Category: Uncategorized

Message 127, The Power of…Character, 4-7-13

(c) Doug Slagle, The Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

 

To download and listen to the message, please click here:

 

Thank you for visiting our website and our Sunday messages. The principal outreach activity of The Gathering is the support of homeless youth in our area. If you would like to assist but are unable to attend our services, you can make a tax deductible donation to: The Gathering, 1431 Main St, Cincinnati, OH  45202. 

Imagine, if you will, that you have volunteered to join an experiment supposedly about thinking under duress.  You’ve joined an experiment conducted by the Yale University Psychology Department.  You’re asked, along with another person, to pick lots to determine who will play the role of the teacher and who will be the learner in the experiment.  Your pick assigns you as the teacher.  The other person’s pick is to be the learner.

The learner is seated in another room and an electric wire is affixed to his arm.  You are seated at a console not far from the experimenter – the scientist running the test.  On the console in front of you are switches each designated by an increasingly higher level of electric volts.  A wire leads from the console into the next room and is attached to the learner.

The experimenter asks you to read pairs of words to the learner along with four words possibly associated with the word pair.  The learner is to pick one word that best describes the association.  You are instructed to flip a switch to shock the learner for each incorrect answer.  The switches increase at 15 volt increments up to 450 volts.

As you pose the word pair questions, the learner makes many mistakes.  At first, the learner expresses only mild discomfort at the lower level shocks you administer.   Increasingly, however, the learner feels pain and at about the 90 volt level – he screams.  Around the 150 volt level the learner utters a piercing scream and begs to be released from the experiment.   You are told by the experimenter to continue with the test.  With each wrong answer and at each level of electric shock, the cries of pain from the learner get worse.  At 300 volts, the learner refuses to respond – which is considered a wrong answer.  You are told to administer a higher shock.

At some point, you ask if the shocks inflict lasting damage.  You even ask to also be released from the experiment.  You are reluctant and anguished as the wrong answers pile up.  Each time you show reluctance to continue, the experimenter reads one of five responses:  “Please continue”, or “The experiment requires that you continue” or “Although the shocks may be painful, there is no permanent tissue damage, so please go on”, or “It is absolutely essential that you continue” or, finally, “You have no other choice, you must go on.”

The question I pose to each of you is: how far would you go in administering shocks?  How far would I go?  Would you stop at the level when the learner screams and begs to quit the experiment?  Would you quit when the cries are horribly piercing?  Would you quit when the learner does not even answer?  Would you go all the way to maximum shock level of 450 volts – a level that can be fatal?

What you are NOT told is that the learner in the experiment is an actor.  He or she is never electrically shocked.  No pain is inflicted.  As the teacher in the experiment, you do not know this.  The ultimate point of the experiment is to test YOUR level of compliance and the influence of YOUR moral character on decisions you make.

Stanley Milgram, a Yale psychologist, ran this experiment in 1962.  Its results were immediately controversial and have been ever since.  Before the experiment was run, he asked 100 senior psychology students and 45 leading psychiatrists in various medical schools to predict how many teachers would inflict the maximum voltage.  The average prediction was that less than 1 percent of teachers would inflict the maximum shock.  Most predicted the teachers would stop when the learner asks to quit.  The results, however, startled everyone.  66 percent of teachers went to the maximum level of 450 volts…..although every teacher expressed concern at some point.  Every teacher exhibited various levels of tension with some weeping and trembling.  Even so, the vast majority went forward as they were told.

This experiment has been duplicated many times since 1962 in many other nations and even in non-descript locations without the prestige of Yale’s name.  Results have all been statistically the same.  The first test used only men.  The same test has been run with only women and the results were nearly identical.  While some have argued many teachers quickly surmise the pain is faked and the experiment is not real, the overwhelming results from many tests over many years prove otherwise.

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

As we consider the topic for today on the power of character, it is sobering to contemplate how we might act in such an experiment.  What is the level of our own morality and how strong is it?  Each of us likely believes that we are moral individuals – not perfect but essentially good, compassionate and honest.  We might skirt the edges of morality in some minor ways but when it comes to basic integrity and intrinsic character, we believe we are good.

But what constitutes character?  Is it something innate?  Are we naturally virtuous or is virtue something learned?  Do we have the free will to be good or bad?   If we can choose how we act, are we therefore morally responsible for our actions?  How is morality encouraged in our society – through laws and threat of punishment or by the simple desire to be good?  Ultimately, how do we tap into the power of character in a way that leads to healthy, decent and productive lives?

Such questions have been asked for thousands of years.  One psychologist defines moral character as an individual disposition to express right or wrong conduct across a range of situations.  Character and virtue were major considerations of the Greek philosophers Plato and Aristotle.  Both believed that humans are morally responsible creatures who consciously choose their behavior patterns.  Each person can learn to be virtuous.  We choose to be good or we choose to be bad but it is our choice.  Unlike other animals, we are responsible for how we act.

Character has also been the subject of world religions.  All religions assert that virtue is a matter of choice.  We choose to follow the ways of God or we don’t.  Christianity recognizes that all humans are sinful and thus in need of a Savior – Jesus Christ.  By choosing to believe in him, we receive forgiveness AND we are reborn as moral people.  As the Bible says, the evidence of the Holy Spirit in a Christian is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, gentleness and self-control.   Believing in Christ makes one good.

Overall, traditional religions and philosophers believe human character is consistent.  We either act with moral intentions in most situations or we don’t.

As we have just seen, however, many contemporary studies have proven this notion is false.  The Milgram experiment showed that otherwise good people can act in ways totally inconsistent with their beliefs and morality.

In another recent study, seminary students were asked to deliver a sermon on helping others.  While being driven to a church filled with people waiting to hear the sermon, the seminary students were either told they had plenty of time before their sermon or they were told they were late.  Just before entering the church, they were confronted by a fellow student who had fallen, was groaning in pain and in need of immediate assistance.  Students who were told they were late rarely stopped to help.  Students who were told they had plenty of time almost always stopped to help.

Because of studies like this and the Milgram experiment, many theorists argue that character and morality are situational.  Virtue in people is not “robust” and consistent as Aristotle claimed.  It changes with circumstances.  It is nuanced.  It is vastly complex and highly variable even in otherwise good and decent people.  Indeed, despite our belief that we are each moral people, the startling fact remains that we each have within us a tendency to be shockingly bad.

In a landmark recent book entitled Against Moral Responsibility by Bruce Waller, it is argued that our human concept of morality and justice is deeply flawed.  It is based on our human instinct to reward good and punish bad actions.  Each human has a strong moral code that demands punitive justice.  We judge.  We heap scorn on wrongdoers.  We punish through isolation, shame, prison or broken relationships.  Waller maintains, however, that science and psychiatry have shown that human morality is often NOT a matter of choice.  We are not morally responsible for our actions.  How we act is subject to a number of external influences we cannot control – like the situations we face, our level of education, how we were raised, our environment, our genes, and our mental and physical health.  In other words, we are like all other animals in our inability to choose our character.

Waller encourages humans to stop judging others and to stop imposing punitive consequences for bad behavior.  He encourages our society stop imprisonment as a form of punishment and work, instead, toward teaching and restoring good behavior.  He advocates positive reinforcement instead of negative punishment.  Overall, humans are neither to be praised for good character nor maligned for bad.

Indeed, the Milgram study proves that moral people often act in seemingly immoral ways.  Many of the teachers in that experiment reported that when they were told to continue shocking the learners, they did not think about what was moral behavior towards the learner.  Instead, they focused on what was right in terms of obeying authority and doing what was good for an important test.  Their moral inclinations toward the learner were superseded by the moral inclination to obey.   The same morality was true of the Christian 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.

This situational understanding of character is of great importance to us.  Indeed, as a church that asks more questions than it affirms absolute beliefs, we ought to question our own understanding of what it means to have good character.  Clearly, a majority of us would have acted like most of the teachers in the Milgram experiment and like the seminary students.  I confess to often being flustered and short with some people in the busy hour before our services begin.Their moral inclinations toward the learner were superseded by the moral inclination to obey.   The same morality was true of the Christian 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.  Our character is not absolute.  It is subject to change and evolve.  It is open to different circumstances.  Ultimately, the character ascribed to any one of us is not perfect.

If all of this is true, how do we leverage the power of our character to improve the world?  If our character is not always a matter of choice, what can we do to become better people?  What is a standard of good character to work towards?

While many prophets and great people of history offer us examples on character growth, as with many areas of human conduct we can look to Jesus as a role model.  We see in him a form of situational morality.  He shouted at and name-called his opponents when he was angry.  Confronting greed by those who were selfishly selling goods in the Jerusalem Temple – the house of God – Jesus flew into a rage.  He violently turned over tables and angrily yelled.  Even allowing for righteous indignation, Jesus was often not meek or gentle as he encouraged in others.

When faced with imminent arrest and execution, Jesus was not calm or at peace, as he had also encouraged.  He struggled with a desire to run away.  Would he be a hero of great character or a weak coward?  For a time, what he would do was in doubt.

Despite his weaknesses, however, we see a model of character for us.  We see that Jesus understood the limits of human character.  He challenged the hypocrites of his day to stop judging others.  He noted that only those who are without sin should judge others.  Implicitly, he noted that nobody is perfect.  All of us have flaws in our character even as we self-righteously condemn others.  He asked that we stop pointing out the minor flaws in others when we have major flaws of our own.  We must examine our own flaws and work on them before we presume to judge others.  As 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 bad behavior.  He reached out to sinners with compassion and understanding.  To the woman caught in an act of adultery, he was tender and kind.  He did not approve of her misdeed as much as he simply offered his love and encouragement to change.  He did the same for the Samaritan woman who had been divorced multiple times – one who had married a serial number of husbands.  He was similarly understanding toward thieves, prostitutes and the greedy.

Much like the author Bruce Waller advocates in his book, Jesus often practiced positive reinforcement by loving and encouraging the allegedly immoral.  Matthew, a greedy tax collector, became a pillar of the Jesus movement.  Peter, a weak, impulsive and cowardly man, became a leader of the early church.  The thief crucified next to Jesus became one of the first souls to enter heaven.

For Jesus, character evolves.  Good character acknowledges past mistakes and learns from them.  Good character is not fixed, legalistic and punitive.  It is open, flexible and empathetic.

Even as Jesus occasionally acted in imperfect ways, he encouraged change in others by forgiving them, by turning the other cheek and by refusing to use violence.  In an ironic twist on promoting good character, Jesus refused to punish wrongdoing.  He simply forgave it while advocating change.

The power of character in Jesus was his ability to empathize with weakness.  Character is not defined by perfection.  Character is not unchanging.  Character is life enriching, ever evolving and ever understanding of different circumstances, influences and motivations.

We’ve recently seen the power of such character in those who have changed their minds about gay marriage.  We’ve seen the strength of character it takes to suddenly empathize with outcasts like gays and lesbians.   We see a journey from judgment and intolerance to one of understanding.   The character of such changed people – like our own – is not perfect.  It may have once been filled with hate.  But as Jesus taught, good character learns.  Good character develops empathy for those who suffer.  Good character grows.

It would be easy for me to stand here and talk about the many qualities that comprise moral character.  But most of us already know those.  Such statements by me would be a waste of time and highly hypocritical.  As much as I yearn to be a good person, I often fall short.  I make mistakes that are both intentional and not.  What I do ask of us is to honestly examine our own hearts and minds about the kind of character we have.  As Confucius said, we can look to the examples of good people to follow – and Jesus is one of those.  Imperfect in his own ways, he was still a man possessed of wisdom and insight far beyond normal human capacity.  Because he intuitively knew the variable imperfections of character – much like modern science has shown – he was deeply understanding of human foibles.  Contrary to self-righteous prigs who delight in wagging their fingers at others while possessing great immorality of their own, Jesus did not judge as much as he understood.  He did not punish as much as he forgave.  He did not arrogantly assert his own perfection as much as he encouraged humble confession and change in others.

