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

Ashley King was the daughter of two well-off believers in the religion of Christian Science.  At age six, Ashley developed a lump on her leg which turned out to be bone cancer.  She could have been treated and cured at that early stage.  Instead, her parents took her home and treated her only with prayer.  The lump grew to be as big as a watermelon.  Child services took Ashley away from her parents but by that time it was too late to save her.  Doctors, however, said her pain could be managed and greatly reduced during the time before she died.

Her parents sued and won back custody.  They refused pain management for Ashley and instead admitted her to a Christian Science sanitarium where she was treated with water and prayer.  Near the end of her life, she was shrieking and crying out in pain.  She lingered in that condition for several months until she died.

Less than 15 miles from here is the well-known Creation Museum.  One of its exhibits shows animatronic Adam and Eve figures interacting in Eden with dinosaurs who roar and rise up as if to threaten viewers.  It’s a big hit with children. 

The lesson the museum wants to get across is that the Biblical story of creation and a 6000 year old earth are true.  But countless scientific studies of geological rock layers, fossils, carbon 14 dating, and other fact based measurements – all prove totally different facts.  The earth and our universe are approximately 13.82 billion years old – a time proven by satellites measuring radiation coming rom the edge of the universe.  Sadly, however, 43% of Americans say they believe in the Bible’s version of creation and that the earth is very young.

In parts of Appalachia, there are small churches whose ministers and members regularly handle rattlesnakes as a part of Sunday services.  Many have been bitten and, while they could be medically treated and saved, most refuse.  The practice comes from three verses in the Book of Mark in the New Testament which says that Christians are protected by their belief in Christ such that they can handle dangerous snakes and won’t be harmed by poison.

In our country, diseases such as depression or addiction are often blamed on the negative choices of individuals.  Gay, lesbian and transgender people are also believed to choose their sexuality.  Such ideas come from Scripture stories about Adam and Eve.  In those stories, they willingly chose to disobey God”s orders.  Since it is believed we are their descendants, we too willingly choose our actions. 

Neurobiologists, however, have proven that we have limited control over our actions or thoughts.  They are determined by our body’s  biochemistry.  Being gay, being challenged by addiction disease and depression, or even being happy, these have been proven to originate from genetics and brain chemistry.  Indeed, most neurobiologists say that our consciousness – even our awareness of what is happening right now – are what they call “neuronal illusions.”  All our thoughts are ultimately produced and interpreted by chemistry.

What these illustrations indicate is that despite abundant facts and science based proofs about how our bodies and nature work, many religious superstitions still hold an irrational sway over millions of people.  Despite that fact, I believe spirituality also offers proven benefits based in fact..

As with most aspects of life, I look for grey areas and nuance within any argument or belief.  That’s the reason I’ve focused my message series this month on looking at paradoxes.  I believe much of life is a paradox.  Very few things, in my opinion, are absolute.  They are, instead, an ironic blend of good and bad, bright and dark, easy and difficult or somewhere between two opposites.  I discussed two Sunday’s ago the paradox of how pain is to be avoided and embraced.  Last week, I considered the fact that disruption is both chaotic and productive.  Today, I want to examine how spirituality is both superstitious and fact based.  Two seemingly inconsistent ideas are nevertheless both true.  That is the definition of paradox.

Carl Jung, the famous psychoanalyst, believed that spirituality is a basic human yearning equivalent to hunger for food.  Each person, at some level he said, seeks to understand his or her reason for existence.  We want to understand universal truths as we seek ongoing growth in our cognitive and emotional selves.  We hunger for some thing, some awareness, some force – whatever we might call it – that inspires awe.

The key to healthy spirituality is to pursue individual awareness of meaning and awe.  The unhealthy version of spirituality, Jung believed, is fundamentalism which rejects individual belief and instead dictates a static, once-and-for-all belief system that cannot be questioned. 

A common definition of superstition is “a belief, practice, or rite irrationally maintained by ignorance of the laws of nature.“  In other words, for me, any form of spiritual fundamentalism is the equivalent of superstition.

Jung thereby established what I believe is the paradox topic of my message.  Spirituality is superstitious as I’ve shown several examples of.  But, importantly, spirituality is also fact based.  And therein lies both the irony and the need to understand.  Even though both statements are true, and thus a paradox, all forms of spirituality are not good.  Superstition and fundamentalism are clearly unhealthy.

This realization came to Carl Jung when he was only twelve.  His father and eight of his uncles were Lutheran ministers.  As a child, he had been told what to believe.  As a boy sitting on a hillside overlooking a new Cathedral built in his town, with a blue, sunny sky and puffy clouds overhead, he saw a vision of God sitting on his throne high above the Cathedral.  Suddenly, in his vision, a giant turd fell from beneath God’s throne and smashed to pieces the shiny new Cathedral.  (Now that’s a vivid image!). 

         This vision was Jung’s epiphany.  Spirituality and whatever we believe God to be, or not be, cannot be something told to us.  Instead, they are things we must determine through our own searching and discovering.  And this concept is key to Jung’s beliefs about spirituality – and his core ideas about human psychology.

Jung taught that the way to mental and spiritual wholeness is to become self-aware.  He called this process individuation.  We must look inward, instead of outward, for self-validation, confidence and contentment.  This is part of the paradox of spirituality.  We must lose our egocentric self and its desires.  We must find our genuine self that hungers for inner peace, simplicity, compassion and meaning.  Individuation is about transforming the belief that things outside ourselves can make us happy  – things like money, God, alcohol, the opinions of others, power, or status.  It’s our inward reflections on life, purpose and kindness that helps us discover lasting happiness.  That is the heart of spirituality for Jung – to examine both ourselves and the big questions of life – and thereby find the kind of peace that comes from discovering our own path to Truth.

Such awareness helps us to see ourselves as we really are, instead of how we want to be seen.  What we’ll develop is the kind of humility that initiates our compassion, empathy and growth.  Individuation is closely tied to spirituality because it is all about personal discovery.

Fundamentalism and superstition, on the other hand, are beliefs that are not our own.  They are ideas from ancient writings or traditions lacking rational explanation.  They lead to unhealthy thinking that life is to be feared, that we are sinful and bad, and that we should all feel shame.  Fundamentalism encourages such thinking by telling people the only solution to life is to believe as they are told – and to accept the kinds of irrational ideas I mentioned at the beginning.

Truths about healthy spirituality, however, have all been proven.  They are widely accepted by scientists, doctors and psychologists.  Numerous studies have shown, for instance, that certain forms of prayer or meditation reduce stress, improve moods and increase overall good health. Mediation, reflection and even prayer that leads one on an inner journey are what Jung promoted – to search for our own answers and thereby gain contentment. 

Medical studies, as another example, show that stress, whether it be from work, illness or finances, causes our brains to initiate the fight or flight response.  That floods our bodies with the hormone cortisol which helps protect us in times of emergency.  If we feel constantly under stress, however, cortisol causes high blood pressure and a diminished immune system.  Meditation, prayer, worship or other spiritual practices have been shown to stop the fight or flight response and its negative affects on our health.

Mindful prayer or meditation can move us to an inner awareness that ironically detaches us from the self.  Much like Buddhism encourages letting go of desire, healthy spirituality can help us to recognize our vulnerabilities and accept simplicity.  We come to realize that we are but one small part of the universe.  That humbles us which leads to empathy and service to others.

One study from the Cancer Center at the University of San Francisco indicates that meditation, prayer and other forms of spirituality are highly effective ways people cope with crisis – particularly health challenges.  Finding an effective coping mechanism is what Carl Jung promoted.  Effective coping moves beyond the prompts of ego that focuses on self-pity and non-stop sorrow.  It finds hope through positive thinking, gratitude and compassion.

Other studies indicate that just being in spiritual community initiates hopeful and empathetic thinking.  Studies from Duke University and the Harvard Medical School show that any form of spiritual community, whether it be a church congregation, a yoga class or any like minded group that examines big ideas about life, they all promote inner examination and a sense of well-being. 

Social isolation or a sense of loneliness, whether real or perceived, are high predictors of depression and poor health.  But, any form of healthy spiritual community, these studies show, are proven antidotes to mental and physical disorders. 

Such is the ironic paradox of spirituality.  It’s why I, along with many other people, hesitate when pursuing anything labeled “spiritual”.  We link it to fundamentalist superstition.  Importantly, I have found for myself the point I want to make.  Yes, spirituality can be superstitious.  But, it can also  be fact based and life enriching.  I see it defined within that paradoxical context.  Unhealthy spirituality is fundamentalist superstition.  It rejects rational thinking.  Healthy spirituality, to the contrary, promotes pathways to humility, compassion, and happiness.

Like Jung, I believe that spiritual thought, introspection and practice are essential to a centered life.  I reflect and even pray from time to time when I’m alone or especially when I’m faced with a challenge.  Usually, I find in my meditations that my troubles lie within me.  I focus on my loss, my pain, my worry, my finances and how those make me anxious or sad.  The key words in such thinking are “me” and “my”. 

That is the primary reason I rejected, twelve years ago, the Christian faith and religious belief in general.  Contrary to Christianity’s alleged promotion of values like concern for others, its theology is founded on a concern for the self – to win eternal life, to constantly feel shame for allegedly sinning – and thus jeopardizing eternity in paradise.  Christianity was not a spirituality of my own making – even though I mistakenly turned to it many years ago as a way to cure me from being gay.  I thought I could change – and that God would do the changing.  Had I, early in my life, engaged in transforming my thinking from worry about what the outside world thinks of me, to seeking understanding and love of my inner self, I would have begun the process individuation.  Instead of looking to my soul and my heart, I looked to religion and unhealthy spirituality.

When I came out and turned away from religion twelve years ago, I experienced my own life paradox.  I had to reject spirituality in order to find it.  I had to discard the unhealthy variety and find the good.  For me, this spiritual path of my own making is not perfect.  I still stumble and fall.  But mostly, that’s OK.  I’m not a bad person, as I was once led to believe.  I’m simply a person, like all others, who occasionally fails.  I can either feel shame and self-loathing, or I can stand up, make amends and move forward hopefully wiser and stronger.

