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

Good morning everyone. Thanks for having me speak to you this morning. This is a topic that I feel very strongly about. Its something that I’ve wanted to discuss with all if you for a long time, but have been a little scared. One, because you may think my ideas are a bit radical but also because i have so much to say I feel I may just ramble endlessly as you all glaze over In fact,
there is a running joke among my close friends that I am able to somehow blame every problem, no matter what it’s regarding, on capitalism. And yeah that’s pretty much true. Maybe I’m not always justified but I enjoy trying to relate a problem back to its source and I believe the root of many problems in society, health, personal life and internal struggle is greed. I think it’s easy to forget amongst our comforts and daily goings-ons that we were indoctrinated into a society that glorifies and normalizes the hoarding of personal wealth to a point that it is nothing short of outrageous.

I learned a few days ago that Bill Gates just joined Jeff Bezos in a very exclusive club with only 2 members. The $100 billion dollar club. The article I was reading absolutely disgusted me. It was celebrating Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos commending them for a job well done. Let’s all applaud the men who are hoarding enough money to pay for the college education of more that 2 million people. As a member of a generation that is poorer than any previous American generation this infuriates me. The median net worth of adults under 35 in the US is around $11,000. That means that collectively, Jeff Bezos and Bill Gates (only 2 people) have hoarded
more wealth between them than is owned by over 18 million young adults in America. For the sake of perspective I decided to compile a list of things that $100 billion could pay for:

100 billion could:

• Send 2.77 million people to college for 4 years
• Pay for health insurance for 8 million people for a year
• Easily and healthily feed all of America’s 54.5 million hungry people for a year
• House all of Americas 554,000 homeless for over 300 years
• Fund NASA 5 times over
• Fund the EPA 12 times over
• Pay for 7.7 million homes to go solar
• Nearly double the amount of nuclear power on the grid
  What it couldn’t do:
• Pay the USA military budget of nearly 600 billion
• Pay the national debt of 22 trillion
• Pay the 1.9 trillion dollar tax cut to the rich passed last year

No…no… we paid for those. But I digress. Am I the only person who is disgusted by this level of selfishness? When will we stop celebrating the unnecessary and grossly disproportionate spread of wealth in this country?

I had a discussion with a friend about this recently and he pointed out a fairly valid counter argument to me. He said Bill Gates is a person who has contributed a lot to society with the formation of charity foundations , work for the environment, activism etc. And he wouldn’t have been able to do a lot of those things without the vast wealth he accrued. He was able to reach
more people and do better things because of his wealth. To that I say yes he was able to do good things. He still has far too much personal wealth and I see no justification for the sheer amount of wealth , but wouldn’t it be better if everyone had the facilities and comfort to contribute something to society. Not just one guy, Bill Gates. Imposing what he feels is important on the rest of us. Sure if we spread the wealth we wouldn’t be able to do the huge things that Bill Gates did, but wouldn’t it be great if those people who right now are focused on working 60 hours while raising a kid and still barely scraping by could instead take a couple days off a week and spend it cleaning their local park? Helping their elderly neighbor trim their
weeds? What if we all had just a bit more freedom and a little more time to do the things that matter to us? What if the people that currently inhabit our (suspiciously crowded) prisons weren’t forced to resort to crime as their only recourse because they had the resources they needed already?

This brings me to another important point and one that I feel is crucial especially for people like us to understand. You are not self-made. I am not self-made. No one in the whole damn world is
self-made. It’s an illusion. It’s a lie that you tell yourself to make you feel better. As a human, from the moment you are born you are kept alive because of the work that other people do for you. You would never have made it past infancy unless someone cared to feed you, shelter you, and tend to you for literally years. And beyond that, the specific conditions into which you were born have a tremendous impact on your quality of life. That wasn’t because if your personal accomplishments. You didn’t earn that. It just happened to you. It was a random draw out of a hat and you just happened to be lucky. Take me for example. I was born into a family that had all the resources I needed to be successful. My parents were around to help me with school. I always had a healthy amount of food so I never was malnourished. They had enough money to help me pay for a higher education because I didn’t have to work while doing school I could focus on my work and be successful relatively easily. Thus, I was able to land a good job, buy a house, and have the knowledge that I need to be healthy. There are some that would look at me and think I made my own success, and perhaps I did contribute partly to it after all, but the bulk of my success was contingent on having a strong foundation to stand on. People that are born into poverty, born with disabilities, with different color skin, or without
parents to raise them face inherit challenges that many of us can’t imagine, but it wasn’t their fault. So why are they held responsible for it? Worse, in light of the information we recently received about mega wealthy parents bribing universities to admit their students regardless of their poor performance. Not only are they held responsible, but they are punished for things that are entirely beyond their control. Not to mention those that are wrongfully imprisoned or forced to commit crimes for reasons beyond their control as well. And then the rich have the audacity to continue to profit off their slave labor in For-Profit Prisons.

Once again, I digress. America is built on this wonderful idea of equality. Equal opportunity. We like to pat ourselves on the back and tell ourselves that we believe in this idea of equality as Americans, but clearly there’s some crucial piece missing. Inequality is everywhere and despite being “The Land of Opportunity” America is plagued with a huge amount of poverty and imbalance of wealth. That is because of a fundamental fallacy in the idea of equality what we should instead be focused on is equity not equality. Equity is the idea of lifting up those people who can’t reach as high so we can all have the opportunity to reach high enough to find success, happiness and fulfillment. We have a commitment as Unitarians to helping everyone achieve equity. It’s even in our seven principles. The Second of our seven core principles states: “Justice, Equity, and Compassion in
Human Relations.” Equality only further amplifies existing dividing lines and class distinctions. Making no distinction between how poor and rich people are treated seems like a good idea, but in a capitalist society where the hoarding of wealth is glorified, the wealthy can accrue more wealth. Utilizing and preying on the poor with their vast resources, they amass riches beyond comprehension while simultaneously using their resources to cultivate a culture in which this barbaric behavior is accepted.

We must reject this idea. It our obligation to create a society where equity is valued over equality. But how? Well, that’s a really difficult question to answer. The society we’ve created is so normal to us as US citizens that it seems insane to imagine anything different. But, let’s all together try to identify some of our own internalizations of capitalism. See if any of these things apply to you. Try and be honest with yourself. Some signs you’ve internalized capitalism:
-You determine your worth based on your productivity
-You feel guilty when resting or “wasting time”
-You are always seeking ways to make yourself profitable
-You neglect your health
-You think that “hard work” will bring you happiness
I read those posted by a socialist friend on social media and I went “oh no…” How many people, be honest, felt that one or more of those things could apply to you? If you did it’s nothing to be ashamed of but it is something you need to be aware of. There can be no real progress in our country until we accept that the very principle that our economic system was founded on is unjust. We are being distracted by the ultra wealthy they want you to believe that there is a fight going on between right and left. North and South. USA and Russia. Good and Evil. But it’s a lie. The same fight has been happening for years and years since the dawn of civilization. It has always been the fight between the weak and the strong AKA the rich and the poor.

