualism versus communal altruism.

Interestingly, Islam also seeks to resolve the conflict we see played out both inside ourselves and in the world around us.  For Muslims, there exists a natural state within humans called Fitrah.  It is natural and human to seek pleasures associated with good food, love, sex, comfort and success.   Such desires are encompassed within that condition of Fitrah.  As Islam wisely notes, humans are not instinctive creatures.  No matter how hard we try, we will never attain perfection in our attitudes.  Temptations, despite all our better angels calling us to help others, will nevertheless drive us to serve the self often to excess.  Humans must be regulated in their individual liberties by some outside force.  For Muslims, that regulating force is Allah.  We balance the pleasures of life and keep them in check by submitting to the will of Allah or God.  In doing so, we are balanced by not following our human nature to pursue wealth, for instance, against the needs of others.  Money is fine, according to Islam, as long as it is subservient to the command to love Allah and love others.   Not surprisingly, this Islamic view echoes the apostle Paul’s statement in his Biblical Timothy letter that it is the LOVE of money that is the root of all evil – NOT money itself.

As I mentioned earlier, the Economist magazine calls for a renewed sense of what it calls “ethical or rational egotism.” This essentially states what many faiths also express.  Unregulated capitalism, best represented by complete individual freedom, will ultimately lead to unrestrained greed, which logically will lead to a communal collapse.  Unregulated communal altruism can lead to despotism, a denial of individual rights and, logically, societal collapse.  In the continuum between extreme individualism and extreme communal altruism, each of us, and I believe, each economy, must seek a balance point.

Thus, I reach the point of my message.  In practicing tough love on our personal idols, we must not elevate things, work or even individual people above a concern for the greater good.  Many people are, for example, addicted to work or addicted to romantic love.  They do so at the risk of forgetting a higher purpose to also serve and love others.  They are out of balance.  For those of us who call for greater communal altruism from ourselves, our church and from our government, I believe there must be tough love on the extremes of that impulse as well.  The balanced way, as I propose and as many of us already practice, is a spiritual form of ethical egotism.  We serve the needs of the self but we serve the needs of others even more.  Such is a model for us and for our nation.

As I often say, truth for ourselves and in our political economy is not found in the extremes.  Life is never black or white.  It is grey and muddy and confusing.  Ethical egotism is not easy to practice or even fully define.  As I said, we each find the balance point in our own lives.  But ethical egotism is a middle path to finding truth in the best and highest aspects of both individualism and communal altruism.  Neither is right and neither is wrong.  They are both good.

In the freedom to express ourselves, our beliefs and our personal choices in life, we must never, ever forget the high call to love our neighbor more than we love ourselves.  In this month of love, I must exercise my own form of inner tough love.  Yes, I will buy a box of chocolates for myself and I will eat them without guilt, but I’ll also buy some for Ed, for my family and for those in need.  I wish you all peace and joy…

Message 46, “Positive Change for a New Year: Practicing Affirming Speech”, 1-23-11

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

Service-Program, 01-23-11

As much as I sincerely believe that there are many pathways to find Divine truth or God, if you will, I continue to nevertheless be drawn to Jesus and his simple beauty as a human being.  His attitudes and teachings never cease to shock and amaze me for they are generally counter to my own flawed human nature.  As an immensely popular figure in his time, he refused to hang out with the self-avowed A-List or beautiful people.  He dined regularly with prostitutes, criminals and cheats.  He befriended common laborers, adulterous women, and Roman collaborators.  He physically touched, hugged and soothed lepers, people with contagious skin conditions, bleeding disorders, the sick and the blind.  It appears that he purposefully chose to associate with the worst, the weakest and the outcast members of human society while avoiding the rich and powerful elites who thought themselves superior to others.  By his example and his teachings, he encouraged others to act likewise.  This is the heart of the Divine, he seemed to say, to love, forgive and see the good in each and every human – no matter how supposedly immoral, wrong or diseased they are.   As a human being, Jesus was not perfect.  He got angry.  He expressed fear and worry.  He hated and called out hypocrisy in others.  But he was so radical in his love and forgiveness – especially for the least of humanity – that he stands out as an historically remarkable individual.  It is for that reason that I believe his followers later created a religion based on his teachings.  The layers of myth and supernatural power were only later added to his life story.

As I conclude this January series on “Positive Change for a New Year”, I want to focus today on an underlying principle behind Jesus’ actions and teachings.  The heart of the Divine One sees each of us from a perspective of love.  And in that love, there is no recognition of flaws, sins or failures.  People are seen for the innate goodness found in each individual.  That Divine heart, beating within each of us, is to see others with gentleness, love and respect.

I believe that practicing affirming or positive speech towards others is one important way we manifest such unconditional respect for others.  Positive speech reduces conflict, encourages cooperation, builds confidence, discourages negativity, and acts out our desire to be more loving.  Generosity of spirit, kindness, praise and respect bring out the best in people.  After all, as Jesus demonstrated with his life, everyone is deserving of kindness.

Dismissing, rejecting, disrespecting or speaking angrily to others only brings out the worst in them – and in us.  The language we use has a direct impact on the type of world in which we live.  Even more, according to the Law of Attraction that I mentioned in last week’s message, the words and thoughts we commonly employ in our speech will determine the kind of people and events – either positive or negative – we attract into our personal lives.

I believe that our culture and society has become too focused on finding fault, assigning blame and looking for reasons to be offended.  Before speaking, I want to seek understanding of the other and their actions, acknowledge that mistakes happen, accept that nobody is perfect – least of all me, and look for the goodness within that person.  To the one who has nagged me about a problem, I might see someone who is concerned and worried about my well-being.  To the one who is needy of my time or attention, I might see affection.  To the one who speaks with lots of bravado and over-confidence, I can see bravery.  In doing so, I hope that my words to him or her will then be laced with kindness, tact, forgiveness, empathy and affirmation.   And in turn, I will likely be spoken to in the same manner.  If I wish to be loved, I must be loving.  I must lead by example.

In practicing positive speech, I communicate first and foremost with respect.  First of all, I acknowledge that everyone has valuable ideas and, while I might disagree with someone, that does not negate the wisdom and value of the other person.  Instead of rejecting a comment outright with negativity, I can instead respond, “That is an interesting idea” or “That is an intriguing question.”   Speaking to someone about a subject on which we disagree, I might also seek further understanding.  My goal is to ask questions, seek solutions and think positively.  Often people react to a thought, idea or suggestion from others too quickly before they have all of the information.  Such quick reactions often lead to apologies.  I must frame my responses and my speech in a context of full understanding of an issue and then gently seek a mutually agreeable solution.

Positive communication with others also involves finding common values or beliefs.  I have often noted that despite the political differences that liberals and conservatives have, both sides share a common goal.  Each seeks to improve the overall well-being of our nation.  While specific ways to achieve that are different, conservatives and progressives share a love of country and of people in general.  If that essential premise is acknowledged, I believe the way we then speak across the political divide will be done with respect and civility.  We have a fundamental right to our beliefs but, most importantly, I do not believe we have a moral right to disrespect, name calling, violent language, or mean spirited words in our debates.

In speech with others, it is also helpful to season comments with honest praise and sincere compliment.  We can look for things the other person does well and then affirm them in that.  Praise should be specific so that the other person does not see it as merely being polite or even condescending.  A compliment is only effective if it is an actual observation of goodness.  Instead of saying someone is a good cook, for instance, we might instead comment that the dish just consumed had great flavor and was perfectly prepared.  In each person, we are able to find, and then specifically praise, excellence.   As Mother Theresa once said, “Kind words can be short and easy to speak, but their echoes are truly endless.”

Positive communication also involves staying focused on the specific issue being discussed.  Bringing up past hurts or disagreements will only add fuel to a negative atmosphere.  In addition, assigning blame makes an issue personal.  Instead, many experts encourage keeping discussions respectful by talking about our feelings and emotions instead of the actions of another.  We alone are responsible for how we feel.  Nobody makes us feel a certain way and so we must frame our discussions in that light.  We do not accuse.  We simply express how we feel.  This opens up the door to empathy – the other is able to know how an action or event impacted our emotions.

