From your minister

Star Light

2009-12-24T12:38:00.000-08:00

“Star Light”

A Christmas Eve Homily by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
December 24, 2009

Christmas has always been a magical time for me—not always an easy time, but always a magical time. I’m remembering a December when I was barely old enough to read. My excitement was already stirring as our home filled with the sites and scents of Christmas. Then a story arrived in the mail. Like some holiday surprise, it was all but hidden in one of the magazines to which my parents subscribed. When I spotted a different kind of illustration on the cover, I was curious. I tucked myself into a corner of our sofa, opened it up, and came upon the story of “The Littlest Angel.”

Now the birth stories that I read from the Gospels of Luke and Matthew have nothing to say about a little angel. Perhaps it’s enough that Luke even mentioned angels and Matthew told of wise men and a star. This other story stretched the magic.

It starts off with the sad tale of a small boy who became an angel. Its author, Charles Tazewell, never wrote that the boy had died; he simply began talking about a little angel, who was newly arrived in heaven and not at all happy to be there. He was gloomy and grumpy and completely uncooperative. Throughout heaven, he quickly became known as “The Littlest Angel,” because he arrived there when he was just four and a half years old….way too young for such a place, but there he was.

You would think he would be grateful to be in such a glorious space; but he just stomped around, teary-eyed and making it clear that he was not impressed. Nor was the big angel who stood at the entrance impressed with him, but she had to let him in because Heaven is for everyone. Somehow he had made it through the gates with a favorite toy, a whistle. Once inside, he took it from a secret pocket in a fold of his robe and blew it so hard that all the other angels covered their ears in fright. He didn’t even look like an angel. His tiny halo was tarnished, and when he ran recklessly through the clouds, he barely managed to keep it atop his small cherubic head. When he tried to fly, all the other angels held their breath, for he would shut his eyes tightly and count to a hundred before hurling himself into the clouds. He was simply terrified, so he forgot to move his wings.

Clearly our littlest angel needed some talking to about heavenly behavior. So the Welcoming Angel took his plump little hand in hers and walked him over to the Angel of Understanding. Suddenly he felt a lot more comfortable, and he took a long deep breath, as he tucked his robe in and glanced up to see a smile take shape on the face of the Angel of Understanding. “So you’re the one who’s been causing such mischief!” he said. “Come here; tell me all about it.” With a quick flap of his wings, our Littlest Angel found himself on a soft lap of understanding.

“You don’t know,” he whimpered. “You don’t know how hard it is for a little boy who suddenly becomes an angel. There’s nothing to do here. There aren’t many kids for me to play with. All the swings are this gross gold. There are no ballgames. You just don’t understand!”

But the Understanding Angel did understand. He smiled warmly as he remembered another little boy of long ago. Then, like a heavenly Santa Claus, he asked the Littlest Angel what would make him happy here. The Littlest Angel wrinkled his brow and thought for a long time. Then he whispered into his elder’s ear.

After this visit, everyone wondered at the change that had come over the Littlest Angel. He skipped about. He said “Please” and “Thank you.” He even whistled more like a flute and less like an angry policeman. And he flew with a newfound ease that matched the grace of any angel in Heaven.

_________________________

Years passed, hundreds of years, and it came to the time that another little boy was to be born. The birthplace of this other child was in a town called Bethlehem. The Littlest Angel knew this was a big event, because the finest angelic voices were chosen for the choir that would be sent to sing that night to shepherds on a hillside, telling them about this new little boy. What could he do? What could he give to this newborn child who was so special that he had his very own choir announcing his arrival? His voice hadn’t earned him a place in the choir. He couldn’t even write a carol for them to sing. And he had no fine toys to give to the new baby. What could he possibly do?

Just as Jesus was born to Mary and Joseph in a shabby old barn behind an inn in Bethlehem, a very worried looking little angel showed up with a small box tucked in his hands. It wasn’t a fancy box; in fact it was quite plain, but inside it were all the things that he thought another Child of God might enjoy. It was a box that he treasured from his own few years on earth. When he had received it not so long ago from the Angel of Understanding, it had made him so happy.

Shuffling forward, the littlest angel placed his box next to the manger. Then he backed up, for he saw all the other gifts lying there, gifts of such rare beauty and magnificence that his looked shabby by comparison. “Oh no!” he thought. Maybe there was time to take it back. Maybe there was time to think up something else. But it was too late! The Hand of the Heavenly Host moved across all the gifts gathered at the manger. As it touched upon the gift of the Littlest Angel, it paused. The Littlest Angel was in tears, he was so embarrassed.

As his gift was opened, everyone present saw for themselves what he had chosen for the newborn babe. There was a butterfly with wings that were pure gold, a butterfly that he had caught one day on the hillside above his home. There was a robin’s egg, a sky-blue robin’s egg that had fallen from the nest of a tree he had climbed. And there were two stones that glowed in the moonlight, stones that he and his friends had played with, making up all kinds of games that he had been sure this new child would figure out for himself. Finally, there was a raggedy tooth-marked strap, once worn as a collar by his dog, who had died just as the littlest angel had lived, with utter enthusiasm.

How had he possibly thought his gift was so wonderful? Why had he thought that the baby Jesus would treasure his choices? He cried and cried. Everyone at the manger grew silent, embarrassed for him.

Then suddenly, a voice rose among them and filled the earth and all of heaven, and everyone there heard the words:

“Of all the gifts of all the angels, I find that this small box pleases me most. Its contents are of the earth and of children, and this newborn babe is a child of the earth. These are exactly the things he will come to know and love and cherish. I accept this gift in the name of the Child, Jesus, born this night in Bethlehem!”

Suddenly the shabby old box began to glow. It became a brilliant flame, and the flame rose and grew bright as it soared into the heavens. The Littlest Angel watched with amazement as he saw the flame become a Star. Yet it was only he who saw it rise and watched it take its place, because everyone else was blinded by its brilliance. There it shone in the night sky over the manger of Bethlehem. Its light was so radiant that it was reflected down through the centuries into the hearts of all humankind.

Who knew that the simple gift of the Littlest Angel had turned into the shining star of Bethlehem?

Lest we wonder if this is a story for children only, consider that it was written in 1939 and first heard by children and their parents on a radio show and not even issued as a story in print until 1946. The fathers and mothers of those years knew well the treasure of youth who cherished their childhoods and loved life and left far too soon. Of course, of course they would understand that from the hopeful heart of a child newly arrived in heaven and a child newly arrived on earth springs a common language, a language of butterflies and robin eggs and stones for skipping and dogs for hugging and stars for shining.

May the gifts that we give rise from the child in us. May the gifts that we receive find the child in us on this magical night. Amen.

Sources:

The Gospel According to Matthew and The Gospel According to Luke, in The Bible (Revised Standard Version).

The Littlest Angel Book Review, http://hubpages.com/hub/The-Littlest-Angel-by-Charles-Tazewell-Book-Review.

Tom Longden, “Charles Tazewell: Famous Iowans,” DesMoinesRegister.com,

Charles Tazewell, illustrated by Katherine Evans, The Littlest Angel, Grossett and Dunlap, New York, 1946.

"A Selection Sublimely Natural"

2009-11-22T08:14:00.000-08:00

“A Selection Sublimely Natural”
Evolution Sunday
on the occasion of the 150th anniversary on November 24
of the publication of Charles Darwin’s The Origin of Species

Reflections by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
November 22, 2009

An Amazing Story – I

Just months ago we observed in Sunday morning worship the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Darwin on February 12, 1809. As a congregation, we participated in Evolution Sunday; and no, it’s not just Unitarian Universalist congregations that celebrate the ties that bind religion and science. We joined with over a thousand congregations of all sorts from every state and 15 countries. Today we’re an early bird congregation in celebrating these ties. Most participants are waiting until February to do so, with Darwin’s birthday as the benchmark. So far, 550 congregations from 49 states and nine countries will participate in “Evolution Weekend 2010.” New congregations are still signing on for this next observance. But there’s an interim anniversary that I believe is cause for celebration now—that is, the 150th anniversary of the publication of The Origin of Species. November 24, 1859 marked a life changing event about life changing.

I knew as I sorted my thoughts for our earlier celebration that I must read it, so I made a foolish promise. I vowed that with summer’s arrival, I would take The Origin to the beach with me and complete it there—silly me! If Darwin had his reasons for delaying publication of his seminal theory of natural selection, I suppose I’m permitted to follow in the same spirit—that is, putting off the actual packing the book into my beach bag, hoping it wouldn’t drown in sunscreen or saltwater, and settling in for a good long and not easy read.

July passed. August passed. In the early days of September, Darwin accompanied me to the beach, and I dived in—to the waves, yes, but also into the pages of this remarkable work that is aptly read in a setting that breathes eternal change, a setting where land and ocean and the creatures of both are in the constant throes of what we might call a selection sublimely natural.

Let’s work backward from the publication of Darwin’s epiphany. Epiphany…a term commonly used to convey a religious revelation, yet so adaptable to an event that conveyed a revelation of nature. Epiphanies often hold hard truths to which we often respond with doubt, denial, even hostility and rage. So it was when The Origin of Species moved from Darwin’s desk to the shelves of British booksellers.

In Darwin’s diary, he posts in the autumn of 1859:

“Finished proofs (thirteen months and ten days) of Abstract on Origin of Species; 1250 copies printed. The first edition was published on November 24th, and all copies sold first day.”

A second edition, of 3,000 copies, was issued on January 7, 1860, less than two months after the first. Four editions would follow.

Why did it take Charles Darwin so long—20 years to be exact—to formulate his findings in a volume that he could share with the larger public? The short and sermon-friendly answer is that he was concerned about the response of religious leaders, and he was concerned about the response of his dear wife. The prevailing theory of Creation was—and still is in many quarters—that species were created distinctly and separately by God and that humankind is one of these species. The term Creationism applies in current rhetoric. Darwin wrote in The Origin:

“On the view that each species has been independently created, I can see no explanation of this great fact in the classification of all organic beings; but, to the best of my judgment, it is explained through inheritance and the complex action of natural selection, entailing extinction and divergence of character…” (113)

It was his practice throughout the manuscript of The Origin of Species to explain himself, to give all possible evidence for the theory of natural selection over distinct acts of creation, and to serve up the harvest of observation that he had gleaned on his five-year voyage on the HMS Beagle, that extended from late December 1831 to early October, 1836.

“The voyage of the Beagle,” wrote Darwin decades later, “has been by far the most important event in my life, and has determined my whole career…” (Autobiography, 31)

Just a few short years after returning to Britain, he began to distill his theory of natural selection. Yet eight of his published works would precede publication of The Origin. If one can procrastinate productively, Darwin did it, aided and abetted by a strong dose of anxiety. In the reflections that he wrote in his final years, he explained how in the common struggle for existence that he observed in the habits of animals and plants, it struck him that

“…under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formations of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it.” (Autobiography, 48)

All the while he was writing about other, related matters of science. His published works totaled 19, again, eight of them issued before The Origin.

The concerns of his wife, Emma, also figured in Darwin’s reticence to publish his theory early on. I trust that the recent PBS film, “Darwin’s Darkest Hour,” cites a historic conversation between Charles Darwin and his physician father, Dr. Robert Waring Darwin. The two are astride a coach bumping across the English countryside, and young Charles confides to his father his hope to marry Emma Wedgewood, who happened also to be his cousin. (Surely not enough was known, even by Charles Darwin, about the possible consequences of marrying one’s cousin.)

“Well,” remarks the elder Darwin, “there’s only one drawback I can see—religion! …she’s pious, like all the other Wedgewood women.”

To which Charles responded,

“Emma’s Unitarian, Father. You know how grandfather described Unitarianism.”

With a burst of laughter, his father spoke:

“A featherbed for falling Christians! Unitarianism,” he explained, “may be a wishy-washy sort of Christianity compared with the fire-branding Evangelicals, but make no mistake, Emma believes in things—in the after-life and hellfire and soul, but I assume you don’t.”

“Well,” answered Charles, “I’m less certain than I used to be.”

“Well, I don’t believe in them,” retorted his father, “and your grandfather didn’t, but to women of Emma’s [mind], they are matters of vital importance. ….the way around it is to pay lip service, go to church and that sort of thing, if possible avoid discussions, and above all, never, under any circumstances, reveal your true opinions.”

This conversation aside, Charles and Emma married in 1839 and remained happily married. Through the birthing of ten children, the grievous deaths of two of them in infancy, and Charles’ increasing ill health, they were devoted to each other and to their children. Nonetheless, Charles’ love of Emma and his respect for her beliefs was a factor in his reticence to publish a theory that flew in the face of established religion—alas, even Unitarianism!

The deciding event that propelled Darwin into distilling his theory for publication was a letter received from the British naturalist Alfred Russel Wallace. Darwin had already set to work on an extensive narrative of his views, when the letter from Wallace arrived in the summer of 1858. It bore an essay that contained, in Darwin’s words, “exactly the same theory as mine.” And it came with a request that if Darwin found favor with this essay, he might send it off to his close friend and advocate Charles Lyell, the eminent British geologist. What followed was an interim publication that included a segment of Darwin’s manuscript and Wallace’s full essay. Neither aroused much public attention. As Darwin reflected in his later autobiographical sketch:

“This shows how necessary it is that any new view should be explained at considerable length in order to arouse public attention.” (Autobiography, 49)

Urged on by his close friends Charles Lyell and J.D. Hooker, the esteemed British botanist, Darwin set to work in September of 1858.

“I abstracted the MS. begun on a much larger scale in 1856,”

he wrote years later,

“…and [I] completed the volume on the same reduced scale. It cost me thirteen months and ten days’ hard labour. It was published under the title of the Origin of Species, in November 1859. Though considerably added to and corrected in the later editions, it has remained substantially the same book.”

Had Charles Darwin given full vent to his inclination to write his theory comprehensively—that is, with what for him would have been a far more satisfying host of observations and explanations, we might wonder if it would have been accessible to the larger public. I find it remarkable that the not quite 400-page edition that I’m still reading is the “short story” of Darwin’s theory of natural selection. But I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t find it remarkable at all that the larger work of Charles Darwin’s lifetime held a level of detail fitting the complexity of its subject—the very origin of species. It’s a story of which you and I are a part, as the myriad forces of nature continue to sort and select over time measured in eras that encompass life’s beginning into this very morning. Thank you, dear Charles Darwin, for paying such close attention, for recording what you found, and for at long last publishing this amazing story in which we each and all partake.

An Amazing Story – II

“As buds give rise by growth to fresh buds, and these, if vigorous, branch out and overtop on all sides many a feebler branch, so by generation I believe it has been with the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications.”

he wrote in The Origin. Darwin was not simply informed by what he observed; he was moved, he was inspired.

While Charles Darwin was not what we call a Creationist, while he didn’t believe in a micro-managing God, while he didn’t understand we who are human kind to be the final act of life on this planet, he held what I recognize as three core stances of a deeply religious person—that is, humility, awe, and gratitude. And by religious, I mean tending to what matters most and asking the big questions, such as how life came to be as it is on this planet on which we find ourselves. The question rises from the life work of Darwin and grounds the observations and conclusions that led to his publication of The Origin of Species.

Many times he was asked about his views on religion, and he thought often on the matters linked with religion, most especially aboard the HMS Beagle as he circled the world and noticed and noticed and noticed. In the autobiographical sketch penned for his children at the age of 67, just six years before he died, he again broached the question about the source of belief in the existence of God. He cited the common difficulty “of conceiving this immense and wonderful universe, including man with his capacity of looking far backwards and far into futurity, as the result of blind chance or necessity.” It’s a stance that suggests theism and a stance that he held as he wrote The Origin. It’s a stance that with the passing years grew weaker, as Darwin’s acknowledgement of non-knowing grew stronger.

“The mystery of the beginning of all things is insoluble by us, and I for one must be content to remain an Agnostic,” he wrote. (Autobiography, 75)

Interesting, I suppose, that the term agnostic was presumably coined in 1860 by Darwin’s close friend and advocate, the British naturalist Thomas Huxley.

Charles Darwin readily acknowledged the friendship and scholarship and thoughtfulness of others. Without calling himself humble, which would have rendered him otherwise, he simply was. Nowhere is this more apparent than in his acknowledgement that natural selection does not assume any “advancement of life.” In the first edition of The Origin, he wrote:

“Although extremely few of the most ancient species may now have living and modified descendants, yet at the most remote geological period, the earth may have been as well peopled with many species of many genera, families, orders, and classes, as at the present day.” (The Origin, 111)

In the third edition, he appended a section in which he stated:

“…natural selection includes no necessary and universal law of advancement or development—it only takes advantage of such variations as arise and are beneficial to each creature under its complex relations of life.”

We as humankind do not necessarily advance as time does. Such a view of what we loosely refer to as homo sapiens is humble to the core.

As for awe, how could one with a lifetime of observing and theorizing natural phenomena and posing the image of “the great Tree of Life, which fills with its dead and broken branches the crust of the earth, and covers the surface with its ever branching and beautiful ramifications,” harbor anything other than awe? Wonder and awe are hand in hand religious stances, though by no means stances of religiosity, which tends so quickly to ascribe a cause.

As for gratitude, it was manifest in caring for the well-being of others and considering the very real discernment of a peer who had arrived at the exact same theory as his and whom Darwin affirmed and acknowledged, even as he moved quickly into a 15-month marathon of distilling his own. It was manifest in his love of his wife, Emma, his children, and his understanding that the world was far larger than he and his family and friends and associates, far larger. Gratitude is a giving of thanks through day to day behavior, a not taking for granted the givens of life, and a deep commitment to sharing what one witnesses in a precious and fleeting lifetime.

Darwin’s faith may have faded in conventional terms, but his humility and awe and gratitude only increased. It is telling that when Charles Darwin died on April 19, 1882, surrounded by his dear family, neighbors and notables from religion and science gathered a week later in Westminster Abbey to pay final tribute. It is even more telling that one of the pall-bearers was a Mr. A. R. Wallace, that is Alfred Russel Wallace.

May Charles Robert Darwin rest not in peace, but with sufficient restlessness to counter all possible boredom that might accompany eternal tranquility. Amen.

Sources:

“Agnosticism,” from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnosticism.

“The Clergy Letter Project,” Michael Zimmerman, http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/Backgd_info.htm.

“The Clergy Letter – from Unitarian Universalist Clergy – An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science,” http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/Unitarian_Universalists/UnivUnitarianClergyLtr.htm.

“Darwin’s Darkest Hour,” a PBS Production, Directed by John Bradshaw, Teleplay by John Goldsmith, Produced by Michael Mahoney, http://video.pbs.org/video/1286437550/.

Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, Introduction by Brian Regal, originally published in 1887, The Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading, New York, 2005.

Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, with an Introduction and Notes by George Levine, originally published in 1859, Barnes & Noble, Inc., New York, 2004.

Richard Milner, “Darwin’s Universe: Home of Darwinian Scholarship, Music, Art, and Entertainment,” http://www.darwinlive.com/

Chalice Reflection & "All the Time in the World"

2009-11-01T15:32:00.000-08:00

Chalice Reflection
of
Diana (“Pokey”) Kornet
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
November 1, 2009

All the Time in the World

We shall soon hear what Jan intends to convey with this topic – it can be interpreted so many different ways. When she left a message last Monday asking if I would do this, I thought, “How will I possibly have time to fit that in?” We are obsessed with time.

Sometimes we behave as if we have “all the time in the world” to do things, but we don’t. John and I have just returned from a visit with his uncle and aunt in Jackson, Mississippi, to help celebrate his 90th birthday. They moved down there 5 years ago to be near their daughter, who is John’s favorite cousin – we realized we hadn’t seen her in 27 years! My father was 90 on October 1st; our time with him is short. This past Wednesday I visited our 77-year-old aunt in Newton Wellesley Hospital; she has just learned that she has cancer in both lungs, her liver, and her bones. Time is precious. I cherish the 12 hours I spend each week with our granddaughter, Sydney, helping introduce her to life’s wonders...does she have all the time in the world? Our daughter-in-law, Becca, has a new appreciation for growing old!

But time is part of this world. Jan’s mother is now in the timeless spiritual dimension. So is our daughter, Diana, and Jennifer Baird, Shelley Donze, Jack Langmaid, Priscilla Tebbetts, Sumner Smith and so many other dear friends and family members of First Parish. But their energy, their essence, their souls are still here in the Universe, and they know what is going on in our lives. A gifted medium in upstate NY relayed to me that Diana saw our family riding in a truck, and saw “boogie boards.” We have never owned a truck; but 3 weeks before, we had been visiting on the big island of Hawaii. Another cousin of John’s had loaned us their second car, a truck with their boogie boards in back, to use for the week we were there. The same medium told Allison that Diana said, “Desiree says hi.” Desiree Yess was in Diana’s class, but played on the basketball team with Allison, before she died in a tragic car accident in eighth grade.

We may not understand how, but soul energy lives on. Quantum physicists have proven the principle of non-locality: particles once associated are linked forever – when something happens to one, the other reacts at the same time, no matter how far away it is. Time is non-existent in this instance. Experiments have proven that a person’s subconscious ‘knows’ what kind of image will be shown before it appears on a screen, indicated by a change in pulse rate and perspiration on the palms. Time is very “fuzzy” in that situation. Random Number Generator machines all over the world lost their randomness and began to correlate with each other an hour before the planes hit the buildings on 9/11 and continued for several hours afterward; similar phenomena were observed during the funeral ceremonies for Princess Diana. If one can imagine a large amount of focused consciousness affecting an RNG, one might expect that the RNGs would cease their randomness when the event occurred and continue a pattern for some time afterwards. But it appears that events which affect the emotions of millions of people are like a rock thrown into the pond of time, with ripples of effect emanating out in all directions from the ‘point’ of impact. Again, time appears very ambiguous, not linear at all.

Time is only in this world.

On this All Souls Day, I light the chalice in memory of those who have rejoined the Universe, where time is non-existent.

“All the Time in the World”

Two Reflections by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
November 1, 2009

A Reflection on Time

Time is relative we learned early on. So we stretched the meaning of this fact of physics and arrived late to class or late to meetings or late to weddings or late even to funerals or, imagine, late to church. Or we stretched the meaning and arrived unduly early when we’d forgotten to turn our clocks “back” or when Christmas morning just couldn’t come fast enough or even when our readiness to be born pre-empted a due date announced to our birth parents less than nine months earlier. Some of us are late comers; some of us are early arrivals. Some of us are late bloomers. Some of us are early bloomers. Most of us are grateful that at some point we did arrive and we do bloom.

Yet early and late are concerned not so much with time, but with pace and readiness and inclination to do or be whatever. Time itself is a marker. We’re taught to “tell time.” Then we learn about time zones and calendars. Then we discover that ours is not the only calendar, not the only system for “telling time,” hour by hour or epoch by epoch.

While time eludes our infant grasp, the illusion that we can measure it is imparted as an early fact of life as soon as we convince our parents and teachers that we can count. Whether or not we understand number doesn’t seem to matter. If we can count, we’re deemed prodigious enough to tell time, to measure it, and to be on time. While numbers were an early forte for me, being on time was not. I was perpetually late—though I suppose that’s impossible if it really is perpetual. Slowly, slowly—another temporal measure—I learned to honor my commitments by being “on time.”

It all gets further out of our grasp when we learn about space-time measures. Miles per hour I get, but light-years; light-years still play more in my imagination than my logic. I can stretch my imagination into “the distance that light travels in a vacuum in 1 year”—that is, 5.88 trillion miles,” but my thought doesn’t go there. I need immediate examples, a mile a minute say; but as I cast my gaze upward on a starry night and imagine light-years, I’m into the realm of mystery, awe, and bafflement.

As I consider the span of a human life in the fullness of a star-filled cosmos, I wonder how much it really mattered that I was once or frequently late to class. In the spirit of poet May Sarton, it has taken “Time, many years and places” to become myself. I too have “run madly, as if Time were there, terribly old, crying a warning, ‘Hurry, you will be dead before—‘(What? Before you reach the morning?”

Yes, there is so much, so very much I want yet to do, to be, to feel, and to experience. So much, and it takes what we refer to casually as “time.” I wonder if it’s a misnomer to describe ourselves as moving through time. I wonder if instead time moves through us. We matter I believe, but with regard to time, to light-years, to any primordial beginning or any imaginable end, we’re blinks in a nano-second. This can be a great relief. It can slow us down. It invites us to notice and to be more than we do.

The pace of this season invites a slower pace, a slower breath as antidote to crisper air, movements in the symphony of how we can be that are more adagio than allegro. Whatever God might be—whatever, whoever, however, if ever, forever—the ultimately holy has all the time in the world. In the beginning that was beyond the beginning; in the last days that we will never know and can barely imagine, we are called out of our quickened pace. The turning of seasons, the turning of leaves, the turnings of lives—some from who knows where to birth, some from what we know as life to death—invoke reflection on the meaning of it all.

In those lyrical words of Theodore Roethke,

“the blood slows trance-lie in the altered vein.”

In the reverie of Mary Oliver,

“...now is nowhere
except underfoot…”

Our Now is time-space, this morning, this hour, this moment, this sanctuary in this really not so age-old Meeting House. We cast a glance through these light-welcoming windows and ponder time and eternity, measures beyond our measuring.

“…now is nowhere
except underfoot…

…..This

I try to remember when time’s measure
painfully chafes, for instance when autumn

flares out at the last, boisterous and like us longing
to stay—how everything lives,
shifting

from one bright vision to another, forever
in these momentary pastures.”

“It goes so quickly, so quickly,” she said at the age of 95, with five more years to live. In the century of living known to my Mother, the measure of her days became timeless just a few days ago, timeless.

A Reflection on Autumn

Summer I revel in—the warm ocean—well, relatively so, the balmy nights, the raucous green, the edible close-at-hand garden greens and reds and yellows and purples, the no-coats policy of Mother Nature who never seems to call us in when we forego work for the pleasures of sunlight and starlight. My dear friend, Kathleen calls me “summer girl.” I am.

Yet the season that is draws me in, whispers, “All is not over….come, come into the lesser light. Come into the shadows of firelight. Come into the shining of a harvest moon. Come into the shimmering of leaf-light.”

The summer ends, and it is time
To face another way,

writes Wendell Berry, the Kentucky farmer/poet.

Our theme
Reversed, we harvest the last row
To store against the cold, undo
The garden that will be undone.
We grieve under the weakened sun
To see all earth’s green foundations dried,
And fallen all the works of light.

There is a paradox here. We harvest; we let go. We revel in the grandest of colors; light is less. We dream our way through heavy leaves; we quicken our pace as we head back to school, back to work, back to church. Now is a season to lie back in the leaves, envisioning that inevitable moment that we will be fully one with nature, and a season, in the poetic élan of Fredrick Zydek—to “dance just for the colors.” Now is a season to turn contemplatively inward and a season to gaze beyond the boundaries of sacred windows. In the words of my friend, Marietta Moskin, words born in the autumn of 2001:

Leaves—brown and gold
Rising upwards
From the tree outside the lead-paned church window
Gently borne by an autumn breeze
Soaring away
Small, fluttering shapes
Sparkling in the sun
Enjoying their freedom to fly.

Silly rash leaves. Do they have no predilection of their fatal dance? Silly dancing leaves, rising upwards as if the gentle autumn breezes will be forever gentle, as if the ground is an eternity away from their jubilant veins, as if some revelry for which they are so vividly adorned will go on and on and on. Don’t they know? Don’t they know?

“The soul knows
all too well,” mused Zydek,
…”what the trees mean
each time a leaf lets go and makes
the wind its temporary home.”

So it is for us, buoyed with anticipation at the revelry that surely lies ahead as we’re lifted upward by autumn breezes—no matter how late in the season, and then suddenly and without warning, borne by a god-like gust into that other dimension of the bargain made with life at the outset.

Summer I love. Autumn I embrace with all possible grace. Autumn is with us. In that final refrain of the lyrics of Theodore Roethke, “our vernal wisdom moves from ripe to sere.” “From ripe to sere”—a movement that loosens the lessons of fragility—the fragility of our planet earth, the fragility of each of us as we move through the seasons of our living, the fragility of our capacity to sustain life and to know life as we imagine ourselves to know it.

Breathe in the season. Then let it go; let it go. With grace and gratitude, let it go.

Amen.

Sources:

Wendell Berry, “The summer ends…” from A Timbered Choir: The Sabbath Poems 1979-1997, Counterpoint, Washington, DC, 1998.

Marietta Moskin, “Leaves,” Unpublished poem, 2001, used by permission of the author.

Mary Oliver, “Fall Song,” in American Primitive: Poems by Mary Oliver, Little, Brown and Company, Boston/NewYork/Toronto/London, 1978.

May Sarton, http://www25.uua.org/uuhs/duub/articles/maysarton.html

May Sarton, “Now I Become Myself,” from Collected Poems: 1930-1993, W.W. Norton & Company, 1992.

“Now Light Is Less,” Words: Theodore Roethke, in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 54.

http://wordnetweb.princeton.edu/perl/webwn?s=light%20year

"A Love Story"

2009-10-18T15:24:00.000-07:00

“A Love Story”
for
Association Sunday
A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
October 18, 2009

Chapter 1

Above all, Unitarian Universalism holds a love story, a love story so large that it embraces countless chapters across the ages. Unitarianism and Universalism didn’t merge into a grand blended family until 1961, but the threads of thought and belief were dancing in the same space centuries ago.

Origen of Alexandria was one of the earliest Universalists. It wasn’t an easy stance in the 3rd century CE, even though Alexandria of that time has been compared to New York City in ours for its diversity of culture and thought. The Roman imperial powers were clinging for dear life to the control of culture and thought.

But Origen, like Emerson 16 centuries later, was “a mind on fire” and he was determined to speak it and teach it and write it. A brilliant student, he was not passive in accepting orthodox teachings; he was considered a heretic. Remember that all of us gathered here this morning are heretics—that is, choosers. At yesterday’s all-parish retreat, when we were asked to name one especially memorable experience here, we couldn’t do it. That is, we couldn’t name just one. We chose otherwise. We behaved in the spirit of Origen and so many other of our spiritual forebears.

To name one heretical belief of Origen’s, he was a universalist—probably not like you are or I, but nonetheless a universalist in claiming that all souls will eventually make it to heaven. There might be a detour or two into a hell that he didn’t deny, but eventually, God would call each and every person unto himself. In Origen’s words:
“…the process of amendment and correction will take place imperceptibly in the individual instances during the lapse of countless and unmeasured ages, some outstripping others, and tending by a swifter course towards perfection, while others again follow close at hand, and some again a long way behind."

That is, some take awhile, but God still welcomes the “late bloomers”—my choice of words, not Origen’s.

To make matters worse, Origen didn’t screen his students very carefully. He held a rather open door classroom, admitting students at all levels of spiritual and intellectual competence, including women.

As threatening as Origen’s universalist theology and his inclusive practices was his deference to uncertainty and its tie-in with free will. How we choose is driven not by destiny but by our particular path en route to holiness. We might say that Origen was enamored of the “holy possible” and trusted in a loving God who would welcome all souls—no matter how far off course—onto a path leading to salvation. In other words, no micro-management. This, remarks Origen scholar Rebecca Lyman is “extremely strenuous spirituality.”

For Origen, free will transcended even death. If a badly behaving person goes to hell—entirely possible in Origen’s thought—there is still hope. Origen scholar Richard Bauckham explains:

Within this scheme punishment is always, in God's intention, remedial: God is wholly good and His justice serves no other purpose than His good purpose of bringing all souls back to Himself. Thus the torments of hell cannot be endless, though they may last for aeons; the soul in hell remains always free to repent and be restored.

Origen’s story is above all a love story that transcended his intellectual prowess. His truth was inclusive, inviting, and open. We should not be surprised that Origen did not die in his sleep. The powers that be could not tolerate his celebration of creed-resistant, free-will, and open-hearted faith in a God who ultimately loves.

Sources:

Richard Bauckham, “Universalism: a historical survey,” Themeloios 4.2 (September 1978): 47-54, http://www.theologicalstudies.org.uk/article_universalism_bauckham.html.

Rebecca Lyman, “The Perils of Rock Climbing: Origen as Spiritual Pioneer,” in The Role of the Dissenter in Western Christianity: From Jesus through the 16th Century, Edited by Alicia McNary Forsey. A Publication of Starr King School for the Ministry, Berkeley, California, 2004, 47-55.

“Origen, Unorthodox Church Father,” (source: Encyclopedia of Christian Apologetics (ISBN 0-8010-2151-0), http://www.ovrlnd.com/Universalism/Origen.html.

Chapter 2

Universalism was the first religious denomination in this country to ordain a woman. Her name? Olympia Brown. If you visit Atwood Hall on the campus of St. Lawrence University, you can find a bronze tablet which bears the following inscription:

OLYMPIA BROWN
1835-1926
CLASS OF 1863

SHE WAS THE FIRST WOMAN
TO BE GRADUATED BY
THE THOELOGICAL SCHOOL
AND
ST. LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY

HER UNIVERSALIST ORDINATION
IN 1863 MADE HER THE FIRST
WOMAN IN OUR COUNTRY TO
ACHIEVE FULL MINISTERIAL
STANDING RECOGNIZED BY A
DENOMINATION

PREACHER OF UNIVERSALISM
PIONEEER AND CHAMPION OF
WOMEN’S CITIZENSHIP RIGHTS
FORERUNNER OF THE NEW ERA

“THE FLAME OF HER SPIRIT STILL
BURNS TODAY”

So it does, with the same passion for open thinking and inclusiveness that infused the life of Origen 17 centuries earlier. Olympia’s life was a love story of family bonds, intellectual curiosity, strength of will, friendship, follow-through, risk-taking, ministry, and equal rights for women.

Born in 1835 in the tiny Michigan village of Prairie Ronde, Olympia learned from her father, Asa, and her mother, Lephia, what it took to persevere. Her parents had migrated a year earlier from the Green Mountains of Vermont and set to work as farmers tilling the far richer soil of the upper Midwest. The eldest of four children, Olympia was curious, imaginative, and attentive, playing in the woods and forbidden swamps and exploring to her heart’s content. Early on she learned about equal rights, with her maternal aunt and uncle operating a station on the Underground Railroad in the nearby village of Schoolcraft.

So dedicated to education were Olympia’s parents that her father took the lead in building a schoolhouse after the brand new Michigan legislature introduced a public school system. It was there that Olympia was introduced to formal education. Curious and quick, she cultivated in these early years a lifelong penchant for learning, teaching, and advocacy for girls and women to enjoy the same rights as boys and men.

As a young woman of 19, Olympia and her sister and a friend headed east to Mt. Holyoke College. Eager and confident, they were not prepared for the rigidity of rules and religion in place at this college. Each young entrant was expected to classify herself as a ‘professing Christian,’ ‘hopefully pious,’ or ‘hopeless.’ Raised as a Universalist by her mother, this did not sit well with young Olympia. Yet she and her sister were subjected to one hellfire sermon after another. Desperate, she wrote to Universalist headquarters in Boston for books that would help her refute what she was hearing. And she asked a question that would guide her lifelong:

“’Why don’t preachers dwell on God’s love when that was such a motivation behind Christ’s teaching?’”

Olympia turned a corner. She left Mt. Holyoke behind and entered Antioch College the following autumn. Headed by the progressive Boston educator, Horace Mann, this co-educational institution held liberal promise. It was at Antioch that Olympia met Antoinette Brown—not a relative. Olympia arranged during a lecture visit by this well-known advocate of women’s rights for Antoinette Brown to preach a Sunday sermon, for not long before Antoinette had sought ordination as a Congregational minister and was refused because of her gender, but her penchant for preaching was undiminished. Olympia heard her and was electrified.

Through unfolding friendships, a dedication to women’s rights, and a fascination with religious exploration, Olympia moved into a life that took her to St. Lawrence University’s theological school and through years of perseverance led to her ordination as a Universalist minister in 1863. It was a life that called her to preach as a minister and lecture as a suffragette across the country on behalf of women’s rights, and to join the feminist ranks of Susan B. Anthony and Lucy Stone and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Antoinette Brown become Antoinette Brown Blackwell. En route she married, she had children, and she had grandchildren. She lived and loved at high intensity and grand depth. And on the morning of November 2, 1920, at the age of 85, Olympia Brown cast her first vote, along with her lifelong friend Antoinette Brown Blackwell, in a presidential election.

Olympia lived six more years. Beloved by her husband, her son and daughter, her grandchildren, and thousands of women across the country, she was likely reviled by many who shrank in fear at the notion and practice of equal rights for women. At the age of 91, Olympia traveled with her daughter to Europe and had an absolutely smashing good time.

A love story? Wondrously so.

Sources:

Charlotte Coté, Olympia Brown: The Battle for Equality, Mother Courage Press, 1988.

Chapter 3

What’s so scary about a rainbow? As a child I would run outside at first word that a rainbow was arching overhead. I was awed. I continue to be awed. As a child I first heard that story about an angry God turned forgiving, about a God who was so frustrated with creation’s bad behavior that he—and God was definitely a he then—caused a great flood to cover the earth. Only a few were spared, a man named Noah and his curious extended family, lifted aloft in a homemade ark for forty days and forty nights. The boat rocked, and the rain fell, and all the creatures not on board are said to have perished. Then slowly, ever so slowly, the waters receded and this land-starved crew came forth onto dry ground. Noah built an altar to God and God blessed Noah and his family and made a covenant with them that never again would there be such a flood. The sign of this covenant was a rainbow. In the Book of Genesis, we read:

“I set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth.”
(Genesis 9:13)

While we as Unitarian Universalists might not accept the literal truth of this story, we like all other peoples of the earth gaze up at a rainbow in awe. We remark on the spectrum of colors.

Ours is a faith grounded in a covenant of love, inclusive all-encompassing love. It is no accident that the rainbow has become the sign of intentional welcoming of all among us who are commonly marginalized by religion, all among us who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender. It is no accident that my heart sings when I see the rainbow flag flying atop the entrance of our Meeting House, proclaiming this covenant of inclusive love.

Last May we voted to become a Welcoming Congregation. It’s not easy for some of us to act on this. It’s not easy for some of us to fly high with this decision, but here we are in a faith grounded in a covenant of love bolstered by further promise and possibility that we can live it.

Last June at the General Assembly of our Unitarian Universalist Association, “Standing on the Side of Love” was launched as “a public advocacy campaign that seeks to harness [the power of love] to stop oppression.” Standing on the Side of Love lifts “compassionate religious voices to influence public attitudes and public policy” on “immigration, LGBT rights, and more.”

Last Sunday, reports my friend Adam Gerhardstein, Campaign Manager for Standing on the Side of Love,

“Over 50 faith communities across the nation stood on the side of love to call for full equality for gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender people.

In Denver, people of faith worshipped on the steps of the capitol. In Clearwater, Florida, gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people of faith shared their personal stories with the media. In Washington, D.C., I marched with over 1,500 people of faith under the Standing on the Side of Love banner at the National Equality March, attended by more than 100,000.”

Rainbows by the thousands are evident in the photos taken in Washington last Sunday—rainbows and broad smiles and hopes for a renewed covenant of love and compassion.

Unitarian Universalism holds a love story, a love story so large that it covers countless chapters across the ages. From the “strenuous spirituality” of Origen through the hard-won voice and vote of Olympia Brown, from an ancient story of a rainbow arching in the sky as a sign of a covenant between God and humankind through the rainbows of fabric and hope lifted by people of faith and hope in churches, on statehouse steps, and in the streets of our nation’s capital, a love story unfolds. Its chapters number far more than the few that I share with you this morning.

What’s so scary about love? My friend, the late Forrest Church, used to say that the opposite of love isn’t hate; the opposite of love is fear. Only love overcomes fear.

Just days before she cast her vote in the 1920 presidential election, Olympia Brown preached her final sermon. Speaking to her longtime congregation of the Universalist Church of Racine, Wisconsin on September 12, 1920, she concluded with this charge:

Dear Friends, stand by this faith. Work for it and sacrifice for it. There is nothing in all the world so important to you as to be loyal to this faith which has placed before you the loftiest ideals which have comforted you in sorrow, strengthened you for noble duty and made the world beautiful for you. Do not demand immediate results but rejoice that you are worthy to be entrusted with this great message and that you are strong enough to work for a great true principle without counting the cost. Go on finding ever new applications of these truths and new enjoyments in their contemplation, always trusting in the one God which ever lives and loves.”

May it be so as we seek to live out a love story that never ends.

I love you. May the God of love bless us each and all. Amen.

Sources:

The First Book of Moses Commonly Called Genesis, The Bible, Revised Standard Version

Adam Gerhardstein, E-mail Report of October 14, 2009.

Standing on the Side of Love: Harnessing Love’s Power to Stop Oppression, http://www.standingonthesideoflove.org/about/.