The great thing is, that we as the everyday consumer have all the power. These uber-rich people rely on us to maintain their wealth and their power. The problem is it requires a huge sacrifice by us. Watch where you spend your money. I’m going to say it again. Watch where you spend your money. One more time in case you didn’t get it those first two times. Watch. Where. You. Spend. Your. Money. The best way we can fight the injustice is by ceasing support of unjust companies, corporations and entities that are designed only to keep the poor in their place. What that means for you though is a lot of inconvenience. The places you shop at on a regular
basis are more than likely part of the problem. Kroger? Yeah. Part of the problem. It also means sacrificing a lot of your money. If you bought anything that was made in China. You’re contributing to the problem. I know, you’re thinking it’s impossible to not buy something that was made in China. No, it’s not impossible but it is expensive. If you buy your produce at the farmer’s market you may have noticed that it’s more expensive than going to kroger. That’s not because those terrible farmers are greedy and stealing your money it’s because they aren’t profiting off factory farming, unethical business practices and utilizing underpaid workers. Your
money is going towards something worthwhile, the lives and well-being of a local farmer and his/her employees, rather than mostly into the pocket of an executive. I know I’m mostly preaching to the choir here. Most of you know that it is good to shop local and I’m by no means implying that I am perfect or that you should expect to be a 100% ethical consumer at all times, but I want to impart to you how important this issue is.

The money… that goes to funding those For-Profit-Prisons which benefit from nothing short of slave-labor. The Money… that bought out countless University admission officers and stole the spots of deserving students. The Money…that is being used to oppress and stunt the growth of an entire civilization. It didn’t come from nowhere. It didn’t come from some sinister, mysterious, calculating beneficiary. That Money, remember, on some level it came from us.

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

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

The “Goldilocks” principle, as I assume many know, applies to anything that is just right – not too hot, not too cold, not too soft, not too hard.  For our planet and for all life on it, the principle is essential.  The earth is situated in a “goldilocks” zone within our solar system.  It’s not too close to the sun and thus too hot, like the planet Mercury, and it’s not too far away, like Neptune, such that it’s too cold.

Interestingly, the same “goldilocks” idea applies to the universe.  There are a few principles in physics that are perfectly attuned to allow for the universe, as we know it, to exist.  And that equally applies to our existence.  Physicists indicate that if the Big Bang explosion that created the universe had been one, one-millionth more powerful, the expansion from that explosion would have been too fast to allow for the formation of planets, stars, galaxies – and us.  The Big Bang was a goldilocks explosion  – not too powerful and not too weak. 

The physics law of electromagnetic force is also a goldilocks principle.  It allows for atoms, and their parts such as protons, electrons  and neutrons, to function as they do.  Without the precise mathematical constant for electromagnetic force, which is 1/137 of any mass, atoms could not exist and thus neither would any compound, substance or, again, us.  Electromagnetic force is not too strong such that all atoms stick together to form one huge blob, and its not too weak so that atoms cannot bind together.  The great physicist Richard Feynman called electromagnetic force, “one of the greatest mysteries of physics: it’s a magic number that comes to us with no understanding.”

The obvious question physicists and many others ask is, “How were these so-called goldilocks laws of physics set?”  Many theists, religious people, and Intelligent Design advocates say they are proof that there is a god, and that the universe was specifically designed for human life.  Principles with mathematical values that come from no other physical or scientific reality cannot just randomly happen, they say.   How else could these physics laws have been mathematically set to allow for human life…without a god?

That’s a difficult question to answer – one that physicists, philosophers and even psychologists have deeply considered.  Many of them now say that the universe only exists because humans perceive that it exists.  We are the one’s who essentially create the universe by our awareness and definition of it.  This is heavy philosophical and psychological stuff, but the idea gets at what the Enlightenment philosopher Rene Descartes famously asserted about human existence, “Cogito, ergo sum”, “I think, therefore I am.”  Our sense of being, the reality of our very existence, comes solely because of our awareness that we exist.  If we and others don’t perceive our personhood, we’re simply not here.  

And multiple experts and great thinkers apply the same idea to the existence of the universe.  The goldilocks principles allow for everything to exist because we see, understand and define them.  We not only bring the universe into existence through our perception of it, but we are the very center of it.  It’s existence depends on, and revolves around, us. 

As I said, this is heady stuff and I don’t blame you if you are scratching your heads right now.  Many very intelligent scientists, theologians and philosophers support this notion, however.  It is similar to the question about whether a tree that falls in a forest, with no life in it, makes a sound.  We know sound waves happen because we can detect and measure them, but do they really happen with nothing to hear them?  The spiritual and philosophical answer is “no.”

This introduction to my message is not just to consider why we exist.  The question of where we and the universe came from is one I encourage us to reflect on.  How we think we were created will determine many of our values and beliefs.  

More importantly, my introduction is intended for us to consider the implications of the idea that humanity is the center of the universe.  Indeed, that idea supports my personal theology that it is people who are the goddesses and gods of the universe.  We are the verifiable beings, not any supernatural gods, that can improve or destroy life.

If we are the center of the universe, as I’ve just suggested, then it follows that our attention and concern should flow from us outward – to family, neighborhood, churches, cities, towns, nations, and then persons around the globe.  In terms of my message today, we must have a local viewpoint before we can have a global viewpoint.

I make that claim because the wider world is only as healthy as each of its individual parts – all of us.  This makes sense from any number of moral or spiritual ideals.  As Mahatma Gandhi said, “We must be the change we want to see.”  If I want our nation and world to take action against climate change, for instance, then I should first begin by decreasing my carbon emissions footprint – by choosing the most gas efficient car to drive, buying and using less resources, heating and cooling my home efficiently, etc, etc. 

More importantly, this idea of focusing first on the individual and local first also speaks to whether or not we’re hypocrites.  How can I condemn the President for pulling the US out of the Paris Climate Change Treaty, for instance, if I am not personally doing my part to reduce the amount of greenhouse gases I cause?

As we know, hypocrisy was the human attitude that Jesus condemned most.  Don’t talk about love and goodness unless you speak and act with love and kindness.  Don’t cast a stone at a woman caught in adultery, unless you yourself have committed no ethical or sexual misdeeds.  In other words, walk your talk – or else……shut up!

For my message series this month that asks “Who is We?”, walking our talk is not easy.  As Unitarian Universalists, we are naturally concerned about the well-being of people around the world.  But an important question to ask, since changing the world must begin with us, is whether we are first and foremost locally concerned servants, educators, and activists?

Former Speaker of the House Tip O’Neill once said that all politics is local.  His belief underlines the idea for us to first be local activists.  With our activism and emphasis on serving others, I believe we must primarily focus on local concerns – beginning in our homes, local schools, churches, and nearby communities.  If we think about it, the decisions made at the local level – in school Boards, city councils, church Boards, and local charities – they affect us far more than those made at the national level.  How we fund our schools affects a substantial portion of the property taxes we pay, as well as the value of our homes.  Infrastructure decisions about roads, parks, trash collection, police and fire departments, sewers, libraries, and business zoning all directly impact our individual and family qualities of life far more than many decisions made in Congress or by the President.