We are all flawed people capable of nasty passions and ill-advised actions.  The power of our character lies in our ability to empathize with the flaws of others.  The power of our character lies in our desire to learn and grow from our mistakes.  The power of our character does not forget, despite our imperfections, all of the ways we can be good.  Instead, the power of our character understands that we are weak and fragile creatures who nevertheless aspire to the greatness of pure love for all.  Let us each resolve to continue on that beautiful path…

Message 126, “The Power of…Ideas”, Easter Sunday, 3-31-13

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

 

To download and listen to the message, click here:

 

 

As we consider today the power of ideas and especially the power of the Easter idea, we’re reminded that there have been a lot of silly ideas throughout human history.  Such ideas have often been based more on superstition than on science.  But some were just plain silly.  In Victorian England, books written by women authors could not be placed on library bookshelves next to books written by men – unless the two were married.  High heeled shoes were first invented in the seventeenth century for rich men – as a status symbol so they could physically announce their supremacy.  In ancient Egypt, prospective brides were jailed for deception if they used too much makeup to disguise their less than good looks.  During Nancy Reagan’s efforts to discourage drug use in the 1980’s, thousands of pencils were distributed to high school kids in New York City.  Printed on them was the message “Too Cool to Do Drugs”.  Students avidly used the pencils but this motivational idea ended badly.  As pencils were repeatedly sharpened down, the message on them soon became “Cool to Do Drugs” and then, simply, “Do Drugs”.

During Medieval times, rabbits were believed to be living miracles.  It was observed how fertile rabbits can be.  Some female rabbits conceive second litters even when already pregnant with a first.  Others are able to conceive without a partner – they have the reproductive organs of both sexes.  This ability to reproduce without mating was noted by the early Church and rabbits were quickly seen as miraculous – akin to the Virgin Mary and to the resurrected Jesus.  In this way, the rabbit became synonymous with Easter.  And the myth of the Easter bunny was born.  To make the rabbit festive and appropriate for children, the idea was adapted so that the Easter bunny was NOT portrayed as eagerly reproducing but, instead, as carrying brightly colored eggs.   While many contemporary Christians believe the Easter bunny is a secular or even pagan symbol, it began as a pre-scientific but very Christian idea – one that tied the miracle of the Resurrection with the seeming miracle of self-conceiving rabbits.

As silly as many of these ideas are, we nevertheless note the power they have held over people.  I have a picture of my youngest daughter Amy, when she was one or two years old, clutching to her cheek an Easter egg she had proudly found.  In that innocent image is the joy she felt in her discovery – not in candy or a toy but in an egg of all things!  She was inspired by the Easter Bunny idea that her mom and I had taught her.  In her hands was actual proof that the Easter Bunny is real!

Hopefully, for Amy and for many of us, this joy of Easter persists.  Indeed, Easter and the Easter Bunny are not so much the stuff of mythology but of reality.  Today, we celebrate the very real idea of renewal and rebirth in ourselves and in our world.  Much like countless adults and children have celebrated over the years, Easter reminds us that evil, death, despair and destruction are not permanent.  New life is all around us.  Hope fills the air.  The promise of a better world is ours to make.  This joy of the Easter idea is found in the symbol of the empty tomb.  Death is denied.  Hate will not triumph.  Goodness still thrives.  We have the figurative opportunity to live forever.  O grave, where is thy victory?

I was recently asked by a member here to share some Bible verses that are good for funerals and memorial services.  I had to confess that I recommend very few.  Most death related verses in the Bible speak of our hope in a resurrected Christ and the need to believe in him if we hope to go to heaven.

Whether or not you believe in a resurrected Christ, that is not for me to impose on you and not for me to pronounce today.  And, it is not the point of a funeral service or of Easter.  Both are celebrations of lives well lived that have brought goodness and joy into our world.

At the brief funeral for Jesus on the first Good Friday, however, his followers did not celebrate a life well lived.  They were in despair.  They were frightened and defeated.  The possibility of their own executions seemed imminent.  Hate, intolerance and religious hypocrisy seemed to have won.  Jesus and his movement were both dead.

But whatever happened on that first Easter, whether a deceased Jesus was once again physically alive or whether the myth of his resurrection was hatched, that does not matter.  What does matter for us and for our world today is that Jesus’ ideas were resurrected.  For us, it’s not that his body came back to life that has lasting value.  It’s that his ideas did not die.  The power of good ideas, the power of universally true ideas, the power of just, kind, forgiving, compassionate and generous ideas — these are still alive and well.  Out of the ashes of defeat and death, rose the powerful moral force of Jesus’ ideas.

The power of ideas to shape human history is unquestioned. Here we are two thousand years later celebrating either a very real or a very mythic event.  But that’s not why we celebrate Easter. It reminds us to seek after what Jesus and others taught and practiced.  With its ideas, it confirms to us that there is, indeed, figurative life after death.  Much like Jesus, we have the ability through our own ideas or by following those of others to improve the world and symbolically live forever.

Indeed, the world was reminded over the past month that Jesus’ ideas are still very much alive.  His ideas have been practiced millions of times but they were recently manifest in the first actions of a new Pope.  Since many of us are not Catholic, we do not see the Pope as an earth bound spokesman for God.  As an old, white male – the Pope seems out of touch with changing demographics and beliefs.

But we also see in him glimmers of Jesus ideas.  He chose as his new name that of Francis – one that no other Pope in history has taken.  His name hopefully speaks a lot about his values and how he might help use the ideas of his namesake, and of Jesus, to change the world for the better.

Francis of Assisi, from whom the Pope took his name, resurrected the ideas of Jesus like no other.  Born in the twelfth century to wealthy parents, he was a playboy in his youth – enjoying wine, women and the good life.  Spending time in prison after his capture as a soldier, Francis of Assisi saw a vision of Jesus who implored him to change the Church and thereby resurrect his ideas.  The Church at that time was the most powerful institution on earth.  It was vastly rich and its Priests and Bishops lived like princes.  In the town of Assisi, Francis saw how the poor lived in a damp, disease ridden swamp at the foot of sun bathed hills on which the nobility resided in splendor – including the Bishops and their elaborate churches.   Kept away from them all was a large leper colony.

Taking Jesus’ ideas to heart, Francis of Assisi radically changed his life.  He renounced a great inheritance and symbolically stripped himself naked in front of his father as a way to shun a life of wealth.  He embraced poverty as the only way for him to care for others.  He founded the Franciscan order of monks whose simple mission was and is to practice and follow the compassionate ideas of Jesus.  The greatest of those ideas was summed up in one of Jesus’ teachings – one that Franciscans still consider their inspiration: “Those that will be great among you, let them serve.”

The centerpiece of Jesus and Franciscan ideas is to build caring communities.  Instead of exalting the needs of the selfish individual, it is the community that is foremost.  One gives up self-interest and replaces it with  pure love and service for others.

Francis and his fellow monks worked with and served the poor.  They purposefully reached out to lepers with assistance and compassion.  Lepers were only allowed into villages at night and they had to ring a bell to announce their presence.  Most people ran away or hid themselves from the terribly deformed lepers.  Francis and his monks instead ran to them.

Serving as a religious advisor to crusading soldiers fighting Muslims in Egypt, Francis secretly met with the Arab Sultan to seek forgiveness and peace.  The sultan was impressed.  On his return to Italy, Francis ordered that Franciscans no longer evangelize to people of other faiths or seek their conversion.  He encouraged, instead, peaceful co-existence and mutual respect for Muslims and non-Christians. .  Indeed, Francis of Assisi taught that it is by one’s actions and NOT by one’s words that the ideas of Jesus are conveyed.

And Francis deeply believed in the inter-connectedness of all creation.  He is often called the Patron Saint of the environment.  Expressing ideas that are remarkably similar to those of native-Americans, Francis of Assisi spoke of fire, the moon and the stars as his brothers and sisters.  He literally preached to and tended birds and animals as fellow creatures in need of care.

Above all, Francis of Assisi valued deep humility in himself and in Franciscan monks.  Status, wealth, and power were to be avoided.  Humbly serving and giving to others is the path to a legacy that endures far beyond earthly life.

Such ideas were not originated by Francis.  He adopted them as ideas taught and practiced by Jesus.  A thousand years after the death of Jesus, when the Church had become an institution that executed in one month over 80,000 heretics and Jews, when its Priests and Bishops lived in opulent palaces, when it sponsored wars to convert Muslims by violence, when it refused to offer baptism, communion or compassion to lepers, Francis of Assisi showed that the timeless ideas of Jesus were not dead.  They had lasting power.  In Francis of Assisi they had been resurrected.

And those ideas are still alive today – perhaps in the actions of a new Pope.  We may not agree with all of this Pope’s religious doctrines but we can hope that through him the great ideas of Jesus will be resurrected in the Church today.  Pope Francis is said to be a humble man.  He is said to want simple food and lodgings.  He is said to have told fellow Cardinals that their first priority must be to serve the poor.  He is said to have scolded Priests who refuse to baptize infants born to unwed mothers.  He is said to have encouraged his fellow Argentine Bishops to endorse Civil Unions for same sex couples.  Just last week he is said to have encouraged love, understanding and learning from those who are not Christian.  He is said to have recently stated that authentic power comes to those who serve others instead of the self.

Adopting the name of Francis and saying nice things are good.  But, as Francis of Assisi taught, we hope in the coming years that Pope Francis’ actions speak louder.  Nevertheless, once again, the world is witnessing the power of ideas to endure.  Ideas have power when they are universally true to all people.  They have power in how they touch human lives for the better.  They have power when they are continually resurrected in people like us.

We celebrate Easter this year and every year because we value the ideas of Jesus.  We celebrate it because it affirmed then, as it does now, that light prevails over darkness, good defeats evil, love conquers hate, forgiveness is greater than bitterness, compassion is stronger than indifference and heaven on earth is a better vision than the hell of poverty, war and injustice.

We celebrate Easter because we know that Jesus ideas are resurrected in us.  Because they are, we will influence the world long after we have breathed our last.  We are people who reach out to family, friends and strangers with unconditional love.  We are people who work with our words and our hands to serve and care for others.  We are a people constantly seeking the better in ourselves – yearning to release the angel deep inside. Our legacy of giving, our legacy of compassion, our legacy of quiet humility, our legacy of gentleness and forgiveness – these are the fruits of our lives well lived.  Such is the currency of eternal life granted to each one of us.  Such is the currency that granted Jesus and Francis of Assisi enduring life.  The ideas of service to others that we practice will carry forward – granting us a resurrection and an eternity far more real than if our bodies or even our spirits lived on.  We do not serve to selfishly gain an afterlife.  We serve for the sake of others.  We serve for the sake of creating and building a heaven on earth right here and now for our generation, and for the thousands of generations yet to come.

Two weeks ago, a member here at the Gathering reminded me and several of you about the enduring power of Jesus’ ideas.  When an elderly member, having with her only a thin coat, said how cold and deeply chilled she was, Danny took off his own heavy winter coat and gave it to her.  “Here”, he said, “it’s yours to keep.”  Forgive me Danny for calling attention to your quiet act of goodness.  Francis of Assisi once said, “Remember that when you leave this earth you can take with you nothing that you have received – ONLY what you have given.”  That!  That is the beauty, power and greatness of the Easter idea.

May each of us live now and forever more with peace and joy…I wish you a happy Easter.

To download and listen to Kate’s message, please click below:

(Some of Kate’s message refers to power point slides she showed during her message.  If you are interested in seeing the power point slides, please contact the church and we will attempt to get them for you.)

Message 125, “What’s on YOUR Mind?  How Much Greed is Too Much Greed?”, 3-17-13

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

 

To listen to the message, download it here:

 

When we considered the topic of immigration last Sunday, we acknowledged that it is also a political issue on which there are many opposing opinions.  And today’s topic is no different.  As I said last week, our politics are informed by our spiritual views.  How we answer the big spiritual questions in life often determine our political views – why are we here and what purpose do we serve?  It is difficult to separate spirituality from politics.

Nevertheless, it is essential that we make that effort.  Jesus himself implored his followers to distinguish between views on civil government versus views on spiritual matters.  “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s, and unto God what is God’s.”

And so I encourage each of us today to examine the topic of greed only from a spiritual perspective.  If you will, for our time here today, take off your political hat and put on your spiritual beanie or your Papal pointy hat if you prefer!

At their core, I believe most people have sincere intentions towards fellow humans.  Only the most pathological enjoy the suffering of others.   We are each empathetic people who hurt and suffer when others hurt and suffer.  And, we celebrate when others experience happiness and joy.  Spiritually, each person yearns for a better earth and a better existence, no matter their religion, nationality or political views.  Let us approach the topic of greed, therefore, from such common ground.

As disturbing as the video on wealth distribution in America is, it’s important to recognize that it only measures wealth in this nation.  Indeed, even the poorest citizens in the U.S. rank above the poor in many nations.  Using an international measurement of purchasing power, the global middle class is defined as having a purchasing power income of between $2.00 and $50.00 per day.  While that is a relatively big difference, it simply means that anyone who earns less than $2.00 a day in purchasing power is, by global standards, poor and one who earns more than $50.00 a day is wealthy – again by global and not American standards.  Using that same index, the average middle class family in the U.S. makes approximately $60.00 per day in global purchasing power.  Thus, an average American is substantially above the global standard of middle class.