Using tact and wisdom in our speech is also good for creating positive discourse.  Too often people justify rude, curt and cutting remarks by saying they are merely being honest.  The contrary is usually the case – they have been unkind and judgmental.  A proverb by some unknown author states, “Say what you mean and mean what you say but don’t say it mean!”

Positive communication with others also requires forgiveness.  We all make mistakes and the ability to forgive indicates acknowledgement of that fact.  Once again, the practice and heart of Jesus comes into play.  If we truly wish to only see the good in others, forgiveness is a necessary step.  Forgetting someone’s negative actions or words is not always possible.   Forgiving someone who has caused hurt, involves letting go of the grudge and returning the relationship – and our speech – to that of respect and kindness.

Finding the right time and place to communicate with another is additionally important.  When bringing up a difficult subject, it is never helpful to discuss it in front of bystanders or to catch someone by surprise when they are busy.  By waiting and then seeking a quiet place to discuss a disagreement sends the subtle message of respect and gentleness.  And this involves self-control and self-awareness.  Simply because a person might feel offended in one moment does not mean that it is always best to address it then and there.  The heat of emotions suggests that we wait until such anger diminishes – precisely because people often say unkind things or act negatively when they are the most emotional.  Positive speech with others takes place best in situations, times and places where calm and peace can prevail.

We affirm others in our communication if we are also willing to accept responsibility and blame when we honestly perceive we are at fault.  If the circumstances or facts point to our actions as a cause, we can diffuse a negative situation by admitting blame.  Such an attitude reflects an open mind and a willingness to be honest.  It shows others a loving demeanor by accepting responsibility and then seeking solutions to what we have caused.

If we practice all these positive steps in communication – we speak with respect, we seek common ground, we offer praise, we do not blame, we forgive, we accept responsibility when appropriate, we speak only when calm – then I believe our better angels can truly do their work.  What great things might be accomplished with positive speech?  How many hardened and hateful attitudes can be changed?  How many conflicts avoided?  If our goal is to morally imagine a more perfect heaven on earth, shouldn’t it include communication with others that is respectful and loving?  Would that not increase cooperation and thus a solution to many of our personal, national and international problems?  Once again, Gandhi’s words which I mentioned last week resonate strongly – “You must be the change you want in the world.” If we advocate for gay rights, justice for the poor, rights for animals, healthcare for all – in other words, if we seek peace, love and understanding for all people and throughout all creation – we must ourselves first practice and speak peace, love and understanding.  As the song goes, let there be peace on earth and let it begin with me!

Dear friends, I recently ran across a true story that has become legend within a large supermarket store chain.  Several years ago, a grocery store manager called his staff together and encouraged them to put a personal stamp on their customer service.  Johnny, who is a grocery bagger with Down’s Syndrome, thought about his manger’s words but wondered what he could do since he was only a bagger – as he called himself.  A few days later, however, he thought of an idea.  Each day he looks for what he calls a “positive thought for the day” and, if he cannot find one, he makes one up himself.  His father helps him type them into a computer and print then them on strips of paper.  As Johnny finishes bagging a customer’s groceries, he smiles broadly and proudly hands out a strip of paper with his positive thought for the day on it.  The first thought he handed out was by Oscar Hammerstein, “Love isn’t love until you give it away.”

A few days after Johnny began this practice, the manager saw that the cashier lane at which Johnny worked was far too long – stretching well into the frozen foods section.  He immediately called for other cashiers and encouraged customers to shift lanes to save them time.  Nobody moved.  One man said, “We’re here to get Johnny’s thought for the day.”  Another woman said she did not need to get groceries that day but stopped in anyway to get Johnny’s positive thought.  Business at the store increased by over ten percent.   His act encouraged other staff members in the store to act the same – the store florist now randomly hands out carnations to customers.  Others take time during their breaks to wander the aisles seeking to assist the elderly or parents with young children.  A lane was permanently designated as Johnny’s lane and it continues to be the most sought after.  Johnny’s example has since been used in many motivational presentations about the power of positive actions and positive speech.

How we communicate with others and about others is so vitally important in our world.  It is important in our families, in our relationships with partners, lovers and spouses, in our church, in our community and in our nation.  I have encouraged you and me, over the last three weeks, to think about how we might better listen to one another – seeking to understand and empathize, how we can change the negative ways we think about events in our lives and, today, how we can practice loving and affirming speech.  I hope each of us will ponder these few ways we can change ourselves for the better.  You are welcome to check out our website and read these messages on positive change.  My suggestions are not the only ways to change for the better.  However, if we increase our empathy, if we learn to think about our difficult life events in positive ways and if we begin to speak to each other with respect, I believe we will have done a lot.  To recast a verse from the Biblical book of Psalms as our common prayer, “May the words of our mouths and the meditations of our hearts be pleasing in the sight of all…”

To each of you, many of whom I love as sisters and brothers, may we believe in our ideals with passion…….never forgetting to speak them with compassion.

Message 45, Positive Change for a New Year: Changing the Way We Think, 1-16-11

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

Service-Program, 01-16-11

Rick Warren, of the evangelical Saddleback Community Church in California – and erstwhile Obama inaugural prayer leader, has many views on faith, Jesus and the world – most of which I do not agree.  On a few points, however, regarding the purpose for churches, synagogues, temples and mosques, I believe he is quite right.  Fundamentally, all institutions exist and continue to operate for a purpose.  Warren challenges faith communities in his book The Purpose Driven Church to be more than inwardly focused clubs.  He essentially makes four points: faith communities grow warmer through social fellowship, deeper through learning, stronger through Sunday services and larger through community outreach.  Thankfully, over the past year I have seen our congregation grow in each of these four areas.

For us at the Gathering, what purpose does our church serve?  I have often asked that question and your thoughts and answers to it will vary by individual.  Ultimately, I believe we – along with most dynamic and growing faith communities – are change agents.  Hopefully, the Gathering is a place where change happens and where change is encouraged – both inside and outside our walls.  Yes, we arrive here on Sundays and we participate in social events as a way to meet and connect with others.  Humans are social creatures.  But I hope a primary reason many of us are here is that we seek change, growth and learning.  We want to gain more understanding and intuition about our world and our lives; we seek greater self-confidence; we yearn for happiness; we want to detach from our past; we want to make a difference; we seek the elimination of destructive life patterns; we are in search of wisdom, maturity and humility.  We are not perfect.  We acknowledge a need to evolve.  We need others here in this community of friends, guests and visitors to help us change ourselves so that we can help change our world.

In that regard, this January series on positive changes for a New Year is really no different than any other monthly message series offered here.  They are all about change to one degree or another.  And today, I hope to discuss one of the most fundamental changes we might execute in our lives – how to change the way we think.  Our minds and the way we mentally process thoughts, emotions, dreams and memories determine how we behave and act.  To change the way we think may not necessarily involve altering our basic personalities or the unique ways each of us sees the world.  Instead, changing the way we think might, for most us, involve eliminating some of the negatives in our thinking – how we might be prone to anger, depression, arrogance, doubt,  bitterness, fear or a host of other attitudes which often prevent us from being true to our better selves.

Many people at this time of year make annual resolutions to improve their lives in some fashion.  In doing so, they focus on changing their behavior.  In a recent study coming out of the National Institute for Mental Health and the Ohio State University, altering behavior is not nearly as effective in producing long term benefits as is changing cognition – changing the way we think.  For example, one might resolve to change behavior and eat less as a way to lose weight but this study indicates that unless one changes how one thinks about oneself, about eating and about food, the success of the diet will not be as strong.  What this study seems to show, and experience has long shown, is that the way we think about ourselves and our world determines how we act and behave.

And cognitive change is not a mundane or routine exercise.  I believe it is, like most areas of our lives, a fundamentally spiritual endeavor.  Our thoughts and emotions are inextricably linked with what we believe about existence, purpose and relationships.  Paul, in the Biblical letter to the Roman church, implored us not to follow standard behaviors but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds.  Such, for him, is the key to change.  The Buddha asked that change be embraced, teaching that it is a fact of life.  As we understand this, accept it and then change the way we think about ourselves and our desires, negativity and self-absorption are reduced.  Peace, wisdom and gentleness are the result.  Gandhi also opined on the subject by saying that we must be the change that we want in the world.  To emphasize his point, he also said that men and women often become what they believe themselves to be.

