Category: Uncategorized

Message 37, Let’s Get Rich?  Give It All Away??  10-17-10

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

Service-Program-10-17-10

Most of you are aware of the Jesus story when five thousand people are fed from five loaves of bread and two fish.  It is one of the supposedly supernatural miracles frequently referred to when people discuss the divine nature of Jesus.  At the beginning of the story, he has just landed on shore after having retreated – to find peace and quiet – in a boat to the middle of a large lake called the Sea of Galilee.

During Jesus’ work in the northern region of Palestine called Galilee, thousands of people had heard about the teachings of this radical young rabbi.  He was unlike any rabbi or religious leader heard or seen before.  Jesus did not address all of the fine points of Jewish religious observances – like regular sacrifice, ritual washing, Sabbath rules or dietary regulations.  He was focused on reaching out to the poor, to the sick, to women, and to all those who lived as outcasts at the margins of supposedly decent society.  During this time of Roman occupation and collusion with them by Jewish religious elites, many were looking for a prophet and inspirational leader.  Because of his teachings and how he led his life, Jesus became hugely popular.  The hopes and dreams of thousands were invested in him as one who could change lives for the better.

And so Jesus came ashore and found the huge crowd waiting for him.  He walked through the crowd, talking and reaching out to them with his compassion and concern.  He was at a remote place and his disciples eventually told him that it was getting late and would soon be dark.  Should they send the crowd away at such a late hour so they can go get food?  Not wanting to disperse the people who had walked so far to see him, Jesus told his disciples to instead feed them.  But the disciples immediately protested that they only had a few loaves of bread and a few small fish – only enough for themselves.  Jesus asked for the food and then broke the loaves and fish into small pieces and told the disciples to distribute the items to the crowd.

Afterwards, they amazingly discovered that five thousand people had been adequately fed – and there were still leftovers – all from that original small supply of food.  A miracle!  How could so many be fed out of such seemingly insignificant resources?

I am not someone who interprets this famous story literally.  Far from it.  Whether or not this feeding event actually took place, I believe it offers us a profound lesson in how we view our own limited resources.  Despite the fear and caution of the disciples – who refused to trust and to have confidence in a situation of scarcity – Jesus saw instead abundance.  He saw potential in the human spirit.  Instead of holding onto the small supply of food – needed to feed himself and his few disciples – Jesus gave it all away.  And it is in that example of giving that he created a literal miracle which came about not because of some godly intervention but because of human kindness and generosity.

As the disciples handed out their food, I imagine others in the crowd began to offer their own scraps of food to people around them.  They saw Jesus’ example of giving.  They shared.  They gave away.  They were extravagantly, perhaps foolishly, generous.  As the disciples and the crowd began to be less preoccupied with their own meager supplies of food and recognized that by sharing there was more than enough for all, generosity exploded.  Clenched fists of self-concern opened up into outstretched arms willing to give everything they had to eat away.  A human being named Jesus, not some superstar god, created this miracle of giving and sharing.

Such is the miracle of abundance which I believe is evident in our world.  When we freely give away what we have, we participate in a world in which everyone’s needs are met.  This helps to nurture and create the kind of people we want to be, the kind of church we want to be and the kind of world in which we want to live.  We as a people, as a church and as a world are interconnected, cooperative, generous and willing to share with others.  We see life as not something to be feared but as open with possibility.  Instead of living in a world we perceive as destined to be full of hunger, poverty and need, we live in one in which heaven can be created by us – by our work and by our generosity.

And that leads me to this concluding topic for our October message series.   In this series about money and time, I pose today’s theme as a question – “Give It All Away?”  We’ve discovered over the last two Sundays, I hope, that our money and our time are two concerns which closely reflect our overall life values – are we selfish……..or selfless?  Do we use money and time prudently, in balance and in a way that reaches out to family, friends and strangers?   Do we hoard money and time or do we give them away?   Is our attitude about time and money focused on the “me” or on the “other”?

My purpose today is not to create guilt or to lecture anyone about being generous.  Indeed, we must all see to our own needs first so that we are then able to give and help others.  The Buddha said that one cannot help oneself if one does not help others.  But, just as important, the Buddha also noted that one cannot help others, if one does not help oneself.  So, if I do anything in this message, it will be to provoke questions, to inspire reflection and to encourage self-examination about giving in general.

My understanding of generosity is that it does not solely encompass financial or material giving.  A generous person is one who embodies that quality in all aspects of their life.  They share their time freely, being willing to listen and understand others.  They are emotionally giving through their happiness, their smiles and their positive outlook.  They show extravagant hospitality to all people – friend and stranger alike.  They volunteer time to charities and organizations.  They give others the benefit of doubt despite one’s flaws or mistakes.  They forgive.  They recognize the inherent dignity and worth of every living creature.  Spiritual generosity, therefore, is not something that is contingent on having lots of money or not.  It is a holistic attitude and one which is attractive to other people.  We want to be around those who are truly giving with their time, compassion, understanding, empathy, money, and happiness.  As Mother Theresa wisely said, “Let no one ever come to you without leaving better and happier. Be the living expression of Divine kindness:  kindness in your face, kindness in your eyes, kindness in your smile.”

That ethic of Mother Theresa’s is daily lived out by charity workers around the world.  As I’ve mentioned on a few occasions, I was privileged to travel several times to the nation of Haiti on outreach trips with one of my previous churches.  On one of those trips, I visited a hospital run by the Sisters of Charity which cared for dying children.  I walked into a large open room with row upon row of cribs and small beds, where perhaps a hundred children were tended.  Most suffered from either tuberculosis or AIDS.  At one point as I walked through the room, a Sister reached down to pick up a seven year old girl, who looked like a holocaust survivor she was so thin.  I forget the girl’s name now but she had been born with AIDS.  She was blind, she could not speak or walk or barely lift her head.  The Sister held her in her arms like an infant and lightly tickled her under the chin.  A small smile crossed the girl’s face.  This Sister handed the girl to me to hold for a while and it was impossible for me not to choke up.  As horrible as this situation was – repeated in the story of each of the many children in that hospital – I realized later that I was just a visitor – a tourist into some of the horrors of our world.  I gave some money and I gathered information to share with others back in my church but the Sisters – those who worked in this hospital day in and day out – were the truly generous.  When symbolically asked by the Jesus, whom these Sisters deeply respect, to give away everything they had in this world – money, material things and their own time – they willingly answered “yes – here I am.”  The example of such charity workers like them deeply humbles me.  I am a terribly and horribly selfish person in comparison.

Ultimately, though, our personal generosity is something we establish within our own hearts.  It is not something others can or should impose upon us.  If we feel guilt or compulsion in our giving, I do not believe we have truly given.  As the Bible says, “Each one must give just as he or she has purposed in his or her heart, not grudgingly or under compulsion, for the Divine One loves a cheerful giver.”

That attitude speaks to how I hope we can all approach this church’s upcoming annual pledge campaign.  Are we confident about our future?  Do we see things with fear or with wide-eyed optimism?  Are we focused on our scarce resources or might we imagine the abundance we have and that is all around us?  Is this a place that creates change in people’s lives – both those who attend and those we serve outside these walls?  Are homeless young people better off because of us?  Do we help the hungry?  Have homeless families been served by this congregation with love and understanding?  Are gays and lesbians treated with respect, with dignity and with the value they deserve as equal citizens?  Is our music inspiring?  Do we truly care for one another in our times of illness, challenge or despair?  Do our messages pose questions that provoke thought and encourage change?  Are meaningful relationships formed here?  Are visitors helped in finding a new community of friendly faces?  Does this place matter to you and to others?  Is there value here?

Two weeks ago during our talk back time after the message on attitudes toward money, a few of you envisioned the dream of us all living within a commune – where sharing is free and easy and everybody works together for the common good.  While we do not call ourselves the Soviet Socialist Church of the Gathering, we have within our power to be something like a commune.  All of us have the ability to manifest spiritual generosity here, in our families and in our neighborhoods.  As we are transformed by the realization that life is not about us but about our service to the wider world, counting and hoarding our money and our time becomes meaningless.  We each work and save for what we eat.  We give of ourselves in kindness to one another and to strangers.  We treat others with dignity and affirmation.  We build close and strong families who are then able to go out into the world to make it better.  We give away time playing with a child or talking to a teenager.  We meaningfully relate with a spouse or partner.  We help a friend and we volunteer for the homeless, the hungry and the marginalized.  We open our hands with generosity, seeing the fantastic opportunities we have to serve others.  In sum, we see our lives, we see this church and we see our world as alive with possibility.  We can literally change all creation for the better and we have each been blessed with friends and associates in this congregation who are willing to join us in that undertaking.

My friends, I do not propose that all of one’s generosity must be focused on a church – let alone this church.  Indeed, I know that so many here give abundantly to other causes – to scholarship funds to help young people learn and grow, to social justice organizations that fight for equal rights, to animal rights groups that call each of us to treat fellow creatures with love and understanding, to a myriad of other very worthy causes.  Generosity of spirit calls us all to, as I said earlier, give as the Divine One puts into our hearts to give.  And that includes to whom we give.  If we are passionate about advancing art and beauty in the world, we give to creative and performing arts organizations.  If our passion is to see education improved, we give to a school or university.  If we yearn for a world free of disease, we support the heart association or the cancer society.  If we care about animals we give to the zoo, a local shelter or animal rights groups.  If, as I hope, this place called the Gathering finds a meaningful place in your lives, I pray it finds a place in your giving.

Some of us have the ability to give more.  Some live with a tight budget and paying the monthly bills is a regular concern.  My hope is that we can all meaningfully and generously give something to this place – both in time and in money.  It is said in the Bible that to whom much is given, much is expected.  And I believe that is true.  But the Bible also wisely says that those who sow sparingly also reap sparingly and those who sow bountifully, reap bountifully.  I, like most of you, do not believe in the gospel of wealth that god will somehow pour out his financial blessings if you only give away all of your hard earned money.   But I do believe that generous people and generous churches are surrounded with that same spirit.  People who are spiritually generous as I mentioned earlier – who freely smile, listen, show kindness, and give away happiness – are the kind of people who discover others being generous to them.  Generosity attracts generosity.  And the same holds true for churches.  That is why I believe it is so important for this congregation to be actively involved in outreach to our community – in volunteering, giving away money, feeding, clothing, mentoring and caring for those in need.  We walk our talk.  We see the world as not about us but about others.  We think positively as we work to create heaven on earth.  We go out into the world refusing to accept things as they are but confidently determined to work for things as they should be.

This is the last of my Sundays with you during my first year at the Gathering.  It has gone by so quickly and it has been an amazing ride.  When I next see you on a Sunday, I will begin my second year with all of the hope and excitement for this place that I have had over the past year.  Whether we are big or small as a church, we have a purpose.  We help to change lives for the better.  We matter in this community.  Pat Crahan and Brandon Wiers have both said very eloquently that they see the Gathering as a place of great depth where each of us continues to grow and stretch ourselves in how we treat one another, in our giving, in our learning and in our impact on the world.  I am confident and absolutely positive that we will walk hand and hand into our future with love, with abundant generosity and with the dream of peace and contentment throughout all of creation.

Message 36, “Let’s Get Rich?  Count the Clock!”, 10-10-10

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

Service-Program-10-10-10

We have 168 hours in each of our weeks.  There are 720 hours in an average month and 8,760 hours in a year.  Over a ninety year lifetime, one will have 788,400 hours of time.  How much is just one of those hours worth?  Since an average person in the U.S. can expect to earn approximately 1.1 million dollars over an entire lifetime, the economic worth of each life hour is about one dollar and forty cents.  That seems pretty cheap.  If you waste an hour here or there, no big deal!  We can make that up or even not worry about its loss too much.  But what if we waste an hour a day?  Over that 90 year lifetime, one will have thrown away $45,990.  That is some serious money.

The problem with this approach at placing a dollar value on our time is that ultimately such a method is meaningless.  The credit card advertising campaign telling us that certain life experiences are priceless, is essentially true.  How might a dad value even one hour a week spent with his son or daughter in meaningful connection?  What dividends of love, affirmation and wisdom might result from those weekly one hour sessions?  What bank account of memories might be created – of ballgames, important conversations or life lessons taught?  How much do we value an hour of lying in a loved one’s arms, hearing his or her heartbeat and simply finding a quiet peace together?  Such an hour might seem wasteful when we could be working or surfing the internet or watching the latest show on TV.  We each might tell ourselves, as I ask these questions, that such moments of deep connection with a loved one or friend are not wasted and that they are, indeed, priceless.  But, how many of us – in the midst of all of the choices we have for spending our time – regularly choose to meaningfully and lovingly talk to a spouse or partner, play with a child or visit a friend?  How many of our 788,400 life hours are simply idled away creating nothing memorable, productive or meaningful?

Our message series this month is framed as a question, “Let’s Get Rich?”  Last Sunday we discussed finding an appropriate attitude towards money – understanding that it has practical and spiritual significance to improve the condition of humanity and all creation.  Money is to be put to use and not hoarded.  It is to be earned and it is to be freely given to make our world a better place.  For today, I hope we can reflect on how we value our time and how that relates with our attitude towards money.  We learned last week that simplicity in how we live has a high value.  Do we allow a love of money and things to control us or do we control them?  Do we limit them and seek, as much as possible, simplicity in our lives?  If we do, then I propose that the value we place on our time will increase.  Indeed, we might move from a mindset that time is money to one which says that our time is priceless.  It has infinite value.  Every hour of every day is precious.  Once it is gone, it can never be reclaimed.

Johan von Goethe, the renowned German writer, once said, “Many people take no care of their money till they come nearly to the end of it, and others do just the same with their time.” And Henri Louis Bergson, a noted French philosopher of the early 20^th century, noted, “Wherever anything lives, there is, open somewhere, a register in which time is being counted.”  Ka-ching.  Ka-ching!  Another hour spent.  Was it worth it?

The implicit message we learn, therefore, is that while time is NOT money, it is its own currency.  It is of immeasurable worth but, since that is so, it must not be wasted.  It should, like money, be used for productive purposes – for ourselves, our families and then for others.  Like money, it should be used simply and not extravagantly – time should never be simply thrown away.  We use it not only for work to meet our basic economic needs but we also use it for rest, for renewal and for personal fulfillment.  In this regard, the spending of our time – like the spending of our money – must be done with wisdom.