What this means is that as quick as any of us are to condemn the 1% in our nation who now have amassed a huge excess of wealth, by the standard of people around the world, a majority of Americans are considered wealthy.  Many of us would likely fit that international category even though in the U.S. we are likely middle class.

What we must guard against, therefore, is a desire to throw stones at others.  It is far more difficult and painful to shine the spotlight on ourselves and thereby question our own values.  Each of us already has a higher income, more personal wealth and owns more luxuries than the poorest of the world’s poor, those who survive on less than $1.00 per day, can ever hope to achieve.  For the millions who may not own even one pair of shoes, to the millions who literally live in shacks built of scraps, to the millions who daily scavenge for food out of dumps, we are supremely wealthy.  We are the global face of excess and greed.

As quick as I am to condemn greed in the 1%, therefore, I must honestly examine my own heart and my own motivations to root out that attitude in me.  I must ask myself if I am no better than a Wall Street hedge fund trader who greedily seeks ever larger sums of wealth – even as I think in terms of thousands of dollars while they think in terms of millions or even billions.

Ultimately, I must confront the question which I used as the title for today’s message.  How much greed is too much greed – especially when it comes to myself?  Where is the line drawn between a person who works for a living and seeks the average pleasures of life versus one who lusts for more material things and amasses immense sums of wealth?  What is a spiritual understanding of sufficiency and its negative opposite – greed?  If our effort in here is not to cast stones as much as it is to spiritually examine our hearts and seek inner change so that we can in turn improve the world, what can we do in our lives and in our communities to prevent uncontrolled greed?  As Gandhi said, and as I often quote, “WE must be the change we want to see.”

As a spiritual text, the Bible addresses the topic of money and wealth far more than almost any other topic.  Indeed, it was a primary focus of Jesus.  And, typically, he sought not to judge but to teach.  As any good teacher, he rarely told others HOW to act or HOW to think.  Instead, he asked questions, told stories and used them to encourage self-examination.  He wanted people to look at their motivations – and then change their thinking by themselves.  As we all know, change must come from within.  Jesus simply asked the right questions and acted as a catalyst for inner spiritual change.

In one incident, when Jesus was surrounded by a large crowd of admirers, a man yelled out from the crowd and asked that Jesus tell the man’s brother to stop refusing to divide the family inheritance with him.  Jesus replied in his classic way.  He first shot down the idea that he was to be a judge.  He asked, “Who made me an umpire between you?”  But he then quickly added, “Watch out!  Be on your guard against wanting to have more and more things. Life is not made up of how much a person has.”

And then Jesus told a parable of a farmer who was bragging about how his land was so productive.  He was reaping far more grain than he had room to store.  His barns were completely full and yet his land produced more and more.  And so the farmer thought to himself that he would tear down his existing barns and build much bigger ones so he could store the greater and greater excess of his grain wealth.  The farmer even assured himself that he will have so much stored away that he can stop working, take it easy and eat, drink and have fun.  But God literally has the last word in the parable.  The farmer dies that night and the abundance of his wealth is soon owned by someone else.  Indeed, God calls the farmer a “fool” for his greedy thinking.

The lesson of Jesus’s teaching to the brothers in the crowd clearly expresses his views about greed.  He suggested that BOTH brothers were greedy – the one who wanted more wealth by demanding his fair share AND the brother who wanted it all.  Jesus got at the motivational heart in both brothers – each was greedy.  Each saw wealth as a source of happiness and well-being.  Life is not about how much money and things we have, Jesus said.  It’s about much, much bigger concerns.

And then he used his parable to show how foolish greed can be.  The farmer arrogantly stores up far more wealth than he needs – his barns were already bursting at the seams – and then he dies.  The implied point Jesus made to his listeners and to us is – how much do we really need?  How many cars, how many pairs of clothes, how many shoes, how many vacations, how much of ANYTHING do we really need?  From both a spiritual AND a practical perspective, the parable tells us that greed is foolish since nobody can ever use up huge sums of wealth and it won’t be ours forever anyway.

Just as important, however, we find in Jesus’ response an answer to my earlier question, how much is too much?  He spoke not against the fact that the brothers had an inheritance but against their greedy attitudes.  And the farmer in Jesus’ parable had the same motivations.  Instead of giving away some of his excess wealth, he figured out a way to hoard it.  The farmer was not called foolish for being productive and for storing up some grain.  He was called foolish for storing more than what he prudently needed.

Indeed, Jesus did not condemn wealth.  He clearly did not condemn hard work and saving for one’s needs.  And the rest of the Bible is quite consistent on this point.  People who are wise, work hard and save up enough for difficult times are praised.  Paul, in one of his letters, sums up the Biblical view.  “Those who desire to be rich fall into temptation, into a snare, into many senseless and harmful desires…”, he wrote.  “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evils.  It is through this craving that some have wandered away from what they know to be good.”  The clear lesson is that money and wealth are NOT bad.  It is the LOVE of money – by the 1%, by the very poor, or by any of us – THAT is what must be avoided.

And almost all world religions agree.  Bhishma, one of the great Hindu yogis, once said, “Covetousness alone is a great destroyer of merit and goodness.  From such coveting proceeds sin.  This type of desire is the spring of all the hypocrisy in the world.”

The Buddha said that greed is a desire for an excess of material things and pleasures.  Such desire is the source of human suffering. Greed, he said, is about never being satisfied with what one has and always wanting and expecting more.

David Loy, who is a foremost contemporary Buddhist thinker, says that, like Jesus, Buddha did not condemn money.  Rather, the Buddha encouraged a middle way to both acknowledge the necessity of money AND for us to avoid excessive attachment to material things and wealth.  The desire for money must not control us.  We must control the desire.  Do our material possessions define who we are?  Does the pursuit of money dominate our attitudes and our thinking?  Or, are we defined by more important qualities – by our compassion, empathy, generosity, and forgiveness?

The warnings that Jesus and Buddha offered must speak to us and all others.  With the accumulation of any amount of wealth – from a few hundred dollars to billions of dollars – we must be on guard not to fall in love with it.  Wealth must not be our source of security and material things must not be our source of happiness.

That is the spiritual warning each of us can take to heart.  The love of money often brings about a downfall.  We’ve seen countless examples of excess greed and how it brings down men and women – from Bernie Madoff to hedge fund speculators who helped cause the recent financial collapse to home buyers a few years ago who purchased houses far larger and far costlier than they needed or could afford.

This attitude of a love of money and wealth, however, is apparent in our nation today.  It is the implicit warning of the video we just saw.   The concentration of wealth far beyond what is prudent or necessary is a real and present danger.  Excessively high salaries and high concentrations of wealth are destructive to the soul and threaten our well-being as a nation.  The pursuit of money, instead of the pursuit of love, decency, respect and generosity is dangerous.  Money and wealth in our nation are not bad.  Indeed, we need it to create jobs, innovate and solve many of our problems.  It is the attitude about wealth that is a dire threat.

As a people and as a nation, we must not encourage the love of money in ourselves or in others.  It is not acceptable in a homeless person or in a corporate CEO.  Such greed, as Jesus pointed out, leads to foolish actions and a mindset that is contrary to the higher ethics we value.  Just as greed encourages hoarding and arrogance in the super wealthy, it also encourages envy and jealousy in the poor and middle class.  And those attitudes often lead to outright rebellion and even revolution.  The concentration of excess wealth in our nation puts at risk the very foundations of our society – democracy and capitalism.  Given enough time without reform, people will rebel and push our nation in extreme directions.  Overly greedy capitalists will sow the seeds of their own destruction and perhaps that of capitalism itself.  To save our nation, its capitalist economy and to save our souls, we must root out greed in ourselves and in our culture.

And that, like what Jesus and Buddha taught, leads us to morally imaginative solutions.  Dating from the 1930’s, an innovative theory has been developed that helps to define much of human behavior.  Called game-theory, it was made famous by John Forbes Nash, the subject of the film “A Beautiful Mind”.  Creating complex algorithms and mathematical models, Nash and others have shown that humans make decisions in life based on how they perceive others will also act and react.  Such decisions are often competitive and guided by self-interest.  What do I need to do to get a job over someone else?  What do I need to do to acquire more food or a healthier mate over someone else?  While human nature is competitive, and often greedy, Nash and others propose that over time, humans learn a better way.  They find that brute competition is a lose-lose situation.  Nobody wins.  As humans learn this fact, they find that cooperation with others is an ironic form of self-interest.  I will do better if I cooperate with others.  I will do better if others do better too.

And this attitude is not just unique to humans.  It is shown in animals with herd instincts and mobbing behavior.  One wolf, for example, usually cannot catch and take down large prey by itself.  It quickly learns that through cooperation and work with others, prey can be taken down together.  Not only will the one wolf eat, so too will the entire wolf pack.  This is not survival of the fittest as much as it is survival of the cooperative.

And human history is no different.  Society has moved to ever increasing and more complex levels of human cooperation – from lone hunter, to tribe, to village, to city, to nation and, now, to globalization.  Each individual retains basic rights but each also understands that cooperation and not competition is the long term answer to individual and cultural success.

Nash called this realization by humans and animals equilibrium or symbiosis economics.  We depend on one another to do well in life.  No longer is it a matter of competing for finite resources as it is a morally imaginative approach to economic thinking.  It is not socialist redistribution of wealth but a recognition that the well-being of the whole requires the well-being of each person.  If I help you succeed, I too will succeed.  Capitalism will survive and thrive only if it works to assure that most people share in its opportunities and benefits.  Capitalism will fail if excess greed is allowed to dominate.

Nash proposed that equilibrium will result one way or another.  Either humans recognize and choose it peacefully or they choose it by force.  And the history of revolutions supports this fact.  Equilibrium is therefore not only a matter of choice, it is according to Nash a mathematical and empirical certainty.  It happens when humans understand cooperation works better.

Ultimately, what we realize is what Jesus, Buddha and other prophets taught.  We might be born with the original sin of greed, but we soon learn the error of such ways.  We each need money to buy things we need. But the love of money and things is not the stuff of a meaningful life.  It is not the stuff of a lasting legacy for any person.  If we are all empathetic people, we ought to want everyone to succeed and enjoy the average needs of life.

And so we cannot change our nation or our world unless we begin to change ourselves.  I know I am a terrible sinner when it comes to greed.  I admit to dreams of winning the lottery, to wanting luxuries in my life and to desiring longer and more exotic vacations.  I can put my lust for money and things over my concern for others.

But, greed is not good.  It is bad.  Even though we see it all around us, we can recognize it as a moral and spiritual danger to our souls and to our nation.  We must find more and more ways to cooperate with others.  That involves not charitable or government hand outs to others but offering helping hands up through better education, healthcare and job training.  Most of all, we can stop pointing fingers at others and instead work to change our OWN attitudes and thereby help build what we all desire – a world where every person lives at peace with his or her needs – and refuses the impulse to love money and things.

 

Message 124, “What’s on YOUR Mind? I’m an Immigrant.  You’re an Immigrant!”, 3-10-13

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

 

To listen to this message, please download here:

 

To listen to a message related song, ‘Rainbow Race’, performed by Ron Jandacek, please download here:

 

 

 

What do the following people all have in common?  Elizabeth Arden, James Audubon, Irving Berlin, Sergey Brin – the founder of Google, Andrew Carnegie, Albert Einstein, Cary Grant, Audrey Hepburn, David Hockney – a gay painter and artist, Aldous Huxley, John Lennon, Art Linkleiter, Joni Mitchell, Rupert Murdock – the owner of Fox News, John Muir, Joseph Pulitzer, Man Ray – an esteemed gay photographer, Knute Rockne, Igor Stravinsky, Lee Strasburg, Alex Trebek, Rudolph Valentino, Dr. Ruth Westheimer, Bruce Willis and Neil Young…………to name just a few.

Since you know the subject of this message, you have likely guessed that all of these individuals were immigrants to the U.S.  It is unimaginable how different our nation would be had they not been able to immigrate here and become citizens.  Indeed, most of us would be very, very different – if we had been born at all – were it not for our own immigrant ancestors.  I have a prized Bible owned and signed by my maternal great, great, great grandfather who immigrated here from England in 1832.  On my father’s side, I’m descended from a long line of German stock.  It’s assumed some distant ancestor changed his name from the Germanic Schlegel to a more simple Slagle – perhaps persuaded to do so by Ellis Island immigration officials who often did not like complicated last names.   Like most of you, I am an All-American mutt – an amalgamation of many immigrant strains.  While I am native born, the DNA of foreign peoples and distant cultures make up who I am.  I’m an immigrant.  You are too.

