Author: Doug Slagle

(c) Michael Tacy, Music Director to the Gathering at Northern Hills, All Rights Reserved

 

Please click here to listen to the message:

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

 

Please click here to listen to the message.  See below to read it.

 

In the 2000 and 2004 election years, a loose assembly of people, who called themselves The Billionaires, began attending large public events dressed in Tuxedoes with top hats or ball gowns with fake pearls and diamonds.  They held signs stating things like “Corporations are People too”, “Still loyal to Big Oil”, “Billionaires for Wealth-care” and “Warning: Universal Healthcare May Be Harmful to Profits.”  They also appeared at post offices on April 15th, dressed the same way, holding signs thanking everyday folks for paying their share of taxes since they did not.  These mock Billionaires adopted names like Phil T. Rich, Tex Shelter, and Meg A. Bucks

The group used satire to make social statements about wealth in our country.  Instead of shouting angry words of protest, they poked fun at elites while making their point very clear.  They weren’t  ignored by onlookers but instead were widely applauded and sought after for  photographs.  For me, it was a highly effective, creative and playful way to make an important point.

This month, I plan to look at different humorists and how they used their wit to not only make people laugh, but also to slyly make political and social statements.  Clowns, court jesters and comedians have historically been taken for granted as simply funny people.  But they are much more than that.  Great political humorists, beginning in Ancient Greece, have used satire, irony and parody to cause both laughter and thought provoking introspection.  Indeed, today’s political and social comics like John Stewart, Steven Colbert and Michelle Wolf continue a tradition of speaking truth to power.  As one commentator puts it, political and social humorists hold a mirror up to us and to society – but in funny and empathetic ways.

Today I’ll look at the comedy of Will Rogers – considered one of the great and most beloved political and social humorists of the 20th century.  At his premature death in an airplane crash in 1935, there was widespread national grief that had not been seen since Lincoln’s passing.  Rogers had been named a best friend by millions of Americans and, for many elections, he’d  received millions of write-in votes for President.  Franklin Roosevelt eulogized him by saying, “I doubt there is among us a more useful citizen than the one who holds the secret of banishing gloom with hope and courage.”

In my mind, Roosevelt owed Rogers even greater praise.  Rogers’ homespun, common man, often ungrammatical humor frequently satirized politicians and the wealthy.  His popularity soared during the Great Depression as his wit and concern for the so-called little guy  helped build popular support for many of Roosevelt’s programs like Social Security and the National Relief Act.

Rogers was simply himself – someone who was part native-American, born in Oklahoma, and entirely self-made.  He spoke and wrote in common people’s language with made up words, slang, and misspellings.  He was asked by one reporter why he ignored proper syntax.  His reply, “What’s syntax? Sounds like bad news.” 

        “You use bad grammar,” replied the reporter.

        “Shucks,” declared Rogers. “I didn’t know people was buyin’ grammar.  I’m just so dumb I had a notion it was thoughts and ideas.   I write just like I talk.”

His political humor was the hallmark of his comedy.  “A fool and his money are soon elected,” he once said.  “Everything is changing,” he also noted.  “People are taking their comedians seriously – and the politicians as a joke.” 

“If stupidity got us into this mess, then why can’t it get us out?” was another observation. 

“The trouble with political jokes is they often get elected to office,” was another.  And, “Congress is deadlocked and can’t act.  I think that is the greatest blessing that could befall this country.”

One of his best lines was, “I bet after seeing us today, George Washington would sue us for calling him ‘father.’”

The greatness of Rogers’ political humor was that it spoke to the conditions of his time while also being timeless.  His jokes resonate as much today as they did 90 years ago – something which makes him unique when compared with many contemporary humorists.

In that regard, his comedy also keenly made fun of general human nature.  “Everything is funny, as long as it’s happening to somebody else,”  he once said.   “Too many people spend money they haven’t earned, to buy things they don’t want, to impress people they don’t like,” is still very true.  “Never miss a good chance to shut up” is one of his quips I particularly appreciate.  “When you find yourself in a hole, quit digging,” is another.  “It is better for someone to think you’re a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt,” is a line still quoted today.   “When you’re through learning, you’re through” was a great piece of wisdom.  A funny line I empathize with was,  “Long ago when people cursed and beat the ground with sticks, it was called witchcraft;  today it’s called golf.”  Finally, he observed, “The older we get, the fewer things seem worth waiting in line for.”

Many people have said Rogers’ political and populist humor was in a uniquely American style – one that followed in the humorist footsteps of Washington Irving and Mark Twain.  Rogers championed ethics of hard work, frugality and plain common sense.  In doing so, he also promoted with his comedy a strong American skepticism of elites, the super-rich and all politicians.  Like many Americans of the past, his attitudes toward them were not animated by vitriol or hate, but rather with a bit of understanding and gentleness.  He rarely made fun of a politician by name but chose to joke about politicians in general.  His jokes and observations were a warning, of sorts, about the seductive ability of greed and power to diminish otherwise good people.  Two observations he made about wealth and money made everyone a target.  “The income tax,” he said, “has made more liars out of Americans than golf.”   He equally observed, “Money won’t make you happy, but everybody sure wants to find that out for themselves.”

Those jokes are funny because they’re universally true – and they’re true for me.  I’ve experienced the pleasures money can buy and, while I know they are false forms of happiness, I can still be seduced by the fake security of money and materialism.  Indeed, Rogers noted that his humor was not the kind that evoked deep belly laughs but instead some chuckles followed by a nod of agreement.  One often has to stop and think just a bit about what he observed.  One joke of his that makes me chuckle, think and squirm a bit was: “Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.”

How many of us can relate to that observation?  I know I can.  And that gets at what was so wise and particularly good about Will Rogers.  When we have a point to make, or a particularly strong opinion, how we share that is crucial.  Do we come across as an angry scold, as a self-righteous preacher, or even as a hypocrite?  Or, are we able to remain true to ideals of humility, kindness and empathy? 

In other words, can we inject a bit of self-deprecation in what we opine to others – something that Rogers regularly did – proclaiming in an “aw shucks” way that he had no great intelligence since all he knew came from reading newspapers?  He also often said that he had no skill as a funnyman by saying, “There’s no trick to being a humorist when you have the whole government working for you.”

Those are humorous truths but they also make fun of him – even though we all know that to find humor in things takes great skill.  Rogers made insightful points about greed and sticking up for regular people with humility and gentleness – virtues which I fear the current culture is rapidly losing.  For me or you, if we have a point to make or a criticism of what someone has done or said, might we try to gently laugh and find some ironic humor in the offense – and then state our case in ways that does no harm?  People who do that are often deeply loved and appreciated – as it is clear Will Rogers was.

Making fun of oneself is an endearing quality in particularly decent and humble people.  Like Rogers, Abraham Lincoln did so with jokes about himself.  He told a story about a man who once came up to him with a gun.  “I promised myself if I ever saw a man uglier than me, I’d shoot him,” the man told Lincoln.   “Well,” said Lincoln very dryly, “If I’m uglier than you, then shoot me now – because I don’t want to live any longer!”

This practice of funny self-deprecation is one that does not shy away from stating opinions and criticisms, but it implicitly says that when we criticize others, we should do so with a healthy awareness that we too are imperfect.  Jesus showed that with his humorous teaching that before we point out a small speck in someone’s eye, we should first remove the log in our own.  If we think about it, that’s funny!  Who can have a log in their eye?  Nobody.  We can share gentle criticism, Jesus taught with the story, but we should be humble enough to know we have significant faults too.  And if we’re truly humble, we might – as many lovable humorists do – make fun of, and laugh at ourselves too.

And that speaks to my advocacy for self-awareness – one that Will Rogers had about both himself and about Americans in general.  Self-awareness is one fo the most important qualities I believe one should have.  Do we truly know and admit to both our strengths and our weaknesses?

It is said that satire humor points out the imperfections of things as they are – with the contrasting desire for things as they should be.  The group of Billionaires that I earlier mentioned gently satirized wealthy people by making fun of things they support – like the Supreme Court opinion that corporations are like people, or that the rich push for laws that enhance their considerable wealth.  Instead of welfare for the poor – something all societies should have, the Billionaires held signs advocating wealthcare – which is in fact what they seek, but won’t admit.  That’s funny satire!

Will Rogers had the ability to be aware about himself and all America in such funny ways.  “Advertising is the art of convincing people to spend money they don’t have for something they don’t need,” he once said.   He thus joked about both the mercenary tactics of advertising AND the materialistic tendencies we all have.   That is being keenly and humorously aware.  “Congress is kids who never grew up – is all.”  That’s a gentle observation he made that is both critical and slightly funny.  Adult men and women, our leaders! –  who think they’re big stuff but who are nevertheless like little boys and girls. 