As spiritual creatures passing through this present state of existence, who we are, the relationships we form and the differences we create in this world are determined by how we think.  Is life alive with possibility or is it a dead-end street?  Do I exist to insure that I am comfortable and happy or is my purpose to bring comfort and happiness to others?  Is my mind open to other opinions and thoughts or am I the only one with valid ideas?  Is love found in giving it away or in receiving it?  Is life about suffering or about joy?

Interestingly, I believe most of us know how we ought to think.  But mental health experts tell us that while we often know how to think in positive ways, there are negative thoughts, assumptions and attitudes in our minds which operate on the fringes of our daily thinking.  As I drive down the road and am suddenly cut off by another driver, a fringe attitude might immediately trigger feelings of personal insult and inadequacy, thus impelling me to rage with indignation, honk my horn and extend a rude gesture.  Changing the way I think about such incidents – now and in the future – might prompt me instead to understand that the actions of the other driver were not personally directed at me, I am not significantly impacted in terms of time, and the needs of that driver may exceed my own – he or she might be hurrying because of some emergency or it might have been a simple and unintended driving mistake.

And that thinking shift is the essence of cognitive change for the better.  We must alter our perspective and the way we interpret or see events in our lives.  I must first acknowledge my own fringe perspectives of negative thinking.  I then resolve to examine them and why they exist within my mind.  Are they the result of past hurts, feelings of insecurity, inadequacy or unresolved anger?  By recognizing why I have acted in such a manner – what motivated my thinking and my actions, I can better prescribe a solution.  Many therapists encourage people to practice free association thinking.  For example, when I feel insulted – which may or may not be the reality of what has just happened – what is the first thing that comes to my mind?  Is it that I am weak?  Incapable?  A person abandoned or unloved by a parent or partner?  What thought do I immediately associate with feeling insulted and then what is my emotional response – anger, sadness, shame?

Another way to diagnose why we negatively act in certain situations is to keep a diary of daily life events and how we think or feel about them.  This will help us in our self-awareness which I believe is absolutely critical to healthy living.  We must, as much as possible, know ourselves and our own weaknesses, strengths and emotional triggers.

Once we identify and diagnose the fringe thinking that triggers a negative mode of action – for instance, “I can never be a likable person” – we can then choose an alternative and positive way of thinking, “I am not perfect but I am a kind person who is friendly to others.” And this new way of thinking must be practiced and even recited over and over in one’s mind.  Such rephrased thinking can be memorized and consciously used to replace our previously identified negative thought.  Therapists tell us this takes time, practice and willful effort – it is not easy.  But changing our negative thinking IS possible and it IS effective in then changing our behavior.  Instead of reacting with anger when I feel insulted, I might instead brush it off or charitably assume the other meant me no harm – all because my thoughts about the perceived insult are positive.

Indeed, many people believe strongly in what is called the Law of Attraction.  How we think and what we believe about ourselves will fundamentally determine the kind of friends, lovers, associates and life events we attract into our lives.  What more important reason can there be, then, for us to alter some of the ways we negatively think? Can we renew our minds in order to live, work and relate in happy and fulfilling ways?

An additional means to cognitively change for the better is to practice the Buddhist art of mindfulness.  Many people study, practice and meditate for a lifetime seeking greater mindfulness, which is focused thought solely on the present.  This way of thinking lets go of the past and its hurts or pleasures.  It also does not think about the future – plans, expectations or dreams of what might be.  Instead, mindfulness, as I understand it, is about accepting the gift of the here and now – this moment when every breath and every heartbeat exists within an eternity of one second.  I am here.  I am alive and present within the warmth and blessing of this place and this group of people.  I am content and I am happy.

In that regard, seeking mindfulness might come as one by-product of a greater emphasis in our lives on spiritual growth – through meditation, prayer or silent reflection.  As much as changing negative thinking to positive thinking takes conscious and willful effort, finding happiness in our thinking can also come from spiritually renewing our minds.  As we turn to prayers of intercession – when we think about and hope for the well-being of others – we often transform the troubles of our own lives.  Even more, such thinking impels us to work to transform the troubles of other people.  Prayer for others is a classic way to move our minds away from ourselves and towards the needs of family, friends or strangers.  Indeed, an ancient Persian proverb says, “I had the blues because I had no shoes – until upon the street I met a man who had no feet.”

Spiritually focused thinking seeks unity with the wider community and all creation.  It forgets the self and instead ponders the realm of cooperation, common cause and mutuality.  Let me leave behind thoughts of my needs, desires, and selfish ambitions and ponder, instead, what small role I can play to build heaven on earth.  As Jesus said, the kingdom of heaven is here and now – we must get to work to make it even better.  Buddhist loving kindness meditation is one form of such positive thinking.  In our silent reflections or meditations, we might repeat over and over mantras or prayers about someone else, “may you be happy”, “may you be healthy” or “may you live with ease.”

However it is that we pray or meditate or reflect, our task is to change our self-focused thinking.  We dream, we hope and we envision contentment, joy and peace for other people and, indeed, for all creatures.  Surprisingly, in doing so, we also find our own peace.

Dear ones, I am a man riddled with insecurities.  They manifest themselves repeatedly in my daily life.  I hold back from communicating to others my true feelings because I fear their judgment.  I can shy away from genuine intimacy because I do not fully accept myself.  I walk in here every Sunday with a small knot in my stomach, uncertain how the service will go and concerned that it will not be liked.  I’ve learned and I’ve grown a lot in my 50 some years of life but I know I am far from perfect.  I have so long to go on this road as I seek to be fully content in my own skin and to know that each action and each thought will nurture and love others.  I want to go to sleep each night knowing that even in some small way I have changed for the better my thinking and thus my behavior.  In my dreams, I hope to sing the song of angels – to act with kindness, to practice peace, to speak with gentleness and to live with humility.  In this New Year of 2011, will you join me on this journey of change?

Message 44, “Positive Change for a New Year: Empathetic Listening”, 1-9-11

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

Service-Program, 01-09-11

Two life partners, who have been together for many years, are in their bedroom getting ready to go out for the evening.  One stands in front of the mirror and exclaims, “Oh, look at me!  I have gotten so old and wrinkled.  And I have so much extra weight on me too.  Please, dear, tell me something positive about myself!”  There is a long pause of silence before, finally, the other partner responds.  “Well, dear, you have absolutely terrific eyesight!”

And thus, in a humorous way, this story highlights a problem our culture and so many of us deal with day in day out.  What we have here, as the famous movie line goes, is a failure to communicate!  Most blame our communication break downs on an inability to fully, accurately and succinctly express ourselves – either verbally or by written word.  More often than not, however, we fail to genuinely understand each other – in an accurate and caring manner – because we do not listen. A failure to listen does not just involve not hearing words spoken.  It involves so much more than that.  Indeed, many experts assert that only 30% of the way we speak to others is communicated verbally – through words.  Instead, the other 70% of communication is conveyed through body language, voice inflection, facial expression, and the pace and volume of speech.  A monotone –  “I love you” conveys far different meaning than an impassioned “I love you!” And that is just a simple example.  How do we accurately hear and fully listen to each other when far deeper emotions are involved or more complex issues are discussed?

Experts assert that we generally listen at one of four levels.  We are either ignoring what we hear, we pretend to hear what is spoken, we are selectively listening or we are attentively listening.   The latter category of listening is the most difficult to practice and, unfortunately, it is rarely achieved.  I choose to call attentive listening by another name.  I call it empathetic listening which demands a focused and disciplined way of engaging in conversation or discussion.  I believe a fundamental flaw in most work, romantic and friendly relationships is a failure to fully and accurately communicate.  One component of effective communication is the ability to listen and then fully understand what has been said.  In my mind, the spoken word is over-valued.  A listening heart and spirit is so much better.