As Americans, we are known for our work ethic and industrious attitudes.  As a nationality, we are efficient and no-nonsense individuals who spend vast amounts of time at work – to make money.  As we discussed last week, work has its value and we are to earn what we eat.  The Biblical book of Proverbs wisely notes that, “The sluggard craves and gets nothing, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.” But, in studies at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School of Business, Americans work, on average, far more hours than is needed for their basic well-being.  Studies show that as wealth has increased in the United States, we have responded by working even harder.  Our desire for money has only increased.  When levels of general happiness are measured in our country, however, we have stayed at mostly the same level over the past half-century.  We are no happier for our extra wealth.  In Europe, however, as their wealth increased, they responded by working less while their general happiness levels have greatly increased.

The Wharton study found that if we think about money and our work too much, such thoughts become self-fulfilling.  We simply want to work more.  If, however, we spend time thinking and planning about other uses of our time – like time with family or other less lucrative pursuits, we will indeed then spend more of our time doing those emotionally enriching things.  This holds true for rich and poor alike.  How we think about our time – do we think mostly about work, or do we have a balanced perspective about it – is key to our happiness.  We will act in accord with our thinking.  Once again, the Bible is a source of wisdom.  The Psalms tell us, “It is vain for you to rise up early, to retire late, to eat the bread of painful labors. So consider your mortality, so that you might live wisely.”

We learned last Sunday that it is possible to have a spiritual perspective toward money.  As Doug Meredith noted during our talk back time, money is an enabler of either our best or our worst attitudes.  The love of money can enable greed, lust and arrogance.  Or, a respect for money can enable a healthy work ethic, generosity and compassion.  The same must hold true for our time.  Do we hoard it solely for ourselves – to work, rest, and use as we like?  Does it inspire arrogance on our part – our time is too valuable to give to simple things like reading, laughing, meditation, play or conversation with others?  Do we make productive use of our time – to meaningfully connect with another person or to work diligently and fairly?   Do we give away time to others – do we volunteer – to visit with a friend, to play with a child, to serve someone or some organization in need?  Indeed, just as I said last week that an audit of our checking accounts might best reveal our attitudes towards money, so too will an audit of our calendars or day planners reveal our attitudes towards time.  Is our time and is our money spent selfishly – with just ourselves in mind – or are we giving, generous and caring in its use?

A spiritual and balanced use of time must include its efficient and productive use.  Since we will never get back any of our time, it should not be wasted.  Time must be well managed and priorities must be set.  In our daily lives, do we go from task to task with no set plan or do we allocate it according to what is most important?  A daily “to do” list is a recommended solution to how we can waste time by running to and fro.

An efficient use of time is also important.  Can we learn to delegate tasks to others who can do them better?  Can we humble ourselves and recognize that we cannot do it all – we must share with each other our daily work?  Asking for help, giving away portions of our work, getting an assistant or partner or seeking advice from another are important if we are to find time in our days to enjoy rest and be at peace.

Jesus offered his wisdom regarding another aspect for a spiritual use of time.  We must be honest in our attitudes toward using and giving time.  He said, “Simply let your ‘yes’ be ‘yes’ and your ‘no’ be ‘no.’” In other words, when we say “yes” to a project or event or other use of our time, it must be sincere and the task undertaken without regret.  In the same manner, we must learn how to gently say “no” when others ask for time that we cannot give.  Many of us have generous and giving hearts but we can also give beyond our abilities.  We burn out and we lose control of our lives.

Finally, in another act of personal transformation that we discussed last month, I believe we must die to our own time needs.  This does not mean that we do not find time for rest or renewal but, instead, that we see our time as serving a larger purpose than just for ourselves.  Our time is to be used to build a better earth – for humanity, for fellow creatures and for our environment.  We are to build heaven on earth, as I so often repeat.  In that regard, we come to see that our purpose in life is not to simply exist for our own sake, it is to serve others – family, friends, community, complete strangers.  When we do find time for rest, it is to recharge ourselves so that we can better improve the world.

We are also to give complete and honest labor at our jobs and careers.  Wasteful or idle time at work is a form of theft.   Do we give time to our families, close friends and associates – to build intimate and meaningful connections?    Are we listening, empathetic and fully present during those interactions or are we simply using time with others to meet our personal needs?

After our time at work – used to earn money necessary for our needs and those of our families, and after time we give to loved ones to nurture vital relationships, and after the time we give to ourselves for rest, are we finding time to share and give away in volunteering?  The actress Whoopi Goldberg said that if every American gave five hours of their time per week in helping others, it would be the equivalent work of 20 million full-time charity workers.  Imagine what could be accomplished by that work force!  And Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “I have the audacity to believe that people everywhere can have three meals a day for their bodies, education and culture for their minds, and dignity, quality, and freedom for their spirits. I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, other-centered men can build up.”

For us here at the Gathering, such an ideal represents the core of who we are.  We will continue to walk our talk.  We will not simply speak in favor of justice, we will do our part to work for it.  As a congregation, we will continue each one of us to volunteer in meaningful and significant ways.  The work of this church cannot be done by a few.  It must be done by all of us.  This is not a place of spectators.  It is a place of activists and givers and volunteers.  I am personally so touched by all the work that goes on here – those who organize outreach to homeless kids, those who regularly show up to serve them, those who plan the music, who provide it, who manage our finances, teach our youth, host our Book Clubs, create our websites, plan our events, cook our food, greet our guests, serve at the Freestore, brew our coffee, assist homeless families..….the list goes on and on and on.  We serve and give our time not for this congregation but to learn and grow and work for a better world!

My friends, I stand before you as one who must listen to this message more than perhaps any of you.  I need to find a healthy perspective on my time.  It is said that we can spend our time for a variety of wrong reasons – for greed, for ego, to avoid other tasks or to please people.  Too often I spend my time worrying about what others think of me instead of focusing on the beauty of the moment.  Without any desire on my part to brag, I have tried over the past year here at the Gathering to do my very best, to work as hard as possible for the sake of this great congregation and to serve with love and understanding.  In the course of my work and the many hours I dedicate to it, though, I have sometimes neglected my daughters or Ed or my close friends.  Commuting between two cities only adds to those issues.  The busy aspects of this job can take me away from what is most important to me.  That is something nobody has forced upon me.  I have put those burdens on myself.  I must hold myself accountable for finding time to meet my daughters for lunch, for knowing when to shut off the computer, for accepting the fact that I can only work so much, for simply enjoying the company of a friend.  I have told several of you who work so hard here at the Gathering – don’t burn yourself out!  I must tell myself the same thing.

I believe we are each so fortunate to have been born.  Our lives are not without hardship and suffering.  But they are filled with joy and love as well.  We live for but a breath of time.  Across the eons of existence, our years on this planet pass almost as a blink of an eye.  A thousand years from now, our lives will barely be remembered – if at all.  But that does not diminish our significance.  We need not be remembered.  Only that we mattered.  We have a purpose.  We can literally change the world.  For every time you look into the eyes of your partner and tell him or her of your deep love, you have blessed another soul.  For every child you hug and teach the ways of life, you have touched the future.  For every tired or sick or hungry person – or animal – you have comforted, you have reduced suffering.  What ripples in the pond of creation have we spawned by one act of our giving?  Those ripples we create with our gifts of time spread ever outward, touching distant lives and far off places we will never know. Dear ones, let us indeed count the clock.  Let us see the value of time.  It is a currency to be spent wisely.  It is a currency to spend generously.  It is the only thing we really possess and it is the only thing we truly lose.  Time for you.  Time for me.  Time for love and charity….

Message 35, “Let’s Get Rich?  Money, Money, Money!”, 10-3-10

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

Service-Program-10-03-10

There is an old story about a fisherman who was relaxing one day by his boat.  His wife was at his side while he laughed and played with his children.  Several fish cooked over an open fire.  A passer-by stopped and asked the fisherman why he was not out at sea fishing.  He replied, “Well, I already have caught all the fish my family and I need for the day.”  “But,” the passer-by answered, “If you caught more fish you could sell them and make enough money to buy a motor for your boat.”  “And why would I want that?” the fisherman asked.  “So you can go farther out to sea and catch even more fish to sell.” said the passer-by.  “What would those fish bring me?” asked the fisherman.  “Why, you could then buy another boat and, with time, you might even own a whole fleet of boats.  My goodness”, exclaimed the passer-by, “you could catch lots of fish and make lots of money and you would be rich!”  “Why would I want to be rich?” said the fisherman.  “So you could enjoy life and have lots of free time!”  the passer-by almost shouted in exasperation.  “But that is exactly what I have right now.” replied the fisherman.

This quaint parable speaks volumes about our attitudes on money and life.  It is wonderfully illustrative but, to be fair, there are several flaws to the fisherman’s approach.  An ethic of sufficiency is good up to a point – but what about helping others?  What about preparing for a future when he cannot fish?  What about training his children how to fish?  Even so, the parable points out the fact that there is almost nothing else that so much shapes our life decisions and our personalities as how we think about money.  And, it is with that theme in mind that I begin an October series with the questioning title “Let’s Get Rich?”

I want to examine with you three different aspects of that theme this month.  Today we’ll look at general attitudes towards money and wealth.  How might we acquire real prosperity?  Is money intrinsically evil, as some say, or are there healthy and more spiritual ways to define it and use it?  Next week, we will consider how time and money often are in conflict.  We tend to love money and seek more of it, while neglecting that resource of ours – time – which is limited.  How might we manage our time in ways that reflect a spiritual approach to life?  Finally, on the third Sunday in this series, we’ll explore the possibly frightening idea of giving away all our money to others.  What roles do giving and generosity play in a balanced perspective on money?

In the Bible, Paul warns a young protégé of his, Timothy, about money.  He wrote, “Those who want to get rich fall into temptation and a snare and many foolish and harmful desires which plunge people into ruin and destruction.  For the love of money is a root of all sorts of evil….. But flee from these things and pursue faith, love, perseverance and gentleness.” Too often, people misquote this passage and declare that money is itself evil.  But the Bible clearly says that it is the love of money which is evil.  If this is so, should we instead hate money?  Should we be indifferent towards it?  Or might we instead have a more nuanced respect for it – neither seeing it as inherently negative nor as something to be worshipped?

Just as I advocate with all areas of thinking, I believe truth resides somewhere in the middle between two extremes.  With regard to a spiritual approach to money, I don’t believe money and wealth are themselves evil and neither do I believe those who make lots of money are necessarily wrong.  By itself, money serves a practical purpose.  It allows for the easy exchange of goods and services without having to resort to barter or other simple economic systems.  The paper we keep folded in our wallets and the numbers showing up in our bank accounts have no intrinsic value more than the paper on which they are printed.  We agree to accept it, however, as a payment for labor or for manufactured items.  Indeed, without money as a form of economic exchange, it is likely that most jobs and most forms of production could not exist.  If all you had to exchange was the labor at which you are skilled, it would be very difficult to find many grocers or landlords to accept that as payment for your food and housing.

From an economic standpoint, then, money is a good thing.  Using it to build factories and invest in manufacturing equipment, for instance, helps to create new products to enhance human life and to provide jobs.  From a spiritual perspective, the same holds true as well.  Money is to be used for productive purposes.

In his parable of talents, Jesus tells a story about three servants who receive sums of money – called talents in his day – from their wealthy boss who is departing on a long journey away from home.  After his return, the servants are called to account for how they used the money.  Two of the servants report that they had put the money to work – perhaps investing in land or flocks of sheep to sell – and thus had doubled the amount entrusted to their care.  But one servant tells instead how he buried the talent of money in order to save it and thus return it to the boss.  He is sharply rebuked, called lazy, and fired on the spot.  The lesson of the parable story told by Jesus is that the Divine ethic is clearly NOT that making money is bad, but that hoarding it or putting it to unproductive use is negligent and, in the long term, wrong.  Francis Bacon, the famous English scientist and philosopher, noted that money is like manure.  It has no use except to be spread.  Henry Ford further refined this Jesus money ethic by saying, “The highest use of capital is not to make more money, but to make money do more for the betterment of life.”

For that purpose, spirituality tells us that money is something we earn by our labor.  It is not freely given nor should it be acquired by unjust means.  The Biblical book of Proverbs tells us that, “Wealth obtained by fraud dwindles, but the one who gathers by labor increases it.” Furthermore, money must be paid equitably for hard work.  Robert Bosch, the music equipment manufacturer and entrepreneur, said, “I don’t pay high wages because I have a lot of money.  I have a lot of money because I pay high wages.” This is in the same spirit as Henry Ford who paid workers on his assembly line wages that were three times the average, while he provided an inexpensive product – the Model T car – that revolutionized human transport and improved life for millions.  The Bible is once again enlightening.  It admonishes that one must not muzzle an ox – prevent it from eating – while it works to harvest grain.  In other words, we are to work for what we eat BUT, just as important, we are entitled to be paid fairly for our work.

And Buddhists echo the same message.  While most assume that Buddhism abhors money, such is not the case.  It is an instrument designed to meet and provide for human needs.  Hoarding and being a miser were strongly deplored.  The Buddha encouraged human contentment in all things.  Living a simple life with few possessions is the path to nirvana and true happiness.  Indeed, being frugal but not miserly is a high ethic, according to the Buddha.

Islam proposes an equally practical perspective on wealth.  The most excellent jihad, according to the Q’uran, is one that conquers the self – and in this regard money is to be used not to meet excessive desires of the self but it is to be shared with others and to be put to use.

I often shake my head at the continual emphasis, by some Christians, on supposed Biblical injunctions against so-called sins of the flesh – like sex, drinking or abortion.  In truth, however, the Bible and Jesus in particular spend more time discussing money issues than any other topic in the Bible.  There are over 800 verses about it.  And virtually all of them warn against attitudes of greed, love of money and unproductive uses of it.  Most people have heard Jesus’ declaration that it will be harder for a rich person to enter into heaven than it is for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle.  Such a statement gives wealthy Christians fits and many try all sorts of ways to re-interpret it.  Jesus issued this declaration after a rich young ruler had approached him asking what he could do to get into heaven.  Jesus looked him over, probably discerning the young man to be arrogant and lavish in his use of wealth, and simply told him that to be right with the Divine One, he must give away all that he has.  The rich young man was shocked, shook his head sadly and walked away.  He loved his wealth too much.

While I clearly believe that the Divine heart is with the poor, the outcast and the sick, such love is also open to all persons – rich and poor alike.  Jesus gave us the amusing image of trying to get a camel through the eye of a needle but then quickly added that as impossible as that sounds, with the Divine One, all things are possible! In other words, even the rich can get into heaven.

My point in that regard is not to offer comforting words about wealth.  Instead, I believe the Biblical message – and overall spiritual message – is that people can have wealth…………but wealth must not have them.  Jesus said at one point that “No-one can serve two masters.  You cannot serve God and wealth.” And we know from other verses in the Bible that the way to serve god – the Divine One – is through feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, housing the homeless, healing the sick and fighting the unjust.

