It is a great joy and privilege for me to be here with you at all souls this morning that's jenny said i grew up in this area and so all souls was always looked on as the great mother church and so it is marvelous to be with you. Bring two readings this morning the first comes from the minister of one of the other all souls churches who i know has spoken from this pulpit before. Forest church in his book bringing god home forest rights organized religion and personal spirituality can exist. Completely independent from each other. At the root of all the wreck human experience of the holy are two things though that organized religion may even discourage. And humility. The word human has italian etymology my very favorite all the words that relate to it humane humanitarian humor humility humble and shumis. Are illuminated. From dust. To dust the mortar of mortality binds us fast. To one another. Jews christians and muslims alike trace their ancestry to the third chapter of the book of genesis where god proclaims to eve and adam whose name lest we forget means out of red clay in the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return onto the ground for out of it west val taken. For dust thou art. And unto dust shalt thou return. For this reason alone life requires not only a measure of humility but a leavening sense of humor i love gk chesterton squip that angels can fly because they take themselves lightly you've heard that one before just a little lower than the angels we too can lift up our sites. By lowering our pretensions. And just a little higher than the most humble creature we are wise to remember our mortal kinship and destiny. We may be valiant dust. In shakespeare's words but whether we perceive ourselves as spun out of stardust. Or fashion from earthly loam. When we die. We inherit. The same earth. My second reading comes from someone. Familiar to at least a few of you here. And i did not choose this reading knowing that i was going to be preaching a sermon here. This was written in 1973 by the reverend david eaton who was minister here at that time david was a good friend of my father. And i had the privilege of meeting him a few times before he died. This is dedicated to peg pierce. She may even be here i don't know who she is but perhaps she is one of you. David wright's all living substance all substance of energy and being and purpose are united. And share the same destiny. All people we love and those we know not of our united and share the same destiny 2 deaths this unity we share with the sun. Sr brothers and sisters strangers flowers in the field snowflakes. Volcanoes. And moonbeams. Birth life death unknown unknown our destiny from unknown. Two unknown. I pray that we will know the author and not fall into the pit of intellectual arrogance in attempting to explain it away. The mystery can be our substance. Maybe have faith to accept this. Wonderful mystery. And build. Upon at the everlasting truth. So end this morning's reading. Not long ago i was sitting in a quiet room. Talking with some friends about god. This group of people was very diverse racially culturally age-wise lots of other things about us were different but there was one thing one very important thing we had in common. We were all active and committed unitarian universalist. Our views of god not surprisingly a varied to some degree in a few folks who were not comfortable with that. Old-fashioned and wounded word god. Get all of us have something to add to the conversation. Something that sprang from that deep place inside us all of us it seemed. Do something about mystery about holiness. And about. Chase. One friend in particular spoke very eloquently. Well i cannot quote him exactly i do remember with clarity the essence of his words. Religion and spirituality spring from the place. He told us. Where the awesome metis. The familiar. We're the awesome. Meets. The familiar wow. Buzzwords just knocked me over. They helped me the guy inside me so much that i knew i was going to preach about it someday. And i've been thinking a lot. About what lies at the heart. Of our faith. Our particular face unitarian-universalism a mouthful yes. Butterface indeed. What is the essence of being religious liberally. I want to look at that essence and i want to look at it by talking about two attitudes or ways of approaching space. They have much to teach us. Those attitudes are all. And humility. I got intrigued by these two important concepts when i heard my colleague for his church. Speak these words at a conference i attended a new york city last spring. He sent me to thinking he always does. Are all and humility essential to true face development and if they are. How can we seek to understand them in ways that make sense to us in our particular faith tradition. Have a group unitarian universalist are skeptical by nature of us in this room here today have at some point in our lives. Been overwhelmed by. I have heard many stories throughout the years of my ministry. Avoid in the face of birth. And death stars and sea love. And even lost. I too have my stories of awe. A simple one here. Years ago i remember a hike in the virginia mountains with a campfire girl. Troop. And we went. To a mountaintop it came out. On a cliff. And as i gazed out on the view there it became something much more than just a pretty picture. I saw it through the eyes of all. That it became alive for me more beautiful more perfect than any mountaintop could ever be. For what seemed like an eternity. I watched. And saw and knew that i was not alone. Set the earth was alive. And that i belong. And i have never forgotten that image and it's still returns to me when i feel and needs. To remember my connection to what really matters. It was an every real way awesome. And it woke in my child's heart. A longing and a sense of belonging. Which led me to believe to deepen my belief. In what i choose to call god. Am i experienced on that mountaintop is far from unique. Perhaps you two have a story of all when you felt overtaken by that terrible joy that is the mystery and wonder of life. But all it seems does not come readily to everyone. Perhaps this is because for many the idea of all is caught up with fear the origin of the word austands from a greek word. For pain. For pain. And as we know has too often been used as a weapon. Human-made structures that we look on today at great examples of engineering or architecture and that may make us feel full of all like the pyramids in egypt or the great cathedrals in europe were built. To make ordinary humans feel very small. And god or the king or the priest very great. It's not surprising that the word awful. Has come to mean something terrible. There are of course very powerful and positive ways to experience all. When i hear people in our congregations talk about all its usually of the natural world in which they speak while many of us do feel in something humanly generated like music and poetry and art. Most of us seem to meet the mystery in the natural world. Activity and so nicely put it all comes when we recognize disunity we share with a son or our brothers and sisters strangers flowers of the field snowflakes volcanoes & moonbeams. He didn't leave much out. All comes. All comes when we face the mystery of our connectedness to all of life. I felt that kind of all on my mountain top. But it can and does happen in many many places in essence i believe that the kind of all at the heart of our face. Emerges when we feel deep in the well of our being that we belong that our life matters that we and the earth and all creatures on it. R1. R1. That's what the word unitarian really comes down to mean these days. Because our heritage and our faith reminds us that by whatever name we called the holy. It is always and at its essence. 1. And when we feel that oneness so we can experience the kind of off that opens us to a deeper understanding of what are lice means particularly in relationship to the rest of life. On our planet. Such a lock-in also open us. To humility. Out humility is a far less comfortable topic for unitarian universalist then off. As a group. And i've know what's real well i've been a unitarian universalist all my life we are not the most humble of people 90 that may come as a big surprise to some of you but in case you're thinking that i'm pointing fingers trust me this is where the finger is pointing i know. Religiously humility is even much even more loaded with baggage than off. For many of us humility in the face of god conscious of people prostrate in front of altars flatulating themselves are feeling pressure to confess to imagined sins for the sake of absolution. And women have endured centuries of being told to humble themselves not just before god. Before their husbands and fathers as well. Humility has a strong part to play in our face. From the time i can remember. My father who was not on the surface the most humble of men. Taught me to understand that humility had a profoundly simple definition. To be humble he told me. Was to remain. Teachable. To remain teachable. Whenever we think we know it all real humility reminds us to stay open. And willing to learn. Fourth church believes that accepting our mortality forces us to stay humble. All of us are fly night we are not god. As far as puts it life requires a measure of humility just a little lower than the angels we can lift up our sights by lowering our pretensions. Humility is one way to stay grounded. Has forrest said the words come to shumis and humility come from the same root grounded humility invites us to always remain open to what the world has to teach us and to never be afraid to say. I don't know. In her book kitchen table wisdom rachel naomi raymond echoes the sentiment. As a physician she writes i was trained to deal with uncertainty as aggressively as i dealt with the disease itself. The unknown was the enemy. After years of trading mystery for mastery it was hard and even frightening to stop offering myself reasonable explanations for some of the things i observed and then others told me and simply takes them as they are. I don't know had long been my statement of shame a personal