When he was asked if voters can be fooled, he replied, “Darn tootin’.  Of all the bunk handed out during a campaign, the biggest one of all is to try and compliment the knowledge of the voter.”   That one has a bite to it but many of us know it has basis in fact when many voters – me included – have no solid idea of what makes a good candidate to be a judge, or the intricacies of macroeconomics that Congress must implement.   

“No man is great if he thinks he is,” he wisely said.  That’s an especially humorous and true statement.  It especially points out the humility that’s admirable in great people while it bursts the arrogance bubble of most politicians and, if we think about it, of ourselves too.  If I get a lot of praise for one of my messages, I of course appreciate it but I can also start to think I’m really good!  And then the next Sunday comes along, I deliver a stinker of a message, and all my delusions of being good seem ridiculous.

I’ll leave us with a final wise joke from Will Rogers that speaks to his abilities as a humorist – while it teaches a lesson as well.  “Common sense,” he said, “ain’t common.”   That, to me, is brilliant.  Many of us think we have common sense but to truly display it and practice it is often rare.  We know we should be more humble, less materialistic, and kinder to friend and stranger.   All of that is common sense.  But to live those ideals out, to really be them, well, let’s say I still have a lot to learn.  The humor and wisdom of Will Rogers teaches me to laugh at all of the flaws in the world, and more importantly, in myself!

To follow a frequent practice here, I now invite your thoughts and comments.  I’m particularly interested in the ideas of self-awareness and comedy – how humor can be effectively used to shine a light on ourselves whether as individuals or as a nation.  And that humorous shining light might then help us reflect and change for the better….

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

Click here to listen to the message.  See below to read it.

In my message on radical hospitality last Sunday, I told one of the parables Jesus used to teach ethics of hospitality.  I don’t offer such stories because I believe they are from God, or that they offer unique wisdom.  Instead, I occasionally relate them in messages because many of are so effective in teaching universal ideals of goodness.  I used a Jesus story last week about a man hosting a banquet to emphasize the spiritual reasons for being hospitable.  Showing radical hospitality to all is one of three ways that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. believed we create a world-wide Beloved Community. 

Another Jesus story, as told in the Biblical book of Matthew, says a very wealthy young man approached Jesus and asked him what he must do to go to heaven.  As a Jewish man, Jesus replied that he should follow teachings in the Torah.  The rich guy asked “Which ones?” 

That question annoyed Jesus.  Ideals like “Don’t kill,” “Don’t steal,” and “Love your neighbor,” he said, are not ranked from most to least important.  “Follow them all,” Jesus said.

“Well,” the rich guy said, “What else must I do?”  Jesus likely then looked at him intently and read the guy like a book.  Here was a snotty, full of himself, young man who thought money could buy him anything he wanted.  So Jesus knew what would be almost impossible for the guy to do.  “Go and give all your money to the poor and then come follow my teachings,” Jesus told him.  The rich guy looked shocked, turned around, and slowly walked away.  He loved his money too much.

Jesus followed up that encounter with one of his most famous statements……..  “It is more difficult for a rich man to enter heaven,” he said, “than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.”

For centuries, and still today, that statement confounds and frightens wealthy Christians.  They take little comfort in what Jesus next said………….“With humans, this is impossible.  But with God, everything is possible.”

Jesus implied that wealth brings many dangers.  People are prone to rely on money as the source of happiness and security.  Instead of prioritizing love and goodwill in the world, many wealthy people believe money buys them contentment.  Jesus knew that we’ll-being, instead, comes from serving, giving, and compassion.  Those are things that even some wealthy people practice – so they are difficult to adopt – but not impossible.

I relate this story because it colorfully teaches what is truly valuable in life and death.  Being great is not about being rich or powerful.  It’s not even about building human equality which, as Dr. King said, only creates stagnant sameness – instead of constructive oneness.  People must build a form of heaven on earth – one where we don’t just tolerate one another – we honestly love one another.  People must therefore build a world-wide Beloved Community compromising the entire one human family.

Three things, Dr. King believed, prevent such a beloved community from being created – exclusivism, materialism and militarism.  I addressed the antidote to exclusivism last week.  Next week I’ll discuss the opposite of militarism, non-violence, which was one of Dr. King’s priorities for a beloved community.

Today, I suggest the antidote to materialism is a humble attitude toward wealth.  In other words, it’s a gift to our souls to be simple.  Money and things are not the problem.  They are just objects with no value other than what we assign them.  Instead, It is the way people think about money and things that needs to be continually checked and changed.  No world religion condemns money itself.  Nor do they condemn wealthy people.  Instead, it is the selfish obsession with money and things that work against any Beloved Community.  Arrogance, greed and the over appreciation of luxury are what most religions say are evil.  What is it that a beloved church like us values – its building, budget, salaries, and the amounts donated?  Or, is money simply a tool by which a beloved church serves, loves, enlightens and grows people?

Much like Jesus taught, Jews encourage a love of people over a love of money.  They believe all people are made in the image of God – of Yahweh – and so every person has innate dignity.  Everybody should have sufficient food, clothing, housing and healthcare precisely because they carry the image and dignity of God within.

Jews believe it is selfishness that causes some people to see money as their own – instead of as a resource for the common good.  Rabbis sometimes tell in their Sabbath services the story of a man in a rowboat who suddenly begins to drill a hole beneath his seat.  Others in the boat are upset and loudly demand he stop.  “Why should you care?” the man asks.  “I’m only drilling under my seat.”

The point Rabbis make is clear.  A self-focused attitude is destructive not only to the individual, but to everyone.  It threatens the dignity of all humanity.

Islam, not surprisingly, teaches the same ethic.  Muhammad and his wife Aisha were practitioners of voluntary poverty.  A person can be rich, Muhammad taught, but he or she can and should renounce the benefits of wealth by living as simply as possible.  Muslims agree with Jews that wealth and resources belong to everyone.  Muslims are to substantially share the wealth they hold with the poor not out of charity, but because most of it is not theirs anyway.

This voluntary frugality, so that all may benefit from money, is an often overlooked principle of Islam.  Imams tell a story of two equally pious friends who die and head for paradise.  At the entrance, Allah invites one of the men to immediately enter.  The other must wait.  When that man asks why he must wait and his friend is immediately invited in, Allah tells him its because his friend had only owned one shirt in life, while he had owned two.

Buddhism teaches about money in very similar ways.  Rich people are not bad and neither is money.  Instead, Buddhism says that attachment to money, food, sex, or any other pleasure is the real problem.  Attachments cause people to worry that they will lose their prized possession – and those fears create anxiety and a lack of peace.  Someone can be rich as long as they have learned not to be attached to money or things.  To let go of wealth, the rich should see it as something to alleviate the suffering of others.  Being generous is a way to both prevent attachment and do good at the same time.

There is a Sufi Islam story that teaches this universal ethic.  A man and his family are fearfully traveling through a forest known to harbor thieves.  The son is tasked with carrying the family’s bag of gold – because it’s very heavy.  The boy is also the strongest one to fight off robbers.  When they come to a fork in the path, the son asks which way they should go.  The father stops to think and then tells his son to leave the bag of gold at the fork in the path.  By doing so, he tells his son, whichever path they choose will be free of burdens and fears.  The lesson is clear.  Money and things often cause anxiety and a lack of peace.

As a quick aside, despite the arrogant claim by most religions that their’s is the only legitimate one, the truth is that most religions are similar in what they believe.  Who is Christ, Yahweh, Allah, Buddha or Brahmin but the same source of Truth?  They each represent a fundamental ethic: when we practice love towards everyone, and not just love for ourselves, we find Truth and contentment.

That confirms the point I make today.  A beloved community envisioned by Martin Luther King is a holistic one – a type of utopia where everyone lives cooperatively and at peace.  As King once said, “We must rapidly begin the shift from a ‘thing oriented’ society to a ‘person oriented’ society.  When machines and computers, profit motives, and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism and militarism are incapable of being conquered.”

While there are many who love people and not money, including many in this congregation, several very wealthy people are outsized role models of that.  Charles Feeney is an Irish-American businessman who started Duty-Free shops around the world.  Over the last thirty years, he has given away nearly all of his $8 billion dollar fortune to organizations that promote world peace and improve healthcare for the poor.  At the age of 84, he promises to die with no money.

JK Rowling, author of the Harry Potter books, was once worth over a billion dollars – an English woman richer than the Queen.  She too has committed to giving most of her wealth away.  She is also a big believer in paying taxes – saying they are another way to care for the needy.

Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg is surprisingly a person who has decided to give away most of his money.  He and his wife have pledged 99% of their wealth in the coming years to charity.  He lives relatively simply – wearing jeans, hoodies and eating at McDonalds.  Says he, ”I really want to clear my life…so that I have to make as few decisions as possible about anything – except how to best serve the community.”