In the daily affairs of life, we often talk to others instead of with others.  In many conversations or discussions, we interrupt, we offer advice, we respond with simple platitudes, we change the subject to focus on ourselves or we simply don’t pay attention.  Confusion, tension, broken relationships and work inefficiency are all the result.

We so often, therefore, fail to listen to others with empathy. We understand the meaning of words spoken but most importantly fail to discern the emotions and feelings behind the words.  In the funny situation with which I began this message, how may better responses might have been given had the partner sought to understand and empathize with the emotions of someone who is likely fearful of the aging process and all that involves?

Our message series for this month is focused on what a lot of people are doing at this time of year – resolving to change.  A new year brings new resolutions to grow and be a better person.  In that regard, I’ve chosen three topics where altering behavior can, I believe, create significantly positive change.  Today, we will look at how we can practice the fine art of empathetic listening.  Next Sunday, we’ll look at how changing the way we process our thoughts – altering our cognitive approach to the world – can produce renewed lives.  Finally, in our third week, we will look at how affirming speech – and practicing it – will also improve relationships and our own sense of well-being.  As always, I am merely a co-participant in this journey called life and these messages are intended to inspire both you and me…I am far from being some perfected saint who lectures you with a sense of superiority.

I therefore believe it is a spiritual endeavor to change our existing patterns of behavior for the better.  In that regard, learning how to better listen and show true empathy is a way of connecting with others and with the world around us.  It involves putting into practice the ideal that life is not just about me as an individual.  We exist for a higher purpose – to serve others – and for our purpose today, one way to serve is to empathetically listen to others.

The Biblical book of Proverbs says that we are to turn our ears to wise sayings and then apply our hearts to what is heard.  Such is the essence of empathetic listening.  Jesus himself encouraged his followers to hear not only with their ears but to see with their eyes and understand with their hearts.  He asked for empathy.  The Buddhist Shantideva says, “Whatever joy there is in the world, comes from cherishing others. Whatever suffering there is in the world, comes from only cherishing yourself.” If we are to exist with one another in a manner that brings happiness, we must cherish others so much so that we truly understand their thoughts, fears, dreams, and pains.

Empathetic listening therefore involves opening the spirit to hear, comprehend, love and care about the thoughts and words of another. It does not mean extending sympathy or agreement.  It means being still, not speaking, and then engaging the ears, mind and heart so that you fully understand another person.  When we practice empathetic listening, we have heard and understood to the degree that we are not only able to communicate back what has been said but we have put ourselves symbolically into the shoes of the other in order to see and feel an issue or problem from their perspective.  As I said, this is not sympathy.  Sympathy is feeling FOR someone.  Empathy is feeling AS someone.  Furthermore, one does not need to agree with the other in terms of what is said or the feelings expressed.  Empathetic listening engages the heart in a manner such that one simply understands the words AND the emotions.  I see you.  I hear you.  I feel what you are feeling.  As President Bill Clinton famously said, “I feel your pain.”

By listening more – and doing so empathetically – I believe we will actually improve relationships in our lives and thus create positive change.  Tension, confusion, inefficiency and misunderstandings might be reduced or eliminated if we empathetically listen.  To engage in the practice builds trust, respects and acknowledges the other, gains the speaker’s cooperation, creates openness, encourages greater sharing of information and leads to effective problem solving.  At work, we will be more efficient.  At home and with loved ones, we will be happier.  Indeed, many times people need to engage in what is called “cathartic communication.”  Emotions and feelings need to be expressed.  For that to happen in healing ways, however, someone must be willing and able to listen and empathize.

Experts agree that empathetic listening involves several crucial steps.  First, the listener gives the other his or her full attention.  He or she is completely present in the moment with mind, ears, heart and attitude fully engaged.  One’s body language is essential.  The listener is open, relaxed and aware.  Some suggest the listener’s body be positioned with shoulders softened, legs and feet uncrossed, hands open and unclenched, arms are uncrossed, and the upper torso leans at a slight tilt – around 5 degrees – towards the speaker.  The listener looks the speaker in the eye and never yawns, fidgets or looks around.

Second, an empathetic listener does not talk while the other is speaking.  One never interrupts.  One might ask a few clarifying questions but not so many that the speaker might feel he or she is being grilled.  An occasional head nod or “uh huh” is also good.  The listener does not share his or her own personal experiences nor does he or she try and problem solve or offer advice.  Empathetic listeners are not defensive if accusations are made about them – they are not baited into arguments.  Extending simple platitudes are also ineffective – like, “It will all be OK” or “It’s not that bad.”   Finally, it is best if the listener does not think of what his or her response will be while the other is talking. The essential criteria are to simply and attentively LISTEN.

The third step in effective empathetic listening is to summarize, after the speaker has concluded, what has just been said.  But this should not be a simple recitation of facts or words.  A good summary of what has been heard will restate the facts while letting the speaker know that you understand meaning and emotion.  The listener is able to articulate the feelings behind what the speaker has said.  This is where hearing with the eyes and the heart are important.  The listener must use intuition to read the body language of the speaker and to hear changes in the voice or volume to discern emotions.  If that is not possible or if one is still confused about how the speaker feels, it is ok to simply ask how he or she feels about what they just said.  As an example, a good friend might give a long and very detailed description of a parent’s medical condition, surgery or other therapies.  An empathetic listener will be able to briefly recount the highlights of what is going on and then be able to suggest what the speaker is feeling.  “Your father is very ill due to a heart attack.  The illness of a parent can be frightening and very sad and I sense that is how you are feeling.”

The point of this crucial step is to simply be a mirror to the speaker.  An empathetic listener reflects what has been said and what is being felt.  Being able and willing to identify and articulate the emotions of the speaker is most important.  That is what distinguishes an empathetic and attentive listener from one who is selective in listening.  When Ed and I have an argument, it is common for me to listen to the words he says but then respond with commentary or perhaps a defense.  Instead, our discussion and the solution to our problem will come if I am able to listen to and discern the emotion he is feeling – anger, sadness, frustration, or whatever.  By repeating to him the facts of what he just said and then telling him I have heard and understand how he feels, even if I don’t agree with him, I will have truly shown him respect and love.

Finally, after the listener has summarized and it is clear that the speaker has been understood, it is ok for the listener to simply be quiet and say nothing.  Silence at this point is often good.  Experts say that many people appreciate opportunities to be heard and they are able to work out, by actively giving voice to their problem, an appropriate solution.  Effective listeners have open ears, closed mouths and are, in general, silent.  Indeed, it might be cliché but it is an obvious truth that humans have evolved with a need for two ears and only one mouth.   We must listen more than we speak.

All of us lead very fragile lives.  We might think we are brave and courageous folk who can tackle any problem but the truth remains that life is full of challenges, setbacks and hurt.  And we see so many around us who are similarly hurting and in need of human connection.  International terrorism, for instance, is fundamentally based on fear, insecurity and poverty in many Muslim nations.  How often have we sought to hear, understand and empathize with the emotional wounds many poor or exploited Muslims feel?

In our own nation today, liberals and conservatives often scream at each other across an ideological divide that seems too wide for any bridge to span.  How often do we really hear and understand the emotions of fear, insecurity or doubt in such exchanges?  The insecurity and frustration of the gay and lesbian community so long demeaned, bullied and marginalized?  The fears of farmers and small business owners taxed and regulated to the point where they are ready to give up?  The dreams of Latinos and African-Americans as they yearn to share in the blessings of our nation?  The nightmares of an unemployed and uninsured father as he worries about the health and well-being of his wife and children?  We shout and yell at each other across a political divide without listening and without any willingness to show empathy or understanding for what has motivated opposing political views.  Indeed, I believe highly opinionated people are the least empathetic.  They tell others what they think instead of seeing, hearing and feeling what others believe and feel.  As I said earlier, empathy does not involve agreement but it does require a conscious willingness to see things from the perspective of the other.  I believe such a choice opens us up to a morally imagined world of compassion and the possibility of cooperation instead of confrontation.