Superstitious spirituality is, for me, a path to nowhere.  It leads to

a meaningless life and an empty death.  The spiritual path of my own making is one that has freed me, empowered me and beckons me onward to grow and make a difference.  Spirituality can be frightening and full of dark superstitions…………………spirituality can be beautiful and enriching.  That’s the ironic paradox about it.  But, I trust, we will each choose the one that is beautiful and good.

I wish you each peace and joy.

Let’s conclude my message with what I encourage – reflection, meditation, prayer or silent thinking.  As I pass out what I call communion stones, take the stone when it comes to you, hold it just for a moment as you accept the love and good thoughts put into it before you.  Add your own caring thoughts and psd the stone to the person next to you.  Use these stones as a way to experience community in your heart – to feel the common bonds of  trust, sharing, acceptance, love and peace in our congregation.

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

At several political rallies for Bernie Sanders this past Spring, protesters from the Black Lives Matter movement interrupted his speeches.  At one rally, two protesters even made their way onstage and took control of the microphone.   They challenged Sanders for not speaking about racism, inequality and the shooting deaths of unarmed black men by police.  Many Sanders supporters were deeply upset and said that actions by the protesters were both rude and misdirected.  Sanders has, after all, been an advocate for civil rights most of his life, including being one of those at the 1963 Washington DC march with Martin Luther King.   A few black commentators also criticized the protesters saying, as one did, that you should not “piss on your best friend.”   It was a shock to many progressives that Sanders and, by implication, all of them, should be attacked as racist.

Importantly, however, Sanders responded to the disruptions not by attacking the protesters but by changing his campaign and beginning to speak about racism.  On his campaign website, racial justice suddenly appeared as one of his top three concerns.  He began to talk forcefully about the need for criminal justice reform and he frequently mentioned the inconsistency that over two-thirds of those in prison are men of color when they make up less than 8% of the population.  He also began to directly tie his concern about economic inequality to racial discrimination. 

Many Black Lives Matter leaders praised Sanders for these changes.   But they also pointedly defended their disruptive tactics.  They compared their actions to Rosa Parks refusing to sit at the back of a bus, the lunch counter sit-ins by blacks in the 1960’s, the sit-down strikes of steel workers of the 1920’s and the so-called “die-ins” held by AIDS activists in the 1980’s. 

Numerous historians point out that civil disobedience has always been disruptive and it should cause discomfort.   Chaos, they say, creates the space and mindset that shocks otherwise complacent people.  Disruption is one of the most effective ways to cause change for the better.  In the case of Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter protesters were highly effective in causing him to change.

As I noted last week, there are many ironies and paradoxes about life that both confuse and intrigue us.  Studying a few of those paradoxes are the subjects of my messages this month.   Why should we, as I discussed last Sunday, both avoid AND embrace pain?  As a corollary to that question, why is disruption both difficult but ultimately helpful  – in our personal lives, in politics, in business and with regard to social justice?  That’s the paradox I want to consider today.   Disruption is both chaotic AND productive.

For instance, in our personal lives, why is it so often the case that when we are at our lowest, when chaos seems to control, that something good almost always emerges?  As guest speaker Matt Himm talked about two Sundays ago, he needed to hit rock bottom with his addiction disease  before he could courageously recover and build a life characterized by redemption and positive change.

Using another example, new technology is a radically disruptive force.  Computers and the internet are now displacing people from their jobs and creating massive dislocations in the workforce.  This technology disruption will continue for many years and the chaos it will cause in many sectors of the economy – and in the lives of many people – will be profound.

But digital technology is also improving efficiency and enabling us to enjoy more leisure and increased social good.  Uber, the ride sharing business, has forced thousands of taxi drivers out of work and disrupted their lives and the taxi industry.   But Uber has also substantially lowered costs for riders, encouraged greater ride sharing, reduced pollution and traffic, and, interestingly, has helped address racism.  African-Americans have historically had great difficulty hailing a cab.  Because of Uber technology and the instant sharing of names, credit card information and ratings of both drivers and users before a ride is even begun, there is a new found equality in transportation.  African-Americans say they now have access to taxi type services.  Uber is therefore being hailed as an example of the social good that can paradoxically come from disruption.

In politics, Donald Trump has caused perhaps the most chaotic election process in our nation’s history.  Nobody knows what will result from this election and if it points to a new era in American politics.  No matter who wins the election, Trumps supporters – and the disruptive tactics they support – are not likely to go away. 

But, just as important, his candidacy has caused many to examine the reasons why he is popular.  One of those reasons is the fact that millions of people have lost hope in the economy.  75% of people say that the American dream of succeeding through honest hard work is no longer true.  The next generation will, in fact, be the first one to be worse off than the preceding.  If Donald Trump, no matter what we think of his actions and demeanor, has succeeded in highlighting the decline of the American Dream, then that is a good thing – especially if elected officials take action to address it.

Regarding social justice, the killing of innocent black men and women – and the visual evidence we have of such killings – are terrible tragedies.  The protests that emerged and the retribution killing of police officers in Dallas and Baton Rouge have added to the disorder that now seems to grip our nation.  But those disruptive events are also causing a new and much wider examination of racism and white privilege.  No longer can white people ignore racism when they see it in videos of innocent black men, women and children being shot in the back, chocked to death on public sidewalks, killed in their cars or murdered on playgrounds.   Such horrors and protests about them have disrupted racial complacency in our nation and forced many to honestly examine themselves.  And that, ultimately, is a good thing.

The paradox I believe each of us must come to terms with is how we manage disruption so that even though it creates temporary chaos, it is not destructive – but is ultimately productive.  In my own life, I’ve related to most of you the story of my coming out twelve years ago.  By choosing to take a leap into unknown territory, to be honest with myself and others about who I am, I caused major disruptions in my life.  I lost my first job, people in my previous church who said they loved me abandoned me, and my marriage ended.  Other friendships were challenged and I was left feeling very alone.  For nearly two years I was numb, depressed and at the lowest point of my life.

It was at that low point, however, that I had to choose to accept the  chaos and deal with it, or retreat back to a dysfunctional but relatively stable life.  My coming out disruption would not have been successful had I not made the crucial decision to go forward.  Because of the chaos, I found new friends, new work and a new sense of peace and self confidence.   Like so many other people, I had to break down and disrupt the dysfunctional me in order to change for the better.

Interestingly, that disruption for me was ironically entwined with disruptions in the two congregations that now make up the Gathering at Northern Hills.  Had I not come out, I would never have met – on a hiking trail in Sedona, Arizona of all places – a man from Cincinnati who listened to my story and recommended I visit a small downtown church that would be friendly and supportive.  That church was the Gathering.   

Two years later, the Gathering experienced its own period of disruption when its founding minister departed.  And that directly led to the opportunity for me to become its minister.

Fast forward five years later, Ray Nandyal guest spoke at the Gathering one Sunday after a member, who twenty years earlier had been Ray’s landlord, recommended him as a speaker.  Ray later described to me and our Board a church called Northern Hills Fellowship that held similar liberal spiritual views and was experiencing its own disruption with the loss of two ministers.  As most of us know, that suggestion by Ray led to our congregations meeting and then exploring the possibility of merging.   The rest, as they say, is history.

Many experts say the way to harness the paradoxical power of disruption is to not allow it to become destructive.  Jill Lepore, an author who wrote a piece in the New Yorker magazine, suggests that chaotic disruption can either blow things up – OR create innovative and positive change.  To succeed, disruption must fundamentally shift the prevailing and often complacent way of thinking.  That is what happened to Bernie Sanders in his campaign and what Civil Rights protesters of the 1960’s achieved.  It’s what happened for me when I came out and what Matt Himm described in his healing process from the disease of addiction.  In each case, people had to change the way they had previously thought.

To be successful, disruption needs to be focused toward social good – greater efficiency in serving human needs, empowerment of those without power, and improved living conditions for everyone.  Disruptive chaos, therefore, cannot be allowed to run amok.  Author Richard Pascale, writes in his book The Edge of Chaos, that people and organizations must function during times of disruption on the razors edge of order AND chaos.  Pushed too far, chaos becomes anarchy.  Not pushed far enough, change does not occur.  As he writes, “Nothing novel can emerge from systems with high degrees of order and stability.”

The balance for most organizations and people is to adopt what he  calls “polyarchy”.  Between the extremes of anarchy, where chaos is the only constant, and oligarchy, where too much order and control exists, lies a middle ground of dispersed control – or “polyarchy”.  Power is not highly centralized but there is just enough organization such that productive change can occur.  I believe this congregation comes close to matching that middle ground ideal.  On a personal level, one must endure the period of disruption while channeling it into something good – a wake up call, an opportunity for a life reset, and a time to examine what is one’s life purpose.

The good that comes from chaos lies in its principle of randomness.  Modern mathematicians and physicists have studied chaos theory and its popular comparison to the so-called butterfly affect.  As that analogy goes, when a single butterfly flaps its wings in South America, weather in Texas is affected a month later.  What that means is that one seemingly minor disruption produces a series of random events that cause significant but unpredictable outcomes.  That’s why long term weather forecasts are so difficult.

Determinism, as the opposite of chaos, is a way to control and direct events.  One stands at point A and determines that he or she will reach Point F by way of Points B, C, D and E – a linear and logical way forward.  The problem with determinism in any of our lives is that we cannot control or predict events that happen to us.  With courage, determination and a small application of wisdom, we must allow disruptive events to unfold as they come – trusting the outcome may not be known but it will be good.

Imagine the butterfly affect as it related to me and to this congregation.   Disruptions that occurred in my life and in the lives of both former congregations each randomly led to where we are today.  Had any of us refused to accept disruption – had I retreated to my former life, had the Gathering closed its doors when its founding minister departed, had Northern Hills panicked when it lost its previous ministers, had Northern Hills not come together to function without a minister for two years, we would not be here today.  Even more, none of us could have put in place the random events that did cause the good we now have.  Any one of those events – and many others that are too time consuming to mention – were unpredictable, random and seemingly chaotic.   But with our determination and courage, good things happened.