"The Other Side of the Pond"

2009-10-11T11:42:00.000-07:00

“The Other Side of the Pond”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
October 11, 2009

How clearly I remember it. My husband, Dan, and our daughter, Sarah, had spent the night in Taos, New Mexico. The next morning we set out for the pueblo, an ancient village inhabited by indigenous people known as the Pueblo. Clearly tourists, easily identified as European Americans, we were welcomed. Dan, Sarah, and I were acquainted with but by no means steeped in the history of our own ancestors’ oppression of the Pueblo and millions of other indigenous peoples. We treaded lightly and slowly as we navigated the twists and turns of the village that was home to families whose lineage was tied to this mountainous site in what is now northern New Mexico centuries before the prospect of gold was a gleam in the eye of any far-off explorer to the east.

Toward what we thought was the conclusion of our visit, we entered the gift shop. Behind the counter were a young man and a young woman, both seemingly in their 20s. We exchanged pleasantries, we discussed the beauty of the wares for sale, and we then moved our conversation around a corner into the grist of the American Indian Movement known as AIM, the unjust imprisonment of poet and AIM activist Leonard Peltier, and the continuing oppression of Pueblo and other indigenous nations at the hands of power structures with a history. Then I can’t remember who—the young man or the young woman—spoke of a nearby lake, a sacred site not recorded on any map. Nestled into a lap of topography not far from the Pueblo village lies Blue Lake. Oral tradition holds that the people of the Taos Pueblo were created from its sacred waters. It is holy ground. “Why is it not on maps?” we asked naively. “It’s the only way to protect it,” came the reply.

In the early 20th century, the U.S. government appropriated this sacred lake and the surrounding area; it was a site promising lucrative natural resources and tourism. Blue Lake became the focus of 64 years of legal contest—protests, appeals, and advocacy by the Pueblo and their allies—before it was returned to the Pueblo in 1970. Was it a matter of property rights? No, it was an issue of religious freedom. Just a year before restoration, Pueblo elder Paul Bernal proclaimed at a Congressional hearing:

“We are probably the only citizens of the United States who are required to practice our religion under a permit from the Government. This is not religious freedom as it is guaranteed by the Constitution.”

Of course it’s not on a map. Of course.

The story haunts me. It is part of a history commonly invisible to most of us whose ancestors shaped this nation as we know it but were rarely beholden to this land and its indigenous stewards.

Like many of you, I learned early on a pledge of allegiance that carried far more than loyalty to “one nation, under God.” I learned allegiance to the assumption that this nation was founded by my European forebears just a few centuries ago. I learned that Columbus “sailed the ocean blue in fourteen hundred nine-two.” I learned that the Niña, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria were worthy of the most vivid hues in my box of crayons. I learned and memorized the “really important dates”—1492, 1620, 1776, 1789. I didn’t bother asking what my daughter, Sarah, often refers to as that vital “second question.” I didn’t bother asking or wondering or doubting, because I really didn’t have to.

Once a body of belief begins to crack, once what is held to be historic gospel begins to erode, once any of us becomes privy to another story, another history, another reality, we cling to the familiar only out of a need to be reassured, only out of a penchant to take our cues from loved and respected teachers and preachers and parents and grandparents and touted authorities on this and that because climbing into a boat guaranteed to rock is just way too scary.

But conversations matter. Stories new to us but ancient to others matter. Histories written or recalled across generations from a different lineage matter. A religion that holds faith and doubt in reverent balance matters as we consider in the chalice of religious community what happened and what didn’t. A religion that holds faith and doubt in reverent balance and the search for truth in the highest esteem matters mightily as we ponder the formation of heroes and history.

When Christopher Columbus approached the islands of North America just over half a millennium ago, he and his shipmates were received with warmth and wonder. Arawak men and women swam out from the beaches of the Bahamas, curious about this strange large craft nearing their shores. As Columbus and his sailors reached land, the Arawaks welcomed them with food and gifts. Their hospitality was immediately evident to Columbus and his crew.

Bartolomé de las Casas, a contemporary of Columbus and a Spanish priest, transcribed the explorer’s journal.

“The Indians,” observed Columbus, “have large communal bell-shaped buildings, housing up to 600 people at one time....They lack all manner of commerce, neither buying nor selling, and rely exclusively on their natural environment for maintenance. They are extremely generous with their possessions....With fifty men,” calculated Columbus, “we could subjugate them all and make them do whatever we want.”

Las Casas proceeded to document the large-scale ravage of the Arawaks and hundreds of Native American communities. Las Casas documented genocide.

While Columbus’ sojourn to the “new world” has been hailed by Western Europeans and European Americans as a pivotal discovery of uncharted terrain, the Arawaks and their counterparts across central North America discovered the seed of an emerging political state that has long vacillated between lifting and shifting yokes of oppression.

While writings by and about Bartolomé de las Casas are available in abundance, the record of Las Casas reached me through the pages of Howard Zinn’s A People’s History of the United States. Zinn tells the story of Columbus’ arrival from the “viewpoint of the Arawaks, of the Constitution from the standpoint of the slaves, of Andrew Jackson as seen by the Cherokees.....of the rise of industrialism as seen by the young women in the Lowell textile mills....the New Deal as seen by blacks in Harlem....” He presents the narrative of our nation through voices that have been muted in the history books to which we have grown accustomed. And there are so many history books to which we have grown accustomed.

My favorite stretch of Boston is Commonwealth Avenue just west of Beacon Hill. Many of you know it well and are familiar with the compelling sculptures that mark the island of this elegant avenue. One that struck me above all the others is that of Samuel Eliot Morison. Depicted in casual seafaring attire, Morison sits astride an outcropping of ledge, one hand on a stack of books, the other holding binoculars, his stone-hewn eyes gazing out to sea. I learned that Morison was a Rear Admiral in the US Navy, a Harvard historian, and a celebrated author, most notably a biographer of Christopher Columbus.

On an early page of Morison’s Christopher Columbus, Mariner, he wrote:

“The cruel policy initiated by Columbus and pursued by his successors resulted in complete genocide.”

One would then expect a narrative that elaborated on this clear-cut statement. But in the closing paragraph of his work, Morison had this to say of the explorer:

“He had his faults and his defects, but they were largely the defects of the qualities that made him great—his indomitable will, his superb faith in God and in his own mission as the Christ-bearer to lands beyond the seas, his stubborn persistence despite neglect, poverty and discouragement. But there was no flaw, no dark side to the most outstanding and essential of all his qualities—his seamanship.”

Zinn observes that Morison states outright the horror story of Columbus’ actions and uses the harshest term possible to describe their outcome—genocide, but that he then goes on to diffuse the horror by burying it in layers and layers of other information more interesting to the author. The careful reader concludes that for Morison, a seaman himself, the quality of seamanship outweighed the nasty reality of genocide. It is, in Zinn’s words, “to say to the reader with a certain infectious calm: yes, mass murder took place, but it’s not that important—it should weigh very little in our final judgments; it should affect very little what we do in the world.” The stone-hewn Morison of Commonwealth Avenue gazes off into the distance, a scholar seaman long detached from a momentary nod to a wrenching truth.

“Every year as October 12 approaches, there is a certain sense of dread that can be felt in indigenous communities in the Americas,”

writes Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, a historian, writer, and co-founder of the Indigenous World Association, which lobbies the United Nations on behalf of indigenous peoples’ rights. She continues:

“That it is a federal holiday in the United States is regarded as hideous, a celebration of genocide and colonization. However, beginning thirty years ago, indigenous peoples formed an international movement, demanding…that October 12 be commemorated as an international day of mourning for the Indigenous Peoples of the Americas. Informally, the day has been appropriated as Indigenous Peoples Day. This year feels different in indigenous communities as they celebrate the great victory of the adoption of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples by the General Assembly…”

Just days earlier, on September 13, 2007, the General Assembly of the United Nations had adopted this landmark declaration, the harvest of three decades of advocacy by indigenous peoples worldwide. While 143 nations voted in favor, four voted against: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, and the United States.

Why? Why would this nation rooted in the principles of justice for each and liberty for all not affirm in our own time a declaration of human rights on behalf of the earliest residents of this land?

“America has a European history of violence that has been unaccounted for and even at times rigorously denied.”

writes George Tinker, Professor of American Indian Cultures and Religious Traditions at Iliff School of Theology in Denver. Dr. Tinker is also an ordained Lutheran minister and director of the Four Winds American Indian Survival Project in Denver. He further identifies himself as ‘mixed blood,’ that is “part Indian and part white,” and tongue in cheek notes, “I’m also called a ‘man,’ even though only one of my parents was a man.”

The context of Tinker’s statement is an essay grounding a “soul work” forum. In early 2001 our Unitarian Universalist Association invited a number of ministers and scholars from liberal religious traditions for an intensive consultation on theology and anti-racism. The meeting site was our UUA offices in Boston. The hard cover outcome is the volume, soul work: anti-racist theologies in dialogue. Some of you participated in a series of workshops co-sponsored by this congregation and First Parish Old Ship in Hingham on the matters covered by soul work, chapter by chapter. It was not easy work.

Neither is Tinker’s message easy to hear:

“When the first Europeans came to the Americas—the Spanish to the Caribbean, the English to North America—they came with clearly preconceived notions of conquering indigenous peoples, and theological and intellectual grounds for justifying and legitimating their exercise of violence. In New England the Puritans were the ‘new Israel,’ self-righteously displacing the aboriginal Canaanites.”

“….the celebration of Columbus Day,” declares Tinker, “is an example of what addictions therapy would call denial. …[It is] an act of denial on the part of white Americans with respect to the history of violence that has been at the core of the American colonial project.”

Self-righteousness and denial go hand in hand. Neither leaves room for humility. Neither leaves room for accountability. Guilt is an unproductive option, commonly fueling denial through attention to “what we feel” at the expense of “what happened and what we can do about it.”

As people of faith, as citizens and residents of a nation that promises liberty and justice for all, what can we do about it? What can we do about truths untold, about truths quickly told and all but discarded, about horrors committed by celebrated heroes, about a negative vote cast by this nation at the United Nations, a missed opportunity to begin to redeem our national history through affirming the rights of indigenous peoples in this nation and throughout nations? What can we do?

We can learn the truth in love. We can read historical accounts that tell the whole story. We can enter a dialogue with one another and extend the dialogue with neighboring congregations on anti-racism and human rights. We can advocate for this nation to join with 143 nations of the world in affirming the rights of indigenous peoples worldwide. We can heed the counsel that Dr. George Tinker gives to his white students at Iliff:

“…take a step away from the center out toward the periphery and look back at the center again as something that’s hurting you as a white American as much as it’s hurting Indian people, blacks, Hispanics, Latinos, and Asian Americans.”

We can join a growing movement that includes George Tinker and Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and the city of Berkeley, California and our own Unitarian Universalist staff at 25 Beacon Street in observing Indigenous Peoples Day as a holiday in place of Columbus Day.

Imagine, you’re the man or woman in the gift shop in the Taos Pueblo. A white family comes in, begins a conversation, asks some questions. With reticence you tell the story of Blue Lake. They leave; you wonder. What is it that they hold sacred? What is it that they celebrate?

Those of us whose ancestry is from other shores are newcomers. No matter that our ancestors go back to the 1600s; we’re newcomers. We’ve barely arrived on the other side of the pond and already we’ve forgotten why we set sail? Was it an escape from religious oppression? Was it a flight from famine? Was it a quest for gold to feed a hungry queen? Was it a crusade to appease a fragile god? And our arrival?

What is it that we hold sacred? What is it that we celebrate?

In the spirit of the late Alfred Arteaga:

Five hundred and [seventeen] years of eventstook place, we cannot change that.We cannot stand up like Las Casasand say this must stop; we cannottell Tainos, on first seeing the Spanish arrive,to run, to run, and not stop running.What was, was.We cannot change the number of days, norcan we change the events that happened.We can, though, choose to remember or forget,to celebrate, solemnize, recognize.

May it be so. Amen.

Sources:

Alfred Arteaga, “Tomorrow Today,” in Literary Sampler, Found at: http://www.legacy-project.org/index.php?page=lit_detail&litID=147 .

Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, “Indigenous Peoples Day,” Beacon Broadside, A Project of Beacon Press, October 8, 2007, http://www.beaconbroadside.com/broadside/2007/10/indigenous-peop.html.
“Indigenous People’s Day,” http://www.uua.org/socialjustice/calendar/114099.shtml.

Soul Work: anti-racist theologies in dialogue, edited by Marjorie Bowens-Wheatley and Nancy Palmer Jones, Skinner House Books, Boston, 2003.

“Taos Blue Lake,” Sacred Land Film Project, http://www.sacredland.org/index.php/taos-blue-lake/.

“United Nations adopts Declaration on Rights of Indigenous Peoples,” UN News Centre, http://www.un.org/apps/news/story.asp?NewsID=23794&Cr=indigenous&Cr1.

United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, http://www.un.org/esa/socdev/unpfii/documents/DRIPS_en.pdf.

Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States, Harper Perennial, 1990 (First Harper Colophon edition published 1980).

Chalice Reflection

2009-10-04T09:16:00.000-07:00

Chalice Reflection
of
Mark Alves
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
October 4, 2009

At sunset this evening our Jewish friends will begin celebrating Yom Kippur. Jan asked me if I would light the chalice this morning and offer a reflection on my experience as a co-facilitator of the “Our Whole Lives” program. I would like to ask a question. How as a toddler, pre teen, teen, young adult, and adult did you come to experience your full human sexuality? I am sure some of us are still trying to figure it out. Fortunately for our children, we have the OWL program that offers them an opportunity to explore human sexuality in a safe and age appropriate manner.

What is OWL you might be asking? Our Whole Lives is a series of sexuality education curricula for six age groups: grades K-1, grades 4-6, grades 7-9, grades 10-12, young adults (ages 18-35), and adults.

Our Whole Lives helps participants make informed and responsible decisions about their sexual health and behavior. It equips participants with accurate, age-appropriate information in six subject areas: human development, relationships, personal skills, sexual behavior, sexual health, and society and culture. Grounded in a holistic view of sexuality, Our Whole Lives provides not only facts about anatomy and human development, but helps participants to clarify their values, build interpersonal skills, and understand the spiritual, emotional, and social aspects of sexuality. Our Whole lives embraces the values of self worth, sexual health, responsibility, and justice and inclusivity.

Five years ago I was asked if I would be interested in co-facilitating the OWL program for First Parish. I was intrigued and decided to accept the position as long as I was trained. There were two reasons for my agreement to help. One, I wanted to learn about the program that was part of the UU community that I had become a part of. And secondly, a more selfish reason, I wanted a deeper understanding of the program my children would someday take part in. I must admit that when I found out that the other facilitator was going to be Diana Karcher it made the decision easier.

I was fortunate to co-facilitate the OWL program with Diana Karcher, who has an abundant amount of energy and a true love for people and especially our children. Diana and I learned as much, if not more than the children. Diana and I observed the children gain a confidence from new found knowledge and understanding. We watched each of them walk away with a clearer understanding of his/her values, newly equipped with the knowledge we hoped would help them to make good decisions. I hope that they each found the experience to be helpful and look back on the program as a worthwhile experience.

As circumstances would have it, my oldest daughter Melissa will be starting the OWL program in a few weeks. For obvious reasons, I cannot teach the program. Jim FitzGerald is looking for someone from First Parish to be a co-facilitator. Scituate has graciously offered to host the program; however we only have one facilitator at this time. What a wonderful opportunity someone from First Parish could have. If you are interested, please speak with me or Jim. I am willing to assist in any way I can.

Thank you.

A Chalice Reflection & "At-onement: A Circle Ministry Sunday"

2009-09-27T08:55:00.000-07:00

Chalice Reflection
of
Jack Martin
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts
September 27, 2009

At sunset this evening our Jewish friends will begin celebrating Yom Kippur – the Day of Atonement - the holiest of all Jewish holidays. Yom Kippur is designed to provide an opportunity for self-reflection for what has occurred over the past year - a time to own personal responsibility for any shortcomings, mistakes, and misdeeds made during the year and to make amends for wrongs and injuries committed.

Our UU faith tradition does not have a day intentionally designated to process our atonements for misdeeds or shortcomings. However, the past four years, at First Parish we have founded and cultivated a ministry that in many ways mimics many of the intentions of the Jewish day of atonement— self-reflection, holding ourselves accountable, being the best we can be for one another. It is Circle Ministry. Circle Ministry is not a one time a year event, but occurs twice each month. It is not an individual, solitary process, but involves engagement, feedback, and support from others. In Circle Ministry carefully chosen topics and evocative questions prompt the discussion and self-reflection for each two-hour session. In every group, as our stories are told, insights into self and others are gained, and bonding of group members occurs.

The joy of Circle Ministry comes in sharing our personal stories. Because our stories generally make us feel vulnerable to being fixed, exploited, dismissed, or ignored, most of the time we tell them only gradually or not at all. Neighbors, coworkers, church friends, and even family members can live side by side for years without learning much about each other’s lives. Circle Ministry is a corrective to this fear of making ourselves vulnerable. Members of the group speak from their own experiences; they tell their own stories from their heart and soul; criticism, fixing, and advice giving are avoided; and deep, generous and respectful listening is the central principle that makes the process work.

Sharing time matters. Sharing time provides rare moments in our lives when we get below the surface. The more we know about another person’s story, the harder it is to dismiss, marginalize, distance or harm that person. Sharing time works because we come to understand ourselves, others, and our world in more complete ways. Sharing time has been rippling through our church community for the past three years. Calls have been heard; needs have been acted upon; and support, care, and hard work have been given to our church and to our community by Circle Ministry groups. Our faith community here at First Parish has been greatly strengthened and enormously enriched because of Circle Ministry. It is my hope that more of you who have not yet experienced Circle Ministry will take advantage of this shared ministry program and join with us this fall.

“At-onement: A Circle Ministry Sunday"

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
September 27, 2009

Just a few days ago, a good friend died. He was also a mentor, a colleague, a scholar, a preacher, a public figure, a husband and father, and a prophetic teacher for all of us. At the age of 61 and a day, shortly before sundown, we lost Forrest Church.

It is a time of turning. The leaves are turning. The birds are turning south. Creatures of field and forest are scampering about to store food for the cold months ahead that they might tuck into the earth for warmth and shelter. We humans turn reflective as the remains of a day swell into a burnished montage that mirrors the horizon of treetops, as a harvest moon shines like a pumpkin lit from within. I ponder what it means, this letting go, this turn of direction, these celestial orbs that all but tease with the arresting magnificence of their settings and risings, and this loss of life and presence to which we’ve grown accustomed.

When I did my first memorial service, it was a graveside rite, and I turned to Forrest to ask his counsel. I was then Assistant Minister at All Souls in New York City, where Forrest was Senior Minister. It was just over a decade ago. My learning curve for ministry felt frustratingly slow. But I had a master teacher. He offered these words:

As we stand now together under the rounding dome of the sky, with the resilient Earth beneath our feet, washed by air and sunlight, we recount things timeless and reassuring.

We know, deep in our flesh, the sure cycles of nature, the fit of a human life span into the seasons of the generations, the Earth, and the Universe: a sublime and elegant design.

From dust to dust; from spirit to spirit; from eternity to eternity: Between these spans, a human life fits.

Many of you know that Forrest had a lot more to say—about love and life and death and the universe and what it means to be Unitarian and Universalist. As for Unitarian, he used to quip that ours “is the religion to have when you’re having more than one.” Forrest was a consummate Universalist. He recognized the inclusiveness of it all. He understood that we are woven. His gospel was love. He understood the God he described as “greater than all but present in each” as a loving God. And he didn’t hesitate to use God language. After all, he was a preacher whose last name is Church!

This morning these words that he offered during my early years of ministry invoke reverie on the cyclical nature of each of us and the cyclical ways of earth and sun, moon and stars.

“As we stand now together … we recount things timeless and reassuring.
We know, deep in our flesh, the sure cycles of nature, the fit of a human life span into the seasons….”

His words sound amid the holiest time in the Jewish calendar, the Days of Awe, ushered in with Rosh Hashanah, literally the beginning of the year, and observed by Jews worldwide. Today’s sunset marks the beginning of the day that concludes these Days of Awe, Yom Kippur, Day of Atonement.

Yom Kippur is the holiest day of the Jewish year. “This moment of most intense spiritual experience,” observes Arthur Waskow, “is the moment of atonement—the moment when all misdeeds are covered over.” Waskow compares Yom Kippur to the prayer shawl known as a tallis, describing this day as “a kind of tallis in time—a prayer shawl to cover the confusions of the year. As worshippers…pick up the tallis, they cover their heads for a moment so as to wipe away the pointless, pathless wanderings of the world,” making it possible “for a moment to look toward God, ….to stand face to face with God.”

There are elaborate rituals for worship on Yom Kippur, and they vary from synagogue to synagogue. Some are ancient and some, innovative. One ancient rite that finds its way into contemporary practice reinforces the belief that on this day it is possible “to stand face to face with God.” The priest speaks aloud the name for God not spoken at any other time, the name that may be rendered YHVH/Yahweh, an apparent acronym for the identity of God revealed to Moses through the burning bush as told in the third chapter of the Book of Exodus. While some render Yahweh as “I am who I am,” Waskow explains it as “a kind of distillation of ‘I Am Becoming Who I Am Becoming.’” It’s a name “that was not a name in the sense of a label by which God could be called and controlled, and therefore the Name which could not be said aloud…. Only on Yom Kippur was the Name said, aloud, in all its original awesomeness.”

Central to Yom Kippur rituals ancient and modern is a turning, tshuvah, “repentant return,” and “for all human beings.” According to Waskow, the centrality of tshuvah survived the destruction of the Temple in 70 CE with added strength. The rabbis held that the very arrival of the day invoked God’s forgiveness, but with a critical qualification:

“If someone said, ‘I will sin and repent, and sin again and repent,’ he will be given no chance to repent. If he said, ‘I will sin and Yom Kippur will effect atonement,’ then the Day of Atonement effects no atonement. For transgression between human beings and God, Yom Kippur effects atonement; but for transgressions between a person and his fellow, Yom Kippur effects atonement only if he has made peace with his fellow.”

This Day of Atonement is thus a day of “at-onement.” There is a paradox here. One stands as an individual before God and all that is holy and turns, repents, of all that is unseemly across thought, word, and deed in the year that is past. One also stands as a member of religious community before God and all that is holy and can do so credibly only if one “has made peace with his fellow.” There is no allowance for hypocrisy here, no crack in the ritual that allows a person to be at-onement with God while hiding unreconciled discord with fellow humans. At-onement with what is holy, with what is ultimate, with “that which is greater than all but present in each,” happens only from a well of right relationships with one’s family, with one’s friends, and yes, with one’s presumed enemies.

It is a time of reflection, of turning, of reconciliation, of at-onement. It is apt that our first Circle Ministry session of this church year will take place a week from today, so close to this time of at-onement.

Also known as small group ministry, the premise is that we gather in a circle—that most inclusive shape—and listen deeply. Yes, participants speak, but out of a covenant that underscores deep and respectful listening. “Silence” is the first topic of the season, for it is in a circle of silence that we quiet ourselves, that we diffuse our inner noise that cuts us off from our fellow humans sitting around us. Each person checks in. What is happening in your life? What is happening in my life? No commentary, no expressed sympathy or advice or murmurs. It’s all part of the behavioral covenant of this ministry of circles. And when the topic is introduced—in this case, “Silence”—silence is held for a moment before anyone speaks. I suppose it’s a tad ironic that we do deign to speak about silence, but as stories are heard and told, we enter a sphere outside of our own egos. The very sequence of holding silence, listening deeply, hearing, and being heard is a form of reconciliation that permits us to know an at-onement that is rare in the rhythms of our daily lives.

Within each of us there is a silence-
a silence as vast as a universe.
We are afraid of it- and we long for it.

When we experience that silence, we remember
who we are….

Silence reveals. Silence heals.
Silence is where God dwells.

writes the poet, Gunilla Norris.

You may or may not use the term God to describe your experience of amazing silence, of attunement to the day, of reflection in this season of letting go. You may or may not find the term God meaningful in this season of imminent death all around us though you would never know it to look out the window or walk on the beach or stroll through a park or lie back into a pile of leaves vividly costumed and newly arrived from their downward dance. You’d never know that in this glorious silence, this all-out beauty fest, gardens and friends were so close to deep slumber. “God” might not work for you, but try “awe,” days and days of it.

Turning, tshuvah, reflection, reconciliation, is so naturally the holiest time of year. For Jews, yes, but for all of us who are creatures of the phenomenon we call nature. Summer’s boldness is becoming autumn’s brilliance is becoming winter’s bones is becoming spring’s buds. We are creatures of cycles.

“So goes the year,” writes Waskow, “the circle-dance of life in tune with the music of the sun.” And yes, in harmony with the moon, as we’re reminded by these Days of Awe, these holy days that take their calendar cues from the moon as it circles the earth even as the earth swings elliptically about the sun.

We gather in the solo reflections of our hearts in this house of meeting to reflect, to meditate, to wonder, to sing, and to hold silence. We gather in the community of this congregation to affirm and be affirmed that we are not solo acts, but gossamer strands of a cosmic web. We gather in circles to listen and discover that we are heard. We move through our days and become story after story after story. And on a holy day some among us pause and dare to see “face to face” an essence whose name is spoken aloud only on that day. Some of us pause and don that prayer-shawl that “the confusions of a year” might be diffused through a holy glance at what matters most, a holy act of turning and transformation that mirrors this season of turning and transformation.

History merges with timelessness. A life merges with eternity.

From the eternal to the specific, from the arcs of celestial bodies to the circles in which we sit together to the circle of hearts present here and now, we discover the holy.

“When our heart is in a holy place,” we sang moments ago,
“We are bless’d with love and amazing grace.

…. [When] we hear our voices in each other’s words,

….When we share the silence of sacred space,
[When] the God of our Heart stirs within,
[When] we feed the power of each other’s faith,
Then our heart is in a holy place.”

So it is as we consider this imminent Day of Atonement, as we experience a ministry of circles, as we worship together, and as we seek to live out our lives in “inclusive spiritual community.” We stretch our souls. We discern our roots in the traditions that are Christian and Jewish. We revere by participation or consideration a holiday, a holy day, that moves in its own arc across the sunset and sunrise of consciousness that we are all turning, willfully, willingly, but as surely as summer turns to autumn; and in turning, we find ourselves amid “the seasons of the generations.”

“The very interweaving of the themes of history and nature, the human life cycle and moments of spiritual experience—remind us that in some sense all the realms of life are dancing with each other. The circles of the sun, and of the moon; of a single human life between the generations, and an entire people’s history of renewal; of every quiet act of newness, birth, creation—all are echoes of One Circle.”

So writes Arthur Waskow, affirming Judaism’s celebration of festivals as reverence for “the Unity that underlies all life.”

I lost a friend this week. We all lost a friend this week. Some would say his death was untimely, that 61 is too young, far too young, to die. We speak out of our own yearning for life. We take again and again that first deep breath and cry out in our longing for life. What is enough? What will ever be enough as we consider our own life span? Forrest died surrounded by family and friends, surrounded by a congregation called All Souls, embraced by an even greater family of all souls.

Into “the seasons of generations, the Earth, and the Universe….from dust to dust, from spirit to spirit, from eternity to eternity,” his life fit magnificently and will echo throughout eternity the One Circle that embraces us all, the great silence from which each of us have emerged and into which each of us turns with all possible grace and gratitude.

Let us hold together a moment of silence.
………………………………

Amen

Sources:

Forrest Church, quotes from sermons and books and conversations, www.allsoulsnyc.org

Gunilla Norris, Inviting Silence: Universal Principles of Meditation, Bluebridge, 2004.

Joyce Poley, “When Our Heart Is in a Holy Place,” in Singing the Journey: A Supplement to Singing the Living Tradition, Unitarian Universalist Association, 2005.

Arthur Waskow, Seasons of Our Joy: A Celebration of Modern Jewish Renewal: A Creative guide to the Jewish Holidays, Beacon Press, Boston, 1982.

A Parable & "Open Doors, Many Entrances"

2009-09-20T08:45:00.000-07:00

A Parable
by Jan Carlsson-Bull
as part of the worship service of
September 20, 2009
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts

There is a tale told by ancient voices of a special room at the very center of the village. No one had ever seen it. It was a room with no walls, not even mud walls, and no roof, not even one cobbled together by the village craftsmen, and of course how could they build a roof with no walls… Yet every so often villagers would gather for a common meal and there would be talk of smoke rising from the center of the village. Where did it come from?

There must be a room, a secret room where a fire was burning. Who had lit it? Who kept it going? Who tended the coals that it would safely go out? No one—not even the ripest apples of the village—could say for sure how the story began; and no one would fess up to ever having been in this mysterious room. Yet there were rumors that the village elders knew differently, that the village elders had access to a key which they held secretly; and only they knew where the door was; only they knew how to enter.

Villagers went on about their lives. They gave birth to new villagers. They tilled the soil as best they could; they reaped whatever harvest fate seemed to provide. In their social circles, they told the story of the secret room, and with each telling the room took on more specifics—an incense burner at its center, an age-old sage stoking the fire, the aroma of a feast in preparation. And with every embellishment, the frustration grew—that only a select few knew the secrets of this room. They shook their heads and then nodded knowingly. “This is the way it’s always been. Only ‘they’ are privy to the sacred space. Only ‘they” have the key to the door that opens onto this sacred space.”

You can imagine that one day things changed. One day the youngest of the villagers were out on the village green, running about like wild things, toppling one another and careening across the grass. It seemed that they would never tire. As the sun began to set, there were calls from the many huts that circled the green: “Time to come in. Time to come home. Time for dinner!” Reluctantly, they withdrew from their common playground. Each began to drift onto the paths that marked the way to their own home. As the sun set further, one little girl looked back; she looked again. There in the center of the village common was a spiral of smoke rising as if from someone’s hearth. She looked hard and harder. And she noticed that every plume of smoke that rose from every village chimney leaned inward toward a center, and at that center, a common plume spiraled skyward.

She noticed and she thought, and she went to bed that night and dreamt. Her dream revealed a small house in the center of the village square, a house rather like her own and those of her friends, but this house had doors on every side. In fact, there seemed to be many sides; she couldn’t even count how many. Each door was open, and through each door curled a plume of smoke, wafting in from the very hearth of her own house, leaning in from the hearth of every house in the village. She stood and stared outside this simple house on the village square, and as she stared trance-like at what seemed to be arms of smoke leaning into a center, the arms began to motion her in, into the small house in the center of the village. She paused; she pondered. “So many arms inviting me in, so many open doors, so many entrances.” She took a step forward and with a start, woke up, with a story to tell.

“Open Doors, Many Entrances”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
September 20, 2009

In deep space
There is no air
To walk in space
You have to open the door

There are so many doors
There are so many ways
How many doors have you opened?
How many ways have you found?

Some doors are small
Some doors are big
Some doors are hidden
Some doors are visible

Some doors are open
Some doors are closed
Some doors are broken
Some doors are perfect

Some doors are firm
Some doors are fragile
Some doors are sophisticated
Some doors are simple

If you plan to get in through doors
Why waste time on windows?
If your favorite is an orange
Why waste time on an apple?

If you source is open
Why make your destination closed?
If your reality is virtual
Why make your dream real?

If you cannot open the front door
Why not try the back door?
If you cannot open the door once
Why not try it twice?

There is a door
There is a way
There is a way
There is a light

Do not be timid
Just go ahead

As this verse of unknown origin reveals, there is no mystery about it. We enter a space through an open door. We enter a community through an open space. There’s no secret lock, no secret door, no secret entrance. But there are folks already bustling about inside inviting us in.

Every person here showed up at one of the doors of this Meeting House or Parish House for the very first time. Maybe it wasn’t literally a door. Maybe it was in the aisle at Shaw’s or Stop & Shop over a conversation with a parishioner about why this church was doing such and such or what is it that we believe anyway? Maybe something was said or gazes met in a way that said to the asker, “This is worth checking out.”

Maybe it was a virtual meeting in cyberspace. You cruised the Internet. You landed on http://www.firstparishcohasset.org/. You discovered our mission statement and found yourself in agreement; you previewed our activities and found yourself intrigued; you decided to try us out.

Maybe it was your kids. Perhaps as a parent with young children you decided it was time to offer them some form of religious education. You didn’t want them to be told what to believe. You wanted them to be affirmed for who they were. You wanted their questions to be honored. You wanted them to have a religious identity but with beliefs that were fluid and classes and outings that reinforced caring behavior and tuned into early questions and young energy.

Maybe it was your voice. You love to sing. You had a friend in the choir, and he told you how much fun, how satisfying, it was for him to sing in our First Parish choir.

Maybe it was your neighbor carrying on about something called Circle Ministry. “I never thought I could feel so close to a group of people I thought I already knew,” she said. So you prodded her and she said more. “You talk about stuff like Fathers and Mothers, like Race and Class, like Daydreams?” you asked, intrigued. So you joined her group. And you decided you’d try the rest of church too.

You came to a worship service. Perhaps the music inspired you. Perhaps a minister past or the one standing before you this morning spoke to your heart. Maybe you took your children to our RE classes. Then someone invited you to host coffee hour or join our Outreach Committee or help out with the Lobster Roll Sale. You were invited to serve. And you said to yourself—“Well, I’ve been thinking that I wanted to do something to make a positive difference; maybe this is it!” You got to know people. You rolled up your sleeves. You felt good about what you were doing. You stretched your soul.

This is how it works when you find your niche of ministry at First Parish Unitarian Universalist.

Now some of you might be thinking—especially if you’re fairly new—that there’s some magic about getting involved, about feeling that you really belong. Some of you might think the way the villagers did in the story I told. There’s some mystical plume of smoke emerging from an inner room, and only a favored few know about it. None of us likes to feel like an outsider, but the notion that there are a few insiders with special knowledge about how it all works is as mythical as a single plume of smoke rising from an inner sanctum.

So you take the chance. You end up on a committee. You end up in a Circle Ministry group. You end up teaching an RE class. You end up agreeing to co-lead a leaderless Senior High Youth Group. Then you think: Omigosh, what have I done? All I want to do, all these other folks want to do, is simply impossible. We’ll never be able to make it all happen. If nothing else, the logistics are overwhelming.

Now I could say, that “God works in mysterious ways her wonders to perform,” paraphrasing that 17th century poet William Cowper, but most of you would shake your heads, with an “I don’t think so!” on your face. Or I could say a nonchalant, “Oh, miracles happen!” And you would shudder given the maze of tasks before you. OR you could have listened to Jim’s account of the wedding envisioned by this couple so in love. Beyond expectations, it happened as they dreamed it could. How? Through so many hands doing the work, through so many hearts filled with a vision.

That’s exactly the way this church works. Sometimes the wheels lock; sometimes the boiler goes caput; sometimes the budget crunches; sometimes we sing off-key; sometimes we flatter ourselves by considering this congregation “organized” in 1721. Yet there must be an explanation for our survival across 19 professional ministries and countless lay ministries over these 288 years.

You who are here this morning and the grand you who have been members and friends of this congregation over the centuries, have found an open door, an entrance that worked for you, and you passed through and found fellowship and meaning and a life of spirit and deed and responses if not firm answers to your deepest questions.

Through what door have you entered? What path are you considering?

We who are Unitarian Universalists have historically been branded as heretics. Some of the ancestors of our faith paid with their lives. Yet a heretic means simply one who chooses. We know we don’t like to be told what to do; we like choices. Throughout this congregation, throughout our faith, there are choices in abundance. One of the core choices each of us faces is what our ministry will be here.

You’ve heard me speak of shared ministry. This is a notion that each of us performs a ministry, a service, to make possible our congregational life. It can’t happen any other way. I know I’m the professional, but each of you has gifts of ministry, of service; and your lay ministries, your gifts given and received, constitute the very flame in the chalice that is this parish. Your gifts are the dynamic core of who we are and who we can be.

What is your ministry? I believe there are four simple questions to consider when you ask this question—and I invite each of you to ask it:

1) What am I good at?
2) What do I like to do?
3) What needs to be done?
4) What door will I walk through to make my ministry live?

What am I good at? Sometimes what we’re good at is what we least like to do. I’m really good at weeding a garden. I’m really good at turning a messy document into a fairly coherent text. Do I like to do these things? No. So what am I good at that I like to do? Or even that I kind of like to do? Well, I kind of like to chair committees, but that’s your job, and I’m not about to stand in the way of your opportunities.

Let’s move to the next question. What needs to be done? I daresay most committees could give you a list. Or you could check our newsletter or our weekly e-mail update or reconsider that recent phone call from a committee chair. But what needs to be done aren’t simply tasks. Listening needs to be done. Fellowship needs to be experienced. Songs need to be sung. And soon a brunch needs to be savored! While you’re at that brunch, you’ll receive a yellow booklet [hold it up] prepared by our Leadership Development Committee. It contains a comprehensive set of descriptions of all current committees at First Parish and what each does. It’s a booklet ripe for your reflection of what needs to be done and how that might link with what you’re good at and what you like to do.

Then there’s that final question: What door will I walk through to make my ministry live?

There is a door for you. There is an entrance that works for each person here and each person who shows up. Who you are and what you yearn for and what you offer from the rich experiences of your life are a perfect fit. There are as many doors, as many entrances, as there are those of you ready to walk through.

There is a door
There is a way
There is a way
There is a light

Do not be timid
Just go ahead

Besides, you’re invited.

With open arms and love to each and all of you. Amen.

Sources:

Chalice Reflection of Jim FitzGerald, September 20, 2009.

William Cowper, “God Moves in a Mysterious Way,” in Reformation Theology, at http://www.reformationtheology.com/2006/04/god_moves_in_a_mysterious_way.php.
(“God moves in a mysterious way his wonders to perform…”)

Door (September 30, 2008) – 56, from Frontier Poetry at http://www.hwswworld.com/poetry_all.php Copyright 2002-2008 Hometown Innovation Automation Inc. All Rights Reserved.

“A Parable,” Jan Carlsson-Bull, September 20, 2009.

Chalice Reflection & Gospel--That Is, Good News!

2009-09-13T14:14:00.000-07:00

Chalice Reflection
of
Sarah Shannon
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts
September 13, 2009

Good morning. As I understand it, this morning is about becoming and growing a community in which each person, no matter how big or how small, feels valued and respected and that he/she is a contributing member of the group.

One of the things that I was most looking forward to when I joined First Parish was sitting here as I am today – with my husband, Ken, and my children: a small, family unit that was part of a much larger community of individuals. When we joined the church, we didn’t actually have the two children that we have today. Now, when I go to sit, I will join them and begin teaching my two boys what church is, why it’s important, what I believe, how to formulate their own beliefs, and, of course, how to sit still, listen, and be quiet!

Looking back, I can remember going to church with my parents and sitting in the pews – they were uncomfortable, hard, and stiff. I hated having to sit still and be quiet and I was a sit still, be quiet kind of child, not like my boys. I loved to read. It would have been easy for my parents to let me bring a book with me. I would have been a perfect angel, but that would have defeated the purpose of bringing me to church. I can imagine that for some of the children here today, they are feeling the same way that I did as a child. And, I’m sure that some of the parents of young children are feeling the same way that I do today.

As a member of your RE committee, I believe that days such as these, our intergenerational services, are just as, if not more, important than the RE classes that go on across the street. These services teach our children that what they are learning in their RE classes is part of a much bigger entity and that Sunday isn’t just about another “class” they have to attend after a long week of learning; it’s about a religion; it’s about faith. The opportunity to attend the services shows our children that the two, class and church, aren’t mutually exclusive of each other.

I look forward to working as a part of the First Parish community to grow the Religious Education program and to teaching my children how to be contributing members of this community as well. It is my hope that even though they are small, John and Michael can start contributing now – whether that be by answering questions in their RE class or by listening to Reverend Jan on a Sunday morning and asking Ken and me questions about what she said on the ride home. I love that each person in this worship house has a voice. And I love that the tiny, high-pitched voices are just as exciting to listen to as those that are loud and deep!

If there are any parents who would like to register their children to be a part of our Religious Education Community, I will be across the street after church and would be happy to help you.

“Gospel—that is, Good News!”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
for the Sunday of our Annual Meeting
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
September 13, 2009

YOU are for celebrating. You who are little kids and big kids, you who are young adults and young parents, you who are on that 50-yard-line of life, and you who are further down the field, you whom I call our ripest apples. You are all cause for celebration. Why? Because you’re alive and you’re here, and we’re here together on this first full September Sunday morning of our new church year. For me, that’s Gospel, which means…good news!

But there’s more.

We’re a growing congregation. Like the child and the townspeople in the story I shared earlier, we’re planting a garden together. We’re sowing seeds even in this season of almost-autumn. We’re sowing seeds and we’re tending the garden that is First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Cohasset. How?