All of that is not to say that their policies are not important to our well-being.  They are.  But they often only affect us indirectly.  The greatest impact on each of our lives comes from local governments.  And that fact  emphasizes the priority we should give to local issues of poverty, homelessness, child education, and hunger.  

In that regard, if we want to promote equality, we should begin here in our church, in our city councils, and in our neighborhood schools.  We’ll have far greater influence and impact if we do.  Studies show that local governments are far more effective in getting things done than is the Federal government because local councils and boards are less partisan.  Over 75% of US cities and townships hold non-partisan elections with their candidates not identified by a political party.   That reduces political posturing and helps foster, instead, a stronger ethic for officials to collaborate and actually accomplish things.

That is why I don’t support contested Board of Trustees elections in this congregation, or the division of our members into competing factions.  I don’t want internal politics within our community.  We can debate various issues without dividing into bitterly opposed groups.  Our goodness, and our effectiveness, lies in our loving and caring unity. 

Former US Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis once said local governments are like experimental laboratories that help our nation determine the policies and programs that are most effective.  Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, was first tried in Massachusetts – begun ironically enough by then Governor Mitt Romney – where its success proved it could be adopted nationwide.  

Same-sex marriage was first legalized at the local level when San Francisco Mayor, now California Governor Gavin Newsom, pushed through a city ordinance legally recognizing GLBT weddings in 2004.  This was done almost ten years before gay marriage was nationally legalized.  Studies done in San Francisco showed gay marriage encouraged more marriages in general – and that showed the nation it was a beneficial thing for everyone. 

In 1960, civil rights activist and now Congressman John Lewis led a sit-in campaign in Nashville, Tennessee to integrate diners and lunch counters.  The white Mayor of Nashville at the time, Ben West, agreed with John Lewis and pushed through a city ordinance banning restaurant segregation – the first city in the nation to do so.  Nashville set the example for the nation that integration was not just the right thing to do, but that it could be widely accepted even in the South.  The 1960’s civil rights movement thus began at the local level and culminated in the national Civil Rights Act.

Last year, after hearing how many progressives around the country supported a $15 an hour living wage for all, I asked our Board to bring both Michael’s and Adrienne’s wages up to at least that standard.  Despite our budget shortfalls, the Board and all of you, at our annual meeting, approved those raises.  They will of course benefit our staff, but they will also insure the success of this congregation by having loyal, dedicated and hard working employees.   On this one issue, GNH will both walk its talk and help show that, here at a very small local level, living wages help everyone – including those who pay them.  

These examples are why I believe we should define ourselves as grassroots, local activists first and foremost.  If we do, I believe we can then strategically set 3 or 4 priority local goals that this small congregation can realistically achieve with excellence.

One of our current priorities expressed in our Unison Affirmation is our commitment to the future of all children.  Time and again I’ve been emotionally touched by the many lives of children we help make better.  Our RE and OWL programs, our volunteering for UpSpring, Lighthouse, the Freestore, and InterFaith Hospitality Network all show the high level of concern this congregation has for children.  

The suffering and pain we see children in our families and communities experience compels us to do something.  Yes, we want Congress to approve funding for universal pre-kindergarten childcare, and yes, we want the President to stop separating undocumented infants and children from their parents.  Those are moral and spiritual concerns for us.  But equal to those concerns are the homeless gay and lesbian youth in this city, the young kids in area communities who don’t know if their family will have enough food for them this weekend – this congregation loves all children and youth and are truly committed to loving and serving them.  When we touch their lives with love, counseling and instruction, when we help insure they have enough to eat and a safe place to sleep, we enable their ability to learn, work and grow.  We literally change the universe’s future by our work right here for the youngest ones among us.

And when we help save one young life, we save the world entire – that’s an old Jewish proverb that is very true.  We are each, as I said at the start of this message, the center of the universe.  That does not mean it exists to serve us, but rather that it exists because we see, touch, hear, feel and define it.  Our perspective thus begins with us and moves outward so that those nearest to us are the first we help.  

With that in mind, I submit to you that a compassionate and loving universe is only created if it begins FIRST in our hearts, homes and neighborhoods.  

I wish you peace and joy…

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

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

I chose the video you just watched ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LrZPJ9gO5o0 ) because it is thought provoking on many levels.  Monet X Change, in the video, is a black, male, drag performer.  In the video, he interprets the song ‘Strange Fruit’ to speak to his identity as both a black man, and as a gay drag performer.  The symbolism of strange fruit therefore has double the negative meaning for him.

The video speaks to the issue of identity in our culture.  Why is it that people like Monet are known – and oppressed – by their outward appearance – as black or as a drag queen – instead of as a person who stands for worthy ideals?

It’s the youth of today, all of you young people here, who I believe offer answers to many of our questions about identity.  For me, young people in general tell us a lot about how to have a genuine identity – and so the title of my message for this Coffeehouse service for families and young people, is: “What’s so Important about Identity?”

Back when I was minister at the former Gathering, I arranged with my youngest daughter to have lunch after church.  She was in college at UC and lived in Clifton with a roommate.  I arrived at her place at noon and rang the buzzer several times until she finally appeared obviously having just woken up.  She welcomed me into the living area while she went upstairs to get dressed.  

Soon after my daughter went upstairs, her roommate quickly scurried out of my daughter’s room and over into her room across the hallway. 

A minute or two later, also out of my daughter’s room, emerged her gay best friend and his boyfriend, who is African-American.  They came downstairs to make coffee and appeared as if they too had just woken up.

Soon thereafter my daughter emerged from her room, with her boyfriend, who is now her husband.  All six of us chatted for a while before my daughter and I left for lunch.  And I quickly asked her about her four friends being in her bedroom for what appeared to be a sleep over.  She laughed and assured me nothing weird had happened.  They had all watched a video movie in her room the night before – and then fallen asleep.

For me, this was an eye opening thing!  But I was not upset about it primarily because it revealed to me the wonderful openness and acceptance young people have for one another.  Gay, black, male, female – none of those identity labels mattered much to my daughter and her friends.   External labels, many young people believe, are often simplistic and too easy.  They don’t define the inner reality of someone.  A friend is a friend is a friend – no matter how she or he outwardly appears.

Most psychologists say that identity and self-esteem are closely related.  We need to build a self-identity about which we are proud – one that truly defines the real us – who we are on the inside.  

Many millennials, or those born between 1984 and 2004, believe that identity labels like black, white, male, female, gay, straight are too sueperfiicial.  Instead, young people today want to be known by the values they stand for.

My daughter and her friends stand for the value of total acceptance –  no matter a person’s differences.  That’s an important identity for them.  Other millennials strongly believe in equal rights for everybody, and many others stand for protecting the earth and the environment.  Those are some of the values by which young people identify.  And it is such values, not outward differences, that matter most to today’s youth.

Millennials, therefore, avoid being identified by groups that baby boomers, people born between 1946 and 1964, usually identify with – ones like a political party, religion, or ethnicity.  Over 60% of youth do not primarily identify with any of those group labels.  

Millennials also do not identify themselves geographically – like most baby boomers.  They are not are not southerners, New Yorkers, midwesterners, or people of anywhere else.  Over 60% of millennials live someplace other than where they grew up – and they are very willing to regularly move around.  Geography is for many young people a meaningless way to self-identify.