Much like I said last week about pain, disruption in life is a force for good.  We must refuse the impulse to fear it and flee from it.  When the events of life seem to overwhelm us in their chaos, when life seems dark and perhaps even hopeless, let us remember to hang on.  Let’s summon the inner strength we each have to persevere – while also importantly remembering that disruption is a cleansing and healing force if we channel it in the right way.  We are people who yearn for all that is good and true in the world and in ourselves.  Life is a paradox, it is often chaotic, but it can also be so beautiful and so very wonderful. 

        I wish us each disruptive peace and joy! 

    

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

 

If you have ever studied or read ancient Greek mythology, you likely know about the story of Atlas.  He is the fictional son of the Greek god Titan.  His family tried to take control of the heavens by fighting its rulers – the Olympians.  The Titans lost that battle and Atlas was then punished.  For all eternity he was to hold up, through physical struggle, the position of the sun, moon, stars and planets.  He can never rest or sleep.  His is an endless life of suffering seemingly devoid of meaning.

Ayn Rand is an author who is the darling of the contemporary Tea Party and conservative political movement.  Writing about the age old question on the purpose of life, Rand believed that human meaning is solely found in the pursuit of happiness.  Each individual is responsible for his or her own contentment.  We either succeed in finding it or we don’t – but it is up to us.  No government, organization or community is responsible.

In her famous novel Atlas Shrugged, Rand conveys this message.  She also implies, through the title of her book, that we too should shrug off and scorn life’s challenges.  There is no purpose or good in them.  The mythical figure Atlas stoically accepts the sacrifice imposed on him by Olympian authority when he should, Rand claims, rebel.  It’s pleasure and not pain that should define our lives.

She wrote in her novel, “It’s not that I don’t suffer, it’s that I know the unimportance of suffering.  I know that pain is to be fought and thrown aside…”

For Rand, humans fight against powerful authorities who cause us to suffer.  Society and government are our real problems, not pain.  Authorities force us to alleviate the hurts of others and bear their burdens – even though they are not our own.  Life, for Rand and her many admirers, is what we alone make it.  It doesn’t take a village to raise a child.  It’s sink or swim on your own.

Of course, I completely disagree with Rand’s perspective.  Yes, pain and hardship are inevitable realities in life.  As a minister, I see the pain that exists in the lives of every person I get to know.  None of us are free from hardship – whether it be related to our health, age, relationships, state of mind or work.  All we need do is look at the front page of any newspaper to see the widespread reality of pain.  Violence and war cause innumerable numbers of people to suffer.  The murder of innocent lives in this nation – from Orlando to Baton Rouge to Dallas – has caused many to suffer.  Others are continually oppressed by racism, religious intolerance, sexism or homophobia.  Millions are unemployed or underemployed and cannot provide for their families.  Some of us recently saw the heartbreaking sight of a lunchroom filled with over a hundred homeless children – kids as young as five with no room or home to call their own, no yard in which to play, no place to feel safe.  How many of those kids fall asleep at night in strange beds in strange shelters and cry silent tears of frustration at the unfairness of life?  How many more kids around the world live in squalid refugee camps or slums and witness the hopeless despair of their parents?  How many other kids are now in children’s hospitals wracked with cancers from which they will not recover?   Pain and psychic hurt are terrible, terrible realities.

My message series this month, on the irony of paradox, will look at  seemingly inconsistent truths that, instead of confounding us, can instead empower us.  As much as we can and should avoid pain, I believe we must also embrace it.  And therein lies one ironic paradox I want to consider today.  How do we both try to avoid suffering while also embracing it?  To embrace hardship is, for me, to understand its benefits: its distinctive ability to focus my mind, change my attitude, enlarge my heart, encourage my humility and, ultimately, enable my purpose for living. 

         In other words, embracing pain is first about acknowledging it is an ever present reality.  Since that is so, I can either retreat into an ego-centric, arrogant and futile effort to put a bandaid on it through the selfish pursuit of pleasure……….or, I can embrace pain and use it to find my better self.  Suffering is the window through which I find the meaning of life:  to grow as a person and thereby help improve the world. 

It may seem that the pursuit of pleasure is the only means to contentment but that, of course, is a false prescription,  Such thinking is born from the human instinct to survive at all costs by stepping on or ignoring one’s neighbors.   Sex, drugs, money, power and material things may stimulate the pleasure centers of my brain, but it is an ironic truth that I find my noblest self when I’ve been tested in the crucible of hardship……or when I’ve helped lessen the pain of another.  That crucible of hardship often burns away my selfish thinking that I don’t deserve to suffer.  It causes me to look beyond my hurt and see all the good in life.  It leads me to see the more difficult struggles of others and it thereby calls me to soothe, love, give back and serve.   Effectively dealing with challenges in my life and in others is a way to justify my very existence. 

Ayn Rand’s viewpoint therefore offers me a stark choice.  I can either focus on the supposed unfairness of hardship, or I can focus on what gives me joy, gratitude and meaning. 

In that regard, I appreciated Michelle Obama’s recent comment that when critics of her husband and family get their loudest and most cruel, the Obama response is not to go low, but go high.  When my own inner voices of lament get their loudest, I can either respond with self-pity and sink into a pit of despair, or I can embrace the opportunity to learn, appreciate and love.

Because of what I’ve just said, I hesitate to now talk about the primary pain in my life right now.  To talk about it might seem self-indulgent and as if I solicit your sympathy.  I do not. 

I constantly think about my mother and the cruel disease that has caused the mom I knew to have passed away.  Dementia has seemingly stripped her of the woman I loved – the mom who was my cheerleader, who soothed my growing pains, who stood by me in my failures, who accepted my coming out as a gay man and who smiled with pride about my work as a minister.  If there is one person with whom I most identify, it is her.  And now it seems I’ve lost her forever and that fact often fills me with terrible sadness.

To my discredit, I have too often succumbed to pity for her and me.  I am like her in so many ways – even down to having inherited her hearing loss.  I envision myself one day inheriting her dementia and that leads me to all sorts of selfish thinking.  What is the point of my work and my life if I am to one day suffer her fate?  Perhaps I should heed Ayn Rand’s prescription, abandon my work, my responsibilities, my sense of purpose and instead pursue a few years of simple pleasure.

I sometimes think that the Sunday messages I offer here are more for my own benefit than for all of you.  When I think about what I want to say, when I research and write, I am convicted by my own flaws and inconsistencies.  It’s so easy to tell others not to wallow in self-pity.  It’s quite another thing for me to follow that advice. 

But, after visiting my mom the past two weeks, after seeing her new demeanor, after considering this topic on the paradox of suffering, I had a small epiphany.  My mom’s dementia and my thoughts about it are only painful if I allow them to be so.  I do not suggest dementia is a good thing.  What I do suggest is that this disease has happened and continues to happen to countless people.  My mom and I are not special.  Why should we not experience pain like anyone else – or any of you – many of whom I know are dealing with very difficult life challenges. 

I can choose to tell the sad story of this so-called tragedy in my mom’s and my life.  Or, I can choose to tell myself, and then believe, inward stories about the multitude of blessings and joys in my life – including that of being able to visit, hug, speak to and love my mom.  If I do that, I will go high in my thinking.  I’ll escape thoughts of entitled sorrow.  I’ll see opportunities to expand my attitude about life.  I have a long way to go to be more mature, aware, and humble, but this supposed hardship can help me.  I’ll better see my life purpose as one of service – to my daughters, to my work as a minister, to you my friends and colleagues, to the community around me.  Instead of trying to run away from this pain, I must run toward it, use it and embrace it.  I cannot change the fact that it exists, but I can change my thinking about it.  I can transcend it and see my mom’s dementia as strangely beautiful and empowering – for her and for me.   Life is full of irony and paradox.  Avoid pain.  Embrace pain.  As one anonymous commenter once said, “life is hard, but suffering is optional.”

          These observations come after visiting my mom in her new residence facility in California.  I traveled to see her these last few weeks with a lot of fear.  I was concerned she would not know me and that she would be even more confused and upset away from the home she loved.  Instead, I found a mom filled, in her own way, with the wisdom and grace she’s always had.  She told me just before I left that she’s happy where she lives now.  “This is my home”, she said.  “I like it.”

Even though she does not remember much that happens in her daily life, she somehow has subconsciously remembered an enduring quality within her – to be happy, to smile, to make friends, to be considerate of others.  I like to think that if I have any of those qualities, they come from her.  And so I saw my mom not hurting, even though dementia is a difficult disease.  She has chosen to be content.  She has somehow transformed her attitude.  She’s telling herself new and happier stories.  She’s, in a sense, the mom I’ve always known – she’s kind to other residents, she tries to reach out to help them, she is grateful to the staff who assist and comfort her.  She’s happy.

Experts report she has done what I must do.   Many studies have shown that those who think within a box of sadness, depression, loneliness and suffering feel additional physical and emotional pain all the more acutely.  It’s as if the brain becomes so conditioned to feeling like it suffers that any additional stimulus of pain, even one like a dull pin prick, is felt all the more. 

But, these same studies show that those who think within a wider realm of contentment, joy and inner peace, added stimuli of pain are rarely felt.  Their brains are the reverse of those who exist with a mindset of suffering.  People who think they are happy have brains conditioned such that they remain happy even when hardships happen.  That is the power of positive thinking, of being grateful for the blessings of life, and for literally choosing to go high and transcend attitudes of “why me?”

I find myself, along with you, on a continual journey to understand my existence.  Since life is so difficult and often sad, what is the point of it?  For me, life is, yes, about avoiding pain and seeking to suck all that is pleasurable about living out of the universe – to thrill at the beautiful lives of my daughters, to venture into the glories of nature, hike a mountain trail, or wake to a vibrant sunset.  I’m also beginning to understand that my life is about embracing my hardships – to suck all that I can learn about meaning, kindness and grace out of them.