While many immigrants and most likely those whom I just cited came here or entered the U.S. with the permission of our government, a larger question remains why historically there has existed a distrust and dislike of immigrants.  Today, the question is posed about what our nation should do with the approximately 12 million undocumented immigrants – those who are not here with official permission.

Our topic today, as suggested by Don Fritz as a part of this month’s message theme “What’s on YOUR Mind?”, asks us to consider why our attitude as a nation regarding race, religion or immigrant status is often based on a fear of the other.   People who are different from the majority population, people who believe, look or act contrary to what is perceived to be a white, protestant and often male identity are often mistreated, shunned and excluded.  Many of those who decry the number of undocumented people in our nation sincerely see them as a national threat – those who take jobs and use the benefits of our schools, hospitals and social welfare systems.  But underlying such honest attitudes is a subconscious fear.  As Bertrand Russell, a famous author, once said, “Collective fear stimulates herd instinct, and tends to produce ferocity toward those who are not regarded as members of the herd.”  We perceive safety in those who are most like us and danger in those who are different.  Our fears then ignite angry and vindictive passions against the other.

Indeed, this fear of the other is a human phenomenon and not just one of some Americans.  We all tend to fear and thereby distrust and mistreat the other.  Working class people disdain senior management as “suits” who never get their hands dirty.  Many condemn people with wealth as thieves who prey on the poor and have run amok with greed.  Managers look down on laborers as those with dirty fingernails.  Urban elites consider those who live in rural areas as “trailer trash” or, even worse, “white trash.”  Gays label straight people as breeders while straights call homosexuals fags, dykes or worse.  Northerners scorn those in the south and vice versa.  Residents of the two coasts – in California and New England – look down on people in the mid-west.  Middle America is called flyover territory and its people are rubes and culturally primitive.  The Japanese often depict monsters in their children’s books with round, blue eyes.  Our children’s monsters often have slant eyes.  Liberals see conservatives as heartless, dull and dim-witted.  Conservatives label progressives as elitists who pander to laziness and only want to spend other people’s hard earned money.  Muslims are all wild eyed terrorists.  Jews are money hungry.  Catholics have too many children and are under the sway of the Vatican.  Evangelicals are religious zealots and Atheists are simply evil.  Immigrants are lazy, dumb, dirty and brown skinned.  Far too often we tell jokes at the expense of other groups.  We distrust, stereotype and dislike anyone who is not like us – the other.

There is a story of two villages in Ireland that are only six miles apart.  And yet the residents of each village despise those in the other.  They do not mingle and the depths of their feelings border on hate.  The trivial reason for their animosity dates back to the year 1066 when William the Conqueror came through Ireland.  His forces attacked one village and burned it to the ground.  That village did not warn the other.  And so these two villages, over a thousand years later, still deeply hate the other.

We see the same in India where the Dalits, or untouchables, are relegated to the lowest caste or class level.  They are permitted to work only in the worst of jobs – cleaning sewers, collecting garbage, spreading animal waste as fertilizer.  Socially, they are excluded from the rest of society.  They are among the poorest of the poor in our world and yet there is no outward or rational reason for their mistreatment other than they were born to parents also of the untouchable caste.

As likely as I am to react in horror when I hear of racism or intolerance, I must quickly realize I am often no better.  I too can be suspicious of people who are different from me.  I too can fear them.  I too fall far short of what my heart yearns for me to be – a person who always shows respect and compassion to anyone and everyone.

The tragedy of our attitudes towards immigrants and especially undocumented immigrants is that we know better.  As a so-called Christian nation, we know we are called to have compassion for the poor, the outcast, the weak.  Sadly, too much of the antipathy towards undocumented immigrants comes from people of faith.  Ralph Reed, a well known evangelical leader, echoed the thoughts of many conservative Christians.  According to him, undocumented immigrants are criminals.  As he interprets the Bible, only the so-called law abiding immigrants deserve our understanding, empathy and compassion.  Sadly, in a Pew research poll, a majority of African-American church members hold similar views.  The undocumented immigrant should be deported.  Ironically, this is the result of how our nation has pit people at the low end of our economy against each other.

As a nation that has prided itself for its spiritual beliefs, we’re called to have empathy and understanding for the immigrant.  Not only are we asked to understand their desperate situation, Americans above all people should understand and embrace any immigrant.  We each have immigrant blood in us.  Most Americans are descendants of people who arrived on these shores desperate, poor, and hungry.  Our forebears indeed saw America as a promised land – a place of freedom and economic vitality.  They came not with material wealth but with an abundance of courage and diligence.  The undocumented immigrants of today are just like them and, as a result, just like us.  The hopes that compel someone to risk their lives to take long treks across barren deserts or cross hundreds of miles over open ocean to live in the U.S. are the same hopes that compelled my English and German ancestors to come here.  Had they not had that inner bravery and drive, I would not be here.  If we are the progeny of huddled masses yearning to breathe free and reap the opportunity of a vibrant economy, then we are essentially no different from ANY immigrant today.    We have NO reason to fear them.  Indeed, we have every reason to empathize and celebrate them.  They are us and we are them.  I’m an immigrant and so are you.

While that is figuratively true, it is also literally true.  Immigrants to our nation are in many ways just like most Americans.  Over 74% of all immigrants to the U.S. – documented and undocumented – are Christian.  They are what is driving whatever growth there is in American churches.  They are also sustaining our national birth rate by helping to keep it at a level where the U.S. is replacing those who die.  Without their numbers, our population would be in decline, depriving our nation of future workers and taxpayers to support an aging demographic.

And, contrary to popular belief, undocumented immigrants pay taxes.  Over thirteen billion dollars were paid by undocumented workers into the Social Security and Medicare funds in 2009, the last year when figures are available.  Those wage earners will never see that money.  Such payments continue today as most undocumented workers are able to obtain fake Social Security cards since they are necessary in order to find work.  Billions of additional taxes are also paid by undocumented immigrants in the form of gas, sales, income and indirect property taxes.

Undocumented immigrants also help keep many of our product costs low.  By working in low pay jobs in agriculture and food service, we each reap the benefit of far reduced prices for agricultural produce and restaurant meals.  If anything, our nation takes advantage of the undocumented instead of the other way around.

Another persistent myth is that immigrant populations don’t assimilate by learning English or adopting American cultural practices.  While adults who immigrate often prefer many of the cultural practices they remember from home, it is their children and grandchildren who rapidly acculturate.  Such has been shown throughout American immigration history.  By the second or third generations in immigrant families, a vibrant blending of cultures takes place.  Some practices of the old culture are still practiced but language, attitudes, dress and even social views quickly become Americanized.  Most second and third generation immigrant populations hold social and political views nearly identical to the majority population.  Attitudes toward gays and women among Muslim and hispanic immigrants under the age of 30 largely reflects their native born peers.  Far from being locked into the conservatism from which they came, they identify and empathize with other people on the margins of life.

That is what is unique about our nation.  It’s why we’re called a melting pot.  Since we are ALL essentially immigrants, we are not tied to old world ways and traditions.  We innovate.  We think outside the box.  Our vibrant diversity is a strength.  It’s never been a weakness.

Despite the many facts about why we should embrace undocumented immigrants, our attitude towards them indicates a poverty in our souls.  In Jewish, Christian and Muslim Scriptures, treatment of the outsider, the stranger, the visitor and the alien is considered a benchmark of goodness.  Hospitality is a virtue.  Muhammad was a migrant himself who sought kindness in new cities.  He implored the faithful to “do good unto the neighbor from among your own people, and the neighbor who is a stranger and to the wayfarer…”  The Jewish book of Leviticus commands, “When an alien lives with you in your land, do not mistreat him. The alien living with you must be treated as one of your native-born.  Love him or her as yourself.”  Indeed, the Jewish faith ought to have a special affinity for immigrants since Jews, according to their religious history, were mistreated strangers in Egypt.  As a people, they were without a homeland for two millennia.  They suffered the scorn of host countries and the holocaust all due to a hatred of their perceived otherness.  American antipathy toward Jews even played a role in the holocaust.  Congress in 1929 shut the door on immigration – particularly Jewish immigration.  Indeed it was the National Origins Act of 1929 that coined the nasty phrase “illegal immigrant” – one that brands someone a criminal for the mere desire to live free and survive.  While Americans did not know it at that time, our anti-semitism in 1929 echoed a more hateful strain in Europe.  American closed doors to immigration prevented thousands of Jews from coming to the U.S. during the 1930’s when escape from Germany was still possible.  In one infamous episode in 1939, the MS St Louis, full of Jewish exiles, was forbidden from docking and forced to turn around even as it was in sight of the Statue of Liberty.

Like the Jewish people, Christians have no Biblical excuse for their anti-immigrant attitudes.  In the book of Matthew, Jesus tells his followers that those who hope to enjoy the approval of God should act in this way: “I was a stranger and you invited me in…Whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”    

Indeed, the Christian New Testament tells us that our citizenship is not of this world.  As a vision for a perfect earth, according to the Biblical book of Revelation, people from all over the earth, of every tribe, nation and language will one day unite together as one body for all eternity.

The implied lesson from world religions is that we are not to shun the immigrant.  Ethics of compassion, respect and tolerance for the migrant are taught.   When Jesus declared that the kingdom of God is here on earth, he encouraged a kingdom of goodness, compassion, and kindness.  We all belong to this kingdom.  We are to help build a kingdom of goodness.  We’re not American, Mexican or Chinese as much as we are simply people.  We’re not to be divided by our differences but celebrated for them.  We are of the same human family, children of God, each person wonderfully and beautifully made.

I do not expect our nation or any other to be so naive as to throw open their borders.  Poverty, discrimination and oppression exist in far too many places around the world thus making us a beacon for would-be immigrants.  But, there are practical ways to address immigration problems.  Solutions are too complicated to discuss at length.  But we can start with empathy and compassion towards those who are here now.  We can start by demanding employers pay living wages for low-skilled, physically demanding jobs.  That will encourage more native born citizens to seek such work and thus reduce the incentive for employers to hire and lure undocumented workers as a source of cheap labor.  This will require sacrifice on everyone’s part.  No longer can we expect cheap labor and the resulting cheap product costs.  No longer can we expect to pay low prices for agricultural goods.

Many who have studied this issue propose we establish an effective guest worker program whereby people of other nations can enter the U.S. legally, work legally, pay taxes and enjoy the benefits our nation.  The number of guest worker permits can be limited to an amount necessary to fill jobs native born citizens don’t fill.  For those guest workers who faithfully work under this program, they can then earn citizenship for themselves and their families.

So too can we help encourage greater development in other nations.  Indeed, when Mexico’s economy does well, immigration from that nation dramatically declines.  Investment and assistance to other nations must not be seen as charity.  Foreign aid offers direct benefits to us.

Most of all, we might all change our attitudes and thoughts about those who are different from us.  We might also change our thoughts about economic resources in our nation and see them not as limited but, instead, as expansive.  This leads me to my subject for next Sunday – how by reorienting our thinking about wealth, we can help build our dream of a more just and economically vital nation for everyone.  We need not think that if a few are well-off, others must naturally be poor.  That is a mindset of limited resources that leads to greed.  Instead, we can find ways for everyone to do better – not just a few.  That vision of wealth for everyone through cooperation instead of competition is moral imagination at work.  When I help you do better, I in turn do better too.  This attitude prevents the “us versus them” competitive mindset.  It will allow us to open our hearts and our borders to more and more immigrants.

That, my friends, is a vision we can aspire to realize.  We need not fear the other.  We need not separate ourselves by our differences.  We can, instead, come together in cooperation not just in America but around the world – people who live together in a paradise of our own making, shaped not by fear but by love.  I’m an immigrant.  You’re an immigrant.  Together, let us venture to a new land of tolerance and opportunity for all.

Message 123 , “What’s On Your Mind?  To Prayer of Not to Pray?”, 3-3-13

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

 

Download the message here:

 

 

Around ten years ago when I was in the midst of a phase in my life when conservative Christianity was a way to cleanse me of gay shame, I regularly engaged in many of the rites that I believed were a necessary part of being a good Christian.  I prayed a lot – with people I served in Pastoral Care, with small prayer groups I joined, with other Pastors, on my own, and at every meal.  I even naively forced it on my daughters – asking them to pray with me at their bedtimes and to hold hands with me in prayer before each meal.