and professional sailing. No wonder if that resonates with any of you. It certainly does with me. Getting dealing with deaths and healing raymond begin to open herself to the awesome mystery inherent in life and death. Rather than trying to explain away the strange wonderful and powerful feelings of awe. That death and healing involved. She began to just let it be. I no longer feel that life is ordinary she writes every day is filled with mystery. She concludes with these words. In some fairy tales there is a magic word which has the power to undo the spell that has imprisoned someone and free them usually the words were some kind of nonsense like shazam. My magic words have turned out to be. I don't know. I don't know. The magic words i don't know or at the essence of both aw and humility and they're also at the heart of our faith. How you might ask. When we approached the universe with awe while our first response can and will likely be wow. Perhaps our second response should be. I don't know. Not knowing does not mean not appreciating it simply allows us to acknowledge and accept the mystery of life without apology. When we say i don't know with all we are accepting that life and creation are mysterious their wonderful and that we cannot know everything about them. That's we have a face. That affirms that creation is too grand a complex to be defined by narrow creed's. And when we say with humility i don't know. We acknowledge that there is still more to learn that we don't know what all that revelation is not sealed. That's we have a face that affirms that spiritual development is a continuing process of learning and growing. Doesn't it make more sense to tell the truth as we know it. As we may not. No it. I don't know these three little magic words may be at the heart of real face that real spirituality even real religion they challenge us to meet the mystery with an open heart. Even as we ask the hard questions that deepen our understanding. And broaden our knowledge. I believe that a willingness to be unsure. Is critical for our spiritual well-being. But at times it can feel paralyzing her not to know can be scary. You know what. So much of religion these days is all about knowing everything isn't it a hundred percent right i've got it here in this book is this creed this guru this is the way it's got to be. Are face offers a different more challenging path. Our faith. At least tries to acknowledge that there are things we don't know that others may experience the world differently than we do. Yet there are times even within our liberal religious faith. When we think we know it all when we're absolutely positively sure we are right. I'm not talking about any of you of course. But this is where all and humility come into play. Whenever i am tempted to say that my way is right and you are wrong i try to remember to take a deep breath. And say. I don't know. I don't know. I try to face the mystery of life with a sense of all and my own place in it with an attitude of humility i try to remain teachable into stay open to this amazing and wonderful world we live in. And it's here that my friends view a face as the place where the awesome meets the familiar comes very true for me. 4 unitarian universalist the world is not a bad place fallen from the lord's good graces. To us the world and everything in it can be approached with aw. For we have learned that the holy dwells not just in the realm of the supernatural. Put in the natural in the here-and-now in this place in this moment right now here among us. By cultivating a sense of all we have the opportunity to look at the world with new eyes. And even the mundane can take on a blessed spirits. The christian mystic teresa of avila had difficulty in reconciling the vast. The vastness of life with a spirit of the mundane tasks in front of her in the convent she was a mystic for many years ago living in a convent washing pots sweeping the floors folding laundry. Epsom point of grace the mundane became for her a sort of prayer. A way she could experience her ever-present connection to the divine pattern which is the source of life. She began to see the face of god. In the folded sheets. We may not see god in the sheets. But perhaps we can see something of the holy in a child's smile. In the falling leaves. In the bleak beauty of the winter sky. And we are i believe more likely to encounter the mystery and wonder of life if we approach the world in humble ways. There's much about life and the living of it that we just don't know all the tools at our disposal to scientific method higher criticism business plans etc can't explain why our heart aches. When we see a loved one in pain or why our world shakes when we hear on newborn baby cry. Thank you good time. Facing that incredible mystery the mystery of life and death with i do no humbly on our lips as a religious posture that works. We can is one of my favourite poet says live the questions with humility with wonder and with joy. To live in that place where the awesome meets the familiars to go against much of what our culture expects of us arrogance is far more popular than humility and all is too often reserved for celebrity sightings. Yet i would argue that the religious path offers us a better way to navigate the shoals. Of modern life. Cultivating a spirit of all does not mean. That you have to have a traditional belief in god or an afterlife and cultivating a spirit of humility does not mean to basing oneself in fear the spirit only requires of us a willingness to remain open to all that life has to teach us and to accept the mystery of life is not something to be afraid of indeed it is something to be revered. There is so much i don't know. But what i do know is that our face unitarian-universalism can be a religion. We're all and humility are cultivated and supported. We do not always live up to our promise i know. But i have hope. Our liberal faith has much to offer to us. And to our world. Look around you look around you i have been watching you now. You're beautiful. Wonderful. See how precious we all are can we can we approach this incredible gift of a day with aw. Can we approach each other. With humility. All and humility. Are two pillars of a faithful life and i think they serve us well. Particularly if we remain willing to say. With all and humility. Those awesome and humble magic words. I don't know.


I've told many of you how excited i am to have all of the guests coming to visit us over the next several months not the least of which is because many of the folks coming to visit our colleagues of mine that i've been eager to hear preach for many many years but i'm usually busy on sunday so i don't get to hear them and so first up this morning is reverend rosemary bread mcnatt whom i want to introduce to you briefly before she speaks. Rosemary serves currently as a minister of the fourth universalist society in new york city in fact i was joking with her this morning that it's in central park west so maybe we should all go visit her sometime soon. She was born and raised in chicago illinois is a graduate of both yale university and drew theological seminary. And before answering the call to ministry she was an editor and widely anthologized writer for more than two decades. She's a former editor at the new york times book review and has written three books of her own including her memoir on afraid of the dark. Rosemary has been deeply active in our unitarian universalist movement for many years in fact i first met reverend mcnatt when i was a student at starr king school for the ministry and she was serving on our board of trustees. Holding one of her sons cradled in her arms they are for one of the meetings he's not able to be held cradled in the arms any longer. But reverend menachem mcnatt lives in new york city with her husband robert and her two sons alan and the aforementioned daniel. Please join me in welcoming reverend rosemary brian mcnatt thank you so much and welcome to all of you this morning and thank you for your warm welcome to me this is my second visit to all souls and i love to come here it was an honor to be asked. To be here while rob is on sabbatical. What was the first religious question you were ever asked. I wish that i could say that i remembered something that i asked it was clever and prescient something like the question that my older son alan asked. When he was 3 years old and he saw the aftermath of a hurricane on television. I was in seminary at the time. And after walking through the living room and seeing the television screen filled with death and destruction allen turn to my husband bob and to me and said that hurricane hurt a lot of people why doesn't god do something about that. My beloved husband coward that he is turned to me and said don't look so well. And i was told the answer to courtesy of the baltimore catechism the requisite means of roman catholic instruction until the mid-1960s some of you are likely products of this particular religious education and i see some nodding head not if you remember you had to memorize a whole list of questions along with the right answers to those questions to make sure you knew who you were who god was and the right relationship between you another question that i remember asking was why did god make you. And the answer was god made me to know him to love him and to serve him in this world and to be happy with him forever in the next. This is why i was more important the church said to take better care of our soul then our body because in losing our souls we would lose god and everlasting happiness. If you grew up with christian religious instruction of any kind most likely you grew up with some variation of these questions and some variations of these answers questions and answers that have comprise the majority of christian theology for century if you grew up with jewish religious instructions you grew up with some variation of the 13 articles of the jewish faith first proposed by maimonides twelfth-century rabbi who first codified the articles of faith for absorbent do god exist god is one and unique god is incorporeal and god is eternal. Also said god knows the thoughts