Extending the idea of a moral attitude towards money, it is surprising to note interesting and perhaps ironic characteristics of America’s millionaires.  In a 2008 study by the Spectrum Group, there are 6.7 million millionaires in this country.  A huge majority of them work.  Many own their own business.  On average, they do not own new or luxury cars, on average they do not buy name brand food, clothing or household items, they invest over 20% of their annual income, they charitably donate a greater percentage of their income than does the middle class, and nearly 90% gained their wealth on their own – in other words, it was not inherited.

My point is again not to say that millionaires are good and others are bad.  It is to simply point out, again, that wealth is not necessarily evil.  Indeed, we might say that on average, one has a better chance of becoming a millionaire with a healthy perspective on money than if one does not.  Overall, we see that most millionaires – not all – worked for their money, they put it to productive use, and they are frugal in their spending.  Even so, as Jesus implied many times, money brings with it lots of dangers for one’s spiritual health.  No matter how much money we have, whether we are rich or poor or somewhere in between, we are warned about our attitudes towards it.  Indeed, I believe those who have little wealth can have as much of an unhealthy attitude towards money, how it is acquired and how it is spent, as can a rich person.

How can each of us, in our own hearts, think about money in ways that exhibit simplicity, selflessness, hard work, generosity and productivity?  What purpose does money and wealth serve for us?  Does it control our lives?  Do we obsess over it?  Do we use it for selfish purposes? Do we use it to only meet basic needs and do we use it for productive purposes?

I must daily challenge myself in regard to these questions.  As I have spoken before about dying to myself, how I spend money and how I earn it is a clear indicator of whether I have truly done that.  I talked to you a few weeks ago about my own spiritual awakening around ten years ago, the epiphany when I realized my purpose in life is not to serve myself but to think of others first.  Transformation came for me with regard to money – and is still a work in progress – as I learned to be less concerned about the balance in my checking account.   I grudgingly adopted a more giving perspective with money – realizing that certain portions of my income should be given away – to causes and organizations that help to change the world for the better.  I still have a long way to go in adopting a more spiritual outlook on money – I need to accept the value of my own labor while I also need to continue growing in my generosity.

An old proverb, by some long ago anonymous author, says that “If you want to feel rich, just count the things you have that money can’t buy.” And Mother Theresa once said, “Let us more and more insist on raising funds of love, of kindness, of understanding, of peace.” It might be simplistic to assert that we should focus more on our spiritual bank accounts than on our stock portfolios.  But, I believe we all know such is truth.  Can we seek to build a spiritual abundance of contentment, generosity, productivity, love, trust, and simplicity?  Might we find that money has its purpose – to meet our basic needs and to grow for the sake of improving the lives of all humanity – and leave it at that?

In my messages last month, I spoke about the time all of us will face when we know that our days and hours are almost over.  Are money and things what we will value most at that moment?  Will we have found our life meaning in them and in a relentless concern about wealth?  Or will we find peace in the knowledge that our lives and our money mattered – that we built loving and close relationships with others, we served and gave to others, we lived simply, we lacked selfishness, we forgave?

Our attitudes about money are a crucial test for us.  To the Divine One at work in our universe, we ask for wisdom and guidance with regard to it.  We ask for continuous spiritual surgery on our hearts – may money have no control over our lives and may we work diligently and wisely so that we have more to give away for the betterment of all creation….

I wish you all peace and love.

Message 34, The Times of Our Lives: Spiritual Wisdom, 9-19-10

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

Service-Program-9-19-10

Many of you have seen and remember the recent Academy Award nominated movie “Precioius.”  It is not an easy film to watch.  It portrays an overweight, African-American girl, living in a housing project with her embittered, welfare abusing mother, who regularly beats and taunts her daughter.  Precious has already given birth to a Down’s syndrome daughter – the result of being raped by her father.   And she is once again pregnant – also the offspring of her own father.  Precious is functionally illiterate, an un-wed mother, overweight, a sexual abuse victim, poor and trapped in a life that seems to have nowhere to go but further down.  As a final punch in the viewer’s gut, we discover along with Precious that she has tested HIV positive – also a result of being raped and sexually abused by her father.    I still choke up when I think about this young girl asking plaintively of her teacher, “why me?”  This dark and horrifying portrayal of life in an urban hell is not pretty nor is it unrealistic.  There are young girls like Precious who walk by these very doors.  Pete and Ginny Patterson worked with girls like Precious and she is like the homeless young adults at Anthony House we help to serve.

My point in reminding myself and all of us about the reality of such pain and suffering is to partially rebuke the easy and simplistic message I have offered and one might take away from my message series this month.  In this series, entitled “The Times of Our Lives: Spiritual Awakening, Transformation and Wisdom”, I discussed over the last two Sundays the concepts of awakening and then being transformed by the realization that life is not about us.  Our purpose in life is not to serve ourselves but to serve and love others.

As I have contemplated that ideal over the past week and in my research for today’s message on spiritual wisdom, I realized that it is so simple and so nice to dispense such platitudes like the importance of forgiveness and sacrifice.  How nice and yet how utterly arrogant that message is to those – to any of you – who have truly suffered.  How dare I, or anyone else, tell someone like a Precious Jones that life is not about them? There are people in this world – perhaps in this very room – who have never had the opportunity to feel like one moment of their lives was comfortable or enjoyable or even remotely about them.  For many of us, including myself, the facile platitudes and messages about life that often come out of Scriptures or spirituality are what make us cringe when we consider organized religion.  “Let go and let god” is one such platitude.  “Die to yourself” is another – both of which I too easily offered the past two Sundays.  Try offering those messages to a starving, homeless child in Haiti or to a poor, unwed mother living just blocks from here!

And yet, I find I cannot totally reject the seemingly simplistic notion of self-sacrifice or serving others.  Indeed, that is the one beautiful moment in the film “Precious” when she embraces her Down’s syndrome daughter and her newborn son and finds strength, redemption and, I think, spiritual wisdom in her decision to love and care for them.  Precious chooses to love and care for her children while she also embarks on an effort to educate herself.  She refuses to be a victim much like her mother had become.  As the film ends, Precious walks into the future as a survivor and as one possessing innate wisdom.  Perhaps, then, platitudes have elements of wisdom within them which, when spoken in the right context, have meaning and truth.

What, I ask you then, is spiritual wisdom?  If my simple platitudes of service and sacrifice and forgiveness can ring hollow and yet contain a germ of truth, are they wise?  Can they enlighten us?  At some point in our lives, I believe we all find a certain imperfect spiritual wisdom about life and meaning.  We are awakened to a new reality that life is not about us, we transform our lives to act out that new understanding and then, after living some years as a newly changed person, we often realize all of our conclusions are not so easy, so simple or so perfect.  We find wisdom to be something complex, elusive and holistic.

In my messages the past two Sundays I encouraged us to deny ourselves and to love and serve others as our purpose in life.  Yet, even Jesus said that we should love others as we love ourselves.  How can we love someone else if we cannot love our own selves?  How can we serve another if have not first met our own needs to give us the strength to give?  Buddhists encourage gentleness with the self in terms of recrimination or self-denial.  In serving others, we must find context and nuance.  By encouraging, fostering and meeting our basic individual needs, we can better serve, love and care for others.  We find, then, that true spiritual wisdom regarding serving others is not so easy.  Dying to the self must be undertaken within the context of dying to selfishness.  It must then be coupled with a holistic appreciation for our Divinely inspired abilities to help others.

It is the very complexity of finding wisdom that I believe brings us here every Sunday.  Such is one purpose that the Gathering serves and which I believe makes this congregation unique.  Andre Gide, a famous French philosopher, once said “Believe those who are seeking wisdom; doubt those who find it.” Such a statement humbles me.  As a Pastor, I have no more insight into what is wisdom then any of you.  What I offer on any given Sunday is, I hope, more thought provoking then it is conclusive.  It is in our collective wisdom and in our continuous search for it that we find glimpses of profound insight.

Spiritual wisdom is also inclusive.  It is multi-faceted.  It incorporates many traditions and many beliefs.  It is NOT exclusive.  True wisdom must, I believe, be open to many sources of insight.  Those who are wise have learned and listened to many people, they have read and considered many books and pieces of knowledge, they look to the secular and to the religious, they accept inspiration from the Muslim, from the Hindu, from the conservative and the liberal.  Wisdom accepts the ironic possibility that it is not always right and that it is not yet perfect.

If wisdom is open to other insights, then it is reasonable to assert spiritual wisdom is ever evolving and ever changing.  John F. Kennedy said, “Change is the law of life.  Those who look only to the past or to the present are certain to miss the future.” And Kennedy has perfectly stated the progressive ideal in which I believe true wisdom lies.  I do not assert a political statement but an attitude we must all seek.  Progressivism moves into the future with confidence and not fear.  It accepts new knowledge and new traditions and new sources of wisdom without necessarily throwing out all of the old.  This is an ideal for us here at the Gathering as we move into unchartered territory of change and growth.  If we choose to remain as we have been, we have chosen safety and comfort over the potential for finding new sources of wisdom.  Many of you heard and appreciated Lisa Blankenship and her sharing last week.  She and her partner Genevieve are relatively new members here.  If we forestall progressive but reasonable growth, and seek instead to hold onto what we have now, how many future Lisa’s and Gen’s and Bob’s and Dick’s and Debi’s and Donald’s – and their wisdom – might we be closing ourselves off to hearing from and listening to?  I believe genuine wisdom is therefore open to change.

Those who have arrived at a point of being spiritually wise are also listeners more than they are talkers.  They appreciate silence and reflection.  On this point philosophers and prophets throughout history have agreed.  One anonymous author wrote, “To appear wise, one must talk; to be wise, one must listen.” D.J. Kaufman, a noted contemporary thinker, says, “Wisdom is the reward for a lifetime of listening.” And the Biblical book of Proverbs asserts “Pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who listen and take advice.” How often do we consider those who dispense lots of facts or opinions as wise?   In truth, we frequently discover that it is the person who listens more than speaks who holds the key to wisdom.   Listening and appreciating silence is an attitude of our hearts that involves a desire to be present and to seek enlightenment.  Tom Nauer wrote in a wonderful poem of his, entitled “The Beauty of Silence”, “Within my being resides a knowing, which is only now in the process of showing.  Tranquility, serenity, mental fertility, the beauty in a silence of knowledgeability.”

As Tom noted in his poem, in our silence we find an inherent knowing of wisdom.  In silence we can hear and feel the Divine.  She speaks to us without sound and without words.  Her voice is found in the stillness of our souls as we ponder and sense the universe all around us and within us.  In this manner, as I spoke last week, we find the imageo dei – the image of god – who is us.  We are god and she is us.  What profound feelings of love and beauty and oneness with all creation are found in being still?  Genuine spiritual wisdom therefore involves a choice to listen, to be still, to be present and to be silent.

I believe the wise are also those who know themselves.  They are self-aware.  With their flaws, the wise understand where they need to grow and to change.  They are therefore quick to know when they have acted inappropriately – with anger, neglect or cruelty.  They readily offer apologies and seek reconciliation.  They are emotionally stable in that they are empathetic, compassionate, joyful, peaceful and lacking in complaint.  The wise also have inner confidence and they understand their innate gifts.  They are the truly humble, knowing where they are imperfect and where they are strong.  True wisdom, I believe, does not need to boast or show itself for it is secure both in what it does not know and what it does.

For Buddhists, wisdom additionally incorporates non-violence and a lack of anger.  To be wise, according to the Buddha, is the highest attribute one can obtain.  Wisdom involves being calm, free of fear, content and lacking the desire for material wealth or fame.  The wise understand the things that are important in life – friendships, family, peace of mind, health, self-awareness and compassion.  Spiritual wisdom for the Buddhist therefore includes an ability to discern one’s true interests from those of the ego and the selfish “me” found in all of us.  Such a message is echoed in the Biblical book of Ecclesiates which declares, “Vanity of Vanities!  All is vanity.  All the pleasures that people desire fail to give meaning to their existence.”

While there are as many qualities to being wise as there are opinions on the subject, my final thought on wisdom includes the ability to know when to act.  The wise are not merely contemplative or silent.  Qualities such as diligence, optimism, hard work and perseverance are evident in the wise.  They are not impulsive but wisdom involves sensing when action is important and when it is not.  The wise understand the value of action and of work.

Implicit in this message about spiritual wisdom is the danger that I have offered ALL of its qualities.  I have not.  Inherent in being spiritually wise is being one who is fascinated with the big picture of life, who senses things that are important, who knows what is ethical and what is evil, who understands meaning and who is able to apply wisdom for the enhancement of life for all people and all creatures.  But those are merely my thoughts.  Spirituality in general is ineffable and mysterious.  It is known through the heart and in the soul.  It is felt and not known.  Spiritual wisdom is much the same.  Indeed, wisdom is never the same as mere knowledge.  One can be vastly informed and know many things without being wise.  And, one can be profoundly wise without having multiple degrees or a mental storehouse of facts and figures.   I have known people who are deeply religious because they have exhaustively studied theology and the Scriptures but they are not wise.  They can recite the doctrines of all the world’s many faiths and they can quote by memory from the Bible, but they lack spiritual wisdom.  Of Popes, Bishops, Doctors of Divinity, Pastors, Rabbis and Imams, these are all titles with worthless spiritual meaning.  They are, in truth, false wizards hiding behind a curtain.  Instead, we are all Pastors.  We are all spiritual persons.  We all have the imageo dei written on our hearts, indicating we have inherent spiritual wisdom within us.  As much as we can be still and hear the Divine, we can also be still and hear the spiritual wisdom of all eternity – to feel, to love, to walk humbly, to work, to be at peace and to be joyful.

Message 33, “The Times of Our Lives: Spiritual Transformation”, 9-12-10

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

Service-Program-9-12-10

Lily Tomlin, one of the great comedians of our time, once said that, “I always knew I wanted to become somebody when I grew up. Now I realize I should have been more specific!”

And so she has pointed out, with the irony only comics can offer, the issue many of us face.  We have lives that are filled with lots of events and family members and friends.  But we still ask ourselves what is the meaning of life?  We build careers and we pursue great acts of service for our communities, but we often find no cohesive purpose to what we do beyond personal fulfillment.  Too often, people find themselves near the very end of their lives and they struggle to understand the significance of their long journey.  Many of us live and die without knowing where we have been and where we are going.  Who are we besides a superficial set of descriptions about what we have done and what we do?