You got up this morning and you had a choice. What will I do? Where will I be? You came here. You came and some of you brought your children. I see faces that are familiar and faces that are new, kids and grown-ups whom I know and kids and grown-ups whom I hope all of us will come to know. You took a chance that here you would find fellowship and song and questions that matched yours and maybe even some welcome silence—though we’re not as good at silence as we are with the other stuff.

Then there’s our choir. They’re already singing their hearts out with a rousing “Jazz Alleluia” and a traditional spiritual about “Good News.” And there’s the choir that is our whole congregation, as we lift our voices to the strains of “Enter, Rejoice, and Come In.” How can you help but smile when you sing “Enter, Rejoice, and Come In?” Its upbeat melody and steady rhythms remind me of the sounds of a carousel.

How else do we tend our garden? Right after this service, we’ll gather in fellowship across the street. We’ll have a more social chance to greet friends and newcomers, and we’ll make sure that everyone—please let’s make sure that everyone—is included as we gather in clusters and share the news of our summer and our hopes and plans for the year ahead.

Some of you will register your children for our religious education classes. They begin next week. I can’t imagine a better way for our children and youth to grow into caring adults than to participate in a program that builds an identity of caring and sharing and learning about other faiths as well as our own, and for our younger teens to begin a program called Our Whole Lives—OWL for short—that teaches healthy and caring relationships, and for our older teens to come together across congregations for a Senior High Youth Group. This is all good news for how our children grow!

By now, most of you have had a chance to read our September newsletter. In just a few short weeks, nine members of this congregation will leave for Guatemala through a project called Common Hope that this congregation has participated in for close to a decade. You’ll bring shoes that we gathered and purchased last spring, shoes that will find their way onto the feet of village schoolchildren. In fact, it’s not too late for the rest of us to gather even more shoes. Most importantly, you, our Common Hope Vision Team, will bring yourselves, your good will, and your readiness to roll up your sleeves and work on behalf of our neighbors to the south, neighbors who struggle mightily to makes ends meet. And you’ll reunite with Salomon, the young boy turned young man who has been the recipient of this congregation’s generosity for many years. You’ll meet Salomon’s wife and new baby. And you’ll work hard and remember well so you can come back and tell us the good news of your time there.

I could go on. Gospel is alive here. Who we are and how we seek to be for each other and this community and our world is all about the Gospel—that is, the good news of this faith whose core is love.

As background, I grew up as a Presbyterian, which is not a bad thing by the way! As a Presbyterian Christian, I grew up learning what I thought was “the Gospel.” I didn’t know there was more than one! Gospel for the younger me meant the good news of the coming of Jesus and that he was my Lord and Savior. I know there are some Unitarian Universalists who also identify as Christian. If anyone asks me if I’m Christian as a “UU,” I say, “inclusively but not exclusively,”—that is, yes, I am, but I’m not just Christian. I find truth in other religions and in literature and poetry and movies and the drama of the ocean. I know, some of YOU would say the drama of the Red Sox! In this part of the country, the Red Sox is Gospel!

But it’s one thing to be a fan, another thing to be committed to an ongoing community whose driving force is walking together in a covenant—a community promise—of love. As Unitarian Universalists, what is our Gospel? What is our core force? “…the glowing coal at our center is radically inclusive love” are the words Elizabeth Stevens chooses to describe it. Rev. Elizabeth Stevens is minister of the Kitsap Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Bremerton, Washington, and with her permission I share her words with you this morning. Inspired by exciting worship and stirring lectures and the energy of over 3,000 Unitarian Universalists gathered in Salt Lake City, Utah at our General Assembly this past June, Liz wrote of her “strong feeling that the 'glowing coal' at our center is radically inclusive love and that we are called from that center to the work of building THE (global) beloved community.”

Beloved community is a phrase often used by the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. King scholars Kenneth Smith and Ira Zepp describe King’s vision of beloved community as “a vision of a completely integrated society, a community of love and justice wherein brotherhood would be an actuality in all of social life.”

Love, community, and passion for both are at the heart of our deepest and widest hopes for this faith community. As for that “glowing coal” at our center, I remember when my daughter Sarah, now 30-something, was about seven years old. On the ride home from church one Sunday, I mentioned something about our flaming chalice. Without a second’s pause, Sarah chimed in, “Oh yeah, that ‘steaming pot of fire.’”

What glows and steams for you? What is your faith gospel, your good news? I’ll be asking you to share your stories over the year ahead. I know you have them, or you wouldn’t be here.

For now, let’s catch some of what Liz and I caught in the presence of our larger UU world this summer in Salt Lake City, some of the “Gospel fire,” we might call it.

Love is at the heart of a campaign launched at that same General Assembly that stirred Liz and me. You’ll hear more about it as the year unfolds. “Standing on the side of love,” it’s called. Like any campaign, this one has a manager. His name is Adam Gerhardstein. Adam is a young adult who manages this campaign out of our Unitarian Universalist Association’s Office of Advocacy in Washington, DC. Right after General Assembly ended, he wrote of his experiences with its launching, which included a number of volunteers who filmed folks telling their own “love stories.”

Each morning [wrote Adam]… the Standing on the Side of Love volunteers gathered in my hotel room/campaign headquarters at 7:30 am. We started each meeting by checking-in about our experiences the previous day. …Here is one story:

‘I filmed a straight woman who said that she stood on the side of love with her daughter and her daughter's female partner, who are unable to marry. As a queer person, I was deeply moved by her words, and my face must have shown a strange mixture of pain and gratitude. Later that day, a Spanish language news program was searching for a Spanish-speaker to interview at the interfaith rally. I'm neither Latina nor an immigrant, but I speak Spanish, so I volunteered. I told the reporter that we were supporting immigrants because it is wrong to persecute families who only want to work hard and build better lives. Afterwards, the cameraperson, a middle-aged Latino man, said a soft and heartfelt, 'Thank you.' I recognized the emotions on his face--they were the same emotions I had felt listening to that mother.’

Adam ends his message with the simple words, “Love is powerful.”

I could tell so many more good news love stories, and so could you, but I have a clock right in front of this pulpit. And it’s telling me that even “good news” has a period at the end of a sermon about it.

This morning’s gospel for me is the good news that we are, that we are here, that we are here together, and that we are here together in the promise of standing on the side of love all year long and into all the years of our life together. May it be so. I love you each and all. Amen.

Sources:

“Enter, Rejoice, and Come In,” Words and music: Louise Ruspini, Arr. by Better A. Wylder (1923 - ), in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 361.

Adam Gerhardstein, “Standing on the Side of Love at GA,” July 7, 2009 e-mail from love@uua.org. A one-time email to everyone who experienced the General Assembly launch of the Standing on the Side of Love campaign.

http://www.standingonthesideoflove.org/

Rev. Elizabeth Stevens, “…the ‘glowing coal” at our center…” quoted from July 2, 2009. Permission to quote received by Rev. Stevens July 7, 2009.

Kenneth L. Smith and Ira G. Zepp, Jr., “Martin Luther King’s Vision of the Beloved Community,” Christian Century, April 3, 1974, pp. 361-363. Material prepared for Religion Online by Ted and Winnie Brock: http://www.religion-online.org/showarticle.asp?title=1603

Our Fathers

2009-06-21T14:10:00.000-07:00

“Our Fathers”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
June 21, 2009

Father’s Day, a day to honor the men who sired us, raised us, nurtured us, mentored us, taught us. A day also to wince at the pain and frustration known by some among us who do not feel so inclined to honor the men who sired, raised, and taught us. It’s a tough cookie, this matter of Mother’s Day and Father’s Day, whether we consider our mothers and fathers—and some of us may well have two of each—or whether we consider the mothering or fathering that we have done and continue to practice. Parenting is such a daunting process, I’m convinced sometimes that it’s all practice. This is why I always say to any among you who announce that you’re expecting a child, whether you’re expecting a birth child or an adoptive child, “Congratulations! Your life will never be the same.”

Parenting is not for the faint of heart. For good reason the fifth commandment of those legendary commandments of Moses does not say: “Love your father and mother,” but “Honor your father and mother,” and not for their sake but, as one translation goes, “that your days may be long in the land which the Lord your God gives you.” (Exodus 20:12)

A demeanor of honor, of respectful civility for our parents, is counseled across faith traditions. In the story I related earlier of the young man and his elderly father sharing a backyard bench, this is conveyed through the brief interchange between them and the background chirping of a sparrow, which held the rapt gaze of the father. Attuned to his surroundings, most especially, the delicate bird, the elderly father asked his young adult son again and again, “What is that?” pointing to the sparrow. The son, with his nose in a newspaper, replied to the first few rounds with a matter-of-fact, “A sparrow.” When the father repeated the question, the son grew increasingly irritated, until the elderly father rose to go into the house. In a moment, he returned with a book, which he handed to his son, indicating to him to read “loud” a certain passage. The son read of how a one-time three-year-old asked repeatedly the same question his father had been asking repeating, also in reference to a delicate sparrow: “What is that?” Again and again, the young father had replied patiently, “A sparrow.” The young man’s face softened and saddened. With remorse over how miserably he had failed to show his father the love and patience his father had shown him, the son reached over and embraced the man who was now as innocent as he had been as a three-year-old child.

The scenario concludes with a passage from the Quran:

“The Lord hath decreed that ye worship none but Him, and that ye be kind to parents. Whether one or both of them attain old age in thy life, say not to them a word of contempt, or repel them, but address them in terms of honor. And out of kindness, lower to them the wing of humility, and say: ‘My Lord! Bestow on them thy Mercy even as they cherished me in childhood.” (Sura isra’a 23-24)

It could as easily have been the passage from the 20th chapter of the Book of Exodus.

The elderly father reminds me of my grandfathers. My Grandfather Edwards sat me as a young child on his lap and taught me songs and prayers with the same ease that he took me by the hand and brought me along to the Halfa Store, a spot-in-the-road general store, where I hopped on his lap and listened to my Grandad and his farmer friends talk away an hour or so as they shared a beer and kept me well supplied with ice cream. As a teenager, I witnessed this same Granddad losing his hold on the precious stuff of his life—his prayers, his songs, his conversations with friends then gone, his capacity to take the hand of a child as a kindly and confident guide. This was not always a patient man, but had he retained the faculty to remind any of us amid any later impatience with him of our shared history, he could have done so with the same nobility that this Muslim father extended to his son.

As some of us gather in circles of family and friends to honor today the fathers among us, I wonder at the gifts that will be given. I wonder how many resemble the gifts given by Roscoe Sr.’s sons to their father on the occasion of his 40th birthday in the story I shared from John McCluskey, Jr.’s much longer story. Cigars we will likely not give, given what we know of their effects; but the boldly patterned shirts and ties will flow in abundance. And I wonder how many fathers, many as rough and tumble as Roscoe, Sr., will proudly wear those precious gifts with no regard for friends who might look askance at their taste.

Yes, there are fathers whom some of us never knew and don’t know. Yes, there are fathers whom we would rather not know. And yes, there are fathers, grandfathers, stepfathers, and father figures who have nurtured us with time, patience, stories, and examples of how to live honorable lives, that we too might be fathers or mothers or simply nurturing adults who pass on the stories and lessons, that we too might be carriers of the love.

Our fathers are many and variable, honorable and dishonorable, lovable and otherwise. How might we receive those gifts worthy of passing on to the next generation and know that the cycles we choose to continue or break and re-form ensure that what we pass on is worthy of the next generation? Fathering comes in so many flavors and is received with so many hopes and assumptions. Fathering comes in so many textures. Its gifts are varied and linger. The ties that bind are arrayed with the same hopes and hurts that we bring to our childhoods, childhoods lived and remembered, childhoods that we continue to live out.

What might we say on this Father’s Day to those male figures who have nurtured us and otherwise? Perhaps another rendition of a familiar prayer would suffice:

Our fathers, who are of this earth, who have struggled and achieved and failed and succeeded and laughed and cried as we have, your reality is dear;

Your kingdom is of this earth, our homes, our communities, our nations peaceful and war-torn. Your kingdom is here and now, and you know there is only kingdom, no king.

You have done what you could to put food on the table. For those of you who couldn’t, we forgive you. You have done what you could to ensure our safety. For those of you who couldn’t, we forgive you. You have done what you could to ensure that we grew into loving and honorable men and women, sons and daughters of whom you could be proud. For those of you who didn’t, we forgive you. Would you forgive us when we have failed to honor your attempts? Would you forgive us when we fail to forgive you?

May we not lean into that mindset that closes our hearts to you. May we resist the temptation to know more, feel more, be more than you possibly could and then take credit for the whole harvest. May we stray not into the illusion of asserting that we are better, fairer, and finer than you. Recall us to our humanhood. Remind us that none of us are ever loved as we think we need to be loved. Teach us once again to keep our eye on the sparrow. Teach us through the stories, the images, the songs, and the silence, that we are in this life as members of the great family of all who have ever lived and all who are now alive. Teach us that kingdoms and power and glory are to be shared, because we are all in this amazing life together. Amen.

Sources:

The Second Book of Moses Commonly Called Exodus, The Bible (Revised Standard Version)

John McCluskey, Jr., “Forty in the Shade,” in Memory of Kin: Stories About Family by Black Writers, Edited by Mary Helen Washington, Anchor Books, Doubleday, New York, 1991, 199-201 (from Mr. America’s Last Season Blues by John McCluskey, Jr., Copyright 1983 by John McCluskey, Jr. Reprinted by permission of Louisiana State University Press. This selection originally appeared as a short story in Obsidian, IV, Number 1, under the title “Forty in the Shade.”

Video and script of the story of the Muslim father and son, http://www.youtube. com/watch? v=7rMzbgu30yY.

Chalice Reflection & Sing to Your Heart's Content

2009-06-14T08:03:00.000-07:00

Chalice Reflection
of
Jim FitzGerald
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts
June 14, 2009

During my years of study at seminary, one of my favorite topics included the Hebrew Bible prophets.

A prophet is someone who speaks on behalf of someone else. In religious scripture, the prophet has been understood as one who speaks on behalf of God.

Since the prophet Jeremiah often had a contentious relationship with God, he quickly became one of my favorites. It is in the first chapter of the book of the prophet Jeremiah that famously begins “before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.”

While the context of this saying relates to Jeremiah’s call to being God’s prophet, it is often remembered when celebrating parenthood. I’ve been reflecting on that phrase for this chalice reflection for two reasons.

First, today is the Sunday before Father’s Day and it is appropriate to begin thinking in anticipation of such a celebration day that honors our fathers.

Secondly, I’ve been thinking about this phrase because my partner Jaimy and I are expecting a child – due in mid October, making it appropriate that as a father-to-be, I offer such a reflection a week before Father’s Day.

“Before I formed you in the womb, I knew you.” I have reflected on this saying in a number of ways, carefully reconstructing the phrase to gain deeper insight:
As you were taking form in the womb, I began to know you
I knew your spirit before you were formed in the womb.

I wondered what meaning the phrase would have if the direction were reversed. Instead of hearing the parent’s voice in the phrase, what if we heard a child’s voice?

Before I was formed in the womb, I knew you.
As I was taking form in the womb, I began to know you.
I feel your spirits with me, Mom and Dad, as I take form in the womb.

Whether read from a parents’ perspective or a child’s, the wisdom from the Hebrew tradition is loud and clear - the bond of love exists long before flesh takes form.

Since learning that we’re expecting a child, feelings range from intense excitement – like when Jaimy and I see the profound joy between parents and child as they play. Jaimy and I look at one another as if to say – “we can’t wait.”

At other times, Jaimy and I witness parents in utter frustration and exhaustion while their toddler throws a temper tantrum at the Stop and Shop check-out line. Jaimy and I look at one another with uncontrollable fear as if to say – “Oh my God, what have we gotten ourselves into!”
However, feelings of excitement always win out, and the wisdom from Jeremiah comforts the soul knowing this profound relationship has already begun.

I don’t know whether Jaimy and I will have a son or a daughter. Honestly, we only reflect on that aspect when someone asks. The rest of the time, we just observe in awe and are overwhelmed at the miracle unfolding.

I often place my hand on Jaimy’s growing belly and whisper “I’m here… waiting to welcome you, to hold you, to love you. I can’t wait to see you.” In my spirit, I hear a little voice on the other side of that wall of flesh saying with hope and anticipation – “I can’t wait either, Dad.”

As we journey to next Sunday’s celebration of our fathers, let’s spend this morning singing to our heart’s content as we hold in our thoughts and prayers those parents-to-be. Because when we see the temper tantrums in the middle of Stop and Shop – we parents-to-be realize we need all the prayers we can get.

“Sing to Your Heart’s Content”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
June 14, 2009

“O sing unto the Lord a new song: sing unto the Lord all the earth.” So sounds the first verse of the 96th Psalm. We who are Unitarian Universalists may have a hard time hearing these words, loathe as we are 1) to accept biblical verse as commandment and 2) to sing new songs. On that first point—accepting Biblical verse as commandment—we have a choice. We can hear those words not as a commandment, but as an invitation. And we can substitute whatever or whomever for “the Lord.” We can simply sing a new song, which raises the matter of our reluctance to do so.

How many times have I heard, “Please, can’t we just sing the familiar ones?” I tend to respond with: “Remember, there was once a time when you had never tasted chocolate,” hoping of course that I’m diffusing the resistance of an all-out chocolate lover.

So too there was once a time when we had never heard “Silent Night” or “Spirit of Life.” And there may be folks here this morning, newcomers to this church and this faith, who have never heard “Spirit of Life.”

In the spirit of Pete Seeger and the story I adapted from the story he adapted, the story of Abiyoyo, we’re reminded that a new song can still a giant after he exhausts himself dancing to a new song that is completely irresistible. In the story, the young boy and his father conspired to disarm the giant Abiyoyo by music and magic. Imagine a song whose only lyrics are your name. It’s enough to make a scary giant smile and dance like he’s never danced.

The stuff of stories you might say. Ah yes, but there are those giants that lurk in the hearts and minds not only of young children, but of ripe and otherwise sage adults. Each of us holds fears that sometimes loom like terrifying giants. Sometimes we call them phobias. Sometimes we call them nightmares. Sometimes we call them memories. I wonder how a song, a brand new song, might pacify the giants that lurk and linger in spirit and psyche.

New songs with an arresting lilt and fresh lyrics have a way of taking us by surprise and bringing us to a place we never thought we could go. Old songs comfort; new songs awaken. Sometimes there’s a bridge joining old and new.

So it is with “Spirit of Life” and “Rising Green,” the song we’re about to sing. The bridge is Carolyn McDade, who wrote them both. While “Spirit of Life” may be our “familiar song,” it was actually written after “Rising Green.” Carolyn is a longtime songwriter and a neighbor, living on the Cape. She has also been described as a “feminist activist.” In her own words, she says “I write love songs to social movements.”

Return to the words of “Spirit of Life.” They’re laced with a spirituality of compassion and justice. The song was written as a prayer, and so we sing it as an extension of our communal prayer. I wonder if “Spirit of Life” could have calmed the spirit of Abiyoyo. My guess is: How could it not?

The song we’re about to sing holds its own disarming lyrics. In the spirit of life renewed and abiding love that we celebrate this morning, “Rising Green” sings like a psalm of new life and abiding love. You’ll find the words in your orders of service. Allegra [Music Director] will lead us. I invite you all to sing out and please, sing to your heart’s content.

Sources:
Between the Lines: Sources for Singing the Living Tradition, Edited by Jacqui James, Second Edition, Skinner House Books, Boston, 1998.

Kimberly French, “Carolyn McDade’s spirit of life: Unitarian Universalism's most beloved song, the woman who wrote it, and the communities that sustain her spirit, UU World, Fall 2007,
http://www.uuworld.org/life/articles/35893.shtml.

Carolyn McDade, “Rising Green,” in Singing the Journey: A Supplement to Singing the Living Tradition, Unitarian Universalist Association, 2005, 1068.

Carolyn McDade, “Spirit of Life,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 123.

Pete Seeger and Paul DuBois Jacobs, “Abiyoyo” in Pete Seeger’s Storytelling Book, A Harvest Book, Harcourt, Inc., New York, 2000.

Graduating Seniors' Chalice Reflection and Remarks & Opening Words & In Praise and Gratitude

2009-06-07T07:24:00.000-07:00

Chalice Reflection
of
Abbott Cowen, Graduating Senior
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts
Recognition Sunday – June 7, 2009

Good morning everyone! I think it has been quite some time since I’ve been up here speaking in front of you all. It’s nice to be back. Before I begin, I must say that this chalice reflection was actually supposed to be a joint piece between Nathan and me. However, I guess Nathan had too many graduation parties to go to this week and thus didn’t have any time to come up with anything good. Apparently he is just way more popular than I am. It is true though that these last few weeks have been busy ones.

I guess Nathan and I have reached one of those big transition milestones. You know, one of those times where the older people look back fondly, or maybe not so fondly, on old memories and the younger people look up at you and think: damn, you’re old! So yes, graduating from high school is a big deal, at least for us.

Nathan graduated last Saturday and I graduated just two days ago on Friday. Friday night as I was thinking about how much I was going to miss Milton Academy, I realized that I really wasn’t going to miss it at all. There is nothing all that special about the big glass student center or Forbes dining hall or the science trailers. What I am really going to miss are all the friendships I have made with students and teachers over the last four years. It has been very interesting to see how our class has dealt with the inevitable separation. Some pull their friends closer and others push them away. I think I have been in more fights and exchanged more loving words with friends in these last two weeks than I have in the last two years. These kids have helped shape who I am today and I have become very close with some of them. It’s hard to think that after Friday most of these friends I will only see at the occasional class reunion.

As I stand up here in front of you all today, I realize that the same thing is probably true for this church. I leave in just over a week to go out west for the summer and then jump right into college life when I get back. While I will hopefully be back on my vacations, I will be more or less MIA for the next four years.

Many of you in this community have affected me as I have grown up in this church, and I hold many fond memories. I remember building a cardboard fruit stand in the old meeting house with my dad and Jacqui Clark and selling apples to the rest of the congregation. I remember Shirley Wallace taking all of us in the Coming of Age program to different churches on the South Shore and into Boston for a great sleepover. I remember my mentor, Miraculous Mark. There is a really good story that goes along with that name; you’ll have to ask him about it. He’s a pretty miraculous guy. I remember the youth group and John and Leeanne and all the great fun that we had together. While I have not been present so much this year, Jim has certainly stepped up to fill their place. I remember Jan keeping a watchful eye over all us kids in the RE programs or just being there for a conversation about really anything. And of course, I remember my best buddy Nathan. It has been a fantastic 15 years or so in this community, and while this isn’t really goodbye I would just like to thank you all so much for making this such a great community to grow up in. It has really been fantastic and I will never forget it. Thank you!

Remarks
of
Nathan Wallace, Graduating Senior
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts
Recognition Sunday – June 7, 2009

Good Morning -

I’ve been coming to First Parish for over 10 years now, and throughout my life many people have influenced me, allowing me to become a better, more spiritual person. I’d like to thank Jacqui Clark, John and Leeann, and Jim for being truly the greatest RE teachers and directors one could hope to work under. I’d also like to thank Jan for showing me that living each day to the fullest is the most fulfilling way to live. Finally, I’d like to thank the entire congregation. Without your support, my violin playing wouldn’t have taken off like it has, and I would not be the person I am today. Thank you all.

Opening Words
of
Jim FitzGerald
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts
Recognition Sunday – June 7, 2009

As we journey together toward the conclusion of another extraordinary church year, we take time during this special service to reflect and celebrate.

This year we've welcomed new members and mourned the passing of friends. We've cared for one another when illness trumped our daily routines with worry, injury and or sickness.

We've struggled together, laughed together, argued and created together. We've provoked one another and supported one another.

All of which, from time to time caused some tears of sadness and tears of joy.

Today we pause - a sacred pause, to recognize the wonderful ministries in which so many congregation members offer their time and talent.

We also honor the rite of passage of our graduating seniors - Nathan Wallace, Abbott Cowen, and Rachel McMorris. Two of our graduates, Nathan and Abbott are here with us this morning to participate and celebrate. Nathan will offer his spirit in his music and Abbott will offer his wisdom in his chalice reflection.

At this time, I'd like to invite Nathan and Abbott to come forward and light our chalice as we begin our service of praise and gratitude.

Recognizing our graduates
I don't know what it is like to have a son. But, if I am ever blessed with a son, I hope he grows to be honorable and virtuous as Nathan and Abbott.

Shirley and Ron; Annie and Will - you must be so proud.

I think everyone here will agree that adolescence is not easy. Even with the most loving parents and supportive community, life is tested, expectations are real, and pressure to succeed only seems to become more intense.

Rarely have I witnessed two young men handle those pressures with more grace and integrity than Nathan and Abbott.

Abbott personifies the phrase "mature beyond their years." Abbott reflects the Unitarian Universalist virtue of wisdom and confidence that we all witnessed in his wonderful chalice reflection this morning.

Nathan's gentle spirit conveys the Unitarian Universalist trait of unconditional welcome. Regardless of how old someone is, what they look like, or where they've come from, they find unconditional welcome when meeting Nathan. That same gentle spirit will sing from violin strings later this morning.

Nathan and Abbott, this morning we honor you with fond memories of the past and with excitement and anticipation for the future. But most importantly, we celebrate you both today for exactly who you are in this every moment.

Abbott and Nathan, you have a congregation that loves you and a faith community that will always be here to support you, unconditionally, today and forever.

I offer you both a blessing, the same blessing I offered you on my first day here at First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Cohasset - a blessing I borrow from the Buddhist tradition.

Abbott and Nathan
May you both be filled with loving kindness.
May you both be well.
May you both be peaceful and at ease.
And most of all, may you both be happy.
Amen.

“In Praise and Gratitude”

A Homily by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
on Recognition Sunday
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
June 7, 2009

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Let the bells ring and the “Jubilates” sound. Praise and gratitude are the order of the day. Praise and gratitude for all of you who have given abundantly by heart, hand, and funds to sustain and grow the ministries of this congregation over this past year. You have planned, imagined, and strategized. You have organized and orchestrated. You have cooperated and collaborated. You have taught, mentored, and chaperoned. You have reached out and reached in. You have advocated; you have decided. You have cared for each other and for our larger community. You have shared your stories and listened to the stories of others. You have sung and danced. You have baked and served. You have fixed up and cleaned up. You have worshipped together, hoped together, hurt together, laughed together, and celebrated together.

You are what faithful community looks like. You are what faithful community is. You are what seals and solidifies the prospects of this congregation into the next century.

We celebrate you today, and we celebrate our graduating seniors, Abbot and Nathan. We hold you in our hearts, guys; and will dare to ask: “Are you sure you want to go off to college so soon? Didn’t you just start high school this year? Wasn’t it last year that you started kindergarten?” Okay, one of the toughest tasks of parenting is letting go; one of the toughest tasks of your church family is letting go. Jim has shared so eloquently the thoughts that we all hold. Our choir has sung so poetically the choices that are yours. You have spoken so poignantly of what it means to stand on the threshold that is this time of your life. Your words and music linger. The doors of this church and our hearts are ever open to you.

In praise and gratitude, we worship together this morning. Praise and gratitude remind us that none of us can solo dance our faith. We’re in it together. Independent, opinionated, distinctive as we fancy ourselves to be, we are called again and again to affirm our interdependence, our growing edges, our religious community. We do so across opinions, across conventional boundaries of race and class and sexual and gender identity, across generations, and across the years.

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! In praise and thanksgiving, I am so grateful for all you do and all are you are; and I love you, each and every one.

Amen.

Chalice Reflection & Introduction to Coming of Age Presentations & For Our Coming of Age Youth

2009-05-31T07:06:00.000-07:00

Chalice Reflection
of
Jackie Whipple
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts
Coming of Age Sunday – May 31, 2009

I have been asked to light the chalice today because I am a grandparent with a lot of experience-- from what your R.E. Director and your Minister are kindly calling “the wisdom generation.” I have been the mentor of two different girls, about a generation apart. And my husband and I have raised two sons and two daughters who Came of Age in this church. And we have four grandsons--one of whom had the Jewish Coming of Age ritual, a Bar Mitzvah. And we have six granddaughters, one of whom also had a Bat Mitzvah.

As you young people know from your year’s study, almost every culture and religion has a ritual marking the coming of age. About the age of 13, you start the transition from childhood to responsible adulthood. Your body is growing up; your thoughts, interests, activities, and beliefs are becoming more grown up too; and some ambitions for your future may be forming. When I was thirteen, I read a book titled “Girl Reporter” and that set my path for the rest of my life. At this age, probably you want more independence and privacy; want to go places and do things on your own; wear what you want to wear; spend more time with your friends than with your parents; redecorate your room, and/or shut your door and live in a mess. All perfectly normal behavior!

Things are changing for your parents, too. A new era of worries: worrying about where you are and who you are with, and why you haven’t come home yet--and other things-- Dreading the day you get your driver’s license. All perfectly normal behavior!

Everything should work out well however: because you all have a good UU background and family relationships of trust and respect--and you all will have your cell phones!

Introduction to Coming of Age Presentations
Jim FitzGerald
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts
Coming of Age Sunday – May 31, 2009

Nine youngsters participated in this year’s Coming of Age program and all nine Coming of Age youth successfully completed the required program expectations. The class visited various faith communities, participated in community service projects, and teamed up with an adult mentor for conversations relating to their faith tradition, spirituality, and life. The program now comes to this milestone conclusion in this offering of credo presentations.

The religious education program asked our Coming of Age class to present their credo presentations in one of three ways:
 take the traditional approach of reading a prepared statement from the pulpit
 engage in a credo dialogue between mentor and mentee
 offer their credo presentation in the form of a painting, sculpture, piece of artwork or craft, perform a musical selection, etc. with some spoken explanation of how their creation illustrates their personal beliefs

The choice – is completely up to each mentor and mentee pair.

In a few moments, mentors will be invited to offer some introductory remarks about their mentee before each credo presentation is given. After each Coming of Age class member completes their presentation, mentors and mentees will engage in a simple ritual.

Mentors will light and present to their mentee a chalice to symbolize our Unitarian Universalist faith and the search for truth and meaning that they have shared throughout this program. Mentees will present their mentor with a rose. The rose, traditionally used during a child’s dedication, reappears this morning to symbolize the many ways in which each mentor has helped their mentee blossom and unfold into the promise of a beautiful life.

“For Our Coming of Age Youth”

A Message by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
on Coming of Age Sunday
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
May 31, 2009

When I was your age…. No! I won’t go there. I can just see my own kids turned adults rolling their eyes, sure that they know what’s coming. You’re probably better off not knowing about “when I was your age.”

You are the age you are, and you always will be. That doesn’t quite mean that you’ll be forever 12 or 13 or 14, but you will be exactly the age you are, whether it’s 12 or 13 or 14 or 32 or 53 or 73 or maybe 93 or 103. This morning marks your Coming of Age, when your families and your church honor you as you pause in your own distinctive ways at the open gate between childhood and adulthood. Okay, you don’t get to vote yet. You’re too young for a driver’s license. You’re too young according to the by-laws of this congregation to be an official member. You’re too old for childcare. You’re too old for adults to pat you on the head. You’re in that fuzzy time—too young for this, too old for that.

Which means, you’re just right! You are the age that you need to be. You’re exactly the right age to Come of Age.

You’re of the age when you need not forget what it is to be little, to be a child, to take in the smallest detail of the world as if you’re breathing, touching, tasting, hearing, and holding it for the first time. Never forget what that’s like. Hold it dear.

You’re of the age of leaning into adulthood. You don’t yet have the responsibility or the freedom of adulthood, and they come as a package. Yet this is a time to try out responsibility, to taste freedom; and this is a time when you’re trying the resilience of your elders as you sometimes dip too deep for safety into the well of freedom, even as you swell the hearts of your elders as you sometimes assume responsibility beyond your age, beyond the call of childhood.

You both cherish the opinions of others and stretch your own will to be uniquely you. It’s a tightrope, calling for balance. Don’t be afraid to fall off, knowing that there’s a safety net called your family and your church to catch you. Pay close attention. It’s a trip that you only take once. It is precious and sacred, as you are precious and sacred.

You are coming of age, which is to say, you are becoming who you are. Like the flame in our chalice, you are never still. Your credo, your “I believe,” will change over time. What you have shared with us this morning is no less dear. Return to it five years from now, ten years from now. Return to it when you reach your ripest years. It is a sacred expression of who you are and what matters most to you today.

What matters most to me today is that you are you. You are uniquely wondrously you. Melissa, Sarah, Sasha, Brodie, Isabelle, Adrian, Emily, Julia, and Arianna, I hold you in my heart. This entire congregation, your family of faith, holds you in our hearts as we celebrate you today. I love you. We love you.

Memories and Reflections

2009-05-24T06:57:00.000-07:00

“Memories and Reflections”

A Message by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
for Memorial Day Sunday
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
May 24, 2009

Life and death, those two strands that we braid and un-braid, braid and un-braid. On this day of memory and remembering, they are intimately woven. We’re here and alive in this time and space. We remember those who are not.

It’s not so simple.

For some of us, today is a day of remembering and honoring the war dead, those who were downwind from the winds of war. Some here this morning knew those winds intimately. I don’t know how much you remember, but it’s tough to gloss over what happened, tougher perhaps to bring them into the light of today. Surely there’s an intimacy established among those of you who were in combat, a brotherly/sisterly bond that prevails and protects. When those of us who have not seen combat presume to guess what it was like, we flail and we fail. We’ll never know. I hope we’ll never know.

Memorial Day for me is a somewhat turbulent time. I’m torn between honoring all who have died and calling special attention to those who have perished because we as humankind have been less than kind. Again and again, we have failed to rise to a diplomacy that prevents what I believe is one of the great sins of humanity. So rather than honoring the so-called war dead exclusively, I seek to honor all who have known the precious gift of life and have moved into the mystery that is common to all life, the mystery of death.

By memory and love, those who have died endure. Some live on in common memory. Most fade in the mortal memory of survivors who inevitably join the ranks of the dead. I cannot give them names, for their names are forgotten; but they once graced this earth—for better and worse and across that immense space between. I invoke especially the lives of the long forgotten.

How to “gather at the river” that flows with the droplets of each life, above a bed of ancient stones? How to “gather at the river” affirming each droplet, each ancient stone? How to “gather at the river?” In the spirit of gathered memory, I invite us to speak responsively the words of Rabbi Roland Gittelsohn:

Responsive Reading 720, "We Remember Them," Roland B. Gittelsohn (adapted)

…………………..…..

“In the opening of buds and in the rebirth of spring, we remember them.”

On this day of memory and remembering, I invite your voices of memory and reflection. Whose memory would you like to lift up this morning? How does this person’s life touch you today?

Voices of Memory and Reflection

Sources:

Roland B. Gittelsohn, “We Remember Them,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 720.

Robert Lowery, “Shall We Gather at the River” (words and music), First published in Happy Voices in 1865. In Singing the Journey: A Supplement to Singing the Living Tradition, Unitarian Universalist Association, Boston, 2005, 1046

Chalice Reflection & A Completely Divine Day

2009-05-17T19:41:00.000-07:00

Chalice Reflection
of
Joan Lunt
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts
May 17, 2009

Note: Joan wrote this after she and her Circle Ministry (small group ministry) group spent a day working at a Habitat for Humanity project in Hingham. She offered it as her chalice reflection.

With a happy heart and money to spend,
Our circle ministry was challenged to lend,
Our vision, our skill to seed and connect,
New beginnings awaited us, I did suspect.

One cold winter Sunday in Trueblood Hall,
We began with a mission and a call,
To share our passions and hobbies held dear.
Our stunning success became very clear.

Starting with spinach calzones and ending with treats,
We discovered each other's special feats,
And music was made and a seed was planted,
Our wish for a special connection was granted.

Next a promise and a new endeavor,
A selfless act to be proud of forever,
So it was on that dreary April morn,
Our connection to Habitat for Humanity was born.

So loving, kind and friendly was our crew,
We knew this was what we were meant to do,
Coming together in this significant way,
Made for a truly glorious day!

Thanks for the connections,
Thanks for the promises we honored so true,
Thanks for the challenge we knew we could do.

A Completely Divine Day

2009-05-17T11:55:00.000-07:00

“A Completely Divine Day”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
for the Sunday of our Annual Meeting
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
May 17, 2009

This past week my brother and I have been on the phone many times. The topic is our mother’s declining capacity to function. I know that some of you have experienced this with your loved ones. It’s heart rending. Whether dementia or Alzheimer’s or another malady altogether invades our capacity to be present and to recall what happened yesterday or even a few moments ago, it’s as if the person we’ve known in ways particular and reliable elude us. Who is she? Who is he? With my Mother, her temperament has turned contrary too. Accountability is simply not in the picture. As I said to my brother, “We’ve really already lost our Mom, Jeff!”

Our mother, who turned 100 years old this past January, lives in a retirement facility near Jeff and his wife, Donna, just outside Philadelphia, in one of those towns known as the Main Line. Just a few months ago we celebrated her hundredth year with a full array of family, including five grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and the surprise appearance of a longtime friend from Nebraska. It was memorable—her favorite food, her favorite birthday cake (chocolate through and through), and stories, stories told and memories shared of our Mom, our Gram, our GiGi, as she’s called by her great-grandchildren. There were balloons. There were toasts. There were antics by the little ones. It was a fine day, a memorable day.

I wonder now if she remembers it. Day by day she slips into what psychologist writer Mary Pipher calls “another country.”

“The only thing worse than having aging parents,” observes Pipher, “is not having aging parents. The old-old die by inches. ….At first, Mother is no longer the best cook in the country, then the children worry she will poison herself with spoiled food or burn down the house.”

Yes, there are the frustrations and the negotiations with caregivers, lay and professional. Yes, there are the matters of where our Mother can receive the best possible care. Yes, there is the undercurrent of guilt that we can’t provide it directly. Yes, there are the considerations of what to do when. But what goes missing above all are the common days, the days in which our Mom as we’ve known her could enjoy a cup of tea with a good friend, could go for a walk in the gardens planted by fellow residents, could attend a school performance of a great-grandchild and laugh and cheer them on, could call us on the phone or sit with us in our living rooms and talk about matters spanning family to friendship to statesmanship. What is missing are not so much the days in which she may have been “Queen for a Day,” which she surely was as we feted her in January, but the common ordinary days; and she’s been blessed to know at least 36,500 of them.

At what point in life do we grow sufficiently attuned to our mortality—and even moreso, to our prospective reversal from operating at full capacity? It’s not always a matter of age. This congregation knows that well. An accident, an illness, a loss, a trauma beyond the sphere of family can stop any of us cold, flipping our world upside down and our hearts inside out. Precious days become the stuff of reflection. Why not attentiveness, I wonder? Why not attentiveness to the time that is now?

“This is the day which the Lord has made;
Let us rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24)

The psalmist gets it! Whether we agree that God made the day or we simply acknowledge that it’s here and we’re in it, we’re called to “rise up and welcome the day,” echoing the words of George Mack sung by our choir at the outset of this morning’s worship. It can be any old day, an ordinary day, a common day, a day to be longed for one day.

Consider the musings of Gordon McKeeman, his account of the late Japanese Emperor Hirohito, born into a position of royalty and power, which meant isolation, formidable isolation. How the emperor longed “to live just one day as a common person.”

“performing simple chores: dressing, making the bed, eating breakfast…

doing ordinary work, whose impact is largely unfathomable but would be missed by someone if it were not done: the laundry, cleaning, meal preparation…

looking out upon the ordinary world, breathing the air, drinking the water, enjoying children at play…”

all the stuff of “one day as a common person.”

Common, the root of community, the name given to this space outside our Meeting House, a space whose historic purpose derived from that of the English common on which sheep grazed. For us, it’s a space on which we gather on warm days for Frisbee and Farmer’s Markets, for a restful stretch-out on the soft grass, for a chance conversation with a neighbor. A common day in a common space holds the jewels of the wondrous ordinary.

On a seemingly ordinary day, I stood as a young child with my nose pinched up against our screen door, gazing across the mellow thoroughfare of North Adams Street....and wondering. The place was a small town in the heart of the heartland. I stood in the front hall of our frame house across the street from the public school I attended. I was six years old. There was a smoky, gently pungent scent in the air. Time stood still.....It is now, right now. Right now has never been. It will never be again. Today has never been. It will never be again. I am in it. This very moment has never been. It will never be again. I know it. I feel it. I breathe it.

My epiphany of the nowness of time has lingered. It is reflective, recurring, mildly anticipatory, and conscious. “Only connect” reads the prologue to E.M. Forster’s novel, Howard’s End. To connect with ourselves and with one another, we connect with a moment in time—sometimes through intense consciousness, sometimes through immersion in the moment that feels so pure it is indelibly inscribed in our memory.