These super rich people are, indeed, role models.  Sadly, however, well-off people are statistically the least generous of any demographic.  The wealthiest 20% of Americans, those making $200,000 or more a year, donate on average 1.3% of their incomes.  The bottom 20% of Americans, those making $30,000 or less, donate on average 3.2% of their incomes.  As Jesus and other spiritual prophets understood, wealth can lead one to depend on it as a source of well-being – instead of as a tool to practice compassion, humility and charity – attitudes I believe offer real contentment.

As a practical matter, I suggest this church and all of us as individuals practice simplicity in our lives, and generosity toward those in need.  We do that to intentionally build a Beloved Community here and around the world.

  As I indicated earlier, every world religion teaches the same principles about money and people.  It is not money that is the root of evil.  It is the LOVE of money that is the source of negativity in our world.  Indeed, as we know from commentators about racism like author Ta-Nihisi Coates, discrimination is rooted in the economic exploitation of one group of people for the benefit of another.  This is true of sexism and male attitudes toward women.  Problems like climate change, violence, corruption, poverty and even physical and mental disease are all indirectly caused by greed and humanity’s love of money.

Toward that end, I suggest we as a church community, and we as individuals, make an intentional pledge to continue using our money and resources efficiently and with simplicity.  I believe we already do that at the Gathering at Northern Hills in many ways, but I also suggest we must be vigilant about it.  That means reducing our use of resources as much as possible – electricity, paper, food and water.  We can resolve to setting our thermostats slightly lower or higher than what we do now, we ought to use digital media instead of print media whenever possible, limit buying packaged processed foods for our snacks, purchase local produce, practice “reduce, reuse, recycle”, encourage carpooling in fuel efficient vehicles, and use volunteer labor, whenever possible, to maintain our building.

Simplicity also means our Board, and all of us, examine the budget to be sure each expense meets our criteria to focus as much as possible on meeting community basic needs so that we can generously serve the needs of the poor and oppressed.  That means each expense item in our budget ought to be justified by how much it serves not just us – but outsiders too.  My salary must not be immune from that examination.  As a congregation, we must be on the lookout for any waste, inefficiency or improper spending.  All of this is not for us amass more money, but to enable us to give more and thereby continue our desire to be a truly Beloved Community.

To aspire to the sublime heights of a Beloved Community, I encourage us to regularly meditate on how that is expressed in everything we do and say.  Martin Luther King, echoing the teachings of Jesus, had obviously had done such deep thinking.   Genuine love aches at the bigotry and exclusion we see in the world – and it yearns instead for radical inclusivity.  Genuine love rejects selfish use of money as it thrills at charity and generosity.  Genuine love, as we’ll discuss next week, is always non-violent in speech and action.  I encourage you and me, together, to deeply ponder these truths.

I wish us all peace and joy.

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

Please click here to listen to the message.  Please see below to read it.

I visited a church a few years ago whose members were nice enough as they pleasantly greeted me and Keith.  As we toured the building after the service, we came across a small, drab social room lit by bright, white florescent lightbulbs.  (I find such lights horrific – the kind of harsh lighting found in warehouses and prisons.)  Centered in the middle of this room was a card table on which a lone coffee urn was placed.  Powdered creamer, sugar packets and styrofoam cups were arranged beside it.  What particularly struck me was a small basket in front of the urn with a small sign on it that said, “Coffee. 50 cents.”  This comprised the church’s hospitality – no snacks, no hospitality volunteers, no members to greet newcomers.  Needless to say, Keith and I were the only ones in the room.  For that matter, within ten minutes after the end of the service, the church was virtually vacant.  Those who attended had quickly scurried for the exits.

I’m particularly obsessed with being a good host – someone who likes to create inviting, warm and generous get togethers.  They need not be over the top ostentatious, but they should be, in my opinion, events that convey care and appreciation that guests have chosen to visit.

Spiritually, I’m also convinced that hospitality is not just a matter of being nice to a guest.  It is, instead, the means by which relationships are formed, enlightening conversations take place and a frame of mind fostered that encourages people to stay, learn, and plan work.  When someone is a good host, she or he extends themselves sacrificially for the benefit of another.  When many of you have hosted me, you gave a gift of yourselves – your time, your home and your food – with no expectation that I reciprocate.  For me, that’s the essence of being spiritual – to sacrifice oneself for the greater good of others – and for the world itself.

As a great human teacher, Jesus was also particularly in favor of sacrificial hospitality.  Religious hypocrites condemned him for attending parties where he drank wine, ate good food, and enjoyed the company of diverse people – particularly those on the margins of society including criminals, non-Jews, and prostitutes.  He taught by example that social events are a way to show love and, more importantly, a way to encourage positive change in the host and the guest.  His parables frequently used parties as symbols of the goodness and love we are to extend to others – and as I said – especially to the people who are different from us.  A good host, he implied, is almost like god – someone who loves generously and unconditionally.

Other world religions believe the same.  For Jews, the Torah teaches to welcome and serve strangers as if they are dear friends – since Jews have experienced a long history of horrible mistreatment as strangers.  They must intentionally do the opposite.

The Koran says Muslims are to show lavish hospitality to family, friend and stranger equally – with special care shown to orphans, widows and the poor.

The Hindu Upanishads or Scriptures take these teachings one step further.  A guest or stranger is to be considered a representative of the gods.  How we act as hosts is thus a mark of how spiritual we are.

So, as many of you know, I place a high priority on hospitality at the Gathering at Northern Hills.  Our social hour is not just a time to chat with friends.  It is a spiritual time during which we practice our ideals – to be more understanding, serving, and open hearted.  What happens in the Quimby room is at least as essential to the work of this congregation as is what happens in this Sanctuary.

Time and again I see so many of you spend extended time talking to and welcoming guests and visitors.  You are also diligent and sacrificial serving as hospitality hosts – something which we ask of every able member.  Coffee and snacks are just not just elements of an after-service meal.  They’re our symbolic wine and bread communion representing who we are and what we do.  We welcome, we come together, we give, we serve, we improve ourselves so we can then improve the world. 

Interestingly, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr agreed.  He was particularly focused not on just creating a more racially just society, but on creating a holistic, world-wide version of Jesus’ overall morality.  That meant, for King, to build a beloved community that serves and loves all people equally.   It was his vision of heaven on earth – a picture of paradise that humanity, not god, must dedicate itself to create.  To do so, Dr. King believed we must conquer three things that work against any beloved community: exclusivism, materialism and militarism.   

Encouraging the opposite of those three forces is therefore the theme of my August message series.  How do we practice the antidote to militarism and thus become a more beloved church?  By emphasizing non-violence in all we say and in all we do – the subject of my message in two weeks. 

How do we serve and love people, and not money or things – and thus be less materialistic?  By being simple in wants for ourselves, and generous in serving and meeting the needs of others – what we’ll look at next Sunday. 

How can we prevent appearing exclusive and instead highlight our inclusivity?  We must practice, Dr. King believed, not just nice hospitality, but radical hospitality – the subject of today’s message.

To that end, the word radical is defined as “believing there should be great social or political change.”  I believe that for the Gathering at Northern Hills to advance its purpose as a beloved community, it must advance it’s level of hospitality.   In many respects, our hospitality is reactive – we warmly welcome all who peacefully come here.  To raise it to the next level, I believe we must discern and then implement ways to instead be proactive in our hospitality.

Jesus told a parable, a story intended to teach, about a wealthy man who asked his servant to invite other well off persons like himself to attend a large and lavish banquet.  It was to be his way to love others and make new friends.  The servant reported back, however, that all of those he invited had made excuses of self-importance and were too busy to attend.  They essentially acted like elitist snobs in turning down the invitation. 

The host was upset but he quickly realized that people like him were too dependent on their wealth and power to seek something as simple as friendship. So he thought of a new and daring way to express his love and make new friends.  He asked his servant to go out into the city streets and invite the not self-important people – the poor, crippled, sick and homeless.  In this way he not only was able to express love to others, he did so to people who could not repay him.  He found and invited humble folk who were authentic and open to receiving and giving love.

While Jesus was primarily teaching about humility and how those who have little are the most aware about the value of love and friendship, there is another lesson as well.  If one is to truly practice the ideal of being hospitable, one must do more than just offer nice hospitality to those who choose to show up.  One must intentionally invite people to attend – especially those who do not depend on status, power and money for their supposed security.

For me, offering radical hospitality answers the question many spiritual people ask.  What would the great prophets of history do in today’s world?  Who would Jesus invite to a party?  Who would he exclude?  Who would the Torah say to deport – or kick out of a party?  How would Mohammad, the Buddha or the Brahmin serve their guests?  The answers are simple.  They would take the radical step to invite, welcome and serve not the wealthy, arrogant, small minded elites who think they already have everything they need.  The great spiritual prophets would invite the homeless bag lady, the immigrant child separated from her family, the black single mom working two jobs to support her family, the addict looking for a new high, the gay teenager shunned by his peers.   In other words, those who hunger for authentic affirmation.