It is fascinating to me that these two different truths about how to approach life are both true, seemingly at odds with one another and yet are paradoxically not.  For me, and perhaps for you, I want to both accept the reality of pain, seek to avoid it but also cherish its transformative power.  Life is, indeed, very hard but it is also filled with glorious beauty and amazing ways to grow, serve and love.  Such is a paradox of our existence: avoid pain; embrace pain.

I wish each of you much peace and joy…

 

Please click here to listen to Matt’s message:

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

Omar Capo was one of the youngest persons shot and killed during last Sunday’s hate crime in Orlando.  His family moved from Puerto Rico to Cleveland when Omar was a child, but last year he came out to his family as gay and moved to Orlando.  In an interview with NPR this past week, Omar’s sister talked about her brother with a voice that was almost cheerful.  It was disconcerting to me at first – how could she sound happy when she had just tragically lost her brother?

But she explained herself.  Omar had told his family about a year ago, soon before he moved to Florida, that if anything bad happened to him, they should not mourn but instead be happy.   

Omar, it seems, loved to dance – from reggae, to hip-hop to salsa.  He found joy in dancing whenever he could.  He was a person who made others happy – and dancing was a primary way he expressed himself – often in spontaneous moments of joy at home or school.  He would simply start dancing in the middle of everyday events.

Omar told his family before he left Cleveland that if he should die, he’ll be somewhere dancing, and that is how they should think of him.  His favorite color was yellow, his sister said.  It’s a happy color and one that Omar pointed out is a vibrant one in rainbows and on rainbow flags.  Perhaps when any of us see a rainbow flag and its yellow stripe in the future, we will think of Omar and all the others like him who were killed and wounded in Orlando.  We might imagine them dancing as they happily were last Sunday morning – just before hatred showed its ugly face.

It’s been an emotional week as a result of the Orlando shootings.  In what seems to have been a hate crime directed at gays and lesbians, the attack is therefore personal for many in the LGBT community.  It reminds us that homophobia still exists – that some consider us less than normal, unwelcome, and deserving of being scorned and killed.  But the attack was also a larger American tragedy and one that drives home the point that we are all vulnerable to random attack and death from gun violence.  It ought to make every person ponder the question of what to do about hate and anger mixed with easy access to military assault rifles.  In the midst of a busy and emotional week for me for several reasons, a week in which I often felt very down, it was hard to spend time pondering the meaning of the tragedy and what can be done.  Yet, in preparing for today, I quickly realized the inspiring example of Omar Capo and other victims – they speak to what I planned for this message.

       How might we spend our upcoming summer, hopefully a time of some relaxation and time off, meditating on deeper questions?  Many of us will take a vacation in the coming months – a journey to a place of interest or fun that will revitalize our physical selves.  But will we take an inner journey to heal and enlarge our souls?  We talk about peace in our world but are we willing to do the work of creating that within ourselves?  Might we work to find the inner peace and contentment that young Omar Capo found?

Depak Chopra, the famous contemporary spiritual guide, says that he believes our outer selves, or our bodies, are driven primarily by our egos – the part of us that has needs, demands and fears.  Our outer domain is focused on material things and satisfying desires.  Our inner domain, however, is driven entirely by love – for ourselves and for others.  Nurturing and healing our inner selves is the means by which we feel self-love and what compels us to also love others.  Failing to take regular inner journeys can result in a failure to truly love ourselves and thereby be compassionate and empathetic to others.

This distinction between our inner and outer selves is interesting.  Neither domain is good or bad but in today’s modern world, many of us have let our egos, or our outer selves, dominate.  We seek pleasure and we avoid pain.  But we do all of that on an external level – one that mostly affects how we physically experience life.

To tap into our inner selves and find a lasting reward of peace and love, we have to purposefully remove ourselves, for a time, from the needs and wants of our flesh.  It’s for that reason that almost all of the world’s religions encourage some type of temporary fasting, or denial of self, that facilitates an inner journey.  Muslims, this month, are engaged in Ramadan reflections – a time of abstinence from daytime eating and pleasures in order to find connection with God and love. 

For me, in today’s modern world, removing myself from outside influences involves what I call “turning off in order to turn on”.  How can I, for brief periods of time, turn off the outside world of TV, radio, computer and smartphone in order to turn on to my inner self – my soul, emotions, deepest hopes, and thoughts?  In doing so, might I find the source of happiness that doesn’t depend on physical well being?

Summer is a perfect time of year for such an inner journey because it is a time when I am, at least, in closest touch with nature.  I want to spend more time outdoors and, in doing so, I want to use that time to appreciate the wonders of nature and to reflect.

It is for such reasons that Henry David Thoreau retreated into the woods at Walden Pond for his reflections.  As he said, “We must learn to reawaken and keep ourselves awake, not by mechanical aids, but by an infinite expectation of the dawn.  We need the tonic of wilderness.”

Nature is both a physical and a metaphysical playground – a place to renew our bodies AND our souls.  Only in nature can we detach ourselves from things we have made, and instead commune with things we cannot make – mountains, forests, and oceans.  As I said last week, we then come into the presence of majesty that inspires awe.  Having returned to nature’s womb, we can better celebrate ourselves and deeply think about what we want from life.

The three major world religions each offer examples of how persons called mystics plumbed the depths of their inner selves to arrive at enlightenment.  Sufism, for example, is the mystical branch of Islam – of whom Rumi is its most famous philosopher.  He spent much of his time alone as he lived an ascetic life with few luxuries.  He cared for pilgrims who came seeking his advice – listening to their concerns, cooking for them, and housing them, for free, in his small house.   For Rumi, denying oneself is a way to undertake an inner journey to find truth and peace of mind.  Many Sufis go beyond regular Muslim worship and practice rituals such as repeatedly whirling in a circular dance that induces a kind of trance.  In doing so, Sufis escape the outer world and enter a contented state of mind.  As Rumi said, “When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you, a joy.”

Judaism likewise has its expression of mysticism in the Kabbalah stream of belief.  It, too, focuses on exploring the inner self by intentionally denying worldly pleasures.  Kabbalah Judaism asks that followers abandon desires and egotism – the worst of which, they believe, is arrogance.

Jews who transcribed the Dead Sea scrolls and lived a hundred years before Jesus are said to be the first Jewish Kabbalah mystics.  Like Thoreau and Muslim Sufis, these ancient Jews, or Essenes as they are called, abandoned civilization and retreated to a spot in the arid hills overlooking the Dead Sea.  There they led a harsh but simple life of communal sharing, humility, non-violence and study of the Torah to find messages from Yahweh.

Like the whirling ritual of Sufis, these ancient Jews practiced their own ritual by daily immersing in water by which they felt spiritually purified.  Only by symbolically washing themselves of worldly influences could they find clarity of mind to feel Yahweh’s presence.

St. Francis of Assisi and Hildegard of Bengin were both early Christian mystics who also explored the inner self.  Hildegard is one of the earliest of female Saints – a woman who like mystics from other religions – denied herself worldly pleasures.  She insisted on living in a crude one room hut instead of a warm and dry convent building.  Only in that kind of life, she said, could she feel near God.

Her emphasis was on expressing true love.  In her mystical visions, she saw what she described as a bright shining light that filled her with a sense of being totally loved.  She believed that God only speaks and acts with love, that God and love are the same, and that humans express and feel God only when they love others.

And St. Francis, the namesake of the current Pope, was also a medieval mystic who lived a simple life.  But his teaching was not against possessions themselves – mere things as he called them – but against the mindset of possessing.  If we think we possess something, we are making an object more important than our inward contentment and the well-being of others.

Francis was also an early version of a pantheist, what I described last week.  He saw God in everything – in all of nature.  Indeed, he even went so far as to say that trees, worms and flowers are physical manifestations God’s love.  Like Rumi, the Essenes, and Hildegard, God for Francis was the embodiment of love.

One of the mystical visions Francis described was of seeing a leper come towards him carrying a piece of rotten meat.  The leper was both horribly contagious and smelled awful.  Francis, in this vision, rode his horse away as fast as possible.  But something caused him to turn around, get off his horse, approach and then kiss the leper.  In doing so, according to his vision, the leper’s face became that of Jesus.  From that point onward, Francis was convinced that it is in loving and serving the poor and hurting people of the world that one encounters pure goodness and total love.

I have no illusions that any of us will experience the kinds of lives that mystics led.  I also don’t expect us to believe in their mysticism.  But for these mystics and millions of people who are inspired by them, their inner journeys led to personal contentment.  We need not see visions of Jesus or live in a crude shack.  But we can find our own version of inner peace.  Each mystic found communion with nature and they all experienced an ecstatic experience that they defined as feeling totally loved. Such are inner journey goals we might set for ourselves.

As a practical matter, I believe there are several ways to explore our inner selves that will offer insight.  The first is to explore attitudes about ourselves.  Are we content with ourselves, what we do, and what we have done in life?  Are we content by ourselves or do we feel uneasy and nervous when alone – as if when we are with a stranger we do not like?  Can we honestly say that, yes, “I love myself?  If we can’t, then we ought to explore reasons why we don’t love ourselves and seek ways to correct that.

Second, we should examine how we feel about our jobs, daily activities or hobbies.  Are we happy in what we do – in our work, volunteering or hobbies?  So many people work long days but don’t find meaning and pleasure in what they do.  In a recent Gallup poll, over half of Americans say they dislike their daily work or activity.  During an inner journey, it is important to ask yourself if you are happy with what you do – and if not, to ponder instead the work or activities that will give you joy and purpose.

Third, the inner journey involves asking what is our connection with nature?  I believe that true happiness lies outside man-made structures.  It’s found in the outdoors and in our appreciation of nature through walks, silently sitting within it, or gazing upon and contemplating natural wonders.

During an inner journey, we should also get in touch with our true emotions.  How do you feel about yourself, life, and other people?  Are you angry, depressed or fearful?  Being outside and in nature, we cannot help but feel loved by a universe that made us.  That feeling, for me, helps eliminate some of my negative emotions.