Such was the preciousness of Emily Gibbs’ connection with her family on the occasion of her 12th birthday in Thornton Wilder’s drama, Our Town. It is a day she returns to as a silent invisible observer from the other side of life as we know it to witness herself in life as she knew it. “Choose the least important day in your life,” admonished a fellow shadow, as Emily pondered which day she would visit. “It will be important enough.” A new arrival on the other side, Emily stood at the open window of this early birthday. The vision and voices of her mother, father, and brother moving through their morning litanies were more than she could bear. “I can’t. I can’t go on,” she anguishes. “It goes so fast. We don’t have time to look at one another....I didn’t realize....Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it?—every, every minute?”

“It goes so fast,” were the exact words of my Mother, as I interviewed her for posterity just ten years ago, and even then, she had lived Emily’s lifetime more than six-fold. “It goes so fast.”

What day would you choose to return to? Would it be a birthday? A wedding day? Every week I open the Cohasset Mariner to the inside front page, the piece titled “Picture This.” Every week a resident of this town is featured with a photograph and a bulleted bio. This week the spotlight was on a young woman with a radiant smile. Always the featured personality is asked to name the best day of their life. Usually it’s a birthday or the birth of a child or a wedding day. This week it was: “When my Dad surprised me with my car.” Okay. I’ll bet those favorite days change over the course of a lifetime, but getting a new car when you don’t expect it can score pretty high for a young person.

Best days are as relative as time. What would yours be? Not your chosen new car, but the best day of your life? Would it change if you were given a choice, like Emily in Our Town, to relive a single day from the imagined time after your death? What would it be for you?

A sea of days ordinary and common floods my memory. Yes, my wedding day to Dan scores high. Yes, the birth of my birth children scores high. Yes, our daughters’ weddings score high. But I’m thinking of two otherwise ho-hum days that surface in that foggy sea of remembering. One I’ve already cited—that day that had never been and would never be again as I pressed my nose up against the screen door looking out onto our front porch, my six-year-old nose twitching to the scent of what was likely early autumn. The other was a summer day, most likely late June. School had been out for about a month, as is the custom in the Midwest. Every June my Mom would take me and head up to “the farm,” the ramshackle frame home where my grandparents grew corn, soybeans, and alfalfa and kept cows and pigs and chickens. My grandmother was hunched from scoliosis, and my grandfather was not one to pitch in with housework. Gathering her thirty-something stamina, my mother did. Every day she rose early, fixed breakfast for all of us, and dived into the chores—not quite the chores to which my granddad referred (milking the cows, running the combine), but the equally exacting chores of deep cleaning that Mom undertook with all the energy I’ve known her to possess for so many years.

I would usually take a book, run outside, climb a tree, and perch there for hours at a time, reading in shelter from the riveting Iowa sun. Then I would scamper inside and wonder aloud to my Mom when she was ready for a break—that is, when she was ready to spend time with ME. It probably happened more than once, far more than once, but I recall a specific noontime of my Mother packing us a lunch, taking me by the hand, and walking with me through the fields down to the banks of a river—a creek, really. There we sat ourselves in the shade of a giant cottonwood, took out our sandwiches, our fruit, and our drink, and dined. I can’t even remember if we said anything, just that we were together. This was my time, my sacred time, with my Mother.

The sun still warms that day. The sandwiches are still fresh. My Mother’s hand is as firm and sure as it was then, even with a slight scent of bleach from house cleaning. The wind blows anew through the cottonwoods. “Only connect?” Oh yes, that was the heart of the day, the common ordinary day of we two commoners.

I hope my children look back on such times, when all else was let go, and I took them in hand and carved a circle around the universe of just us.

Such are days of holiness. They are ever ripe, how ever they recede in the relativity that is time and memory. Such are the days that are ordinary but were never ordinary. Such are the days fused into our heart’s memory as we lean into them from our now.

No, it’s not nostalgia. I believe it’s a latent understanding that what stands out are those times when we’ve known communion in this world in which we find ourselves. I think of my Mother now and witness her receding inch by inch into that “other country.” I think of my Mother surrounded by four generations feting her long life and ingesting the elixir of her stories. I think of the longing of an emperor to live a single day as a common person.

Whether we are witness to a life long-lived or a life cut short; whether we are privy to our own lives long or bent or gnarled or broadsided; whether we understand ourselves to be part of this world that hurts in so many places; whether we understand ourselves period, I invite us all to consider today as a completely divine day. It is worthy of tending to; it is worthy of stopping for; it is worthy of breathing in; it is worthy of our time, so fleeting and precious.

In the words of poet Mary Oliver:

Every day
I see or I hear
something
that more or less

kills me
with delight,
that leaves me
like a needle

in the haystack
of light.
It is what I was born for—
to look, to listen,

to lose myself
inside this soft world—
to instruct myself
over and over

in joy,
and acclamation.
Nor am I talking
about the exceptional,

the fearful, the dreadful,
the very extravagant—
but of the ordinary,
the common, the very drab,

the daily presentations.
Oh, good scholar,
I say to myself,
how can you help

but grow wise
with such teachings
as these—
the untrimmable light

of the world,
the ocean’s shine,
the prayers that are made
out of grass?

May today be a day long remembered, closely held, and passed through with all possible grace. With all my heart, I know that today is a holy day. Today is all we have and everything we have. Live it! Love it!

I love you, each and all. Amen.

Sources:

E.M. Forster, Howard’s End, Edward Arnold, London, 1910.

George Mack, “Rise Up and Welcome the Day,” composition for the choir of First Parish Unitarian Universalist, Cohasset, MA, 2008.

Gordon B. McKeeman, “Common Day,” in Out of the Ordinary: Meditations, Skinner House Books, Boston, 2000, 30-31.

Mary Oliver, “Mindful,” in Why I Wake Early, Beacon Press, Boston, 2004, 58-59.

“Picture This,” in Cohasset Mariner, Friday, May 15, 2009, p. 2.

Psalm 118, in The Psalms, The Bible (Revised Standard Version)

Thornton Wilder, Our Town: A Play in Three Acts, Coward McCann, Inc., New York, 1938.

Möbius Mother

2009-05-10T11:49:00.000-07:00

“Möbius Mother”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
Mother’s Day
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
May 10, 2009

What you just heard, Johann Sebastian Bach’s Canon 1 a 2, was part of his “Musical Offering.” It’s a complicated but somewhat whimsical offering. If you see the musical score, you’ll find that the beginning joins with the end and that it’s equivalent to what we would recognize as a Möbius strip. I didn’t prepare a physical model of Bach’s canon for you this morning, but I will prepare a Möbius strip. It starts out as a rectangle [show] with two obvious dimensions, length and width, a couple of edges, a topside and an underside. If I take it and give it a half twist and then join end to end, what happens to the dimensions? What happens to topside and underside? What happens to the two edges? It becomes a surface with one side and one edge. If I run my finger along the edge of this piece of paper that a moment ago had two edges, I’ll return to my starting point and cover the length of what was formerly both edges. There is no interior or exterior. There is no boundary.

It was discovered independently and about the same time, roughly the midpoint of the 19th century, by two German mathematicians, August Ferdinand Möbius and Johann Benedict Listing. While it holds mathematical and physical complexities that I won’t even begun to get into, I wonder if those two German mathematicians weren’t just tinkering one morning with a long strip of paper and a bit of glue, and this strip with such fascinating properties became the unexpected gift of their play!

But this is Mother’s Day, not Mathematicians’ Day, so where’s the connection with this quirky but fascinating concoction of a couple of 19th century mathematicians and motherhood?

I’ll love you forever,
I’ll like you for always,
As long as I’m living
my baby you’ll be.

So goes the refrain in Robert Munsch’s endearing story of mothering, Love You Forever. It’s a story of a particularly devoted Mom and possibly our ideal of what we hope for as children. We all want to be loved forever and liked “for always.” We long for a mother who will somehow regard us as her baby as long as she lives. We might not want a Mom who crawls into our bedroom when we’re sleeping teenagers and picks us up and rocks us, but let’s cut a little slack for a writer to make his point. What jumps out of this refrain for me are “loving forever” and “liking for always.” The longed for mother love does this. The more humanly understandable mother love is like a strip of paper that doesn’t always know—and sometimes never knows—it can aspire to becoming a Möbius strip.

The flat strip has dimensions and edges and limits. With a gentle twist and a critical connection, we have a form with a single surface and a single edge. If an ant traveled the course of the flat strip, she would eventually come to an edge; and if she wanted to continue her movement, she would need to reverse direction or back up or fall off. Not so with the Möbius strip. At any point, an ant could hop aboard and begin her journey and move forward and forward and forward; and if this ant had the power of spatial recognition, she would discover that she was returning again and again to her starting point. She would always be on the outside and the inside, because outside and inside are meaningless in this form. She would always be moving forward because there is no backward. Theoretically she would be on a journey without end. Forever and always would take on new meaning in this physical connection between the ant and her Möbius world. The entire surface is accessible to her forever.

Idyllic mother love is available and navigable forever, at least the forever that is the mother’s life and the child’s memory. There is eternal access. In the province of psychology and theology too, boundaries are a good thing. But in our idealized notion of motherhood—and our idealized notion of the holy—there is eternal access, eternal connection. Boundaries can be healthy and protect our singularity; but no boundaries are physically necessary when a child develops in utero and, for awhile, during infancy. Even if a child parts with her birth mother right after birth, there is a need to attach to another mother or mother figure; and for a time, that attachment needs to be so close that boundaries are barely discernible. Child and parent or child and primary caregiver weave in and out of those boundary gradients lifelong. It’s the stuff of thousands of hours of therapy, and probably thousands of hours of Circle Ministry—or small group ministry—conversation! It’s the tough stuff of discerning how Möbius our mothers were or are and how Möbius we who are mothers were or are.

Then there’s the take on motherhood offered up by Erich Fromm in his Art of Loving. “Motherly love,” declared Fromm, “is unconditional affirmation of the child’s life and his needs…” Any wonder why those of us who are mothers think that we will never but never measure up or why those of us who were once children—I think that’s everybody—feel like we’ll never get enough? Fromm elaborates on what he sees as needed: “the care and responsibility absolutely necessary for the preservation of the child’s life and…growth” –in other words, sustenance and maintenance—and “the attitude which instills in the child a love for living”—in other words an infectious joi de vivre. A loved child is a healthy child, who is glad to have been born.

In Biblical terms, Fromm draws on the notion of “the promised land…’flowing with milk and honey.’” The earth as our mother is an ancient understanding. A land that flows with milk and honey is like a mother who gives milk and honey. Milk, suggests Fromm, sustains us and helps us grow. Honey lends sweetness to life, a joy that we simply are. Fromm claims that it’s easy to spot those among us who got only milk and those among us who knew both, the milk and the honey.

I’m not so sure. Back to that form with a twist. With a simple surface of two dimensions, it’s easy to think and hope in terms of either/or, maybe even both/and. But when we shape it into a form of singular surface, no distinctions, and a forever travelogue, a remarkable blend takes place. In milk and honey terms, there’s no accounting for when we’re sustained with milk and when we’re sweetened with honey. It’s all one substance. So it is with motherhood. What sustains us sweetens us and what sweetens us sustains us. A child or an adult can starve from want of either and surely from want of a basic beautiful blend. The ant traveling along that Möbius strip laps up both.

Consider the Biblical psalm that embodies comfort and security and hope more than any other, the 23rd Psalm. I can speak it from Presbyterian memory:

“The Lord is my shepherd;
I shall not want;
He makes me to lie down in green pastures;
He restores my soul…
Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life;
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”

You can test me later on the middle part.

Then we hear the haunting adaptation of Bobby McFerrin, dedicated to his mother and sung by our choir:

“The Lord is my shepherd, I have all I need,
She makes me lie down in green meadows….
She restores my soul…
She leads me in the path of good things…
She sets a table before me…
world without end.”

Milk and honey and more flow through both; but in the adaptation, they flow through the bounty and largesse of mothering. No either/or, but a wondrous blend. And both are forever—like a mother’s idyllic love, forever. Like a journey along that Möbius mother, forever—no holding back, no boundaries, no perilous edges.

Is it any wonder that in ancient times, God or divinity or the most high or the holiest of holies was rendered as a woman, not as a woman over and above all other forms, but a woman nurturing, sustaining, inspiring, and with the forever dimension of regeneration embodied in the seasons of earth, mother earth. Such are the riches of this history that a sermon or two or a hundred and two are suggested for another day.

Where does that leave us on this day, this morning, with the mothers we’ve had or have and the mothers we are or aren’t? Where does that leave us?

Back to those two forms of the strip—the flat one with no twists and no connections, with edges and boundaries and limits, and our Möbius friend, our Möbius mother. As a daughter and a mother and a stepmother and a grandmother—even as a minister and a psychologist—I believe that we go in and out of these basic forms. We’re human; we have limits; we have boundaries; we have exhaustible supplies of milk and honey. Sometimes, we’re just plain exhausted. Then we stretch our humanness. We do that half twist. We connect our beginnings and ends into the idyllically maternal form. Like the earth itself, we give and we take. We warm and we chill. Like the countless notions of holiness, we are bountiful and sparing, affirming and disparaging, accessible and remote. Like life we embody joy and anguish. We are of this world and of this life. We give birth, but what gives life remains a mystery. We raise children, but forces beyond us determine in part how those children navigate the unexpected curvatures of life. What we can all do—birth mothers, adoptive mothers, stepmothers, grandmothers, and every male here—is to travel the miracle of each day mindful of the forever that is experienced when anyone among us feels nurtured and sustained and glad to be alive because we have traveled at their side. This we can do, mothers all!

I love you, each and all.

Amen.

Sources:

Erich Fromm, The Art of Loving, HarperCollins Publishers, New York, 1956.

Bobby McFerrin, The 23rd Psalm, Dedicated to My Mother, in Singing the Journey: A Supplement to Singing the Living Tradition, Unitarian Universalist Association, Boston, 2005, 1038.

Möbius strip, Wikipedia: the free encyclopedia, at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C3%B6bius_strip.

Robert Munsch (written by), Sheila McGraw (Illustrated by), Love You Forever, Firefly Books Ltd., Richmond Hill, Ontario, 2004.

Psalm 23, The Book of Psalms, The Bible (Revised Standard Version)

Strange Paths: Physics, computation, philosophy, “Canon 1 a 2,” at http://strangepaths.com/canon-1-a-2/2009/01/18/en/.

Thus Far

2009-05-03T16:08:00.000-07:00

“Thus Far”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
for the Sunday of our Annual Meeting
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
May 3, 2009

Five years ago and a day you called me to be your minister. I continue to be grateful for that call. I continue to learn from you—as a minister and in so many other dimensions of my life. We speak of “the learning congregation.” A learning congregation has a learning minister, and that rests on the basic assumption that both are paying attention. I believe you are, and I know that “paying attention” is a most valued lesson you have taught me. I’ll explain.

Several years ago, my husband Dan and I faced the harrowing task of teaching our kids to drive. Some of you have been through this. It can be downright terrifying. I’m talking about what the parents go through! Patting your tummy and rubbing your head is the simplest of tasks compared to what any of us must be able to do to get behind a wheel and take to the road. My mantra as a driving educator was singular: “Pay attention! No, don’t check the radio. No, don’t put a tape in. No, don’t channel cruise. No, don’t look at me when you’re talking. Pay attention to the road. You’ll get the knack of the clutch and the brakes (we taught them all on stick shifts). That’s the easy part.” The tough stuff is focusing completely on the road, which includes all other drivers and every single pedestrian.

Ministry isn’t so different, and you know I came from a city where the level of stimulation assumes what we call “multi-tasking!” Multi-tasking might help us survive in New York City or in Boston, but it does not make a good minister. Early on, a few of you gently suggested to me that when I greet you after worship and when I’m with you in conversation, please do not turn my head in anticipation of the next person. When you appear at the door of my study, you feel more welcome if I let go of what I’m working on and not try to greet and complete at the same time. Okay, I’m getting it! And I invite you to remind me when I lapse back into the mode of survival on Lexington Avenue or the cross-town shuttle. I’m still learning. One person at a time; each moment holds a universe.

Then there’s preaching. You’ve taught me so much. Stories connect. Go easy on information. Don’t cram a sermon like you’re stuffing a hefty bag. Be conversational; this isn’t a lecture; it’s relational. You’ve reminded me to preach with you not to you. An unfolding happens when I know, I just know, that what I’ve said and how I’ve said it connects with who you are and where you are at a moment in time, at least some of you. I’ve learned that it is impossible minus one to connect with all of you all the time.

You’ve reminded me week by week and year by year that you’re authentic Unitarian Universalists. You do not walk to a common step or think to a common thought. And for each of you, there’s a galaxy of opinion. Some of you come from traditions in which you’ve been taught that the words of clergy are writ in stone. There are Sundays when I would thank whatever God you believe in for such faith, however blind it might be. Yet I find it far more inspiring to know that you question freely what I say and what I propound. I invite you to continue to question and challenge. It reminds me that you’re paying attention, and it brings us into deeper and closer connection.

You’ve even taught me how to preach about politics. This might surprise some of you who claim that politics doesn’t belong in the pulpit, however often I’ve noted that politics are simply a mode of structuring ourselves in community. Who could ever doubt, for example, that there are “church politics?” However, when I address those sticky matters of power and privilege that so commonly overlap with the arena of secular politics, you’ve thoughtfully taught me to be explicit in qualifying that you don’t have to agree with me. Some of you don’t need such qualification, but I concede to the need of many who were raised in a more hierarchical faith tradition.

What else?

You’ve taught me to take time for myself and my family. I’m still learning, since the Protestant work ethic instilled by my family of origin and my definitively Presbyterian roots haunts me with the message that nothing I ever do is enough. That’s not you; that the unforgiving echo of my past. My husband, Dan, reminds me of what you tell me: “No one on their death bed ever shows remorse about not spending more time in her office—or her study.” I still need such reminding.

You’ve taught me to celebrate! Not that I hadn’t a clue about how to celebrate, but you’ve upped the ante. You throw great parties! You let your hair down. You prepare amazing breakfasts and dinners and receptions. The most recent Spring Fling and Circle Ministry potlucks come to mind. Even when you roll up your sleeves and do what we might call an “industrial strength clean-up/fix-up Sunday,” you turn it into a celebration. You resist taking yourselves too seriously; and in so doing, you call me out of that part of me that takes myself too seriously.

You embody generosity—generosity of time and talent and imagination and yes, money. Just a few days ago, a certain mortgage was burned. You don’t like financial albatrosses, and this one is off our backs. You continue to support our operating expenses, even in the uncertain economy that is center stage these days, even with some tough cuts in a budget that you will soon vote on. In concert with you, I seek to give as generously as I can to support and sustain this congregation. It is a gift given and received.

You remind me year after year how imaginative you are. Last September I stood in this pulpit and recounted the New Testament parable of the sower who sowed seeds on ground that was variably productive. I suggested that each of us is a sower and then offered $1,000 of “seed funding”—funds withdrawn from my ministerial expense budget—in the form of twenty envelopes, each with a $50-bill; and I invited 20 of you to come forward, take an envelope, and use your gift “to seed a ministry within or beyond this congregation and to share with this church the story of how this happens.” The stories that have unfolded, stories like that told by Chartis this morning and all the stories recounted in this year’s Lenten Manual under the theme “Promises Kept,” remind me of how wondrously imaginative you are.

You rise to the challenge of a surprise, whether that surprise is positive or not so positive. When I stood in this pulpit last November and shared with you the news of my early stage breast cancer, you rose to that challenge with extraordinary grace and compassion. You encouraged me to take the time I needed with the surgery required and the requisite recovery. Through our Care Circle, you brought sumptuous dinners to our home and sent cards and even flowers. Through the all encompassing love that is our Care Circle you have graced all those among us who have known those exceedingly unpleasant surprises of a scary diagnosis, a life-threatening injury, or the loss of a loved one. By your actions, you remind me again and again that you are a congregation both gracious and resilient.

You have provided grist for what my colleague and mentor Forrest Church taught me: “Play to the health of a congregation!” Every congregation is first and foremost an assembly of humans, and as humans we’re susceptible to bouts of backbiting, gossip even, nay saying sometimes. Through the many ways in which we seek to practice shared ministry, accountability for who we are and what we do comes to the light of day; so that if one of us offends—and periodic offense is inevitable—we who are downwind of it try hard to speak the truth in love to that person, sometimes in the thoughtful company of our Shared Ministry Committee. It works. Beloved community is the stuff of mutual accountability. To make this work, I seek to give most of my attention to that which is loving, direct, engaged, and accountable in this parish akin to an apple tree on which almost every apple is a joy to digest!

You’ve taught me a heightened appreciation of architecture. These buildings in which our congregational life has spanned almost three centuries are more than buildings. They are historic reminders of the elegant simplicity of 18th century New England architecture. They bear silent witness to the early history of this nation as we know it and to the individuals and families who have been drawn here to discern what is sacred as life is celebrated through worship, through rites of passage that include weddings and dedications and memorial services, and through pivotal decision making that shapes who we are and who we will be as a congregation seeking to realize a faith of covenant grounded in love.

You’ve taught me a love of place. How fortunate I am to be your minister in this village by the sea. Now this is a lesson that didn’t take me long to learn. You perhaps know that I’m an aquaphile, a lover of water and above all, the ocean. Sheer joy is that first dive into the surf when it no longer renders us numb. The robe that I wear carries a hem of appliquéd waves, mirroring our spiritual alignment in our common love of those waves.

Now here we go into the high tides of matters spiritual. Over the course of my five years with you, I have heard a multitude of times that you would like me to be more spiritual. Sometimes I comply, albeit likely by accident. Slowly, slowly, I realize that matters of spirit mirror matters of theological perspective. What is spiritual to one is mundane to another. I have stopped trying to second-guess you about what you mean by spiritual, since this congregation’s spirituality and indeed Unitarian Universalist spirituality is kaleidoscopic, a shifting pattern of who we are as a religious community. Perhaps the most helpful lesson that I’ve learned in the venue of spirituality is to value, cherish even, the divergence. To consider that one day I will “get it” is illusory. In fact, when I expressed to my mentor and seasoned colleague, Victor Carpenter, my frustration about what you all mean by spirituality or what any of us means by that term, Victor responded that “Defining spirituality is like bottling fog.” While fog is not to be ignored; neither is it to be understood once and for all. I have learned simply to respect the mystery and to keep my heart and mind open without trying to land on a “right answer.” In biblical language, spirit translates into breath translates into wind. Spirit is as core to our living as breath, as elusive to our grasp as wind.

You have taught me how much timing matters when any of us considers what we can do and what we can’t. Some of you wear many hats in our parish life and wear them well. Some of you remind me that there are times when you need to go hatless, when you need to be exempt from any committee or task force, when you simply need to be more than do or when you need to do elsewhere also. There are after all the draws of family and job and community. First Parish Unitarian Universalist is not the only show in town. Though here we hit a challenge, and I would be grateful for a magic wand, maybe even a twirling baton, the kind used this past week in California by one quick-thinking female to ward off an aggressor. How to diffuse the challenge of Sunday morning sports? I’m not convinced it’s a brick wall. I invite you to strategize with me as I will strategize with fellow clergy in Cohasset and neighboring communities how to effectively advocate for Sunday afternoon sports, so that families might once again regard Sunday morning as the venue for church. What we who are parents teach our children about caring behavior can only go so far. The lessons and experiences that I know can and do accrue for our children through our religious education curriculum will serve them through a lifetime. Why not transition into a schedule that permits our children and parents a day to have church and sports too! I ask you to join me as advocates for a Sunday that holds both.

Finally, you have given me abundant cause for gratitude. I am grateful that you called me to be your minister. I am grateful that you have ridden waves—some of them white-capped—with me, that you have been patient with me, that you are increasingly direct with me and that you communicate increasingly through the institutions of this parish such as our Shared Ministry Committee or our Parish Committee or our Religious Education Committee. I am grateful for your wisdom, your intelligence, your wit, your imagination, your energy, your humor, and your hope. I am grateful that you manifest in so many ways the promise of this faith and this congregation and that together we enter the sphere of our larger selves, the sphere of community that is intentionally caring, just, and inclusive.

Those words of Forrest on the November evening of my installation continue to ring true:

“Want what you have.
Do what you can.
Be who you are.
And remember, it’s not about you.”

I’m trying. I’m trying. And you are such laudable partners on the journey.

I love you each and all.

Amen.

Chalice Reflection & Tending the Garden

2009-04-26T10:10:00.000-07:00

Chalice Reflection
of
Penny Myles
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts
Earth Day Sunday – April 26, 2009
“Gifted Promise”

When Art and I went to New Orleans last October we brought with us our fifty dollar Gifted Promise envelope. We hoped that we would find a way to spend it while we worked for Habitat for Humanity. Our job, during the week we were there, was to finish the exterior of a house in St. Bernard Parish, one of the areas hit hardest by Hurricane Katrina. The owner of our house was Miss Bernice, an elderly woman who had lived her whole life in St. Bernard Parish. On the days when the weather was warm, she would sit outside in a chair and quietly watch our progress, nodding in approval and offering a smile as she saw her home come to life again.

The first few days some of us spent completing the installation of siding while others caulked and sanded in preparation for painting. Our group worked well together and we were soon ready to apply the exterior paint. We really wanted to be able to complete the project before we packed up to go home. When our Americore volunteers arrived with painting supplies we were disheartened. The brushes were awkward and old. We had no equipment for attaching buckets to ladders and other basic supplies that would help facilitate our effort were missing.

On the way back to our hotel that evening Art, and two other members of the group, persuaded our bus driver to take them to the local Home Depot. The three filled a shopping cart with rollers, buckets, caulk and foam and returned to the Holiday Inn triumphant. With our new supplies in hand our group eagerly arrived at work the next morning and managed to apply two coats of paint to three of the four sides in two days. It was frustrating to leave before the front of the house had its second coat, too but we knew that we were helping the volunteers who came after us by leaving our improved painting supplies behind.

The devastation of Katrina is still painfully evident. Helping Habitat this past fall is something we will remember for a lifetime. Hopefully our Gifted Promise donation will continue to make finishing New Orleans homes easier and faster allowing more individuals the opportunity to come home again.

Penny and Art Myles

“Tending the Garden”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
Earth Day Sunday
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
April 26, 2009

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.” (Genesis 1:1-2)

In the story of Creation told through the biblical book of Genesis, heaven and earth came first. Yet the earth that was created was formless—a “something” described as “nothing.” It was in a mode unrecognizable to humankind, and clearly we humans were not there to witness it whatever its mode.

Our scientific knowledge affirms that an earth about which we know so little moved in space billions of years before humans entered the picture. Our presence here consumes a mere heartbeat in the geological eras that mark the age of this planet we share with so many other species, and countless species have appeared and disappeared since the earth’s beginning. In eras to come, we may well be among the disappearing kind.

The earth gave rise to us, not the other way around. The Ashanti, from the Western African nation of Ghana, speak truth in their grace to the earth:

“Earth, when I am about to die
I lean upon you.
Earth, while I am alive
I depend upon you.”

With the appearance of the earliest forms of humankind, we as a species toiled in sweat and imagination to cultivate the earth so that we might endure. Our raw materials? Soil, air, fire, and water, all basics for sustainability, all elemental to the earth that has given birth to us.

Not surprisingly, we refer to Mother Nature. Not surprisingly, creation stories across cultures expand on this understanding of earth as our birth mother. As children who have barely emerged from the womb of this planet, we are wise to tread lightly. Such is the counsel embodied in the Creation story of the Okanagan Nation of North America.

Legend goes that the earth was once a human being. The Creator, called “Old One,” made her out of a woman and declared to her, ‘You will be the Mother of all people.’ While this Earth woman is still alive, she has changed much. When we walk on the soil, we tread on her flesh. When we sit on a rock, we adorn her bones. When the wind cools us, we feel her breath. When we lie in the grass, we nest in her hair. If she moves abruptly, we reel from an earthquake.

After transforming this unsuspecting woman into the earth, Old One shaped her flesh into forms that became the inhabitants of the early world. They were people and animals both, but all could speak and had greater powers than just animals or people. Then Old One formed people and animals as we recognize them and blew into them the breath of life. They were, we are told, the most helpless of creatures. It was in this way that “all living beings came from the earth. When we look around, we see our Mother everywhere.”

To treat earth’s life as sacred—not just on Earth Day or Earth Day Sunday, but every day of our fragile lives—is to honor our mother from whom we came. We are of her flesh, the soil from whose roots we were nurtured and formed, the soil to which we all shall return. To honor the earth is to honor ourselves, and in this common ground, all selves dissolve.

The narrative of the self is a narrative that we are loath to question. Autonomy, independence, self-actualization; all are constructs that we as Americans and most definitely as Unitarians have been bred to value, even to hallow. Yet we lean into our Universalist understanding and concede that we are intrinsically connected, that we are part of the interdependent web of all being.

Is the self illusion altogether? Are we not, as the Okanogan myth indicates, the most helpless of all creatures, leaning as we do on the bosom of Mother Nature? Are we not, as the Ashanti indicate, the most dependent of all creatures, relying wholly on her for birth, for life, and even for death?

The self and our commonality with this earth form a tension that plays out in stories and myths and theologies biblical and literary, theological and mythical, psychological and sociological. One of the hardest lessons, as we develop from infancy into adulthood, is that of mutuality, mutuality with one another and mutuality with our environment—that is, the earth. Yet this theme plays out across Creation stories.

In the Genesis narrative, the first habitat of humankind was a garden.

“And the Lord God planted a garden in Eden, in the east, and there he put the man whom he had formed. And out of the ground the Lord God made to spring up every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.” (Genesis 2:8-9)

Now this is where it gets sticky for those of us who are Unitarian Universalists, not to mention anyone who ascribes to a scientific AND egalitarian world view. How woman is said to have come into being was secondary in the Genesis narrative. How this first couple is said to have inhabited their garden suggests that to do nothing was paradise and to know nothing was the will of the Creator and to be enticed by a lowly serpent—a snake in the grass—was to give in to some perilous desire to know and taste and perhaps even tend this garden. My long ago Sunday school taught that Eden was Paradise—no demands, no work, no clothes, no schools, no questions. The Genesis narrative was definitely not set forth as one in which earth as Mother had expectations, even a list of tasks for every member of her household.

The story unfolds that the woman succumbed to the temptation to taste of forbidden fruit and became immediately self-conscious, embarrassed, ashamed, and vulnerable to want and pain and toil. And the man went with her, right down Eden’s drain into the fields of work and sweat.

The commonality that emerges from the Genesis story AND the legends of earth as mother is the expectation that earth is not simply here as grist for our laziness, even though that’s what Eden seemed to be in original form. If earth is to flourish as a garden, we must now tend it. And we’re still learning. We’re still learning how. We’re still learning that our Mother’s not kidding around.

……………………………………….

When we tend it well and thoughtfully and in measured pace and patience, the garden thrives. When we ravage its resources, when we mine its limited riches as if they are forever, when we lop of mountain tops for cheap fuel and plug up river beds with our leftovers, there’s a price to be paid.

Gardening takes time. I grew up with a slower pace amid gardens so big they were called farms. I grew up accustomed to waiting for fruits and vegetables to be “in season.” No strawberries in the chill of January, unless they were preserved the previous summer. No cherry pies for December dinners unless those cherries were canned in the heat of July and August. My grandmothers couldn’t have been more different. One lived on a farm, the other in a town. One donned a well-worn apron at sunrise; the other stepped into her day in a full-length mink—no exaggeration! What could they possibly have in common, except me of course? They both tended gardens. In fact, my “town grandmother” had an immense garden. Even when she and my grandfather moved into an apartment, they kept that plot of land that was garden ready and every summer paid daily visits to turn the soil, plant the seeds, weed and water and nurture those seedlings into produce for the most memorable and elegant family dinners.

My mother too tended a garden; sometimes I even helped her. Together we would sit on the back steps shelling peas, snapping beans, peeling potatoes. There was no question about where food came from. And on summer vacations, we commonly headed north to Minnesota and cast our fishing lines into one of the proverbial 10,000 lakes of that state to reel in an evening’s dinner.

Yet I couldn’t imagine a career as a farmer. I couldn’t believe it when a friend of mine aspired to a career in agriculture! Agriculture! How boring! How dreadfully boring! But I’d love to know where she is now and what she’s doing and how she’s dealt with the harsh transition from family-owned farms into massively scaled agribusinesses. If ever there were an Eden lost, the depleted soil of agribusiness is baked into its headstone.

Earth as mother surely rises symbolically, hands on hips, shaking her head at how badly we have spent our generous allowance, finite as it is.

Environmental lawyer and writer Claire Hope Cummings has thought long and hard about these matters.

“At every step of the way,” she writes, “we have disconnected and dismembered the intricate relationships that form the web of life.”

“….The solution to all this severing and disconnection,” she suggests, “is re-membering, meaning ‘to put back together.’ This is the fundamental lesson traditional peoples keep trying to teach us. They often say that they are minding the rituals that hold the world together. They say that if we want to save the places, peoples, and plants we love, we have to remember their stories.”

Cummings finds hope in the directions taken by “young farmers, urban activists, cooks and chefs, teachers and students, community organizers, and faith groups [who] are bringing local organic food, seed saving, and sustainable work projects into the mix.”

One of those young farmers is Gailey R. Morgan III, a 34-year-old member of the Tesuque Pueblo and Meskwaki Nations. As a brand new father, Gailey was invited to participate in the work of a farm raising food for the Tesuque Pueblo peoples. He decided to try it out and has found a quality of life in accord with roots familial and earthbound. In Gailey’s words:

“Our people here have been farming for centuries. You always hear stories about how they’d go out and farm the land. It’s good to be out here taking care of the land, taking care of the water, taking care of the Mother Earth.”

Tending the garden that is this earth is honoring the mother recognized in the soil that we turn, in the garden whose timeline is patience, in the credible Eden forsaken and found.

Let’s return for a moment to the Judeo-Christian narrative of Genesis. In the writer’s attempt to explain humankind’s relationship with a Creator God and non-human creatures, we read that:

“God blessed [humankind], and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’” (Genesis 1:28)

How easy it is to hear this as an all-out mandate for humankind to stand triumphant atop a grand hierarchy of earth’s flora, fauna, wildlife, and the elemental media that spawn them. Wallace Stegner, the late 20th-century writer and environmentalist, offers an alternative response to this passage from Genesis:

“Our sanction to be a weed species living at the expense of every other species and of the earth itself can be found in [this] injunction God gave to newly created Adam and Eve…. Whether or not God meant it in quite that way, and whether or not men translated Him correctly, many used these words as justification to make the earth serve human purposes alone. But what we are working toward, what with luck we may eventually attain to, is an outlook that was frequently and sometimes eloquently expressed by the first inhabitants of this continent…..[a focus on] the web of life, the interconnectedness of land and man and creature….”

“…living at the expense of every other species and of the earth itself” versus living with reverence for life is a choice with a timeline. It is a choice that hovers as the garden grows warm where it ought not to, as the air thickens and turns toxic where it once was clean and clear, as the waters churn with the stuff of “red tides” where they were so recently hospitable to their trusting populace. You and I can name countless ways in which we have violated our homeland—consuming as we do irreplaceable fossil fuels; tampering with the water table by losing our grip on nature’s bottom line; killing wildlife beyond our need for sustenance; dominating, subduing, and provoking the perilous consequences of our egos gone awry.

All the gardens I have known—tilled, storied, forgotten, tended—flow panoramically before me. There is a saying about childhood: “One childhood, no second chance.” So might it apply to this earth: One earth; no second chance. We belong to the earth, and that which we do to the earth we do to ourselves.

Reverence for life, a phrase coined by Albert Schweitzer, is a demeanor of humility and honor, a spiritual stance that translates into mindful behavior with regard to where we come from and who we are, earthlings to the core. Let go of a singular Earth Day. Let go of an annual Earth Day Sunday. Let’s commit instead to an every day, lifelong reverence for this precious planet as our mother who is teaching us to love and honor her through ways new and ancient.

Amen.

Sources:

Ashanti, Ghana grace in “A World of Grace: That Pause Before the Meal Inspires Us Across Cultures,” yes!, Spring 2009, 46-47.

Claire Hope Cummings, “The Good Food Revolution,” yes!, Spring 2009, 18-23.

The Book of Genesis in The Bible, Revised Standard Version.

“New Crop of Farmers,” Interview by Anna stern and Kim Nochi, yes!, Spring 2009, 34-35.

Okanogan Creation Story, in World Scripture: A Comparative Anthology of Sacred Texts, A Project of the International Religious Foundation, Paragon House, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1991, 207.

Wallace Stegner, T.H. Watkins (Afterword), “A Capsule History of Conservation,” in Where the Bluebird Sings to the Lemonade Springs: Living and Writing in the West, Random House, Inc., New York, 1992.

Chalice Reflection & Blessed Resurrections - Easter Sunday

2009-04-12T11:55:00.000-07:00

Chalice Reflection
of
Beverley Burgess
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts
Easter Sunday – April 12, 2009

When Jan first proposed the idea of “Gifted Promises” using her discretionary spending funds as seed money, I picked up one of the 20 $50 dollar bills with no idea how I was going to grow this seed money or what I was going to do with it. So there it lay on a small tray on my bureau. One day I found a bunch of change in a coat packet and dropped it on the tray on top of the $50 bill—a Eureka moment! So each day since I have been emptying change (quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies onto that tray.

With gratitude my gift is connected to this Easter Service and every service we have. My contribution to Lenten Manual reveals my “Gifted Promise”.

“Gifted Promises for Musical Notes”

Seated in the familiar pew, the minute the first note sounds.
My eyes gaze upward toward the organ, toward the piano, the bells, the voices.
My ears are perked and ready, my emotions are on alert.
My eyes move to the light beams dancing in harmony with the music
across the dark wood of this sanctuary.

Those beautiful sounds each week add comfort to my soul, lift my spirits,
give me hope and bring me joy.
Those loving sounds of inspiration must never die.
So coin stacked upon coin as note is tacked upon note,
I built my own tribute to our music.
And after all is counted plus $50 I match it with great joy and
pay tribute to the spiritual contribution of First Parish Music.

Final tally – $211.20 toward the music line-item for our 2009/2010 fiscal year.

Today our chalice light symbolizes our sincere appreciation to all that is musical at First Parish.

“Blessed Resurrections”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
Easter Sunday
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
April 12, 2009

Astonishing! A miracle! How could it be? Such are the exclamations we imagine at the first hearing of what is at the heart of the celebration of Easter, the legendary resurrection of Jesus of Galilee from death to life. You heard the story from the Gospel According to Mark, the earliest of the recorded Gospels. Each of the Four Gospels of the Bible as we know it offers its own version of what is said to have happened.

What do you believe? It’s Easter after all!

It’s time to believe….in daffodils. We all believe in daffodils. After all, we see them. We smell them. We remark on their waking. We sing about them. Our children hand them to you right here in this Meeting House. They must be real.

It’s time to believe….in heaven and earth. I’m of the same mind as Mark Belletini:

“…the heaven I see daily overhead never argues with me. It just tumbles clouds through my eyes and yours…And the earth I walk never argues with me either. It mostly just explodes with buds and petals like some out-of-control fountain.”

Heaven and earth are real.

It’s time to believe….in spring, difficult on same days, easier on others; but the buds are about to burst, the trees are about to leaf. So the sun is reluctant to cast its warmth. Maybe this year the sun is just a late bloomer. Nonetheless spring is real.

Then there’s the matter of resurrection, resurrection from death to life, that gnawing story of Easter. We who are people of faith and doubt commonly cast a large shadow on this one, this story that has drifted across the centuries from the who-knows-who-they-really-were biographers Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. Legend has a way of meandering like the currents of a river over time, an oft-told tale turned hearsay. Legend has a way of shedding its fluid quality, and before you know it, it’s resolute belief.

Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t rise from the dead. Maybe he did, maybe he didn’t lay his hands upon a massive stone, set it in motion, and walk forth from his place of burial into the light of day and life. Is this the core of Resurrection? Is this the core of Easter? That’s for you to decide. And you know you don’t have to agree with me just because I’m your minister. You really don’t. But here’s what I believe.

I believe that the core of Resurrection lies in what Jesus said and taught in what we know, for prime example, as the Sermon on the Mount. They were hard teachings. Remember, Jesus lived in a time and place of foreign occupation. The Roman Empire was real, deadly real. That utter lack of separation of church and state were the stuff of the petty provincial leaders washing their hands over the argument about who this character Jesus really was and delivering him to those who did the dirty work of doing him in.

But his teachings—legendary or historic—hold a truth of heart that we still have a hard time hearing, so powerfully timeless are they, especially those blessed “Blesseds” of the Sermon on the Mount. As Father John Dear, a Jesuit priest and peace activist remarked, “Open your Bible to Matthew 5 and you will never be the same.”