For us, as we desire to strengthen this beloved community, I suggest we consider taking equally radical steps to increase our inclusivity.  For us to be radical in our hospitality, we can follow what Jesus taught.  Like the host in the parable I just described, I suggest we focus on finding new relationships with people from whom we expect nothing in return.  Indeed, one of the best ways we can understand others, particularly those who may be different from us, is to be their friend.

Sue Cline, who currently is the leader of our Service Planning Team, recently suggested to the team that our congregation stop trying to integrate Sunday services because many black and white Unitarian worship practices and religious beliefs may be too different.  Instead, she proposes that the Gathering at Northern Hills invite members of a predominantly African-American church to become our friends – not by attending our services but by inviting them to a dinner party.  Our purpose, like the man in Jesus’ parable, would be to simply make friends, be hospitable, and show love. 

Any dividends that result – like cooperation between the churches or attendance at each others’ services – those may or may not happen.    Our goal is to build a beloved community of caring friends not for the sake of increasing our numbers here, or making GNH integrated, but for the sake of fostering mutual understanding and love.

Experts say that while all humans, no matter their race, tend to practice what is called “homophily” – to mostly associate with people of similar background and interests – the beneficial results from black and white friendships are significant.  At a time when a huge majority of both white and black people have no close friend of the other race, the greater spiritual issue is not about integrating Sunday mornings but instead integrating people’s personal lives.  To be someone’s friend, to trust in someone as a confidante, to be their supporter or their gentle critic is, as we all know, a valuable asset.  Inviting a black congregation to join us for festive meals, with the intention to build relationships, is a tangible way to practice radical hospitality – something that gets at the heart of being a beloved person or community.  We are not loving to get something in return, we are loving because it defines what is good and true.

As a practical matter, I encourage you to share your thoughts about this idea with Sue Cline, or me, and offer your help in making such purely relationship building dinner events happen.

Our congregation is in the process of discussing a Black Lives Matter banner.  I empathize with the opinions of people on both sides of the issue.  But I also know that a banner is only one means to great end.  Ultimately, I believe we all seek a vision of a universal beloved community.  In one of Dr. King’s earliest speeches, he said, “Our ultimate aim is to foster and create the ‘beloved community’ in America where brotherhood is a reality. . . Our goal is genuine intergroup and interpersonal living…”

As a Minister, Dr. King understood the greater spiritual implications of what he advocated.  Indeed, all of his beliefs were guided by his Christian understanding of reconciliation.  The enemy of black people is not the white person, he believed.  It is, instead, misguided views about human sisterhood and brotherhood.  A beloved community is so much more than systemic racial integration.  As Dr King said, “Desegregation will only produce a society where men are physically desegregated and spiritually segregated…It leaves us with a stagnant equality of sameness rather than a constructive equality of oneness.”

I could not agree more.  Dr King understood better than most that no matter one’s religious beliefs, wealth or station in life, human oneness is a deeply spiritual ethic.  It goes far beyond banners, desegregation policies, and government policies.  It is about hearts knit together.  It’s about looking into the face of any person and seeing not gay, poor, other-abled, latino, Black, white – but simply seeing a kindred soul with the same yearnings, dreams, and, yes, flaws – as all others.

If we love, we must reconcile.  If we love, we must feel empathy and understanding.  If we love, we must stay togthery.  These statements are nothing new – but they are so often forgotten in our mostly self-focused rush to assert our own agendas.

Our desire to be a beloved community means we must stay not only united, but remain committed to gentle speech and lack of judgement for one another.  If we fail in ourselves being a beloved congregation by allowing issues to divide us, or having some leave, then we will fail in ever becoming a beloved community that widely includes people of color and other marginalized persons.  We must be what we want the world to be – members of one human family that work together, share together, serve together, and love together.  Let us find ways to be radically hospitable to better practice those ideals.

       

(c) Michael Tacy, Music Director to the Gathering at Northern Hills, All Rights Reserved

Please click here to listen to the message:

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

 

I know members of the Gathering at Northern Hills appreciate that all of you from St. John’s are with us this morning.  I welcome each of you including Rev. Mitra!  We’re especially pleased with your visit because it’s a bit of a drive out here.  A few weeks ago a visitor told me about his drive to us from downtown.  Apparently he did not have GPS and somehow he passed us by and drove into some nearby farmland.  He spotted a farmer, stopped and asked him, “Sir, am I too far out for the local Unitarian Universalist church?”  The farmer dryly replied, “Nobody is too far out for them!”

So I’m glad the Gathering at Northern Hills is not too far out for those of you from St. John’s – just as I trust St. John’s is not too far IN for us next Sunday!

I normally offer a monthly message series focused on a single theme.  My theme this month is “the Summer of Love Revisited.”  Last week and today I speak about the Summer of Love event that took place in San Francisco during the summer of 1967 – and lessons we can learn from it.  Over 100,000 so-called hippies descended on that city to live out author Timothy Leary’s encouragement for them to “turn on, tune in and drop out.”

While many of those youth simply wanted to spend a summer enjoying sex, drugs and rock n’ roll, most were also inspired by the meaning behind Leary’s motto.  Youth were to turn on by looking inside themselves to discover the god or goddess of love within – what Leary and other hippies believed is the ultimate power in the universe.  Hippies should then tune in by expressing their inner god of love in how they act and speak.  They were encouraged to drop out from the prevailing culture in order to protest against it.

I related last week how that ethos of turn on, tune in, drop out is equally relevant during the present troubled times.  Love must be how we resist against the President and those who discriminate, imprison children, demean the poor, and stifle a free press.  Radical love must also be how we interact with one another in our homes, workplaces and churches.

Today, I want to focus on another ethic from the 1967 Summer of Love that is also still relevant.  As 100,000 youth travelled to San Francisco that summer with little money and no plans, they had to somehow survive for several months.  Most youth joined together in small groups to find community and collectively share living space and food.  They formed hippie communes.  By doing so, they rejected what they believed was a corrupt and often violent culture.

These hippie communes shared resources and responsibilities.  Nobody was richer or poorer than another.  All ate and were sheltered equally.  Daily tasks like cleaning and cooking were shared.  And for youth drawn to the emerging sexual revolution, they also shared their beds with youth of all races, genders and sexual orientations.

Interestingly, most hippies modeled their communes after what is described in the Bible about the first Christian communities.  Only a few years after Jesus died, his followers decided to band together in order to better practice his teachings – ones that promoted kindness, humility, charity and a focus on people over money.

The Book of Acts in the Bible describes those early Christian communes this way, “The whole congregation of Jesus followers was united as one—one heart, one mind!  They didn’t even claim ownership of their own possessions.  They shared everything.  Not a person among them was needy.  Those who owned fields or houses sold them and gave the money to the church to be used by all members.”

The commune movement was therefore rooted in spiritual values. By 1970, it was estimated that there were over five-thousand thriving communes in the United States.  Most were self-sustaining, like the early Christian communities.  They produced their own food and ran income producing enterprises benefitting all members.

  These communities also followed an early American tradition  – that to oppose an oppressive government, one should remove oneself from it, with other like minded people, and build a new society.  The Pilgrims established perhaps the first commune in the US as they rejected Europe’s culture and tried to build a better one.  Quaker, Amish and Mennonite communities developed in similar ways.  Communes are thus not only spiritually based, they helped inspire American values of compassion and togetherness.

Author Bill Metcalf, in a book entitled “Shared Vision, Shared Lives” writes that most communes function like large families.  Children are raised, taught and disciplined collectively, resources are equally shared, and members feel and show emotions for one another similar to that in biological families – love, commitment, loyalty and generosity.

For us, I believe the hippie commune movement that fully matured as a result of 1967’s Summer of Love has much to teach – especially in this age of Trump.  We may not band together in groups of twenty and pool all our money, but we can nevertheless practice important communal ideals – many of which are already exemplified in our congregations. 

Simply by us choosing to be a part of beloved spiritual communities, we express the belief that cooperation, learning and sharing are important.   Indeed, I believe that in many ways, we as UU’s have separated ourselves from a culture of arrogance and selfishness – one that seems to be especially promoted right now.

Our advocacy for the dignity and worth of all people directly contradicts current policies of exclusion and fear of the stranger.  Even more, what we believe in our respective congregations is that while individualism has some merit, group collaboration is better and more spiritual.  Many of us agree with the proposition that when each person focuses on taking care of others, instead of themselves, the quality of life for everyone improves.

While self-initiative and a strong work ethic are important, they can also promote greed, egotism and indifference to weaknesses in others.  Not everybody has opportunities to obtain excellent educations, live in safe neighborhoods, or grow up in stable and caring families.  Some are born with abilities that are not as economically rewarded as others.  There exists in our human diversity an inequality of opportunity and of ability that has nothing to do with a strong work ethic.   The poor are often not to blame for their poverty just as the rich are often not deserving of their wealth.