One anonymous commentator on life said that, “Birth is God’s way of saying you matter.”  But why is that so and how do we arrive at a place where we not only intellectually understand that we matter, but we also feel it?  To ask a more relevant question for this morning, why are we here at this time and place – is it to just hear the Greenhill’s Strings play some great music?  Is it to spend time with good friends or to feel good about ourselves?  Or is it something deeper and more meaningful?

In our message series this month entitled “The Times of Our Lives: Spiritual Awakening, Transformation and Wisdom”, my hope is that we arrive at a few conclusions about purpose and meaning – for ourselves, for life, for this church and even for the time we spend here today (or waste – depending on your viewpoint!).  Last week we looked at the first spiritual period of our lives – a moment or process I believe each person experiences – when we are awakened and arrive at the conclusion that life is not about us.  How is it that we die to former selves and, in the awakening process, find that we don’t die at all?  I believe in our awakening we find that life is full of feeling, compassion, love and empathy NOT for our own sake but for the sake of serving others.  Each person awakens to that realization at some point in their lives and, as some of you pointed out last week, we often must re-awaken to that ideal each and every day.

In the spiritual evolution of our lives, therefore, we arrive at a point where we are indeed awakened to our potential and our purpose to live for others.  And the next step then involves actually changing.  We begin to live out what Lily Tomlin opined in her life observation – we make specific who and what we were created to be.  That doesn’t solely involve becoming a teacher or a lawyer or a social worker or whatever life work we choose.  Those are things we do.  It is, I believe, a total transformation – a maturing or growing up, if you will, in becoming not just a person who does certain things but a person who IS certain things.  In other words, are we defined by the tasks we perform in life or are we defined by the ideals we manifest in life – like compassion, selflessness, empathy, sacrifice, love and forgiveness?  Becoming defined by those ideals is what I mean by spiritual transformation.

Please join me now in welcoming up front one of the members here at the Gathering who will to share her spiritual life journey – Lisa Blankenship.

In the Bible, Paul told the Christian community in Rome,  “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is the good, acceptable and perfect will of the Divine.” In this quote, we find a nugget of wisdom within a divine text pointing the way toward greater spiritual enlightenment.  Transformation involves discovering our god-selves and then offering our powerful skills to family, neighbors and the world.

If, as I often say, God is not some mystical force out there but she or he is in here, in us, then spiritual transformation is about becoming that little god – a force for good and positive change.  In our pre-awakened lives, we too often think of ourselves as god-like, but only in the sense that we are powerful creatures operating within a mini-universe of one, to love and serve the “me”.  By renewing our minds, as the Bible says, we transform ourselves into human versions of god who are powerful creatures capable of creating a universal heaven on earth.  Such is, I believe, our true purpose and the reason for our existence.  Eons of evolution have not brought us to a place of power and capability merely for us to use it for the selfish ends of our own species and our individual selves.   Indeed, if we believe that life is ever-changing and ever-evolving, we are called to be a part of that process of change for the better.  To spiritually transform ourselves we must become manifestations of the Divine – earth bound gods who love, serve and sacrifice for others and for the ultimate good of the entire universe.

In this regard, the famous psycho-analyst Carl Jung had it right.  After studying Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, Buddhism and Taoism, Jung concluded that personal transformation constitutes the mysterious heart of all religions.  Through transformation, we see and meet the Divine and thereby discover our true selves.  Unlike Freudian analysis which is often accused of an obsessive focus on the self, Jung turned psychoanalysis on its head in proposing that the spiritual experiences of awakening and of transformation are absolutely essential to our emotional well-being.

And, if this is so, just what is it that we transform ourselves into? If we are to become little versions of god, what does god look like?  As I look to the prophets throughout history who have pointed to the heart of god, I find two common characteristics in describing that ideal.  We must become peacemakers at one with all creation through forgiveness – and then we must sublimate ourselves to the will of all creation and all humanity through personal sacrifice.  With these two – forgiveness and sacrifice – we manifest the Divine.

If we truly wish to transform and renew ourselves, than we must be people of forgiveness.  And only then are we people of true peace and love.  As Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “He who is devoid of the power to forgive, is devoid of the power to love.” And, if I can add an addendum to King’s words, such a person is unable to be spiritually transformed and thus incapable of bringing genuine goodness to the world.  Forgiveness involves letting go of past hurts and resentments.  It means, once again, letting go of the self and our own need for justification and merit.  If we hold on to the feeling of victimhood, we live only within the self and the universe of “me”.  If, on the other hand, we are forgiving people, we can find understanding, empathy, and compassion for others – and perhaps even for the one who has hurt us.

In forgiving others we are to reach out to our past, present or future oppressors.  We do not absolve or excuse their actions against us but we refuse to allow them to prevent us from extending peace and love.  Bassam Aramin, the Palestinian founder of Combatants for Peace, often talks about his own journey of spiritual transformation into a god-like man of forgiveness.  As a teenager he was sent to prison for seven years for attacking a convoy of Israeli soldiers.  And, once in prison he relates how one day he and all of the other Palestinian prisoners were severely beaten as a part of an Israeli training exercise.  During his beating, he suddenly remembered a movie about the holocaust that he had previously seen.  And he remembered how he had cried as he saw Jews led off to the gas chambers.  In that moment, as he was bloodied and bruised by Israeli guards, he suddenly felt himself no longer a victim but instead one who empathizes with and understands the fear and anger of Jews who had suffered so much under their oppressors.  His pain was their pain and theirs became his.

In his awakening moment, when he could have been filled with hatred and thoughts of revenge, he vowed instead to become a force for peace and forgiveness.  On his release from the Israeli prison, he founded the Palestinian and Jewish organization of Combatants for Peace which works for reconciliation in the middle-east and in conflicts around the world.  Several years ago, Bassam was again confronted with the choice to hate or forgive.  His ten year old daughter, standing outside her school and not involved in any act of conflict or protest, was shot and killed by an Israeli soldier.  Despite an investigation by Israeli authorities, no punishment was ever meted out for the killing of an unarmed child and the soldier in question was allowed to remain unidentified.  In the spirit of his peace movement, however, soon after justice was denied, over a hundred Israelis arrived at his daughter’s Palestinian school and built a playground and garden in her name.

In prison, Bassam Aramin awakened to the idea that life was not about him and his victimhood.  He cried the tears of one who could identify with others who hurt and are oppressed.  And he found spiritual transformation in his work to forgive, as one who brings together historic enemies.  Finally, in a father’s worst nightmare, he offered proof of his transformation by refusing to seek vengeance for his daughter’s death.  As Mohatmas Gandhi once said, “The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the attribute of the strong.”

Such change in a person does not come without cost.  We cannot love and we cannot forgive unless we not only die to ourselves but also sacrifice our needs and our desires for those of other people.  A change of attitude into a sacrificial mindset is the ultimate evidence of spiritual awakening and transformation.  Sacrifice – like forgiveness – involves denying the needs of the self and working for the needs of others.  Sacrifice means doing for another without any expectation of a return in kind.  It is the truest form of love – to love another unconditionally and to love beyond the need for its return.

As we discussed last Sunday, acts of genuine altruism are never easy nor do we ever become perfect in forgiving and sacrificing for others.  If you recall my earlier quoted words from the Bible that transformation comes from renewing our minds, such change is not something that just happens to us.  We must consciously choose to change.  We must embark on a journey of transformation involving a regular choice to alter the way we think.  By learning to test our previously unquestioned thoughts, we can transform our cognitive thinking.  Instead of reacting with anger, bitterness and hatred when I am wronged, transformation for me must include asking myself why I react with hate, why did the other hurt me, what ways did I contribute to the conflict, what can I do to create peace and reconciliation in the situation?

To be proactive in my newly transformed approach to life, I might no longer ask myself what is in it for me whenever I do something for another.  I will change the premise upon which I base all of my actions.  No longer will I think of the potential rewards coming from my actions.  Instead, I will learn to act sacrificially.  My motivations will not always be so pure, but I will have begun to change and alter my outlook on life.  Indeed, I can even begin to see my actions as affecting the big picture of all human relationships and all creation.  My acts of forgiveness and sacrifice are not merely done for another person, but they help to advance unity and peace in our world.  To again quote Martin Luther King, Jr., he said, “Human progress is neither automatic nor inevitable… Every step toward the goal of justice requires sacrifice, suffering, and struggle.”

My friends, I hope you might begin to see and understand these spiritual times of our lives.  I believe we will each confront the ultimate question we all face.  Why am I here, what purpose do I serve and what is the meaning of my life?  Shall we wait until our lives are nearly over, only to understand and be awakened to how selfish and self-focused we have been?  In our last moments before we pass into eternity will we remember those we hurt, those we refused to forgive, those we could have helped or listened to or sublimated ourselves before?  Or can we now be transformed to think with our hearts and feel with our heads – understanding we are here to build an earthly heaven of peaceful coexistence and well-being for all?  Can we not die to the big “me” in all of us and find our true god-selves, the person we were created to be who gives, who cares, who nurtures, who walks humbly, who forgives and sacrifices and loves with abandon?

This is mystical stuff of which I speak.  As I said earlier, we are not a mere evolutionary amalgam of atoms that now dominates our world.  Whatever creative force brought us to this point, we exist for a purpose.  All of creation is a beautiful and fantastic gift – the product of billions of years of refinement.  If we are to preserve our universe and advance the cause of human dignity and well-being, we must begin with ourselves.  Peace and sacrifice and forgiveness will never happen between Muslims and Christians or between Palestinians and Jews or between any two of us in this congregation unless they first begin individually.  Mohatmas Gandhi said that we must be the change we want to see in the world.  For myself, may that change begin with me…

Message 32, The Times of Our Lives: Spiritual Awakening, 9-5-10

© Doug Slagle, Pastor, The Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

Service-Program-09-5-10

I recall a moment in my life very vividly when all of my actions up to that point, and all of my thoughts about the meaning of life and the possible existence of a Divine Being came crashing in on me.  Growing up in a home that was entirely secular, I had little exposure to religion or spirituality.  But my daughter Amy, who was in kindergarten at the time, was invited to join a children’s choir at a local church.  And so I would troop off, like many proud parents do all of the time, to see and hear my daughter sing and perform cute songs of faith.  In doing so, I was also compelled to hear the Sunday messages and the Pastor’s words which, over time, had an impact on me.  I was not sure of my own identity and was terribly guilt ridden over what I perceived at the time to be wrong – same sex attraction.  I also felt the acute guilt of a suburban white man. I was leading a life with relatively little impact on the world and only limited concern for the poor and those in need.  Guilt for my inner demons and guilt about a relatively selfish life up to that point all combined with the words from this Pastor to cause me to reflect on my purpose in life, the point of life itself and how I might resolve issues of right and wrong within me.

And so on May 3^rd, 1996, I became born again – to use the Christian term for what happened to me.  While I no longer understand that moment in my life according to conservative Christian theology, and I no longer use the term “born again” – I nevertheless was awakened to a new me.  That was the time of my life when I became aware of my place within the universe, my role as a human, and my encounter with the mystical reality that there exists something true and beautiful and powerful beyond my ability to fully comprehend it.  In that awakening moment, I was a broken man.  I sobbed uncontrollably for what seemed like hours in the loneliness of my home office.  I sensed this wonderful force of love surrounding me, lifting me into its arms and enfolding me with forgiveness and understanding.  I cried the tears of one who is amazed at an encounter with forgiving love – as one who felt at that time like I was freed from all of my guilt and all of my shame.  As a grown man, I nevertheless felt the power of this force and its parental embrace.  I was reduced to feeling like a child – powerless, in awe, lacking knowledge and yet feeling overwhelmed with love.  I was suddenly aware of my own potential to serve others and my desire to matter in this life – to serve, to love and to grow as a person.  With tears streaming down my face, without understanding what had happened to me, I then resolved to pursue this spiritual awakening in me – to learn as much as I could – and to fundamentally change my outlook on the world, on myself and on others, especially those who hurt or struggle.  While it would take almost ten more years for me to finally and fully love myself as I was created – as a gay man – that moment in 1996 is still a birthday of sorts for me.  When I reflect on it too deeply, as I have done in preparing this message, I cry all over again.

I believe such moments occur to virtually all of us, in one fashion or another, at some point in our lives.  Many people stubbornly hold out on spirituality and find themselves near the end of their lives contemplating meaning, purpose and a mysterious realm beyond themselves.  Others are awakened early in life and find a richness and vitality in themselves that imbue their personalities and alters the course of their lives.  And it is toward that subject that I begin this month’s series theme on, “The times of our lives: spiritual awakening, transformation and wisdom.” This is not a series on religion or theology.  It will be, I hope, a spirituality series into our own lives and how we define them.  For the skeptic or questioning person in matters of faith, I encourage an open mind to the mysterious and ineffable stuff of eternity, existence, love, meaning and ultimate power beyond human understanding.  To those of faith, I hope this is a journey into a deeper understanding of the times we all go through – how we are spiritually awakened to deeper realities; how, at some point, we are transformed in our thinking and our outlook on life and the world and, finally, how we will someday arrive not at perfection, but at a deeper understanding of truth and a sense of wisdom.  We are all awakened.  We are all transformed.  We all finally realize what life is about.  Today, let us consider spiritual awakening.

The well-known contemporary motivational speaker and spiritual commentator, Eckard Tolle, recently wrote that “The secret of life is to “die before you die” — and find that there is no death.” In so many ways, Tolle has expressed the key to spiritual awakening – the moment in our lives when we die to our former selves and then open our minds, our emotions and our souls to a new way of perceiving the world.

If pride is often considered the original sin, than it stands to reason that our life long battle is one against our own egos and inflated sense of self.  In that regard, dying to ourselves and becoming awakened spiritually involves much more than mere attendance at church, saying our prayers or regular meditation.  It involves, as Tolle wisely observed, symbolic death and letting go of ourselves.  It involved, for me, a sudden “ahah!” moment – an epiphany – when I realized I was not the center of the universe.  In many of our recent discussions about fear and loss and racism, I realized that I have a long way to go before I am a complete person.  I still think of myself in ways where I believe I am right or I am entitled or that I have subtle forms of prejudice within me.    What made my defining moment in life so important was that, afterwards, I clearly understood life is not about me.  My existential purpose is not to simply make myself happy.  Indeed, the concept of moral cooperation, of which I so often speak, proposes the idea that individuals, families, communities and nations eventually come to the conclusion that self-advancement is not only a zero-sum game – nobody wins – but that it is intrinsically wrong.

There are many stories of individual spiritual awakening in the Bible.  Moses, King David, Peter, Paul, the woman caught in adultery and even Jesus –  all experienced a spiritual epiphany – a born again moment, if you will forgive my Christian evangelical terminology, when each person suddenly understood their own purpose and the ultimate meaning of life.