Young people equally do not like being identified by their job or career since most millennials continually change jobs until they find one that makes them happy.  Earning lots of money is not as important to them as is being content.  They therefore often avoid being labeled:  “I’m a lawyer”, “I’m a minister”, or “I’m a nurse.”  Many young people instead prefer to identify themselves by the values associated with their job – ones like, “I advocate for the poor”, “I care for the sick”, or, most importantly, “I do something that is meaningful.”

Overall, millennials determine their personal values from one’s that their peers have,  from social media and music,  from their schools and universities,  and from using technology.  

And, just what are the values that are important to many millennials and young people?  The Pew Research council says that having meaningful work is one.  Collaboration with others is also an important value.  Today’s youth have been taught teamwork since they were infants and so it’s natural for them collaborate – and not act as an individual.  

Staying connected to others is also important to youth because their identity is closely tied to what their friends and peers like.  Social justice is another value for millennials.  They are committed to making a difference in the world.  Finally, diversity is very important to youth.

Millennials want diverse friends and peers because it reflects their lived experience.  Millennials are the most diverse American generation ever.  Over 40% of today’s youth are people of color.  Less than 25% of baby boomers are people of color.  Over 8% of millennials say they are gay, lesbian, or transgender while only 2.4% of baby boomers do.  It’s predicted that the diversity of future generations will increase even more.

What all of this means to me is that individual or group identities are rapidly changing as youth are more and more defining the standards for our culture.  And that, I believe, is a good and positive thing.  No longer will labels of race, wealth, religion, sexuality, or gender mostly identify a person.  Ultimately, as we all know, those external labels don’t matter much.  We’re moving into an era when people will be known almost entirely by their character and what they stand for – and that is all due to the influence of the millennial generation.

To help us understand a few of the differences between millennials and baby boomers, watch with me now a video as Ellen Degeneres  hilariously explains a few of the things that define each generation… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JADG4hXaqy4&t=4s

I so appreciate Ellen and all that she stands for as her identity.  She’s a baby boomer who is young at heart and someone I, at least, think is very cool.

For any of the young people here today, and for all the rest of us,  I hope we will reflect on our identity and the important things we stand for.  Let’s learn from young people to use values and character as the primary way to identify ourselves and others.   Our gender, skin color, jobs and spiritual beliefs define only a part of our identity.  It’s our beliefs and our values that make a difference in the world and thus define who we really, really are. 

         That goes for us as a congregation.  Our identity is far more than being a church in Cincinnati.   We are a community that loves and cares for each other – despite our many differences.   We’re also a commonity that loves and serves those on the sidelines of society:  the poor, hungry, homeless, other abled, discriminated against, and oppressed.  Those are the loving values that identify who we are and what we do.

Having any identity to be proud of is essential – for youth, adults and communities like this place.  Let’s affirm the beauty of our different identities – both outward and inward – but let’s make sure it’s our values to make the world a kinder and more inclusive place that really defines who we are.

Peace and joy to all of you…

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

Click here to listen to the message or see below to read it.

Beginning in Russia during the mid 1800’s, nihilism was and is a depressing philosophy about life and the universe.  Nihilism says that there is no inherent meaning to existence.  All things were created and function according to mathematical laws where everything has no underlying purpose.  Even worse, since people are also created and regulated by mathematical, physical and chemical formula, they have no responsibility for their actions.  They can be, for instance, selfish brutes since that would be caused by science and math and not by free will. 

Without any purpose or responsibility, humanity is therefore NOT governed by universal principles of morality.  We’re created, we exist, we vanish.  Dust to dust and ashes to ashes – with no all encompassing or ethical reason to live….for us or anything else.   

Nihilism says doesn’t matter if some suffer, some prosper, some are nasty, or some are compassionate.  Without meaning or eternal values of goodness, our actions for good or bad don’t matter.  Added to that, it does’t even matter whether or not we are born.   The universe is a remorseless and mostly random math equation. 

Fyodor Dostoevsky used his novel Crime and Punishment, published in 1866, to point out the dark absurdity of nihilism.  His main character Raskolnikov is a nihilist who believed himself greater than any laws of morality.  He plots to kill a pawn broker who had swindled him along with many other people.  He plans his murder meticulously and with the belief that he can decide anyone’s fate.  The pawn broker hurts many people, he reasons, and so should be eliminated as an inconvenience.  He squashes out a human life much like he steps on an annoying ant.

For some reason, however, Raskolnikov is loved by a woman named Sonia.  She sees in him goodness beneath his uncaring exterior.  She eventually learns of his crime and confronts him – not to act as a judge, but rather to share her love for the decency she perceives in him – and to challenge him to do the right thing.  Realizing for the first time that he is profoundly and unconditionally loved, Raskolnikov confronts his own beliefs about the meaning of life.  He sees that existence is governed by a force more powerful than laws of math and physics.  His epiphany is that love offers humans the meaning of life.  It is, Raskolnikov realizes, the ultimate power in the universe.  With a new understanding of life, he confesses his crime, pledges to redeem himself, and accepts imprisonment.

Dostoevsky brilliantly forces readers to themselves ponder the meaning of life.  Ultimately, he points out, we exist for a reason.  We live to love and be loved.   Love ennobles us because, through it, we perceive that life is not just about ourselves, it’s about life for all.  Love comforts, empowers and cares for people now and far into the future.  Love is both the answer to an unfeeling universe, as it is amazingly powerful.  It is the god force that defines everything.

My intent for this introduction is to set the stage for our own reflections on why we exist as a spiritual community.  What are the ideals and goals that define why we meet?  Why do we give our hard earned time, talent and money to this little community?  What greater meaning does this congregation have beyond the simple fact that we regularly come together?  I believe, based on my brief discussion of nihilism, that meaning and purpose are essential for individuals and organizations.  Absent any purpose to exist and consume resources, we as individuals and as a community are expendable.

The title of my message this morning is therefore, “Who is ‘We’?  Social activists, theologians, or neighbors?”  That is a way to ask what is the purpose for us being a part of the Gathering at Northern Hills?  Are we here to actively serve and advocate for a better life for all?  Is our purpose at GNH to study, learn and practice spiritual ideals?  Or are we here to support and enrich each other as a community of friends, neighbors and like minded people?

I’ll be asking questions about “who is ‘we’” in the two weeks ahead and my purpose is not only to share with you my own thoughts, but to stimulate your thinking about: 1) what purpose do we as individuals and as the Gathering at Northern Hills serve? and, 2) what are the goals that justify our purpose?

I believe we are each here, whether we are consciously aware of it, for all three reasons I have suggested.  We may think we are here for only one, but the reality is that all three purposes are so intertwined that “who is we” means we are all social activists, theologians, AND friendly neighbors.

  All of that boils down to what Fyodor Dostoevsky proposed in his novel Crime and Punishment.  The Gathering at Northern Hills, as a part of the universe, exists to love.  We are to be a beloved community not only for ourselves, but for the outside world too.  Most importantly, we’re here to spiritually grow and learn how to speak and act such that we impact the world and the universe in loving ways.  As Dostoevsky implies in his novel, everything boils down to service, compassion, kindness, generosity, and sacrifice…or in one word, love.