Seeing the crowds, he went up on the mountain, and when he sat down his disciples came to him. And he opened his mouth and taught them, saying:

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn,
for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek,
for they shall inherit the earth.
Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,
for they shall be satisfied.
Blessed are the merciful,
for they shall obtain mercy.
Blessed are the pure in heart,
for they shall see God.
Blessed are the peacemakers,
for they shall be called sons of God.
Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

And that heart-stopping finale:

“Blessed are you when men revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so men persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Reinhold Niebuhr, that 20th century giant of a preacher and theologian, claimed that the call of preaching is “to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” No wonder preachers who take this seriously don’t win popularity contests! No wonder Jesus’ status with the public vacillated between rock-star Alleluias and a crown of thorns. With the Blesseds alone, he provoked the haughty, irritated the self-righteous, offended the aggressive, jarred the self-satisfied, and alarmed the powerful terrified of losing their grip. In brief, Jesus drove the exceedingly comfortable into a posture of defensiveness, of lashing out, of silencing anyone who would dare to utter such a radical round of proclamations. Who are the poor to be blessed? Who are the peacemakers to be blessed? Who are the reviled and persecuted to be blessed?

The Blesseds of Jesus’ sermon are no less disarming, no less radical, in our own day. They are also no less true. We know where arrogance and self-righteousness and violence have led us. Some of us know it well, whether we’re downwind or maybe even upwind of it all. Yet in this most interesting of times, fresh blessings are in play. New ways are in the wind. New resurrections are possible if we heed the undercurrents of our time and the provocative Blesseds of the first century teacher from Galilee.

On this Easter morning, I suggest to you that each of these Blesseds proclaims a resurrection. Each of these Blesseds is the stuff of hope for all who are down and out and powerless and empty-handed and yes, unsuccessful in an age of success wrought in terms of how much and how big and how powerful. A stone rolls back from a tomb of despair. The light of day sheds light on what is and what isn’t. Life as we know it can be different IF we receive the gifts behind the legend of Easter, IF we mark the teachings of Jesus that provoked Pilot’s harsh judgment and prompted the fearful and desperate crowd to stand complicit.

Resurrection happens when idols tumble, and idols tumbled through the preaching and the parables of Jesus. Idols tumbled with each proclamation of who exactly is blessed. Resurrections happen when the poor gain their fair share, when the powerless are empowered, when the unjustly imprisoned walk free, when the hegemony of having more bows to the deep joy of sharing more.

Against all odds, daffodils work their way up through the harshest of soil amid the harshest of winters to enter the light of day in full and robust blossom. Against all odds, the heaven of the skies above us and the earth of the soil beneath us work with us if we will but practice reverence for this precious earth. Against all odds, those among us without hope are embraced by those among us who can hold up in the promise of resurrections that are seen and heard and touched so real are they.

Blessed are the down and out, for their time shall come!

Suffering continues, but we need not suffer alone. Illness and injury happen, but we are all healers in the making. Injustice persists in full play, but each of us is an advocate in the wings for comforting the afflicted and afflicting—and sometimes simply annoying—the way too comfortable. Circumstances bear down on us, until someone somehow leans hard against stubborn boulders that can be moved.

Did the teacher, the prophet, the rabbi, the historical Jesus actually walk out of the tomb two thousand years ago? I don’t know, but I doubt it. I do know and I do believe that the blessings of his life and the blesseds of that sermon to a scraggly assembly of followers held resurrections for Jesus’ day and carry credible miracles for our own day, resurrections of hope and possibility that, in the words of that old hymn, “Earth shall be fair and all its people one.”

Let us open our hearts to such an Easter. I love you. May God bless us all.
Amen.

Sources:

Mark Belletini, “Exultet for Easter Morning,” in Sonata for Voice and Silence: Meditations, Skinner House Books, Boston, 2008, 50-51.

John Dear, SJ, “The Beatitudes of Peace,” Reflections offered at a “Call to Action” conference in Milwaukee, November 21, 2006. http://www.fatherjohndear.org/NCR_Articles/Nov21_06.html.

http://www.fatherjohndear.org/

Karen Lewis Foley, “Daffodils Waking,” in For All That Is Our Life: A Meditation Anthology, Helen and Eugene Pickett, Editors, Skinner House Books, Boston, 2005, 42-43.

Robert A. Guelich, “Sermon on the Mount,” in The Oxford Companion to the Bible, Edited by Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan, Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford, 1993, 687-689.

The Gospels According to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John in The Bible (Revised Standard Version)

Paul S. Minear, “Blessing,” in The Oxford Companion to the Bible, Edited by Bruce M. Metzger and Michael D. Coogan, Oxford University Press, New York, Oxford, 1993, 92.

Reinhold Niebuhr, The Essential Reinhold Niebuhr: Selected Essays and Addresses, Edited by Robert McAfee Brown, Yale University Press, 1987.

“Turn Back,” Words: Clifford Bax (1886-1962), used by permission of The Peters Fraser & Dunlop Group, Ltd., Music: Genevan psalter, 1551, in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 120.

Next Steps

2009-04-05T09:02:00.000-07:00

“Next Steps”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
for New Member Sunday
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
April 5, 2009

“Baby steps,” he calls them. I refer to the mantra of one of our beloved members who offers regular on-line posts on the progress of his wife, who took a life-threatening fall this past December. It’s been a long hard road toward a new normal. The pace is slow but steady, measured in “baby steps.” Yet I remind him and I remind us all that baby steps are how we each learned to walk. None of us leapt from barely beyond fetal curls into a graceful upright pace. Our first steps are tiny. We proceed unsure of ourselves. We stumble; we fall. We get up and try again. Our next steps may be modestly bolder, or they may break into confident strides; but each step we take holds a story, and each story informs the unfolding history of who we are together.

What are the next steps of this congregation? This morning we celebrated some precious ones. Dave McMorris spoke in his Chalice Reflection of what I call our “ministry of shoes,” launched today by Dave and five other First Parishioners who participated in my “Gifted Promises” offer last fall—seed funding for up to 20 of you to plant a ministry within or beyond First Parish and to share your story this spring. This resolute group of six is leveraging their funds—a high road of funds leveraging, by the way—to ensure that the steps taken this coming October by some well-loved children in Guatemala will be in the direction of school, and that the little feet taking those steps will be clad in shoes, brand new school shoes. Thanks to our gifts of shoes and those of you who will go to Guatemala this fall to deliver them through the non-profit venture, Common Hope, this will happen. It’s a veritable “shoe-in.”

Then Ron Wallace announced that we’re about to light a fire! One of you will soon strike a match to burn the mortgage on our Meeting House and Parish House. Hooray! Ron and Mary and many of you who led and contributed to this campaign have every reason to receive our kudos and congratulations for lightening the load of the next steps we take as a faith community that does not live by faith alone. Stewardship is at the heart of our capital needs and our programmatic needs. The next steps of our stewardship campaign for sustainable ministries in the year ahead are up to all of us.

Then there are the next steps that we take as a congregational family celebrating the expansion of this family. What a joy it is to welcome this morning ten new members plus children into the historic community that is First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Cohasset. Count yourselves members of a family spawned in the early years of the 18th century and still alive and well and, well, procreating. We welcome you and embrace you!

Then there are those next steps taken by a family with a child to whom we dedicate our hearts and minds. Baby steps apply quite literally here. Just the other day I visited this young family on the home front and took great delight in watching what it takes to get from here to there for this endearing little boy: “What will it be—Shall I crawl? Shall I toddle? Shall I crawl? Will I go for it?” Baby steps, precious memorable baby steps.

What a day it is for promises kept and next steps. What a day it is when some from this community and as far away as California are taking more steps than we can imagine in a soon-to-be heard rumble of sneaker soles. The Cohasset Road Race is hosting 3,000 sneakers—actually, 1500 runners in sneaker and race gear—for this year’s event! As we sang earlier this morning, “Guide my feet while I run this race.” We know that the race referred to in this spiritual is not the one at hand, but we can surely concede that the lyrics are apt.

We are on this Sunday morning of early April all about next steps. In so many directions, at such variable paces, through so many stories, across our history as a community of faith and practice, we are all about next steps.

What will they be? Will we go forth haltingly or hopefully? Will we walk with grace and graciousness? Will we reach out and help one another along? Will we continue to dig deep into our hearts and yes, our pockets, to ensure that the next chapter of this historic faith community reflects our will to realize the promise of our mission?

We welcome all to our inclusive spiritual community. We affirm our Unitarian Universalist principles and put them into action by worshipping together, caring for one another, and working for a safe, just, and sustainable world.

Let us walk the walk together in joy and gratitude that we can. Amen.

Sources:

“Guide My Feet,” words: Traditional, Music: Spiritual from the collection of Wilks Laurence James, 1900, Harmony by Wendell Whalum (1932 - ), in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 348.

Chalice Reflection & Notice!

2009-03-22T14:58:00.000-07:00

Chalice Reflection
of
Diana (“Pokey”) Kornet
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, Massachusetts
Evolution Sunday – March 22, 2009

When Eric invited me do the chalice lighting for today, he asked me to reflect on my “struggles as a biologist and parent with the concepts of evolution vs. creationism,” but I have to admit I never struggled over this issue. Darwin’s theory of evolution poses a problem only if one takes the Bible literally, and the “Good Book” is so filled with allegory and parables that very early in my education I left behind any notion of its being a literal work. The high school I attended, non-denominational but whose founders were steeped in the Christian tradition, required that students take “Bible” as a minor every year: in 9th grade we were introduced to the major religions in the world and their founders, including the origins and wide variety of beliefs of many Christian sects. In 10th grade we studied the Old Testament, in 11th we focused on the New Testament, and during senior year we read more current material of the existentialists – philosophers and theologians from Kierkegaard and Sartre to Paul Tillich, Reinhold Niebuhr and William Sloane Coffin. I often wished that our children had a similar requirement during their high school education, for it was a path that encouraged questioning and critical thinking during the formative years.

When our children were young, we read Bible stories to them so they would become familiar with them as a part of western culture, but we told them that often the stories were trying to explain something for people – whether it was the story of how the world was created, the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit of the tree of knowledge, or the story of Noah’s Ark and the great flood. For me the concept of “God” has always been inextricably intertwined with the natural world; I had no problem conveying my awe and wonder at the intricate miracles of the natural world to our children.

In “Natural Faith” in the recent issue of UU World, William Murry says, “Before Darwin, people in the western world thought species were fixed entities, created by God in the exact form in which we find them today.” When Darwin’s theory of evolution explained that all living things evolved over millions of years from simple organisms through the process of natural selection, there was no longer the need for a “Creator.” This had huge implications for religious thinking: mankind was no longer a special creation made in the image of the deity; rather, man was a part of the natural world. Murry says that today many liberal theologians “conceive of God as a power within the natural universe rather than a source outside it.” Murry quotes from Reinventing the Sacred by scientist Stuart Kauffman, who suggests that we “rename God, not as the Generator of the universe, but as the creativity in the natural universe itself.” I have not read his book, but it is now on my list, for that is exactly where my thinking is: for me, God is the creative force for good. “May the Force be with you” really spoke to me!

Murry states that most UUs are naturalists as opposed to supernaturalists – whether theistic or non-theistic, most UUs do not believe in the existence of a supernatural realm…now THIS is where I have a different point of view. What is “supernatural” anyway?—something we can’t explain through the “natural laws” we understand right now? I would say it is all natural. I DO believe in an existence after this life…we just don’t understand yet how our energy continues.

Darwin’s idea has affected our religious story by calling us out of our separate self-centered worlds to recognize ourselves as part of a great living system…about which we still know relatively little. We are still learning…

“Notice!”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
for Evolution Sunday
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
March 22, 2009

What did you do on your summer vacation? It’s a question that conjures up the first day of school, a blank page, and a blank stare back at the page. It’s a question which I’m hoping to answer this autumn with at least one book title—The Origin of Species, published 150 years ago this coming November, authored by Charles Darwin born 200 years ago as of this year’s February 12. I’ve enjoyed barely an appetizer portion of the grand feast served up by the writings of and about this man, who transformed our understanding of how we—the whole interdependent we—came to be through the most extraordinary acts of adaptation across the millennia. My appetite has been whetted.

This morning I offer a belated Happy Birthday to Charles, belated because over his birthday I was engaged with my own particular adaptation to life recovering from surgery. I trust you’ll forgive me, Charles, and accept this modest tribute to your life and work in the frame of a worship service in a faith in full partnership with your relentless search for truth and meaning. I’m so looking forward to stretching out on Minot Beach come the summer, after a dive into waters holding more forms of life than I can imagine, and plumbing the pages of your magnum opus from which we humans are still drawing epiphanies of knowledge and wonder. What better place to read The Origin of Species but a beach, where I can close my eyes and breathe in the salt scent inhaled by creatures billions of years ago, where I can swim and imagine that I haven’t yet lost the gills of my sea-siblings—ancestors all.

What a remarkable man was Charles Darwin. What a remarkable life and legacy we inherit. While his theories of natural selection and sexual selection—the two theories for which he is most noted—were not original with Darwin, choice and circumstance and a highly inquisitive mind conspired toward Darwin writing and publishing 19 books, each a facet of his kaleidoscopic powers of observation and reflection. Darwin heeded what I understand as the most compelling though implicit invitation greeting each of us upon birth: “Notice!”

Born on February 12, 2009 in Shrewsbury, England to Dr. Robert Waring Darwin and Susannah Wedgwood Darwin, Charles was a middle child. His older brother, Erasmus, was named for their paternal grandfather, a physician and naturalist who preceded Charles in writing on the likelihood of natural selection as an explanation for the variability of creatures over time. Charles had three older sisters—Marianne, Caroline, and Susan—and a younger sister, Catharine. Altogether there were six children in this household parented by Robert and Susannah. Their maternal grandfather was Josiah Wedgwood, renowned for his pottery. Dr. Robert Waring Darwin was a physician, well-loved by his family and neighbors and patients. Susannah was known for her gentle and compassionate nature.

At the outset of what Charles Darwin refers to as a “sketch of my life,” begun in May, 1876, he recounts his earliest memory, “when I was a few months over four years old, when we went to near Abergele for sea-bathing, and I recollect some events and places there with some little distinctness.” Of course this bolsters my intent to read The Origin of Species on the beach.

Barely eight years old, Charles was sent off to day-school in Shrewsbury. Just a few months later, his mother, Susannah, would succumb to what was most likely tuberculosis, the disease that took so many lives on both sides of the Atlantic during this time. Curiously enough, he admits, his memory of his mother focused on her deathbed, what she wore, and the table where she had worked. Even as the young Darwin grieved the loss of his mother, his attention to detail is notable

By this time, he recounts, “my taste for natural history, and more especially for collecting, was well developed. I tried to make out the names of plants, and collected all sorts of things, shells, seals, franks, coins, and minerals.” Darwin also admits to a reputation for mischief, albeit mischief with conscience, since the incident I recount troubled him greatly afterwards.

“I told another little boy (I believe it was Leighton, who afterwards became a well-known lichenologist and botanist), that I could produce variously coloured polyanthuses and primroses by watering them with certain coloured fluids, which of course was a monstrous fable, and had never been tried by me.”

The young boy became the young student became the young man. He entertained the idea of becoming a physician—briefly. He even entertained the idea of becoming a clergyman—briefly. Darwin studied at Edinburgh and then at Cambridge. His was a mind that could have sauntered off in any of innumerable directions; but while at Cambridge, he sought the acquaintance of John Stevens Henslow, a professor passionate in his regard for the sciences. Young Charles was drawn to Henslow’s capacity to form “conclusions from long-continued minute observations.” Henslow served as mentor and muse, and it was he who alerted Charles to the opportunity to set sail aboard the Beagle as a cabin-mate to Captain Robert Fitz-Roy. Darwin was invited aboard as the Beagle’s resident naturalist. I can almost hear his response—a rousing high-decibel “Yes!”

The HMS Beagle set sail on the 27th of December 1831 for a round-the-world voyage that would last five years.

“The voyage of the Beagle,” wrote Darwin decades later, “has been by far the most important event in my life, and has determined my whole career….I have always felt that I owe to the voyage the first real training or education of my mind; I was led to attend closely to several branches of natural history, and thus my powers of observation were improved, though they were always fairly developed.”

Darwin observed; he collected; he documented; he thought; he reflected. He noticed. He wondered. His gaze fell on creatures of the sea and sky and land never imagined by him. His attention was drawn magnet like to sea shells found inland and coral reefs and atolls whose origins he theorized with inspiration from his Grandfather Erasmus, who had boldly declared “Everything from shells.” (Milner, 19) Off the coast of Chile in 1835 he witnessed a volcanic eruption and related it to the work of geologist Charles Lyell, who had theorized that with sufficient time, natural forces at play in the present explain the formation of such geological phenomena. (Milner, 20)

It was in the Keeling Islands in the Indian Ocean, where they arrived in the spring of 1836, that Darwin actually observed the coral reefs and atolls and formulated his theory of their formation over millennia atop sinking volcanoes. A few months later, the HMS Beagle docked in England. Laden with specimens and documentation and journals, Darwin’s primary sources were in hand. Soon after, he met with Lyell, who shared the excitement over Darwin’s theory of reef formation, though it varied from his own. Regarding the prospect of public credibility, Lyell’s words to Darwin, penned in a letter to his friend, rang as prophetic as they did enthusiastic:

“I could think of nothing for days after your lesson on coral reefs, but of the tops of submerged continents. It is all true, but do not flatter yourself that you will be believed, till you are growing bald, like me, with hard work & vexation at the incredulity in the world.” (Milner, 21)

Darwin began to distill his theory of natural selection as a mechanism for evolution as early as 1838, just six years after returning to England; but it would be twenty years before he published an account of it. It wasn’t that he didn’t publish. Eight of his 19 published works were issued before The Origin. Darwin was anxious over how it would be received.

Feelings and thoughts called for time to simmer. He had just become familiar with the ideas of Thomas Malthus, who posed the dilemma of human procreation outpacing the food supply, with starvation as the solution. While Malthus’s ideas were understandably unpopular, Darwin respected the dilemma that he was addressing, as indicated in his own reflections years later:

“….being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed. The result of this would be the formation of new species. Here, then, I had at last got a theory by which to work; but I was so anxious to avoid prejudice, that I determined not for some time to write even the briefest sketch of it.” (Autobiography, 48)

And so he did not, though his developing theory remained not quite on the back burner of his attention. He would write and publish on related topics, before occasion rose for the deep breath that told him it was time to make public his theory of natural selection. Weighing the pros and cons of what to say and when, he applied a similar methodology to his decision to marry.

Emma Wedgwood was his cousin, and surely not enough was known, even by Darwin, about the possible consequences of marrying one’s cousin, to pose a clear deterrent. The deterrents were recorded in Darwin’s vacillation about marrying at all. Yes, he made a pro and con list, with reasons for and reasons against. Among the “cons” were: “freedom to go where one liked—choice of Society & little of it…..Not forced to visit relatives, & to bend in every trifle.—to have the expense & anxiety of children.” On the “pro” side he listed: “Children…—Constant companion, (& friend in old age)” and most markedly, tongue in cheek I hope, “better than a dog anyhow.” Whether Emma ever saw the list is a matter of speculation, but if so, Charles surely had some explaining to do or he would find that it was not quite a lowly canine who belonged in a doghouse.

The couple exchanged many letters before and during their engagement. Charles poured forth his hopes and his confidence that he harbored a theory about where we all came from and how, along with doubts that stirred in him with regard to a divine force behind creation. Emma was forthright in declaring how painful it would be to her if he held to his theory and certainly if he made it public, and a plaintive opinion that it would prevent their being together in eternity. Emma came from a perspective of Unitarianism, and held firmly to her belief in God the Creator and the promise of an afterlife. Even then, it seems, Unitarians didn’t need “to think alike to love alike,” in the spirit of the 16th century Unitarian martyr Francis David.

Love won out, and Emma and Charles married in January, 1839. Residing for a few years in London, Darwin completed books on his voyage aboard the Beagle and his theory of the formation of coral reefs. The first two of their ten children were born there, including his beloved daughter, Annie. In 1842, the young family moved to the country into what would be their home for many years, “Down.” Emma would give birth to eight more children, though two died in infancy. By all accounts, Emma and Charles adored each other, and they adored their children. Affection was pervasive. Emma was warm and gracious; Charles was playful and indulged his children’s mischief making as if in appreciation for his own early pranks.

As prodigious in his work of observation and documentation and reflection, so was he prodigiously loving as a father. His was a parenting of full heart, and his heart was broken when Annie became ill, very ill, in April of 1851. On April 23 they lost ten-year-old Annie. Darwin poured his grief onto the page:

“We have lost the joy of the household, and the solace of our old age. She must have known how we loved her. Oh, that she could now know how deeply, how tenderly, we do still and shall ever love her dear joyous face! Blessings on her!” (Autobiography, 102)

It was in an article in The Boston Globe just four years ago that Randal Keynes, a great-great-grandson of Charles Darwin, spoke in defense of his forebear’s theories and empathy with those who find them difficult to understand. Keynes further illumined the story of Annie. In the late 1990s, he had found in his parents’ bureau memorabilia of Charles Darwin which they had inherited. Among this historic treasure was a box with memos by Darwin about Annie. A few years later, Keynes authored: Annie’s Box: Charles Darwin, His Daughter and Human Evolution.” While Darwin ceased to believe in a beneficent divinity, according to Keynes,

“…what he realized is that he just went on caring for Annie. He just couldn’t stop caring for her, even though she was dead, and year after year he found he still cared for her as much as he did when she was alive. He realized how fundamentally important the affections are between parent and child and how—to use a modern phrase—it must be a kind of hardwired part of our makeup. He went on to develop a view on our moral sense.”

A theory of natural selection in no way undermines love or the affections or conscience or gratitude or wonder or grief or humor. If we notice, if we deeply behold and reflect on what we witness, and if we bring to bear “a free and responsible search for truth and meaning,” we will collide with convention, we will unwrap the gifts of truth—hard truth and luminous truth, we will take to heart and mind what our sense of reason and soul reveal, and we will continue to search and to question.

Darwin worked with no knowledge of tectonic plate shifts, with no knowledge of genetics or DNA, with no firm proof that a coral reef is, as Adam Gopnik describes it, “just a funeral wreath around the tip of a defunct mountain.” Darwin’s work was girded by intentional observation and thoughtful reflection over time. “That the details have changed,” notes journalist Verlyn Klinkenborg, “does not invalidate his accomplishment. If anything, it enhances it. His writings were not intended to be scriptural. They were meant to be tested.”

Darwin was a man of insatiable curiosity and relentless observation. He was also a man of conscience, affection, humor, and peace. A contemporary of Abraham Lincoln and born on the same day, he was attuned to the anguish experienced by Lincoln over the threat to the Union and the moral quagmire of slavery whose abolition would seem to come only at the cost of civil war. In 1862, the second year of the carnage, Darwin’s friend, Asa Gray, had sent him a newspaper article on the war. Darwin responded to Gray:

“…we read [it] aloud in Family Conclave. Our verdict was, that the N. was fully justified in going to war with the S.; but that as soon as it was plain that there was no majority in the S. for ReUnion, you ought, after your victories in Kentucky & Tennessee, to have made peace & agreed to a divorce.” (Gopnik, 119)

What, I wonder, would Darwin have said on this day that we belatedly celebrate his life and legacy and mark also the sixth year of this nation’s war in Iraq? Surely resistance to the oppression of slavery and preservation of the Union outweigh any rationale yet in play for the current conflict that enters its seventh year. Darwin’s response resonates for our own day. Might we not paraphrase his words and heed his counsel that we ought, after whatever victories are claimed or disclaimed, to make peace and agree to a divorce?

Life is complex. Life is precious. How it began and how we began is not entirely a mystery, though still subject to fierce debate and inviting deeper knowledge. Reverence, that core religious stance, comes alive not through static belief, but through observation and wonder. Hear the final words of The Origin of Species:

“There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.”

Life is precious, wonderful, and amazing. How can we hold back from immersing ourselves in the whole glorious interdependent web of it? How can we resist the invitation of a lifetime: “Notice! Notice!”
Amen.

Sources:

“The Clergy Letter Project,” Michael Zimmerman, http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/Backgd_info.htm.

“The Clergy Letter – from Unitarian Universalist Clergy – An Open Letter Concerning Religion and Science,” http://www.butler.edu/clergyproject/Unitarian_Universalists/UnivUnitarianClergyLtr.htm.

Charles Darwin, The Autobiography of Charles Darwin, Introduction by Brian Regal, originally published in 1887, The Barnes & Noble Library of Essential Reading, New York, 2005.

Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species, with an Introduction and Notes by George Levine, originally published in 1859, Barnes & Noble, Inc., New York, 2004.

Charles Darwin, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_Darwin#CITEREFDesmondMoore1991.

Anthony David, illustration by Alicia Buelow, “Our Inner Ape How deeply rooted is our Unitarian Universalist belief in peace and justice for all?” UU World, Vol. XXII, No. 1, Spring 2009, 30-32.

Cornelia Dean, “Seeing the Risks of Humanity’s Hand in Species Evolution,” The New York Times Science Times, Tuesday, February 10, 2009, D4.

Adam Gopnik, Angels and Ages: A Short Book about Darwin, Lincoln, and Modern Life, Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 2009.

Olivia Judson, “The Origin of Darwin,” The New York Times Op-Ed, Thursday, February 12, 2009.

Carol Kaesukyoon, “Genes Offer New Clues in Old Debate on Species’ Origins,” The New York Times Science Times, Tuesday, February 10, 2009, D5.

Verlyn Klinkenborg, Editorial Observer, “Darwin at 200: The Ongoing Force of His Unconventional Idea,” The New York Times, Thursday, February 12, 2009.

Jennifer A. Lane, “A Brief History of Reef Science,” Natural History, February 2009, 22.

Richard Milner, “Seeing Corals with the Eye of Reason: A rediscovered painting celebrates Charles Darwin’s view of life,” Natural History, February 2009, 18-23.

William R. Murry, illustrated by Alicia Buelow, “Natural Faith: How Darwinian evolution has transformed liberal religion,” UU World, Vol. XXII, No. 1, Spring 2009, 26-29.

Tatsha Robertson, “Darwin descendant defends evolution theory,” The Boston Globe, November 19, 2005.

Carl Safina, “Darwinism Must Die So That Evolution May Live,” The New York Times Science Times, Tuesday, February 10, 2009, D3.

John Tierney, “Darwin the Comedian. Now That’s Entertainment!” The New York Times Science Times, Tuesday, February 10, 2009, D2.

“The Voyage of the Beagle,” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Voyage_of_the_Beagle.

Nicholas Wade, “A Mind Still Prescient After All These Years,” The New York Times Science Times, Tuesday, February 10, 2009, D1, 4.

Carl Zimmer, “Crunching the Data for the Tree of Life,” The New York Times Science Times, Tuesday, February 10, 2009, D1, 3.

Dream On

2009-03-08T12:32:00.000-07:00

“Dream On”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
March 8, 2009

It’s hard to find a more dysfunctional family than that of the twin brothers, Jacob and Esau, and their parents, Rebekah and Isaac. As recounted in the Old Testament Book of Genesis, Rebekah learned early in her pregnancy that the twins she was carrying would contend with one another as “two nations” and “two peoples [that] shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the elder shall serve the younger.”

Esau was the first to be born; then came Jacob. While twins, their temperaments were different, very different; their physiques were different. It was difficult to imagine them as brothers, let alone twins. Their father Jacob could not hide his greater affection for Esau, the doer, the outdoorsman, and the son with the direct approach. Their mother Rebekah could not hide her greater affinity for Jacob, the contemplative, the homebody, and the son of willful scheming.

How does the dysfunction play out? Recall the story of Esau as a young man coming in from the field famished, catching the aroma of a stew prepared by his brother, Jacob. “Pottage” it’s called. So hungry is Esau and so attuned to his brother’s hunger pangs as leverage for advantage is Jacob that Esau is seduced by Jacob into selling his birthright as first-born in exchange for “bread and pottage of lentils.”

Years passed and the family prospered through good times and hard times, even as the deception and favoritism continued. Isaac grew old and, realizing that his time was limited, called to him his favorite son, Esau. He asked him to go hunting and bring back the wild game that he so loved that he might eat and then bless his eldest before he bid farewell to all. Rebekah, eavesdropping on their conversation, confided to Jacob what was afoot and ordered her favorite son to go and bring her two goats so that she might prepare them for Jacob to take to his father with the intent of securing his blessing first. Knowing that her husband in his blindness might touch Jacob’s arm and recognize him as the younger twin, Rebekah counseled Jacob to cover his arms with goatskins to deceive her husband’s touch. Jacob complied, and just as years earlier he had leveraged his brother’s hunger to his own advantage, so now he leveraged his father’s blindness to his own advantage. He successfully secured his father’s blessing.

Isaac and Esau quickly discovered the deceit, but the blessing could not be revoked. Such were the ways of family in this culture of a few millennia past. Twice tricked, Esau was livid and sought to avenge the injustice by plotting to murder his brother. Once again, Rebekah came to the fore and sent her darling Jacob off to the safety of her brother Laban’s household in Haran. It is at this point that our morning reading begins:

“Jacob left Beersheba, and went toward Haran. And he came to a certain place, and stayed there that night, because the sun had set.” (Genesis 28:10-11a)

Jacob falls asleep and dreams of “a ladder set upon the earth,” with angels going up and down the ladder and the Lord God standing above all and proclaiming divine authority and divine promise, that God would multiply Jacob’s descendants and bring him back to this land. Jacob awoke and affirmed the ground as holy ground, calling the place Bethel, which in Hebrew means “house of God.” At this point, Jacob vowed that if God would be with him and sustain him, he would give a tenth of all his belongings back to God. In other words, Jacob promised to tithe! It seems to me a small price to pay for God’s promise of sustainability, especially given Jacob’s bad behavior in the eyes of God and family.

Let’s take a closer look at this dream, one of many biblically recounted dreams that shifted the tectonic plates of ancient history. A man in flight from an avenging brother, Jacob beheld in the vulnerability of sleep angels of God going to and fro on a ladder that joined heaven and earth, with God at the top proclaiming divine authority. Jacob awoke shaken by a transformed consciousness of where he stood—in a holy place. He was humbled. Yes, it was about time; but he was through a dream humbled. And from such a stance, he entered into a covenant with God.

According to Old Testament scholar Walter Brueggemann, Jacob’s dream is an example of “the Holy Other address[ing] people in the vulnerability of the night.” Writes Brueggemann:

“The dream requires a total redescription of Jacob’s life defined by God’s promise. …Jacob pledges to be allied with [this promise], a pledge that entails accepting himself as a carrier of the promise. Quite concretely, Jacob promises to tithe. When he awakes, the world is different because of this holy voice in the night.”

In the dream, unlike in Jacob’s daytime behavior, there is no guile. Ultimate gratification sealed in the covenant between God and Jacob trumped the immediate gratification through which Jacob had lived his life thus far. God promises sustainability; Jacob promises generosity through the specifics of tithing. A covenant is made, not a deal, but a covenant.

Dreams lace the biblical narrative. We read in the Gospel According to Matthew the account of the Magi, summoned by Herod the king who had heard the story of what they had seen, a star rising above the birthplace of a new king. Learning that Bethlehem was the place, Herod sent them to find the child and come back with a report. Off they went to Bethlehem, found the child, and left their gifts at his feet. In a dream came the warning not to return to Herod, but to travel home by a different route. Joseph, the father of the newborn babe, was similarly warned in a dream to take Mary and their child and flee to Egypt to escape Herod’s wrath.

Dreams are dreamt, plans shift, and history turns a corner. The devious Jacob becomes accountable to the holy in a new covenant. A king is prevented from venting murderous envy on the babe who would transform our understanding of how we might live. Dreams introduce radically different options at a time of natural vulnerability. Our consciousness takes a rest, and something else steps in.

“Dreams,” writes Brueggemann, “are recognized as disclosures of otherness, an otherness that may indeed open us to authentic reality and to a truth that lies beyond reason.”

Carl Jung, the Swiss psychiatrist and scholar of matters mythical, psychological, and religious, observed that:

“…in dreams we put on the likeness of that more universal, truer, more eternal man dwelling in the darkness of primordial night. There he is still the whole, and the whole is in him, indistinguishable from nature and bare of all egohood.”
(Civilization in Transition, Collected Works 10, pars. 304 f.
in a footnote to Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 394)

A richer dimension arises in our dreams that gives us the chance—depending upon our interpretation, and this is pivotal—to turn enter new venues of consciousness and behavior, to become more whole than we had ever imagined possible! Enlightenment does not stop with reason. Wrote Jung:

“The more critical reason dominates, the more impoverished life becomes; but the more of the unconscious, and the more of myth we are capable of making conscious, the more of life we integrate.”
(Memories, Dreams, Reflections, 302)

Dreams and their interpretation are the very stuff of transformation. The biblical dreams that I’ve recounted speak to the realities of our own day.

Not unlike Jacob and his mother, Rebekah, not unlike the power-hungry Herod, we have escalated our assumptions into a state that is unsustainable. Once again, theologian Walter Brueggeman lends his interpretive gifts to the matter. The triumvirate of autonomy, anxiety, and greed describes a dysfunctional human family. Surely in our own nation and yes, as Unitarian Universalists, we have been giddy with individualism. Even the iconic Ralph Waldo Emerson lifted up “self reliance” to the status of an idol. The quest for autonomy, or hyper-individualism, perpetuates a myth that any of us might be non-dependent and unaccountable; we become anything but our brother’s or sister’s keeper, and we will surely not be kept! Who needs an ultimate Other? Who needs the notion of God—not an old man in the sky, but the transcendent power of love and life? I think of that game from kindergarten, The Farmer in the Dell. It concluded with one lone person in the middle of the circle, and we all sang out: “The cheese stands alone.” Such is surely the case with “big cheeses.”

The inevitable sequel to the myth of autonomy is anxiety. Runaway independence is neither achievable nor sustainable.

“The outcome of such autonomy without allies or support,” claims Brueggemann, “is an endless process of anxiety, for one never has enough or has done enough to be safe and satisfied. As a result the autonomous person, championed in current economic theory, is caught in an endless rat race of achievement that produces bottomless anxiety—about the market, about performance, about self-worth.”

Sound familiar? Anxious autonomy spills into desperate acquisitiveness—that is, greed. Anxious autonomy whispers in our ears, “You don’t have enough; you must do better; you must get farther ahead.” The mania overtakes not just those who stand at the top of a very different ladder, but those who stand in the middle and those who stand at the bottom—not quite like the angels who fluidly connected heaven and earth. Brueggemann speculates “that this triad of autonomy/anxiety/greedy acquisitiveness is the story of our recent economic collapse.”

How do we find our way out of this mess? How do we transcend our desperation to recover with a wholly other way of being?

Return to Jacob on the run. Return to the wise men, tempted to be not so wise. Return to a young father whose newborn babe is threatened by an autonomous/anxious/power-greedy head of state. Directions arrived in dreams. Wholly other options for being arrived through layers that lay deeper than reason, deeper than habits so ingrained that consciousness freezes.

In Brueggeman’s wisdom, the alternative to the autonomy/anxiety/greed triad is the biblically based covenantal existence melded with affirmation of God’s—or divine—abundance melded with generosity. Autonomy is traded in for the covenant of community. Jacob is the prime example of this, freed into the realm of covenant through his dream in flight to Haran. Anxiety is traded in for affirmation of the abundance of God. Once again, Jacob’s flight is taken in anxiety over his brother’s threatened revenge. As a consequence of his dream, he enters into a covenant with God in which God promises him abundance through sustainability and Jacob promises God generosity through tithing. Greed and acquisitiveness are traded in for generosity—that is, Jacob’s prior behavior contrasted with his newfound generosity. So too the dreams of the Magi and of Joseph hold the promise of relationships that are covenantal, directions that are life saving and life sustaining, and lives that are generous to the core.

“As far as we can discern,” wrote Jung, “the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being.” It is time for illumination.

We are tempted—all of us—to succumb to a desperate hope that we’ll return to a Dow Industrial Average well above 10,000, fluid lending practices, and a job market with employment that is familiar if not sustainable. If we affirm a community of covenant grounded in love of neighbor, if we give thanks for an earth for which we still have a chance to be stewards, and if we respond with a level of generosity that embodies our gratitude—including generosity to this very community grounded in a covenant of love, we will know a future beyond our wildest dreams. We will know a future in which the angels of our most promising nature walk freely between what we imagine as heaven and what we inhabit as earth. It is possible, it really is. Amen

Sources:

Walter Brueggemann, “The Power of Dreams in the Bible,” The Christian Century, June 28, 2005, pp. 28-31, http://www.religon-online.org/showarticle.asp?title3218

Walter Brueggemann, “From Anxiety and Greed to Milk and Honey: What the Bible has to say about ‘bailout,’ and other comments on the crisis we now face,” Sojourners: Faith, Politics, and Culture, February 2009, 20-24.

The First Book of Moses Commonly Called Genesis and The Gospel According to Matthew in The Bible, Revised Standard Version.

Carl Jung, Civilization in Transition, Collected Works 10, pars 304 f, in a footnote to Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Recorded and Edited by Aniela Jaffé, Translated from the German by Richard and Clara Winston, Revised Edition, Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, New York, 1965, p. 394

Carl Jung, Memories, Dreams, Reflections, Recorded and Edited by Aniela Jaffé, Translated from the German by Richard and Clara Winston, Revised Edition, Vintage Books, A Division of Random House, New York, 1965.

Priceless

2009-03-01T14:07:00.000-08:00

“Priceless”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
March 1, 2009

Today is Stewardship Sunday…sort of. This morning is our opportunity to think about stewardship, generosity, and all that relates to both. This week is our extended time to think some more about stewardship and generosity, to sift it out, to dream about it, to imagine, to reflect, to connect, and to prepare for next Sunday, when those among us who have agreed to lead our annual stewardship venture will help us morph our thinking into actions of commitment and commitments of generosity. So let’s call this morning Stewardship Advent Sunday.

What are we about with an advent? An approach, a preparation, a pregnancy of sorts, with the guarantee of an outcome if not a guaranteed outcome. For what are we preparing? Not quite a baby, but a hope that this congregation that was born 288 years ago will continue to breathe and will thrive.

During those 288 years, we have known good times and not so good times. Imagine all the members and friends of this church across these 29 decades. Imagine that all of us are assembled here this morning. Consider what we have witnessed in our cumulative lifetimes.

We the assembled historic congregation have borne witness to wars that tore body and soul, from the wars of European newcomers with the indigenous nations of this continent through the world wars of the 20th century into the ongoing wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. To each of these episodes of carnage, members of this congregation have borne witness as religious community. Members of this congregation have participated on battlefields and in the halls of power. Members of this congregation have figured in the founding and evolution of world organizations such as the United Nations, designed to convene in peaceful and respectful assembly an almost unimaginable diversity of cultures and viewpoints. Members of this congregation have convened in this Meeting House with what has sometimes felt like an almost unimaginable diversity of viewpoints, however culturally monolithic we might seem, to stretch our individual personhoods into a larger soul, the soul of religious community.

Yes, we have borne witness to wars that tore body and soul, and we have borne witness and continue to bear witness to the hope that peaceful assembly on matters intimate and global describes the foundational nature of this faith community. To paraphrase that 16th century Unitarian martyr, Francis David, as we sought to love alike, we didn’t always think alike. The fabric of our community has been shredded and parsed many times over. The fabric of our faithfulness has been stretched. The largesse of who we seek to be stops short of nothing less than beloved community.

We the members and friends of this historic congregation have borne witness to an ongoing roller coaster of socioeconomic health. While it wasn’t until the 19th century that economic statistics were even documented, there have been other markers, from weather to wars, that described economic cycles before that time. In 1797, seventy-six years after this church was founded and over 200 years ago, economics were topsy-turvy in response to deflation in the Bank of England propelled by England’s war with France in what was known as the French Revolutionary Wars. It was a crisis that lasted three years. This, by the way, was a time in the history of First Parish when there was no stewardship campaign. No need! This congregation was supported by taxes! Such would be the case until 1824, when we were no longer the “town church,” a delayed reaction to the 1820 separation of church and state in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Not a great time for a stewardship drive, since the previous five years were marked by a major financial crisis in this nation, with “ widespread foreclosures, bank failures, unemployment, and a slump in agriculture and manufacturing.” How did we do it? Somehow, we did. Those of you in our imagined historic congregation who hold the stories of this time are more than welcome to share your strategies for our own day.

Jump ahead to 1857. The iconic Rev. Joseph Osgood was your minister then. Just two years earlier, the women of First Parish had purchased an organ for the Meeting House. I trust that they paid cash. In 1857, over 5,000 banks failed and unemployment soared in reaction to the failure of an Ohio based bank that burst a bubble of European speculation in U.S. railroads. Sound familiar? Not the railroads, but the bursting of a bubble? Unemployment was rampant. It continued for three years, but in 1857, no one knew how long it would last.