To resolve these inherent human family inequalities, people must learn spiritual values of altruism, sharing, kindness, empathy, humility and collaboration.  If I have extra because of my privileged education or family background, then it is incumbent on me – not by force, but by love for others – to share with those less privileged.   Taken further, when I share my abundance, others will share with me their abundance.  I give, you give, we all give in ways so that the community thrives.  This is, I believe, the outworking of human spirituality to support, love and assist one another in our strengths and in our weaknesses.

For us this morning, as we consider the Summer of Love and the hippie commune movement, I suggest we can learn three things.  These are attitudes to try and adopt in order to evolve and thereby strengthen the figurative communes to which we belong – our families, churches, cities, nation and world.

The first communal attitude to adopt is that of humility.  When we consider the seventh UU principle, respect for the interconnected web of all existence, we understand that as individuals we are insignificant.  We are each but a tiny grain of sand within an immense universe.  Our interconnection with the web of all things means we are vitally dependent not on ourselves, but on the synchronized working of a vast cosmos.  Our significance comes not from us as individuals, but from being a part of a fantastic whole.   With that understanding comes a profound humility.  My needs, desires, and opinions mean very little compared to the collective needs and opinions of the Gathering at Northern Hills, the one million people of greater Cincinnati, the 325 million people of the US, or the 8 Billion residents of this planet.  I must humble myself before the needs and opinions of so many more.

Second, to have a communal mindset, I believe we must become servants.  We must be givers more than we are takers.  Specifically, this means to understand what we do in life is not to seek personal benefit, but to serve others.  The irony of this attitude, as I just said, is that if everyone thinks and acts this way, everyone will have their needs and wants fulfilled.           

         Experts say this servant mindset is particularly difficult for westerners.  Going way back to when the early western European culture was agrarian, virtually everyone was a wheat or barley farmer.  Such farming can easily be done by one farmer and his family.  That encouraged self-reliance and individualism which is still a foundation of western thought. 

Going back to early Asian or eastern agrarian cultures, most people grew rice.  That farming is labor intensive requiring extensive irrigation canals and arduous work.  One farmer and his or her family cannot perform the needed tasks alone.  Instead, entire villages had to work cooperatively to do the difficult work.   This encouraged a communal way of thinking which continues today.

Just this past Thursday, an article appeared in the New York Times about a woman rice farmer in Thailand, Mae Bua Chaichun.  She lives near where the 12 boys are trapped in a cave and she was elated when she heard that they had been found alive.  The next day, when she went to inspect her rice fields, ones that had just been tilled, fertilized and planted, she found them flooded and ruined by water pumped out of the cave – done so the boys can be rescued.  But she did not care.  The government offered her and other farmers $430 per flooded acre but she refused the offer saying the Thai government did not need any more burdens.  She told a reporter, “I am more than willing to have my rice fields flooded as long as the children are safe.  The boys are like my children.”

That’s a beautiful example of a communal mindset.  The boys and her nation are more important to her than her personal well-being.  Indeed, she is happy to serve for the sake of all.  She is practicing the maxim that it takes a village to raise a child.

The third and final communal attitude to adopt is the idea that less is more.  If everybody truly became more of a giver, many individuals will have less.  Some in our nation see this is as social leveling similar to socialism – a system scorned by many Americans because they believe it’s ineffective and leads to widespread unhappiness. 

Instead, the opposite is true.  Multiple psychological studies show that when people move from an individualistic mindset of personal achievement, assertiveness, and competition – to instead adopt communal attitudes of getting along, cooperation, trust, and altruism, they are happier.   People, it seems, derive deep satisfaction from working and living in groups, sharing, and helping others.  Individualism, studies show, is more likely to foster depression, isolation, and even suicide.  Indeed, polls of people in nations around the world show that citizens of highly pro-social nations like Finland, Norway, Denmark, and Iceland are the happiest.  In that poll, Americans – perhaps the most individualistic of people – rank 18th on the list of happiest people.

What these studies and polls reveal is the truth that less is more.  Happiness comes not from having more money, but from possessing less tangible assets like community support, sharing, and giving.  These are benefits we can easily forget in our congregations.  It’s not the building, budget, congregation size, or even the minister that bring satisfaction, it’s the unity, support and strength we get from being in community.  If we don’t recognize those bonds, if we do not do all we can to protect and nourish them, what will remain are things we can find more easily from a book or lecture.  When we have a thriving sense of community, and vigorous programs to serve the oppressed outside our walls, I believe our churches are at their happiest and most successful.

Three commune attitudes we can learn:  Be humble.  Be a giver.  Less is more.  When those attitudes are motivated by love, as they were for Summer of Love hippies, we will be heirs of their legacy – people who practice cooperation and love for all …….. to be happy – and to resist the current mean spirited and greedy culture.

I wish you each much peace and joy.   

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

 

Please click here to listen to audio of the message.  Please see below to read the message.

The 1960’s are called watershed years in American history.  The nation was assaulted with multiple crisis’ that called into question American values and strengths.  From the cuban missile crisis, to the Kennedy and King assassinations, to lunch counter and back of the bus segregation, to Civil Rights marches and, of the course, the Viet Nam war, the 1960’s were a period of upheaval.  America, many believed, was coming apart at the seams even while institutions of wealth, politics and police seemed as powerful as ever. 

For baby boomers who came of age during the 1960’s, the decade was not only frightening, it exposed the lies their parents’ generation had told them about America.  Middle age parents in the 1960’s were the so-called greatest generation – those who had fought and sacrificed to save the planet during World War Two.  Afterwards, that generation rebuilt the world with the Marshall Plan as they then fostered a time of unprecedented peace and prosperity.  But those successes were only one part of the American story told by that generation.  Ugly American realities were fully exposed in the 1960’s – and the young generaty noticed.

       Some youth became activists and protesters.  Others joined Kennedy’s newly formed Peace Corps to do hands on service for the dispossessed.  But many others were so disillusioned by their parents’ America that they created a counter-culture which rejected prevailing traditions.  Those young people became hippies.

Each of the three groups determined their way to react to an illegal war and to widespread policies of discrimination and hypocrisy.  Young people looked at themselves as the solution – whether by protesting, doing charitable work, or adopting a nihilist, “I don’t care” attitude.

       It was in this mix of upheaval and youthful dissatisfaction that author, professor, and advocate of the drug LSD, Timothy Leary, organized a “Be-In” weekend in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park in January 1967.  It was a wildly chaotic event with many young people admitting they attended simply to enjoy sex, drugs and rock n’ roll.  But it was at that event that Leary gave a rambling speech in which he tried to give greater meaning to the “Be-In” and to start a movement to inspire youth to “turn on, tune in and drop out.”

The answer to America’s ills, he suggested, were not through civic engagement and protest – what he believed were playing by the establishment’s rules.  Nor was the answer to join the Peace Corp and volunteer to do good.  It was, instead, to reject the prevailing morality and culture.  That culture, as Leary and many youth believed, was corrupt, uptight, hypocritical and judgmental.  Older generations were stuck in a philosophy of the past – that wealth and power solved problems. 

Instead, Leary and author Ken Kesey sought to define the hippie ethos of sex, drugs and rock n’ roll with one word – “love.”  Open and free sex, for them, was all about expressing love.  Drugs, and especially psychedelic varieties like LSD, expanded one’s mind to see the world and life as they should be – defined not by money or power, but by simple love.         

That Spring, many hippies began to promote what they called a “Summer of Love” to be held in San Francisco and to do exactly what Leary suggested – turn on, tune in, and drop out.  Beginning in May and lasting into September, over 100,000 young people converged in San Francisco with little money and few plans other than to live a utopian dream. Similar but smaller “Summer of Love” gatherings were formed in New York city and London.

One unknown youth that summer defined who they were.  Someone was a “Summer of Love” hippie if, “You are free as the wind, and you don’t like following rules.  You’re open minded and nonjudgemental.  You’re neither a leader or a follower. You believe that people should love more.  You’re on your own blissful path.”

Singer Janis Joplin, a noteworthy hippie herself, helped define the Summer of Love at which she performed by saying, “My business is to enjoy and have fun.  And why not, if in the end everything will end?  Right?”  Other hippies that summer offered more colorful thoughts that captured their approach to life: “I’d rather be nude – than rude”, and “If we all had a bong, we’d all get along.”  Others proclaimed their opposition to the culture of their parents by calling any authority figure “The Man.”  “Don’t let The Man keep you down…man” they said. 