Ask yourself during an introspective inner journey many questions.  What inspires you?  What gives you meaningful pleasure in life?  How can you sacrificially serve others who cannot, in turn, help you?  By asking these questions, we can better understand how to find peaceful contentment.  Love yourself.  Love what you do.  Love other people.

      President Obama said in his remarks about the victims in Orlando that they were doing nothing more than happily living life and asserting their civil rights.  He was right.  Omar Capo, who I described earlier, had found the keys to a joyful and purpose filled life.  He’d likely undertaken his own inner journey – one that beckoned him to come out and live truthfully as a gay man.  And in that truth, and in his inner self, he’d found happiness – the kind that is infectious and lasting.  If we want a world of peace and joy, then we each must find them within ourselves. This summer, let’s get outside.  Let’s thrill at the beauty of nature and our place in it.  And then, may we each feel the kind of infinite love that both conquers hate and lasts forever.

  

(c) Rev. Doug Slagle, The Gathering at Northern Hills, All Rights Reserved

In less than ten days, across half the planet, the sun’s rays will reach their northernmost point.  For a few days, the sun’s northern trajectory will stop.  It will go no further before it begins its long journey, over several months, to the southern horizon.  Of course, the sun does not journey north and south every year.  It’s us – our planet earth – that revolves and tilts in relation to the sun.

For ancient Druids at Stonehenge, Egyptians at the Great Pyramid or Mayans at their Temple, summer solstice was one of the most spiritual days of the year.  Light conquers darkness, the sun god gives its blessing to mother earth, and all of creation’s lesser gods respond with vigor and abundance.   Summer solstice, for ancients, was the culmination of the creation story retold every year.  Born in the cold of winter, the sun matures and grows until it reaches full adulthood in June.  All of nature is growing and responding to it – all the better to nourish and feed.

This miracle of the sun’s journey is better understood now.  There is no supernatural ability of the sun and earth to bless or punish.  They are not gods.  The sun and planets operate according to inexorable laws of physics set in motion billions of years ago according to the push and pull of mass and gravity.

My purpose today is not to offer a message on astronomy but to instead encourage our focus on what I call summer spirituality.  We will not gather outdoors here on the summer solstice and sacrifice an animal, our crops or some misbehaving Board member!  We might, however, use the entire summer season to immerse ourselves in nature and find times to meditate or even pray about our connections to the universe.  As we throw off the shackles of indoor climates and heavy winter clothing, we will reunite with the larger universe – in the woods, in our backyards, at the water’s edge.  In doing so, we cannot help but thrill at the miracles of existence – and the great mysteries that still perplex our greatest scientists and philosophers.  Why do we exist?  What purpose does life serve – if any?  What set in motion the sun, earth and stars – and why?  For me, such questions constitute spirituality – much like they did for the ancients.  Basking in the joys of summer,  I’m face to face with things much greater than me.   And so I often turn inward to reflect and try to better understand myself and the world around me.  My message today is meant to encourage our contemplation on such matters.    

I believe every person wants to be connected, in some way, with mystery, inspiration and awe.  For many people who do not believe in a personal, all powerful and all knowing theistic God, including myself, belief in the power of science to explain all things is unsatisfying.  For me, science offers an incomplete understanding of the existential questions I just posed.  In that sense, I’m a spiritual seeker far more than I am a “rejecter”.  I’d rather focus on what is positive and so, instead of framing my beliefs on what I’m against, I instead speak of a positive spirituality.  Therefore, contrary to some who do not believe in a theistic God, I believe that a little ‘g’ god force does exist.

For me, this god force is a part of the observable and definable natural world even if humans do not fully understand it.   This god force is a function of exquisite complexity found in nature, physics, astronomy and biology.  To believe in this type of a natural god is not belief in a religious god.   Instead, I’m a believer in a mysterious force that exists in all things.
This belief of mine is nothing original.   Most say a form of this natural spirituality began in the seventeenth century with the philosophy of Baruch Spinoza who was described at the time as being “god-intoxicated” since he saw a little ‘g’ god in everything.  Spinoza advocated what has come to be called pantheism – a combination of the greek root words ‘pan’, meaning ‘all’, and ‘theos’, meaning god.  Spinoza saw a universe of remarkable intricacy that nevertheless worked as an integrated unit.   God, for him, is not some outside anthropomorphic Being manipulating all creation like a puppet master.   God is pervasive, immanent, and all-encompassing.  God is everywhere and in everything – in a tree, a stone, a star, a child’s face.  While some state that pantheism is merely a reverence for nature, others reject that simplistic definition.  Many people like me believe there is a separate force that is common to all things – a force that fundamentally explains everything.
As a religious pantheist, Spinoza asserted that god is not a being but rather a truth that animates nature.   Science can explain the mechanics of how many things work but it cannot yet explain the why of their first creation.  Such is the force that spawned the first cellular life, initiated the Big Bang or pushes the boundaries of the universe ever outward – feeding on a dark energy cosmologists believe exists but can’t explain.

For some, pantheism is the theology of Paganism.  Pagans provide the structure and ritual practices that express pantheism – that god exists in everything.
And that leads me to a similar investigation of Albert Einstein and his much discussed spiritual beliefs.  While many, including Richard Dawkins who is a modern Atheist, say Einstein was in reality also an Atheist, Einstein himself would have none of that.  As he said, “There are people who say there is no God, but what makes me really angry is that they quote me for support of such views. What separates me from most Atheists is a feeling of utter humility toward the unattainable secrets of the harmony of the cosmos.”
Einstein later clarified this thought by writing, “Many Atheists are like slaves who are still feeling the weight of their chains which they have thrown off after hard struggle.  They are creatures who—in their grudge against the traditional ‘opium of the people’—cannot hear the music of the spheres.”   

He added, “The finest emotion of which we are capable is the mystic emotion.  Herein lies the germ of all art and all true science.  Anyone to whom this feeling is alien, who is no longer capable of wonderment, is a dead man.”
Despite his disapproval of some Atheists, Einstein was certainly NOT a believer in a supernatural god.  For him, science and religion may seem incompatible but they instead share a common inquiry – to understand what operates and began the universe.   Einstein said that science without religion is lame, and that religion without science is blind.  He declared himself to be a, “deeply religious nonbeliever.”  I relate to that spiritual irony.
What Einstein attempted to do all his life was to make sense of the complex and seemingly inconsistent thoughts he had about theism, god and religion.  How can one be a religious nonbeliever?  In his vastly superior mind, this was not paradox.  As he observed the universe, and as he discovered physical laws that describe how things work, he was awestruck.  His mind could understand how things function but not why they function.  What force initiated relativity and the balanced interaction of light, time and space?  Why do so-called black holes defy physical laws like gravity and operate according to their own strange principles?  Why is the universe expanding infinitely?  Indeed, if we can even wrap our minds around the idea of an infinite universe, why is it that way?   Being infinite, there should be no beginning and no end.  But science can trace a beginning of the universe to the so-called Big Bang.  But what caused the Big Bang and why did it happen?   What created the infinitely dense mass of stuff that exploded at the Big Bang and thus formed stars and planets?  What existed before the Big Bang?  Are there other universes that caused it – or, could this universe have been born from nothing?  These unanswerable mysteries made the universe all the more profound to Einstein.   They were the essence of his spirituality and his humility before the almighty cosmos.
When Einstein was asked by Israel’s Prime Minister David Ben Gurion whether he believed in God or not, he replied that despite his groundbreaking theory on the equilibrium between energy and mass, E=MC2, there must be something that created ‘E’ – or original energy.  In other words, something mysterious must have initiated the energy that caused the Big Bang.  Implicitly, Einstein replied that, “Yes!” he did believe in a type of god – but not the god of man made religion and theism. 

Einstein gave voice to his beliefs when he said, “A knowledge of the existence of something we cannot penetrate, of the manifestations of the profoundest reason and the most radiant beauty, which are only accessible to our reason in their most elementary forms – it is this knowledge and this emotion that constitute the truly religious attitude.  What I see in Nature is a magnificent structure that we can comprehend only very imperfectly, and that must fill a thinking person with a feeling of humility.”
For me, Einstein and Baruch Spinoza describe my paradoxical spirituality.  Reason tells me there is no theistic God, but yet there is a great mystery, a little ‘g’ god force in all things. 

Our minds give us great power, but they can take us only so far.  We stand as if at a window gazing into the cosmos – but the glass is dimmed and not completely clear.  We see a natural creation that is supremely captivating, intricate and far more complex than anything we can comprehend.   In seeing such finely tuned intricacy, we are rendered speechless and in awe.  Despite our own intellectual abilities, we are suddenly aware of how much we do not know and we are left humbled.  It is in that precise moment when we might be closest to ultimate spiritual truth. It is a moment when we perceive greatness we can never fully understand.
That is the humble spirituality Einstein pursued.  His reason told him there is no big ‘g’ God or puppet master.   Angels don’t dance on pinheads, there is no hell, people do not come back to life after dying, and there are no supernatural miracles.  But he did say that, given the choice, he’d prefer the company of religious believers over many Atheists because at least they are in awe of something.  His humility told him there is a lot he did not understand.  God, for him, may not be real but the mysteries of the universe ARE real.  In his awareness of that truth, he felt himself in the presence of things far greater than him.   One of the greatest intellects in history was one of the most humble.  Personally, I find that attitude inspiring.
Like Einstein, we at the Gathering at Northern Hills similarly reject all forms of dogma. It is a stated premise of who we are that we begin from a foundation of humility toward matters of spirituality.  Your journey to ultimate truth and enlightenment, what some might call God, Yahweh, Allah, Krishna, or Venus, is yours to choose.  It is beautiful and good in its own right.   We rely upon are our own limited powers of reason and observation to tell us many things.  But our minds, and those of scientists like Einstein, cannot tell us everything.

That is why I  believe in a form of atheistic theism – or pantheism – a worship of the god force in nature, our bodies and the physical laws that control them.  Like so many things, however, I choose a middle way – a path within the grey zone of mystery that is neither black or white, good or bad, theist or Atheist, natural or supernatural.