Time for the 20th century, although the roller coaster of famine and plenty moved in its perilous course across the intervening years. It was October 1929 when another bubble burst. The fallout known as “The Great Depression” would span more than a decade. Some of you recall that time. It was not pretty. Soup lines and hungry children were commonplace in the national landscape. My own mother was 20 years old then, a young nurse in a small Midwestern town. Yes, she’s 100 years old now, and she still clings to habits of frugality. She also shares readily the stories of neighbor helping neighbor during the leanest of times because “What else could we do?” In 1921, just eight years before the fallout, First Parish had celebrated its bicentennial, still flush with the illusion of a booming economy, still hopeful that World War I, known then as the Great War, had been “the war to end all wars.”

As the nation recovered, albeit largely on the dubious economic merits of the Second World War, Roscoe Trueblood came to this pulpit. For 24 years, Rev. Trueblood joined with you as you continued to find your place in this community and this faith. During these two score and four years, some of you remember that you wound your way through three economic recessions, spanning a decade between the early 1950s to the early 1960s.

And here we are today. Take a deep breath. Times are tough. Times have been tough in the past. You, the historic congregation bear witness with your scars of loss and grief and yes, with your proverbial merit badges of resilience and vision and commitment. Stewards all, you have walked the walk; you have kept the faith.

The winter from which we are emerging has been marked by war and socioeconomic crisis. It has also been marked by a spate of illness and injury and loss. You, the historic congregation, have known such seasons intimately. Just three years before this parish observed its bicentennial, 21 million perished from the 1918 influenza epidemic linked to war that also ended that year. If you visit Central Cemetery, I don’t doubt that you will find an undue number of headstones marking lives that stopped short that year, lives fragile in their infancy and their age. How many funerals did our Meeting House host during this period of rampant illness and loss?

Surely one of the most poignant records of life’s fragility in our historic midst are the Cohasset Mariner Quilts, one crafted by the women of Second Parish, known to us today as the Second Congregational Church, the other, by the women of First Parish, known to us today as First Parish Unitarian Universalist. Thanks to current member, Penny Myles, we have a historical narrative of these two quilts, both crafted in the 1840s, just a few decades after the centennial of this congregation and about 15 years after the splintering of First Parish into First and Second Parish. (Sometimes, we haven’t been so good about not having to think alike to love alike!)

On the First Parish quilt, known as the Album quilt, there is a bittersweet reminder of how women of that time used this art as a testament that they had lived. Sisters commonly sewed squares that adjoined each other. In the case of the Hall sisters, it was as if they had stitched their memorials in the pattern of a family plot. Susannah Hall’s square held the inscription: “Hope on, hope over.” It was dated August 26, 1846. A few years later, at the age of 24, Susannah was gone. The wistful thread coursing through each square was a longing to be remembered. Life was fragile and precious.

Just yesterday, we celebrated the life and memorialized the passing of a dear and lovely young woman whose spirit of resilience embodies what it means to persevere with grace. We have been reminded again and again this year, this winter, and through the seasons of our historic faith community that life is fragile and precious.

We are reminded through reflection on times and circumstances past that this is a resilient congregation, upheld by the tensile strands of love. This has been a cruel winter, but it is not the only cruel winter we have weathered. You are a well-weathered congregation, seasoned by centuries of communal faithfulness. You are stitched together not by hard and fast creeds, but by a covenant of love that endures.

Do we always love well? Of course not. Do we have occasion to practice the hard stuff of forgiveness? Absolutely! Does redemption have a place in our faith? I surely hope so. Such is the ballast of religious community grounded in a relationship of covenant.

Consider where you have been. Consider the season upon us. Consider the approaching spring. Be reminded that just a few years ago, you adopted a statement of mission. Let it be a mirror for our spirits this morning:

We welcome all to our inclusive spiritual community. We affirm our Unitarian Universalist Principles and put them into action by worshiping together, caring for one another, and working for a safe, just, and sustainable world.

Ours is a mission of resilience, inclusiveness, affirmation, faithfulness, hope, perseverance, caregiving, and commitment.

Echoing those words that we spoke responsively:

“Alone in the world, I was beset by sorrow and hurt in my life—so much loss and emptiness, so little hope and understanding.
….Then I came into community, a religious community of hope and love. Here I found support and compassion, wisdom and grace, and the power of shared suffering. And together we made life sweeter.”

You, the assembled congregation of 288 years have made life sweeter. You, the assembled congregation of almost three centuries, have persevered.

Twenty-eight laughs, an underestimate; 9 hugs, think thousands more; 52 smiles, add an infinite number of zeros. A free day, a morning perhaps, to take them all in: priceless! Okay, this quip from the MasterCard commercial doesn’t distill it. How could it possibly do so? Close to three centuries of laughter and tears, births and marriages and illnesses and loss, economic rollercoaster rides, wars and epidemics, congregational splits and familial trials, and yes, the winter at hand. Yet the laughs and hugs and smiles and hope embodied in our very mission statement testify to the religious community that you have chosen, the religious community that has made life sweeter. This morning is a time to ponder this. This morning is priceless.

BUT that commercial, that MasterCard commercial, gives a clue to something else. The structure that cradles these priceless dimensions of our faith community carries a cost. Even a MasterCard credit card comes due. Our religious community is priceless, but it is not costless. It costs us time and energy and yes, money, that construct from which some of you recoil. But do any of us enjoy the comforts of homes rented or mortgaged without paying the bill? Do any of us enjoy the benefits of education for our children without paying the bill? Do any of us head to Shaw’s or Stop n’ Shop or in the most basic ways sustain ourselves without expectation that there is a cost?

Our religious community may be priceless, but the sustained covenantal relationship enhanced by the exquisite beauty of this Meeting House, the meeting rooms of our Parish House, the professionalism of staff called and hired, the richness of curricula that lend wisdom to our young and not so young, the music that peals from this sacred space Sunday after Sunday all carry a cost. Cherish what is priceless, and ponder if you will how we will bear the cost together, as we consider the commitment and opportunity of stewardship.

Yes, it’s a tough time, but we have weathered tough times before. We can do it now. It is my hope that for those who know especially tough times, we will do what we can, and for those whose homes and pantries and even a few vacations are secure, we will do more than we think we might. Religious community is sustained by gifts given and received, not in equal portion, but equitably.

If in years hence, you are imaginatively reassembled as a historic congregation of 388 years, I am counting on each of us to know that on our watch, we cherished the priceless and bore the cost. Let’s take a week and think about what this religious community means to us. What will we do to sustain it? What will you do to sustain it? I know you’ll respond generously. I’m counting on you. I will do my part.

I love you and am so grateful for each and every one of you.

Amen.

Sources:

Jan Carlsson-Bull, “Sacred Quilts,” A Sermon given at First Parish Unitarian Universalist, Cohasset, MA, February 5, 2006.

Selwyn D. Collins, Ph.D., “Influenza in the United States, 1887-1956,” Extract from Review and Study of Illness and Medical Care with Special Reference to Long-time Trends, Public Health Monograph No. 48, 1957 (Public Health Service Publication No. 544), http://www.history.navy.mil/library/online/influenza_collins.htm.

“Congregational History,” First Parish in Cohasset, http://www.firstparishcohasset.org/about/history.htm.

Michael E. Hanlon, The Great War in Numbers, excerpt with permission, El Sobrante, CA, THC Publishing, 1992, http://www.worldwar1.com/sfnum.htm
“List of recessions in the United States,” from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_recessions_in_the_United_States.

Penny Redfield [Myles], “The Cohasset Mariner Compass Quilts,” Paper prepared for Liberal Studies 401, Simmons College, December 9, 1991.

Douglas Taylor, “The Blessings of Community,” from For All That Is Our Life: A Meditation Anthology, Helen and Eugene Pickett, Editors, Skinner House Books, 2005.

Message from Jan

2009-02-15T12:30:00.000-08:00

“Message from Jan”
First Parish
Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
February 15, 2009

Greetings and love to each and all on this mid-February Sunday morning as you gather once again to worship.

What does it mean to worship? Of course we’ll never reach consensus on an answer. We’re Unitarian Universalists after all. I do believe our capacity to worship together without consensus on what it means is a clue to how exactly we are bound in this strange and wonderful community of faith that we share—that is, love as a covenantal relationship. Not love as something distilled in a stale and dubious definition. Not love as an unattainable standard that is instant pie in the sky. Not even love in the form of chocolate that is savored, digested, and quickly forgotten—though the savor part is probably a point on which we actually could reach consensus. Rather, love as a dynamic fluid relationship of joys and concerns, silence and song, activity and respite, questioning and wondering, striving and stumbling—all laced with a behavior of deep caring.

For me, love is how we care. One of the most important questions to which I’m called to respond day after day is how I love, how I care, and what I love, what I care about.

Lest we lean too quickly into the ethereal stuff of love, what I sometimes call glazed donut theology—glazed on the outside, preservatives on the inside, and a hole in the middle—consider our morning reading, Teilhard de Chardin’s “A Hymn to Matter.”

“Blessed be you, harsh matter, barren soil, stubborn rock,” moving into:

“Blessed be you, universal matter, unmeasurable time, boundless ether, triple abyss of stars and atoms and generations..”

From the immediacy of soil and rock, we travel into the far-reaching stuff of “universal matter” and “unmeasurable time.” We travel right out into the stars. This is affirmation that is grounded and transcendental, immediate and ultimate, here and now, and time without borders.

What do we love and how do we love? Loving the soil and the rock and the stuff that we recognize as earth-stuff is just as “spiritual” as loving the outer realms of space and time, the far stretches of imagination. It reminds me of the phrase chosen by a longtime Christian Ethics professor at my alma mater, Union Theological Seminary. Dr. Beverly Wildung Harrison referred to “embodied spirituality.” When I think of Bev, this notion works on a personal level. While Bev became one of our nation’s foremost feminist theologians, my first encounter with her when I arrived at Union was as the senior counselor on my dorm floor in McGiffert Hall, standing in the kitchen and teaching me how to make a proper cheese fondue! I love Bev for what she taught me about feminist theology AND for what she taught me the fine tunings for a sumptuous fondue. I know now what an artery clogger it is, but I can still savor the smell and the taste and permit myself every year or so to prepare a batch, no recipe needed.

We love and we remember with an embodied spirituality. Sometimes our sense of taste figures in, sometimes our sense of smell, sometimes our sense of touch. Commonly our object of love is within our field of vision or our field of hearing. All are constructs of the material world. As for love itself, it’s both grounded and transcendent. I do believe it outlasts our material selves as we know ourselves; but while we’re here in the form we assume as living breathing humans, our material selves matter mightily.

We’re brought hard into this truth this very winter as so many of us find ourselves challenged by injury and illness. You bet your life, we matter as matter! How well we function physically is intimately related to how well we function in ways that we don’t commonly consider physical. How we could ever buy into a tension between the physical and the spiritual is beyond me. Teilhard de Chardin observed and affirmed their intimacy. Charles Darwin observed and affirmed their intimacy. My friend Beverley Wildung Harrison recognized and affirmed their intimacy. We are body bound, body constrained, body defined; and it’s a matter of opinion as to whether we’re body liberated when we die.

The expressions of love and caring that you have shown me in these past weeks have been wondrously material. I smile with appreciation at every card, every e-mail, every visit. And my husband, Dan and I, ingest with appreciation every magnificent meal that you have delivered. Who even fantasizes about cheese fondue when you deliver the likes of aromatic stewed apples, citrus crusted fish, Swedish meatballs (prepared with ground turkey, thank you), acorn squash laden with apples and cranberries, chocolate meringues, and a tart that goes straight to my heart through my tummy. A Hymn to Matter? Absolutely! Food for body and soul? Explain the difference; I can’t.

I know this morning you’re hearing the strains of Johann Sebastian Bach through the sounds of organ, oboe, and voice. What can be more sublime than the music of Bach? Thank God or whomever or whatever magnificent twist in the process of natural selection that permitted us, who are human, to make music and enjoy it.

As this morning’s offering is given and received, ingest the sublimity that is this segment of Bach’s Magnificat, and be reminded of the truth held in the words of our closing hymn:

“…we are in the making still—as friends who share one enterprise and strive to blend with nature’s will.”

In this extraordinary here and now in which you sit side by side singing, praying, listening, leaning into whatever it is that you need this morning and whatever it is that happens this morning, we are like grace notes in a composition that goes on and on and on. As such, may we share the measures of our lives note by note, act by act, life by life, honoring the dynamic covenant of love that girds our glorious lack of consensus on what exactly it all means. It is the variation that enriches the community, the variation that makes harmony possible.

Consider what you love. Consider how you love. Consider that lyric of our final hymn reminding us that “what we love we yet shall be.” Trust it. Trust the love. Trust the covenant of love. There are no hard truths in this hard winter, but the songs that we sing and the notes that we heed are buoyant with the sacred here and now and the vibrant possibility of what can yet be.

“This is the marvel of life, rising to see and to know;
out of your heart, cry wonder: sing that we live.”

ring the words of Robert Weston.

The intricate twining of body and spirit, intimate and ultimate, here and now and time without end proclaim that the wonder of Creation of which we are a part is barely underway.

In this winter of hard realities, breathe, taste, touch, smell, listen, watch. Sing a hymn to matter. Sing a hymn to the love that matters most of all.

I love you each and all—
Jan

Sources:

Teilhard de Chardin, “Hymn to Matter,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 549.

John and Mary Evelyn Grim, “Teilhard de Chardin: A Short Biography,” http://www.teilharddechardin.org/biography.html.

William DeWitt Hyde, adapted by Beth Ide, “Creative Love, Our Thanks We Give,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 289.

Robert T. Weston, “Out of the Stars,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 530.

Message from Jan

2009-02-08T12:27:00.000-08:00

“Message from Jan”
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
February 8, 2009

Greetings on this Sunday morning of being together in worshipful community.

It’s gratifying to imagine you clustered in the Meeting House on this day that promises a balmy 40-something. You could be out walking on the beach; you could be out breathing the scent of a promised spring in air that has been sub-freezing for so long; you could be somewhere other than here. Of course some of you probably are walking on the beach right now; some of you probably are outside inhaling the promise of spring at this very hour. You are where you are, but there is something about gathered community in worship that is sacred. You’re affirming your need to consider the intimacy of religious community and the ultimacy of those matters about which we sing and pray and speak and ponder. And there is much to sing about, pray about, speak about, and simply ponder, as we move through a winter that is trying body and soul.

What if we turned this winter upside down? Some of you might think: “Aha, the Southern Hemisphere sounds pretty good about now!” But I believe you know what I’m talking about—the hurdles of illness and injury, the heartbreak of loss, and the harrowing dynamic of our nation’s economy that has become the high uncertainty of our global well-being.

The Preacher of Ecclesiastes was right by half: “There is nothing new under the sun.” The other half? Everything is new under the sun. It’s a new morning, a new hour, a new moment, a brand new breath. We bring into our “now” all that has happened, for good and ill; and we bring into our “now” all the possibility, all the vision, all the hope for what and how we might be.

A case in point. One among us suffered a serious fall this past December. For a perilous while, her life hung in the balance. An ambulance was called. Emergency surgery was performed. Surely it was the longest night for all who know and love her. Then slowly but surely the waiting and the wondering stretched into the knowledge that recovery is happening. In the words of her husband, “Baby steps, baby steps.” Our dear friend is healing.

Baby steps are how we all learn to walk, however slowly. There is much yet uncertain; there are no certainties for any of us. Yet healing is happening; recovery is in process. And from that fall to the astonishing steps she has taken, you have been there for our beloved friend and her husband and their family. You have been there in caring community. You have visited; you have sent cards; you have prepared meals for her husband; you have brought flowers to brighten the days of our dear friend who is returning, step by step, word by word, smile by smile, hand clasp by hand clasp.

So many of you have known the harshness of this winter through injury and illness and for some of our families, through the loss that is death. In just a few weeks, we’ll come together to celebrate the life of a young woman whom we have known and loved, a young woman who has for so long suffered from a debilitating illness. We miss her, and our hearts go out most especially to her husband at this time. Once again, you have been there with your love and support—not just this winter, but for many many winters of body and soul for this family.

“There is nothing new under the sun,” and everything is new under the sun. Every illness, every injury, every round of surgery, even each passing has marked an exquisite opportunity for us as a community of faith to practice our faith, to reach out, to listen, to know most of the time that we can’t fix whatever is ailing whomever, but we can be there. Healing and loving presence are at play amid a winter when the winds have blown harshly and the snow has fallen bounteously and the ice has sent us spinning sometimes out of control. What good is a faith if it doesn’t take practice? What good is a covenant of love if we aren’t there to hold hope for each other, when, as the song goes, “Hope is hard to find.” We find it in each other.

Be assured, be absolutely assured, that you have reached out and been there in the most loving way for me and my family through my autumn diagnosis of early stage breast cancer, through two initial surgeries and then through this major surgery just over a week ago. You have sent notes and e-mails of care and concern. You have brought meals to warm heart and tummy. You have sent flowers with the promise of spring. You have picked up the slack that I’m leaving in my four weeks away from you so that I might return in the best possible health. And you have shared your delight at my news that all that blankety blank cancer is gone. You’ve even laughed with me as I talk about my “brand new breast,” beyond embarrassment at talking to a congregation about my bust line, old and new. From Dan and me, thank you for your love and care. Thank you!

Many of us continue to struggle and resist the constraints and ambiguities of illness and more. All of us live with the abiding knowledge that life does not come with a guarantee of any sort. We light our chalice Sunday after Sunday reminded that the flame is dynamic; our faith is alive; and revelation is ever unfolding.

So let’s consider the revelation that is ours for the choosing as we move through this time. The realities of malady and misfortune are real. The realities of jobs lost and pensions nose diving are real. The realities of uncertainty are certain. Instead of retreating into anxiety or despair or a paucity of imagination that never suits us well, consider that this is our winter of promise. This is our winter of possibility.

This is a winter in which we keep our promise of living a covenant of love. This is a winter in which we make good on our promise to be faithful as members and friends to support one another and the 286-year-old institution that is this church. This is a winter in which we consider what our nation is all about, with a new administration struggling to lead a turning of the tide in bringing America not back to what we’ve been but ahead to what we might be as a nation that might at long last make good on our promises for the common good. This is a winter in which we are gifted to consider what we need and what we don’t, what is need and what is greed, and to discern the difference with new found consciousness. This is a winter to take a fresh look from the inside out and the outside in, from the intimacy of our First Parish community to the outer bounds of global well-being. This is a winter in which the roots of crocus and daffodil are moving differently, because the soil has changed. Its harshness is its possibility.

Consider the mission of this congregation:
We welcome all to our inclusive spiritual community. We affirm our Unitarian Universalist principles and put them into action by worshipping together, caring for one another, and working for a safe, just, and sustainable world.

Consider our principles as Unitarian Universalists, from honoring the basic worth of every person to affirming the interconnectedness of all life.

Welcome, affirmation, thoughtful action, deep caring, hard work, and a reverence for each and all. We are welcoming new faces, new families. We are trying out new ideas. We are finding fresh ways to put our principles into practice. We are discerning caring community through presence and more. We are hard at work on matters of sustainability and possibility. We hold hope that our nation might move beyond mere economic recovery into a new-found commitment to the common good.

Let us give thanks for such an amazing winter!

I miss you. I can’t wait to be with you on the first Sunday of March. And I love you each and all,
Jan

The Hopes and Fears of All the Years

2009-01-18T14:26:00.000-08:00

“The Hopes and Fears of All the Years”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Sunday
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
January 18, 2009

Just a month ago we would have been seasonally attuned to the strains of that 19th century Christmas carol, “O Little Town of Bethlehem.” Rev. Phillip Brooks, a Philadelphia minister, first authored the lyrics as a poem. He had recently visited Bethlehem and was inspired by the Christmas celebrations at the Church of the Nativity. Brooks later urged his church organist, Lewis Redner, to set his poem to music, and the lasting treasure of this carol came into being. It’s an enchanting carol and one that allows us to envision an enchanted village referenced by the Gospel writers Matthew and Luke in their accounts of the birth of the baby Jesus—in Brooks’ terms, “The everlasting Light.” The first verse concludes with the lyrical reference to what was long hoped for and at long last realized in Bethlehem: “The hopes and fears of all the years are met in Thee tonight.”

The ancient Jews had hoped for a Messiah who would deliver them from yet another oppressive force in a long history of oppression. This time it was the Roman occupation. It was in this milieu that Jesus was born, grew into manhood, taught, and was ultimately subjected to the horrific capital punishment so commonly decreed by the Roman Empire, crucifixion. The powers of Rome feared such a charismatic figure, who would bring to the oppressed a message of liberation. That message came in terms unexpected.

The Jesus deemed the Messiah didn’t arrive as a militant hero who would lead his people into a resistance in the tradition of the ancient Maccabees. He came with a force far more subtle and disarming, a liberation of heart and soul that would transform the hearts and souls and actions of women and men for millennia to come. The power of nonviolence was embodied in the brand of liberation brought by the babe of Bethlehem. Indeed, the hopes and fears of all the years were met in this tiny village, but in ways unexpected. Nonviolent resistance to the power of Rome wrought havoc with the images of what had been hoped for. The call of Jesus of Nazareth was not to take up arms, but to open hearts and minds. It was a Gospel of nonviolence, a Gospel of strategic love.

In the spirit of Jesus, but through a distinctly different window of faith, the person of Mahatma Gandhi brought liberation to an occupied India. It was a liberation just as hoped for and just as unanticipated. Through a decades-long strategy of non-violent non-cooperation, 1900 years after Jesus, Gandhi inspired his fellow countrymen to outwit and undermine the stranglehold of the British Empire. His strategy? Nonviolent resistance. It was savvy, intentional, and effective. Five months before Gandhi’s life came to an end, India won its independence from Great Britain. In January of 1950 the Republic of India was proclaimed. It will be 140 years ago this coming October that “the hopes and fears” of so many years for the people of India were met in Pobandar, a city on the shores of the Arabian Sea in western India, the birthplace of Mahatma Gandhi.

Eleven years after Gandhi’s death, a rookie Baptist minister from the United States would visit Gandhi’s family in India. Martin Luther King, Jr. aspired to liberation in circumstances quite different from those faced by Gandhi or Jesus. Rather than an imperialist occupation, King strained at the shackles of Jim Crow racism in a nation whose early economy rested on the sin of slavery, the practice of buying and selling human beings as property. It is the fault line on which the economy of this nation was built—a tenuous foundation for any society. King’s ancestors were slaves. King and everyone who bore Negroid features carried the legacy of slavery in the brutal realities that marked Jim Crow America. It was a racism that was overt, and not just in the South. Many of the practices that the powers of this nation denied or ignored or both were as barbaric as those of the Roman Empire in Jesus’ day.

King’s meeting with Gandhi’s family was transformative for this 30-year-old Baptist minister from Atlanta. Through them he became intimately acquainted with the tactics of non-violent resistance used so effectively so recently however disparate the political context. He became intimately acquainted with the quality of leadership it had taken for Gandhi to convince his countrymen to adopt such tactics. To follow in the footsteps of Gandhi for the oppressed of India had been no easier than to follow in the footsteps of Jesus for the oppressed of Palestine.

Gandhi, along with the African American Bayard Rustin, served as core influences on this high energy young man with a mission. I find it not coincidental that we so seldom hear about Rustin’s influence, since Bayard Rustin was gay and on the far fringes of the political left. He was also a strong advocate and practitioner of non-violence, and King heeded his savvy counsel. Rustin, after all, bore the burdens of at least two counts of oppression.

King, armed with the legacy of a strong family, a deep faith, a doctorate from Boston University, and a passion for equal rights, became the lodestar of this recent chapter of the Civil Rights movement in these more or less United States. To follow in the footsteps of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., to go to Selma, to march to Montgomery, to picket and boycott and resist nonviolently forces that had the imprimatur of “legal” was no easier than to follow in the footsteps of Gandhi for the oppressed of India or the footsteps of Jesus for the oppressed of Palestine.

As a white person, it is not for me to say what African Americans hoped for during the years of slavery and Reconstruction and Jim Crow, or for that matter, what my fellow Americans who are African American hope for now. I can only speak for myself as a woman who has known oppression as such that there is a seductive inclination to want someone else—some towering giant of a savior or Messiah—to do the job for me. Then I can follow along behind as the accolades are sung and the flowers strung. But such is not the way of discipleship, of non-violent resistance to oppression, of love.

Dr. King filled the shoes of leadership, but he was not a Messiah or a lone-star Savior. Charisma he embodied and used brilliantly, but he would not and did not “save” the oppressed. He led the oppressed. It took life-threatening sweat equity to walk the walk alongside him. The hopes and fears and yearnings of African Americans and every committed white ally were met in the Atlanta of King’s birthplace 80 years ago this month only in our glazed over memory; because King was a mesmerizing, remarkable, visionary, courageous leader, but neither he nor Gandhi nor Jesus Christ himself was a high riding derring-do superman of a Messiah.

King stood on the shoulders of Rustin and Gandhi, who stood on the shoulders of Jesus, who stood on shoulders that have faded into a certain degree of historical myopia, because, in the words of the late Unitarian Universalist minister, Clinton Lee Scott:

“…it is easier to pay homage to prophets than to heed the direction of their vision.”

Of Jesus of Nazareth, we have just an inkling of the life that he lived. The Gospels give no clues as to Jesus’ “shadow” sides. Of Gandhi, it may be said that he did not properly affirm the rights of women. Of King, it may be said that he strayed too easily into the affections of women other than his wife. All were humans with feet of clay. All were leaders who inspired and perspired and embodied hopes and fears that took root over years and years in people oppressed by fellow humans who were tied into the seemingly permanent knots of their own fears and who chose privilege and power over the common good.

It is no less so in our own day. While many in this congregation are hurting amid an economy that has been on a roller coaster ride for years—not months, years; while some in this congregation have known the oppression of other systems of government and yes, other approaches to faith so intensely that they can barely acknowledge the scars; while some in this congregation have known the oppressions of sexism and classism and ableism; while a few in this congregation have known the oppressions of racism and homophobia; and while almost all of us in this congregation have been complicit in some form of oppression—IF we are paying attention at all, we know that our nation is at a crossroads of moral choice.

Gathering as we did yesterday morning to honor the life and legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in a program of fellowship and discernment, gathering as we are this morning in the framework of worship to honor the life and legacy of Dr. King and to anticipate a historical presidential inauguration, gathering as we are this morning with our children echoing the words of Dr. King, gathering as we are this morning with the increasingly familiar cadences of an eloquent President-Elect singing in our ears, we are at a crossroads of moral choice that is above all communal. What hopes and fears do we harbor? What hopes and fears do we own? What do we hope for? What do we fear? We stand uneasily on the shoulders of the prophets. We stand anxiously in this slice of history. And we hold hope. We hold hope.

How to dismount from the shoulders of the prophets? How to transform an uneasy stance into a steady walk? As people of faith, we’re called to meld our aspiring spirituality with that of the prophets—with Amos’ cry to “let justice roll down like water” (Amos 5:24); with Micah’s call “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly…;” with Jesus’ discomforting response to the trick question: “Who is my neighbor?”; with Gandhi’s perseverance against imperialist odds; with King’s unswerving proclamation that “We are confronted with the fierce urgency of now;” and with Barack Obama’s declaration of our choice between “a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism” and the will to “come together” and take on the hard issues of our time in the service of a union that “may never be perfect” but “can always be perfected.”

What will it be? Come Tuesday, we will inaugurate Barack Obama as the 44th president of this nation, this union. Come Wednesday, we cannot expect President Obama to do the work for us. Without our will toward the common good, this union will falter. Without our will to transform an economy that serves the privileged few; without our will to transform what it means to be a functional member of the family of nations; without our will to pay our citizen’s fare share so that every woman, man, and child knows the rights of health care and decent housing and fine schools; without our will to justice that is as compassionate as it has been harsh; our 44th President cannot lead as I believe so many of us hope he will.

We are the vanguard. The hopes and fears of all our years will be met in a covenant of leadership whose promise can be realized only if we take up the mantle of everything we espouse—the worth and dignity of each of us and the connectedness of all—and “take one more step, say one more word, say one more prayer, and sing one more song” and then do it all again and again and again until our hopes for peace and compassionate justice are met and our fears of whatever power and privilege any of us might lose en route will dissolve in a great sigh of enlightened gratitude.

This is our now. It’s fierce, and it’s urgent. Amen.

Sources:

Amos, Micah, and The Gospel According to Luke in the Bible (Revised Standard Version)

Phillip Brooks (lyrics) and Lewis Redner (music), O Little Town of Bethlehem, described in Best-Loved Christmas Carols, Ronald M. Clancy, Edited by William E. Studwell, Christmas Classics, Ltd., North Cape May, NJ 2000, 68-69.

Indian independence movement, from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Independence_Movement

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahatma_Gandhi#cite_note-55.

Martin Luther King, Jr., “Beyond Vietnam—A time to Break Silence,” Speech delivered at a meeting of Clergy and Laity Concerned at Riverside Church in New York City, April 4, 1967,
http://www.americanrhetoric.com/speeches/mlkatimetobreaksilence.htm.

Martin Luther King, Jr., from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King_Jr#Influences.

Barack Obama, “A More Perfect Union,” Speech delivered in Philadelphia, PA, March 18, 2008, http://my.barackobama.com/page/content/hisownwords/.

Joyce Poley, “One More Step,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 168.

Clinton Lee Scott, “Prophets,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 565.

God: A Multiple Choice Test

2009-01-11T12:01:00.000-08:00

“God: A Multiple Choice Test”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
January 11, 2009

God is… God is not… Surely these are among the most loaded of lead-ins. They can start conversations, or they can stop them cold. It all depends. See, already we’re into the realm of relativity, true to the spirit of conventionally unconventional Unitarian Universalists. It all depends on a, b, c, d and so on. Yet this matter is far more than an intellectual premise with contingencies. I’m betting that your notion of God or non-God is more emotion-filled than intellectual.

What kind of a God did you grow up with? I’ll start with mine. The God of my childhood was something like Santa Claus, but not always as jolly. He—and it was definitely He—had a long white beard and probably flowing robes. A red and white suit with a snowy white pom-pom on the tail of a floppy red cap would have served him better, and such attire would have led me to believe he was cutting me some slack if I did something “bad” whatever that might be—from being snippy to a friend to saying a cuss word to not doing my homework to talking back to the real gods of my childhood, my Mom and Dad! At least neither Santa nor God would say to me, “Janice Marie, come here right now!” when the jig was up. Not that my parents weren’t also loving and tender. Both were, but I tested the limits enough to evoke their no-nonsense discipline, as if they were God’s very own representatives on the be-good-or-else front.

The God with whom I first became acquainted was the God of my Sunday school. Even a Presbyterian Sunday school unwittingly set forth lots of notions for a child to consider, from a God of love to a God vindictive and vengeful, from a God who forgives to a God who would send his only son into the world and let him be crucified. There was a lot that never quite gelled. No wonder I ended up in this living tradition of liberal faith and doubt.

We as Unitarian Universalists have strong Judeo-Christian roots which inform this elusive living tradition that we espouse. So let’s begin with the Bible, with a promise to get nothing more than our theological toes wet when it comes to the myriad manifestations of divinity set forth in what Christians call the Old and New Testaments and Jews call the Law and the Prophets.

God the Creator

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” reads the very first verse of the Book of Genesis. The writers of Genesis—and there were more than one—go on to deliver two Creation stories and a dramatic sequence of what was created when and who ruled over whom. It’s a high drama story of what some call “intelligent design.” Given our hurting world, even one who cleaves to “intelligent design” would do well to reconsider that adjective, “intelligent.” Nonetheless, many millions, even billions, of humans understand the world as we know it and the world as it was first formed as the creation of a transcendent being called God, an English translation for Adonai, Elohim, and Yahweh for starters.

One notion that defines God the Creator is the Latin phrase, deus ex machina, god from the machine literally. It was a device used by ancient dramatists when a plot became so entangled that the construct of a god was introduced to resolve the confounding strands. It seems to apply just as well to the improbable creation from nothing of the sky and the seas and the continents and women and men and all the non-human creatures that populated the earth in its earliest days. Rather like a plug-in device. Blame Creation on God. Praise God for Creation. Take your pick! For some the notion evokes wonder. For others, it stunts it. Yet I can’t imagine anyone who affirms the observations of Charles Darwin suggesting that the man lacked a sense of wonder!

God the Intervener
It’s confusing sometimes to pray to a Spirit of Life. So much easier to direct our hopes and wishes and gratitude even to an invisible albeit image-laden form, who listens and responds and alters her/his marionette strings in the affairs of history. Now remember, we’re talking in terms of this earth, and there’s a lot more out there in space that no one has begun to measure from the vantage point of our tiny planet spinning in it.

Does God intervene in human history? We read in the 20th chapter of the Book of Exodus, the second book of the Torah,

“And God spoke all these words, saying,
‘I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt,
out of the house of bondage,
You shall have no other gods before me.’”
(Exodus 20:1-3)

This would indicate a faith tradition that holds to the notion of God as intervener, liberator, and the one and only manifestation of divinity. The writer of this segment of Exodus continues:

“You shall not make yourself a graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them or serve them; for I the Lord your God am a jealous god, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and the fourth generation of those who hate me, but showing steadfast love to thousands of those who love me and keep my commandments.”
(Exodus 20:4-6)

By now, some of you have surely recognized the narrative of what has come to be known as the Ten Commandments. The God of Exodus is intervener, liberator, and “commander in chief,” with severe consequences for anyone who doesn’t lend full allegiance to him and constant love to all who do.

God the Forsaker
Among the questions raised by mortals who have initially bowed to an almighty seemingly merciful God is the cry of the same mortals who have been visited by suffering that seems too much to bear: Where is God when we suffer? Volumes have been written by angst-filled theologians struggling with this age-old question. Prayers unending have been raised by common folk who could care less about the fine points of theology but whose torments of body and soul have evoked the same question. Where is God when we suffer?

In the words of the psalmist:

My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
Why art thou so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?
O my God, I cry by day, but thou dost not answer;
and by night, but find no rest.

Yet thou art holy, enthroned on the praises of Israel.
In thee our fathers trusted; they trusted, and thou didst deliver them.
To thee they cried, and were saved;
in thee they trusted, and were not disappointed.

But I am a worm, and no man;
scorned by men, and despised by the people.
(Psalm 22:1-6)

In other words, where in the blankety-blank are you, God, and why me?

The scribes of both the Gospels According to Matthew and Mark echoed this cry of ultimate despair through the voice of Jesus of Nazareth, crucified and suffering. In Matthew:

“And about the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice,

'Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?' that is, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”
(Matthew 27:45-46)

And in Mark, the earliest written Gospel, we read exactly the same words.
(Mark 15:34)

For him whom millions understand to be the Son of God, indeed a manifestation of God himself, came the most mortal of cries to a God experienced as a forsaker. Yes, there were later words that suggested Jesus commended his spirit into the hands of a loving and ready God. Yes, there is the legend of resurrection. But this cry of utter wretchedness is a cry ultimately human.

God the Giver, God the Taker
How can one begin to describe the deity cast into the plot of perhaps the most haunting book of Old or New Testaments, the Book of Job? It is God who meted out Job’s early wealth and happiness—his family, his land, his power, his position. The story goes that one day Satan came to God with a challenge. God had held up to Satan the goodness and faithfulness of his servant Job, and Satan essentially said, “Of course Job is good and faithful. He has everything any man could possible need. But ‘put forth thy hand now, and touch all that he has, and he will curse thee to thy face.’” God proceeded to do just that. Job lost all that he had except the last shred of his own life. He lost his family, his land, his power, his position, and his health. Then friends come who end up rebuking and accusing him. Job himself despairs of his plight, but he does not curse God.

The story of Job is far more complex than this. It is nuanced, multi-stranded, a story credible for our understanding of how some among us suffer so much without having done anything “to deserve it” as we glibly say. Toward the end of the Job narrative, God declares his power:

“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth?
Tell me, if you have understanding,
Who determined its measurements—surely you know!
Or who stretched the line upon it?”
(Job 38:4-5)

followed by a long string of evidence.

Job is broken, but he does not curse God. Rather he declares:

“…I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.”
(Job 42:6)

In the end, God “restored the fortunes of Job,” his faithful servant. It is written that “the Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning...” (Job 42:10a, 12a)

Did this “justify” the actions God? In the tenor of Job, we who are mortal are in no position to even suggest that God needs to be justified. Like no other book in the Old or New Testament, the Job narrative embodies the God who gives and the same God who takes away. In the very first chapter lies the seeming kernel of an answer to the seemingly futile question of why God allows us to suffer. Job has just learned of the death of his children. He is bereft, AND he falls upon the ground and worships, saying:

“Naked I came from my mother’s womb, and naked shall I return;

the Lord gave, and the Lord has taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord.”
(Job 1:21)

As the Book of Job concludes, the character of Satan is not even mentioned.

God who so loves the world

As a child, I learned from memory that lodestar of a verse from the Gospel According to John, the most enigmatic of the four gospels that made it into the biblical canon:

“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son,

that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life.”
(John 3:16)

It is a topic of centuries of controversy that led to centuries of murder and mayhem, this matter of God and the relationship of Jesus, who millions believe was indeed the incarnate Son of God. Among Unitarian Universalists there are Christian grounded believers who might debate how woven into the fabric of a Godhead Jesus was, but who deem the life and teachings of Jesus so highly that they are not willing to forsake the term, Christian. I understand myself to be Christian inclusively but not exclusively, given the seeming truth in so many other faiths.

What seems wholly credible, given our most limited knowledge of the life and teachings of Jesus, is the centrality of love and compassion in the Jesus narratives. Nowhere is this more pronounced than in that passage from the Gospel According to Matthew that describes Jesus going up onto a mountain and teaching his disciples about who is blessed:

“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.
Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

On into:

“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called sons of God.”
(Matthew 5:3-5, 9)

Underdogs, unpopular, non-mainstream describe those who were deemed blessed by this teacher of love and compassion. Of all the figures of the Judeo-Christian tradition, Jesus was wholly about love and preached a God of love. It is a teaching held up more than any other in that outer branch of the Judeo-Christian tradition that is our Unitarian Universalist faith. It has always confounded me that for a faith that holds doubt in such high esteem, we are so opinionated and quickly contrary in our dealings with one another about what matters, when our grounding lies in a relationship of covenant based on love.

_______________

None of us has the last word on God or on how many there might really be and what forms deity assumes. All of us are challenged to consider the context, including the personal history, which we bring to our statements of belief, disbelief, affirmation, and worship of what we sometimes call “God.” As Karen Armstrong reminds us,

“…there is no one unchanging idea contained in the word ‘God;’ instead, the word contains

a whole spectrum of meanings, some of which are contradictory or even mutually

exclusive. ….the reality that we call ‘God’ exceeds all human expression.’”

Hers is a perspective echoed in the lyrics of the hymn we sang earlier:

“Great, living God, never fully known, joyful darkness far beyond our seeing….”

If “God” exceeds our expression, how is it that we speak or write a name at all? The ancient Hebrews didn’t. Yahweh was an acronym for “I am who I am,” that ineffable elusive non-name given to Moses by the ineffable elusive voice in the third chapter of the Book of Exodus.

By now, you may have realized that this isn’t a multiple choice test at all, but a reflection on how we might consider the multi-faceted, perhaps infinitely-faceted notion of transcendence. If we who are mortals understand that we are not Creation’s last act, we strive for a language of transcendence, a language of reverence. This in no way denies scientific discovery. Rather it unleashes our capacity for awe and humility on all fronts of being. “Reverence,” suggests Paul Woodruff, “is the virtue that keeps human beings from trying to act like gods.”

Unitarian is in many ways a misnomer. We hold in our religious imagination a panoply of gods, even as we hold up the notion of One God. Perhaps like our Muslim sisters and brothers, we can embrace an Allah, who is the God of Abraham, the God of Moses, the God of Jesus, the God of Muhammad, the God of all. Perhaps like all mortals who have ever wondered beyond ourselves, we can embrace a wisdom grounded in awe, embodied in compassion, and fluid with gratitude.

Amen.

Sources:

Karen Armstrong, A History of God: The 4,000-Year Quest of Judaism, Christianity and Islam, Ballantine Books, New York, 1993, xx-xxi.

The Book of Genesis, The Book of Exodus, The Psalms, The Book of Job, The Gospel According to Matthew, and The Gospel According to Mark in the Bible (Revised Standard Version)

Paul Woodruff, Reverence: Renewing a Forgotten Virtue, Oxford University Press, New York, 2001.

Brian Wren, “Bring Many Names,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 23.