Many studies show that the best learners are those with a natural sense of curiosity.  And those with natural curiosity have one character trait in common – they practice effective listening skills.  As we diminish our egos and our inflated sense of self, we are motivated to connect with others in an empathetic manner.  We listen.  We seek understanding.  We feel the pain of others.

In this New Year, I have already tried to put into practice better listening skills.  I want to be an empathetic listener.  As with all things, this will take practice and I will frequently fail in my efforts or I will completely forget to listen with empathy.  But I am trying to consciously be aware of how I listen to others and I encourage all of you to gently hold me accountable.  St. Augustine once said that we ought to tell the world as often as possible about the love of God.  And, when necessary – he said, use words.  I believe that it is in our quiet, knowing moments of listening and of silence that we communicate to others our love and care – we don’t need words.  I believe that by listening to how we might have hurt or frustrated a lover or friend, we will have truly honored him or her.  I believe that what a world in pain needs most in this New Year is empathy – for you, for me, for genuine understanding and peace.

Message 43, Christmas Eve 2010, “Holiday Perspectives: Through the Eyes of a Servant”, 12-24-10

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

Service-Program-12-24-10

George Matthew Adams, a well known newspaper columnist of the early 20^th century once said, “Let us remember that the Christmas heart is a giving heart, a wide open heart that thinks of others first. The birth of the baby Jesus stands as the most significant event in all history, because it has meant the pouring into a sick world the healing medicine of love which has transformed all manner of hearts for almost two thousand years… Underneath all the bulging bundles is this beating Christmas heart.”

And so, as we just sang, I hope we gather here tonight as a faithful people.  On this eve of Christmas which both brings so much joy…….and so much angst in our lives, perhaps we can once again contemplate its higher meaning.  Yes, we love the gifts, the parties, the beautiful music and the good food, but we could think of other reasons to so celebrate.

Here at the Gathering we’ve looked at a few different holiday perspectives over the past few weeks – through the eyes of the skeptic, through the eyes of those who suffer at this time of year and through the eyes of women and a re-imagined Virgin Mary.  Ultimately, though, the holiday comes down to commemorating the birth of a man whom we cannot even say for sure ever lived.  As much as our faith calls us to heed certain teachings in the Bible, it is most definitely NOT a history book.  But along with the sacred scriptures of other world religions, the Bible contains profound pieces of wisdom and insight.

I believe the power and beauty of Christmas is that one such piece of insight for us is symbolically represented in the Bible through the birth of the Jesus child.  Whatever our beliefs about whether the Christmas story is fact or myth, we find that the birth of a weak and homeless child, perhaps conceived out of wedlock, fully represents the ethic of Jesus’ teachings.  Born not to wealth and power but to an impoverished teenage girl, housed not in a mansion but in a small barn, leading a life of an itinerant rabbi and condemned to die a criminal’s death, Jesus was and is the most unlikely of heroes.

It is an ironic twist, but the power of Jesus and his birthday story come not from the sword or a lofty position of status or a bulging bank account, but from the example and teachings of his life.  He began that life as just another poor child – one of millions – born in some unknown village to parents of no special reputation.  He lived his years in another small town, performing manual labor and never amassing the funds to build or own a home.  And yet, whether or not this man Jesus ever lived, two thousand years later, we still celebrate his birth.  To understand why, we need only hear the words attributed to him…

Blessed are the poor,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they will be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they will inherit the earth…
Blessed are the merciful,
for they will be shown mercy…
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they will be called children of the Divine.

Come, you who are blessed…I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me…whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

The one whose birth we celebrate tonight and tomorrow, the one who calls us to give, to find peace, to act with love and humility, was first and foremost a servant.  The cries of the Jesus child echo to us from that distant Bethlehem night……to be like him…..to have the heart of a servant.

(Please sing with me, while remaining seated, the song, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”)

Jesus is quoted at one point in his life as saying that whoever is the greatest among us will be our servant.  He teaches the paradoxical notion that greatness comes not with power and status but with lowliness and servitude.  In that regard, the story of a low-born baby coming to serve humanity resonates strongly.  As we just sang, it is in those who are humble who find the Jesus child within.  The heart of the Divine, we are told by Jesus, is to think less of ourselves, to esteem the needs of others as greater than our own, to love our enemies, to renounce violence, and to forgive.  In each action, we serve others.

Out of all the things we do each day – most of which are done to meet our own personal needs – the mundane actions of service for others speak the loudest.  Whether it be for a partner, a child, a friend or a stranger, each act we do for another, is a Jesus act…we reach beyond ourselves, and our own needs, to meet those of others.

Seeing through a servant’s eyes is to see the world in a new way.  As I often say – and continually must apply in my own life – we exist for a purpose far beyond the meager years and petty demands of our own lives.  By serving the needs of others, we fulfill our holy destiny to help build a better world.  We participate in the moral imagination to improve equality, justice, health and welfare for all creation – not for our narrow interests.  What a nasty and brutish world it would be if we each always acted according to our own interests.

A servant does not count the cost nor does he or she seek the limelight.  Genuinely motivated servants often operate in the background never seeking glory or recognition.  Indeed, the highest form of service or giving is to do so anonymously – we will have served and loved with pure motivations.  If we serve only to bolster our own egos or reputations, I believe we have failed to act with love.

Much like prayer or meditation, serving others selflessly has its own intrinsic rewards.  We draw nearer to the heart of God – who is simply defined as love.  Mother Theresa is famously quoted as saying that when she tended a dying street person or leper, she felt she was in the presence of the Divine.  To wipe a tear or extend a caring hand was, for her, a way to touch the face of God.

My friends, it is not enough for us to simply say we believe in love.  Each of our actions and, indeed our lives, must, I believe, speak of serving others.  We must refuse to return hatred with hatred, we must listen to another when we have no desire, we must forgive an offense as if it were not committed, we must feed the hungry, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, tend the sick, extend a smile, offer a kind word, rescue an animal, give a hug, cook a meal….in simple terms, we must find a way to do for others great or small acts of kindness.  Indeed, if we say we love others but do not act to tangibly show it, we are the worst of hypocrites.

I was recently sent the story about an honor marine whose duty it is to inform the families of soldiers that their loved one has been killed in combat.  This marine arrived at a nursing home to so inform the father of a fallen soldier.  He discovered, however, that the man he was to inform was himself dying.  In the fog of drugs and near death, the man confused the honor marine for his own son and extended his hand to be held and comforted.  This marine, however, did not fulfill his intended mission of informing the old man of his son’s death, but instead grasped the hand of the dying man and then proceeded to remain with him through the night until he peacefully passed away.  The dying man all the while believed he was holding the hand of his beloved son.  Such an act of love and service may seem small but it speaks of what any of us should do for another.  How do we treat family members?  How do we respond when criticized or attacked?  How do we serve the least of God’s creation – the poor, homeless, illiterate, hungry, abandoned, sick and imprisoned?  Each of us has, I believe, the capacity to serve and to do so in amounts greater than we meet our own personal needs.

I know that within these walls there are many who serve sacrificially.  The tutor who patiently teaches a young inner city child, the one who comforts a local inmate, those who rescue wayward animals, the life partner who daily loves and honors his or her mate, the ones who volunteer to feed the hungry, the tireless parent of any child, those who comfort and support frightened gay teens, we are all in the presence of the Divine.  We celebrate the birth of Jesus tonight and His life purpose, as we ever seek to make it our own life mission…….we live to serve.  This Christmas and in the year ahead, may we celebrate that servant child born in a manger within us all…………………….

Please reflect with me and watch a short pictorial video capturing, I hope, the essence of loving with a servant’s heart…click here.

Message 42, Holiday Perspectives: Through the Eyes of Women, 12-19-10

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

Service-Program-12-19-10

View Related YouTube video shown during the service. Click Here.