and deeds of men too that's really five and practicing muslim you learned some version of the five articles of faith now these are different than the five pillars of islam. To the bathroom jordi about in the united states will raise or have our primary religious experience in one of these three face the abrahamic faiths than what they share is a belief in one god and to a lesser degree they share a belief in a certain kind of god a god with certain qualities to inspire our trust and our obedience. And our fear because according to all these things god is all-seeing and all-knowing and all-powerful and perfect what are you grew up christian or jewish or muslim or with no particular religious faith at all whether you were developed or careless in your face and practice you probably grew up with these ideas about god ideas that you share with many people ideas that you may no longer believe ideas that you may not even like very much but they're still there just the same dancing around in your head and your often arguing with them perhaps without being aware that you are they are ideas woven into the very fabric of our culture. And they are difficult for us to dislodge even if we want to and difficult for us to question even amid all our doubts. I was in seminary before i found what has become one of my personal favorite books about the idea of god and its hole on our hearts and our mind. The tiny but dense book entitled omnipotence and other theological mistakes omnipotence and other theological mistakes by charles hartshorn hartshorn died only seven years ago at the age of 104 use one of the as process theology an offshoot of process philosophy and it attempts to end among other things the standoff between rational thought and believing in god as the son the grandson and the great-grandson of episcopalian and swiss protestant minister. He married a lifelong universalist. He attended unitarian churches for much of his life. But he hesitated to call himself a unitarian universalist even though he was a member of the unitarian church of austin texas when he died in 2000. He likes to refer to himself actually as a buddhist do christian it was a phrase that he bought he borrowed from another naturalistic philosopher who was very important to liberal religion charles pierce this morning. He spent a lot of years writing about what he thought were fallacies behind these religious beliefs falsehoods that couldn't withstand the insides of science or contemporary life or even the live experience of you and me. And in this book that i'm talking about he wrote a preface and part of that process included these words. Multitude of people today are told by newspapers and popular magazines and books about all kinds of options in non religious matters but they are told little or nothing about the options and religion. The accessibility of options for belief. Is part of what religious freedom ought to me. I have learned he can see me. That lives can be changed by showing that some of the traditional problems of belief. Princeton how to reconcile the power and goodness of god with the evils we encounter in life. Are genuinely solved or at least greatly alleviated by the view presented in this book. So that is a tall order for a tiny book cuz it's about 144 pages and that includes the index but hartshorn in 1984 when he wrote this book was 87 years old and think that he had another 15 years. He wanted to tackle the same questions that you and i have when we read the paper or when we live our lives and cruel and senseless things occur for no reason at all and people try to comforter with platitudes like god knows best for it was god's will or whatever answer they have been taught to give after two thousand years of traditional and contradictory theology the questions is obvious if god knows everything is god is so perfect if god wants us to be happy and yet the world is so cool so sad so filled with unfairness and injustice and even horror then what good is god. Belief itself. Has been and continues to be the flash point for so much of the world's terror. Or as one of the visitors in my own congregation asked on a sunday not too long ago looking around after coffee hour. Who knew that this many people still found religion relevant. And he was not being complimentary. It questions like me the charles hartshorn wrote his little book to answer. Any rights that most classical theism is guilty of 6 mistakes about god. Play god is absolutely perfect and unchangeable. The god is perfect in power and that's whatever happens must be divinely ordained. Third that since god is unchangeable e perfect whatever happens must be eternally known to god. God's love for us is benign unchanged in any way by our joy or our sorrow or troubles or our pain in other words that we have no effect on god whatsoever. 5th that it would matter to god at all it's in the matter of life after death that we must survive death in some form either through heaven or hell. And lastly that revelation is infallible that we know all that we are going to know. The hartshorn attributed these errors in theology. In part to classical theism attempt to harmonize greek philosophy and judaism which your kind of the origin in the the maelstrom around with these ideas formed. I know he believes it's important to continued dialogue between those two tradition. He also agrees it's important to add insights from contemporary life from science and from history including the history of other religions. All of us who have lived our lives are familiar with those six mistakes. The familiar with those six mistakes because they are the mistakes that first helped many of us leave our original religious home. In search of something more. But what more is there. Now there is of course a theater. The belief that there is no god. But all we have is what we can see and what we can prove to be here and the nap. It is a rigorous and demanding pass. For those who follow it. And there are atheist but i would suggest to you that there are many fewer atheist in the world then you might suppose. Many more people i believe find themselves in the camp of the doubter to camp of the unsure. The person who can't possibly countenance the old story about god the old guy with the beard. But they can't necessarily believe the stories that point toward nothing at all. Hartshorne asks us to consider a third possibility. 1/3 way a different kind. Oh god. Hartshorn asks us to consider a god who is changed and moved by us. By our reaction and our every thought by the every circumstance of our lives in our sorrow and in our joy. A god who is changed by knowing and experiencing us. Just as we are change. By knowing and experiencing god. This different god is one whose power does not depend on perfection. Oran in mutability but relies instead on embodying an unsurpassed love. That is in fact thesaurus. And the ground of god's power. Hartshorn and his spiritual brothers and sisters in process theology. Speak in their work of the lure of god. God's love for all of us. Made known to the unspeakable beauty of the world. The unspeakable beauty. 1 in number. And all this beauty may tangible in the longing of our own heart. A longing to which we ourselves barely have words. That very longan. Ineffable egg that we feel in the face of such beauty. They believe is in itself the sign of god reaching out to us and for us. Eager to long. I should be raw. But what about evil and hurricane and death and sadness and all of the inscrutable changes that we know are true. The world that includes this different god these are the inevitable consequences of a world they believe is truly alive a world in which while the laws of nature are real. So is genuine human choice and the genuine human risk think about it so long as billions of people make decisions simultaneously everyday each day is by necessity filled with risk filled with chance. And filled with possibility a god that really loves and believes in humanity might limit champ but could never banish it entirely because to do so would limit human freedom and that would include the freedom to love god's or not to love trust and a law not freely given is no love at all. We people of liberal faith rarely speak of loving god or worshiping god we barely have language for it. It's a small wonder when all our language were god has been so ancient and so anemic and so rooted in this classical theism when even the necessity for god has been the subject of endless debate when our longing for god has been the stuff of ridicule and source of fear who wants to love or worship a source of more or an inspiration for international and domestic terror or and excused for the diminishment of other human beings. The process theology begins to give us a glimpse of something we have dared not hope. An introduction to a radically different. on god worth loving and a god or longing for. The ideas expressed by hartshorn and his contemporaries. Modric see hockey and alfred whitehead and henry wyman and others they offer a chance for an enthusiasm for god that's need not be simply an intellectual exercise. And that vision that possibility of a different god was the basis for the answer to the question that alan asked me so many years ago when he asked me why god didn't do something. About that hurricane. But he did. Do something. And she did something i said. Because god. Is part of us and we are part of god until god cares so much and so deeply that those people were hurt. God loves us so very much. We at. With god's inspiration and help. To help those who need us because we are co-creators. With god and all the while that we work and we struggle and lee love. God is suffering with us and holding us up god is helping to bear our burdens god is working with us to create opportunities through which we might find grace and strength and life even a miss can and even joy. He was probably too much detail for a three-year-old i have been known to give my kids a little too much information but maybe not it is never too soon to learn about a god worthy of the name and worthy of our attention and our love. And the good news is. That it is never too late either i miss.