By October 1967, however, the ‘Summer of Love’ had proved mostly a bust.  Idealistic hippies found that life is not as simple as rejecting work and civic engagement.  They also found that in their midst were hippies just as focused on money and possessions as the establishment they had rejected.  And with such a large group of hippies all trying to live the good life in a small area, chaos resulted.  A mock funeral for the ‘Summer of Love’ was held in San Francisco that October as thousands of dejected hippies retreated back to school, jobs or, even worse, their parents’ homes.

A year later, however, Leary further explained “Summer of Love” beliefs. “We seek,” he said, “to find the god within, the divinity which lies within each person’s body.  Our search is to find higher truths about life.”

For Leary, “turning on” was how one finds the god within – by using drugs, sex and meditation to enlighten one’s heart and soul.  When one turns on, he said, one will discover that the ultimate truth in the universe, what some call god, is love.   “Tuning in,” he said, is how one shares that discovery by showing love in everything one does and says. “Dropping out” rejects a culture of rules and money that prevents turning on and tuning in – and thus destroys love.  For Leary and hippies, everything in the universe centers around love – and we can discover and express that by dropping out of a destructive culture. 

What I find interesting is that despite the fact that many “turn on, tune in, drop out” youth were primarily interested in its hedonistic philosophy, the saying nevertheless offers spiritual wisdom.  We are now in a time of national crisis similar to that of the 1960’s.  All of the norms that have defined America – for good and bad – are currently in question.  Even as activism and protest against sexism and discrimination are increasing, that’s because large parts of America have regressed fifty years. 

In the 1960’s, the one thing that united youth and others in their protest was the Viet Nam war.  Today, the one thing that unites resisters, activists and those that simply cannot stomach what is happening in our nation is….the President.  His malignant influence on America, like the Viet Nam war, has infected our culture.  It saddens to me to note that in our homes, churches and other institutions of influence,……….anger, bitterness, incivility and arrogance often predominate.  Name calling, humiliating others, lack of cooperation and a “my way or the highway” approach seems to rule the day.  Even more frightening, angry words thrown at opponents has inspired some to that verbal violence to the next level – to physically attack and kill those they disagree with.  America seems as divided as almost never before – and that division has infected almost place in the nation..

“Turning on, tuning in and dropping out” seems therefore as relevant today as it was 51 years ago.  I believe America must intentionally drop out of and reject the current culture of division.  Once America does that, then we as a people must turn on and tune in – to discover and express the one eternal truth that 1960’s hippies said they found – that the universe is animated by one overarching power – love. 

What America needs, what I need, what I believe this congregation also needs, is more humility, kindness, respect, civility, and cooperation.  Put simply, we all need more love.  And that love is not the sloppy kind – something tossed around with little meaning.  I believe soul deep love must become the lodestar by which we guide ourselves – the single most important ethic by which we think, act and speak.

Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “Hate begets hate; violence begets violence; toughness begets a greater toughness.  We must meet the forces of hate with the POWER OF LOVE….Our aim must never be to defeat or humiliate the white man, but to win his friendship and understanding.”  

While King’s reference to whites is still valid, we can also interpret his reference to the white man as also including any person with whom we disagree. The antidote to nastiness, incivility, judgement, arrogance, bitterness, lack of cooperation, angry words, abuse of power, hate, and “my way or the highway thinking,” I suggest, is to “turn on” like Timothy Leary encouraged and make an intentional inward journey to discover the goddess of love within.  She is an eternal truth deep in our souls that we won’t find with our minds but only with our hearts.  We must not just love those who agree with us, who are close friends and family, but we must purposefully love those who disagree with us, who oppose everything we stand for – who is, even in mild ways, our opponent. 

I define my spirituality and theology this way, “God is not an outside force controlling our lives.  She or he is within us and a part of who we are.  It is WE who are the ‘gods and goddesses’ that will build a better world.”

Instead of hopefully, or fearfully, looking to the heavens for god, she is right here, right now, inside you and me.  If you believe, as I do, that Timothy Leary and the hippies had it right – that the one true goddess in the universe is love – then my theology that I just spoke compels me to literally become a god of love.

To find the god of love in us, Leary said we must drop out.  I do not believe that should be taken literally.  To drop out, for me, means to stop practicing the cultural standards of our time – reacting with judgement and angry speech against other people.  It means we have to stop talking at one another – insisting on telling them how we are right and they are wrong.  Instead, I suggest we must come together in love.  We must be still and feel the love in us and in others.  With respect, gentleness, listening and honest humility that we could be wrong, I truly believe cooperative solutions to problems can be found between opposing people.

I suggest four practical ways to discover the god of love in us – and thereby enact a “turn on, tune in, drop out” ethos. 

First, we must change how we think about ourselves and others.   We may not always act or speak as we should, but we each have the light of god – love – in us.  Everybody has the potential to be that god.

Second, we must begin to recognize all compassionate, kind and loving words and actions come from the god of love inside us.

Third, we must trust that we ARE a god of love.  This is not a head thing – but a heart felt thing.  If you feel you are a god of love, then you will always BE a god of love in action and speech.

When we acknowledge the god of love exists in all humanity, it will change how we act toward those we disagree with.  Our expressions of love to them have the power to change their behavior and their thinking – so that they may become more loving, humble and open minded – just as we must also be.  While Dr. King said hate begets hate, I suggest love does the same – only love is more powerful.

Dear friends, National events of the past several weeks have shaken me.  I won’t recount all of them except for three.  When our nation decides it can take an innocent child out of its mother’s or father’s arms and place that child in a detention facility, there is something deeply wrong with our national soul.

         When our nation does nothing about an epidemic of mass shootings in schools, churches, news rooms, nightclubs and concert venues, then there is something sick in our souls.

Furthermore, when many in our nation say it is OK to humiliate, shout down, banish and even hate people with whom we disagree, a member or f another political party, religion or someone who has differing ideas on how to improve the world, then I also submit there is something deeply wrong with our national soul.  Division and separation within the one human family, no matter the ideal or cause, is unhealthy.  Love, however, must be the glue that binds together every person.

In just a moment, I’ll ask us to meditate on what love means.  I ask as a part of your meditations to try and not convince yourself that love is what you think it is.  Be open to ways other people love.  Each of us are genuine lovers – but we love in different ways.  Let us see and reflect upon the many variations of love.  And with that awareness, I beg us all to expand our hearts to honestly express love to everyone.  May we listen, respect, cooperate, seek togetherness and find common, loving ground.  May this congregation……..may this nation……..be a beloved place….and may that summer of love feeling begin with you and with me.  Let us now meditate while Michael plays some music.

    

        

Click here to listen to all five speakers…

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

 

Please click here to listen to the message.  Please see below to read it.

 

Soon after I purchased my home in Florida nine years ago, I held a party for new friends I’d met.  Most of them were gay men.  As the group toured my yard, I explained that I’d bought the house from a lesbian couple.  One guy in the group laughed and asked if I had drained and re-filled the pool, and disinfected the house, after I moved in.  The group laughed at the joke.  I, however, was horrified.  I told them the lesbian couple were lovely people, that they were leaders in the local gay rights movement, and the joke was not funny.  There was an awkward silence and then the guy apologized.  But I’ve remembered his open prejudice ever since.

That highlights for me how even within a group that has been the target of hatred and persecution, there is prejudice toward others.  For those who are victims of discrimination, it seems they ought to be the least likely to discriminate.  Sadly, that’s not true.  I’ve heard lesbians make similar jokes about gay men.  I also know there are many within the LGBTQ community who demean effeminate or flamboyant men, masculine acting women, and transsexuals.  They hate in the same way they have been hated.

This dynamic also plays out with some people of color.  Colorism is a term applied to discrimination by blacks, hispanics and Asians against persons of their own ethnicity.  The term was originated by black author Alice Walker who defined it as “prejudicial or preferential treatment of same-race people based solely on their color.”   Lighter skinned blacks are often more favored by some blacks and studies show that for many African-Americans, white culture has conditioned them to see lighter skin tones as more attractive.

The feminist movement is equally guilty of in-group discrimination.  For many years, feminism was largely a white, middle class female effort to address sexism.  It ignored, however, the fact that white middle-class women experience marginalization very differently from that felt by black or a hispanic women.  Some white feminists assume paternalism is the primary form of oppression against which they fight – without understanding or addressing the intersection of multiple forms of prejudice some women experience – and which must also be addressed.

What these facts highlight for me is the related nature of any manifestation of hate and prejudice.  I’ve spoken about a dark vestige of the human character before – that all people have innate egotism.   At our core, we can be selfish and self-focused.  Our egos often determine our thoughts and actions.  Ego and fear of losing out to someone else dominates our minds.  Too often we act and feel as if we are entitled and superior.  It’s a “me, me, me” mindset.

This explains why marginalized groups and persons often discriminate against others.  When someone is made to feel diminished, he or she then diminishes another – all in order to feel they are better than someone else.  White wealthy men can marginalize poor white men who can marginalize black men who can marginalize gay men.   That’s a simplistic generalization but it’s rooted in fact.