One of those persons, the woman caught in adultery, is often assumed to have become a devoted follower of Jesus.  Many commentators wonder if she was Mary Magdalene, a woman, in some non-canonical books – those not included in the Bible – who had previously been a prostitute and was a close confidante to Jesus, perhaps even becoming his wife.  Imagine a woman caught by a group of patriarchal men in the act of sexual intercourse with a man to whom she is not married, and these men gather menacingly around her prepared to stone her to death – her accomplice male lover apparently was not condemned.  And, amazingly, a white knight appears – Jesus – who confronts the men in their hypocrisy – “let him without sin cast the first stone” – and saves her life.  He not only does this, but he then enfolds her in his arms, brushes her off, and instead of scolding her, calls her to a new way of thinking and a new life.

Many months later, Jesus encounters her again where she becomes so overcome with emotion and love and appreciation for her rescuer that she uses her hair to rub his skin with a costly, scented oil.  This is not mere thankfulness.  It is, I think, a deep understanding of what Jesus represented.  As we all know, he called people to their higher selves through his own example.  Instead of living a life of indifference to the plight of others, Jesus had no home, he forsook a life of easy living and instead reached out to the poor, to lepers, to women, to money lenders, tax collectors, children, the blind, the lame, prisoners and others considered outcasts of decent society.  He renounced racial and ethnic discrimination and he pointed others to the heart of the Divine – concern, activism, and compassion for others.  This beautiful and wonderful man beckoned Mary – a prostitute – to spiritual awakening.  And, it is apparent from her later behavior – her ability to love Jesus – that she was, indeed, a new woman.

Watch with me now a video of Mary’s anguished love for Jesus from the stage play “Jesus Christ: Superstar”.  Listen carefully to her words and to her own sense of what this man Jesus represented to her – a man of her dreams but also a man who changed her by calling her to be her better self…   (play video) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLkO-yHbe5Y

A native-American proverb says, “Learn to think with your heart, and feel with your head.” And that is exactly the process through which spiritual awakening takes place – if it can even be reduced to a system.  For myself, I did not plan my awakening.  It happened by chance and perhaps it was how the stars and the events of my life all lined up.  I had certainly been on a spiritual quest – led unexpectedly by a Pastor – but the result was a surprise.  It was like Mary the prostitute – all of a sudden I was confronted with a power so strong and so loving – encouraging me to change and open my eyes to a hurting world outside of myself.  As the native-Americans understood, if an awakening is planned or sought by conscious effort, it won’t happen.  If anything can be done consciously, it is to stop analyzing everything by reason.  One must be present with nature and with others, one must be empathetic and one must listen far more than speaking.  By allowing our hearts to yearn for what we truly need – meaning, purpose, love and human connection – the path to awakening is opened.  Anger, bitterness, a sense of victimization, selfishness, entitlement and resentment all lead to a path toward greater depression and loneliness.  Far too often, we – and I include myself here – believe that money, a career, sex, alcohol or material things all bring contentment.  While I don’t condemn any of those, I believe they distract us, particularly in excess, from finding real peace and joy.

Buddhism obviously encourages one to actively pursue elimination of such passions from our lives.  By doing so, one concentrates on the quality of his or her thoughts and the emptying of self.  In this regard, Buddhists see the working of the cosmos as dependent on a purity of each person’s thinking.  Will humanity be continuously reborn in a grasping form of thinking, or might we eventually reach nirvana – the state of being at perfect peace with oneself and with the universe?

In many ways, Jesus and Buddha thought alike.  But I discern one key difference which causes me to still stand in awe at what the man Jesus taught.   We can all die to ourselves but what is the real purpose for our symbolic deaths?  Are they windows into greater introspection or are they doors opening out to others?  I personally don’t want to awaken and die to my former self only to find a new me.  I want to awaken and die to myself to discover a universe beyond the “me.”  There is a certain beauty in the homeless man, or the one ravaged by disease or the poor Haitian child.  I do not mean to idealize those who suffer.  Pain and dismay are never pretty.  By looking into the face of a troubled soul, however, I might see myself.  I might see all humanity in its breadth and width of wonderful diversity and terrible need.  I can see my common cause with him or her; the wonder of our shared creation miracle and the possibility of a universe without suffering.  Mother Theresa once said that when she looked into the eyes of a disease ravaged, homeless man, she looked into the eyes of the Divine.  Clearly, Mother Theresa was a spiritually awakened woman.

My friends, life is not about the pursuit of our personal happiness.  Life is about creating a universe of happiness – a creation where all live free from pain and all live within a mosaic work of art, together, diverse and at peace.  We’re here to make that happen.  We are here to carry on the ethic of Jesus – to be his hands and his feet as some Christians like to say – to nurture families, to love friends, to share with the poor, to touch and heal the diseased, to sing with other races, to cherish nature …….. to be one not with ourselves but one with all of the Divine universe.  That is what it means to be spiritually awakened – to die and yet………..not die at all.

When I spoke here three weeks ago about growing the Gathering, I emphasized that for us, growth in numbers or finances are merely by-products to growth and deepening of our purpose.  As I speak about a spiritual awakening in each of us as individuals, I also speak about it for this congregation.  Absolutely everything we do here should be done from the focus of fulfilling our mission.  Showing up here on Sunday mornings, giving money, choosing where we sit, making coffee, listening to and respecting each other in our diverse opinions about politics, religion, food or whatever – all of these must be rooted in our mission to serve and care for the other.  This place is not about us.  It is not about making ourselves comfortable, making ourselves heard or meeting our own needs.  It is, I hope, about growing, learning and reaching out to others.

In the Book of Psalms, the Divine One speaks to David at one point and says, “Be still and know I am God.” Spiritual awakening is just that.  It is to be quiet, to stop talking and thinking and to simply let the Divine be within us and all around us.  (Long Pause here) And in our stillness, I believe we might hear the soft voices of all creation, from the beginning of eternity, calling us to a new birth and a new understanding.  We are not alone.  We are not islands in the midst of a swirling cosmos.  We are like those in the artwork here, “Everybody Dance”, united in a common path of cooperation and mutual love.  My interests are yours, and yours are at one with those outside walking the streets, and all of our interests are one with the animals and plants and stars and rocks of the whole universe.  This is life.  This is existence.  This is untold beauty expanding outward forever.  No longer must we cling to our own selfish needs and desires.  We can awaken to the wide expanse of creation – seeking to touch, to listen, to love and to serve.  Dear friends, it is time.  It is time to simply let go.  Let us be still, and hear the Divine….                                                             For your comments this morning, I hope you might reflect on the Native American proverb, to think with your heart and feel with your head.  Tell me and tell each other, what, if anything, you are feeling….

Message 31, Summer Reading, Langston Hughes: Love and Humanity, 8-22-10

© Doug Slagle, Pastor, The Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

Service-Program-8-22-10

If you have noticed the images located on the front of your programs, you may recognize them as particularly meaningful to African-Americans.  The Sankofa bird, symbolized in the first image and idealized in the second, is often used to represent black reconciliation with their past.  For them, injustices inflicted on their ancestors must never be forgotten and are a part of their history and their culture.   Nevertheless, the Sankofa symbols specifically promote forgiveness, love and healing.  African-Americans are urged to never forget their history but, in doing so, forgiveness is offered for past wrongs and love is extended to whites and to all humanity.  Old wounds and old resentments are healed, new relationships based on mutual understanding are forged and a brighter future for all humanity is envisioned.  The sankofa bird is a mythic one who flies forward while looking backward with an egg – thus symbolizing hope for the future.  The symbolic heart is bent inward and then poured outward as a way to encourage inner peace and open expressions of love towards all others.

If you recall, Nelson Mandela’s infant South African government initiated courts of truth in the 1990’s, led by Bishop Desmond Tutu, to examine in detail all of the past apartheid atrocities.  But these courts were designed not to punish or shame but to bring into the light a dark and sordid history.  Reconciliation and forgiveness were extended to the white minority for the pain that had been caused by apartheid – a policy much like our own Jim Crow laws.  South Africa was then better able to bury historic enmity and thereby move forward to the betterment of all.  This was a brilliant manifestation of Sankofa peace and these symbols on our programs are a fitting representation of what we will consider today – love and humanity.

In our journey through the topic of love and poetry, today we will look at another famous American poet and his understanding of love.  This broad topic has many dimensions but, for our purposes, we will consider Langston Hughes and his vision for a human race defined by the beauty of its oneness.  He speaks as an African-American male yearning for what he and others have for so long been denied – equal access, equal treatment, and a heaven on earth community of unity.  His was a vision not for retribution or black power but for a utopia of wonder, peace, beauty, generosity and love between all people.

Hughes was the famed originator of a black cultural awakening called the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920’s and 1930’s when black poets, artists, and musicians explicitly celebrated a unique and vibrant African-American culture.  Proud of his heritage, Hughes does not shy away from black vernacular and speech in his poetry.  He openly celebrates its evocative rhythms and cadences.  His poetry reminds one of musical lyrics all set to a beat of jazz, the blues and gospel.   Such expressions highlight African-American culture and its contributions to American arts.  He was the unofficial poet laureate of his culture and the leading force behind promoting a relevant African-American identity in artistic expression.

Poetry for blacks has long been their cultural mainstay.  Under slavery and in subsequent years of marginalization, poetic verse was a way for African-Americans to tell stories, share their history, and cry out for justice.  Hughes used his poetry to write of love, politics, dreams, music and numerous other subjects.  He wrote about ordinary people and ordinary themes but he did so in a way that honored humanity and beauty.  This oral tradition which he captured and immortalized in his poetry, pays tribute to the vibrant contribution of black artists to our culture.  From jazz to the blues to poetry and to gospel music, we are richer for them.  Langston Hughes, as the leader of a black renaissance, may well be the artistic father of many black and white artists today.  Indeed, black artistic expression – such as in jazz – represent a singularly American contribution to the world-wide universe of art.  Like the poetry of Hughes, jazz and other black art forms were born of our own national struggle for freedom and equality for each person.  In that regard, Hughes stands alongside other great American poets like Hawthorne, Whitman, Poe, Dickinson, Frost and Angelou in his chronicle of lives where humanity is at peace with each other, with nature and with the Divine One.  In his words, we find a spirituality that is uplifting, visionary and starkly beautiful.  From the anguished cries of a broken heart in the poetry we read from Emily Dickinson to the hesitant and fearful love of a newly married man described by Robert Frost, we will now read of a Langston Hughes vision of love, perfected in a paradise called Alabama.

Let’s now read together “Daybreak in Alabama”.  You can find it on the back of your programs.

When I get to be a composer
I’m gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew.
I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long red necks
And poppy colored faces
And big brown arms
And the field daisy eyes
Of black and white black white black people
And I’m gonna put white hands
And black hands and brown and yellow hands
And red clay earth hands in it
Touching everybody with kind fingers
And touching each other natural as dew
In that dawn of music when I
Get to be a composer
And write about daybreak
In Alabama.

Long before Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech on the Washington mall, Langston Hughes gives voice to the hopes of millions of African-Americans – that in the red clay corners of the deep South, where Jim Crow still lived and where strange fruit, as Billie Holiday sang, would appear as lynched men and women hanging from trees, even in that place…human reconciliation might one day appear as soft dew sent from heaven.  This lyrical poem can almost be sung with its cadence of blues like rhythm.   As much as it envisions a perfect world in one Alabama daybreak, the poem is also a political protest against a culture of segregation and discrimination that, in keeping with Hughes’ poetic words, might more aptly be called nighttime in Alabama.  Hughes implicitly, but beautifully, condemns racism not just in Alabama but across the entire United States.

In my message two weeks ago discussing love and fear, I quoted from the Bible the verse that says, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” Just as this Biblical verse applied easily to Robert Frost’s evocation of how fear, doubt, jealousy and anger intrude into our relationships and prevent us from fully loving another, so too does it apply easily to the poem today.  When that daybreak in Alabama does occur and when all the hues of the human rainbow hold hands in true unity, there will be no more fear.

Racism, as we all know, is deeply rooted in fear of the other.  Such fears rise up subconsciously within us as past traditions and experiences tell us that the other, who appears different from us, is to be feared.  This stranger in the night, to borrow from Frost’s poem that we read two weeks ago, may well be the stereotypical black man who, in our racist fears, is determined to rape, and steal and take away jobs.  Racism may subtly be manifested in opposition to Cincinnati’s planned street cars as fears that trains from Over-the-Rhine to downtown will bring those of color and those of the underclass deep into the center of our city’s powerful and elite.  Racism may play some role in opposition to our President.  While many have honest disagreement with his policies, others may harbor visceral but subconscious fears of an intelligent and powerful black man.

Marianne Williamson, the noted contemporary spiritual writer, has said that while love is of god, fear is definitely of satan.  In her mind, fear is the motivating force behind all of history’s atrocities.  It has spawned war, holocaust, slavery, murders, suicides, hatred and general violence.  As she writes, “Fear is imagination predicting the worst possible outcome. When the imagination is engaged in repetition and emotion, it becomes a belief.” And it is an absence of such fears and deep rooted beliefs that Langston Hughes writes in his poem.  It is a vision born of centuries of oppression and black survival – of dreams of god’s eternal heaven where everlasting sunlight, goodwill, natural beauty and perfect love all co-exist.  When the possibility for change is not possible in the present, African-Americans have turned to faith, to saviors named Jesus and Moses, and to dreams of a true heaven.  As a white man having grown up in a privileged corner of our nation, I cannot possibly know the pain and the yearning of African-Americans who daily experience subtle and sometimes overt forms of racism.

To speak of the sins of racism in a progressive church is a simple task.  Indeed, Langston Hughes may well be a hero to most of us here and I could very easily preach to the choir, so to speak.  Yet in our careful reading of his poem, we find this composer of a new heaven on earth speaks to each of us as well.  As a white liberal, I can claim pride in the election of an African-American President and I can note that our nation has come a long way toward ending segregation, discrimination and prejudice.  Such open forms of racism are not within me nor are they within this congregation.

But like the dew that Hughes envisions blanketing his perfect Alabama, so do the fine droplets of subtle racism still exist and still pervade even some of us.  Indeed, for many African-Americans today, the hideous forms of racism are not of concern to them, for they have largely been addressed.  The inner fears, the subtle forms of racial attitudes and covert racism that still exist even among white liberals are what concern many blacks the most.  Those are the fears and prejudices that someone like myself may not even know I harbor or am unwilling to admit.