For the three months ahead, I encourage a summer spirituality of reflecting and meditating on such matters.  How might you hear the music of the spheres – to which Einstein spoke – the sublime harmony of atoms and molecules, birds and flowers, stars and galaxies all singing the same magnificent tune?  To do so, you might venture into your back yards, the beach, the woods, the majestic mountains –  or stare into the inky black of space.   I trust you will find there the glories of which I speak – the fantastic beauty of creation and the inspiring wonders of all existence.  At the altar of tree, star and ocean, we can unite in awe and wonder.  As humbled people, we will find reconciliation with one another, and our diverse spiritual journeys.  God is a paradox.  God is dead…and god is alive.  God is nowhere…and god is everywhere.

I wish you all much peace and joy…

(c) Rev. Doug Slagle, The Gathering at Northern Hills, All Rights Reserved

I have very few memories of the 1960’s.  I was born at its beginning and so I remember a few events from that decade – but not much about its cultural, spiritual and political significance.  Even so, the decade clearly shaped both me and most of us here today.

The sexual revolution began in the 1960’s and the gay rights movement emerged from that.  Attitudes about equality for African-Americans, women and other marginalized people also improved.  Spiritually, the sixties saw a wholesale change in religious attitudes.  No longer did most people accept, without question, the religion of their parents.  Universal values such as equality, justice, love, peace, simplicity, and humility were embraced by sixties youth as synonymous with what they considered to be honest “spirituality”.  Many hippies even became involved in the so-called Jesus movement which celebrated expansive love, radical equality and communal sharing.

The term “flower power” originated from the poet Alan Ginsburg who encouraged young people living in San Francisco to use flowers as a “visual spectacle” against non-violence.  For the so-called hippies of that era, flowers were symbols of their motto to make love and not war.  Flowers are the antithesis of guns and bombs.   

Indeed, flower power was a statement of peace.  It represented what activist Abbie Hoffman described as “friendly weakness” or a willingness to purposefully set aside anger and violence.  Flower power echoed the non -violence of Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr., who all taught that the meek, gentle and humble people of the world are the truly strong.  It’s easy to be verbally or physically violent.  It’s far more challenging and courageous to be forgiving, gentle and gracious toward enemies.

During the summer of 1967, one which was called the summer of love, youth across the nation rallied in huge numbers against the Viet Nam war.  It was the high point of the flower power movement.  Using non-violent tactics borrowed from the civil rights movement, over 100,000 young people marched on Washington D.C. and surrounded the Pentagon.  Three thousand soldiers formed a protective ring around it.  Each one held a rifle with a fixed bayonet pointed at the peaceful protesters.  One of the most iconic images of the sixties is a photograph of a young man at that protest placing daisies in the gun barrels of soldiers lined up against him and others.

For us as Unitarian Universalists, the flower power movement of the sixties expressed many of the values we hold – ones which we celebrate today.  Flower children, as they were called, believed in equality such that many chose to establish communes in order to equitably share work and resources.  And those communities had a few similarities to ours.  People of all races, sexualities, beliefs and genders were welcomed.  There was minimal hierarchy.  They made decisions collectively.  They worked to achieve common goals of a peaceful, loving, and compassionate community.  And flowers were their symbol.

Interestingly, the flower children of the sixties were unknowingly following in the footsteps of one of Unitarian Universalism’s heroes – the Reverend Norbert Capek.  As the originator of flower communion, he was also a champion of the ideals flower children adopted forty years later.  Capek learned about Unitarianism during a tour of the US and, in 1919, he resigned as a Baptist minister and founded a Unitarian fellowship in Prague, Czechoslovakia.  His congregation grew in size to include 3200 members and was the largest Unitarian church in the world.  Capek dispensed with most religious trappings like the singing of hymns, prayer, clergy robes and ornate decorations in the sanctuary.  Services consisted mostly of lectures on universally accepted ethics.

In 1941, he was arrested by the Nazis who were against his liberal religious views.  He was tortured, imprisoned in the Dachau concentration camp and killed in its gas chambers in 1942.  At his death, the President of the Unitarian Association, Frederick May Eliot, said, “Another name is added to the list of heroic Unitarian martyrs…”

Capek’s ministry had two foundational beliefs.  People must first love all creation.   In order to practice that ethic, he believed in the power of spiritual communities to improve the world by enlightening and empowering individuals.  He was a champion of positive thinking and having a happy outlook about life – no matter one’s circumstances.  His fellowship focused on compassion towards those who suffer while teaching that people who hurt can learn to adopt a positive attitude.  We must see beauty in ugliness, good in the midst of evil, joy in the throes of despair, and peace in the face of pain.  As he said, “The dominance of mind over the body is everything………and helps to overcome everything.”

Spiritually, he believed that each person yearns to be in harmony with the Infinite – his concept for God.  Every person is an expression of the Infinite not only because each person has inherent worth, but because we can also act much like The Infinite in our compassion and love for others.   The Unitarian church’s task, he said, should be to “place truth above any tradition, spirit above any scripture, freedom above authority, and progress above all reaction.”

In 1923, Capek initiated the flower communion ritual.  The first one he conducted looked almost exactly like what we and hundreds of other Unitarian Universalist congregations celebrate every year.  He intended it to echo his congregation’s spiritual belief in the dignity and diversity of all people.   For Capek, flowers brought to the service symbolize individual uniqueness.  Their placement together in one vase represents the communion and shared love people must have for each other.

Blessing the flowers at the first flower communion, he said, “In the hearts of humanity is the longing people have to live in neighborly love.   In the name of the highest, in whom we move and who makes the mother, the father, brother, and the sister what they are; In the name of sages and great religious leaders who sacrificed their lives to hasten the coming of the kingdom of peace and justice – Let us renew our resolution sincerely to be real brothers and sisters regardless of any kind of barrier which estranges person from person.”   

As I said earlier, many of us have been heavily influenced by the ideas of 1960’s flower children.  Indeed, some of us may have even been flower children – or at least sympathetic to them.  As Unitarian Universalists, we are also heirs to the principles of Norbert Capek.  What we celebrated today in flower communion is not just a nice way to conclude our September to June program year.  It’s not just a simple ritual with tradition and history.  Its imbued with a meaning that exemplifies who we are and what we believe.  The diversity of flowers is not just a pleasant thought.  It is a perfect symbol of our values. 

We believe that everyone is welcome here, and everyone is celebrated as they are – no matter what.  To that end, those who choose to join us also accept that value.  We don’t just say we respect and honor differences in spiritual belief, age, gender identity, race or whom one romantically loves.  We practice it.  Everybody has a voice.  Everybody seeks to listen more than opine.  Everyone speaks gently, with kindness, and with love.  We may disagree, we each may hold opinions on a range of subjects that are deeply important to us, but that does not prevent us from listening to, respecting and trying to understand the views of others.

Toward that end, we are like the flower children of the 60’s.  We are one community united in purposefully seeking collaboration with one another and with the wider world.  Ours is not a community that shuts itself off from those outside our doors and arrogantly assumes we have all the answers to life, death and eternity.  In a world awash with extremism where too many factions and too many religions believe they are right and all others are wrong, we say something very different.  We have more questions than we have dogmatic answers.   We are open to exploration and learning.  Such is the essence of humility and gentleness – with one another and with people who disagree with us.

This practice of friendly weakness is precisely what motivated flower power.  It was a response to American arrogance that presumed to tell Viet Nam how it should govern itself.  We fought a war against their people that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths – all based on the belief we were right and they were wrong.  Flower power, as a counter movement, offered another way.  The flower children of the sixties idealistically but sincerely believed people should make love, and not war.

Norbert Capek believed the same.  His beloved spiritual community in Prague, Czechoslovakia stood against the intolerance and violence of racist Nazism.  It taught compassion, gentleness and universal harmony – race to race, religion to religion, sister to sister, enemy to enemy.

We each implicitly know and accept those Unitarian values.  The flowers we brought here today represent them.  Consistent with my praise of us as people of action in my message two weeks ago, we don’t just say those things.  We don’t just put them in our Mission Statement and Unison Affirmation.  We don’t pat ourselves on the back because our Social Justice Action Team discusses them.  Each and every one of us endeavors to actively live according to them – in how we speak to others, how we disagree, how we act to improve the world and how we openly welcome, love and celebrate everyone.   Forgive me for borrowing the flower power motto and sounding a bit risqué, but we don’t just talk love here, we make love here.  That is a spirit in this place that we must forever honor and hold dear.  It is a Unitarian Universalist ethic – everyone deserves to be loved.  And every adult and child here strives to do their best to honor and practice that.

Flowers are brief but glorious displays of nature.  In truth, they are ways plants reproduce through beauty and a delicate display of color.  It may sound simplistic to compare ourselves to flowers but that is what we are like.  We offer the world the beauty of our principles.  And then we work to spread those seed values not by our words – but by our actions.  I look out here on almost any Sunday and honestly see black, white, child, senior, gay, straight, transgender, cisgender, male, female, Jewish, Pagan, Christian, Muslim, Atheist, Humanist, Buddhist – all in communion together!  What I see is One Human Family – a vision of the world as it should be and one we must continue to help create.   (Stop and personal observation here).

As we end an historic program year, one which saw us legally merge, one that added many new faces to our midst, one in which we experienced highs and lows, laughter and tears, let us go off into our summers ready to boldly continue this good endeavor we call the Gathering at Northern Hills – a vibrant bloom of peace and joy for all.      

     

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In 1517, a young professor of theology at the University of Wittenberg, Germany nailed to the door of the Wittenberg Cathedral a document that outlined ninety-five objections to Catholic doctrine and practices.  Most objectionable to this theologian was the practice of selling indulgences to raise money.  The Church decreed that a person could buy an indulgence – which was a means by which a Priest, Bishop or Pope could declare that the contributor may immediately enter heaven upon dying.  One could also buy an indulgence for a deceased relative and save his or her soul from spending centuries in purgatory – which is a waiting area to which Catholics believe souls must stay before entering heaven.