In one horrifying event for my daughters, we were at a local McDonald’s and I insisted they join me in bowing our heads while I gave thanks for the food.  Whether thankfulness for Chicken McNuggets is worthy of God or not, I’m not sure!  But my daughters still tease me about that episode and how they blushed and stared straight ahead while I bowed my head and said a far too lengthy prayer.  Much like most self-conscious teenagers, they were sure that every person in that McDonald’s was staring at us, talking about us and pointing their fingers at us  – “look at that odd praying dad and his girls!”  They scolded me for praying in public when private piety would have been much better – and less embarrassing to them!

I also remember that around that time that a well known Pastor at a very large local church was seriously injured during a minor surgery.  His abdominal aorta was punctured and he was actually dead for several minutes.  As a result, most of his internal organs lost oxygen and shut down.  After his heart was restarted, he lingered in intensive care, near death, for many weeks.  His doctors said that he would either die or be in a coma for the rest of his life.

Pastors and members from evangelical churches around the city and around the world began a prayer vigil for him – one that was organized so that it would be continuous.  Tens of thousands of people participated and chose specific times each day to pray for him.  I was one of them.

This Pastor survived and, while his recovery was lengthy, his escape from the brink of death and eventual return to ministry was seen as a miracle.  Most said it was due to the countless prayers.  The Pastor himself said that prayers were instrumental in his healing. God had answered the many faithful pleas in his behalf.

About a year after that, a member of my congregation was diagnosed with advanced cancer.  She was not given long to live.  She was a woman of deep faith with many friends.  My church began a prayer vigil for her that included hundreds of people.  She also fervently prayed for healing and her life became even more devoted to the God she believed would save her.  Sadly, after an eight month health battle, she died.

In this March messages series entitled “What’s on Your Mind?”, I’ve chosen a topic suggested to me by Wayne Butterfass.  He hopes it might complement a discussion Stuart led on a fourth Sunday a few months ago.  As Wayne asked in his e-mail to me, “Are my prayers being answered?  The small ones seem to be answered, but the big ones – like asking for a friend with pancreatic cancer to be cured – they don’t.”

Along with that question, we might also ask why should we pray?  Does prayer offer us any benefit?  What can be said about showy prayers made in public over Chicken McNuggets or prayers for victory before football games or prayers for greater wealth, career success, romantic happiness or our nation’s blessing?  Is there a God or any force listening to us?   For believers and the religiously skeptical alike, does prayer have value?  Are prayers answered in any way that can make sense?

My understanding of spirituality is not concerned with whether or not God or any other supernatural being answers prayer.  Such a concern involves the existence of God and is a matter of personal faith.  Here at the Gathering, believers and skeptics are equally welcomed and respected.  We participate in the life of the congregation – and in prayer – together.  If one believes that an active and loving God or supernatural being is involved in human affairs, then one will believe that she or he answers prayers.  Theistic skeptics, on the other hand, refute the existence of God and thus, of course, deny that prayers are answered.

But such arguments about the existence of a divine being are pointless and ignore the very real benefits of a spiritual life.  As a culture, we get caught up in such a debate while overlooking the many common spiritual beliefs and practices we can share.   All people have a god-force within them.  We are imbued with goodness and great abilities to shape our lives and our world for the better.  In that regard, prayer is a powerful medium of communication.  Prayer speaks the longings in the deepest recesses of our souls.  It expresses our hopes, dreams and fears.  It gives voice to our collective yearnings and, as a result, prayer helps to unite us, instruct us in the ways of life, and inspire us to act.  If WE are the gods and goddesses that can improve the world, then prayer is our communal call to action.  It is the soothing song of peace.  It is the quiet voice of redemption and forgiveness.  It is the vision of a brighter and more just future.  Prayer has value.  Prayers are truly answered every day.  Prayer works.

It is said that when the human species first uttered a prayer or plea to some higher power, religion was created.  Indeed, prayer is the essence of spirituality.   Prayer is ultimately an expression of human hope which is pretty much what we do here every Sunday with our readings, our songs, our conversations and our attendance.  We hope to be better people; we hope to unite and find community with others; we hope to find insight in how the universe works and how we can improve it.

But, hopefully, we do not leave it at that.  Each Sunday, I pray (!) we each leave with some sense of purpose, some inner resolve to take what we have learned, to use what inspired us, to leverage old and new friendships – and then go out and DO something with them.  As Mahatma Gandhi once said, “Prayer is not an old person’s idle amusement.   Properly understood and applied, it is the most potent instrument of action.”

And, as I said earlier, world religions largely concur.  In his Sermon on the Mount address, Jesus taught a summation of his sense of spirituality.  Blessed are the meek, the humble, the peacemakers, and the merciful.  Love your enemies, forgive them and never demand an eye for an eye.  Seek the way of peace.  As a foundation for all of his teachings, he asked that we root out and expose all forms of inner and external hypocrisy.  Don’t condemn physical murder when you murder with your angry words.  Don’t condemn adultery when you secretly lust in your heart and mind.  Don’t claim to be a loving person if you hold bitterness toward anyone.  Don’t showcase your charity when all you really want to do is show off how good you are.  Don’t pray in public when what you really want to do is appear pious.  Do these things humbly, quietly and without fanfare.  Ultimately, he asked that we align our heart motivation with how we act.

And then he taught a suggested prayer – what we commonly call the Jesus Prayer – one that includes ALL of the spiritual elements of a worthy prayer.  The Bible offers two versions of the Jesus Prayer – one each in the books of Matthew and Luke.  While the meaning is the same in both prayer versions, the words are different.  This suggests that those who heard Jesus’ model prayer were not concerned with the exact words.  It was the meaning and the ideas of what he taught that had significance.  And that speaks to us today.  There are multiple versions of the Jesus Prayer and no single one is better than any other.  Good versions capture the essence of what Jesus intended for us to pray.  Indeed, his overall intent was for prayer to be an expression of universal hopes.

If we consider the words from the standard Jesus Prayer, we first find an attitude of submission to something greater than ourselves, “Our Mother or Father who is in heaven, holy be your name…”  Such an expression reminds us that we are NOT the center of creation, whether or not we identify a God or a higher power to which we pray.  Our prayers should both acknowledge and express this idea – that there are forces and powers and forms of creation much, much greater than we.  We submit ourselves to our own personal understanding of what is greater than us – to God, to Jesus, to the power of love, or to the goodness of human intention.

Further, we find in the Jesus Prayer that our prayers should be inclusive.  Prayer should not be self-focused and they ought to avoid pronouns of “me” and “I”, using instead “we” and “us”.  Jesus taught that truth in his suggested prayer – “give us…”, “deliver us…”, “forgive us…”, “lead us…”

Additionally, Jesus teaches us with his model prayer that we should not ask for the desires of life – money, power, and material things but, instead, for simple sustenance.  “Give us our daily bread…” instead of “Grant me a new car, or a romantic partner or a healthy body.”  The intent that Jesus suggested in his model prayer is for us to dwell less on ourselves than on others, less on material needs than on deeper life lessons.  We ask for ourselves only the basics of life – daily food, shelter and clothing.  Such an attitude gets at the heart of spirituality – if we live life not with a “me” attitude but with a genuine desire to serve and love others, we will often find the contentment we seek.   Universal laws of karma and reaping what we sow apply.  When we send out honest hopes for the well-being of others, they will return to us.  Good creates good.  Love fosters love.  Generosity inspires generosity.  In this way, Jesus implicitly told us that our prayers WILL be answered – not by God but by ourselves and by others.  We send out into the world attitudes and acts of love that will return to us.

As one of the high ethics of spiritual living, Jesus also taught in his model prayer that we must be humble.  We pray to be forgiven of our misdeeds as much as we are willing to forgive others.  “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.”  The implied lesson is to forgive as much as we ask to be forgiven.   Once again, Jesus told us our prayers will be answered not by God but by us.  If we forgive generously, we too will be forgiven generously.  We will reap what we sow.

Equal to that teaching is the idea that we are weak people.  “Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil.”  We make mistakes.  We sin.  We hurt ourselves and others.  We daily fall short of our desire to be good and loving people.  Our prayer is for help in avoiding mistakes – for insight, encouragement, teaching and modeling of behavior from others.  God is not our help in avoiding temptations.  Our rational minds, our friends, our faith communities, and our contented hearts all show us pathways to goodness.  Prayer inspires us to such goodness and we, indeed, fulfill its request.  We seek to be good.   God does not do this.  We do.

Honest prayer, according to Jesus, is also about trust in a brighter future.  It is hope filled instead of angry, defeatist and negative.  Prayer is persistent and regular.  It is not saved for times of crisis but for frequent expressions of hope, gratitude, love and forgiveness.   In that regard, once again, prayers are answered!  If our attitudes are focused not just on needs – those of ourselves or others – but on joy, thankfulness and generosity – we will be people who find that abundance in our lives.  This is an attitude focused not on what we individually or collectively can GET but on what we individually and collectively can GIVE.   This is how prayer is a language of action!  As we pray for the healing of another, we pray for how we can help him or her – how a word of support, a gesture of kindness, a listening ear or a simple expression of love can bind up any wound and heal any aching heart.  Instead of asking to be loved by another, we ask instead how we can love another – how we can befriend, care for or love another.  Once again, WE insure that prayer is answered because we are inspired to act.   When we serve, we will be served.

Such positive and others focused prayers have tremendous power.  Science has shown in several double blind studies that those who are sick do better and heal faster when they know they are prayed for and when they themselves pray with attitudes of determination, gratitude and generosity.  Hope and love are potent drugs.  With prayer, we administer them and shower them on suffering friends, family members and total strangers.  We cannot claim in all instances that our prayers will be answered with the literal cure of another person.  It is the motivation of our loving requests and the positive words of hope that create opportunities for healing of mind, body and soul.

Those for whom we pray will be encouraged.  They will be served by our prayerful calls to action.  They will be inspired to think positively and thus promote healing in their own hearts, minds and bodies.   Someone we know may physically suffer or die.   But, with our prayers, we can offer and encourage action that comforts and heals their bodies and souls.

Even in this regard, our prayers must be infused with humility.  We cannot pray and demand cures or fixes in all instances.  As Jesus implied in his model prayer, we are weak.  We are fragile.  We each will get sick.  We each will die of some frailty or disease.  Our humble prayers can acknowledge such truths while expressing the much greater desire for peace and contentment.  Even though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death, we will fear no evil.  The support of others, their love, their prayers are a comfort to us.

Most of all, Jesus taught his followers that prayer is a communal language.  We can practice it alone but it is best when practiced in community.  This ethic is common to many religions.  For Jews, the word synagogue literally means “house of prayer.”  To meet, sing and learn together IS prayer.   The same is true of Muslims.  While prayer by oneself is allowed if necessary, one should attend the five times a day “salah” or prayer sessions in a Mosque or in a group.  Hindus also gather in mass pilgrimages, as they do at this very moment, to pray together.  Indeed, prayer is a language by which a community expresses and shares its collective memory of dreams, thoughts and expectations.  We serve one another, we inspire, we support and we instruct by our prayers.  As one prays for another, the community as a whole is inspired to act – to reach out, to share, and to love.  As one prays in gratitude for all that life gives, those who listen will share such an attitude.  Entire communities can be changed by prayer – to seek peace, to forgive, to let go of anger and seek after the greater good of cooperation.  Once again, God does not answer such prayers.  People do.

I have seen both sides of the divide between belief and non-belief.  I’ve come to a place between those extremes.  It is irrelevant to me whether a literal God exists or not.  Instead, I try to look at what Jesus and other great thinkers and prophets taught about universal goodness.  How can I, in this life, improve my thinking, my attitudes, and my actions so that I can fulfill my reason for existence – to do my small share to improve the world?  When we pray together and when we choose to remember others in their need, we speak words of hope.  We speak words of action, love, and redemption.  If there is a god or goddess looking down upon our mortal selves, he or she has granted us the ability to think and act in ways that have tremendous power.  Our prayers are expressions of our deepest yearnings.  They are calls to act.  If they are sincere, if they derive from a humble heart that knows its flaws and failures, if they seek not for ourselves but for others, they WILL be answered.

Let us pray.  Let us act.  Let us, in turn, answer our own prayers.  We are god and it is to us, to all human-kind, that we must pray, honor and love.