Experts say such forms of subtle racism exist in the small ways we think about others who are different.  This everyday racism can take the form of indifference, cautious body language, avoidance of others and even inappropriate words that we use.  In one such example offered by experts in the field of subtle racism, a young black male student living in a Boston apartment building was asked by the manager to stop walking around the complex listening to music on his headphones.  He was told this was distracting to other residents even thought he was perfectly quiet.  When the student observed other white students doing the same thing and never being reprimanded, he knew the real reason for his warning.  It was fear of the stereotypical black man up to no good.

In another example of subtle racism, a leading fashion magazine described the process Oprah Winfrey goes through each day before she appears on her TV show.  The magazine writer offered that Oprah is turned into a glamorous figure as make-up artists work to make the lines of her nose appear thinner and the contours of her lips less thick.  And her hair is regularly and laboriously straightened.  The message of the article is that black women are not glamorous in their own right but that thin noses, white appearing lips and hair straightening make them so.

And I must admit to my own covert forms of racism.  I commented recently to Ed that, after seeing a wonderful picture of President Obama swimming in the ocean with his daughter Malia, the image struck me for some reason with the full realization that an African-American family truly resides in the White House.  As proud and happy as my brain tells me that this is true, something deep inside me noted the texture of Malia’s hair – and its distinctive African-American look – as the reason for why the photo had an impact on me.  Such a trivial observation of her hair brought home my own racist demons for even noting such a difference.  What lurks inside of me that is rooted in my own fears of the other?

Experts indicate that people often refer to Hispanics, for instance, as Mexicans, even though Latinos come from all over Latin America.  Or some assume all Asians are good at math and science or that many Jews are involved in financial careers.  Even worse, some of us would never tell a racist joke, finding them offensive and troubling.  But how many of us will rebuke someone who uses such humor and tell them it is unacceptable?  Put another way, how many of us fear Over-the-Rhine, rationalizing that we are justified in our fear of crime?  Or, is our supposed fear of crime really a fear of those who are different, who walk the streets in the middle of the day with low slung blue jeans and no apparent job?  To be blunt, are such fears of Over-the-Rhine racist?

Well intentioned and kind members of this congregation implored me when I began my work as Pastor to be careful working here alone during the day.  In their concern for me, is there not a sense of fear rooted in stereotypes that poor people of color are all criminals or that I am less safe here than in an office in the suburbs?  How many workers and students have been killed by enraged co-workers in mostly white and suburban office places or schools?  Why aren’t those places, and those mostly white groups not viewed with fear?  Why do I myself sometimes harbor fearful thoughts when an African-American male walks towards me on the streets outside?  Stereotypes have an evil and pernicious influence within each of us when we hesitate to hug a black person who smells differently, or when I treat an African-American homeless man in a way that might be condescending or some of us look at a gay flamboyant man as outrageously odd.  What other inner demons must we confront – those we either won’t admit to or may not even know exist?

Activist Tom Wise says, “Since hardly anyone will admit to racial prejudice of any type, focusing on bigotry, hatred, and acts of intolerance only solidifies the belief that racism is something ‘out there,’ a problem for others, ‘but not me,’ or anyone I know.  Subtle racism becomes even more important to address and change.” Within my honest and true self, I must admit that I am not yet ready to participate in an Alabama daybreak.  I too must pray and hope for a perfect dawn in myself – where perfect love casts out even the smallest of my fears and where these white hands of mine might touch and feel and caress the hands of all persons without any vestige of fear or prejudice.

James Baldwin, a well-known African-American author and activist was told by Bobby Kennedy in 1961 that perhaps in only 30 years a black man would be elected President.  While Kennedy was only off by 17 years, Baldwin’s response to him reflects what we consider today.  He said that he did not care so much that an African-American would be elected President.  He cared more about what kind of country the first African-American President would lead.

And it is clear that while we have come a long way since 1961, the dream of Langston Hughes, even with the first African-American President, is not realized.  The Shirley Sherrod case, which many of you know about, is a perfect example of racism that is still alive and well in our nation.  Sherrod, an African-American Department of Agriculture official, was falsely accused of herself being a racist by using words from a speech of hers completely out of context.  Instead of being vilified and used as an indirect attack against President Obama as she was, Sherrod should instead have been elevated as a heroine of a Hughes like Daybreak in Alabama.  Her own father was murdered by a white man who was then later acquitted by an all-white jury.  In her speech, she spoke of her own struggles to overcome anger and bitterness towards all whites and how redemption came for her as she came to know and assist, as a government official, a small white farmer and his wife.  Her perspective is Jesus-like in its ability to overcome hatred and find, instead, love.  Far from now having a stereotypical viewpoint that all whites are racist haters of people like her, she now sees others through a Jesus prism of concern for all humanity and particularly the outcast, the poor and the marginalized.  It was in that sense that she came to see the plight of the small farmer as linked to the African-American struggle to find justice, equality and fairness in our nation.  As despicable as the columnist’s actions were in falsifying Shirley Sherrod’s own words, I am nevertheless grateful for what he did.  He made known to the world a Sankofa heroine – one who has herself replaced hatred for love.

It is interesting to note that most anthropologists around the world do not even classify separate races within the human species. The American Anthropological Association asserts, “The concept of race is a social and cultural construction formulated in the 18^th century.  Race simply cannot be tested or proven scientifically.  It is clear that human populations are not demarcated or biologically distinct by so-called racial subgroups.  The concept of race has no validity in the human species.” If this is so, then human prejudices against others are based solely on perceived differences based on mere appearance.  Beyond certain outwardly distinct characteristics, there is no biological difference in human kind.

Ultimately, Langston Hughes’ poem Daybreak in Alabama is a plea in behalf of all persons and not just African-Americans.  It is a vision of an Eden like re-creation where, as the Bible says in the Book of Revelation, the Divine One will wipe away every tear, every lament and every sense of pain.  The poem evokes a day when, as the Bible also symbolically says, lions will lie down with lambs.  Traditional enemies will find love for one another.  Bigotry, for Hughes, attacks the kind of spiritual peace that exists when kind fingers symbolically touch everybody and everything.  Indeed, Hughes seeks fulfillment not just of dreams for heaven on earth but also for the American dream yet to be a complete reality.  In this regard, Hughes is a champion for all persons marginalized by a predominant power structure.  He wrote in one of his poems,

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.

I am the poor white, – fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

For each of us, the poetry of Langston Hughes still resonates today.  It is far too simple to claim prejudice exists out there – and not in here.  Human nature causes each one of us to view the world through personal prisms of either fear……. or understanding and love.  Even as we claim to be people who love one another, how often do we act instead with fear of the other – fear of our own shortcomings, fear based in stereotypes and misperceptions, fear rooted in false assumptions?  If I claim I lack fear, I lie to myself.  Our goal, as Hughes so evocatively wrote, is to seek perfection – to invoke the Sankofa bird of reconciliation and forgiveness.  For him, that goal is found in a utopia of red clay soil, pine trees, and a dew blessed Alabama where the Divine composer conducts a symphony of humanity in perfect love with itself.  May we each seek the same…within ourselves and in our world.

I wish you all, my dear friends, much love and much peace.

As always, I open up our time up today for your thoughts and comments.  Of particular interest to me is not so much a discussion of how terrible racism is.  I am interested, instead, on how subtle forms of racism might insidiously lie within us.  How do we conquer our own fears and our own prejudices?

Summer Reading: Love and Poetry

Message 29, Robert Frost: Love and Fear, August 8, 2010

© Doug Slagle, Pastor, The Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

Service-Program-8-08-10

In my research for today’s message on love and fear, I ran into a list of strange but real phobias.  Did you know that peladophobia is a fear of bald people?  Or that gymnophobia is a fear of nudity?  Cacophobia is a fear of ugliness.  Phobophobia is a fear of acquiring a phobia and, as many of you may have with regard to me, homilophobia is a fear of sermons!

In truth, it is often said that we all have a fear of something.  For our purposes today, as we consider our August theme of summer reading, love and poetry, one universal fear that many of us have, to some degree at least, is a fear of love and its many consequences.  As we discussed last Sunday when we looked at Emily Dickinson and her poetry on love and loss, our fears in regards to love are often due to the fact that we will each one day face its loss – either through death, relationship break up or the cessation of loving sentiments.  How we grieve, cope with and ultimately heal from such loss was our topic.

And just as we did last week, we’ll attempt today to gain some spiritual insights on the subject from a well-known American poet – Robert Frost.  Like Emily Dickinson, he was a New Englander and the height of his fame may have come when he recited one of his poems at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration.  Unlike Dickinson, Frost was well known as a poet during most of his lifetime, receiving five different Pulitzer Prizes for his work and, despite never having graduated from college, was given honorary degrees by over forty schools including Harvard, Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge.

Frost is a poet who is often cited as one who bridged the gap between nineteenth century and modern poetry.  He was a romantic in the classic sense, choosing themes of love and sentiment while regularly using nature as a backdrop.   And, like most poets, his personal life is said to have strongly influenced his poetry.  He suffered loss and tragedy in his life – his parents both died when he was still in his youth, his mother, his sister, his wife and a daughter all suffered from mental illness and he, himself, described long periods of personal depression.  The epitaph he chose to be put on his tombstone is a line from one of his poems “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.” (from the poem “The Lesson for Today” in his book The Witness Tree)

For Frost, his poems often looked at life’s uncertainties and how humans choose the paths they follow.  Today, I want to examine how we manage those fears that often hold us back from experiencing life and love at their fullest.  What forms of fear like jealousy, indifference, possessiveness, failure to commit and insecurity hinder us?  How might we love freely and exuberantly – those who are significant others, those who are family members or even complete strangers?  With that, let us read Robert Frost’s poem “Love and Question”. You can find the words on the back of your programs.

A stranger came to the door at eve,
And he spoke the bridegroom fair.
He bore a green-white stick in his hand,
And, for all burden, care.
He asked with the eyes more than the lips
For a shelter for the night,
And he turned and looked at the road afar
Without a window light.

The bridegroom came forth into the porch
With, ‘Let us look at the sky,
And question what of the night to be,
Stranger, you and I.’
The woodbine leaves littered the yard,
The woodbine berries were blue,
Autumn, yes, winter was in the wind;
‘Stranger, I wish I knew.’

Within, the bride in the dusk alone
Bent over the open fire,
Her face rose-red with the glowing coal
And the thought of the heart’s desire.

The bridegroom looked at the weary road,
Yet saw but her within,
And wished her heart in a case of gold
And pinned with a silver pin.

The bridegroom thought it little to give
A dole of bread, a purse,
A heartfelt prayer for the poor of God,
Or for the rich a curse;

But whether or not a man was asked
To mar the love of two
By harboring woe in the bridal house,
The bridegroom wished he knew.

Frost leaves us hanging in terms of resolution to his poem.  What happens that resolves the question a nervous groom faces on his wedding night?  Does charity prevail and is a warm bed offered to the stranger or does the anticipation of wedded bliss win out?  Frost often introduces the character of a stranger into his poems not as a sinister force but as a symbol of the uncertainty we all face.  Indeed, on closer examination of the poem, we find that the apparent question of whether to help a stranger is not the central issue.  It is likely one the groom faces – which we all face – fear of the unknown, fear of a long and often weary marriage road ahead with no light at its end to guide one’s path, and fear of the love between he and his lover.  Will it last?  Will he be capable of such devotion?  Will his beloved remain faithful to him?  Why can’t he lock her love away within a golden heart?  Indeed, one can surmise he faces the universal fear of all newly committed lovers – will he be able to perform and consummate his new relationship?

It is likely not the stranger with the green stick – but it is he, the groom, who wields a green stick – if you understand the likely imagery.  This stranger who has come upon the honeymoon cottage in the woods may not even be a flesh and blood stranger at all but instead a lurking form of doubt, fear and uncertainty that we each face as we embark on our own journeys of love.

How does the groom deal with this stranger who might really be his own fears and doubts?  Does he admit the stranger into the house in confidence and security that nothing can mar his marriage road ahead?  Or, instead, does he give in to his own insecurities and admit the stranger who will possibly bring woe and heartache?  As we interpret the poem, it may not matter how the groom resolves the question before him – whether to admit the stranger or send him on his way.  What will matter the most is the motivation behind his answer to the question.

A well-known line from the Bible states that, and I quote from the New International Version, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear… The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” And thus we can relate to the poem and question Robert Frost has posed.  Love and fear cannot coexist.  In a perfect world where the bride and groom’s love is secure and certain, it would not matter how the poem’s question is answered.  Whether the stranger is allowed to enter or not, a secure and strong love will prevail.  But a love based in fear and insecurity is certainly not perfect.    As much as the groom might wish to lock away this bride’s love for all time, such is neither possible nor prudent.  Enforced love and captured love is not love at all.  If we are compelled to love someone or something, is it really love?

Just as we briefly discussed last Sunday when we examined love and loss, we undertake risk when we choose to love.  It is neither certain to last, to be returned or to not suffer a tragic end.  And so on this most exciting of all nights two people can face, the beginning of a loving relationship, the groom is called to face his fears.  What will he do?  Such is his question and such is ours – and not just at the beginning of our loving relationships but a question that should be asked over and over again.  Fear or love.  Which one do we choose?

As most of you know, I do not believe in the literal divinity of Jesus.  To call him Christ is to call him the messiah or the divine one chosen by god to save sinners from the depths of hell.  Instead, I follow the historic Jesus – the man who likely did live, die and teach many profound truths about humanity and our world – like concern for the outcast, for the poor, for women, for the humble, and for those who truly seek greater understanding of the Divine.

In that regard, there are many aspects of the Bible’s Jesus story which are likely true.  The man Jesus probably was executed by the Romans.  His many followers were then left in a state of shock, disbelief and fear because of his death.  And it is at this point of the story that facts likely shine through the myth of some parts of the Bible.  Many of Jesus’ male disciples, those who would become the first leaders of Christianity, denied even knowing Jesus after his arrest.  They fled and went into hiding as they mourned the death of their teacher and pondered their own uncertain futures.  A man whom they had said they loved and whom they proclaimed their undying devotion, was arrested, put on trial and condemned to execution.   Peter, the first leader of Christianity, refused to acknowledge Jesus under questioning by the Romans.  He and many of the other followers reacted not with love for Jesus but with fear.  Why would the Bible recount such a tale of cowardice by the early leaders if it were not based in fact?

Juxtaposed against the fear of the disciples are the actions of Jesus’ female followers who did not flee, but remained by his side throughout the trial and execution.  Whether the account of fearful male followers and courageous female followers is true or not, the lesson of the story is instructive.  Who reacted in fear and who reacted in love?  Whose love might we call perfect and true?