Some of you may have thought that. Service would end early today and that you get away without a sermon but that was just a typo. Our reading this morning is by the poet laureate shack. It's called. To softness. Under junk heaps and burning cars and bombed-out buildings. Under iron and 10 and plastic under us steel and coca-cola and the bridge repainted silver. To cover all the black graffitied hearts and names. Beneath underpass and overpass on their timetables profitability summits margins of error and cuts. Under for your own good and in our best interest. Under frontrunner leveraged buyout arms deal state-of-the-union and rate of exchange. It must be there. Like an ash heap. But alive like avail a half-formed thought. Throbbing it's slow pulse. Behind the lips. A softness. A tenderness. A hand turning pages through the night in a bare room. Eyes of the window hand at the door. Something in need of protection. Something capable. Of stealing harm. I'll never forget something that happened to me. During a job interview many years ago. I was applying to be a hospital chaplain and because the work would entail me ministering to people who were suffering tremendous loss and grief the person interviewing me was probing my own experiences of loss and we happen to be talking about my grandmother many of you know that my grandmother played a formative role in my childhood and i loved her dearly. Alphabet her drawn-out death from alzheimer's disease. Was a slow painful loss. The loss that was especially intense during this interview because at the time we had just moved my grandmother out of her home and into an assisted living facility just blocks from where i was living. As i was talking about my grandmother the interviewer gently interrupted me. And she said rob. You're sharing something very painful with us. Do you realize that you have a smile on your face as you're doing it. Do you realize there's a disconnect between what you're feeling right now and what's your soda showing us that you're feeling. Yeah i know i said. Just checking she said. Just checking. We all try to keep up appearances don't we. Choking back our tears with the forced smile. Holding down the pain with a clenched. Got. Not wanting to show anyone our weakness not wanting to shatter that image we've cultivated so carefully for so many years now of having it all together. I'm not needing anybody else thank you very much. I watch people as they erect this facade of invulnerability even in the face of their own death. For the death of a loved one. I've seen them suppress their grief by biting down on a quavering lower lip until it looked as though that lip would burst. I'm at person's shoulder and say it's okay. Just let it go. I think there's something wrong going on here. I believe that we live. A culture that encourage us. Encourages us to squelch our feeling. To deny sorrow and grief. To pretend as if none of that existed in that we are just confident happy people who got it all together. In other words i believe that we live in a culture culture that is perpetrating a conspiracy. A conspiracy against. Vulnerability. And i can't tell if we are the unwitting victims of this plot or if we are ourselves. Co-conspirators. But what i do know is that when i look around i see a lot of people who are numb emotionally. Who are cut off. You know i think part of it is that is that television in the media just to bombard us with so many sensations forced sensations manufactured feelings. That we rarely have time to notice our own. Clearly another part of the problem is that we spend so much of our time in in work environments where where competence and efficiency and a can-do attitude are valued at the expense of our vulnerability. Weakness and feeling. I mean let's face it there's just no room for a hurting person in the great machine of capitalism. Vulnerability is an inefficiency that the market is designed to weed out. For exploit. Just the other day i was noticing that in my neighborhood in washington. It's a ritual on saturday mornings for everyone to go and pick up their laundry at the dry cleaners. Until you see a lot of men walking back home with a week's worth of starched pressed shirts hanging over their shoulder and it struck me the other day that those stiff shirts are part of our emotional armor and that coupled with that tight knot on our necktie serve to keep everything below our neck cut off from us right. I have women friends who tell me that for them it's the lipstick once they put it on they got their professional face on their public face and that masks anything of sadness. Or grief or insecurity. So because we're too busy to have feelings for ourselves we we're really captivated by watching other people remote for us. So we watch oprah or dr. phil or reality television which almost always ends in some cheerful confrontation and these actors perform our emotions for us. They make a spectacle of themselves so that heaven forbid we don't have to. Stuff sometimes this conspiracy against vulnerability manifest itself in. In funny ways. When i was a kid my parents and i would sometimes go on vacation and stay in a hotel. In the morning we wake up and get dressed and you do get ready to do the fun things that you're supposed to do when you're on vacation but inevitably my dad and i would have to wait for my mother who would spend another 15 minutes or so. Picking up the room. Making the bed washing out the basin of the sink. Dorothy mom the main coming in 5 minutes she's going to tear the sheets right off that bed you just remade i know said my mother but i can't let her see a room like this it's filthy we don't like other people to see our dirty laundry. I'm all this is a classic example of a certain kind of white middle-class propriety i know that other cultures. How other cultures where there's a value placed on striving to prove that you made it. I know those cultures produce similar stories that are both laughable and poignant. Poignant because they reveal how desperate we are. To preserve the illusion that we are invulnerable. We can laugh at some of the silly ways we cover up for our messy humanness. But most of the consequences of this conspiracy. Are quite costly to us. And, at the expense of our emotional and psychological health when we cut ourselves off from our feelings we become one-dimensional inauthentic people. Shallow frankly. We are like emotional raves. Dwelling inside are starched shirts and neckties walking around with our lipstick on and feeling hardly anything. This isn't how. We were meant to live. And while we can survive like this for sometime altimate lee this surface existence leads people to a crisis. A midlife crisis or at any other time where they find themselves asking is this all there is. Isn't there anything more. Who am i anyways. Just because we can deny our pain and vulnerability it doesn't mean that they go away. They just go underground. And believe me they're a lot more dangerous there. Then if we just confront them head-on it's like that old saying i'd rather facing the enemy i know then the one that i don't know. Well i'd rather face the pain that i know. Then the one i buried deep inside of me. Hidden inside of us this pain can eat away at our soul like a cancer. Causing self-hatred. Depressions or worse. And the conspiracy against vulnerability cuts us off from other people too from the ones that we love it's a barrier to healthy loving relationships after all how can we expect to be there for someone else's feelings when we can't even be present to our own. In this state we are in incapable of genuine compassion compassion after all means to suffer with someone and you can't suffer with someone if you deny that you suffer at all. Because i've struggled with these issues myself the image that has come back to me over and over again is that. There is this clenched fist. Deep down inside of us. It's as though we hold the most vulnerable parts of ourselves in in the palm of his hand and it's some point or another usually for a very good reason we learned that we had to sort of close the fifth to protect that vulnerable place. But what's happened is it over the years we've just closed the hand tighter and tighter. And tighter until we've just got this angry fist. Offense offense clenched so tight for so long that were afraid now of what might be inside of it. It's like the monsters that we used to fear we're in our closets when we were children the longer we went without opening the closet to see for ourselves the bigger and meaner the monsters appeared to us in our imaginations. Now our pain and suffering is not imaginary but just. But when we refuse to look at it we magnify that problem. If it were afraid that if we lease our release our grip now we will lose control that our despair will be bottomless. We need. To learn to let go. We need to learn to. To relax the grip a little bit. Topeak in between the fingers of our clenched fist and face whatever pain or sorrow we locked in there so long ago. The alternative is to spend the rest of our lives with his clenched fist at the center of our being. 1/5 it every once in awhile we'll lash out and punch us right in the nose. Not to mention the fist that stretton's anyone. Who tries to come close to us. You're one of the great religious stories of all time. Was about a young man who outwitted this conspiracy against vulnerability. Give me the young prince named syd hartha whose father the king wanted only the very best for his son and so he he shield his shield and his son he tried to shield his son from all the pain and suffering in the world which i'm sure it's something that every parent is tempted to do. But all the king's court conspired with the king to keep suffering and frailty and pain from the eyes of the young prince and instead they lavished him with all the luxuries of the world. Until one day the prince was riding in his gilded chariot. And saw an old man resting by the side of the road. When the princess what sort of man is this. His driver said. Siddhartha this is old age. We all become old one day. The next day. Siddhartha went out again in his on his ride and he saw in a ditch by the side of the road just sickly man and he said what sort of man is this. This is illness. Replied the driver. We all can become sick one day. On the third day the prince's chariot encountered a funeral procession. With loved ones weeping over a corpse and when his driver saw the look of shock and horror on the young princes face he said siddhartha all who are born must die. And from that moment on rather than trying to run away from the suffering he had witnessed the young prince left the royal court and began his quest to face the suffering head on. To know it for what it was. And ultimately to move pruitt. True compassion. Two enlightenment. That's the story of the buddha's awakening. Hear it all souls we have said that we want all members of this church to discover the source of love in their lives. The fountainhead from which our joy and our love flows and as your minister i would be remiss if i didn't point out to you that the buddha's story is not unique. That all too often. The path that leads to the source of love in our lives. Passes first. Through the land of our deep suffering and sorrow. And i would be derelict in my duties if i didn't remind you that so often the source of our deepest love dwells right next to our deepest pain side-by-side inside that clenched fist. Down within us. Just waiting to be freed. We must discover. The people. And the places. Then encourage us to be whole human beings. That encouraged us not to deny our vulnerability but to embrace it. Compassionately. We need to find the places where it is safe for us to begin to unclench that fists. And that's a good news. Of the love and the welcome that are embodied in our name all sold for not only is all souls a vision of a community where all people are welcome at the table it is a vision of a community where all the parts of all the people are welcome at the table not just the pretty parts and the efficient parts. But the broken ones too. My prayer. For you. For me and for all of us. Is that we will discover this generous hospitality. Call hospitality that welcomes our whole selves. I pray that we discover it in our intimate relationships. Here in our church. But most importantly. In our own hearts. Because that's where the healing. Of all our wounds. Begins. In the heart's capacity. To forgive itself. For being vulnerable. May it be so. I'm in.