Threshold

2009-01-04T10:35:00.000-08:00

“Threshold”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
January 4, 2009

Few of us get carried across a threshold…certainly not the temporal threshold we recognize as a new year. We look both ways before we step. Janus, the Roman god namesake of January, was well equipped to do exactly that, having sprouted from the pantheon with two faces, one for looking back, the other, for looking ahead. When I came to the age of wondering about my own given name, Janice in full, I never counted it as good fortune to carry the nominal legacy of a two-faced god. One face was quite enough. Then years later I chose to take care of two annoyances with one fell swoop. I chopped the “ice” (the i-c-e) off my name, removing the January chill attached to that second syllable, and took care of any possible confusion with that ill-topped Roman god. Besides I was born in September, and I’ve long thought that September was a more apt time to begin the year, as those among us who are Jewish do, with Rosh Hashanah, literally “the head of the year,” observed in this month that straddles summer and fall.

Nonetheless here we are atop a threshold widely recognized as the new year, January for better and worse. As I’ve moved through more seasons of living, I’ve found a wisdom attached to that two-headed god. It’s a wise thing to look behind us—to reflect, to ponder, to discern, to analyze even what has transpired beyond us and within us and in that dance between the two—and to look forward—to imagine, to envision, to hope, and to anticipate, even to plan, dangerous as that often is.

Remember, if you can and will, this time a year ago. What were you reflecting on from the previous year? What were you hoping for and anticipating in the year ahead? What has transpired that you couldn’t possibly have anticipated? Who has been born? Who has become ill? Who has died? How has it been with your career and with the job that you hold or held? What inklings did you have of the economic turmoil? What celebrations have you marked? What do you most remember about this year that came as a full-blown surprise? What promises—resolutions even—did you make at year’s outset that you’ve kept? I’m trusting here that there are New Year’s resolutions that are actually honored!

We stand on the present threshold anticipating the inauguration of a president many never thought could be elected in this country where race and racism still carve a fault line. We stand on the present threshold hoping that a new regime will hold strategies that work for the common good—to move us out of the hole of this economy; to bring to an end a war that for so many thousands, even millions, has become completely untenable; to forge a wise diplomacy that will prevent yet another war; to craft a system whereby all might know the benefits of comprehensive health care. Of course we don’t all agree on these matters, but they impact us all—intimately and ultimately.

As Kathleen McTigue reminds us:

“…we stand at a threshold, the new year something truly new,
still unformed, leaving a stunning power in our hands.”

How commonly do we consider new time as the receptacle of “a stunning power?” Yet it is. How we move through whatever time is ours to know is a precious and powerful gift. What do we want to reflect upon come the end of December 2009? What do we hope to have accomplished? How do we hope to have lived? With what quality of energy will we be satisfied at having expended and toward what end? And yes, how generous do we hope to regard ourselves with regard to this very faith community as we look in the rear-view mirror that captures our reflections 12 months’ hence?

The longer we’ve lived, the more residue of time we accumulate, the more promises we’ve made that we would be or do or act in such and such a way, the more times we’ve disappointed ourselves and others in following through and the more times we’ve also surprised ourselves and others in making good on what we say we’ll do and be. Early January is like standing on a ridge. On one side, we view the panorama of how we got there. We recall the encampments, the near slips, the encounters with other travelers, the respites, the celebrations, the days that we dare to regard as ho-hum days when nothing special seemed to have happened. With no particular logic, details come to mind that embody what matters to us. Sometimes it’s a conversation with a friend. Sometimes it’s a decision made to take a day, a whole day, with no plans at all. Sometimes it’s a moment shared with someone who’s no longer here to share such a moment. Sometimes it’s a detour in a route we thought we were on. On the other side, we look off into the distance and imagine, bringing the wisdom and folly of where we’ve already been, bringing the lessons learned and half-learned and ignored into view. With what wisdom and humility and necessary humor will we set off into the space-time markings of a new year?

One of my favorite gifts received this Christmas was a calendar, given to Dan and me by our daughter, Lisa, and son-in-law, Rob. The feature attraction of the month-by-month visuals is Oliver Daniel Lemon, born February 22, 2008. Can you guess what they chose for January? The ultrasound! There he was—“about-to-be” tiny Oliver, nestled in Lisa’s womb, squirming, not quite ready but almost, to make his debut. With the blizzard of February 22, he knew it was time to come on out and take a look. Oliver didn’t quite stand on a threshold last January; he swam in it.

With year’s end, he’s about to walk. He’s babbling coherently—not an oxymoron at all for a parent or grandparent.

It’s always struck me that the personas of a new year were “Father Time” and a brand new baby sparsely clad in a Happy New Year banner, as if one year were a lifetime for this incarnation of a single earth-arc around the sun. What if that were the case for us?

Imagine, you’re about to be born. Imagine, by deep December you’ll be old, ancient even, close to that other threshold that we know as death. Time is condensed. You have a year to do it all, to be who you want to be, to come to full blossom and to lend whatever you will to this earth-time that is your life. How different might it go for you? How different?

To begin, I suggest we go back as far in our memories as we possibly can. Some of us might stop short at five or six. Others can stretch our imaginings all the way into our cribs. Do you remember what it was like to greet the day standing up in your crib and letting out a holler of exuberance that sounded the alert to whomever was hopefully there to satisfy your needs? Maybe it was a cry of hunger: “I’m awake, and I’m famished!” Then again, maybe there was another element or two for which babies are known to greet the morning. What do we call it? A need to be “changed!” Change is what greets the infant and what follows us in endless variations throughout our lives. Change is the mark of life itself, though of course it does have particular significance when it comes to changing a baby. The baby responds by changing us in ways we couldn’t imagine at the outset of parenthood—even grandparenthood.

“O come let us adore him!” Not until he’s changed thank you!

A newborn, a new year, a fresh start, a threshold of possibility. Change is not just imminent; it’s a given.

Yet we’ve all heard the maxim that the more things change, the more they remain the same. This view finds particular eloquence in the biblical book of Ecclesiastes. Futility, thy name is the Preacher of Ecclesiastes. In the very first chapter, we read:

What has been is what will be, and what has been done is what will be done;
and there is nothing new under the sun. Is there a thing of which it is said, "See, this is new"?
It has been already, in the ages before us. There is no remembrance of former things, nor will there be any remembrance of later things yet to happen among those who come after.
Ecclesiastes 1:9-11 (Revised Standard Version)

And all the way into the final chapter, the preacher continues, culminating with the proclamation:

“Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher; all is vanity.”
Ecclesiastes 12:8 (Revised Standard Version)

Not exactly the life of the New Year’s party!

In contemporary voice, the reflections of yoga teacher Robert Levine on the Winter Solstice and the New Year seem at first hearing to echo the ancient Preacher:

….despite this change in the calendar, the events in the world seem to go on in the same way that they have gone on before. Wars continue. Poverty persists, authoritarian leaders consolidate their grip on power, and the ice caps melt as the mean temperature of the world continues to rise. It is a new year, but time passes on and the world seems not to notice.

Unlike the ancient preacher, Levine pulls us out of the well later in his narrative:

Despite the lack of apparent change, we still continue to hope, to hope and believe that we can make positive change in our lives and make positive change in the world.

The long night of the winter solstice and the long winter nights altogether invite reflection and hopeful imagination. Writes Levine:

When the sun rises and the new year begins it is up to us as spiritual and political beings sharing this planet to figure out how we can live with all our disagreements and conflicts. There is nothing idealistic about this, for do we really have any other choice?

Well yes, we do, I believe we do. We can retreat into the cocoon of despair and denial that there is nothing new, that all is vanity, that what can we do anyway in the face of the violence in Gaza, the economic uncertainties here, the threat of another conflict in Afghanistan, the maladies and illnesses and injuries that have befallen so many among us. We can retreat and step off that threshold of possibility. We can also pause here and say “Yes” to the “stunning power” of perspective that this time affords. Like that ancient Roman god gifted or cursed, whatever your perspective, with two faces—one to look backwards, the other, to look ahead—we can do both with one face, with one set of hands, with one heart. And we can do more with hands and hearts joined in community.

Through this very community in which we worship together this morning, we can reflect and discern and ponder and wonder aloud, “What if?” What if we take to heart whatever we’ve learned from this past year and all years past? What if we own our power to act spiritually and politically in the direction of the common good? What if we ingest the lessons of time past and with eyes and hearts and minds wide open step off this threshold into a new year with hope seasoned by our ponderings? What then?

Come January 2010, you tell me. What then will have come to pass?
Amen.

Sources:

The Book of Ecclesiastes in the Bible (King James Version)

Robert Levine, “Reflections on the Winter Solstice and the New Year,” lifesherpa.com/magazine, http://www.lifesherpa.com/magazine/society/2008-01-levine-time-solstice.htm

Kathleen McTigue, “New Year’s Day,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 544.

In Ways Unexpected - A Christmas Eve Homily

2008-12-24T18:09:00.000-08:00

“In Ways Unexpected”

A Christmas Eve Homily by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull

First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
December 24, 2008

In ways unexpected, Christmas comes. A young woman, at full term in her pregnancy, and a young man, seemingly her husband, made their way from the village of Nazareth to the city of Bethlehem, that he might pay his taxes. These were the years of Roman occupation. Commoners like Mary and Joseph did what the authorities told them to do. They were young, probably teenagers, and not even married. Yet they traveled together, he surely the father of the baby she was carrying.

As babies will, this one wriggled and squirmed and wanted out at the most inconvenient of times. Night was falling. Where would they rest, that she might give birth? All the inns of Bethlehem were full. Contractions were coming with alarming frequency, and they knocked on the door of yet another innkeeper, desperate for shelter. Not lacking hospitality altogether, this innkeeper directed them to a stable out back, a barn. And there, Mary gave birth to Jesus.

All the while, an angelic host was busy preparing a message—not for the media of the day, but for some raggedy band of shepherds far more attentive to their sheep than to the night sky. Legend tells us that the lead angel diverted their attention. After scaring the wits out of them, she sang a calming carol bidding them not to be afraid, but to make their way toward Bethlehem, the city of David, and to seek out a stable, where they would find the babe.

W hen I read as a child that the shepherds did indeed leave their sheep and journeyed without a second thought to Bethlehem and the stable, where they “found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in a manger,” I wondered. How could Mary and Joseph and their new baby squeeze themselves into one small manger?” Well, I figured it out after reviewing a few illustrations of how it might have happened. I didn’t learn about funny syntax for many years, let alone confusing translations. It was enough though that the angels sang, that the shepherds went, and that this beautiful little baby was born in a barn and laid in a space where the animal inhabitants were accustomed to finding their sustenance.

Of course the shepherds couldn’t hold onto this news, so Luke, author of what we know as the Gospel—the good news—according to Luke, tells us that the shepherds spread the word of this birth, the birth of a hoped for Savior, who would presumably save his people from all the ills that had befallen them. Here at long last was the Messiah.

What a beginning for a story that was to unfold just as strangely!

Christmas comes in ways unexpected. Children arrive at times unexpected. It’s not about convenience. The miracles of birth rarely are.

Then there’s that star story, told surely by star struck story tellers. We who are reasoned are dubious. Perhaps some “super nova appeared in the heavens in its dying burst of fire.” We rationalize. Yet the star story tugs at us.

Christmas comes in ways unexpected. “Why not a star!” suggests Margaret Gooding, moving beyond her early belief and her later rationality. Why not?

“Some bright star shines somewhere in the heavens each time a child is born….Who knows what uncommon life may yet unfold, if we but give it a chance!”

Who knows? Perhaps the uncommon life of the Scovel children, millennia later, freezing in the Beacon Hill parsonage of their father, Carl, a Unitarian minister infused with more than his share of Puritanical scrimping on the heating bill. Who knew that his uncommonly imaginative children would plan a kidnapping of sorts, with a ransom ensured to warm their small shivering bodies?

Word came to their father, the esteemed pastor of the esteemed King’s Chapel, that the baby Jesus, in the form of the beloved doll in the Christmas crèche, was missing. “Uh-oh, what demented mind would run off with the baby Jesus?” he mused, unamused.

Christmas comes in ways unexpected. Carl was still learning about Christmas and children. With the ransom note found and the heat turned up came the epiphany brought home by his own uncommon children. Of course, of course, “No monarch, indeed no despot [myself even], can ever be so sure of his rule after a child has been born.”

Expand your geographical vision to the Nebraska plains on a harsh winter’s night many years ago. A lonely little girl named Betty hadn’t been asked if she agreed to her family pulling up stakes in Ohio and heading west as homesteaders. Christmas was coming and in spite of Betty’s longing for friends left behind, it seemed to be the best of Christmas gifts when a new family moved in across the way, with a daughter just her age. Then came the discovery that her new friend, Sarah, was Jewish. They didn’t celebrate Christmas, but lit candles on a glorious candlestick known as a menorah for a festival of lights known as Hanukkah.

All the while, Betty’s father was traveling into town—many miles away—to get candles for the tree. A plains blizzard came on, and he was not to return until dawn on Christmas morning. Christmas came in ways unexpected, for the lights that brought him home were those of the candles of Hanukkah burning bright in the window of their new neighbors, placed there by Betty’s friend, Sarah. Hanukkah had saved Christmas.

Holidays and holy days happen in ways unexpected. Children are born beyond our imagining. Children grow up in ways unanticipated and never cease to surprise us by means we surely couldn’t have taught them. Lights shine from sources unplanned and unanticipated, and the flame of candles from traditions of holiness over which nations have gone to war shine also in uncommon beams that bring us home to our common humanity.

In this time of anxiety, in this time of bewilderment, in this time of injury and illness for so many in our midst, in this time of violence among and within nations, in this time of mistrust between neighbor and neighbor, in this time when we would seem to do well simply to tend our sheep on our very own hillside thank you very much, we need more than ever to heed the echo of an angelic host. We need more than ever to warm our hearth and that of neighbors who can’t afford the heating bill altogether. We need more than ever to make friends beyond the conventions of sameness. We need more than ever to discover behind the façade of an inn a newborn child.

Ordinary miracles all, I invite you to trust that as we gather in this time and space of love and light and story and song, Christmas will come. Christmas is coming in ways unexpected, in ways we could never have imagined, tonight!

Amen.

Sources:

Betty Girling, “Holiday Candles,” in Treasured Stories of Christmas: A Touching Collection of Stories that Brings Gifts from the Heart and Joy to the Soul, The Editors of Guideposts, Inspirational Press, New York, 1997.

Margaret Gooding, “Why Not a Star,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 621.

The Gospel According to Luke in the Bible (King James Version)

Carl Scovel, “The Stolen Infant,” in Never Far from Home: Stories from the Radio Pulpit, Skinner House, Boston, October 2003, 44-46.

Do you see? Do you hear?

2008-12-21T18:05:00.000-08:00

“Do you see? Do you hear?”

Reflections by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
for Jim FitzGerald and Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
December 21, 2008

First Reflection

Jan:
Do you see the flame of the candles flickering in the menorah? Imagine what it must have been like to expect the temple oil to last only a day….and then watch it burn for eight amazing days!

Jim:
Those Maccabee children had something to sing about! Do you hear the sounds of our own children’s voices, blending with the voices of our wisest, singing out our thanks that the light lasted? I love this time of legends and light and from our youngest, little coos and “gah-gahs” (and maybe some not so little coos and “gah-gahs,” that we don’t even count on, but somehow these cries blend right in with our Hanukkah music.

Do you see the eager faces of young and old watching the menorah? I wonder what kind of miracles are in store even today as we light our candles of hope.

Jan:
Hope shines atop our menorah and soon atop our Advent wreath as we hope against hope that happenings from so long ago will find their way into our hearts as celebrations in our own time. Do you hear the sounds of hope?

Jim:
I do. Sometimes they’re child-like murmurs. Sometimes they’re the soaring voices of our choir and our congregation. Sometimes I hear the silence itself. Do you hear the silence too?

Jan:
When I listen, when I really listen, I hear the silence. Do you see the faces turned occasionally toward the windows of the Meeting House. Our Common is blanketed with snow for the season at hand. The candles seem to burn even more brightly across the crispness of winter air.

Jim:
It reminds me that today is the shortest day of the year. Today is the Winter Solstice, when we’re farthest away from the warmth and light of the sun. Candlelight matters more than ever. Do you feel the warmth that binds us as we worship, like one big family?

Jan:
I do, and I feel it as our children light the candles of the menorah and as Laura lights our chalice; and I hear it in the words that we speak, in Susan’s welcome and Laura’s chalice reflection, and Steve’s story of how Hanukkah happened and how it’s still happening.

Jim:
I see it as Morgan and Jack light one by one all the candles of the menorah. I even smell it with the pine boughs nestled into the high pulpit. All our senses awaken to this time.

Jan:
It’s almost Hanukkah. It’s almost Christmas. Across the ages and across all ages, we celebrate these holidays and holy days of light, of religious freedom, and of the birth of a baby who was all about love.

Jim:
Our hearts lift to the sights and sounds of this holy time. Every candle lit is an act of hope, and each child born, each child here, is a gift of hope. The warmth of a candle tenderly kisses the joyous sound of the chime that echoes in our bell choir.

Second Reflection

Jim:
Do you hear the echo of the drum? I think all our youngsters stepped up as little drummer boys and drummer girls with the gift of their song.

Jan:
Did you see them as they raised their voices and lifted hearts? It’s like Marilyn said as she introduced her story: Everyone here shares a miracle. It’s the same miracle we celebrate at Christmas. Each of us was born.

Jim:
Each of us has his own drum beat, her own rhythm played out across the years. Can you hear all the rhythms pa-rum-pum-pum-pumming together this morning?

Jan:
I hear them, and as I look out across the congregation I see the hopeful drummer boy, the glowing drummer girl in each and every person here, and I see us all as children, some of us as long ago children, long ago babes, probably adored every bit as much as the baby Jesus.

Jim:
Imagine the day of your birth. Each of you holds your own story of the time you were born. Imagine that “on the eve of your birth, word of your coming passed from animal to animal.”

Jan:
And “the Moon pulled on the ocean below, and, wave by wave, a rising tide washed the beaches clean for your footprints.” Do you see your very own footprints, tiny in the sand of your arrival?

Jim:
Do you see the Advent wreath, an evergreen holder of candles that remind us of an expected arrival? Soon it will be lit, candle by candle.

Jan:
….keeping company with the candles of the menorah. Can you close your eyes and still see all the candles burning bright?

Jim:
If I close my eyes, I can see in my mind’s eyes candles lit in the church of my childhood—especially at Christmas.

Jan:
And I see in my memory’s eyes candles of Hanukkah shining in the windows of city apartments, and if I go further back, the lights of Christmas twinkling through the windows of my small town and ablaze in the living room of my childhood.

Jim:
Of course this is a season of expectancy. We anticipate a miracle of light.

Jan:
We anticipate a miracle of birth, each one ordinary, each one amazing.

Jim:
Our hope is that with the sounds and sights of these holidays of legend and light, we will know peace and know it so deeply that we’ll carry it out from this shortest day of the year through the longest night of the year all the way into the rest of the year.

Jan:
….into all the years to come.

Jim:
We’ve kindled our candles of Hanukkah, with a story to guide us. At this time, Steve Brown will share an Advent story that will guide Sasha as he lights our candles of Advent.

Sources

Debra Frasier, On the Day You Were Born, Harcourt, Inc., New York, 1991.

All About Light

2008-12-14T12:36:00.000-08:00

“All About Light”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
December 14, 2008

Next Sunday, December 21st, the sun will be at its greatest angular distance on the other side of the equatorial plane from each of us, if we remain in the Eastern Time Zone of the Northern Hemisphere. A note of explanation: the “equatorial plane” is the imagined line on the surface of our earth that is roughly the same distance from the North and South Poles, a line dividing our earth into the Northern Hemisphere and the Southern Hemisphere. The precise moment of the greatest distance that we’ll stand from our sun is 7:04 AM a week from today. It is the Winter Solstice, marking the shortest day of the year and the longest night of the year.

“Do not go gentle into that good night,
…rage, rage against the dying of the light,”

wrote the impassioned 20th century Welsh poet Dylan Thomas. While Thomas spoke of resistance to the light of life itself, year after year we counter the dying of the light that we glibly call sunshine as we approach the shortest day and longest night of the current earth-arc around the sun. The sun rises later and later and sets earlier and earlier. As darkness encroaches, our yearning for light intensifies.

In our own lives this week, we have known that “rage against the dying of the light” as we bore the news of a member of this church community whose life hung in the balance and who even now is regaining her sense of light and life at a nearby hospital. We bore the news of a longtime member of this church community and beloved member of this larger community whose life hangs in the balance in the wake of harrowing diagnoses and emergency treatments in Boston. Even as we deck our halls, sing our carols, place candles in our windows, and check our shopping lists—however modest in the economic reality that is now—we know in our bones that we are placing at the very top of our to-do lists resistance to lights out.

We yearn for light. We lean into the warmth of the hearth kindled with a log reminiscent of the Yule log, that pagan rite of countering light’s seasonal waning. We light candles as in no other season. We might not rise to the passion of “rage against the dying of the light,” but we have our methods, we have our rituals, we have our remedies, and we have our faith that light will return to our inmost souls extending to the outer reaches of our habitat and back again to our inmost souls. We have faith hoped for and evidence-bound that light will return, in whatever slow doses, as we transcend the solstice. On December 20th, our day is 9 hours, 4 minutes, and 49 seconds. On December 21st, our day diminishes to 9 hours, 4 minutes, and 48 seconds. Then the next day it expands to 9 hours, 4 minutes, and 51 seconds—a 3-second leap into the rebirth of light.

Ironically, the Winter Solstice signals the birth of winter. We commonly associate winter with less light, yet its beginning is the signal of more light, earlier sunrises, later sunsets, more light to warm us, illumine us, resurrect our spirits, and remind us that it happens every year, every single year, this rhythm of light diminished and light reborn. No matter what cluster of hope, anticipation, anguish or dread we hold personally or communally or globally, the cadence of our planet in its cosmic dance with our sun-star assumes a confident recycling of light diminished and light expanded. Winter is another word for spring. Beneath earth’s hardened surface, roots swell in readiness, warmed by a few more seconds, a few more minutes, of our sun-star’s radiance.

Is it any wonder—wondrous as these rhythms are—that our holidays and holy days mirror earth’s light-dance and hold in cosmic form our oh-so-human resistance, rage even, against darkness with our equally oh-so-human welcome, celebration even, of the promise of light? We worship this morning amid a season resplendent with holidays of light. Today is the third Sunday of Advent, a time of approach to that day when Christian beliefs tell us the Light of the World was born in a lowly manger. This year on the night of the Winter Solstice, Hanukkah begins at sundown—Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights observed by Jews worldwide. Just twelve days from now begins that holiday of relatively recent origin, Kwanzaa, when the first of seven candles are lit, affirming principles of right living among those of us of African-American heritage with lessons of right living for all of us.

Hope is pervasive across all of these holidays. Hope for light, hope for illumination, hope for enlightenment even. It infuses our songs, our poetry, our stories, our symbols of struggle against oppression. Light is ever dominant even as darkness hovers with the approach of the Solstice. The very word Solstice stems from the Latin words, “sol” for “sun” and “sistere” for day—solstice, “Day of the Sun!”

What is the fear as we approach this day? That darkness will encroach until that’s all there is. Surely we in this community have felt that fear as lives and futures hang in the balance, with earthlight seeming to mirror it all, even to mock it.

Our great-great-and beyond great grandfathers and grandmothers feared, raged, and contorted themselves over this apparent dying of the light, no matter how many times they had experienced counter-rhythms. In Britain, they kindled bonfires and kept them burning for days…just in case. In the circles cast by bonfire glow, they sang and danced and feasted. Is it so different for us now with Christmas at hand?

Beginning in 13th century Peru, the Incans observed “Inti Raymi,” “Festival of the Sun,” honoring the sun god Inti and coinciding with the winter solstice. Incan priests performed a ritual “tying of the sun” to a large stone column to prevent it from escaping. The practice died out with the Spanish conquest a few hundred years later. Spanish Christians suppressed these rich earth-bound rituals and destroyed every remnant of them except for Machu Picchu, which, blessedly, remained out of their reach. Over the past half century, the rite of Inti Raymi has been dramatically enacted at a site close to Cusco, capital of the ancient Incan Empire, at the time of the Winter Solstice of the Southern Hemisphere. Just two years ago, Cusco was identified as the site “with the highest ultraviolet light level” of any place on earth. I wonder if subliminally perhaps, recent Peruvians have been honoring this sight where light is close to invasive!

From Cusco to Cohasset, from time ancient to this very morning, we yearn for light. We crave reassurance that darkness is not for good. If we grow dubious, if we succumb to the darkness, there’s even a name for it now—“seasonal affective disorder”—SAD, for short and an understatement for many who suffer from it. Our oh so human needs have inspired remedies that wind their ways through the celebrations of this time—Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa— each of them filled with light, commonly in the language of candles burning bright. In reverie and meditation, in story and in song, we anticipate. We dare to hope. We light our candles of Advent, of Hanukkah, of Kwanzaa. Our souls keep vigil. “Within the flame,” remarked Gaston Bachelard, “even time holds its vigil.”

We are attentive; we anticipate; we hope. On this third Sunday of Advent, we draw closer to that day when our Christian selves celebrate the birth of a child deemed by millions as the Light of the world and connected by myriad Christian theologians with the messianic language of the prophet Isaiah:

“The people that walked in darkness
Have seen a great light;
On those who lived in a land as dark as death
A light has dawned.” (Isaiah 9:2)

Dawn awakens seasonal hope, messianic imagination, and the custom of candles nestled in a wreath. This practice of placing candles in a wreath of pine boughs comes to us from pre-Christian Europe, where it was repeated annually as a rite of hope that days would once again grow long and the earth would once more give birth to flora and fauna. Christians draw on this pagan custom as a ritual of anticipation for the birth of the Christ child, born in humble circumstance, yet under a star guiding men wise and simple to the manger.

The Christmas tree itself is a legacy of our ancestors’ need to craft a harbinger of seasonal dawn. Arrayed with candle-like lights and originally live candles, it draws us into the magic of the moment. The Christmas tree was planted in our cultural habits in the early 16th century when the first decorated tree was placed in the Strasbourg Cathedral. The year was 1539, during the lifetime of Martin Luther, John Calvin, and the Unitarian martyr, Michael Servetus.

A tree itself is candle-like in stature, pointing skywards—a stance of hope and affirmation across the seasons. The fir tree forms a veritable spire of green during the briefest hours of winter light, like the vertical flame of a candle that inspires us to hope amid the oppressive force of extended night.

Hope is what the candles of Hanukkah signal. Some of us have menorahs, or Hanukkah lampstands, in our homes. Next Sunday we’ll light the menorah here, observing Hanukkah’s beginning at sundown. For the eight nights of Hanukkah, we lift the candle known as the shammash, the servant candle, to light one candle a night until all eight candles and the shammash burn brightly, reminding us of the ancient miracle of lights.

Hanukkah means “dedication” and marks the rededication of the Jewish temple in Jerusalem after Judah and his fellow warriors, the Maccabees, triumphed over their oppressors almost 2,200 years ago. A scant portion of oil had been rescued from the original temple, only enough to burn for a single day. Yet when the Jews began the rite of rededication and kindled the oil, it lasted eight days. It was this miracle of lights that led Judah to proclaim a holiday, originally called the Festival of Lights.

It is a holiday of hope against hope. Through the centuries, those who are Jewish among us are called to light the menorah, no matter how trying the circumstances. In a cramped garret in Holland, a young girl wrote in her diary on December 7, 1942.
“‘We just gave each other a few little presents and then we lit the candles. Because of the shortage of candles, we only had them alight for ten minutes.’”

Lighting a candle in community is an act of hope and affirmation for all who know oppression.

It was in a struggle against oppression that Dr. Maulena Karenga created the rites of Kwanzaa almost half a century ago. Kwanzaa is Swahili for “first fruits of the harvest.” It’s celebrated through food and story and song and candle over a period of seven days, from December 26 through January 1. In a candleholder called the Kinara, seven candles are lit over the span of these seven days, symbolizing the principles of Kwanzaa—Unity, Self-determination, Collective Work and Responsibility, Cooperative Economics, Purpose, Creativity, and Faith. In the words of Dr. Karenga, these are principles by which “Black people must live to…rescue and reconstruct our history and lives.”

Bonfires blaze, trees are adorned, candles are lit—candles of Advent, candles of menorahs, candles of kinaras—as luminous signals that the light will not go out, that light will return and with it, hope for a world reborn as spring, as a baby, as a shift in the angle of earth in our Universe, as possibility. In the words of Dori Jeanine Somers that we spoke earlier this morning:

“…there is that in me which reaches up toward light and laughter, bells, and carolers, and knows that my religious myth and dream of reborn joy and goodness must be true, because it speaks the truths of older myths; that light returns to balance darkness, life surges in the evergreen—and us.

And babes are hope, and saviors of the world, as miracles abound in common things.”

As we approach the darkest time of year, what hovers in our midst feels like a taunting mirror-like “dark night of the soul.” It is our time of times to light our candles, hold hope, and know that the darkest of times is all about light waiting, approaching, shining. Amen.

Sources:

Gaston Bachelard, The Flame of a Candle, translated from the French by Joni Caldwell, The Bachelard Translation Series, The Dallas Institute Publications, 1961, 1984, 16.

Miriam Chaikin, Light Another Candle: The Story and Meaning of Hanukkah, Houghton Mifflin Company Trade & Reference Division, Boston, MA, 1981.

Ronald M. Clancy, Best-Loved Christmas Carols, Edited by William E. Studwell, Christmas Classics, Ltd., North Cape May, NJ, 2000.

“Equator,” from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Equator.

Anne Frank, The Diary of a Young Girl, Edited by Otto H. Frank and Mirjam Pressler, Translated by Susan Massotty, Doubleday, 1947.

The Book of Isaiah, The Bible, Revised Standard Version.

Liley, J. Ben and McKenzie, Richard L. (April 2006) "Where on Earth has the highest UV?" UV Radiation and its Effects: an update NIWA Science, Hamilton, NZ, in Cusco, from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cusco.

Dori Jeanine Somers, “Reflections on the resurgence of Joy,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 653.

“Sunrise and Sunset for U.S.A. – Massachusetts – Boston – December 2008,” http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=43&month=12&year=2008&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1.

Dylan Thomas, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” The Poems of Dylan Thomas, New Directions, 1952, 1953. Copyright © 1937, 1945, 1955, 1962, 1966, 1967 the Trustees for the Copyrights of Dylan Thomas. Copyright © 1938, 1939, 1943, 1946, 1971 New Directions Publishing Corporation.

Christy Thorrat, “The Winter Solstice,” in Celebrating Christmas: An Anthology, Edited by Carl Seaburg, Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, 1983, 2004, Authors Choice Press, New York, 251.

“Winter Solstice,” from wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_solstice.

http://www.chiff.com/home_life/holiday/winter-solstice.htm

Chalice Reflection & Expectations

2008-12-07T11:12:00.000-08:00

Chalice Reflection of Jane Goedecke
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
December 7, 2008

My first reaction to this morning’s theme “Expectations” was that expectations bring anxiety. The word does connote a “looking forward” but with standards to be met, promises to be kept, goals to be achieved. I don’t know what Jan has in mind for this morning, but I started getting nervous!

Life sends us too many expectations and I, and perhaps, some of you, too, have a tendency to believe things are “expected” of me even when they’re not. I’m going to try using the word “anticipation” instead.

I am anticipating a beautiful winter wonderland after the snowfall. I am expecting the plow man to show up. See the difference?

And this time of year I need to be especially vigilant in eliminating the “E” word. In years past I let the holiday become a mountain of expectations for me. Age and fatigue have helped me become more realistic, but it is an ongoing battle. I invite you to join me in the struggle. Let us anticipate the blessings and joys of this holiday season and let go of the expectations.

I light the chalice this morning in the spirit of anticipation.

“Expectations”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
December 7, 2008

“If there were no Advent, we would need to invent it,” remarks John Taylor of this season marking the four weeks before Christmas. On this second Sunday of Advent, I’m reminded that we don’t need to invent it; it’s with us to the extent that we tend even to some of the dimensions of this story of the birth of Jesus. We may though need to re-invent it.

Advent means “coming to” or simply “coming.” We speak of the advent of an era, the advent of a new course of action, the advent of a person. Birth is an advent, a coming, a new beginning, an arrival. From the first observance of Advent into the sixth century, it referred exclusively to the birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Then its meaning shifted, and it was observed as the season of expectation, of preparation, for the coming of the child Jesus—or, in Christian terms, the Christ child. Advent has become a season of expectation, a spiritual pregnancy of sorts, permitting us to prepare for whatever Christmas means to us. Again, in Christian terms, it is preparation for the marking once again of the birth of him who was deemed by so many to be God become human in the form of a humble baby—a form to which we can all relate, since this is how we all began.

Advent in our time commences on the fourth Sunday before Christmas, but if we consider this a time of approach, why not turn to one of the New, or Second Testament, Gospel stories for those first indications of expectation? The Gospel of Luke is the only Second Testament Gospel that records what many term “the Annunciation.” Sometimes we Unitarian Universalists need to pay serious attention to biblical text, even though we can rationalize it away as being one of many stories about a story whose lines have blurred immensely over the centuries. We can revisit that story and discover anew its richness for faith marked by a belief that this was about the Son of God coming into the world and faith marked by an understanding that a child was born who would make his mark on the world in ways that were downright revolutionary—Love being the rare Gospel that it is and indeed, the Gospel, the “good news,” that described the core teaching of Jesus in his brief adult life.

To get a firmer grip on this story, let’s revisit Luke’s account of how Mary discovered she was about to become pregnant. Now this sounds like something that Mary should have learned in a class akin to our OWL series—the Our Whole Lives series in which our Unitarian Universalist youth learn the basics of sexuality from trained and trustworthy adults who are not their parents, which enhances the credibility for almost any adolescent. Mary wasn’t quite a candidate for OWL in time or tradition, but the story goes that she did have what we might freely call a “trained and trustworthy adult” in the form of the angel Gabriel.

Before we jump to metaphor or mythology to describe what happened, let’s check out Luke’s more or less original story, albeit written almost a century after Jesus’ birth. With the oral tradition in full play, we can surmise that the story had been told and retold before being cast into the written word. Storytellers were the historians of their day and took great pains to memorize what had been passed to them that they might pass it with maximum accuracy onto the next generation of those who would keep the story alive, a story that some still call “the greatest story ever told.”

Luke in the early part of his first chapter describes another pregnancy, that of Mary’s relative, Elizabeth, with John the Baptist, a formidable figure in his own right. Luke explains that Elizabeth was six months pregnant when:

“the angel Gabriel was sent from God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth to a virgin betrothed to a man whose name was Joseph…”

NOTE that Mary isn’t yet pregnant, so it just might make sense that as a young engaged Jewish woman, she was indeed still a virgin, though not for long, since it’s a rare virgin who gives birth to a baby. In fact, a virgin birth deserved feature story status in some ancient edition of the National Enquirer.

Back to Luke…
[Joseph was] “of the house of David: and the virgin’s name was Mary. And he [that is, the angel Gabriel, who served as a messenger of God] came to her and said, ‘Hail, O favored one, the Lord is with you!’ But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and considered in her mind what sort of greeting this might be. And the angel said to her, ‘Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And behold, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.

He will be great, and will be called the Son of the Most High;
And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David,
And he will reign over the house of Jacob forever;
And of his kingdom there will be no end.’

And Mary said to the angel, ‘How can this be, since I have no husband?’ And the angel said to her, [and this is where it gets iffy!]

‘The Holy Spirit will come upon you,
And the power of the Most High will overshadow you;
Therefore the child to be born will be called holy, the Son of God.

And behold, your kinswoman Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son; and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For with God nothing will be impossible.’ And Mary said, ‘Behold I am the handmaid of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.’ And the angel departed from her.”

Luke goes on to tell the story of Mary visiting Elizabeth and her husband, Zechariah, and of Elizabeth proclaiming upon Mary’s arrival that Mary is “blessed among women,” followed by Mary’s spontaneous proclamation of what God had set in play through her and how generations would call her blessed. Then we’re told that Mary remained with Elizabeth about three months, just enough time for Elizabeth to give birth to John and for Mary to get through her first trimester in the trusted company of her kinswoman.

Luke sets the scene for expectation writ large. If anyone is pregnant even now, we commonly say, “She’s expecting.” Pregnancy is all about expectation, all about advent, an anticipated arrival of a child. I don’t doubt that any of us here who have given birth to a child or adopted a child or experienced this vicariously through family and friends know how heightened this expectation is, how keen our senses are, how hyper-vigilant we are to who is to come…that “who” being a big question mark for the span of time from confirmation of pregnancy to birth.

Advent describes a season of expectancy, a season of hyper-attentiveness to what is to come. Every birth, every arrival, every coming of a child shakes our universe—perhaps less so in magnitude than did the arrival of Jesus or Moses or Mohammed or Abraham or even Mahatma Gandhi or Eleanor Roosevelt, but nonetheless each and every child is preceded by a season of Advent.

We are expecting. We mark this in the tradition of our Christian roots by the lighting of Advent candles set into an Advent wreath, a relatively recent tradition said to have begun among German Lutherans. Once again, what has become a religious rite had its roots in pagan rites—specifically, the pagan fire wheel. The circle or wheel or wreath symbolizes eternity, a “world without end,” an “everlasting to everlasting.” Each of the four purple candles—purple being the emblematic color of royalty—is lit week after week until all four candles are burning bright on the Sunday preceding Christmas itself. On Christmas, the pink candle, the center candle, is kindled, indicating that Jesus, the presumed “light of the world,” has come. The waiting is over. Here he is! No more full nights of sleep for Mary or Joseph! Yes, there was Joseph, that back burner partner who hung in (after, most of us assume, getting Mary pregnant in the first place) and helped to parent what would prove to be one challenging youngster.

But let’s back up. Let’s back up to this seasonal time of expectancy. What we know about the story of Luke that has come down through the ages is that Mary was expecting and that she had enough sense to be wary, to be vigilant, to know that life is never the same once a path has been taken that is for the most part irreversible. Remember, you can’t be a little bit pregnant. You’re either expecting or you’re not.

What, I wonder, are we expecting, amid this season of Christmas—and not just Christmas, but the lights and re-enactment of the story of the miracle of Hanukkah and the lights and observance of the recent story and rites of Kwanzaa and the lights and observance by Hindus worldwide of Diwali, a festival of lights that pays tribute to the pantheon of Hinduism. What are we expecting and what can we learn from this ancient account by a fellow named Luke, who received it from his first-century predecessor story tellers?

Expectation is a state of vigilance. Expectation is often accompanied by anxiety, occasionally by the strategies of reflection and meditation, and almost always by some planning that usually goes awry because the path to all our Bethlehems is rife with potholes. Sometimes we escape them; sometimes we don’t.

In John Taylor’s reflection on Advent, he observes that “we are always expecting.” And he writes a nano-breath later that we are “hopeful.” We are hopeful creatures and “hopefulness deserves a festival.”

Maybe so, but expectation and hope don’t completely overlap. Expectation is indeed a state of vigilance and planning. Hope, on the other hand, informs our expectation with a sense that all will ultimately be well. Hope transcends anxiety and hyper-vigilance and even meditation and reflection and lifts our souls into spiritual resilience—not la-la land thinking, not denial, but a resilience of our very souls, a readiness to ride the waves and discover gifts unanticipated in whatever happens.

Let’s go back to Mary. Here she was stuck with a child Jesus who would later be said to run off from his parents at the age of 12, when they took him to Jerusalem. Who did he hang out with? The sages in the temple, whom he confounded with his questions and commentary. Who did he hang out with as a young adult—not accounting for a good two decades that we know nothing about—but a band of brothers who were not exactly perched on the highest rung of Galilee’s social ladder. How did he end up? That’s for another season, another time.

How do we remember him and why? For those of us who are of liberal faith, we connect again and again with his teachings, with his parables that spoke of loving folks who are despised, bringing wholeness to folks who have lost any remnant of hope, sharing what wealth we have—spreading the wealth in fact—so that none will go hungry or become homeless, forging a course as peacemakers blessed as children of God. It’s so much easier to chalk up the arrival of Jesus as the arrival of the Son of God and let that notion occupy center stage so we don’t have to wrestle with the rugged teachings that he imparted and for which he paid dearly. Hope is held by trusting that each of us can move through whatever lies ahead with grace and graciousness that is even remotely akin to what we learn from those accounts of who this babe of Bethlehem grew to be. Hope is held by letting go of rigid expectations and letting be what is and letting how what is evolve into what will be.

This is a season of expectation, but let it not be a time of rigid expectation. The news of our world intimate and global suggests we loosen our expectations and hold hope. All we know is that a child was born. All we know is that we were once children. All we know is that most of us in this Meeting House this morning are grown-ups, riding the waves of what is, marked with scars and souvenirs of waves that were, anticipating but uncertain of what turbulence lies ahead. What to do but light a candle. With every child, a light comes into the world. That light burns brightly, flickers, and is consumed, becoming once again part and parcel of the substance from which we sprang.