As I speak to you of imperfect love, I remember my own fears to love.  As a father to two daughters whom I cherish more than my own life, I know I have failed in showing them perfect love.  In some ways I have acted in the past like many dads who are insecure in showing real affection, who hesitate to hug, hesitate to express emotion and who rarely say “I love you.”  When I spoke several weeks ago on Father’s Day about the importance of play in our lives and how men often are too serious and do not play enough, especially with their children, I confessed to my own failure to play enough with my daughters when they were young.  And I confess the same now in terms of how I expressed love to them when they were younger.  Our culture too often tells men to be tough, to not show emotion or sensitivity and to show love only through being a good provider.  Indeed, it is often a male fear of being too close or too feminine or too “touchy – feely” that we neglect to show perfect love.  But that can leave children emotionally empty and insecure in their own feelings of self-worth and identity.  About ten years ago I knew I had to change.  What was I doing to my girls and to myself?  As I came to love and accept myself, I gained the added security to better love them – to hug, to touch, to stifle as much as possible my petty nagging and to regularly affirm them, at the end of each phone call and at the end of every visit, with a simple “I love you.”  How many times have we feared to say those words to those close to us, and how many times have those close to us yearned to hear such words?  What is it that we are afraid of?

I believe this choice between love and fear is a choice we must consciously make.  I don’t claim that it is an easy choice to make nor are our fears so simple that they can be immediately overcome.  So often our fears are based on what we have learned in our past.  What wounds, insecurities and troubles do we carry with us that prevent our choice to love?

Experts tell us that in moving beyond our fears, we must first identify and name our fear.  What was it that the groom, in Frost’s poem, really feared?  If I had to guess, it might be fears of his own inadequacy and insecurity at holding onto the love of his bride.  Why did I once fear to simply tell and show my daughters that I loved them?  I think it was fear of myself and fear of truly loving – fear that I would be too sensitive or not in control.  Indeed, instead of a macho man strutting around, outwardly oblivious to the needs of others, real men are nurturing, caring and able to express love.

Second, experts tell us that after we identify our fear, we must find its cause.  If we do not love another perfectly and are instead jealous or angry or indifferent, what caused us to be that way?  Was it a failed past love – someone who betrayed us?  Was it our upbringing and lack of love received or was it some other event in our lives like our failure in a past relationship?

Once we identify the cause, we can ask ourselves what we learned from that past experience.  If it was a love that betrayed us, perhaps we can learn to look for persons in whom we place greater trust or who have different personalities.  If we were once denied love by someone, we can learn to act in the opposite manner – to love fully and freely.  If we failed in a past relationship, we can learn why we failed.  Did we communicate poorly with the other, did we take the other for granted or were we not expressive in our sentiments?

Finally, if we know what our fears are and what caused them, we are better able to face them.  If we failed with past love because of our own insecurities and feelings of inadequacy, we know how we must act differently.  One reason for my failure to perfectly love my daughters when they were younger was because I could not perfectly love myself.  As I learned to see the good in me, I could also confront my flaws.  I could then consciously choose to face my real fears and act in a way that denied them.  I would express my love more freely.  I would hug and touch and say “I love you”.  As I said earlier, many therapists say that our ability to overcome fear and instead to more perfectly love – without jealousy, anger, or insecurity – this involves a cognitive and conscious decision to confront the fear we have identified and then to change.

Some of you may recall that I spoke about a close friend of mine in a message back in March.  It was about finding joy and adventure in life no matter our age and I used this friend as an example.  He is 89 years old and a frequent work-out partner of mine.  I came to know him during my work in Pastoral Care at my previous church as his wife had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and he was in need of support and friendship.  My friend often talked to me about his over sixty year marriage and the many years he spent as a globe travelling businessman who faithfully worked hard to support his family.  His one regret was his years of relative indifference to the sacrifices of his wife and how aloof he had often been in expressing love to her.  With her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, however, he chose to become a new man.  He became a devoted husband, holding her, cherishing her, attending to her every need and acting as her caregiver long after she should have moved to a nursing home.  Once she did, he was still with her all of the time – doing most of the work of the nurses, feeding, clothing and bathing her.  He has ruefully admitted to me that the seven years of her slow decline due to that horrible disease were his way of finally and fully expressing his love for her.  He had been too afraid and too caught up in the American male ideal of stoic and strong provider to ever truly care for his wife.  As he told his story to me, about how at the end as he held her in his arms and she silently passed away, he repeated to her over and over again how much he loved her.  He said that so often during the years of her Alzheimer’s, he would say “I love you”, knowing that she likely was not hearing or understanding him.  And then he would ask himself why he had not shared his feelings more when she was healthy?  It is a question we often must ask of ourselves.  Whenever we choose to either say “I love you” or choose, instead, to not utter those words, will that be our last opportunity?  A follow-up to the silly bumper sticker I mentioned last week, “Love like you will never be hurt”, might be “Love like there is no tomorrow.”

Fear, for each of us, is simply a desire to avoid pain.  When we react in fear and flee from it, we are working to avoid pain.  In our relationships, when we fear to love – when we fear to show it, we are avoiding potential pain.  We act to avoid the pain of rejection, or being identified as inadequate or being betrayed.  It is certainly not irrational to avoid pain, however, and an important understanding for us is that we must learn to identify irrational fear from that which is prudent and wise.

As we must certainly admit, however, most of our fears to better love others are based on past hurts, irrational thinking and unresolved issues within us.  And yet, as we also know, perfect love is the antidote to those feelings.  When we show love and when we are not afraid to express it, in words and in deeds, we live within the divine heart.  Love is god.  Love is the spiritual force that creates joy, freedom, creativity, security and peace.  If our efforts here each Sunday are to understand more about ourselves and our world, what better answer for humanity and for all creation is there than acting in love?  This love must include kindness, charity, loving speech, generous actions, forgiveness, understanding of differences, celebrating diversity, holding others gently accountable and working to alleviate social injustice.  We cannot say we are perfectly loving if we speak unkindly to another, if we ignore the pain of other people and other creatures or if we are simply indifferent.  Nobody is perfect and we will all fail at one time or another at the game of love.  We will all give in to our fears.  But we must face them.  We must seek to conquer them.  For the sake of our well-being and for the sake of those we love – and this starts with me – we must acknowledge our fears and then work to banish them.

As Robert Frost implicitly asks in his poem, “Love and a Question”, do we choose fear or do we choose love?  I ask you, I ask myself, what is our answer?

Summer Reading: Love and Poetry

Message 28, “Emily Dickinson: Love and Loss”, 8-01-10

© Doug Slagle, Pastor, The Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

Service-Program-8-01-10

(At end of message, please see a related pictorial video link.)

Thornton Wilder, the famous playwright, when he was asked who it is that understands the nature of death and eternity, responded that only saints and poets have such insight.  This month, and in preparation for our September book club, I’ve chosen to look at three poets and their understanding of that greatest of human emotions, love.  It is in the various dimensions of love that we find so many of our most significant emotional responses.  In deeply caring for another person or another creature, we emote anger, joy, hate, fear, grief, compassion or altruism.  For our purposes this month, what knowledge might we gain of ourselves and our world by exploring the topic of love as it relates to loss, to fear and to social justice?  I’ve taken three well-known American poets – Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost and Langston Hughes and chosen to examine one of their lesser known poems to speak to us and offer a springboard for our thoughts and discussion.  In doing so, perhaps the relevant poems can offer breath and life to the Sunday topics.  Poetry, music and visual images are all windows into our thinking.  These forms of communication take ideas and then express them with artful nuance and emotion.  I hope we will find such expression with the poems we consider.  I also hope our words, our music and some visual cues will inspire our thoughts.  These right brain ways of thinking call into work our intuitions and feelings which allows us to internalize and remember the concepts.   And so, let us today look at love and how each of us must deal with its eventual loss.

My interest in our topic focusing on loss has much to do with Emily Dickinson and her own life.  As a poet, she was unsung and virtually unknown prior to her death.  Never married, living an isolated life, likely a lifelong virgin and almost always dressed in white, Emily still experienced the heights of love and the dashed dreams of its loss.  To read one particular portion of her poems is to feel her deep love for a sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert Dickinson.  This was a passionate love which may never have been fulfilled and was apparently later rejected by Susan.  Emily’s love poetry is candid, open and while not luridly specific, leaves many readers wondering if this was a chaste 19^th century expression of friendship between two women or a deeper and more profound romantic love.  Most modern interpreters classify them as Dickinson’s lesbian poems.  Even so, they capture universal sentiments of love and its dimensions of attraction, desire, hope, joy, pain and loss.  Let’s now read one of her final poems about Susan entitled “Now I Knew I Lost Her”.  You can find the words to the poem on the back of your programs…

Now I knew I lost her–
Not that she was gone–
But Remoteness travelled
On her Face and Tongue.

Alien, though adjoining
As a Foreign Race–
Traversed she though pausing
Latitudeless Place

Elements Unaltered–
Universe the same
But Love’s transmigration–
Somehow this had come–

Henceforth to remember
Nature took the Day
I had paid so much for–
His is Penury
Not who toils for Freedom
Or for Family
But the Restitution
Of Idolatry.

The loss of love is an event shared by everyone.  Whether it be from a relationship break-up or a death, the loss of someone we have loved will be experienced by virtually every person at some point in their lives.  And this pain is both sharp and memorable.  For Emily, the object of her attention and her love might has well have died.  Even though she and Susan continued to live next door to one another, after their break-up Emily never again set foot in Susan’s home nor did she write any further love poems – after having written over 300.  Whatever the cause, the one person in Emily’s life with whom she apparently had deep romantic feelings, no longer reciprocated those feelings and became, as Emily writes in the poem, an alien or unknown person.  And we feel her pain as we can all likely remember someone who no longer brightens at seeing us and whose attitude, demeanor and interest in us becomes remote, alien, foreign and latitudeless, as Dickinson’s poem so eloquently expresses.  Our investment of love, time and passion is not just lost, but we are left with an ache that is difficult to describe.  Our love for another cannot be fulfilled.  We are, to use a possible comparison, starving for nourishment as we stand next to a table loaded with food that we are forbidden to touch.  The object of our desire is so near and yet so very far.  We are hungry but we cannot eat.

Emily’s shock and hurt are compounded by her self-recriminations – something we often do as well.  In the face of loss, we rebuke ourselves for allowing the situation to have ever happened.  The goddess of love exacts her toll – in Emily’s words – as penury and poverty come not to the noble freedom fighter or devoted parent, but to the love sick one who has created an idol in the image of his or her beloved.  And it is this form of sometimes irrational love, that Emily calls idolatry, which she stoically self-condemns.  Buddhists see this as harmful attachment to an object or person which hinders self-enlightenment and progress to nirvana.  To the Christian, idolatry is the love of anything more than one’s love for god – and it is completely condemned.  For most people, it is a common way we fall in love.  And the Bible memorably evoked such anguish in the story of Abraham when he is called by god to sacrifice his only son Isaac.

As you may know from reading the Bible, Abraham and his wife Sarah were well into advanced age, many, many years past the years of fertility, when they realized they would never have a son.  In such a patriarchal and chauvinist culture, sons were worth far more than a daughter.  After a series of mishaps and painful episodes as they struggled to fulfill their fervent desire for a son, Sarah miraculously finds herself pregnant.  And a boy is born who is named Isaac and all is well with Abraham and Sarah who now see their legacy living onward.  A cherished son – the object of countless hours of prayer and hope and disappointment – is finally theirs.  But soon god decides to test Abraham’s love and trust in him.  This is a cruel test to be sure and one that was very likely contrived to instruct instead of being actual history.  God, as the story goes, tells Abraham he must take Isaac to the top of Mount Moriah, the hilltop on which Jerusalem was later built, and there kill and sacrifice him as a sign of love for god.  And Abraham agrees, despite anguish and pain and much crying on his and Sarah’s part.  Just as he is about to plunge a dagger into the heart of his only son – a boy loved by Abraham virtually as an idol – god stays his hand and all is made well.  This is a cruel, jealous and petty god who is not one I choose to accept, but the story is nevertheless instructive.

For those who choose to make any thing or any person into an object of absolute worship, the hand of fate and pain will eventually take it away.  We are called to love with devotion and passion but a loss of clear eyed respect for the soul of the person we love is dangerous for our own well-being.  As hideous as this story is – of a jealous god who petulantly forces Abraham to show his love for him in a sadistic stunt, the lesson we might take from the story is important.  In our love for someone, do we objectify the other?  Is he or she simply an object to which we can attach affection out of some unresolved need or insecurity within us?  Or, to the contrary, is our love a kind that does not idealize or idolize the other?  Is it a liberating love that, as Abraham was willing to ultimately prove, is capable of loving the other so much that we are willing to let go – both emotionally and physically?   If not, then nature will, as Emily Dickinson so wisely observed, have its Day of vengeance, our idol will be taken from us and we will be left in a form of loveless penury.  Contrary to all of our love impulses, the more we seek to hold on to our lover, the more we objectify and idolize him or her, the more likely we will be to lose it all.

I recall the day I learned my ex-wife and I would divorce.  We remain good friends today and she has been graciously and wonderfully supportive of me.  Even so, even as I sought to come to terms with my own identity, the impending separation and divorce was like a death.  I was heartbroken, depressed and cried for days with the coming end of my first loving relationship – one that lasted 18 years.  In its aftermath, I could not eat for many weeks and I lost a lot of weight.  My head knew what was best for my wife, for our daughters and for me.  But my heart had witnessed a gentle romance, the birth of two cherished children, the long years of education, growth and struggle as we sought to find our individual life purposes and the everyday give and take of a marriage.  We were the first lovers for one another, we married very young – ages 22 and 23, we both knew and discussed my sexuality confusion and we were each other’s best friends.  We knew each other as well as two people can understand another.  At the end, despite her hopes for me and my concern for her well-being, we parted ways still the deepest of friends but I had an ache and an empty hole in my heart where she had once lived.  My circumstances are obviously unique but I know, and I understand, the great pain of love and loss.

As many of you know who heard him speak here in February, my partner Ed experienced the loss of his first love in a different way.  His first partner died from the ravages of AIDS and Ed was left to mourn alone without the support of family or many friends.  Ed fell in love when Michael had already been diagnosed with AIDS, so he never contracted HIV himself but he was forced to watch the person he loved – and still deeply loves – slowly slip away.

And from private conversations with some of you, I have been honored to share a bit of your private pain – the gnawing, heart-wrenching ache of lost love.  It is as if we are each taunted by the gods and goddesses of Eros to climb the summit of attraction, passion and soul pleasing love.  And then, once at that summit, too many of us find ourselves tossed into the abyss.  Mountain top euphoria gives way to the valley of tears.