As i begin this morning i'm aware that several of you on your way instead you were looking forward to this morning sermon. Not the least of which i think it's because many of us just spent time with family. And so i hope that this will be a rich conversation because sermons although they are more monologues than conversation i really do see them as a conversation. And this morning's reading is from one of really what i can say is one of the more remarkable books that i have read in quite some time. I can't commend it to you more highly than i would commend it to you now. It was my first experience reading what's called a graphic novel witch. Isn't well away some sense a comic book for adults if he will. It's a book that's entitled fun home. A family tragic-comic she calls it. By woman named alison bechdel. And fun home is because her family runs a funeral home. And the book is a memoir of her experiences with family life. And in particular her examination of her connection with her father who passed away. Oh when she was rather young and her trying to come to grips with and make sense. Of him and her connection to him. And the book begins with her describing the childhood game that she would sometimes play with her father. Of airplane now i'm sure many of you know airplane is that game where you lie on your back and you put your feet up and get the kid right on your feet and get them moving around above your head. And she talks about how that game of airplane with her father came. To her to serve as a metaphor. For the roles that she and her father came to play in one another's lives. I really wish i could read the entire book to you in even more i wish i i could project the images that go with the words because that's part of what makes it. Such a remarkable book is because it's image and word. Married in such a wonderful way. But i'll just share with you this snippet of fun home. In the circus. Acrobatics where one person lies on the floor balancing another. Are called acarien games. In our particular reenactment of this mythic relationship. It was not me but my father. Who was the plummet from the sky. But before he did so he managed to get quite a lot done. His greatest achievement arguably. Was his monomaniacal restoration of our old house. He could conjure an entire finished. interior. From a paint chip. He was an alchemist of appearance. A savant of surface. A daedalus of daycore. For if my father was icarus. He was also daedalus. That skillful artificer. That mad scientist. Who built the wings for his son and designed the famous labyrinth. And who answered knots to the laws of society. But to those of his craft. It could have been a romantic story. Like in it's a wonderful life when jimmy stewart and donna reed fix up that big old house and raised their family there. Sometimes. When things were going well i think my father actually enjoyed having a family. Or at least. The air of authenticity we lent to his exhibit. A sort of still life with children. In this regard. It was a lot like being raised not by jimi but by martha stewart. Ultimately. However. I grew to resent. The way my father treated his furniture. Like children. And his children. Like furniture. Family matters. In some very real sense i feel that i have been working on this sermon my entire life. This is not to say that this morning's sermon will contain whole truths and complete insights about the meaning of family. It is simply to say and honestly to say. The trying to figure out what it means to be part of a family. And now most recently what it means to be part of creating a nuclear family. To become a parent has been some of the most significant work of my life. And i also recognized as i begin and i think it's very important for me to say this. But the topic of family for many is troublesome and problematic. Family is complex for every single one of us. And always has been. Even before there were when there were fewer forms of family than there are now. But for some among us this morning and for perhaps some who avoided even coming to church this morning when they knew i would be speaking about family. Family can be a source of deep hurt. And intense struggle. All of the levels of family. Immediate and extended nuclear and adoptive and in law. All of those connections that come by way of birth and blood and later in life by chosen tithe. Lead to so many ups and downs. And lead to so many constantly negotiated and renegotiated relationships. And so i know as i begin this morning. That what i say is not. Something that can be seen as monolithic or the last word. But that with many of us having just spend sometime over the holidays. Once again in the company of family members. It seems like as good a time as any. To reflect once again on the meaning of family life. So let me begin. With a personal story because how can you speak about family and not have it be at least a little bit personally. When i began my college career and i was in my freshman writing class trying to learn something about what it meant to put some sentences together. I found that i learned a great deal more when i chose to write about my grandfather. I wrote an essay for my freshman 101 writing class. About my mother's father. Edgar allen greene. And my. Up and down feelings about him over the years. I turned in the essay and we gathered in my professor's office several of us to talk about our most recent assignment. And linda brown my professor at the time turn to me when it was my turn to talk about my essay. And she said that she could tell that not only was my writing muddled but my feelings were. Just as much confused. She could tell that i hadn't quite made peace with my relationship with my grandfather. But i wasn't quite sure how i felt. About him. She said something to me then which i will never forget. Not because i remember exactly what she said but because i remember. What it meant to me. She said something to the effect of. Needing to make peace with a fact that it was possible she said. To love someone. That i didn't always like. That it was possible to love someone that i perhaps frequently didn't agree with. It was my first real lesson. Then in the fact that being family to someone doesn't really assure us of anything. But it doesn't guarantee any certain quality of relationship just because you're related. Being family it seemed she said to me. Counted for something. But it sure didn't guarantee or seal the deal. And so was i left her office and pondered my relationship with my grandfather. Pondered the distinctions and differences between love and like. Between love and agreement and disagreement. I realized i was left with some thoughts about legacy. About how we can be grateful to and love those members of our family who have made our lives possible. Even when we don't see eye-to-eye. And so i lift up for you this morning that same question. I've how is it that those we were late to in our families. How is it that weekend. Love them. And thank them and express gratitude and honor the legacy that they have given us. And the roles they have played in shaping us. Even when we don't get along with them. How do we give fagg's. Adequate and honest thanks. To those who made our very existence possible. And yet of course as we all know. Those family connections. Will require more than simple gratitude. At least they will if they're. To be built on something more than just the obligations of family but genuine care and love for one another. So what happens when there isn't more than that. What happens when you have people in your family that you love because they are your family but you don't feel. Genuine like for them. What happens when you don't feel much. In, nor much affection. Or if when truth be told you don't really enjoy their company so much. You find yourself at that family gathering going through what feels like a wrote. Motions of the things that you've always done with these people that he won't but it's really not you. Then what. You know i i brought this up recently with some friends. We were talking about what you can do in these situations how do you handle the limits of family connection. What do you do if and when you feel like it's so much an obligation and not at all or nurturing or life-giving thing to spend time with your family. These are people you're supposed to love your supposed to go spend your obligatory thanksgiving with these people whether you like them or not. But what if you don't have to. Is it ever okay to choose less connection is it ever okay to walk away altogether. Well i haven't quite decided that for myself yet but i can see where there are times when maybe it's okay. To say that that tv image of the perfect family. Those images we've been handed of what it means to be a family member. Whether they're functional or dysfunctional. That sometimes it's okay to say that enough is enough. But sometimes it's okay. To say maybe this. Just isn't going to work. What are we called to be. Who are we called to be with our families. I don't think it's that person who just sits through family gatherings because you're supposed to. I think the calling is to find a way to be family. That feels real. I think we're called to create family ties that are more than simply a give in. That are meaningful. In their own way not just because we are family to one another but because our connection has love and care and beauty all its own. And that means sometimes. When that isn't the case. Giving ourselves permission. Collect go. Or to give up. When nothing seems to work. Clearly friends. There are many times when our images of family only confuse us more. When are. Send stuff what family should be. Only makes it harder to actually be in a family. And i've been thinking a lot lately about how we talked about all souls church. We sometimes say it's our church family. We have it every week that we are part of a great family of all souls. And yet i think if we are going to continue to throw around the word family all the time. We might need to do some defining of terms. Not just. About what family is which of course is the hot topic in our society. Who gets to say who's in a family and what kind of constellation of people creates a family. I'm not really interested in that debate. Because as far as i'm concerned it's really not a debate worth having families our family's love is love you're a family your family that's it. What i am interested in what i am interested in especially in the context of our church. Is thinking seriously about why we throw it around the word family and how confusing it is to not really know what that means are even how hurtful that is for people for whom family. Is just a sad and difficult and tangled web. We are not family to one another at all souls church in my mind what we are to one another is community. We are people that can remind one another. The network of care and compassion stretches further than blood relatives and. Friends in that typical sense. We are a community of friendship and kinship. In that sense that we are part of a great family. Of. Love and community not family by blood not family and even the. Broadest sense of that term. I suppose what i'm trying to say is that while their qualities that church and family share. Being to fant being family to someone. Is a much more complicated thing that we don't actually have in this building in our relationships to each other. Being family to someone is rooted in staying connected. No matter what. Through ups and downs. It's it's rooted in. Being with people. Leave a room for you to be your true and full self. Which i know some immediate family is doing always do i know you've just been come on it's in the holidays we should leave been with those people who don't allow you to fully be yourself. And yet. These distinctions. He's important distinctions between family and not family. I think will help us. Cannot expect something from one another here at the church. In our church community. That is unrealistic. Where do you expect. Or to confuse and conflate or delay or over on top of our church family. All that we bring with us baggage and otherwise. From our biological families. So let me close. This confusing conversation about family. With another personal story. About my own family. As many of you know my own family has been a source of great confusion and great joy for me not the least of which because the two sides of my family are different races. I went to summer to visit my paternal grandmother. The only living grandparent that i've got left. My nana as i call her who is 89 years old. And is in a retirement community up in new hampshire. That is a specially created for those with memory loss issues. My grandmother is now suffering from alzheimer's disease. And she wasn't quite sure who i was. She certainly didn't remember meeting my partner before and she had no idea who this baby was that we brought to see her other than that she was cute. She was very clear that there was a very cute baby. Several times as we sat there with my grandmother with my nana she turned to my father who was there and said. So you never did have any children. And i realized in that moment. In that complicated. Family moment. That that woman. Wilma burton goodwin. Will always be my grandmother. And i will always be her granddaughter whether she remembers it or not. That i will always be linked to her in ways that i will never fully comprehend. Ways beyond our physical features that are similar. Beyond our character attributes and love of jazz that we share in common. That i will always be her granddaughter and in her debt. But at the same time. I will have to be my own person. She will not remember for me who i am becoming or where i have been. That i have to write for myself. This reminded me that that's. What being part of a family is really like. It's about knowing that you are connected to people in ways that you cannot ask for. But you cannot ever let go of. And yet you will at some point have to be your own person. Chart your own path and course. That will sometimes taking closer to those members of your family and sometimes will take you further away. For family is that place. Where our identities intersect. Where we are child and sibling. Where we are parent or grandparent aunt or uncle. And where we run into trouble. When those roles and those responsibilities become so fixed. So immovable. That we. Can't find ourselves anymore. And don't feel empowered to be ourselves at all. And so my prayer for us. Not only in this new year but in every year in our connections with family. Is that our family ties might lead us. Always to give thanks for the origins of our being. And also remind us that we are the authors of our own stories. But love and care and connection are much more than skin or even blood deep. That we can create family. With nearly anyone. And that the lessons of family. Teach us who we are and who we aren't. Friends may we seek ties. And when we need to may we be willing to let them go. So that our flourishing as human beings. Can be as full. And as whole. Andaz. Encompassing. As embracing as possible. So may it be. And i'm mad.