We are protecting the privacy of our guest speaker.  If you have questions or comments, please send them to our e-mail address.  A list of helpful resources provided by this mom is below. 

Please download her message here:

 

Support Through Media

 

Online Support

Genderspectrum.org, http://www.genderspectrum.org/

Children’s National Medical (my personal favorite), http://www.childrensnational.org/

 

Books I’ve Read and found Helpful

Not Like Other Boys: A Mother and Son Look Back

by Chris Shyer

The Transgendered Child by Stephanie Brill and Rachel Pepper

Mom Knows by Catherine Tuerk

Johnny Weir– memoir
Articles

“What’s so Bad about a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?” – New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/12/magazine/whats-so-bad-about-a-boy-who-wants-to-wear-a-dress.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 

 

Books for Children

Oliver Button is a Sissy by Tommie De Paola

William’s Doll by Charlotte Zolotow

My Princess Boy

It’s Okay to be Different by Todd Parr

 

Movies/Television

“Ma vie En Rose”

“The Prodigal Son”

“20/20- Jazz”

“Whale Rider”

“Billy Elliott”

Blogs

Accepting Dad, http://www.acceptingdad.com/

Sarah Hoffman, http://www.sarahhoffmanwriter.com/

GirlyBoy’s Mama, http://open.salon.com/blog/girlyboymama

Raising my Rainbow, http://raisingmyrainbow.com/

Message 122, Gathering Goes to the Movies, “Paperman” and the Laws of Attraction, 2-17-13

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

In advance of listening to or reading the message, please watch the short film video “Paperman”, the subject of this message.  Click here to watch and scroll down to then play the video.

To listen to the message, download here:

 

I don’t know about you, but I found the short animated film entitled “Paperman” to be sweet and charming.  I can’t fully explain why I feel that way – perhaps I like the film because it evokes a sense of nostalgia for a seemingly simpler time, or because it is a silent film and I resonate with art that tells a story without using words.  I also identify with the characters – two sweet, slightly clumsy, attractive people who are eager to find love and all the joy that it can bring.  I also like the animation in the movie – simple but richly detailed with an artistic flair that does not diminish the realistic depictions of trains, busy streets, drab offices and the innocence of its two main characters.

Indeed, one of the hallmarks of this film is its groundbreaking combination of hand drawn characters merged into computer generated images – or CGI for short.  The animator’s flowing and expressive lines are not only integrated into the CGI, but are also adopted by computer software such that many of the character drawings are a combination of artist and computer.  This new art form may revolutionize animation by using technology and the nuanced expression of an artist’s hand.  That is one of the reason’s why “Paperman” was nominated for an Academy Award in the best animated film category.

At any rate, as I said, I can’t put my finger on why I like the film.  My affection for it likely says more about me than it does about the movie, its story or its animation.  In my appreciation of it, I bring something of myself to that attraction equation – my own personality, experiences and outlook on life.

And that idea of attraction seems to be one theme in the film.  What is it about the young woman Meg that catches the eye of her admirer George?  Is it just her looks – her Bambi like doe eyes, her trim and lithe figure, her endearing clumsiness, the cant of her smile, her implicit sense of humor?  We don’t really know why he’s attracted to her but we quickly realize that George is immediately smitten.  Once he spots her again across an urban chasm, George will do anything to reunite with her.

During a recent radio psychology talk show about love at first sight, many listeners called in to tell their stories of immediate love.  Interestingly, all of the callers with stories to tell about love at first sight were men.  Only one woman called in and she forcefully shot down the idea saying it does not exist – that men mistake love at first sight with lustful attraction.  Whatever it is, George is clearly enamored with Meg.

How do we make sense of the laws of attraction?  Why are we attracted to our friends, lovers and partners?  What lights up our brains, our hearts and, yes, our lust when we find we are attracted to someone?  What roles do chance and fate play regarding whom we meet and perhaps fall in love?  Are we mere puppets dangling from the strings of fate or biology – destined to meet and unite with whomever is swept our way and somehow turns our heads?  Or do we, much like George, also work to influence and change the winds of chance and biology?

After discussing much more serious movies the last two Sundays, I want to consider today a more lighthearted film.  I hope to examine the spiritual dimensions of attraction and destiny in the drama of “boy meets girl”, or “boy meets boy” or “girl meets girl.”  How do the multiple forces of attraction, reason, and fate influence us?  Do we have a choice in whom we are attracted to or are there other, more complex factors involved like our genetics, past experiences and even fate?  Most importantly, what lessons are there from the laws of attraction for how we act and speak throughout our lives?

Writing over two thousand years ago, the Greek philosopher Plato said that humans are governed by three distinct influences.  We are governed by our reason, by a spiritual desire to be connected with something greater than ourselves and by our physical appetites.  Mostly, he wrote, we follow our reason but, on occasion, the two lesser desires, as he called them, also govern our actions.

For many religions and, indeed, for us, this begs the question as to whether our free will minds influence our actions.  Can we freely choose to whom we are attracted?  As we just saw, George did not do a lot of thinking when he was immediately drawn to Meg as she stood near him on the train platform.  He saw a girl who was attractive to him in many ways, but it is doubtful he thought much about it.  Strong emotions and visceral responses stirred within him and he was head over heels drawn to her.  It was not a conscious decision.  Indeed, it appears he could not help himself!

George was obviously physically drawn to her beauty.  He also liked her smile and her apparent sense of humor – how she found it amusing to have planted a lipstick kiss on a piece of paper.  Intuitively, George liked what he saw not just on a physical level but in her dress, demeanor and probable personality.  All of the factors that drew her to him were deeply planted in him by his genetics, upbringing and past experiences.  He did not think about why he liked what he saw.  He just liked!

That fact, that we are not governed by our reason in the law of attraction but by deeper and more irrational forces, has particular resonance for me and for many gays and lesbians.  The debate over what influences sexuality has not yet been settled but it is clear that none of us make a mental choice about the gender to which we are physically and emotionally attracted.  It simply happens.

Recent science points to the idea that a mixture of genetics and upbringing influences our sexualties.  Some scientists have identified a particular area of one gene that suggests a cause for same sex attraction.  Others point to slight differences in gay and lesbian brains to account for same sex attraction.  Still others have shown that changes in maternal hormone levels during pregnancy can influence sexuality.  And others point to abundant anecdotal evidence that says upbringing by a domineering mother or a distant father can influence gay sexuality.  Most scientists believe all of these factors play a role in determining human sexuality.  Importantly, however, there is a majority consensus by psychologists and other experts that none of us – straight, lesbian, gay or bisexual – are able to consciously or unconsciously choose the deep seated core attractions we feel.  We don’t conjure them up from our rational thinking and we can’t forbid them from our emotions.  They just happen and, much like in George, we are powerless to stop feeling them.

Over the last decade, a scientific group called “deCode” has thoroughly examined the human genetic sequence and identified hundreds of genetic markers for conditions such as diabetes, alcoholism and metabolism rates.  What this study is also beginning to show, however, is that genetics are not absolutely determinative.  We might be prone to be diabetic but we can affect whether or not we eventually suffer from the disease by our eating habits.  In other words, our genes don’t totally dictate our health destiny.  Our own rational choices combined with destiny and biology work together.

And that is clearly relevant in matters of attraction.  Just as the film “Paperman” showed us, there are a combination of factors involved in whether or not George meets Meg again.  Yes, it is purely by chance that George meets Meg and that his office is directly across from a building where she is.  But, George has to then make the decision to do something with what fate has given him.  Even with his multiple attempts to catch her eye again, fate plays its tricks to conspire against him.  The wind diverts his paper airplanes, a bird crashes into one, another sails into the trash can, still another lands on someone else’s desk.

The amusing story of George’s efforts is that, once smitten, he does almost anything he can to meet Meg again.  He is persistent even to the point of likely losing his job all because of one brief interaction with a woman who deeply stirred his feelings of attraction.  In other words, simple attraction is not enough.  Fate creates the opportunity but he must seize it.

Indeed, George lives true to the words of William Shakespeare when he had his character Romeo utter the famous words, “Oh, I am fortune’s fool!”  Much as with Romeo, fate conspired to have George cross paths with Meg and then be deeply attracted to her.  George is fortune’s fool in his pursuit, but only to a point.  He does not allow fate to determine his destiny.  He persistently acts so that his one fortunate meeting with Meg will not be forever lost.  As an implicit message in the film, fate gives us a chance but it rarely repeats itself.

John Galsworthy, a famous English novelist and nobel laureate in literature, once said that, “Life calls the tune, we dance.”  And that is exactly how George reacts in “Paperman.”  If he is to meet Meg again, if his feelings of love at first sight are to be fulfilled, if the tale is to end sixty years in the future as a forever after love story, then George must figuratively dance to whatever tune fate and biology played for him.  To use a recent analogy, binders full of women will not open up everyday to drop a beautiful girl next to him.

Dr. Laura Berman, a contemporary commentator on relationships, says that for us to meet the opportunities that fortune gives us in finding a friend, partner or spouse, we must first be specific about the qualities that deeply stir us.  We should not hide behind what we think we want or what we believe we should want.  We must be honest with what we truly and deeply want.  And that has resonance for those of us who have had to come out of the closet and admit to same sex attractions.  It took me a long time to understand this fact.  I was not happy until I confessed to myself the truth of my inner attractions.

Gays and lesbians should be given the freedom to come out when and how they personally feel best.   Even so, coming out is a truly liberating experience.  As Jesus said, “The truth will set you free.”

Next, we cannot allow fate to set the course of our lives.  How much energy do we put into the equation for determining our happiness in life or the person we befriend or fall in love with?  We must act in ways that give a nudge to the hand of fate.

Dr. Berman also says we should learn to embrace empty spaces in our lives.  As humans, too often we feel a need to fill a void we perceive – in how we furnish our homes, in long pauses during a conversation or, in our search to find friends and partners.  Empty things scare us and so we work to fill them up.  This is something I am still learning.  I must be comfortable and happy just with myself.  Only then can I be comfortable and happy with someone else.

Finally, Dr. Berman asserts that the law of attraction throughout our lives is defined by the fact that similar things attract similar things.  If we are happy, engaged, curious, confident and positive people, we will attract similar reactions and attitudes from others.  If we are angry, bitter, depressed and sad, we will likely attract the same.  This holds true for how we interact throughout our lives with friends, partners and spouses.  As Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, “Love, and you shall be loved.”  We have a strong say in how our life destiny plays out.  We help to create our happiness.  We must take what destiny hands us and then do the work necessary to build a life of joy and fulfillment.

Despite that fact, circumstances in life can and do tear us down.  Much like we discussed last Sunday with the story of “Les Miserables”, life is often painful and harsh.  Cruel people or difficult circumstances hurt us and often prevent us from finding the happiness we seek.  But, we also saw how Jean Valjean in that story constantly worked to redeem not only the lives of others but his own life too.  We cannot give up on life.  We cannot allow hate or misery or past mistakes to define who we are.  Redemption and resurrection are ALWAYS possible.  Just as science is proving, fate and destiny need not have the last word.

And that is also, ironically, a message from “Paperman”.  George redeems his missed opportunity encounter with Meg.  He is doggedly persistent.  He remained hopeful and determined.  The same must hold true for any of us.  Fate, destiny and biology do their best to order our lives.  Other people conspire to define us and set in stone whom they believe we are.  But we can, and often do, overcome all of these forces.

Whatever causes George to be attracted to Meg, whether it be fate, destiny or his own inner feelings, the humor and moral focus of the story is George’s persistence.  Even when all seems lost, when the last paper airplane with Meg’s lipstick kiss on it is blown away, destiny and persistence still work hand in hand – George does not give up but defies fate and rushes out of his work to meet Meg in person.

This is one of the great spiritual mysteries of life – how one second in time can alter the trajectory of our lives forever.  We often wonder in amazement how that can be as we also ponder how life would be so different had a fateful event not occurred.

Rarely, however, do we focus on how our own actions worked alongside our destiny.  We are not, as I asked earlier, mere puppets on a string.  All of the great and powerful forces of the universe work together, without our input, to shape who and what we are.  They help determine our lives and whether we find success or suffering.  But, we are not without power and ability to affect them.  Indeed, we are the gods and goddesses that ALSO shape our destiny and the future of our world.

I hope that all of us might act a bit like George in the film “Paperman.”  To the people whom destiny has brought our way, to our friends, family members, spouses, partners, lovers, and even total strangers, let us fling upon the air currents our paper airplanes of hope and goodness.  Life may set the tune, but we will dance on the wings of love…

I wish you, here or listening online, much peace and joy.