Our current President is perhaps the culmination of selfishness and egotism.  A billionaire white man expresses open hostility and prejudice toward women, the poor, blacks, hispanics, gays, the transgendered, the disabled, Muslims and many others.  His hostility is the loudest voice of white, Christian, straight, wealthy men.  They fear they’ll no longer be the dominant force in the world.  They try to hold on to their status and power by pitting oppressed groups against one another  – poor whites against poor blacks, both of those groups against immigrants, white feminists against black feminists, Christians and Jews against Muslims, gay men against lesbians, both of them against the transgendered, etc, etc.  Encouraging people to hate one another based on religion, skin color, gender or sexuality is a time-worn way to sustain those at the top. 

What results is widespread intersection of bias.  Those at the lower ends of our culture feel the sting from several forms of discrimination.  That intersectionality, as it’s been called, does not create a hierarchy of discrimination but rather recognizes some people face many forms of hate.  A black, lesbian woman, for instance, faces marginalization from three different fronts.  Her experience is not the same as that of white women or that of white homosexuals.

And that speaks to the title and intent of my message – “Rainbow Resistance.”  Since hatred and discrimination take many forms, even within marginalized groups, and since it is all motivated by a dynamic of ego and selfishness, then I believe resistance to the root causes of prejudice is the answer.  Instead of separately resisting sexism, homophobia, racism, and anti-immigrant prejudice, I believe we must confront bias at its most basic level – as a form of selfish egotism that places the individual above the well-being of all people.  Rainbow resistance, for me, means we must confront what causes any and all forms of bias.   

To do that, I believe humanity must undertake a cultural leap forward – much like many people did during the Enlightenment period of the 17th and 18th centuries.  Nations and people during that time threw off the shackles of Kings and aristocrats and undertook a momentous shift toward democratization and natural human rights.  Nations and people today can undertake a similar leap forward – perhaps motivated by the outrageous bigotry exemplified in the President.  We need a rainbow form of resistance that addresses the selfishness and hate that lurks in all people.  We must make a dramatic shift into an era of one true, global, human family.

That cultural leap forward should be much like the Enlightenment shift – an historic change founded not on negativity, but founded instead on positive and uplifting ethics of universal love and inclusion.  My vision of rainbow resistance is one not motivated by what we are against but instead by what we are for – that we are capable of evolving away from a me-centered mindset toward one of a we centered love.  We must teach this from the moment a child is born and make it a defining ethic for how people should live.

Reverend William Barber, who has spoken to several UUA General Assemblies and who is a leader of the Poor People’s Campaign, encourages something very similar.  He recently said this:  “We can choose to be the moral defibrillators of our time and shock the heart of this nation and build a movement of resistance and hope and justice and love.”

This time period in which we currently find ourselves is frightening.  Many politicians and the President often express bigotry and anger toward fellow Americans and fellow humans that is difficult to stomach.  For most of us, it’s sickening.  But as I said earlier, that is just a manifestation of our culture – one that often celebrates the lowest common denominator of hatred.  And this happens on both the left and right.  Roseanne Barr’s disgusting and racist remarks were rightly punished.  But why wasn’t the liberal comedian Samantha Bee punished for her hateful vulgarity toward Ivanka Trump?  Why is Kathy Griffin, another comedian, praised for saying, “When conservatives and the President go low, I go lower.”  That’s a horrible shift from the ethic Michelle Obama encouraged – “when others go low, we must go high.”  For me, there is no morality, no respect, no human-to-human extension of dignity when we demean and humiliate another person – even to those with whom we fundamentally disagree.  As the famous song goes, “Where is the love?” 

As humans, we demean and feel entitled to vent anger at anyone who crosses, disagrees with, or mistakenly offends us.  The Golden Rule is no more practiced in our world than is universal peace.  And if it seems like I’m pointing a finger – I am.  At myself.  I can fall into the same sinkhole of anger and self-righteousness as anyone else.  “I’m right.  You are wrong.  I hate you for your opinions.”

Miguel de la Torre edited a compendium of articles in a recently released book entitled Faith and Resistance in the Age of Trump.  Articles in the book cover a range of social justice issues, how our President is acting against them, and what must be done in response.  The tone in the articles is not negative but rather inclusive and positive – echoing what I believe should be how we resist.  Discrimination is evil no matter to whom it is directed and people can either divide themselves based on false hierarchies of discrimination, or else they can recognize the common poison that it is toward all marginalized groups.  And we must address it with a common cure – what I call a Rainbow resistance of humility, respect and most of all love.

In the Bible, the rainbow is a positive symbol of god’s promise to take care of us.  The Reverend Jesse Jackson’s Rainbow Coalition used that same symbol to proclaim we are all one, and that we rise or fall based on how we treat one another.  Gilbert Baker’s rainbow flag, the one he originated as a symbol of LGBTQ Pride, was intended to say the same.  If I love another man, I’m still a human worthy of your respect.  If you worship Allah, you are a human deserving of dignity.  If you’re a woman, you are a fully equal human next to any man.  If you are an evangelical Christian or a conservative Republican – someone who disagrees with most of my spiritual and political views – you are still my beloved brother and sister.  If you’re black, hispanic, Asian, or a blend of some or all, you’re a beautiful human creation.

Rainbow Resistance is thus about addressing egotism and selfishness – the root causes of prejudice – with messages of cooperation and love.  It’s about sublimating the self and leaping forward into a new era of mutuality – to respect each other and work as one.  Indeed, Rainbow Resistance is not so much against bigotry as it is for kindness and coming together.  If the world truly became a kinder place – one where people no longer yelled at, demeaned or felt superior to another, then I believe ALL forms of prejudice would vanish.

Several months ago the Victoria, Texas Mosque was set afire by arsonists and burned to the ground.  A few churches in the area immediately offered their buildings as a worship place for members of the Mosque.  One of those churches was the Unitarian Universalist church of Victoria.

Recently, someone driving their car near that UU church lost control and crashed into its Sanctuary.  It was terribly damaged and will take months to rebuild.  That congregation had nowhere to worship until last Sunday when the Victoria Mosque opened its newly rebuilt building for use by the UU congregation.   “Our building is your building,” the Mosque’s Imam said.  “Just turn out the lights when you leave.”

Such small gestures of love from these two congregations, but what wonderful acts of rainbow resistance love!

Perhaps Robert Kennedy’s most famous quote is, “Some people see things as they are – and ask why.  I dream of things that never were and ask why not.”

Michael Tacy will soon perform a song that I requested of him.  It’s a Hawaiian man’s version of “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” – a mashup of Judy Garland’s version of the song and Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”  The song’s simplicity and beauty struck me, as I hope it will for you. 

While Michael sings it, reach over to someone near you, greet them, hold their hand, or just offer a warm smile….and then close your eyes.  As you hear the song’s lyrics, dare to dream of things that never were – things like universal love and respect – and ask…“Why not?” 

If you’re like me, I hope you’ll also ask, “Why not let universal love and respect begin with me – right here, right now?”  Resolve to yourself,    “I will always do my best to act humbly, banish anger, and love generously.”

Let’s now take ourselves, with Michael’s help, over the rainbow, way up high, to a place where blue birds fly, where clouds are far behind, and where dreams that we dream really do come true.

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

 

Please click here to listen to the message.  See below to read it.

Most who have attended a Unitarian Universalist church are familiar with the story behind Flower Communion.  Its history is inspiring.  But a more in depth look at how it began as a ritual provides insight into the unity and diversity of Unitarian Universalism. 

The Reverend Norbert Capek began Flower Communion at the Unitarian church of Prague, Czechoslovakia on June 4, 1923 – 95 years ago tomorrow.  He and his wife had moved back to their homeland after spending several years in the United States where Capek became closely affiliated with the Cambridge, Massachusetts Unitarian congregation.  They encouraged his return to Czechoslovakia to found a Unitarian church – which he did and which quickly grew in size to over 2800 members.

These members were mostly disaffected Catholics who rebelled against the controlling power and superstitious beliefs of that faith.  The new church also attracted liberal Protestants and Jews.  All members thrilled at Capek’s eloquent sermons which people likened more to lectures than to religious preaching.  As a result, however, some members began to complain the services were not spiritual enough.   They began to support introducing rituals from their former religion – particularly bread and wine communion which they said provided a sense of community and common love for one another.

On the other side, however, were members strongly opposed to anything that smacked of theological oppression – an oppression that said  the only way to understand God, or capital ’T’ Truth, is through Christ and bread and wine communion.

As Minister to both sides of this discussion, Capek was torn.  He understood all congregation members were spiritual liberals.  He also knew that those who wanted communion did not connect the practice to a belief in Christ.  As some of those people likely said, what is the problem with bread and wine if consuming them is a ritual only of togetherness?