This theologian, whose name was Martin Luther, had committed a revolutionary act.  Because of it, he was excommunicated and labeled an outlaw.  Luther’s publication of his 95 Theses, as they are called, is considered one of history’s most momentous actions – an act of defiance that forever changed history.  Its repercussions impact even us here today.  Unitarian Universalism emerged from Protestant belief which originated with Martin Luther’s protest.

The primary theological argument Martin Luther made against the Church was its doctrine that a person is not saved from hell by belief alone.  A person must show acts of faith, or good works, in order to prove one’s inner belief.  Taking communion, regular confession, prayer, giving to the church, charitable works and clean living are all Catholic requirements to enter Heaven. 

Luther, however, argued that the Bible says one is eligible to enter heaven merely by believing.  He pointed to a verse in the Biblical Book of John, John 3:16,  which is verse often seen on signs that people display for TV cameras at sports games.  It says, “For this is how God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life.”

In other words, if a person believes in Jesus, that he died for one’s sins and was resurrected, then he or she will go to Heaven forever.  That’s it.  That’s all one need do.   Luther pointed to this verse, and to other Bible verses, to claim that just believing – or faith alone – is what makes a person right with God.

And therein lies the rub.  Luther was raising a fundamental theological issue – one that has been spiritually debated for thousands of years by multiple religions – and it still is.  Is being a good person, is going to heaven a matter of simple belief or a matter of also performing good deeds and following religious duties?

Jesus affirmed the latter.  He was a man of action and he encouraged the same.   He spoke eloquently about the need to serve others.  He did not simply engage in sermonizing.  He touched the sick and deformed.  He healed.  He sat down with and befriended so-called sinners.  He lived a life true to his ideals of simplicity and humility.  In other words, he acted.

Jesus challenged the talkers of his day – those who piously postured about their morality and generosity – while they ignored real problems all around them.  Such people loved to pontificate.  They loved to pray aloud for all to hear.  They loved to brag about their seemingly large charitable donations when they weren’t sacrificing much at all.  The religious hypocrites loved to scurry off to the Temple to worship while passing by and ignoring the hungry, the blind, the lepers, and the poor.

Overall, the point Jesus and other religious prophets like Moses and Mohammad have made is that being a good person, a so-called “godly” person, is a matter of doing.  One must offer evidence to the world that one’s inner heart is spiritually true.  One doesn’t do that with just a  profession of belief, but instead with acts that literally prove one is more loving, caring, giving, serving, humble, gentle, forgiving and peaceful.  One may not ever be perfect, but one had best examine whether he or she is at least changing for the better…….

You may ask, why do we need to be concerned about such a seemingly minor theological debate – between believing or acting?  As people who respect all beliefs, why does this theological issue matter to us?  Ironically, even though Unitarian-Universalism emerged from Protestantism, it rejects the standard Protestant dogma that faith alone is all that matters.  We claim that spiritual beliefs are a personal matter and one is never asked to change them so long as one respects the beliefs of others.  But more importantly, we hold that since every person has dignity, it’s we who must act to preserve and protect that.   Theologically, Unitarian Universalists claim it is us who are the little ‘g’ gods who create goodness and justice in the world.

Where racism, oppression and hate exist, we must both renounce them and practice the opposite – to love and respect everyone.  Unitarian  spirituality is invested in its actions.  Do you say you are a good person?  Show it.  Do you say you believe in principles of service, humility, equality and compassion?  Show it.  As one unknown commentator once said, “Actions prove who somebody is.  Words just prove who they want to be.”

In that regard, a fundamental hallmark of modern Unitarian Universalism is that spiritual action must be wedded to spiritual belief.

For my three part series this month, I spoke two weeks ago about the power of ideas.  We must not fear innovation.  We need a continuous flow of new ideas in order to change for the better.  Last week, I spoke of the power of character and how true morality is non-judgmental, empathetic and gracious.  Good character does not point out the flaws in others – as much as it looks inward to change oneself – while encouraging better character in others through positive reinforcement.  To conclude this message series today, I assert that since ideas and character are important, then plugging into the power of action is essential in order to prove them.

This is an important topic for us.  Congregations are supposed to be dynamic organizations that do much more than hold Sunday services.  They should be vibrant and supercharged with action.  As spiritual people, our primary goals should be to positively change ourselves and change the world.

There are several hallmarks of a healthy, action oriented spiritual community.   I encourage us to think about these criteria and how they apply to the Gathering at Northern Hills.  First, action oriented churches are inwardly strong but outwardly focused.  Second, they encourage spiritual insight AND good deeds.  Third, they value their impact in the wider community more than they do their number of members or the size of their budget.  Fourth, they would be greatly missed by the wider community if they ceased to exist.  Fifth and finally, they regularly ask, “Whose lives have been influenced for good because of this spiritual community?”

Interestingly, my thoughts on what constitutes a healthy congregation match those of many young people.  In a recent Pew Research analysis, there has been a 70% decline in affiliation with organized spirituality by the millennial generation, those who are ages 18 to 34.  What the Pew research discovered is that young people are increasingly disillusioned with contemporary churches, mosques and synagogues.  They see religious organizations and people who talk a lot about morality but who do very little to act and address issues such as inequality, poverty, and bigotry.  For millennials, religions and spiritual communities are often political and theological advocacy groups – one’s that involve themselves in politics, judgement and moralizing.  There is too little emphasis, they say, in doing the social work of Jesus, Muhammad, Gandhi, Mother Teresa or Martin Luther King.  Religions, they claim, are not action oriented.

As one twenty-something recently put it, “I don’t want to attend any more churches or be around any more church folks who are all talk and no action.  I don’t want one more person telling me they are religious when their actions scream that they are no more concerned with my plight than Attila the Hun.  Fake spirituality is everywhere in America, and it’s because it is centered on “self” and what we can get from it.   And plenty of pastors preach to that end, too – how we can get more from God while never addressing the issue of what we should be giving back.”

Millennials are often portrayed as self-absorbed.  But that stereotype is false.  80% of millennials, based on last year’s tax returns, contributed to a charity.  Large numbers of them volunteer for civic and charitable groups.  Demographically, they are the most diverse American generation in history – 40% of millennials are non-white.  And over 50% of their children are non-white – pointing to an even more diverse future generation.  As such, young people want to be a part of organizations that look like them and act like them.  Spiritually, millennials desire action over dogma.

What this means for the Gathering at Northern Hills is that we must evaluate and implement new ideas on how to be relevant to young people – if we hope to attract them as members and insure our future.  Fortunately, this congregation already meets one criteria millennials expect of spiritual places – we actively work to help the poor, marginalized and distressed.

But our level of compassionate activity can always be increased.  As most of you know, the Gathering at Northern Hills partners with local charitable organizations to help them serve.  To the Lighthouse Shelter for Homeless Youth, we prepare and serve lunch sixteen times a year.  We purchase hygiene supplies for them and our youth assemble those supplies into almost 2000 packets a year that are distributed to homeless youth.  We work every month at the Freestone warehouse assembling weekend bags of food for elementary aged children who experience food insecurity.  Over the last year, we’ve assembled thousands of such food bags.  We prepare lunches for 100 homeless children ages 5 to 10 for a summer camp organized by a local charity called UpSpring.  We will be preparing such lunches this year on June 15 and July 13 and many volunteers are needed.  Four times a year we help host homeless families by cooking and serving them dinner, playing with their children and spending the night with them.  We will hear about this Inter-Faith Hospitality outreach in a few minutes, as a part of our monthly SPARK presentation on ways to get involved in social justice.  Last December, we provided over forty holiday gifts to local youth in need – thanks to the organizing efforts of two of our members.   And, as was presented at last month’s SPARK third Sunday, and thanks to the work of one of our newest members, we will soon be actively assisting immigrant families in Cincinnati.  Several people signed up to help in this effort and I’m excited about ways our congregation will answer anti-Muslim and anti-immigrant attitudes.

And I am constantly thinking of ways we can do more.  Just this past week a member told me about four persons in our congregation who, on their own, tutor children at the local Winton Woods elementary school.  I know of other members who tutor at other area schools.  I plan to follow up on this, publish a training date to be held this summer at Winton Woods, and encourage members from our congregation to spend an hour or two a week tutoring children at risk in our neighboring schools.  This will be one additional way we, as spiritual people, can take action and give voice to our belief that insuring the well-being of ALL children is vital.  I encourage you to bring to the Social Justice Action Team other ideas on ways to serve the poor, hungry and oppressed.

Our mission is to plug into the power of action because that underpins what we believe.  We consider ourselves imperfect people who nevertheless want to improve ourselves and the plight of others.  We take spirituality to a high level – what we believe is what we also do.  And we must continue and strengthen that approach for our own sake, for the sake of insuring our future by attracting young people, and for the sake of being true to ourselves.  We are each ministers to the wider world.  We will plug into the power of action.  We will preach not with words – but with deeds of compassion and justice.  We will walk our talk.

I wish you each much peace and joy.

Immediately after the end of World War Two, after hundreds of concentration camps were liberated and their atrocities revealed to the world, most Germans insisted they had no idea about the killing of over six million Jews, communists, homosexuals and persons with physical or mental challenges.  Germans said they had been fooled by Nazi propaganda and that the level of inhumanity was kept secret from them.

Furthermore, German soldiers who had been concentration camp guards, workers who ran the railroads which delivered millions of Jews to the camps, and the owners of factories who used camp inmates as workers – all of them said they had been forced by Nazi officials to do such things or risk their own imprisonment.  In other words, these people did know about the Holocaust but they insist they were only following orders.

Many historians, however, have conclusively shown that the German population was aware of the Holocaust while it was happening.  As early as 1933, news reports in German media detailed how many people were being imprisoned.  Anti-Semitic laws were passed, Jews were fired from their jobs, they lost their homes and most simply and suddenly  disappeared.  The average German knew something very bad was happening to Jews and others.  Indeed, by the start of the war, camps were so numerous that citizens of cities located near them could not help but know what was happening within them. 