 

 

 

 

Message 121,  The Gathering Goes to the Movies, “Les Miserables and Redemption”, 2-10-13

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

Download here to listen to the message:

 

In the story of “Les Miserables”, Fantine is a young woman who finds herself pregnant and abandoned by the child’s father.  Alone, desperate and unable to raise her child in a world prejudiced more against unwed mothers than absent fathers, Fantine leaves her daughter with a couple who promise to raise the child in return for payment.  She finds work in a factory and regularly sends money to support her child, who is nevertheless abused and mistreated.   But Fantine is found out.  She is fired by a self-righteous supervisor for being an unwed mother.  In desperation to support her daughter, she turns to the one profession available to women with little skill, education or opportunity.  She sells herself.

What hope does Fantine have in life?   She prostitutes herself to a constant stream of men.  Her worth seems to only be as a sex object, a piece of female flesh used, consumed and quickly forgotten by men who care nothing for her humanity, her suffering, or her state of mind.  In an emotionally stunning performance by Anne Hathaway, one that will likely earn her an Academy Award, Fantine is played as a deeply anguished woman caught between the power of love for her child and the terrible degradation she must choose in order to survive.

But Fantine is soon redeemed.  Jean Valjean, the hero of Hugo’s story, is a figure reminiscent of Jesus.  Valjean learns of Fantine’s unjust firing from the factory he owns.  He searches for her and finally finds her in the seedy back alleys of Paris brothels.  Much like Jesus befriended prostitutes and brought them into his band of followers, so does Valjean reach out to Fantine.  And, much like the compassion Jesus showed the adulterous woman caught by an angry mob of hypocritical men, Valjean shows Fantine the unconditional love she had not yet felt.  Redeemed by love but pressed upon by inner demons, she cannot escape the label an uncaring society stamped upon her conscience – slut, whore, miserable, wretched.  We read and watch transfixed.  We see in Fantine too much of ourselves.  We too cry out for redemption and forgiveness of our failures.  What power on earth can save us?

(Click here to watch and listen to the video played during the service.)

Each of us lives on a razor’s edge of heaven or hell.  Despite the darkness in us, we see ourselves in the hopeful light of goodness.  And yet, lurking inside you and me are the sharp edges of shame, regret, fear, lost dreams and guilt.  Our past lives do not measure up to our vision of purity and yet we hope, we hope, we hope to be made whole.  We each pray the silent prayer that at our last breath, we will conclude a life that has mattered and is good.  We cry out to eternal gods and universal forces of truth that we too loved others, that we too showed compassion, that we too changed the world for the better, that we too were kind and just!  Despite our many failures, we dream a dream of absolution and ultimate, final redemption.  Do we declare, like Fantine, that life has killed that dream?  Or do we find somewhere, someplace, our dream fulfilled?

The sweeping story of “Les Miserables”, the film subject of my message today, leaves one breathless.  It is filled with many subplots and numerous characters each fighting to make sense of a desperate and cruel world.  Some find order and meaning only in law, regulation, absolute morality and strict adherence to what is supposedly right.  Such people, as Hugo describes, are the self-satisfied, the wealthy, the comfortable and the moralistic prigs who cannot empathize with or understand weakness, suffering, disadvantage or lack of opportunity.

Indeed, Hugo arranges his story around a clash between two men: Inspector Javert who represents those who self-righteously insist on an absolute moral order in life, and Jean Valjean, a convicted petty thief who has experienced life from the bottom up and understands its complexity, moral ambiguity, heartache and failure.  Javert is a constant tormenter of Valjean, pursuing him even to the figurative gates of hell in order to insure he is punished for his petty crimes.

Jean Valjean is an escaped prisoner, convicted as a young man for stealing bread to feed his starving nephew.  He struggles to redeem his life and salve his nagging conscience through service, love and charity.  He finds and rescues Fantine.  When she dies, he adopts her orphaned daughter Cosette.  He builds a business that employs and enriches the village where he locates it.  He heroically saves from certain death a young revolutionary who had renounced his life of privilege to fight for justice and equality.  Valjean even joins the ranks of street revolutionaries – those who fought against the powers of inequality and wealth that had co-opted and sold out the French Revolution.  In one life, he offers unconditional love and redemption to those he meets and, in doing so, he seeks to redeem his own life of shame and regret.

Throughout the story, Valjean fights a battle against tyrannical forces that abuse and degrade the poor and hurting.  As I said, he is a nineteenth century Jesus – a condemned criminal who reaches out to the outcasts of life – to simply love them.  His is a message of encouragement and forgiveness contrasted against the fundamentalist anger of Inspector Javert who demands righteous judgment and punishment for any and all misdeeds.

Like the stage musical and like the book, the movie emotionally pierces our hearts.  It asks us to consider whether seemingly miserable or bad lives can be redeemed.  Can flawed people be made whole?  Can they be accepted and loved for their own sake?  Can the horrors of human suffering or depravity be transformed into something glorious, uplifting and good?  Or, are the poor, the so-called immoral, the bad, the ugly, the dirty, the thief, the addict, the unwanted, the whore, the unbeliever – the dregs of supposedly decent society – are such people without hope of ever being found good?  Should we judge them, consign them to the justice we believe they deserve and then forget them?  And if we do, might we ultimately point the hand of judgment back upon ourselves with our own imperfections, flaws, and misdeeds?  Where lies the hope of human redemption and how might we find it – for others and for our own imperfect selves?

“Les Miserables” provides an answer.  The power that uplifts, encourages, forgives, makes whole and redeems anyone is the basic power of love.  It is an unconditional and total love for others no matter their differences or character deficiencies.

Hugo challenges us to see the inherent goodness in each and every person.  He asks us to consider the degrading effects of poverty on a person’s soul, often forcing one to steal or resort to prostitution merely to survive.  Hugo’s Paris is a Dickensian warren of dark streets teeming with urban poor – orphans, the homeless, the disabled. The novel’s many characters present the case that criminals and so called depraved souls, they must often make a devil’s choice in life – to steal or starve, to sell your body and your soul or live to see another day.

From the comforts of our warm and secure lives we stand accused.  Who are many of us, in our sanitized and safe homes, in our falsely prim and proper world, to sit in judgment of others less strong, less blessed, less happy?  Who am I to condemn those born and raised in poverty, given none of the advantages of a good education or stable home, who resort to the few opportunities available to earn money – to steal, sell drugs, or compromise their ethics just to live?

We see in Hugo’s Inspector Javert a bit of ourselves.  The law is the law, we say.  Crime, no matter how petty, is a blight upon society.  It must be stopped at all costs!  I can too often walk the streets of Over-the-Rhine, ones little different from Hugo’s Paris slums, and inwardly flinch in fear when African-American teens approach or react in exasperation when the homeless ask for change.  I may give them some but I often mutter to myself in doing so – “Well, you’ve just bought another beer or another drug fix.”

I can judge their place in life as I also judge them.  I fail to ask the questions Hugo poses – what are the larger causes for crime and poverty and inequality?  Whom do we blame – the criminal and the one caught in poverty or the ones who caused such conditions?  Who are the truly miserable in life – those who live on the margins of survival, or the callous, wealthy, and judgmental?

As the symbolic representative of so-called decent society, Inspector Javert speaks the mindset of many religions as well as those who are comfortable and secure.  Bad choices in life have consequences, they say – poverty, prison, poor health, drug addiction, homelessness, depression, loneliness are all matters of choice.  We must uphold the law of consequences to redeem such people.  We must hold them accountable and demand repayment!

Juxtaposed against such a mindset is that of Jean Valjean, himself a one-time victim of poverty.  Not only should we, according to his ethics, redeem, uplift and encourage individuals through our love, we should do so for humanity as a whole.  We can fight and act in behalf of the poor by our love.  We can seek, by our love, better means of education, healthcare and opportunity for those born on the suffering side of life.

Hugo implicitly shows us that personal initiative like Valjean’s building a business does offer a way out.  We and he intuitively know that hand-outs are not the best way to love others.  People need a hand up in life – opportunities to advance, heal, learn and work.

Ultimately, Hugo and “Les Miserables” asks us to dive deep into our hearts.  Love redeems the lives of most of the story’s characters – people caught between self-interest  –  or loving and serving others.  Love is never a moral wrong according to Hugo.  Love must always be the answer – from redeeming those caught in a web of poor life decisions, to standing on the barricades of change and demanding justice for those denied it.

Jean Valjean, like Jesus, seeks out the morally weak, the hurting, the prostitute, the thief, the unwashed, the unwanted.  Indeed, he is one of them.  Redemption of their misery, and his own, comes from love for others.  He offers no pious preaching, finger wagging or condemning attitudes.  Valjean sweeps weak people into his figurative arms and offers them the absolution and redemption that comes only through love.  In doing so, he finds the redemption he himself so desperately seeks.

Tennessee Williams, another great novelist and playwright, once said that, “Hell is yourself and the only redemption is when a person puts himself or herself aside to feel deeply for another person.”  Williams speaks the language of Victor Hugo and his character Jean Valjean.  He speaks the wisdom and compassion of Jesus who loved and forgave a thief crucified next to him.  No matter his life of crime, such a man was worthy of Jesus’ love and redemption.  Contrasted against such sentiments are the words of Inspector Javert who tells Valjean, “Men like you can never change.”  The pope said much the same thing when he offered the religious perspective on life.  He said, “There is no redemption from hell.”

The Pope was wrong.  Victor Hugo shows us he was wrong.  Each and every human intuitively knows he was wrong.  In the depths of hell that we see in the streets outside our doors, in the horrible pits of struggle with addiction, illness or depression, in the jet black depths of our own inner hells of failure, doubt and fear, we know that redemption is possible.  We do not give up on others or on ourselves.

We know the triumphant power of compassion, mercy and love to change lives for the better.  We see how the love of a mother for her child trapped in a web of addiction never gives up.  She believes in hope after hope after hope after hope.  We see the acts of loving people who visit prisons and the dark corridors of death row convinced that such people are not forever lost – who act much like Jesus and his love of a thief dying next to him.  We see countless acts of people who love a homeless and unwanted teen, who help a frightened and pregnant girl, who befriend a confused and lonely gay man.  We see a nation that refuses to abandon its elderly, poor or immigrant workers.  A nation founded on love for others, a nation that reminds itself that selfish interest is a path to greed and moral destruction, a nation that seeks the best answers to redeem and uplift others, that is a good and just nation.  Such a nation tells the world that redemption of the lost, hurting and poor is and always will be possible!

I have bored many of you with my life story.  I won’t do so again today.  But I will report that my lifelong search for Jesus and redemption ended in the most unlikely of places.  Many years ago, I thought I found him in a church of moral absolutes.  I thought I found him in a fundamentalist understanding of God and the Bible.  I thought that love and grace came by belief in the resurrected Jesus, and so I sought him where people spoke the most about him.  But I was wrong.  I did not find him there.

Instead, I found him in a miraculous place.  After years spent in my own desert of despair, doubt and rejection of anything spiritual, I found Jesus in a place that often did not talk about him.  I found him in the warm acceptance of me, a gay man.  I found redemption in new trust placed in me, to live out my passion and calling as a Pastor.  I found Jesus in the love offered to those who hurt.  I found him in ideals of service and self growth.  I ironically found Jesus in a church where Atheists and Buddhists and skeptics are comfortable.  I found him in a place that loves everyone no matter their race, economic status or sexuality.  I found him in a place much like where Jesus hung out – not in a fancy building with high ceilings and million dollar construction but in a humble place populated with the outcast, the meek, the humble, the unloved, the addict, the different.  I found Jesus, and I found my own redemption……..here.

My friends, I do not place the Gathering on a high pedestal.  We know our shortcomings.  We know how we can often fall short – like when a recent visitor reported she felt alone and without friends in here.  We too can often judge others with self-righteous certainty.  We too can sometimes ignore the suffering of others.  We too can reject those who act different, think different or believe differently from us.  But that’s why we’re here.  To get better.

We know where to plant the seeds of hope.  We know that we cannot give up on our world.  We know that redemption comes by love, by forgiveness and by service to others.  We know that seeking and searching after insight is a path to redemption of our flaws.  That is why we hunger for the wisdom of the ages, from prophets like Jesus, Gandhi and Martin Luther King, from great thinkers and novelists like Victor Hugo and from the shared thoughts of each other.

We dream a dream of personal redemption from shame and failure.  We dream a dream of redeeming a suffering world.  We dream a dream of love for others equal to the love we have for ourselves.  We dream these dreams and then we go forth to try our best to live them out…

 

I wish all of you, here and online, peace, love and joy.