But Capek also understood the feelings of those who were adamantly opposed to the ritual.  They deeply felt the bread and wine ritual was based on superstition that the elements literally become the body and blood of Christ, and that such ancient beliefs are unacceptable in a free-thinking, progressive church.

In his wisdom, Capek came up with the idea of Flower Communion.  He would both preserve a ritual that celebrates community while abandoning old symbols and inventing a new one.  He established the common ground on which both sides of that congregation’s debate could stand.

Most importantly, he originated the use of flowers as meaningful symbols both of unity and diversity.  Many different flowers of various size and color come together to form one bouquet of great beauty.  As he said in a blessing at that first Flower Communion, in each flower is a seed of love that unites people as brothers and sisters – regardless of any barrier that divides them.  From the rancor of division, Capek created and offered a new symbolic ritual, a compromise for all.  Flower Communion thus celebrates the paradoxical truth that despite differences, people can, in selfless love for one another, discover ways to preserve their unity – and thereby prove the enduring benefits of diversity.

As the title of today’s message suggests, my series theme for June intends to celebrate Pride month.  Over the last several years, June has become identified with LGBTQ Pride celebrations because it’s the anniversary month of the New York City Stonewall Inn protests of 1971.  Homosexual men and their allies marched in defiance of police actions to arrest men who simply visited a gay bar.  Those protests are marked as the beginning of the gay rights movement.

As a gay man, this month and the anniversary of the Stonewall protests have great personal meaning.  Pride celebrations, including the one to be held here in Cincinnati on June 23rd, help me remember and honor my own coming out.  That was the most frightening decision I’ve made in life but it was also, forgive me my pride, a courageous declaration of who I was made to be – something that every human being has an innate right to declare.  We must each be proud of who we are as crafted by god or the forces of nature.  That declaration of pride is, I believe, an eternal human right. 

My pride is rooted in being able to simply love whom I wish – a freedom that is both good and natural.  It is our natural right as humans to romantically love whom we wish – as long as they are consenting adults.

A man named Clive Baker is credited with designing the LGBTQ Pride rainbow flag.  It first appeared at the San Francisco Pride parade in 1978.  Harvey Milk, a San Francisco councilman and supervisor who was assassinated only months later, rode in the parade under the first rainbow Pride flag.

Baker said he was inspired to create the rainbow flag by Judy Garland’s famed song “Under the Rainbow.”  The song reminded him of scientific fact.  When the sun shines through a prism of raindrops or a crystal, multiple colors emerge on the other side – proving that light is not one color but many.  For Baker, that was and is a perfect symbol for humanity – one human family comprised of many beautiful variations.  No matter how we were formed, how we appear, how we love, what we believe or think, every individual is a part of the wide range of diversity – a shining human rainbow.

Implicit in Baker’s Pride flag is the truth that one color, by itself, is nothing.  Light is not true light unless all colors combine in a complimentary way with other colors.  And the same is true for humanity.  The human species is nothing, it simply does not exist, unless it comprises ALL variations of people.  This speaks to the seemingly ironic title of my message.  There is a oneness, a unity, in diversity.

Clive Baker knew that when he designed the rainbow flag.  June Pride celebrations are an emphatic assertion of that truth.  And Norbert Capek’s Flower Communion and our celebration of that today are further claims that there is strength, vitality and eternal spiritual meaning in this ideal of unity in diversity. 

The history of the last hundred years has a been a long and painful fight for acceptance and celebration of human diversity and human rights for all.  And we must continue that work to purposefully reject the fear, tribalism, and prejudice toward anyone who appears, acts, loves, believes or thinks different.  As long as we adhere to the Golden Rule – to treat another as we want to be treated ourselves – there is no restriction, no barrier, no law of nature that should divide us.

Not surprisingly, science, sociology, and history all prove that there is strength in diversity.  Whenever different groups of people come together to cooperate, share, serve one another – and yes, compromise, they thrive all the more.  Clans, tribes and nation-states that cling to a particular identity or ethnicity may prosper for a time, but long-term they inevitably end up on the ash heap of history.  The same is true of movements, spiritualities, ideologies and philosophies.  Diversity in opinion and thinking are crucial to longterm well-being.  Recent research has shown this is true.  Businesses comprised of diverse workforces – by gender, race, sexuality, political belief and lifestyle – do better than those that are mostly homogenous.  Professor Katherine Phillips of the Kellogg School of Business and Management, who initiated the study, says that homogenous groups feel overly confident in how they think and act.  Diversity, on the other hand, creates tension and awkwardness.  But it is in that tension, that difference of background, opinion and approach that creates more successful decision making.

As she says, “People would prefer to spend time with others who agree with them, rather than disagree with them.  But this unbridled affirmation does not produce the best results.  When you think about diversity, it often comes with more cognitive processing and more exchange of information.  New ideas emerge, individuals learn from one another and they may discover the solution to a problem.”

Another interesting analysis by the investment firm Credit Suisse has shown that out of 2,400 major global businesses, those that have at least one female board member yield higher profits, income growth and net return on equity.  One seemingly minor form of diversity and a business does better.  When businesses increase their diversity, they thrive even more.

As Professor Phillips implied in her study, differences put a stop to group-think.  Much like the proverbial lemmings who collectively run off a cliff to their deaths, mostly homogenous businesses, nations and organizations do the same.  What prevents that way of thinking is diversity of thought and the resulting necessity to cooperate and compromise.  Decisions that work best, that produce tangible long term good results, are those that emerge from a crucible of give and take, of listening, and of sublimating individual ego for the good of the whole.

Rev. Capek clearly knew this.  The debate over communion in his young church was potentially lethal to its survival.  It’s doubtless that both groups thought their way was right and most principled.  But Capek provided common ground for those who opposed communion and those who felt enriched by it.  Most importantly, he saved the Unitarian congregation of Prague which still exists today.  The dilemma that church faced in its earliest years was solved not only by a wise Minister, but also by its members who did not give up their core principles, but gave up their demands for how they would be expressed.  Each side accepted a good enough solution.  That good enough option, Flower Communion, has stood the test of time proving its original value.

I believe most of us struggle with the notion of compromise.  As a I said in my message several weeks ago, compromise has a bad reputation.  It’s often seen as a sell-out.  We need only look to some members of today’s Congress to find persons who firmly believe in their ultra conservative or ultra liberal principles and will not forsake them to compromise on various pieces of legislation this nation needs.  As a result, little is achieved by Congress and legislation that does pass, does so very narrowly – signaling to the world that Americans are not united and cannot effectively come together to rule themselves.

Because of my support for compromise and congregation unity, some people have accused me of selling out and of not being true to what I believe.  “Be a leader for what you know in your heart is right,” they tell me.  I humbly disagree with their opinions.  While I hold several core beliefs – the foremost of which is in full equality and respect for all people – I also believe in getting things done – even if they are incremental steps.  Partial justice is better than none at all.  Indeed, I recently learned that the former Northern Hills rejected flying a rainbow flag several years ago.  Personally, that would have hurt me a lot had I known about it.  But that former congregation then hired an openly gay Minister and it proudly displays a rainbow quilt and flag in its sanctuary.  Those are important compromises which nevertheless created real progress.

        As a Minister, I believe my most important role is to be a protector and defender of congregations I serve.  Their ongoing well-being is of paramount importance – not for the sake of mere survival as an organization – but for the essential sake of continuing their good and important work for justice and compassion.

As a Minister, my role is to also foster unity.  Being united as loving people is a spiritual ethos all world religions proclaim.  Humans must continue their work to exist in peace with each other.  How can that be done when people hold different opinions, thoughts and beliefs?  My wish for Americans and, indeed all humanity, is that they remember their common bonds – the eternal values most people and most forms of spirituality share.  We might disagree on how to achieve those values, but we ought to then come together in goodwill to resolve our differences.  No group gets exactly what it wants when differences are resolved, but each gets something.  And both groups achieve the title of my message – unity in diversity.  When people cooperate, they achieve not only practical results, they engage in what is spiritually good and right – that of selfless love and cooperation with others.  Personally, I know I am not perfect in how I believe things should be done.  And frankly, nobody is.  That demands even more that I listen to and compromise with others. 

Dear friends, as Minister here I know that every member is a good person – someone who holds all of the values and principles of this congregation and the UUA.  We each want to do our part to spread equality and compassion in this world.  What I ask of you now may seem contrived, but I trust us all to make it heartfelt.  I ask that right now, while Michael plays some background music, each of us walk or reach over to someone we might disagree or be angry with, offer them a hug or handshake of peace, and say to them, “I love and respect you.  Let us work together.”

Let’s do that in the spirit of Flower Communion and of June Pride.  Let’s not just say we are a beloved community, let’s live it and let’s work together in cooperation and, yes, compromise.

I wish you each much peace and joy.