Many of us are able to conjure in our minds a vision of what a perfect Christmas would look like.  In these mental images of ours, we might think of our extended families gathered together on Christmas morning, a tree is lit with abundant and beautifully wrapped presents underneath, stockings are hung with care, a generous breakfast awaits the conclusion of gift unwrapping, and we are all smiling and laughing.  Each person receives the exact gift they need or want.  Later in the day, a large meal awaits as everyone sits down to Christmas dinner.  And if we think about how such a perfect day results, many of us often assume that it is our moms or our wives – if we have one – who has engineered these idyllic scenes.  A woman, we often assume, has done most of the Christmas shopping, wrapping, cooking, cleaning and decorating.  Indeed, many in our culture often take it for granted a woman has been in charge of choreographing family Christmases.  And, perhaps unfortunately, in many families that is probably true.

The same holds true, I believe, for our vision of the original Christmas.  Whether we believe the Biblical version of Christmas or not, we nevertheless think of the manger scene, with Mary, Joseph and an infant Jesus gathered in a barn.  Mary has humbly and obediently consented to be the mother of god, she has married Joseph, travelled with him several hundred miles on foot to Bethlehem – while nine months pregnant, and she then endures labor and birth in the company of donkeys.  Images of this scene and countless Christmas messages implicitly tell us that Mary is the perfect woman, the perfect mother, the pure, virginal, holy, subservient, docile, and faithful female.

In this December series of ours on various holiday perspectives, last week we examined Christmas through the eyes of suffering.  How might we reconcile the hurts many of us feel at Christmas-time with the prevailing notion that we are to be happy and joyous in this season of celebration?  Today, I want to perhaps burst another holiday bubble of ours – and then redeem it………the mythic lesson we learn from the Christmas story that Mary is to be admired because she was a faithful and servile woman who acted at the calling of her husband and of an all-powerful male deity.

Just as we have our own mental images of perfect Christmases, possibly created due to the efforts of a mom or woman in our lives, I believe we have the same type of mental image of Mary, the virginal mother of Jesus.  And these cultural stereotypes of women and of Mary have implications in how we act and how we choose to view women during the holidays and throughout the year.  They are to be super-human in putting together perfect Christmases just as Mary is assumed to have been super-human in making sure that the first Christmas morning took place.

The prevailing Madonna image of women is a persistent one.  For today, I want to explore with you how the Madonna perception might be transformed and re-examined, not just in a feminist light, but with a humanist perspective.  How might the moral imagination of all people – male or female – be improved through a new understanding of Mary?  Can we find a way to demolish the constraints of the so-called battle of the sexes – that women must fulfill one type of role and men another?  Might we come to venerate Mary not for her obedience but for her strength; not for her weakness but her assertion of equality; and not for her perfect maternal attitudes but her insistence that, as the Bible tells us, there is no male or female in the eyes of the Divine?

Many feminist theologians claim that the real problem with the Virgin Mary is that she was not a real woman who can inspire women to reach new heights of achievement.  She was and is a construct of a male dominated culture.  Indeed, her seemingly unquestioned willingness to accept God’s choice of her as the womb mother of Jesus and her continued reputation as a virgin – in some religions, untouched by a man for the remainder of her life – all of this has set her as an unattainable ideal.  She is a mythic goddess of virtue and of absolute faith.  How many women can possibly live up to her standard?

The imposition on Mary of virgin status is one that many theologians do not accept as factual.  Of the four gospels, only Matthew and Luke record the Christmas story.  There is compelling evidence that the first part of the gospel of Luke is a much later forgery – one appended onto the original in order to mimic Matthew’s account of Jesus’ birth.  And the Christmas story in the gospel of Matthew is itself largely believed to be based on a mistranslation of the Old Testament book of Isaiah which predicted that the messiah would be born to – the Hebrew word – “almah”.   This word “almah” was translated as “virgin” by the original writer of Matthew when it should have been accurately translated as “young girl”.  The mother of Jesus most likely became a virgin because of a mistranslation.

Paul never mentions the virgin birth in any of his letters found in the Bible and he even refers to Jesus as the son of Joseph, born according “to the flesh”.  If Jesus had been born of a virgin, Paul would almost assuredly have mentioned it.

Many ancient gods were born from virgins.  Roman emperors were said to be so born.  In the swirl of multiple religions in ancient times, Christianity needed to compete – Jesus could not be a mere human prophet – and so it is strongly supposed – and there is much evidence to support it – that the myth of Christmas and a virgin birth of Jesus was a mistake later embraced by male church leaders.

Besides giving us the holiday of Christmas and the season we now celebrate, this myth has harmed countless women.  The male leaders of the early church and successive male Popes and religious figures have all seized on the stories of Eve and of Mary to define and thereby subjugate women.  Eve was the first sinner for it was she who was seduced by Satan and it was she who then tempted Adam.  A woman, according to this theology, caused the fall of humanity.

Mary was the perfect answer to a sinful Eve but she is good only by obedience and submission to male authority.  In that interpretation of the Christmas story, she retains no control over her own body.  The implicit message of this version is that a woman’s body and sexuality are evil.  Redemption comes only through virginity, and compliance with male authority.  As many feminist theologians have described it, Mary was figuratively raped in the conception of Jesus.  To be perfectly blunt, it is possible to see our warm and wonderful holiday of Christmas as based on the control and forced impregnation of a poor, young, middle-eastern girl.

And it is Mary’s status as a young, poor girl from a backwater town that has so captivated many similar girls and women around the world.  In her book titled Indecent Theology: Theological Perversions in Sex, Gender and Politics, Marcella Althaus-Reid argues that the ideal of a Virgin Mary is horribly distant from the reality of life for poor women around the world.  In the crowded and impoverished conditions of urban ghettoes or rural areas in third world nations, sexual violence and promiscuity are normal.  Young girls are routinely raped, sold into sexual slavery or forcibly married off, in return for a meager dowry.  These girls thus find themselves pregnant at very early ages.  But in many nations, particularly in Latin America and parts of Africa, women revere Mary at a level almost greater than that of Jesus.  She represents the perfection they cannot match.  She is the goddess who remained pure, who kept her faith and who is the very mother of god.

The virginal myth of Mary reduces many women around the world to the second class status that a patriarchal culture desires – Mary is pure, you as a woman are not.  You are sinful like Eve.  The guilt and shame you feel are deserved.  Your only redemption is to be like Mary and simply obey your father, husband, Priest, Pastor and God.  Be docile.  Be quiet.  Be a good mother.  Choreograph the perfect Christmas.

My concern with the myth of Christmas as it relates to women is not to say that the roles of wife or mother are necessarily bad.  Indeed, Mary’s love for Jesus as a mother is well known – she was one of the last people to remain at the Cross, she was one of the first to testify of his resurrection and many have called her the first disciple.  Those are the actions of a woman who has freely chosen what to do.  We never hear of Joseph after Jesus’ childhood.  But Mary was an active follower of Jesus and one who herself found common cause with the outcasts, the sick, and the poor.   What I hope we can elevate is the ideal of a woman who seeks, finds and then chooses her own path in life – whether that be as mother, doctor, wife or corporate manager.  We celebrate the basic human right of control over one’s own body and one’s own sexuality.  Those are gifts from the Divine for each of us to enjoy with dignity and autonomy.

Where does our concern with the ancient Virgin Mary and Christmas myth leave us?  Must we throw out this holiday and our enjoyment of it as some patriarchal construct that is both outdated and pernicious?  I believe, along with many others, that the mythic Virgin Mary can be redeemed.

Quite a few feminist theologians argue that Mary’s virginity paradoxically constitutes an elevation of women. Mary, as she is revered by many women, can also be seen as flouting the patriarchal notions of womanhood.  After all, she did not need a man to give birth to Jesus.  She was independent of Joseph in that regard and thus assumed an importance greater than his.  In many cultures and religions, it is the phallic seed planter that is admired.  In this instance, it is the feminine womb that is idealized.  Like the ancient Greek vestal virgins who held great authority in their society, Mary is independent of male influence, power and control.  Indeed, some have noted that with her virgin birth, she was the first to proclaim an unorthodox, perhaps even a lesbian sexuality – men are not needed.  Whether or not the mother of Jesus was a virgin, the message we might discover from her is that she asserted control over her own body.  If she was impregnated by normal means, Mary defied the patriarchal construct that a woman must be pure before marriage.  If she was a virgin and yet still a mother, we might see her as asserting similar control over her body and reproduction.  In that case, she also defied the patriarchal construct that men are essential.