Message 120, “The Gathering Goes to the Movies: the Film ‘Lincoln’ and Does the End Justify the Means?”, 2-3-13

 

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

 

To listen to the message, download here:

 

As President, Abraham Lincoln enjoyed telling a story about two religious women who were discussing the possible outcome of the Civil War.  One of the women announced that she believed the South would win the war.  “Jefferson Davis is a praying man,” she piously said.  “But Abraham Lincoln is a praying man too,” the other exclaimed.  “Yes, indeed he is,” the first woman replied, “but the Lord thinks Lincoln is joking!”

This story perfectly captures one of the great qualities of Lincoln.  He had a keen sense of humor and he peppered many of his conversations with funny stories.  He used them to poke fun at himself, to disarm his critics, to politely end conversations that had gone on too long and, just as Jesus used parables, to leave his listeners with something memorable.

It is in that regard that Lincoln’s calculating brilliance showed through.  His folksy humor suggested his backwoods Kentucky upbringing.  When matched against more educated and supposedly refined opponents, he seemed the country jester or the rural naïf who was out of his element.  Many did not take him seriously.  But friends and opponents who ignored Lincoln’s cunning and intuitive wisdom did so at their own peril.

False impressions of Lincoln have also shaped him into a mythic hero of honesty and moral purpose – one who fought and was martyred in order to preserve the Union and end slavery.  In many biographies about him and even in his marble Memorial in Washington, Lincoln is depicted as embodying all that America sees as good, righteous and moral about themselves.  For many, he is the quintessential good and decent American – a man of pure and noble purpose.

A closer examination of Lincoln by historians and, more recently by the filmmaker Steven Spielberg, reveals a far more complex, nuanced and often conniving person who was, at times, the nastiest description of all – a consummate politician.  Such revelations surprise many people.  Recent histories strip away the gloss of myth and thus uncover a statesman who was a regular practitioner of the sometimes sordid art of politics.  Machiavelli, the famous renaissance Italian writer, claimed that an effective leader must act in morally questionable ways in order to achieve a higher good.  While few leaders wish to be labeled Machiavellian, Lincoln lived true to that philosophy.

As I have done in February for the past three years, we’ll look this month at different films that have been nominated for the Best Picture award.  We’ll seek insight into spiritual lessons we might learn from them.  Since most forms of entertainment are ultimately morality plays about life and human behavior, finding spiritual enlightenment from great film artists is a worthy endeavor.  A movie’s views may or may not be our own but, like most works of literature or art, good movies provoke introspection and deep questioning of what is right and wrong.  They help lead us to a better understanding of our values and how we might live in ways that advance humanity.

In that regard, Spielberg’s movie “Lincoln” is a worthy contribution.  In his examination of Lincoln’s efforts to pass the 13^th amendment in a deeply divided House of Representatives, Spielberg compels us to consider a timeless question we frequently face but are usually too afraid to answer.  Does the end justify the means?  Did the passage of one of the hallmarks of constitutional amendments, the 13th, outweigh the dirty means by which it was achieved – by lying, bullying, bribery and other nefarious tactics?  In the film, Lincoln is shown to deceive Congress, lie to them and even meet in the middle of the night, to arrange with paid henchmen, efforts to bribe, trick and bully wavering Congressmen to vote in favor of the amendment.  What we see is almost, almost! a 19th century version of “Nixonian” dirty tricks.  What Lincoln did was possibly criminal and certainly executive abuse of power.  His actions make the nickname “Honest Abe” seem ridiculous.

But, the film also depicts the joyous and uplifting approval of the amendment by the House.  After its adoption ten months later by three fourths of the states, the amendment insured an end to slavery throughout the United States as it enshrined in law the ideal that each and every citizen, no matter race or ethnicity, was free and equal.  Not only did it permanently end slavery, it became the foundational constitutional precept for ending Jim Crow practices and the resulting Civil Rights laws.

Many people of faith and, indeed, those who profess no faith, believe they operate by a set of guiding morals or principles that are often universal and eternal.  Do not kill.  Do not steal.  Do not lie.  Such ethics are framed in the Biblical Ten Commandments even as they are also represented in many other moral codes of conduct.  The Jewish faith has thousands of religious laws and countless interpretations of them by which those of orthodox belief seek to maintain their purity before a perfect deity.  Muslims have their Five Pillars of faith by which they regulate devotion to Allah and the teachings of his prophet Muhammad.  Hindus and Buddhists have their own traditions and rituals which also prescribe how one ought to live in a morally decent manner.

Importantly, however, such religious and moral rules often conflict with other moral principles humans wish to achieve.  Did defeating Nazi Germany and Adolf Hitler allow for the firebombing of Dresden and the killing of thousands of civilians?  Did the defeat of Japan and preventing countless additional troop and civilian casualties allow the United States to drop nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two cities with minimal military value?  Would water-boarding a terrorist who has knowledge of an attack that could kill thousands be morally justified?  On a simpler level, is it OK to lie to a friend or family member if it means not deeply hurting his or her feelings?

How far can we go in bending or breaking so called rules of morality if the goal we wish to achieve is believed to be greater or better?  These are vexing questions to ask ourselves and I don’t believe we will arrive at any perfectly satisfying answer for each and every situation.  But, we either ask such questions and seek solutions, or we ignore them at our peril.

As I often say, truth is not a black and white, yes or no, good or bad proposition.  Truth often lies somewhere in the murky, obscure and grey middle.  Those who say life can be led by adhering to absolutes either delude themselves or else are too rigid and too doctrinaire to be of practical use in any real world solution.  Indeed, those who are moral, political or religious absolutists are, in my humble opinion, immoral because they fail to discern and think about the many ambiguous or even negative implications of their unbending rules and beliefs.

In the Biblical story of Exodus, the Jewish people find themselves, after forty years of wandering in the desert, without a leader.  Moses has died.  To lead the Jewish people into their new land, God selects Joshua.  In a prudent effort to scout out the new land, Joshua sends three spies across the Jordan River to determine the strengths and weaknesses of Jericho – the walled border city that was key to gaining entrance into Palestine.

The spies do their duty and eventually meet a prostitute, Rahab, who because of her profession had close contact with leaders of Jericho.  She also lived in a strategic part of the city – near its defense walls.  Rahab gave confidential information to the spies about Jericho and even hid them in her home.  When that city’s military leaders learned there were spies in their midst, they questioned many people including Rahab.  She, however, acted as a traitor and lied to the leaders by denying any knowledge of the Jewish spies.  Rahab did so knowing full well the spies would report back to Joshua who would then lead a military assault on Jericho that would likely succeed, since they now had inside knowledge.  Given how ruthless the Jews were known to be when fighting so-called pagans, Rahab knew her lies meant the death of most of Jericho’s residents.  Indeed, that would soon be the case.

But nowhere in the Bible is Rahab condemned for her actions.  She is even called a righteous woman.  And, in one of the highest compliments paid to any Biblical character, she is listed in the New Testament book of Matthew as a direct ancestor of Jesus.  Such an inclusion clearly indicates Jews and Christians condone Rahab’s lying.  In almost all Jewish and Christian commentaries, her lies were moral lies because they helped achieve a supposedly good result – the ability of Jews to claim the land promised them by God.  In the name of a godly cause, it seems that almost any action, including bearing false witness and breaking one of the Ten Commandments, is not only OK, but good.

The same is also true about the conquest of the rest of Palestine.  In the Biblical book of 1st Samuel, God tells the Jews, “Now go, attack the pagans and totally destroy everything that belongs to them.  Do not spare them; put to death men and women, children and infants, cattle and sheep, camels and donkeys.”  Again, almost all Jewish and Christian commentaries approve such a command – even the death of innocent children and infants.  They claim that God’s ways are perfect and that such harsh measures were necessary to insure the moral purity of Palestine, since the pagans practiced ritual sex acts and child sacrifice.  Indeed, that is the implicit motivation of God in issuing his command.

Jesus himself acknowledged that breaking absolute rules in the name of human compassion is a good and right thing.  He purposefully approved the theft of small amounts of wheat, even on the Sabbath, when one is hungry and in need.  He committed such theft himself.

While some, including the Atheist writer Richard Dawkins, assert that these examples render the Bible unworthy of respect, such an assertion is equally absolutist.  The Bible was written by many different individuals, at many different times, each with different agendas and purposes.  It is likely that the history portions of the Bible were written with the intent to justify Jewish conquest of Palestine and even to encourage a bit of boasting on their part:  “Look at how God was on our side!”  For us, however, we need NOT abandon the countless great insights and pieces of wisdom in the Bible even if portions are morally inconsistent.

The essential question for us today is how we humans often justify the methods used to achieve a desired result.  Just like the Jews of the Bible, many Americans have justified the killing of Native Americans and the conquest of their lands because it was a manifest or even Divine destiny that our continent be settled and supposedly civilized.   Our nation and its history are not perfect but America has significantly contributed to world-wide ideals of democracy, compassion and equality.  How do we reconcile that fact with our history of land theft and conquest of Native Americans?  That is not an easy answer, for if we say such actions were totally evil and indefensible no matter what, then we must also claim that America is not a just nation and its existence is based on a moral wrong.  Much like some writers of the Bible used allegedly good outcomes to justify the conquest of Palestine, so must we also grapple with our own dark history contrasted against the inherent goodness of American ideals and institutions.

All of this takes us back to the moral question posed in the movie “Lincoln”.  Does the constitutional ban on slavery – and its resulting foundation for complete human equality – somehow make the dishonest and deceitful practices Lincoln used to pass the 13th amendment permissible and even moral?  We ask ourselves once again, can a moral end justify immoral means?

John Stuart Mill, the nineteenth century English philosopher, writer and economist, advanced the ideas of utilitarianism.  Mill proposed that humans judge the utility or merit of anything in life by the goodness it brings.  A thing or action is moral if it achieves the “greatest possible good for the greatest number of people.”  That is a key proposition and it can inform our own tentative approach to moral quandaries similar to Lincoln’s.

Mill rejected the Christian belief that goodness is revealed to us by God.  Rather, goodness is largely determined by reason and applied intuition.  Indeed, we have just considered examples from the Bible where seemingly immoral acts were justified by supposedly moral results.  Even God and Jesus, according to the Bible, abandoned the absolutes of the Ten Commandments and used ethical reasoning to determine that stealing, lying and killing are permissible in certain circumstances.  Such examples indicate that even religion and holy Scriptures cannot address all questions of morality.  Ultimately, we are left to ourselves, our minds, our hearts and our intuitive sense of love and compassion to determine what is good, right and true.

As Steven Spielberg depicts in his film, Lincoln knew that if an end to the Civil War resulted without an emphatic end to the very reason over which it was fought – that of slavery – then the hundreds of thousands of lives lost in the war, both in the North and the South, would be of no meaning.  Even worse, without a constitutional ban on slavery – something the Emancipation Proclamation did not do – the nation could very well have found itself once again in a civil war.  American history would be very, very different – and far worse – had the 13th amendment failed.  If the amendment’s passage required a few bribes, a few untruths, a few threats and a few patronage jobs, then the great good it brought to millions of people was and is worth such actions.  Indeed, as a counter-intuitive statement, Lincoln’s lies and deceptions in that instance were deeply moral acts.  The utility, and thus the intrinsic morality of the 13th amendment have been proven time and time again.  It brought the greatest good to the greatest number of people.

In making any decision about the means we use to achieve goals that are good and right, we must apply rigorous examination.  There is little question that Lincoln deeply thought about his actions.  His guiding star was saving the United States and ending racial slavery.  He knew America was not perfect and yet he also understood the implicit goodness of our nation.  Such a nation must not perish, as he said, lest the high ideals of liberty, justice, fairness and democracy be diminished instead of enhanced.

For each of us, let us not presume to understand or know absolute morality or absolute certainty on any matter.  As we all know, there are very few absolutes in our universe.  In matters of what is right, true and good, there are even fewer.  But we have been endowed with wonderful minds, compassionate hearts and collective insights that grant us the tools to sort through moral questions with reason and heart wisdom.  I suggest we abandon the extreme poles of right and wrong, moral and immoral, believer and unbeliever, liberal and conservative, and move instead into the often messy and ill defined grey zone where compromise and collective reason prevail.  Let us look to the greats of the past – men and women like Jesus, Lincoln and others who acted not with absolute certainty but with well-reasoned intentions to serve and love as much of humanity as possible.

I wish us all peace and joy.