Some people define love as God.  Others understand love as a powerful emotion.  Still others see it as a choice for how to live.  However any of us define it, I believe it is the spiritual truth we all seek and the force that governs all life.  The protection a lioness shows for her cubs is not a chemically induced instinct in a pitiless world.  It’s love for what she created.  The forces that animate planets and stars are not just physical laws.  They act as they do according to what I believe is a greater principle – to regulate the universe so that all things within it are lovingly nurtured.

Love is the great reason behind why the big bang happened and why immutable laws of mathematics exist – to insure that beauty, kindness and nurturing creation take place.  Without such an underlying reason for being, everything is nihilist – things with no reason, no responsibility and no feeling.

         Quite frankly, if the universe is nihilist, I want get off it right now.  What is the point for living if there is no point for living?  Life would be a ridiculous and meaningless thing.

I thus refuse to accept the idea of nihilism.  I exist for a purpose, so do you, and so does the Gathering at Northern Hills.  Our ultimate purpose, our meaning, is to love and be loved.  And that statement is, for me, profoundly spiritual.

Applying this to my earlier questions about “who is we,” the bedrock answer for who we are, as the Gathering at Northern Hills, is that we are spiritual seekers or, as I suggest in my message title, theologians.  All other answers for “who is we,” in my opinion, flow from our spiritual foundation to love.

An answer that follows from that foundation is that we are social activists.  Many of us are here because we seek to love and serve the world beyond this place.  And within this group of social activists, there are some who see service to the wider world as organizing for social change.  Such people are energized by advocating in behalf of those who suffer discrimination, poverty, or oppression.  

Others within the social activist group seek to primarily perform hands on service to children and youth in need, the homeless, hungry and marginalized.  I am a member of that sub-group of social activists.  I feel most fulfilled when I’m offering tangible assistance to those who have far less then me.  That was a focus of my ministry at the former Gathering, just as it is here.  As someone who by nature is an introvert, I’m not an organizer or protester for systemic change.  I love others by hands on serving and comforting.

That does not make me any greater or any less than advocates for change.  They love others by working to abolish systems of discrimination and poverty.  The Gathering at Northern Hills is large enough to have both sub-groups of social activists – one to advocate for social change, another to offer social service.  Each sub-group is a part of “who is we,” and they comprise, I strongly believe, an important answer to the overall question of what GNH stands for and what some of its goals should be.  We express our foundational spiritual love for others with social activism.  We are defined, in part, by our loving impact on the world. 

Another answer to the question of “who is we” emerged last year during our discussion of a black lives matter banner.  Several members shared from their heart that, for them, GNH is first and foremost a community of neighbors.  They are here for many reasons but an important one is the sense of community, friendship, and connection they find here.  This too is an expression of the spiritual ethic to love and be loved.  This group of people, I believe, enjoy serving people outside our doors, but they are most energized by serving and loving this particular community of friends.  That, too, is an important definition of who is we and must be a primary goal for GNH.  As I quoted Ru Paul Charles, the famous drag queen, in one of my February messages on love, if we can’t love ourselves, how the hell are we going to love anyone else?  That applies to individuals, AND to groups like GNH.

The love we share with the outside world could not be authentic if we do not speak and act with love toward those within GNH.  The outside world would see us as hypocrites.  As multiple world religions point out, love must begin at home.  

But, as I also said in my February message that quoted Ru Paul, love for oneself – or for us as a community – is only a means to an end.  We love and serve ourselves precisely so we are able to love and serve others.  Indeed, showing love and respect within our community is a way we learn and grow in our ability to speak and act with kindness to the outside world.

In this way, social activism is a primary way to define GNH and so is building and maintaining community with one another.  They each work together in complimentary ways.  In here, I can learn how to better speak and act toward each of you.  That will empower me to better love outside strangers.  And our love for them is in turn a way to feel empowered to come back here to love ourselves.  We are, in many ways, a unique kind of social club, one that is trained to love the outside world by loving itself.   I believe we must see ourselves in that light such that our social activists do not demean those who are most inspired by love for this community, and vice versa.  We must never apply a hierarchy for expressions of love.  All are valid and all should work together.

Somewhat related to my message today has been a blue period I’ve experienced this past week.   I’ve pondered what is my purpose for the rest of my life – and my inability to come to any firm conclusions has depressed me.  How much should I practice the human purpose to serve others, and how much should I serve myself?  Those are questions I’ve asked myself many times.  It’s never easy to balance selfishness with selflessness and I don’t want to imply today that it is.  What I do believe is that in determining what is our purpose and what are our goals, we must be gentle with ourselves and with each other – never condemning someone for believing in different priorities.   I can hopefully enjoy parts of my life in a way that is me focused, while at the same time serving others selflessly.  GNH can do the same.  The challenging part is how we do that. 

Four answers I offer today for “who is we.”  First, we are NOT nihilists.  We are not hardened and cynical people who see no higher meaning for existence.  We believe the universe, and all of life, has a purpose.

We are therefore first and foremost a spiritual community that sees a purpose greater than ourselves – which is love.  We’re all, in that sense, theologians or spiritual seekers.

Second, we are all social activists committed to advocating for – or hands on serving – the outside world.  Third, we are all neighbors and friends that learn and practice ways to serve one another.   Both of these together are how we practice our spiritual purpose to love.

In sum, “who is we?”  Are we social activists, theologians, or neighbors?  I believe we are all three – but most importantly, we are spiritually defined by our love.

I wish you all peace and joy!

Please click here to listen to the message:

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

Please click here to listen to the message. If you do, see the video link below when it is introduced. You may also simply read the message below.

Many of us know the story of William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  It may be the most famous story ever written about the power of love.  I won’t describe it in lot of detail, but it tells of a teenage guy and a teenage girl who are each from families that hate one another.

Romeo is persuaded by friends to attend a dance party so that he can meet a girl he really likes.  This party is held by the family that hates Romeo’s family – but he decides to go anyway hoping the girl he likes is there.

At the dance, he doesn’t meet that girl, but sees instead Juliet – who is a member of the hated family.  Romeo and Juliet, who meet for the first time, are immediately smitten.  They talk, laugh and flirt.  A cousin of Juliet sees Romeo, however, and realizes he’s from the hated family.  He attacks Romeo and throws him out of the party.

But Romeo is so taken with Juliet that he sneaks back into her yard hoping to see her again.  He sees her on an upstairs balcony and she’s very happy.  She’s smiling, talking to herself, and saying how much she loves Romeo.  She doesn’t care that he’s from the hated family.  She will love him anyway and she pledges to be with him no matter what.  Hearing her say these things, Romeo tells Juliet he loves her and asks her to marry him.  She says yes and the two get married the next day by a sympathetic Minister.

Juliet’s cousin meanwhile challenges Romeo to a fight.  Even though he didn’t want to fight this guy, Romeo ends up killing him.  When Juliet’s father hears this, he tells the police to make Romeo leave the city forever.  The father also orders Juliet to marry another guy.  Juliet runs away and asks the Minister what to do.