Our American 19^th century writer Harriet Beecher Stowe admired Mary because of her elevation to near equality with God.  Mary allows, according to Stowe, the admiration and veneration of the feminine aspects of God.  Indeed, she offers many a theistic reason to refer to God as Mother instead of as Father.  Divine attributes of nurture, compassion and sensitivity are admired because of Mary.  Indeed, no less of a conservative Christian writer than C.S. Lewis once noted, “It is arrogance in us to call frankness, fairness and chivalry ‘masculine’ when we see them in a woman; it is also arrogance to describe a man’s sensitiveness or tact or tenderness as ‘feminine’.”

What we find then, I believe, is the possibility of a transformed Mary.  Ultimately, this transformation is for the betterment of all humanity.  As I said earlier, a re-envisioned Mary liberates women to freely control their own bodies and lives in ways that are unorthodox and assertive.  She also liberates men to adopt Divine qualities that are too often seen as feminine but which should be, instead, universal character traits – love of peace, sensitivity to the suffering of others, nurturing attitudes and a soft-spoken demeanor.

And I do not propose this new image of Mary as a way to salvage Christmas.  If Christmas is, indeed, based on misogyny and chauvinism, it is not a helpful holiday.  Nevertheless, even though Christmas is most likely, I believe, based on myth, it holds powerful messages of spiritual truth for us to learn and practice.  As I said last Sunday, the purpose and message of Jesus the man was not to create a perfect world but to create change in the human heart.  The teacher, rabbi and prophet Jesus called us to think more of others than of ourselves, to practice forgiveness, to learn peace and to offer compassion.  Why would we not celebrate the birth of such an individual?  In the same manner that we honor in January the birth of Martin Luther King and celebrate in February the birth of Abraham Lincoln, so too can we celebrate and enjoy the birth of Jesus – perhaps the greatest human to have ever lived.

And all of this holds true for Mary, the mother of god, the impoverished virgin, the teenage girl chosen in myth to become Queen of Heaven.  Male power throughout history has chosen to use Mary as a means to control and subjugate women.  She has been the anti-Eve to all of the so-called fallen and depraved women of the world.  Be like her in obedience to men and to Father God.

And yet, as I stated earlier, Mary is also the one with real power in the Christmas story.  We might see that however she became pregnant, she exercised control over her body.  We witness her independence from men and the fact that she had no need of Joseph.  She was autonomous in her unorthodox sexuality and, ultimately, in any male use of her body.  Whatever she was, an adulterous woman or a virgin, she made the choice.

Mary, in this form of liberation theology, frees women from the shackles of male dominance over their reproduction and she also frees men from the wounds resulting from the oppression they have inflicted.  Men need no longer be in control.  They can also be weak.  They must no longer always be the decision makers.  They can submit.  They can cry.  They can, in a word, be like Jesus.  Indeed, God the Father might symbolically dress in drag and become God the Mother.

Just as we might believe with regard to Jesus, so too can we believe with Mary: strict definitions of gender and of gender specific roles are not the stuff of our moral imagination.  I believe humanity seeks cooperation and mutual reconciliation no matter the race, class, sexuality, religion, OR gender.  The ultimate message of Christmas is one of peace and goodwill towards all humanity and towards all creation.  If contemporary religious patriarchs choose to still exploit the Virgin Mary and the Christmas myth for their own agenda of male dominance and aggression, we must, I hope, respond with our own interpretation in behalf of wounded women and hurting men.

In that regard, let me sum up my point: the docile, gentle and obedient Virgin Mary who has been revered for her unattainable purity is a false image.  That Mary is, I believe, a false prophet.

The Mary I choose to celebrate this Christmas, and the Jesus I accept as a great man, were prophets of self-actualization, compassion, love and independence. This Mary and this Jesus are forever immortalized in the manger scene within our minds – a woman of determination, autonomy and gentleness.  She swaddles in a blanket the child who will go down in history as a person who calls us to serve the least of humanity – the sinner, outcast, ill and needy person within and around us all.

Round yon Virgin, Mother and Child, heroes of earthly peace, love and freedom…

I wish you all a joyous and inspired Christmas.

Message 41, Holiday Perspectives: Through the Eyes of Suffering, 12-12-10

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

Service-Program-12-12-10

On this day after our annual holiday party and in a season when thoughts turn to giving, celebration, food, family and cherished memories of Christmases past, it is sobering to remember that nearly one billion people on this earth live with some form of malnutrition, protein deficiency or basic hunger.  1.3 billion people in our world – nearly one sixth of the total – live on less than $1.25 a day.  Over seven million children world-wide under the age of five died this past year – never to know the joys of this season.  565 thousand people in the U.S. died of cancer in 2010.  400 thousand died of AIDS.  There are over 17 million people currently unemployed in our nation.  7 million children in the U.S. live with food insecurity – they do not know where their next meal will come from.  On any given night, over 6% of all U.S. families are homeless – defined as living in cars, on the streets, in temporary shelters or in a dwelling they do not own or rent.  1.5 million Senior citizens live in round the clock nursing care facilities.  15 million American adults – over 8% of our population – suffer from clinical depression.  In the Darfur region of Sudan, over 400 thousand innocents have been killed simply because of their ethnicity.  .

I could go on and on with such statistics of misery.  It is obvious that in this season of warmth and cheer and generosity, we live in a world of pain and hurt.  Our human condition, we all know too well, is not immune from suffering.  Each of us, many in the past year, have experienced some form of suffering and each of us will, at some point in the future, know the realm of deep grief, illness or loss.  Are Christmas, Hanukah and other seasonal holidays somehow cruel jokes on us all – ways for us to symbolically “whistle past the graveyard” and make us forget the true reality of life’s pain?

We might, in seeking to understand the whys of human suffering, look no further than the mothers and fathers of our Christmas celebrations – I speak in this case of the Jewish people.  Jesus and his parents were, after all, Jews.  Christianity emerged out of Judaism as it owes the concept of monotheism and a personal god to that faith.  But as we find with one of the main characters at that first Christmas, Jesus’ step-father Joseph – a pious Jewish man, suffering is a well-known historical condition for Jews.  From the story of their slavery in Egypt four thousand years ago to countless ancient wars against them to the Spanish inquisition of the Middle Ages when many were burned at the stake for refusing to convert to Christianity to the Holocaust to recent attacks by terrorists and an Iranian regime bent on Israel’s destruction, Jews more than perhaps any other group of people, have experienced horrific forms of suffering.  Indeed, many contemporary Jews believe that the Biblical recognition of them as God’s chosen people is not a sign of favor but is, instead, a way to show the rest of the world their resilience, growth and perseverance in the face of tragedy and hatred.

As we look to the Biblical Christmas story and examine Joseph’s behavior on learning of his bride to be’s pregnancy and apparent infidelity to him, we see a man determined to rise above his fate.  We learn that upon hearing Mary was to give birth to a child, Joseph reacts with honor to such personally devastating news.  He first seeks to divorce her quietly – not wanting to subject Mary to public disgrace or to possible stoning – a punishment of the time for adulterous women.  Next, when asked by God to relent and accept the new child as a miracle, Joseph proceeds to wed Mary, to care for her during the pregnancy and then to accept Jesus as his own son.  After the birth, Joseph saves Jesus from King Herod’s murderous intentions and then raises and supports him as his own.

The Christmas story of a virgin birth is one likely created to build up the supernatural credentials of Jesus.  It is, I believe, more myth than actual history.  But, like many stories in the Bible, it comes with principles and important applications to humanity.  For us, we appreciate and sympathize with the plight of Joseph.  While Mary knew in her own heart whether or not she was indeed a virgin, Joseph had to accept that assertion on faith.  He had to experience all of the likely emotions of anger, hurt and denial on hearing of Mary’s pregnancy and likely infidelity.  And, while many others rushed to celebrate the birth of the boy-god, Joseph must have privately hurt – stung by the realization that this child was not his own.  In human terms, Joseph was the first to know and understand the private pangs of pain and depression that often come with Christmas.  Everyone else is seemingly happy and full of joy while you alone suffer in silence.  Indeed, as we heard when I read the statistics of suffering in our world, Christmas pain is neither unique nor is it likely to ever end.  Holiday pain – and suffering in general – are human realities.