The fact that millions of Germans knew about the Holocaust, and many participated in it, is a subject psychologists and sociologists have studied ever since.  How could a nation primarily comprised of Christians go along with such inhumanity?  Why were there no protests or mass opposition to the Nazi political party and to Adolf Hitler once their murderous intentions became clear?  How could so many Germans participate in the killings?

The answers to those questions are complex.  Many people cite reasons such as Nazi propaganda and historical European anti-semitism.  But those reasons fail to address the abandonment of fundamental standards of morality.  It’s as if Germany lost its moral compass.  It’s national character failed them.

And that leads to a question that is even more chilling.  What would you or I have done had we lived in 1930’s and 1940’s Germany?  Would we have looked the other way regarding the Holocaust?  If we had been ordered to work in concentration camps, would we have gone along simply because we were following orders?  Or, would our standards of morality cause us to protest, not participate and thus risk our own lives?

There are two landmark studies that attempted to address the question of how character and morality influence behavior.  Stanley Milgram, a Yale University psychologist, ran a study in 1962 where volunteers were recruited to serve as test givers.  Others were assigned to be test takers.   Each test giver was told to deliver an electric shock to a test taker if he or she responded incorrectly to questions.  What the test giver did not know is that the test takers were paid actors.  No electric shocks were actually administered even though the test givers did not know this detail.

Results from this experiment showed that a huge majority of the test givers followed orders to increasingly shock the test takers for each wrong answer.  Despite horrific screams, cries of pain and pleas to stop the experiment by the paid actors – each time they were supposedly shocked – the test givers continued to follow orders.  Most expressed concern about the harm they thought they were inflicting.  Some considered stopping.  Most exhibited some level of stress.  But when they asked to quit, they were told that for the purposes of the experiment and in order to achieve reliable results, they had to continue.  A few test givers continued to protest and they were then ordered to continue administering electric shocks.  Nearly 70% of the test givers proceeded to the point of administering what they thought were near lethal electric shocks.

Results from the experiment shocked experts and the general public.  Many believed the results were unique to that group of volunteers and that the results could not be duplicated with test givers from other cultures or with all female volunteers.  In every follow-up experiment, results were statistically the same.  Test givers, no matter age, race, religion or gender increasingly shocked the test takers and very few quit the experiment – despite the fact they believed they were causing extreme pain.

Dr. Milgram, the lead scientist, concluded that, “Ordinary people, even when the destructive effects of their work becomes patently clear and they are asked to carry out actions incompatible with fundamental standards of morality, relatively few have the resources needed to resist.”

The other landmark study involved using Seminary student volunteers.  They were asked to prepare a sermon for a select group of VIP church attenders.  When driving each Seminary student to the location where they would speak, some were told they were very late.  Others were told they were early and had plenty of time.

On arrival at church, every Seminary student came across someone who had supposedly just fallen, hit their head and was in need of immediate assistance.  In almost every case, the Seminary students who had been told they were running late did not stop and assist the injured person.  Those who were told they were early, almost all stopped and helped.

This experiment, along with the Milgram electric shock experiment, indicated that human character and morality are often situational and not ingrained.  They are not a natural part of who we are but rather they depend on a number of variables.  Otherwise good people can and do act in ways that are contrary to standard morality.

In both of these examples, people were attuned to the morality of following orders.  Many of the test givers in the Milgram experiment reported that when they were told to continue shocking the test takers, they did not think about what was normal good behavior.  Their moral inclinations toward the test takers were superseded by their moral inclination to obey orders.   The same morality was true of the Seminary students.  They were focused on the importance of doing the right thing for those waiting to hear their sermon.  Their morality was not blind but was, instead, refocused.

The ancient Greek philosophers Aristotle and Plato both believed that morality is a function of choice.  Humans have the free will to choose to do good or do bad.  We have control over our character.  That fact, they said, separates people from animals which are controlled by instinct.

The Milgram study and the Seminary student study proved, however, that we do not have complete control in choosing our character and morality.  How we behave is subject to a number of external influences we cannot control – like the life situations we face, our level of education, how we were raised, our environment, our genes, the chemical mix of hormones within us, and our mental and physical health.  In other words, humans are just like fellow animals.  We are unable to fully choose, by ourselves, our character.

And that concept shocks most people.  It contradicts the foundations of society which seeks to judge human character by punishing the bad and rewarding the good.   What we’ve learned, however, is that our character and morality are not absolute.  They are subject to change and they evolve.  They are open to different circumstances.  Ultimately, the character found in any one of us is not perfect.

If all of this is true, how do we plug into the power of character to improve the world?  If our character is not always a matter of our choice, if we are prone to influences we cannot control that affect how we act, what can we do to become better people?  What is a standard of good character to work towards?

I believe we can look to the human Jesus as a role model in this regard.  We see from his actions a form of situational morality.  Despite the standard belief that he was peace loving and gentle, Jesus instead shouted at and name-called his opponents.  He often flew into a rage when confronting hypocrites – as he did when he saw supposedly moral people selling items for their own profit within the religious Temple.

When he faced imminent arrest and execution, Jesus was not calm or at peace.  He struggled with a desire to run away.  When he was invited to raucous parties with wine and single women, he eagerly attended.  Jesus  regularly sought out people and events that supposedly moral Christians of today would categorically reject.

Interestingly, Jesus understood the nuances of human character.  He challenged the hypocrites of his day to stop judging others.  He noted that only those who have done no wrong in their lives should judge others.  Implicitly, he pointed out that nobody can meet that standard of perfection and so nobody has a right to morally judge another.  He taught that we must stop condemning the misdeeds of others when we have major flaws of our own to correct.  He echoed what Confucius said, “When we see people of worth, we should think of equaling them; when we see people of bad character, we should turn inwards and examine ourselves.”

Most of all, Jesus was deeply empathetic about human behavior.  He reached out to supposedly immoral people with compassion and understanding.  To the woman caught in adultery, he was tender and kind.  To a woman married and divorced many times, he gently counseled her to find meaning not in the arms of multiple men, but by caring for others.  He was similarly understanding toward thieves, prostitutes and the greedy.  He did not condone bad behavior as much as he sought to understand it and encourage change for the better through positive reinforcement.

For Jesus, character evolves.  Good character acknowledges past mistakes and learns from them.  Good character is not legalistic and judgmental.  It is open, flexible and generously empathetic.  Character is not defined by perfection.  Instead, character is life enriching and ever understanding of imperfections in oneself and in others.

Character, for me, involves just what Jesus offered to people he encountered – understanding and the benefit of grace.  I find that by seeing the good in people and praising for them for that is a way to encourage better behavior.  I’m also aware of my own failures and so I try my best to avoid hypocrisy.  I’m all too aware that what I might consider less than good character might be perfectly OK for others.  As a victim of people who condemn my homosexuality as immoral, how could I possibly judge others engaged in behaviors that cause no harm? 

Plugging into the power of character is about loving, encouraging and serving others so they can be their very best.  Character is about doing for others what we want done for ourselves – living out the one universally accepted moral standard: the Golden Rule.  Personally, I want to be forgiven my misdeeds even as I’m asked to learn from them.  I don’t want someone to impose their standard of morality on me – just as I don’t seek to impose mine on them.  If one is following the Golden Rule, he or she will do no harm to others and exhibit, in my opinion, good character. 

What Jesus could not tolerate were the hypocrites of his day who pretended to be pious and moral people but who were secretly arrogant, greedy, lustful, and hateful.  For Jesus, hypocrisy is the greatest of sins.  The power of character, therefore, lies in understanding our own foibles and those of others, placing them in their proper context and, if they are harmful to others, encouraging positive change in the offender.

All of this is to say that what occurred in Germany during the Holocaust can never be condoned.  It was evil taken to a horrific extreme.  But the sobering reality is that most humans are capable of acting in similar ways.  In that regard, we must be aware of negative influences on us and undertake ways to counteract them.  Demagogues, discrimination and hate must be immediately rejected whenever they occur.  People must be on guard against false propaganda that appeals to our worst instincts.

While I purposely avoid expressing political views in my role as a minister, I believe this nation faces a serious threat in its choice for the next President.   Character demands that we confront bigotry from any candidate.  It demands that we confront violent, discriminatory or misogynistic speech.  It demands that we speak against hate in any form.  As spiritual people who do not claim to be perfect, we should nevertheless do all in our power to prevent the election of someone who expresses values totally inconsistent with universal standards of goodness.  I will not mention a candidate name who should be opposed, but I trust in our wisdom to identify him or her – and then do all in our power to defeat that candidate.

What I’ve hopefully outlined is a way to plug into the power of true character.  In doing so, we will understand our imperfections, we’ll empathize with flaws in others, we will practice the Golden Rule by doing to others what we seek for ourselves, and we will avoid, as much as possible, hypocritical judgements.  The power of character, therefore, lies in genuine humility, gentleness, love, understanding and compassion for ourselves……..and for each other.

I wish you all peace and joy.

To conclude my message, I asked Michael Tacy if he would learn and perform a powerful song that relates to my topic.  The song he will sing would be be highly controversial in many churches – but I trust that here it will be understood in the context of my message.  The song, “Take Me to Church” by the artist Irish Andrew Hozier, was nominated for a song of the year Grammy in 2015.  It was one of that year’s most popular tunes.  Hozier said he wrote it in protest against Catholic Church judgement of gays, lesbians and other supposed sinners. 

        I relate to the song because it speaks of what happened to me when I came out eleven years ago to my previous church congregation.  It speaks of how religion in general has judged and excluded millions of otherwise good people for behavior that harms nobody.  Even today, I will invite gay friends and others to visit here, or other spiritual places, and most decline.  They have been so wounded by organized religion that many want no part of anything remotely similar.

        Let us listen to this song, the lyrics will be displayed for you, and let us reflect not in order to condemn religion, but rather in sorrow at the human propensity to judge, hate and scorn people who may be different.  Let us reflect on what it means to show grace to others, to praise people instead of tearing them down, to love instead of demean.  Ponder, if you will, what truly good character means to you and how you can plug into its power.  May we listen now and reflect on the song “Take Me to Church” – with humility, with honest self examination and with a continued willingness to stand against those who hate.