The Minister gives Juliet a sleeping pill to take just before she is marry the other guy.  She’ll then appear as if she’s dead – so her dad can’t force her to get married.  She takes the pill and falls into a deep sleep.

Romeo, like everyone else, doesn’t know she’d only taken a sleeping pill.  He thinks that she’s dead.  Romeo is so upset the girl of his dreams has died that he decides to kill himself too.  He drinks poison and dies.

When Juliet wakes up, she sees that Romeo is dead.  She is so upset she kills herself with a sword!

The story ends when the two families find Romeo and Juliet dead and learn that they had secretly gotten married.  The families decide to stop fighting and forgive each other – in honor of the two lovers.

My telling of the story leaves out most of the romantic parts.  Even though it’s a great story that people have enjoyed for four hundred years,  

it’s not very realistic.  Do people really fall so passionately in love and get married in only one day?  I don’t think so.  What Romeo and Juliet felt was powerful, but it wasn’t reasonable, and it wasn’t yet real love.  I think they were instead infatuated with each other.  Like many of us have experienced, they first saw each and really liked what they saw.  They were physically attracted to one another.  They flirted and laughed, but it wasn’t true love they felt.  They felt infatuation – which is mostly a feeling of attraction to a person’s looks, status or wealth.

Real love doesn’t happen overnight.  Real love wants to spend lots of time getting to know the other person.  Real love comes from calmly thinking about her or him – their personality and their character.  Real love understands the flaws in the other one, but loves them anyway.  Real love makes you feel peaceful.

Infatuation, on the other hand, makes you feel like you’re drunk.  Infatuation is not rational.  It wrongly thinks the other person is totally perfect without giving much thought to that.  Infatuation happens very quickly and ends pretty fast too.

Most of us think about somebody we first like with a combination of being cool and being an idiot at the same time.  We use our intelligence but our attractions distract us.  In many ways, our brain is divided when it comes to falling in love with someone – one brain side thinks, the other side doesn’t think – it only feels.

Watch with me now what I think is a very funny video about love and our divided brains:

That’s a great video to help us think about the power of fake love – or  what I call infatuation – versus the power of real love that thinks.  The guy’s brain is torn between wanting to do all the nice things that build real love.  But his hormones, his attraction, and his infatuation with the girl take over.  

The video also gets at what John Legend wrote in his song “All of Me”.  Legend has a divided brain for the person he wrote the song about.  His head is spinning, he’s on a magical mystery ride, he’s dizzy, his head’s under water, and he does not know what hit him.  He’s very attracted to someone.

But he’s also trying his best to think clearly.  He’s attracted to her curves – or her looks.  But he also loves her edges – the things about her that aren’t perfect even though, as he sings, he loves her imperfections.  When we really love someone, we love all of them – the good and the not so good.

What I hope we each do – especially you young people – is that we think about the difference between infatuation and real love.  We would not be human if we do not feel a wonderful high when we are first attracted to someone.  But that’s not love.  It might eventually become real love – but only with time and patience spent listening to and getting to know the other person.

I’ve talked in my messages this February about love.  Two weeks ago I talked about unconditional love.  Don’t judge someone you love.  Forgive them when they do something that hurts you.  Love them just the way they are.

Last week I talked about loving yourself.  And I quoted Ru Paul, the famous drag queen, who tells people, “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love somebody else?”  We shouldn’t judge ourselves too harshly and should do, instead, what Buddhists say: be gentle with ourselves.

For today, I hope you will think about what real romantic love is.  Infatuation is all about right now.  I’m attracted to you and I want to make out with you now!  That is not love.

Real love is all about staying power.  It wants to be together for many, many years.  It is patient, gentle and plans for a future together.

And so, three ideas I have for us this February month of love:  1) Love and serve other people no matter what they do or don’t do.  2) Love and accept yourself.  And, 3) when you feel like you’re attracted to someone, enjoy that feeling, but know it isn’t love.  Instead, stop, think, and appreciate them for their character, their personality, and the possibility of spending time getting to know her or him…..and only then falling into real love.

Peace to each of you!

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

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

Many of you may have heard of Ru Paul Charles.  After many years in the entertainment industry, he is now enjoying his greatest success and fame.  Ru Paul is an internationally well-known African-American drag performer who produces and hosts the three time Emmy award winning TV show “Ru Paul’s Drag Race”.  He’s written and performed several bestselling albums and songs, he’s acted in multiple movies and TV shows, and he was recently selected as one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people.

He was named Ru (R…U) by his Louisiana mother, after the creole word r…o..u..x which means a gumbo mixture or, for him, a blend of many cultures.  He started in show business as a drag performer – a man who assumes the look, glamor, and identity of a woman to sing, lip-sync, act, or dance.   Most drag queens, as they are known, are not men who want to be transgender.  Instead, they are men who wish to remain male while finding fulfillment in expressing a feminine side of themselves – one that is strong and confident.  A few women have also emerged who call themselves drag kings.  They dress in male attire with short hair and fake beards and mustaches – as a way for them to express their masculine side.

Ru Paul says that drag performing is about putting on layers in order to figuratively take off layers – ones that have hidden a person’s true self.  Doing drag is a way for some men and women to express themselves openly and with a form of in your face self-confidence.

On one of Ru Paul’s shows, a drag queen contestant emotionally described the vulnerability that lay just beneath his exterior.  He vividly remembers being abandoned by his mother at a bus station when he was a child.  Growing up knowing he’d been unwanted, and then realizing he was gay, this man saw himself as unworthy and unloved.  When he turned to drag performing in his twenties, it was a way to both say, “I love me”, and to forthrightly demand respect.

As Ru Paul says, gays and lesbians often grow up, as do other marginalized people, knowing they are different and thinking the world despises them as freaks, perverts, or less than ideal people.  Performing drag is one way some gay men and women embrace who they are without shame.  For Ru Paul, we all have unique abilities that can improve the world, but the only way we can share them is if we have the self-love to do so.  As a conclusion to each of his TV shows, Ru Paul tells the performers, and his audience, “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love somebody else?  Do I have an Amen?!?”      

I spoke last Sunday about perfect love by examining seven famous verses in the Bible.  Those verses beautifully define what genuine love for others is: it’s unconditional because it does not judge, it always forgives, and most of all it accepts another just as she or he is.

Today, I follow-up on that message by looking at a love poem by Khalil Gibran, a famous Muslim poet from Lebanon.  In it, he encourages couples to love one another – but to do so in ways that do not forsake one’s own identity.  The ultimate message of his poem entitled “Love One Another” is to love yourself – too. 

You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.

You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.  Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.

But let there be spaces in your togetherness,

And let the winds of the heavens dance between you.

Love one another, but make not a bond of love:

Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.

Fill each other’s cup but drink not from one cup.

Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf.

Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone, even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.

Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.

For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.

And stand together yet not too near together:

For the pillars of the temple stand apart, and the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.

I often say in my messages what I believe is our mission in life.  We exist not to just please ourselves, but to serve others.  Extreme selfishness, arrogance, and narcissism are not ways to live as truly compassionate and loving people.