A few weeks ago a woman came up to me after church. And said she needed to talk. I haven't seen her in over a year she had come to all souls while attending college in dc but it since moved to the gulf coast. To help rebuild after hurricane katrina. When we finally sat down to speak in my office she told me more of her story a story she's giving me permission to share with you this morning. She left for louisiana a year-and-a-half ago eager to lend a hand in that devastated community. But what you found when she got there. Was even worse than she'd imagined. She described for me. The relentless emotional and psychological strain. Of living and working. In a disaster zone. She spoke of the rage that she felt. At the injustice of it all and how day after day. She had to swallow that rage like a bitter pill. Because of one setback after another. In the relief effort. She told me she'd watch co-workers crack and break down under the emotional stress for no matter how much you work no matter how many hours you put in there always remained an overwhelming amount of work. To be done. And when this young woman's felt. Began to feel that she herself was about to break down she got out. She took a break. Just for a few months. When we spoke she was about to return for another year. Her question to me that morning. The reason she pulled me aside and asked for some words alone was to ask me essentially this. What can i do. To save my soul. What can i do. To save my soul. I shouldn't mean save in the sense of being saved from sin and let into heaven. Cement saved in the sense of. Survival. What can i do to keep my soul from being torn to shreds. In the midst of so much suffering how do i hold a peaceful center. In the midst of such tragedy how do i find grace. What can i do. To save my soul. I share this woman's story with you for two reasons first because i know that many of you have been deeply affected. By your own experience visiting and working in new orleans. Large group from the church went last spring and many of you have been i know on your own. And i thought you could relate to her story. But i have another reason for sharing it a reason to takes me to the heart of my sermon this morning. Because this young woman's story offers in my mind a glimpse into a side of spirituality that we don't often see portrayed in our culture. These days. We tell you what i mean. I am concerned that that spirituality. Has become terribly. Waterdown. In our contemporary. American culture. As if a spiritual life or just another choice. In a menu of life enhancements opportunities. Let me explain earlier this summer i was struck by this when i walked into a pharmacy. What we used to call a drugstore. And overheard a customer ask an employee something i never thought i'd hear asked for in a drugstore. Even a high-end. Holistic drugstore which this was. In berkeley california. The gentleman asked the employee at the drugstore. Do you have any little. Buddhas. And he asked as naturally as if he just said you carry advil in the tiny gel caps. I was further surprised when the employees smiled and said why yes we have little buddhas. And proceeded to show the gentleman i display of not only buddha's small and large i might add. But yoga mats. Candles incense and a smattering of self-help books. And that's when it struck me that spirituality in america is in danger of becoming something that we merely consume. Grab off the shelf. Or worse. That it has become a luxury item. Like getting a facial. Or a spa treatment. Something to make the good life. Even better. And so i share this woman's story to remind us that that properly understood the nurturing and sustaining of our souls is not a luxury but a necessity. Sometimes even a matter of survival. A desperate attempt to keep our lives from careening out of control consumed by sorrow or anxiety. For pain. Into the young woman's question still remains before us. What can i do. To save my soul. Call religious ancestors on the unitarian side. Were among the first spiritual seekers in the west to shift. The essential question of religion from. How do i save my soul for the afterlife. 2. How do i sustain my soul. In this life. Basically believe that they believe that if we took care of our spiritual business in this life. The next one would take care of itself. Msr shift is our focus shifted from the bye and bye. To the here and now. They stopped uri in chance. The world. A world that have been dedicated by both orthodox believers who called it a valid tears and secular materialists who saw it as nothing more than a machine. They went about searching for the holy. In the mundane. They studied human life. Human fulfillment and liberation. The nature of a just society the earth and her creatures believing that the holy could be found here in our very midst we didn't have to look elsewhere. Just as the rabbi studies the torah and love it lovingly immerse himself in his complex minutiae and nuance and contradiction believing that in the midst of all that he'll find god. Our unitarian ancestors lavished reverent attention. Upon this world. Believing that in its minutiae. It's nuanced. It's contradiction. Could be a sound assurances of. And guidance from. The spirit. Life. Was there scripture. But in order for life to reveal its meaning to us. We had to bring a certain quality to our living. Said the early unitarians and they called that quality. Reverence. Irreverence is one of those words that i think we all have a sense of what it means but it's sometimes hard to really pin down. Premier everence is fundamentally. Adeeb. Respect. It is an attitude of all. And wonder. Ingratitude. For something of high or ultimate value. Albert schweitzer. The doctor and theologian famous for his concept of reverence for life. Had this to say about reverence and i hope you'll listen carefully. He said. Affirmation of life. Is the spiritual act. By which man. Women. Ceases to live. Unreflective lee. And begins to devote himself to his life with reverence. In order to raise it. To its true value. I want to say that again and make sure it's sing sin he said affirmation of life is the spiritual act. By which woman. Ceases to live. Unreflective lee. And begins to devote herself to her life. With reverence. In order to raise it. To its true value. For schweitzer as well as our unitarian ancestors reverence was not merely an attitude. With a way of life. A practice. I'll practice characterized by careful reflective. Pension. To life. And its meaning. Let me share with you a quick story about this practice of reverence. Or the lack thereof. This summer i took a hike in the marin headlands. Just north of san francisco. My hike began the path begin deep in a wooded gulch. That gradually switched back up out of the dark woods. And onto a sun-drenched bank filled with. Big scratchy brush. Bushes. That that loomed over my head in the end that claude at my clothes as i walked by so that i could barely see on either side of me. From time to time the brush. Would russell and crack. Under the weight of an animal. Pawpaw. And i was certain that one of the mountain lions that still stalk the marin headlands was about to pounce. On me. Luckily it was just a deer. Find me the brush cleared and i emerged on the top of the hill. With views. All around. In front of me. With the pacific ocean. Shimmering in the sun stretching to the horizon. And behind me. Over the next mountain. I could see the tops. Of the two rust-colored stanchions of the golden gate bridge. With san francisco silhouetted. In the distance. I paused for a moment. And took in the view. But having reached the culmination of my hike and honestly. Still a little anxious about the mountain lions. I quickly headed back down. But after a few moments i stopped myself and reflected on what i just done. On the beauty. I turned my back on. And i'm march myself back up that hill. And sat down. And just savored. Pausing in reverence attention. Before the earth's beauty. Giving thanks. Pursue some path. Said theroux. However narrow and crooked. In which you can walk. With love. And reverence. The spiritual riches that life offers us are not revealed. By a cursory glance. Or surface impression. Life's meaning is revealed. In its texture. Units details. And the only way we're going to notice is if we cultivate a practice. Irreverent. Living. Taking time to savor. And to give. Thanks. What can i do. To save my soul. Before the young woman left my office that morning i pressed into her hand. A little sheet of instructions. They were instructions. For a prayer. A meditation really. The central spiritual practice of our unitarian ancestors is what i put into her hands. You see. Aware that reverence doesn't always come naturally. Aware that there are people like me who can look at a sun-drenched ocean and turn and walk away. Early unitarians developed practices designed to cultivate reverend living. Practices that the develop habits of attentiveness and sensitivity to the spiritual dimension. Omar lives. Now hopefully the ushers have pressed a similar instruction sheet. Into your hands. This morning this one eye is what i'm talking about now. I have these printed up yesterday and i. I delegated the color choice to