But, of course, we rarely stay in the valley of tears.  We all have heard of the several stages of grief – time periods within the process of emotional healing which vary in duration and severity from person to person.  These were first proposed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and have often been used by therapists to assist persons in dealing with personal tragedy.  As we first learn of lost love, we often move into a period of shock, denial and numbness.  Our senses cannot comprehend the tragedy and so we find ways to cope – we shut down, we ignore reality and we cease to feel.  Emotional and physical shock are ways we cope with pain – the natural instinct is to deny our loss so that the pain cannot be felt.  When this emotional shock wears off – which it always does, we are confronted with what is true – the end of a romance, a partnership, or a marriage.  Our common instinct then is to react with fear which manifests in anger, depression or both.  It is often here that the dark pit seems to envelope us.  We are still close enough to the past feeling of love that its loss is so acute and so powerful, we are in deep and sharp pain.  Often, we have difficulty emerging from this place where hurt cannot be avoided, reality has set in and we are in mourning.

Experts all suggest that this phase of grief is not only common but ultimately healthy.  In order to heal, we must allow ourselves to feel, to cry and to mourn.  This is a part of a normal healing process.  Life is all about loss – we along with all of nature are continually in a state of creation and re-creation where, in order for new life to occur, some loss must happen.

To deny our loss or to sublimate the feeling is to remain in the first stage of denial.  Too often our cultures tells us that grief must be stoic, silent and unmentioned.  It is not proper or mature to cry, to mourn and to deeply feel a loss.  Many experts disagree.  And I do too.  We all know that crying or venting our anger in safe places is cathartic, that it releases pent-up emotions and thus gives them free expression.

In one often quoted teaching from Jesus – “the truth will set you free” – I believe it is in acknowledging the truth of our feelings and their open expression that our hearts and minds are liberated.  In this regard, we are not alone and we should seek friends, family and communities like the Gathering to share our grief.  In doing so, we accept our loss of love and the pain that results.  In our state of grief, we must also give ourselves time and space to experience it fully.  Some might cry once and that is enough.  For others, the pain is more acute and it must be continually acknowledged and brought into the open with gentle friends or with professional counselors.  As Jesus taught in his Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Some days will be good ones as we seem to move beyond the hurt of loss.  On other days, we will regress and mourn or feel anger all the more.  This too is normal according to many therapists.  The trajectory of healing is individual and it is often marked by many ups and downs and many mistakes.  And that is not only ok, it is good.

Eventually, we arrive at a place where we realize that despite the loss of love, a new life is possible.  We will survive.  We are not destined to live forever in the valley of tears.  The process of re-creation and renewal has begun.  Our love is not forgotten or forsaken.  It has just been moved into an appropriate place in our memories – one where we might cherish the love we experienced and give thanks for it, or one where we might appreciate all that we learned from the painful loss.  With every death there is new life and with every loss there is something new to be found.  The Bible’s Book of Psalms poetically says, “Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

And it is at that perfect emotional place where I believe true healing has taken place.  For us to love, we must undertake risk – risk that the other will not respond the same way, risk that the other will hurt us or leave us, risk that the other will die or even risk that our own love will wane and not remain.  But for each person who experiences the summit of passion, this feeling is worth the risk.  For most, the summit does not last and they move on to a more constant and tranquil form of love.  While all of our loves are eventually lost, we are never the worse for it.  Indeed, I believe that love is actually never really lost – it is just transformed to a newer reality.  If we understand that the love we had still remains but in a different form, we can celebrate the fact that we once were on the mountain top, we did experience the exhilaration of attraction and the realm of pleasure given and pleasure received.  Even if the object of our love has hurt us, that does not negate the beauty of our original love.  We can give thanks for it and for the many ways we learned and grew into more enlightened individuals.  In this regard, I am reminded of a silly but nevertheless profound bumper sticker I once saw.  It read, “Love like you will never be hurt.”

For Emily Dickinson, she refused to accept such a truth.  For her, to have loved once and then lost it meant a lifetime of relative isolation and stoic acceptance of fate.  Until her death, she regularly dressed herself all in white as if she were some young virgin on the threshold of a great romance.  She poured her heart out in poems and letters – many of which were never sent or shown to others.  And it would not be until after she died that her relatives discovered many volumes of poems and letters she had written offering insight and beauty into her lonely pain.  Apparently, Emily never consummated a loving relationship and the pain from the love she lost with Susan appears to have sadly never healed.  And yet, in so many ways, the love she had did not die as it lives on forever in her poetry.  Emily may not have emerged from her loss, but she has likely helped countless others understand such pain.

Love is the nectar of life.  It is what moves and motivates the world.  We form relationships, we create life, we work and we play – all for love.  We might love things or money or other people, but we are driven by its force.  Ultimately, I believe all human relationships either succeed or fail due to how skillfully we love.  And while the method of our love is a topic for another day, the loss of love is one we consider today.  How do we understand, grieve, and heal from love’s loss?  Be it from death or mistake or hate or a natural separation of ways, we will all lose at the game of love.  But it is a game – if it were only that – which we cannot and must not refuse to play.   To love and be loved.  Such is life.  We all want to know what love is.  We all want to feel its life enriching power.  We want to see it, feel it and live within it.  But, despite the risk of loss, despite pain, anger and denial, we must always – we must always – love freely and love extravagantly…

Click here to link to a related pictorial video

Message 27, “Is God American?”, July 18, 2010

download program: Service-Program-8-01-10

© Doug Slagle, Pastor, The Gathering UCC, all rights reserved

In our series this month entitled “America the Beautiful”, I am reminded of the words from that song which states “America, America.  God shed his grace on thee.”  In another popular anthem made famous by the late singer Kate Smith, the Divine One is actually asked to bless our nation.  The song “God Bless America” is both a statement and a plea.  These songs assert that the United States is special.  Please bestow favor upon this land and this nation of people.

My appeal this month, however, is in direct contrast to those sentiments.  I hope that these July messages will cause us to think about how we honor our nation, engage in political discourse and assert a spiritual viewpoint.   The overarching ideal throughout each of the three messages is one of humility – how we apply it for our nation as a culture and how we might apply it individually.  Two weeks ago, we considered the fourth of July holiday in the light of national humility – celebrating our heritage and the great ideals upon which we were founded while also acknowledging how far we have to go before we fully practice what we say we believe.  And last week, I urged us to consider humility in our political discussions with others.  We are entitled to our political beliefs but we are not entitled to abuse or disparage others.  In all of our conduct, we are to live the Golden Rule treating others the same way we too wish to be treated.

And today, I ask us to consider another form of humility which applies not only to our nation but to each of us as well.  Religious humility is a rare commodity these days and, as much as we say we support it, we often do not practice it – at least in this nation.  Too many people speak as if god truly is American.   He or she is one of us.  Americans are special and we are the ones who truly understand the Divine.  Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not unique to the United States.  The Bible says that the Jewish people used to consider themselves the chosen people.  Other nations and cultures today claim unique status with the Divine One.  The implication is that if you do not belong to a particular belief system or religion, you are not in god’s favor.

An Baptist old joke, speaking of religious arrogance, goes something like this: A Pastor was walking across a bridge one day, and he saw someone standing on the edge, about to jump off. So he ran over and said “Stop! Don’t do it!” “Why shouldn’t I?” the suicidal person asked. “Well, there’s so much to live for!” “Like what?” “Well… are you religious?” The person said” yes”.  “Me too!” the Pastor said.  “Are you Christian or Buddhist?” “Christian.”  “Me too!  Are you Catholic or Protestant ?”  “Protestant.”  “Me too!  Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?”  “Baptist”  “Wow! I’m a Baptist Pastor!  Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?”  “Baptist Church of God!”  “Me too!  Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God?”  “Reformed Baptist Church of God!”  “Me too!  Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?” The suicidal person replied, “Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!”  The pastor said “Die, heretic scum!”, and pushed him off.

My humor is not intended to make fun of Baptists.  But it IS intended to make a subtle point and perhaps make fun of all of us who profess to fully understand what is true in religion.  People often assume only their way of belief is correct and all others are not just wrong but, as the Pastor in our story says, heretical.

And while the title of this message asks if god is American, my intent is to provide more than a simple answer of “no she or he is not”.  Most of here us would agree that the Mother and Father of all creation, is not a mere American.  The moral force at work all around us is universal and is not defined or owned by anyone.  Ironically, this understanding of god first found explicit expression by a nation in our own U.S. constitution.

Indeed, far from endorsing any particular religion or belief, the founding fathers pointedly allowed the freedom of belief – or even no belief.   It further forbade government from ever supporting any specific religion.  The First Amendment states very simply, and I believe very humbly about religion, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It was Thomas Jefferson who later coined the term “wall of separation between church and state” to describe the intent of the writers.  This came after James Madison wrote, a man closely involved in the framing of the constitution and who co-authored the Federalist Papers – a book about the constitutional convention –  “Strongly guarded. . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States.”

Our constitution nowhere mentions any deity much less the Judeo-Christian god.  Our government, it plainly asserts, derives its powers from the consent of the governed.  This contrasts with the apostle Paul’s claim in the Bible that rulers of nations derive their right to rule solely from God.  Our constitution explicitly refutes that premise.

While Jefferson and Madison spoke to the ideal of a nation and government independent from religious endorsement, the idea that we are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles was also rejected by numerous founding fathers.  In one of our first agreements with another nation, in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, which was ratified by the US Senate, we assert – “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” Even further, John Adams, our second President and one of the more personally religious of the founders, said in 1788, “Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven…it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”

As much as some contemporary commentators seek to portray our founders as pious Christians in the modern evangelical mode, this was not the case.  Most of the founders were men of faith but a majority believed in a religious expression that was often Unitarian in approach.  Such was the faith of Adams and Jefferson.  George Washington attended an Episcopal church but refused to take Holy Communion there and is also generally considered to have been Unitarian in his outlook.  Such a belief system acknowledges the existence of god and the Divine work of providence.  Most historians agree our founders believed in a more generic god, the god of creation and the god of nature.  For most of the founders, this was not the god of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Alone among the founders, only John Jay, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, is acknowledged as someone who would fit our modern version of an evangelical, conservative Christian.

I believe most contemporary claims that our nation was founded on Christian values are motivated by religious arrogance.  We as a nation, as a congregation and as individuals must never assume that one specific brand of thinking is absolutely correct and all others are invalid.  Our constitution refused to enter that debate and it forbids any future Congress or President from doing the same.

Just as I advocated last week, however,  – that we hold onto our sincere political beliefs – I encourage the same for our religious views.  We have a right to our personal beliefs about the great questions of the universe – what is the meaning of life, what purpose do we serve and how can we better love and serve others?  More importantly, we must respect the beliefs of people with whom we disagree.  Even further, I believe our work here at the Gathering is not to accept or reject any particular faith but to search among them, to learn from the many great prophets of history and to explore the realms of where we can find universal truths.

In my message back in April when I posed the question “What is Truth?”, we concluded that a conclusive answer is difficult to find.  What force, what god or what spiritual being holds within itself the source of all wisdom, perfection and power?  As much as we might seek to find truth solely through reason, when we do so, we neglect the mysterious and transcendent.  And, as much as we might try to find universal applications in how we should morally act, the call to us by all world religions is to love others as we too wish to be loved.  This is one truth we agreed is universal.  Even so, the point of that message was that we must remain on a journey of continually seeking who and what is Truth.

And, religious humility, I believe, encourages us to search many pathways to truth.  While the Bible quotes Jesus Christ as saying that he is the way, the truth and the life and the only way to god, the historic Jesus would not have made such a statement.  The historic Jesus taught, I believe, about an accommodating god, open and loving to everyone.  She or he was not and is not an exclusive god.   The ethic of this god, as Jesus taught, is to love our neighbors AND to love our enemies.   God has a concern for the weak and is infinitely loving to all creation.  Jesus taught that god is the unconditionally loving parent in the parable of the Prodigal Son, the woman who anoints others with her oil soaked hair, the host at a banquet to which everyone is invited and the Samaritan – a religious and political outcast – who offers mercy and respect to enemies.  Jesus taught about a god of grace and mercy to all.  This god, as ironic as it seems, is a humble god.

And, if this is so, then we must also check our religious and spiritual egos at the door.  We must abandon them.  This does not mean to let go of an honest claim to who we are and what we believe.  It implies, instead, that our spiritual beliefs are formed in the intimate connection between whatever we perceive god to be and our innermost conscience.  When we lie awake at night and ponder the great mysteries of existence, we are invited into a uniquely personal relationship with the Divine.  And what we personally come to believe about universal Truth is ours alone.  It is not American or Christian or Islamic or Atheist or even the uniquely open variant we practice here at the Gathering.  It is your spirituality.  It is of you and by you.  And, if it is genuine in its humility, this personal spirituality will continue to search and remain open to new insights and new ways to understand our universe.  It will be open to the ways of Jesus and the teachings of Mohammad.  It will understand letting go of self through Buddhism and it will respect the ways of Hinduism and our continuing quest for perfect rebirth.

The mystic rabbi named Maimonides – the father of Kabalah Judaism, argued that humans cannot and should not try and define the Divine.  She or he or whatever force we call it must remain mysterious, ineffable and without definition.  To describe the Divine is to reduce it to our terms and our finite understanding.  This negative theology of Maimonides says that we must remain silent when it comes to defining who or what god is.  As much as I have tried to speak in my messages about a Divine moral force at work in the universe, my words fall short.  This power that lies in the common heart and soul of every creature compels them to seek cooperation, love and justice.  To repeat once again the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. – another great prophet – the arc of history is very long but it bends toward equality, justice and universal cooperation.  And, as I have said, this is the moral imagination I choose to call the Divine.  Maimonides taught that this mystical force has no boundaries and defies understanding, logic or description.  A god force like this cannot help but be open and humble.

Is god American?  Of course not.  Is god Jewish?  Is god Islamic?  Is god Christian?  Is god dead?  Is god black or white, male or female?  Dear friends, my message to you is to join me in a search for those answers.  And it is in the process of exploration that I believe we truly honor and respect the Divine.  This is a humble religion just like I appealed for a humble nationalism and a humble approach to political discourse in my last two messages.  It is not falsely modest, denying its beauties and strengths.  Instead, it is free and open – as our American constitution promotes.  It does not claim absolute answers but instead asserts its mystery and Divine transcendence.  We see glimpses of it in our fellow creatures, in the beauty of a sunset, in the love we share, in compassion, in sacrifice and in forgiveness.  We see and feel this moral imagination we might call god but she is elusive and infinite and calling us to never give up our quest for her…