Importantly, however, as some of you have pointed out during past  “talkback” times, and as Gibran implies in the poem I just read, self-less-ness must be balanced by a measure of selfishness.  The magazine Psychology Today says that everybody experiences the push-pull of connection and separation – whether to selflessly be in community with another or to pull away and serve just oneself.  As infants, we connect deeply with our mothers and fathers.  But after only a few years we begin the process of separating from mom and dad by asserting small levels of independence.  We begin to form our own identities comprising personality, hopes, wants and opinions.  Full separation comes when we assume the identity and responsibility of an adult – to fully care for ourselves.

But separation from our parents is usually replaced with connection to a partner, spouse and children.  As humans, we yearn to love and be loved – and thus be connected.  We do not function well as islands unto ourselves.  We depend on other people for support, community, and, of course, love.

But, it is from our connected loving relationships that we encounter an ironic reality.  In order to love others, as Ru Paul notes and as Kahlil Gibran implies in his poem, we must also love just ourselves.  This is not the narcissistic love that the President seems to have for himself, but rather a realistic acknowledgement of our basic needs in life – as well as as awareness of our individual capabilities and deficiencies.  Without an appreciation of our personal needs and our true selves, we can believe we are either so worthless as to have nothing to offer the world, or else we believe we are so great that everything should revolve around us.  Both of these attitudes result from deep insecurity.

Mr. Trump apparently loves himself to an extreme.  While it seems that he has a strong self-confidence, the likelihood is that he is so insecure that he uses arrogance as a cover for his fears and doubts.  His bravado is, in truth, a sign of weakness.  He has limited ability to show love, empathy or compassion since he showers it all on himself.  

Other people, however, can be so insecure that they have no love, understanding, or forgiveness for themselves.  They are at the opposite extreme of people like Mr. Trump.  They often show little empathy, compassion or love to others not because they are selfish or arrogant, but because they are tooisolated and too timid. 

As most psychologists point out, we must have both a healthy humility, and a healthy love for ourselves.  We can and should appreciate our unique talents and personalities – all so we can use them for good.  But we should also be aware of areas in which we need to grow – as well as areas where we should rely on the proficiency that other people have.   This includes understanding where the needs of others take precedence over our needs so that we listen, ask for other opinions, cooperate, and give.  Self-love becomes a way to ironically be others focused.  

The magazine Psychology Today points out that being lovingly connected to others does not mean we should be totally merged with them.  Their identity should not be ours.  This is what Gibran emphasizes when he writes, “Fill each other’s cup – but drink not from one cup.”  Love for another person cannot be so all consuming that it diminishes appreciation of our own beauty, power and uniqueness.  If we do, we will have nothing inside us to give away.   

We also cannot be so detached from a loved one so that the only affection we have is for ourselves.  The challenge is to find a balance.  We must love ourselves too – but just enough to enable our primary purpose in life to love and serve other people.

Finding the right balance between total selflessness and total selfishness is complicated and not easy.  Indeed, connecting to and loving others is a way to ironically find love for oneself.  When someone loves us, we find in them a mirror to recognize all of the good they see in us.  Those who love us affirm our own healthy appreciation of ourselves.  But other people’s love for us should not be a stimulant to our egos so that it destroys many of the reasons why we are loved.   We are usually loved for our kindness, generosity, empathy and…….our self-confidence, which can only come from love of self.  That is the challenging balance we must each find – to love ourselves too, but not too much.

As Gibran says in his poem, “Love one another, but make not a bond of love.  Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.”  When we find the right balance between love for others, and love for self, we are not tied to either extreme.  Our love will ebb and flow like the tide between two shores – some for me to sustain myself, a lot of love to give away.

The love balance I’ve mentioned is a third way, or middle way,  between love for others and love for self.  It is what some psychologists call inter-dependent love.  We are neither all giving or all taking.  We rely on a mutuality of love.  If we each truly live out our purpose in life to serve and love others, we will each end up also being loved.  This is a simple law of mutuality.  When we all give, we all gain.

Inter-dependence therefore comes when everyone loves others to the same extent they love themselves.  This is perfectly expressed in the Golden Rule – an ideal that all world religions teach.  We are to love others as much as we love ourselves.  And that is the challenging model for our culture and for us.  Our task is to serve the common good while also advancing individual rights.  The welfare of all depends on the welfare of each person alone.  In other words, for a healthy society and healthy people, there should be no extremes of selfishness, and no extremes selflessness.

For Gibran and his poetic encouragement to married, partnered and dating couples, each should practice this balanced art of loving inter-dependence.   They are neither a united couple, nor are they two separate individuals.  They are both.

Since we are to serve and love others with at least the same intensity that we love ourselves, then the task before us is simple.  If we can’t love ourselves, how the hell are we going to love somebody else?  Do I have an Amen?!?”

I wish you all much peace and joy.

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

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

I believe the Bible is a compilation of writings by many different authors mostly dating from 500 years before Jesus to 150 years after.  It is mostly theological, and not literal history.  Written entirely by men, the books of the Bible each have a religious agenda and were intended to support, encourage, criticize or inspire targeted groups of people.  I also  believe the majority of the Bible is allegorical.   Its stories were intended as lessons and not as descriptions of actual events – although small portions of the Bible do include historical fact.  Anyone familiar with Greek mythology, Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, or Aesop’s fables can understand how and why Biblical literature was composed.  No Biblical author intended to deceive.  Rather, they used myth-like stories to instruct and persuade people about religion, life and doing good.

Should the Bible, because it’s mostly not factual, be relegated to the fiction book section and read only in that light?  I don’t think so.  There are useful insights in it that are relevant to us today – no matter our spiritual beliefs or no beliefs.  The Jewish and Christian Bible is thus a piece of useful wisdom literature as are other Scriptures like the Koran or the Hindu Upanishads.

I say all of this to preface my message today which will look at perhaps the most well-known of Bible verses – ones recited at countless weddings, ones that have inspired many poems and songs including the Unitarian Universalist hymn, “Though I May Speak with Bravest Fire,” and ones I hope will prompt our reflections on February’s Valentines Day and the topic of love.  The love verses in Paul’s first letter to the early Christian church, in the ancient Greek city of Corinth, are ones I consider today because I believe, as do many people, they are perhaps the most poetic and timeless definitions of love as have ever been composed.

If I speak many languages, even that of angels, but do not have love, I am only a loud gong or clanging cymbal.  If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.  If I give all I possess to the poor and, for pride’s sake, sacrifice myself for others, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind.  It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.   It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.  Love does not delight in evil but rejoices in truth.  It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

Just like all other books in the Bible, Paul wrote his first Corinthians letter to instruct.  In doing so, he wrote verses that will forever be considered the ultimate description of love’s truth .  For any of us who seek to better love partners, spouses, parents, children, friends, or strangers – we might meditate on them.