someone else in the office and i might not have chosen fuchsia. On which the prince of the meditative self-examination though. I was picking on fuchsia and the first service and the the future twins down here in the future down here in the choir took exception to my future, i'm not going to. But on this little card lays out the meditative discipline that i'm talking about. Each day before going to bed our ancestors would take themselves. On a guided meditation of their day. Carefully. Reverently recalling its details. They paid attention to their relationships. Asking if they treated others with respect and love. They notice the work they've done. And asked if it was principled and righteous. They look for glimpses of grace signs of the spirit little moments they might have otherwise overlooked in the rush of their day. They examine the moral and ethical situations that they faced during the day and judge whether they cheated the demands. A conscience. They poured over their lives like the rabbi over his torah. Convinced that it would yield truth. And meaning. And at the end of the meditation that usually fell into prayer. Prayers of gratitude for the blessings of the day. Prayers of forgiveness for that which needed forgiving. And a promise. To make good on the day. By going into tomorrow weiser. Ambetter. Now when you look at it on its little. Piece of fuchsia cardstock. It doesn't look like a very special thing. It doesn't look like it has anything to do with a mountaintop experience or or straw struggling soul. In new orleans. But i think it has everything to do with those experiences. Her only by cultivating a habit. Of reverence. Day in and day out. Can we experience it. In our daily lives. That's what spiritual practices are for. Exercises designed to develop. Our faculties. I've been practicing this. This practice now off and on for over 10 years. And despite. Lapses that i shared with you earlier in the sermon. I recommended to you highly. It has deepened. My life. When the young woman left my office that morning i reflected. On our time together and was reminded. Have a story that a mentor of mine once told. You told me about a time when he was a young man. And he one time was consumed with with rage. And with sorrow. And he was driven to prayer at that during that time not. By the love of god. For he didn't even believe in god back then. But out of a desperate need. Quail that rage. I'm at sorrow. Well his crisis was averted and the rage has subsided. But thirty years later he still praying. Every morning. And now he'll tell you he wouldn't give it up. For the world. Because its prayer life has added in measurable depth. And richness. To his life. And she left my office that morning. My wish. For the young woman. Was that a prayer turns to in crisis. Might one day for her. Become a source of not only solace. But a rich. And reverence. Living. And that's my prayer for all of us.


So here we are. A sunday after rob's last sunday for 6 and a half months and. I simply want to say first and foremost before i begin the the reading and sermon this morning that i appreciate all of the vote of confidence that many of you have. Whispered in my direction. Many of you have asked me how it's going it's only been a week so ask me again later but so far so good. And i want to appreciate especially jennifer keller's comment to me that this morning that this is the first time in a hundred and eighty-five years that a woman has been leading this congregation so i follow in the footsteps so take that nancy pelosi. So this morning sermon all kidding aside is that entitled out lives in context. And the reading this morning i will beg your indulgence upon its a bit academic and tone. But it's from a book that i found rather fascinating of sociological studies. A book with the wonderful title together alone. Personal relationships in public places. And the authors of this book. Spent time in myriad different locations. And i just love the image of people sitting like in a bar or coffee shop or a gym writing notes about people so look out there might be sociologist watching you wherever you are. They were at playgrounds and inns around support groups in gyms and bars examining how we modern americans are and are not connecting with one another in public places. And at the end of the book. The editors of it. Calvin borel david snow and cindy white. Draw a few conclusions and even more than that raised more questions. That their research points toward. And here's some just a little bit of what they have to say. Who won is. Depends on where one is. Identity resides not in the individual alone. But in the interaction between the individual and his or her social environment. Indeed particular places can highlight or suppress particular aspects of one's identity. And once interactional practices. Interactional. How you relate to be. Thus increasing the likelihood. That one will enact the kinds of relational ties most prevalent in that setting. We now live. In the 21st century. And it is clear that the relational landscape. Has been transformed to include. A greater role for public sociality. Accelerated social mobility. Alternative family forms. And electronically mediated relationships. That could not have been envisioned by previous generation. What is unclear. Is how this new relational landscape. Especially the fleeting and anchored relationships in public places. Links to what are considered more durable and intimate. Ties. How and under what conditions. Do public connections. Compensate for lost or absent. Primary relay. And the sociological. So what does all this mean. What it means to me is that the news about how well we modern americans connect to one another. Is not at all promising. In together alone the sociologist make it clear that although the ways that we can connect with one another. Have never been more variety very dormir.. We are more often are around each other. But we're not necessarily interacting in ways that are significant or meaningful. The sociologist robert putnam in his oft-cited book bowling alone. Has bemoaned the loss of civic organizations. Which used to serve as a sort of glue that held neighborhoods and communities more closely together. We've lost the social capital he says. To get things done. To advance causes that we care about. And most importantly to care for one another. And most recently headlines proclaimed that a duke university study. That was in the june issue of the american sociological review. Had found that most americans now have fewer clothes ties. Then ever before. Certainly more so than in the past several decades. There's circle of confidence is smaller than ever. Apparently only 25% of the people that they surveyed in this duke study. 25% percent said that they have had absolutely nobody to confide in anymore. A third of the people said that they had fewer friends than they used to. Smaller and smaller our circle of connections in spite of the fact that there are more and more ways for us to connect. More and more ways in which we are around each other all the time. So why is this the case. Why are we in one another's company but not really knowing each other. Well i suppose the short answer is because our lives are complicated. I'm not sure that they're more complicated than they used to be but i suppose that some would argue they are. We are busy people. And we have so many things which influence us and which push upon us and demand our time and attention. In the midst of all of the news and the popular culture and the internet searches and the opinions of other people around us. We find it hard in that swirl. To figure out. Coo and. What an. How it is that we should be. In this world. We find it harder and harder to feel grounded. To feel situated somewhere to feel clear. About who it is that we are. How it is that we might pull ourselves together in. Some. Coalesced being. The den of our culture of our world. Around us is so loud. That we can no longer hear the still small voice within. Which some might call conscience. Others of us soul and other still god. We can't hear. Unless we go out of our way to create a space. That will allow us to listen. And then he'd the admonitions of hours for. How can we now. Hold fast to. What we most want. For our lives. Not simply what is most convenient. Or what is most popular. Of course nothing that i've just said is surprising to you. We all know all of this that our lives are busy and complicated. Confusing. What i'm worried about is that too often our response is to sort of take our toys and go home. Too often our response is to close ourselves off it's all just too much so we retreat. Things are so hectic and so confusing and so much as asked of us. That most of the time we rather engage les. Shut other people out and simply circle the wagons of our lives if. And to go from home to work. And back again. Trying to do as little as possible outside of those two spheres of our existence. And then somewhere along the line. We decide that that isn't satisfying either. That living life in a bubble of home and work. Not interacting with anyone beyond our most immediate circle. Isn't satisfying enough. We longed for more connection. And we know that our lives.