For any of us, how do we make sense of suffering in our world?  How do we reconcile it with Christmas and with this time when the whole world tells us to be happy?  What does Joseph’s example – and that of all Jews – tell us about suffering?  When we suffer, should we “suck it up” as some might tell us?  Should we examine our lives for defects in us that caused us to suffer?  Are we being punished for past sins?  How do we cope with our human condition that knows hurt, disease, death, poverty, hatred, hunger, depression, loneliness and despair?

As I have discussed in previous messages, Victor Frankl wrote a book entitled The Meaning of Life in response to the horrors he experienced in Nazi concentration camps of Auschwitz and Dachau.  But his book is not a history of such suffering.  It is an account of how he came to find purpose and meaning in his own suffering and in that of his fellow Jews.  He did not reject his suffering as the wrath of an angry god or even the work of pure evil.  In order to survive his experiences, Frankl realized he had to find meaning in them.

As Fyodr Dostoyevsky, the famous Russian author once observed, a person must choose to make himself or herself worthy of their suffering.  Indeed, the primary motivation of our existence, according to Victor Frankl, is to find our meaning and purpose in life.  In the face of inevitable tragedies and pains, the choices we make in our attitudes, our compassion for others and in our love will, I believe, determine how happy we really are.  Indeed, suffering might lead us to better understand and then practice our true life purpose.  Frankl chose to hold onto love for his wife, kindness for fellow inmates, his Jewish faith and his hope in the future.  He refused, despite all of the degradations he faced, to give up his basic humanity – a humanity that comforted others in pain, that saw the good in each person, that cherished love, that refused to be a victim, that sought growth and learning.

In his book The Dream of a Ridiculous Man, Fyodr Dostoyevsky writes of a man who, in a dream, travels to a paradise where there is no evil, no suffering and no pain.  In this perfect world, however, the man soon realizes that with no suffering and no hate, there is no joy and no love either.  Dostoyevsky points us to the fact that absent evil, there can be no experience of good and that without suffering, there can be no compassion, no empathy, no generosity and no love.  How can such emotions be expressed if there is nobody in need of them?  The man caught in this dream comes to yearn for a return to our earth of pain where he can kiss the ground of misery and cherish it for its ability to help us experience true love – from others and for others.

It is an ultimate irony of pain and suffering that only through personal experience can we truly understand their opposites of joy and happiness.  How can we empathize with the pain of others if we do not experience it ourselves?  How can we love another if we do not know its absence?  How can we find light if we do not know darkness?  Joseph was able to honor Mary and love his adopted son Jesus because he had experienced the depths of betrayal and sadness.  For any of us this Christmas to fully experience the transcendent joy and beauty and light of this season, I believe we must first accept and embrace the pain of our own lives.

Such is the spiritual message found in suffering and, I believe, in Christmas itself.  Pain in our lives is able to bring about growth if we choose to pursue such change.  Embracing suffering does not mean that we accept it in order to be stoic martyrs.  Instead, we are asked to acknowledge its present reality – in our world and in our lives.  Growth from suffering comes then as we choose to change its future.  We work to learn from it, then change it and then hopefully not repeat it.  Instead of asking why God allows suffering in our world and in our lives, we must ask instead how we can work to reduce it.  Instead of choosing the path of victimization in our suffering, we must learn to accept that all people suffer and we should not expect to be immune from it.  We then open ourselves to the grace that comes from personal growth and to the gentle compassions others often choose to show us.   We loosen the binds that keep us stuck in the clutches of victimhood, anger and bitterness.  Christmas joy – and happiness, in general – are then the results.

Too often in life I have chosen to flee from suffering.  I am conflict averse and I will choose retreat instead of reasoned and appropriate confrontation.  I seek pain avoidance and thus, too often, a path of diminished challenge and less growth opportunity.  I am coming to understand that if I confront the pain or hatred or despair I might experience, I will learn more about myself and others.  I will find strengths that I lack or that I did not know I had.  I will find reasons to move into unknown realms where I can find new insights and new truths.

I believe that for most of us, we can find better empathy for those who hurt and struggle if we ourselves do not flee from embracing our own hurts.  Indeed, a root meaning of the word compassion is “to suffer with…”  In this sense, as each of embrace our own pain or hurt, we can care more for the sick, the lonely, the dying and the unloved.   I have known no great and profound tragedy in my life but I have felt stings of rejection, of bullying, of prejudice and of false shame.  My personal experiences of past hurt allow me to understand the pain of others.  I am therefore better able to extend myself to a world in pain.

The Jewish people have often found solace in words from the Torah – or our Old Testament – when God says to them, “I have given you as a light to the nations, to open the eyes that are blind, to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, from the prison those who sit in darkness.” It is a wonder to many historians, and a point of anger to their enemies, that Jews have persevered throughout history despite their many hardships.  After the slaughter of 6 million of their brothers and sisters, Jews chose to claim their own nation, to challenge prevailing forces of hatred and to grow from the depths of their own horrors.  Indeed, in a very perverse way, Hitler did a favor to Jews around the world.  The pain he inflicted on their race made them stronger.  The deaths he perpetrated caused them to seek inner strengths and inner resolves few of us can understand.  And such is the point of the Bible verse in which Jews find themselves as lights to others – lights of growth, of strength, of perseverance and of a refusal to wallow in their victimhood.  Like many of us, some of them may have forgotten the lessons of their own suffering and they no longer find empathy for the lives of Palestinians who also suffer and die.  But the lesson of suffering and of empathy is no less true even if some Jews have forgotten it.  The same holds true for us.  We must never forget our own life pains precisely because they allow us to better empathize with fellow humans and creatures.

I cannot begin to diminish the pain many of you may have experienced in your lives.  I do not wish to offer simple platitudes to explain away such hurt.  But with our acknowledgement that pain and suffering and death in this life exist for all of us – in some form – what choices do we make in the face of that reality?  Do we retreat and flee?  Or, do we find our suffering to be transformative?  I believe there are lessons to be learned about life and love in the suffering we experience.  To use crude terminology – and forgive me for saying this – there is gold in the crap of life.

Alexander Solzhenitsyn, writing in his classic The Gulag Archipelago, reached an epiphany – a profound moment of growth that emerged out of his Siberian exile and suffering.  He had found during his time in prison an ability to survive, to love his fellow man and to hate injustice all the more.  He writes, “So, bless you, prison, for having been in my life.” Is it possible this holiday season, this Christmas, for each of us to accept the realities of our loneliness or infirmities, our aging, our poverty, our enemies, our failures, our rejections, our losses or our hardships?  Can we truly embrace generosity and kindness, peace and gentleness because we ourselves may have sometimes been denied them?  Can we forgive our enemies and those who have hurt us as we discern the hurts in them?  Can we then say to ourselves and to others, “Merry Christmas and thank God for the pain in my life?”

In this Christian time of advent – before the upcoming birthday of Jesus – we place many hopes in the spirit of goodwill that seems to permeate this season.  We bask in the glory of friendships and family.  We look to the Prince of Peace – our understanding of who Jesus is described to be – as the reason for this season.  The Biblical story of his birth tells us that he came to redeem evil on earth by calling us all to act like our better angels.  But the ultimate message of the Jesus story is, I believe, that he did not live and die in order to create maximum pleasure on earth.  Instead, I believe Jesus was about creating maximum change on earth.  And that change must begin in the human heart – in our own hearts and souls.  Jesus could not alter the fact that lepers existed, that women were treated harshly, that outcasts were shunned, that people suffered and that people hated and were cruel.  What he could alter, through his teachings, was our response to such tragedies.  The light of Jesus, the man whose birth we celebrate this Christmas, is that despite great despair, hope is real.  Despite profound pain, joy is not an illusion but a reality we can choose to discover.  Out of the suffering we experience in our lives and in our world, let us find this Christmas – truth…….and peace……… and love – for ourselves and for those around us.