Paul’s letter rebukes and teaches the Corinth congregation.  This early church had become toxic – one that was deeply divided, arrogant, competitive, abusive, and insensitive.  Many people in that church, like many residents of the city, were highly educated and very wealthy.  That created in them arrogance and haughtiness.  They believed themselves to be intellectually, spiritually, and culturally superior to members who were not urbane, “with it” or rich.  Terrible divisions resulted with the elites shunning others by asserting only they should be leaders.  They arrogantly held lavish meals and social events to which the less wealthy could not afford to participate – and that did not trouble the church’s leaders.   Worst of all, the elites felt only they had knowledge of what is true and they adopted a “my way or the highway” attitude – think as we do or get out.  Sadly, Paul’s letter shows that church communities, from their very beginning, can become cliquish, unloving and exclusive.  The hypocrisy of a community that claimed to believe in the ethics of Jesus was too much for Paul.  His letter holds no punches in its criticism of them.  But his love verses were a way to gently show them the light.  Don’t puff yourselves up so much that you forget the greatest of all sentiments, he wrote.  Be kind, be humble, don’t judge, forgive, be empathetic and compassionate to all – and most importantly practice these to people you dislike, disagree with, or who live on the margins.

For Paul, love is not merely a warm feeling.  It is the bedrock ideal on which all other ideals are founded.  As he wrote, one can seemingly be the smartest, most capable, most justice seeking person ever, but if he or she does not speak, act and think with love, they are nothing.  It’s in this way that Paul understood what it means to be a Christian or, for that matter, any intuitive and aware person.  All of life and all of human accomplishment rises or falls on whether or not we love.  And so Paul, with his words, described for the Corinthian church just exactly what genuine love looks like.  It is unconditional and selfless affection toward another – no matter what.

Since all of us are a child of someone, the parent of someone, or the owner of a pet, we each have most likely felt or shown unconditional love.  For me, and I am not in any way an expert on love, I can mostly understand it’s “no strings attached” expression by what I feel for my daughters.  Love for them is somehow hardwired into me.  No matter what good or bad things Amy and Sara could ever do or not do, I will love them.  I knew from the instant they came into this world, so tiny, fragile and dependent on their mom and me, that I deeply loved them.  I’ve felt it every time they were hurt – with a scraped knee, with a cold or flu, with a boyfriend who forsook them, or with the disappointments of school and work.  Their hurt was and is my hurt.  Their vulnerability is my vulnerability.  Their fears and doubts are mine too – and all I can feel is a desire to protect them and make them feel better.

I’ve equally felt that love when they’ve disappointed me:  when they, as children, openly defied me, or when, as teenagers, they cursed me for setting curfews, or now when they get busy with their lives and forget to call.  I’ve felt the ache of love at those times not because I’m wounded, but because I perceive more clearly how deep my affection is for them.  Only a parent can fathom such unconditional love when a belligerent child or rebellious teenager proclaims their disdain for those who brought them into the world.  It’s childhood angst and not real dislike, most parents know.  My girls are now two of my best friends who conclude every call and every visit with me by saying, “I love you.”   In my eyes, they are still the innocent little girls who used to call me daddy, held my hand wherever we walked, and wanted my approval more than anything in the world.

As a son, I’ve also felt unconditional love for, and from, my mom.  She was my constant cheerleader when I grew up – always finding ways to boost the self-esteem of her introspective and quiet son.  When I came out as a gay man thirteen years ago, my mom was initially confused – but she quickly rallied to my defense.  She would look at my dad with dagger eyes whenever he made homophobic statements – sensing how they hurt me.  Most of all, she assured me of her acceptance at a time when I felt very alone.

And I feel the same toward her.  Suffering from dementia, she is now the child and I’m the parent.  She repeats questions over and over.  She delights in eating desserts and sweet things.  She loves stuffed animals.  She cries at any physical pain, but cherishes hugs and having her hand held.  I can’t help feeling upset when I see her now – alone, afraid, and delusional – in a place surrounded by strangers.  It’s terrible of me to think this, but I regularly pray she finds her final peace by quietly slipping into eternity sometime soon.  I love her no matter what – but I ache at her suffering.

For anyone who has owned and loved a pet, this kind of love is much the same.  An innocent creature depends on its owner for everything – food, shelter, acceptance, kindness and affection.  Pets, in turn, love their owners far beyond what they receive.  Pets see the reality of our true selves – the little frustrations, flashes of anger, or occasional indifference we can show.  And yet, in their eyes, we are like the sun.  We’re the center, the sustenance, the security of their existence.  Their love and devotion is so total it’s usually unmatched by any human lover.  If we want to experience pure, unconditional love, we should have a dog or cat.

The love of child, parent or pet, as I’ve said, is as close to true love as many of us experience.  We love our partners, spouses and friends, but so often that love is conditional.  We love based on the love we get in return.  And yet Paul clearly implies in his love verses that true love is not dependent on how another treats us.  This is the love force that I believe IS god.  Pure, true and holy love does not judge another because he or she is different.  It lets go of, and forgives, another for the hurts they’ve inflicted.   It does not keep score of good deeds offered and good deeds received.   It sees no bad, hears no bad, and speaks no bad.   Instead, as Paul says, true love notices, celebrates, and remembers only the positive in another.  This is the love Jesus taught when he implored his followers to selflessly serve the poor, sick and sinful.  It’s the perfect love that prompted him to teach about love for one’s enemies, to turn the other cheek, and to honestly forgive past wrongs.  Love does not return anger for anger, hate for hate, violence for violence.  Its seeming weakness is, indeed, its very strength.

        When my dad was in his last hour of life, his three children and his grandchildren circled around him.  His breathing was heavy and labored.  He had been a man’s man – someone who rarely showed emotion, almost never said, “I love you,” and blustered his way through life with a macho bravado.   I was and am very different, and I rarely felt close to him.  But on his deathbed, I forgot all of that and loved him intensely.  It was not emotion for a dying parent.  Instead, I felt a love born of finally understanding him for who he was – a man who lived on his own terms, who served and gave to others, and who was as messed up as me or anyone else.  He came to his end not with memories and celebrations of career achievement, money and things acquired, good deeds performed, or fun times had.  Instead, it was just love that surrounded him, held him, and cried over him.  And in some odd way, he returned that love to those of us near him.  The sum of his life, his children and grandchildren and all that they give to the world because he first gave to them, was boiled down to its essence.  We loved him and he loved us.

That is the kind of unconditional love of Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., prophets who taught their followers that the only path to equality and reconciliation is paved with love.  As King once said, “We must discover the power of love, the redemptive power of love.  And when we discover that, we will be able to make of this old world a new world.  We will be able to make men better.  Love is the only way.”  

        For me, on a Sunday when this congregation, for the first time ever,  publicly declares, “Black Lives Matter,” King’s words speak as true and eternal as ever.  Also, we add our commitment and love to member Leslie Edwards in remembrance of 15 years ago when this congregation, along with our sister Cincinnati UU congregations, apologized to him and his family for Unitarian racism against his grandfather, the Rev. WHG Carter over a century ago.  That apology represents both the eventual triumph of love over hate, but also our determination to continually act with love by working against hate wherever it appears.

Love is the most difficult of emotions to define or understand.  And yet we know it when we receive it and when we give it.  Ultimately, as Paul so eloquently wrote two thousand years ago, pure, true and perfect love “always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”

I wish you all much peace and joy.

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