Our meeting for this morning comes from lifesigns by henri nouwen a widely recognized rotor writer who spent many years as the master of daybreak a community for intellectually disabled people in toronto. Before his death in 1996. Fearful distance and fearful closeness. Are noticeable in the larger context of our lives. Prison mental hospitals in refugee camps are often built far away from the places where normal people live. To keep the fear evoking strangers at a safe distance. Other types of distance abound. Safe topics to discuss. Fake issues to get involved in safe subject to write about. One can find the safe closeness of the clique. The sect or the club. Places where people huddled together in mutual admiration or common suspicion of the outsider. In a time like ours. When fear takes on an apocalyptic dimension. Is extremely tempting to join a small group they called non-members useless. Dangerous or evil. And offers a unique sense of belonging. To those who. Follow the rules. But whether through distance for a closeness. Fear prevents us. From forming an intimate community. In which we can grow together. Everyone in his or her own way. When fear separates us. Or joins us. We can no longer confess to each other our sins. Our brokenness. And. Our wounds. How then can we forgive each other and come to reconciliation. Distance allows us to ignore the other. Is having no significance in our lives. And closeness. Office of an excuse. For never expressing or confessing. Our feelings of being hurt. A few months ago. I met a 10 year old boy. While having dinner at the friend of a friend's house. I was actually the driver so they had to invite me in. The boy was the son of a couple hosting a dinner party. And he appeared average in every way. Slight build glasses. Quiet and polite when introduced to the adult. And after the introductions he probably chose something from the refrigerator. And disappeared. Every evening drew to a close. I stepped out of the room to get some fresh air. On my way out i noticed the ten-year-old at the computer and one of the rooms down the hall. I casually asked. What are you doing. I'm looking for information about chakras. Is it true that there's a connection between what goes on a and what goes on out there. If it's truly could really help people. Whoa not the response i was expecting i was expecting nothing playing games emailing. Definitely definitely not a boy engaged in an intense search for the truth behind the power of chakra. With the express intent of saving the world. I recovered from my surprise quickly. And i moved towards the boy if he began pointing to the screen and saying you see this blue here that's where the spirit is and this red circle that's the chakra. Anjappar wondering how we can connect the two. I knelt down beside him and we talked about the spirit and spiritual power and the ways people connect the two. At the close of our conversation he thanked me for talking with him. I think his words were. Thanks for help me figure this out. I quickly shared my thanks because i felt we work this out together and that there was much more to understand. Ebony hot dog to the next adventure. Although we didn't put our feelings into words. I suspect he's so grateful for the opportunity to share his questions and thoughts with someone. I know i felt grateful. But the openness and trust he shared with me. I felt honored to enter the struggle for meaning with him. On a topic he felt intensely curious about. Even if only for a moment. As unitarian universalist. We know something about this feeling of gratitude. In finding a community. Where are questions are affirmed. Even when we know the answers are not immediately available. Nor perhaps. Will be ever become completely known. We appreciate the willingness of others. To accompany us on the quest. And we explicitly affirm this support in two of our principles. We covenant. To affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning. And we will practice acceptance of one another. And encouragement and spiritual growth. In our congregations. As we consider embodying these principles in our lives. It's helpful to remember i think. The vision of a church stated quite simply by unitarian universalist minister angus maclean. He writes. There are times. Occasions. Areas. In which we as individuals are strong. And there are times and places. Where it is hazardous for us to go it alone. That is why in my opinion. The church could be of immeasurable service to us as individuals. If it's partly live up to what i envision for it. I may be just a visionary. But i do not think it beyond us at the church. To have support. One another in arlo moment. And on the other hand have outlets for strength. When and where we are strong. It is certainly my vision. To contribute to creating more spaces at all souls church. Where we can reasonably expect. You have the support of one another in our times of need. Well on the other hand making space for the full expression of our strengths and gifts. When we're feeling strong. I believe we move closer to this vision. By realizing the truth. And spiritual growth. Sometimes require. Us to move beyond asking. How are you. And invites us to abandon the usual response. Find. Okay. I want to reassure you that casual conversation is appropriate most of the time. The point is. Can we move beyond it when we need to. Can we create the time and a space. To ask bottle question. And can we openly and honestly share ourselves with one another. What gets in the way of an honest answer to the question. How are you. 41. In a culture that teaches us. Probably or stubbornly go it alone. It's hard to ask for help. Or confess our weaknesses. We are afraid of rejection. Misunderstanding. And the whole embarrassment of it all. We sometimes fall back on the notion that we are private people. And uncomfortable with sharing our grief. Our sorrow. Or hurts with others. I want something i heard licensed psychologist dr. robin smith say on this subject. She said. You were not born private. The world taught you to be that way. You were not born private. Allowing for differences in personality. Some of us are truly introverts and shy. And some of us dislike the spotlight. We have to find a way of speaking our heart that matches and work for a personality style. I want to suggest if there is freedom in these words. You were not going private. There's freedom for those of us who hold on too tightly to our feeling. For fear what will happen if we let down our guard. Is one who has been there i can attest to how difficult it is to share your thoughts and feelings with others. But in time you get better. And the best thing is. You get heard. It's also a challenge to bear witness to the pain and suffering of others. When we are with others are inability to saul. Or help them solve the problem. Makes us angry. And uncomfortable. We cannot heal the wounds or answer the question. Then we would like to. You would rather not know too much. Knowing the whole truth. In recognizing our inability to change things. Brings us face-to-face with our limitations. And our fears. We avoid the scary topics. Purse. they will meet a challenge we can't overcome. In a book of conversation starters entitled turning to one another. Meg wheatley tells the story of a south african woman. Who she says began to tell the story of true horror. How she found her grandparents slaughtered in their village. Wheatley continues. Many of the women were westerners. And in the presence of such pain they instinctively wanted to do something. They wanted to fix. Make it better. Anyting to remove pain of his tragedy. Such a young life. The young woman felt the compassion. But i also felt them closing in. She put her hands up as if to say. Thanks. But i don't need you to fix me. I just need you to listen to me. The women learn the lesson in the power of listening. That can heal. What it can't fix. We are listen to. That can be enough. It takes effort. Sometimes a lot of effort to listen intentionally to another's pain. And faith in the healing power of listening. My pastoral care instructor called it listening for both the words and the music. When we listen deeply to another we hear not only the words. But the unnamed feelings and truth behind the word. When have you experienced someone listening deeply to you. What difference did it make for you when someone reached out and cared. Crossing the safe distance together as unitarian universalist. Means opening yourself up to the stories and questions and experiences of others. Those around us. And enjoying the blessing of others. Being with others. What does that mean being with others. We know for example there's a long tradition in a christian. Story. A describing being with others as a means of dwelling in the spirit. Who where two or three are gathered together in my name there am i in the midst of them. And we know the jewish tradition honors relating to one another as an extension of rain relating to the eternal vow. All real living is meeting the jewish scholar butter martin buber states. It is turning forward one another. That we find an experience wholeness. The lakota sioux in the smoking of what is often called the peace pipe with the words. We are all related. An assertion of the spiritual friendship among the participants. And we are aware. Of the ordinary groups of friends and neighbors. Explaining the completion of a project. But impossible in the beginning with these simple words. Some friends and i started talking. Organizational consultant meg wheatley reminds us. There is no power for change. Greater than a community. Discovering what it cares about. It is the power of being together. Avene with others which leads to lasting changes. As unitarian universalist we tend to speak of being with other as entering into covenant. Being with others refers to our ability to accept. One another. Offer encouragement to spiritual growth. To live in right relation with one another. We choose to commit ourselves to being good friends. And good neighbors. As a spiritual practice. Henry nelson wyman called being with others on this level. The creative interchange. The creative interchange move beyond what he calls the cliche. The scale convention. Any automatic reactions we encountered. In casual conversation. He concluded that without creative interchange we experienced a spiritual death. Weiman understood the need to share our experiences vividly. With all the life and color and energy that we can muster. As a creative process. A creative process for deepening our sense of self. And our capacity to give an experience love. We gather in this community. Because we know what it means to encounter the blessing of being with others. It means opening our hearts and minds.