As we light our candles of Advent, let us be no less jubilant about a season of anticipation, a season of expectation, and the reality of hope held in each child we cradle, each manifestation of love we practice, each ray of light that illumines our souls as we move through each precious day. Amen.

Sources:

“The Advent Wreath,” in Celebrating Christmas: An Anthology, Edited by Carl Seaburg, Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, 1983, 2004, Authors Choice Press, New York, 235.

The Gospel According to Luke, The Bible, Revised Standard Version

John A. Taylor, “If there were no Advent...,” in Celebrating Christmas: An Anthology, Edited by Carl Seaburg, Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, 1983, 2004, Authors Choice Press, New York, 235.

“Winter Festival and Celebrations,” Church of the Larger Fellowship, in Celebrating Christmas: An Anthology, Edited by Carl Seaburg, Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association, 1983, 2004, Authors Choice Press, New York, 235.

Chalice Reflection & Grateful Guests

2008-11-23T11:01:00.000-08:00

The Thanksgivings of My Life
Chalice Reflection of Kay Mixon
November 23, 2008

This past week I have been thinking a lot about Thanksgiving in preparation for this chalice lighting reflection and I realized that I could divide the Thanksgivings of my life into two parts: The first part would be the Thanksgivings of my youth and I call these Thanksgivings, “My Norman Rockwell Thanksgivings.” They were held in my hometown in Arkansas and were always at my Aunt Catherine’s house. Most of my uncles and aunts and cousins were there and I think that we must have looked very similar to the Rockwell painting, “Freedom from Want” with the grandparents holding and presenting the big turkey to the expectant family. But my strongest memory of those holiday celebrations is not of the big turkeys, nor my dear relatives, – it is of Pearl’s yeast rolls, called angel rolls. Even now my mouth waters when I think of them. My sister got the recipe from Pearl in 1974 and we have been trying off and on ever since then to duplicate these rolls – but with scant success. Pearl passed away many years ago and I like to think of her up there in heaven serving the angels her divine angel rolls.

During my adult years, I’ve never lived near my family. And since my immediate family agreed years ago to always get together around Christmas and not to get together at Thanksgiving, my Thanksgivings became a not too important holiday to me. But over the years an interesting thing happened. Various friends and neighbors and people in church, reached out and invited me (and Arthur when he lived at home and now Larry and me) to participate in their family Thanksgivings. So more often than not, as an adult I spend Thanksgiving with other families. I call this part of the Thanksgivings of my life, “The Guest at Your Table Thanksgivings.” I’VE been the guest at YOUR tables. And what a gift, a joy and a privilege it has been. We have our invitation for this year and I am really looking forward to sharing Thanksgiving with a new family. And apropos of Jan’s sermon today, I plan to be a “Grateful guest.”

Kay Mixon
November 23, 2008

“Grateful Guests”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
including the words of Ellen Snoeyenbos,
District Coordinator of our Unitarian Universalist Service Committee

First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
November 23, 2008
Guest at Your Table Sunday

Ten years ago this December I was in Berkeley, California, trekking my way through a rare unscheduled morning and waiting to meet with our denominational Ministerial Fellowship Committee, the last step on my road to ordination as a Unitarian Universalist minister. I’d never been to Berkeley, but it was an iconic place in my coming of age history. My heart led me ultimately to the center of Sproul Plaza at the University of California, Berkeley, where the Free Speech movement was launched years before by Mario Savio. Marking the spot was a hubcap sized medallion embedded into the sidewalk and upon it, this inscription:

“This soil and the air space extending above it shall not be a part of any nation and shall not be subject to any entity’s jurisdiction.”

A tiny space that long-ago free speech activists pledged should never be subject to anyone or anything. Free speech, free space.

On this November morning ten years later, I find myself in a different space and a new time. They connect. Just moments ago we dedicated the completely adorable Michael Rahal Shannon, and I tapped the wisdom of the Lebanese poet, Khalil Gibran. Gibran reminds us:

“Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.”

What a reminder! Our children are not our own, but the very offspring of Life’s longing for itself.

Jeffrey Lockwood, a Unitarian Universalist whose professional focus is the linkage between the natural sciences and the spiritual and aesthetic dimensions of life, reminds us that we are all transient on this planet.

“We are all visitors…. We are passing through… We might think of ourselves as uninvited, but not unwelcome, guests of the planet.”

How to be a good guest muses Jeffrey: “Ask little, accept what is offered, and give thanks.”

None of us or the earth beneath our feet or the air extending above it belongs to any of us. We are guests, and the space we occupy is ultimately free space. How then to live? Curtail what we ask for, accept with grace what is offered, and give thanks.

Now there’s the stickler. “Give thanks.” It’s a tight paradox. We’re thanking whatever or whomever for whatever, and we’re giving even as we’re acknowledging receipt. The “thanks for something” is commonly what we hold up at this season. I invite us this morning to hold up the other end of that paradox, the giving.

Why now, you might ask? We’re in economic crisis. Some of us are terrified of losing our jobs. Some of us have already lost them. Many of us have seen our pensions and investments nosedive. Why now?

Through it all, we remain guests, guests of this planet and guests at the table of one another. Like the tight paradox that is thanks giving, the art of being a good guest calls us to acknowledge another paradox. We are at the same time guests and hosts. This planet is our host. We are one another’s host. We are guests of the planet. We are hosts of this planet as long as we can lift a finger to partake of its care.

Let’s start with the basics. Life isn’t possible without water. It just can’t happen. What do we look for when we check out the prospect of life on distant planets? Any sign of water. Any sign that there has ever been water. In this faith community, we dedicate our children by dipping a flower into this primal substance of nurture and possibility. As we celebrated the nurturing of all our children, water and sand were the media used to illustrate how this happens and how our children grow. Stories rise up out of water, and no story is possible without it.

Imagine if your water tap were cut off, if authorities with more power than you said, “No, that’s enough. You must pay for anything more.” Imagine! It’s not far-fetched for millions upon millions of our fellow-guests on this planet. A story comes to us from South Africa, where the water company determines how much water flows to each home. Is your family poor? You get less, not more, even though the law of the land dictates otherwise.

Consider the power of one to make a difference. A woman named Serafina was fed up with what the water company was doing and decided to work with a group of her fellow villagers to make sure that everyone had enough water to drink and cook with and bathe in and launder with. Serafina is 71 years old.

Her neighbors know her as Makoko, or Granny. This Granny inspired her neighbors to work with her and stand up for their rights. Serafina’s group of advocates grew and grew. One of them is our Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, which partnered with this grass-roots cluster of villagers and took the matter to court. The case went to the Supreme Court of South Africa. Stories were told. Songs were sung outside the court as lawyers and judge deliberated inside. After months of deliberation, the case was decided. Serafina and her neighbors won, in partnership with our Service Committee. Together they continue to teach other South African villagers about the basic right to water. Our Service Committee’s annual Guest at Your Table Campaign helps make it happen.

We are guests at Serafina’s table of love and justice making. Serafina is a Guest at our Table along with all the Serafinas who struggle and persevere. Our Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and you and I make it possible and have done so for the past 68 years that the Service Committee has partnered with indigenous groups in this nation and globally to open hearts, change mentalities, and save lives.

Why will I take this little box home and place probably two to five dollars in it each night as my husband, Dan, and I enjoy dinner together? Why will I bring it back, as many of you will bring yours back, on January 18, Dr. Martin Luther King Sunday, with a check representing the bills that we’ve poured into it night after night between now and then? Because we understand that we’re among the guests of our world who can, and this is one wonderful way to be a grateful guest.

If we let go of $20, $100, $1,000, consider that it wasn’t ultimately ours to begin with. Consider the notion that if we are transient, our resources are even moreso. If by sharing who we are and what we have, we become more gracious and grateful guests, then that is cause for singing song upon song of Thanksgiving, because our gratitude will be given and received.

I welcome this morning Ellen Snoeyenbos, who serves as our district coordinator for our Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. Ellen is also a member of First Parish UU in Kingston. It’s probably tough to take the word of your minister when I ask you to give at a time when we’re all wondering what we have. Ellen will help us all with that question, “Why now? Why our Unitarian Universalist Service Committee?”

[Ellen Snoeyenbos speaks.]

Hi Folks,

I am very happy to be here. Thank you, Jan, for your kindness in inviting me.

As the Ballou-Channing District Regional Coordinator for The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee I get to visit many wonderful UU communities in this area as they deepen their faith and commitment to a better world through their participation in Guest at Your Table – the primary membership vehicle of our historic service organization.

As my kids grew up in the Kingston UU church, our family tried to make a little ritual of adding our money to the box before every meal and imagine inviting the people on the box to share our meal at our table. At the Kingston church, during our holiday season, we set at place for a Guest at our coffee hour table every Sunday – a reminder to adults and children alike that many people who are not physically with us count on us to reach out to them in meaningful ways with respect, honor and dignity.

Now in a family of adults I try to continue the ritual as it becomes an act representing far more than charity – it has become an act of empowerment. These are times of difficulty and economic strain. We are all re-evaluating how we spend our limited resources. Now is the perfect time to maximize your investment. By participating in Guest at Your Table, filling your box and signing up on the side of the box before you bring it back to church, in one fell swoop you become a crusader for economic justice, environmental justice, civil rights, and humanitarian relief. It’s one-stop shopping at a market of social justice that never gives up, never gives in and looks for every opportunity to support local organizations in fulfilling their goals through practical, grassroots action. Your UU values are put directly to work.

My membership last year helped win a civil rights case in South Africa resulting in turning on water spigots all over a Johannesburg Township. I helped a group in Ecuador pass an amendment to the Ecuadorian constitution guaranteeing the right to clean, accessible, and abundant water! I helped women on the Gulf Coast get their daycare licenses so they can care for the children of neighbors struggling to rebuild their homes. I helped win landslide victories for ballot initiatives that achieved minimum-wage increases in six states: Ohio, Colorado, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, and Arizona.

Please check out my table at coffee hour to find out more about the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and ways you can connect more deeply in the work of UUSC. Thank you!

Jan:
Thank you, Ellen. Now I should warn you that as you explain Guest at Your Table to your children, who are receiving their boxes during religious education classes this morning, there’s a risk. In one of our congregations, a family took their box home, placed it on their dinner table, understood that their daughter was clear why it was there, and during dinner one night caught their daughter trying to cram part of her dinner through the slot in the top of her box, so that she could help feed the guest at their table! But she understood, and so might we at this time of Thanksgiving and giving thanks.

For each and all of you, I am ever grateful! Amen.

Sources:

“The History of UUSC,” http://www.uusc.org/history.

Jeffrey Lockwood, “The Fine Art of the Good Guest,” a guest of the world: Meditations, Skinner House Books, Boston, 2006

Story 1: Serafina, in Stories of Hope 2008-1009, Guest at Your Table/Celebrate UU Faith in Action, Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, http://www.uusc.org/files/guest_storiesofhope.pdf

Chalice Reflection & Beliefs and Perspectives

2008-11-02T10:45:00.000-08:00

Lessons from My backyard
Chalice Reflection of Susan Etkind
November 2, 2008

I was pondering this chalice reading while gardening and when I wasn’t thinking of the reading I was worrying about the economy and the upcoming election. During tense times I find I retreat to the backyard and wanted to share some simple wisdom absorbed from my parents, hearty New Englanders, Conservationists, and Unitarians.

This year I’ve doubled the size of my garden to increase the months we feed the family from 3 months to 6 months inspired by the Green Sanctuary people and the book Animal, Vegetable, Miracle. My father, however, was into this in the 1950’s. He revived former Victory Gardens from WWII and eventually had 20 neighborhood families under his tutelage- recommending ladybugs, praying mantis and his own organic compost over pesticides, assigning the rows and urging them in their weeding.

Starting at age 8, I was planting/weeding and harvesting and probably complaining a bit too. As a teenager I did all of these jobs in a bathing suit working on a tan.
At age 5, I remember hiding my peas under the table. By age 9 I loved most vegetables…eventually even brussel sprouts and turnips.

Appreciating animals was also something I learned. He urged everyone to use “Have a Heart” traps instead of killing the animals. He would then take them over to the woods of the Wellesley College campus and let them go. Jane Goedeke, you may have seen some of these critters if my dates are right.

Another lesson was about patience. My father said, “If you make this particular chirping sound and bring seeds to the stone wall where the chipmunk lives, he will eventually eat from your hand.” I saw this with my own eyes.

“If pheasants, turkeys or other unusual animals land in the backyard, wake everyone up to see them- even the teenagers.”

My father lived just long enough to help Steve and I plant our first garden in our first house. He was able to convey his excitement to my husband. They planted our first garden together. Two things Steve remembers are 1.) Start planting on Memorial Day, and 2.) Don’t harvest until just before you are going to eat the vegetables. 10 minutes is ideal.

We have carried on the gardening. It is a wonderful legacy. My kids have it in their bones. Zach wandered the gardens as young as 3 munching on broccoli and peppers. He wants to be part of planting even now at age 21. As young adults Alex and Zach have become my human rototillers and they are both studying environmental conservation.

No matter what kind of garden you have: flowers, vegetables, grass, indoor plants, my father and I say: “Engage your children in the process. Imprinting works and the earth will benefit.”

“Beliefs and Perspectives”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
November 2, 2008

The year was 1568. John Sigismund was king of Hungary. Sigismund was history’s only Unitarian king—that’s right a Unitarian king. You never thought we were cut out for royalty, but John was, and he ruled as Hungary’s king from his birth in 1540 for the next 30 years, with a little help from his mother until he grew up. In the later years of his reign, Francis David became his court minister. Through careful biblical research, David had arrived at the belief that God was not three but one. David had begun as Catholic, converted to Lutheranism, converted then to Calvinism, and landed finally in the “God-is-one” theology that is Unitarianism.

Unlike many converts, Francis David respected the beliefs of those with whom he disagreed and urged his king to do the same. Inspired and encouraged by David, King John Sigismund held a forum at which various religious views were openly discussed, and in 1568 he issued the Edict of Torda, a proclamation of religious tolerance inspired by David’s conviction that “We need not think alike to love alike.” The Unitarian Church of Transylvania was established, but it was okay to worship as a Catholic or as a Lutheran or as a Calvinist. The qualifier was that the choices were limited. Judaism or Islam, for example, would not have had equal standing. As with the founding fathers of our own nation, liberty was not quite “liberty for all,” but nonetheless a stance was taken 440 years ago upholding the ideals of religious liberty and the right of conscience.

In 1570 the Hapsburgs assumed the kingship of Hungary and John became Prince of Transylvania. A year later, the once and only Unitarian king and prince would be dead, and another ruler, not as tolerant, moved quickly into the vacuum. Under this less progressive monarch, David’s views were no longer sanctioned; he was thrown into prison, and he died there. Yet the Edict of Torda that established religious tolerance, the courage and perseverance of David, and the brief spell of relative religious liberty are part of our legacy as Unitarian Universalists.

Freedom, reason, and tolerance are, dare I say, the “trinity” of beliefs that surfaced through the centuries to our own. Just like the 4th-century Council of Nicea, during which Arius the Unitarian lost out to Athanasius, the Trinitarian; just like the forum at Torda, where Unitarianism won out and tolerance carried the day, however short-lived, religious matters for centuries have been at the mercy of political bodies in Europe and other continents. In our own infant nation, churches were for many decades financially supported by the state. It was not until the early 19th century that the separation of church and state took firm hold in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Neither religion nor the state could call the shots of how government should be run or how we should worship.

As Unitarian Universalists and as Americans, we uphold the ideals of freedom, reason, and tolerance. As Unitarian Universalists, we add to those three the ideal of inclusiveness—a large tent of opinions, a never-ending story of spiritual paths, an open door of welcome, and yes, civil marriage as a civil right. From tolerance, we are moving to celebration of the wide-ranging perspectives of the human family invited to find a religious home in our midst.

How is it, I sometimes wonder, that we are dubbed the people who don’t believe anything? Belief in the historically unpopular ideals of freedom, reason, and tolerance has cast our forebears into prisons, into the flames of the heretic’s stake, and onto vessels of escape from one nation to another in search of the liberties that we seek to uphold and sustain.

In our own country many of these liberties have been honored in the breach in recent years. Many of the spiritually honed values that every person has some worth, that we’re all connected, that justice and compassion go hand in hand, that global peace is a state to which we aspire and toward which we are called to work—have been honored in rhetoric only. It would be cowardly of me not to remind us of this at a time of pivotal choice, a time when we who value religious freedom and political freedom are choosing who presides at the helm of this nation. It would be cowardly of me not to remind us of this at a time when our nation has lost its grip on even the idealized principles of the founding fathers, even those principles that were so long honored dishonorably when it came to people among us of color, people among us who are women, people among us seeking asylum from nations where their fates were sealed if they did not find it.

Revelation is not sealed, either in our faith or in the principles and practices of this nation. We are an aspiring democracy. We aspire to inclusiveness. We are not yet there, and we are struggling.

“We do not need to think alike to love alike.” No, we don’t; but we do need to think; we are called to love; and we are challenged to meld our reason and our love in actions that shape a legacy for our children and our children’s children.

Our beliefs as Unitarian Universalists are not for the faint of heart. Our ideals as Americans are not for those who aspire to anything less than an inclusive democracy.

As a Unitarian Universalist, I believe in a loving God, a force in the universe that does not micro-manage, does not do our work for us, but breathes the wherewithal for love and compassionate justice into each of us and trusts that humankind just might be kind, might be reasonable, might affirm inclusive love, and might withhold judgments and practices harsh and fatal.

As a Unitarian Universalist, I believe in the capacity of humankind to be kind—not “nice” within the genteel limits of good manners, not “tolerant” within the grudging limits of “putting up with so and so,” not “charitable” if charity trumps compassionate justice.

As a Unitarian Universalist, I believe in the capacity of our nation to turn from its foolish ways, to turn from practices of civil liberties constricted, to turn from practices of torture sanctioned, to turn from practices of war precipitated by lies confessed far too late to bring back the hundreds of thousands who have been downwind of our folly, to turn from a veritable chasm between those of us who have and those of us who have not, to turn from a jaded understanding that the wealthy deserve all that they claim to own and the poor and quickly-becoming-poor deserve the anxiety and devastations that some of us know because after all we just didn’t use good judgment.

As a Unitarian Universalist, I believe in truth telling. I believe that truth hurts and heals, but that it heals more than it hurts. I believe that our citizens and leaders alike are accountable for rendering truth visible and accessible. I believe confession has a place in our relationships intimate, communal, political, societal, and global. We screw up! We sin! We violate the miracle of life in which we find ourselves. Truth and reconciliation as practiced from Rwanda to South Africa long for a home in our United States of America. Truth and reconciliation is the hardest of spiritual practices. “Lead us not into temptation, and deliver us from evil, especially the evil of our own lies to ourselves!”

As a Unitarian Universalist, I believe in a covenantal grounding over a creedal grounding for our religious community. Covenant considers that we’re each and all flawed, that we don’t always live up to our ideals for ourselves or for one another. Covenant is like a patchwork quilt that reminds us we are carefully and sometimes carelessly stitched together; that we’re not all one fabric but connected by intention and by resilient strands of thread and fabric, each with their own stories, each emerging from their own historical garments. I believe in a covenantal grounding for our national community, albeit with a fresh look at our Constitution and our Bill of Rights. Whenever a state or a nation considers rescinding a basic right through a proposition wrought by that perilous notion “I and the other” or “we and them,” we are selling the soul of our aspiring democracy to brokers who have no role in the marketplace of caring community.

As a Unitarian Universalist, I believe with the late Unitarian theologian and scholar James Luther Adams that our goal “is the prophethood and priesthood of all believers, the one for the liberty of prophesying, the other for the ministry of healing.” Prophets are not the most popular folks in the neighborhood, but they don’t’ mince words. Priests defer to the common good, the healing and wholeness of not just you and me, but of this nation, this world. I believe with Adams that we are accountable as, in Adams’ words:

“the prophetic liberal church…in which persons think and work together to interpret the signs of the times in the light of their faith, to make explicit through discussion the epochal thinking that the times demand, …in which all members share the common responsibility to attempt to foresee the consequences of human behavior (both individual and institutional), with the intention of making history in place of merely being pushed around by it.”

As a Unitarian Universalist, I believe with Forrest Church that a two-hour sermon in the Puritan tradition doesn’t cut it today and that our Puritan forebears held a standard of moral perfection that none of us could attain. I also believe with Forrest that come Tuesday, “we will be casting the most critical vote of our lifetimes,” and that “the choice we must make, not just with our vote, but with our lives, is a choice between hope and fear.” And like Forrest, I’m not telling you how to cast your vote. I am not and will never tell you how to exercise this precious right.

As your minister, I concur with the mission of this congregation that we are called “to affirm our Unitarian Universalist principles and put them into action by worshipping together (as we are doing right now), caring for one another (as we do week after week, year after year), and working for a safe, just, and sustainable world,” for which our work is just beginning.

“We need not think alike to love alike;” but we need to think and we need to love.

We share core beliefs of love and compassion and justice, freedom, reason, tolerance, and inclusiveness. As to how we realize them, there lies the venue of perspective. Your perspective may not be my perspective may not be his or her or their perspective. We have varied angles of vision as we answer the question of who will lead this nation honestly, justly, and compassionately for the next four years. We have varied angles of vision as we debate the particulars of how to realize the beloved community in a world that aches, simply aches, for that caring and compassionate community which I understand to be the most realistic hope imaginable if we are to know “a safe, just, and sustainable world.”

As people of faith, we are called to draw on that which we believe. As people of faith and practice, we are called to choose. And then we are called to act through the balance of our days with all the hope and love we can muster to sustain or resist or renew or reform the harvest of our choices.

I love you, each and all! Amen

Sources:

James Luther Adams, “I Call That Church Free,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 591.

James Luther Adams, “The Prophethood of All Believers,” in The Essential James Luther Adams: Selected Essays and Addresses, Edited and introduced by George Kimmich Beach, Skinner House Books, Boston, 1998.

Forrest Church, “Election Sermon,” October 26, 2008, Unitarian Church of All Souls, New York City, Mark W. Harris, “Unitarian Universalist Origins: Our Historic Faith,” http://archive.uua.org/info/origins.html

Mark W. Harris, “Unitarian Universalist Origins: Our Historic Faith,” http://archive.uua.org/info/origins.html.

John II Sigismund Zápolya, from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_II_Sigismund_Z%C3%A1polya.

Chalice Reflection & Fear and Spirit

2008-10-26T10:54:00.000-07:00

Chalice Reflection
Joan Kovach
October 26, 2008

Good morning!

Well, Friday is Halloween. Saturday is All Saints’ Day. And in the Catholic tradition, Sunday is for the rest of us who don’t reach the status of saints, All Souls’ Day.

Our Circle Ministry groups ponder fear. Jan’s sermon today is on fear and spirit. And our children wonder about what is scary and what is not.

So, what is this about, this juxtaposition of things scary and considering those of us who have already died?

As I prepare the house and yard for trick or treaters, I’m reminded of a time about 15 years ago when I fashioned a grim reaper from black plastic trash bags and propped him on the fence along my driveway. I felt terrible when a friend, very recently widowed, pulled in my driveway, greeted by this dark apparition.

Now that I’ve suffered some deaths in my own family, I think the grim reaper probably went unseen by her. When somebody you love dies, it isn’t about fear, but about the huge loss, the void of their absence.

Again I wonder about this: things scary and death. What’s the connection?

I honestly don’t know. And I think it’s some not knowing that is an essential element of our fear. And then I think, not knowing is also what allows us to experience awe and wonder, even surprise and delight.

When our group spoke about fear, it was fear of death or harm to our loved ones and ourselves that came up. Yet Annie Lamott calls death just “a major change of address.” An unknown, but not that scary.

I light the chalice today, our day of acknowledging spirits and fears, in the hopes that when we need it, we will all have the courage we need to explore the unknown, to face the scary, and to travel through fear to get to awe.

“Fear and Spirit”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
October 26, 2008

To nurture the spark of your precious life—
we hold you in our love as you go—

we sang just moments ago to our children, garbed in costumes enchanting, endearing and downright scary. What is it about the delight our youngsters take in donning different identities, REALLY different identities? Some fancy themselves fairy princesses; others aspire to be high-tech heroes. And there are always a few who opt to masquerade as villains and vampires so chilling that they’ll be sure to scare all the “little kids” half to death and maybe even send a chill down the spines of some of the “big kids” like us.

Halloween is a time when fear and spirit walk hand in hand, propelled by whimsy, imagination, and a fascination with fright! I became acutely attuned to this many years ago during my seminary field education at a church in New York City’s East Village. Part of my portfolio was teaching a 4th grade class. Sunday after Sunday these 11-year-olds resisted with amazing determination whatever conventional curriculum was on my agenda and for weeks upon end took up the topic of monsters. Were monsters real? Did ghosts really prowl about the churchyard just outside, that churchyard that served as a deceptive lid for what can only be described as catacombs? Beneath this churchyard, where these same 11-year-olds romped and ran during Sunday morning coffee hour, sprawled a labyrinthine cemetery where Peter Cooper himself was buried. It was a landmark graveyard and part and parcel of this historic church.

Perhaps through what Carl Jung termed the “collective unconscious” these children and our own pick up on the dual qualities of the demonic, death scary and death benign. They don’t run from their shadow side. They prepare or purchase costumes to lift their shadow side into the light of day and the amber lights of Halloween night. Our young put their monstrous dimensions on parade, processing down the aisles of this Meeting House, prancing about town and boldly knocking on doors with even bolder, “Trick or Treat’s!” This year on Halloween night, our First Parish children and youngsters from our wider community will grace our own Trueblood Hall, transformed into a Haunted House. Count this morning as a dress rehearsal!

What a peculiar time it is, this series of spirit days known as Halloween, All Saints Day, and All Souls Day. Light grows less in this part of the planet; we might say “light dies.” We can thank the Irish for the pagan harvest festival that gave rise to Halloween. Called Samhain—“Sowin” or “Sa-ven”—it means summer’s end. It marks the transition between the season of growth and the season of decay, the season of lush greens and vibrant pastels and the season of stark whites and somber greys. It’s exactly the right time for something to slip through a crack dividing those seasonal archetypes of life and death. Up through this crack come the dead, time for a quick visit.

Suspend your rationality; suspend your disbeliefs. Those Celts knew what was good for them. They honored their long-gone visitors with a festival and built huge bonfires to keep any evil spirits at a distance. The tradition continues with children carving grimaced smiles into vegetables like turnips and pumpkins and dressing up in the likes of what we witnessed this morning to keep the scarier spirits at bay. Children learn from their elders the difference between scary and scarier and as children will, opt for scarier!

Halloween is actually All Hallows’ Even, the evening before All Hallows’ Day, sometimes called All Saints’ Day. First established by the 7th century Pope Boniface IV as a festival honoring the Virgin Mary and all Christian martyrs, it was moved a century later to November 1 so that Pope Gregory III might tap its fierce mysteries for the dedication of All Saints Chapel in Rome. An even later pope made November 1 the standard for celebrating All Saints’ Day throughout Christendom. A crescendo of possibility reaches into All Souls’ Day. Celebrated on November 2, the legend spread that living souls can intercede for the dead souls stuck in that worrisome waiting room known as purgatory and help them on to Heaven.

A crack in time, a slant of light separating the seasons, the human obsession with that ultimate uncertainty called death, the human penchant for taking all possible precautions to pave the way for those already on the other side and our own inevitable journey in that direction! ‘tis best to make friends with villains and vampires, ghosts and goblins!

Like jack-o-lanterns carved from turnips and pumpkins, like costumed children dancing through the streets, knocking on doors, striking bargains with neighbors willing to play along, we play along and retreat a few degrees into our own pagan origins. I do not use “pagan” pejoratively but rather to call up the beliefs and rituals that have risen from people past and present living attuned to the cycles of nature.

Like a haunted house in Trueblood Hall, like munchkin projections of our own restless spirits processing costumed down the aisle of this Meeting House, we do what we can to make our peace with fear and spirit. We do what we can—mindfully, imaginatively, whimsically, and yes religiously—to keep hope alive through these festivals of seasonal transition bound in our deep knowledge that we are mortal creatures. We do what we can.

We even build immense cathedrals with plumbing devices fashioned of stone-hewn visages known as gargoyles. Gargoyles, fantastical in appearance, hold form and function. Crafted with open mouths, they serve as downspouts for rainwater to run down from and out from the sanctum that is the cathedral itself. And they multi-task. While protecting cathedral walls from the sure and steady erosion of rainwater, their demonic faces scare away “real demons,” as real as our religious imaginations can muster.

While we hold our own little goblins in our love “as they go, as they go,” we might also pay tribute to the vigilance of the macabre stone-souls known as gargoyles. Both are scary—our kids and our gargoyles. Neither is terrifying. Fear and spirit conspire in wondrous ways amid this seasonal transition from light to dark, from nature’s vibrancy to nature’s rest.

What strikes me in the cadences of Dav Pilkey’s “god bless the gargoyles” is the heroic quality of the scary, the almost martyr-like quality of these intentionally frightful faces leaning sentinel like on the ledges of cathedrals and even my own alma mater seminary! We can all use an angel or two, and gargoyles are no exception.

…now, angels have ways of making things right,
so they stayed with the gargoyles all through the night,
patting their heads and wiping their tears
and whispering life into gargoyle ears.

And soon all the gargoyles did magical things:
they gurgled and coughed and shook out their wings.
then together the angels and gargoyles took flight,
and they soared through the clouds on a blustery night.
and while over pastures and hills they were winging,
the voices of angels were radiantly singing
music of healing and songs of rebirth
to all of the creatures in all of the earth:

Fear and spirit wing their way across the earth issuing blessing upon blessing:

…god bless each soul that is tortured and taunted,
god bless all creatures alone and unwanted.

And the gargoyles beheld wherever they roamed
that the souls of the lost weren't really alone.
each one had an angel, each one was protected,
and each one was cherished and loved and respected.

Sounds like one of those principles we spout as fluidly as any Notre Dame gargoyle spouts rainwater! “Each one was cherished and loved and respected!”

Yes, it’s fantasy, yes it’s imagination, yes it’s an appeal that rises up in each of us from our childhood recognition that fear and spirit walk hand in hand. The shadow that accompanies each of us becomes far less scary when the angels of our higher nature befriend it.

Amid this time of fear, may we turn to that which scares us most and find there a partnership of blessing. It takes trust, layered reflection, and that transcendent state that comes when fear and spirit at long last merge—awe!

Let us issue blessings with reckless abandon upon our little ghosts and goblins. Let us forge a partnership of spirited imagination with what haunts us most fiercely. Let us bless the possibility that we might remember what it was like to be eight or nine or ten or eleven and relish a night when we morph into forms designed to inspire fear and yes, candy. I wish us each the imagination, the daring, and the love to rise into the arc of our own lives with a new blessing, buoyed by this season of blessings beyond reason. Amen.

Sources:

Dav Pilkey, god bless the gargoyles, Harcourt Brace, 1996.

Kathleen Tracy, words and music, As You Go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Souls_Day

Intersection

2008-10-19T10:38:00.000-07:00

“Intersection”

A Sermon by Rev. Dr. Jan Carlsson-Bull
Association Sunday
First Parish Unitarian Universalist
Cohasset, MA
October 19, 2008

“Out of the stars in their flight,
out of the dust of eternity, here have we come,
stardust and sunlight,
mingling through time and through space.

Out of the stars have we come,
up from time;

…Earth warmed by sun, lit by sunlight:
This is our home;
Out of the stars have we come.

…Out the stars, rising from rocks and the sea,
Kindled by sunlight on earth,
Arose life.

Thus pondered the late Robert Terry Weston on whence we have come and how we have come to be here. Each of us rose from a speck of cosmic dust. And all this time you thought it was the stork—or enjoyable human interaction, maybe. Well, on that last guess, you’re half right.

As for life itself and how the strands of life wound and found their way across barely imaginable distances of time and space, we’re here, precious specks in the universe of here and now, each of us star-marked. With a little help from the cosmos, earth, air, water, and fire have conspired the miracle that life is, that we are.

So consider, if you will, that each of you is a star-beam. And consider the not too far-fetched premise that somehow you have found your way to this space this morning, this Meeting House, where we wonder and speak and sing about such matters, and grow sometimes silent in reflection and even confusion. We’re here. Our star-beams have intersected.

Why? How?

Well, there’s free will. There’s also coincidence. There’s also chance. But I believe we’re here this morning because each of us longs to ponder such matters. Each of us shares amazement at this creation and that we’re a part of it. Each of us probably shares amazement that having the gift of life in common, we as humankind have contorted ourselves into a shape that can only be described as a mess. From miracle to mess is our human condition. Not only mess, of course. There’s celebration. There’s affirmation. There’s caring. There’s all that good stuff that matters so dearly. We really don’t want to be in a mess; we don’t. So we seek each other out. We look for a place where we’ll be heard and respected, even a place where we have different opinions, different perspectives, a place where we can be ourselves, given the standard of basic civility.

For me, that place is church, this church, this Unitarian Universalist congregation. Here we find our star-beam selves intersecting as we make our way across the trajectory that is our life. We question together; we wonder together; we matter together; and we go forth from this intersection of faith to live the questions, wonder aloud, behave as if every creature alive matters dearly. This is how we live our faith.

But wait, let’s coax our souls back into this Meeting House. As Bill Sinkford reminds us:

“In this room there are folks in many different places in their hearts: there are those whose spirits are light today, and those who arrive bearing the sadness of the world. Some are on the edge of adventure, beaming with energy from…a new loved one, new understanding, or a new peace, while others gaze toward the past, and wonder where they will find the strength for another step. Some come today for communion. This may mean connecting through the rituals of worship, or it may be found in a simple conversation over coffee. … To all these seekers we hold out a shared vision. We say, yes. Come on in, and know you are not alone.”

In this time and space of intersection, we move toward wholeness of heart, mind, and soul. We lean into our larger selves, knowing we’re not alone.

Sometimes we come here thinking that it’s only we who are so anxious, so overwhelmed with matters intimate and global. At this time of intersection, we discover it’s not just us. We realize that we’re not alone.

Yet it’s not easy being us. It’s not easy coming together with folks who question as relentlessly and seek as fervently as we do and come up with such a disarming array of approaches, such a pluralism of perspective, each of us tempted to espouse our approach or our perspective as if it might work for everyone. This is our signal that it’s time to listen, time to hear each other’s stories, time to open our hearts and minds to how those stories illumine an approach or a perspective that didn’t initially make much sense to us. We count on those stories for religious community that matters. Intersection has no meaning if we’re only talking about one approach, one path. Dynamic religious community depends upon what we might call “religious traffic,” “social traffic” even, “political traffic” even. No one has the final word.

It’s the intersection that counts. It’s what happens when our paths cross that allows each of us to pass through that intersection so much more intact than we were when we approached it, when we got up out of bed this morning and whined a bit about how wouldn’t it be nice to just have a leisurely breakfast, pick up the newspaper, and declare time out. Then maybe we did something as foolish as picking up that newspaper and spouting a quick, “Uh-oh! These headlines aren’t what I need. Maybe I’ll take myself, even my whole family, off to church after all.”

So here we are. Our paths have converged.

But is it enough, just this crossing, just these intersections over the years since 1721 that we’ve been First Parish in Cohasset, then First Parish Unitarian, then First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Cohasset?

We’re a congregation in historical motion. We’re a congregation learning, sometimes slowly, sometimes reluctantly, that the quality of our religious community, the quality of our religious intersection, is enhanced by being in association with other congregations.

Just yesterday three of us from this congregation—Mary Parker, President of our Parish Committee, Ron Wallace, our Treasurer, and I headed to Worcester for the Unitarian Universalist New England Fall Conference. What a gathering of congregations from every state in New England! Imagine roughly 500 New Englanders, let alone Unitarian Universalists, in the same space for a day of concerted dialogue and worship and discernment about who we are and who we can become. It was moving and powerful. Such are the benefits of religious traffic! You’ll surely be hearing more in the days ahead about the ideas exchanged and what can help us at First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Cohasset move through this time and beyond it, what can help us at First Parish Unitarian Universalist in Cohasset rise into the larger reaches of who we can be as faithful seekers, teachers, justice makers, and stewards of the gifts we are given.

We each began as stardust. Stardust by itself is good maybe for a little light—actually an infinitesimal speck of light. But when we find ourselves here and alive, when we stretch our souls into beams of light, when we intentionally come together with other religious seekers, then something extraordinary happens. We discover that our specks of stardust kindle into a larger light. We discover that our beams of light intersect in ways that make us each the richer in discerning what our lives are all about and can still be about. We discover that the light that we kindle Sunday after Sunday—here and in over a thousand Unitarian Universalist congregations in this country alone—ignites into a flame that is the essence of that which burns in our flaming chalice, symbol of the dynamic truth, the luminous love, that we are about in this faith that we share.

What makes it possible? Each of you makes it possible by showing up, by letting your light shine, by sharing your resources so that you can stretch into your larger self. Each of our congregations makes it possible by coming together at intersections such as conferences that are above all about conversations that matter, worshipping together across the habits of how we worship as individual congregations, and discerning and acting together so that what emerges is an intricate web of activity made possible by an association of interdependent congregations.

This is our Unitarian Universalist Association. This is not some edifice on Beacon Hill. This is the flaming chalice that is ignited by each individual, each congregation, each district, each child, each person who walks into a Unitarian Universalist church hopeful, hopeful for a sanctuary in which she or he matters, hopeful for a community of loving listening folk who say through our deeds, “You matter. Whoever you are, you matter. Welcome!”

Now we have one, at least one, sticky problem. Excuse me, challenge! It comes to mind through the story told by my colleague Kathleen McTigue. And it hinges on the notion of spirituality and discipline. Spirituality is that term that tends to evoke a quick nod of complicit wisdom when we hear it cited. Some of us are even inclined to say, “I’m not really religious; I’m spiritual!” To which I say, “Oyveh!” because that notion commonly carries a very light backpack. Specifically, being spiritual without being religious holds an easily implicit assumption that I’m not accountable. It’s about me and my spirit and the Spirit of Life, and that’s quite enough, thank you very much. So folks who want only spirituality tend not to return when they’re tapped on the shoulder in coffee hour, let alone when they’re reminded in the Meeting House that the spirit of our faith calls us to act differently in the world.

Discipline is another matter. Discipline often goes against the grain of progressive thinkers such as we fancy ourselves to be. Thus, Kathleen’s telling of the folk tale of the “saintly Brother Bruno.” Engaged in solitary prayer, he was rudely interrupted by a frog. What did he do, but lean out the window and tell that sub-human specimen to pipe down. The bullfrog went instantly mute. Then Bruno’s conscience began to gnaw away at him. Maybe Bruno’s own prayer hit God’s ears like the “arrogant croaking of another frog!” Bruno was not ambivalent for long. He again leaned out the window, and bid that bullfrog to “Sing!” Soon a grand chorus of bullfrogs was singing a full-throated anthem. And Bruno learned to pray.

Bruno discovered that the human spirit is not the only one that counts. Bruno discovered that his conscience was more accountable than he’d counted on. The only thing that has me worried is what the bullfrogs thought of Bruno’s prayers.

Spirituality, however, that amorphous notion that carries as many gossamer threads as a cosmic spider web, glistens, simply glistens, in caring religious community.

And so do we. Our spirits soar; our souls awaken; our minds open wide, when we know it’s not just about us. Individually, congregationally, it’s not just about us. It’s about the miracle in which we find ourselves asking, wondering, worshipping, praying, learning, making justice, being awake and attentive, and greeting new beams of light even as we bid farewell to old stars, ready once again to become stardust.

For me, religion, this religion that we know as Unitarian Universalism, shines with the fire of countless stars when kindled in the chalice that is our Unitarian Universalist Association. Some call it the UUA. I call it OUR UUA. How can we not support this amazing convergence of stars, this amazing intersection of light beams that we are, as individuals and congregations? Together, in association, we can grow and learn and touch one another. We can “nurture our spirits and help heal our world.”

I ask this morning that each of you give as generously as you can to support our Association. As your minister, I’d love to give more, but you can count on me for $100 from my personal account and $100 from my ministerial discretionary fund. Let’s give what we can, and know that our chalice will burn all the brighter because we do so.

…Out the stars, rising from rocks and the sea,
Kindled by sunlight on earth,
Arose life.

At this morning’s intersection of light and life, know that I love you, stars all. Amen

Sources:

Kathleen McTigue, on spiritual discipline, in Association Sunday 2008 Organizing and Worship Resources, Unitarian Universalist Association, 2008.

William Sinkford, on in this room there are folks, in Association Sunday 2008 Organizing and Worship Resources, Unitarian Universalist Association, 2008.

Robert T. Weston, “Out of the Stars,” in Singing the Living Tradition, The Unitarian Universalist Association, Beacon Press, Boston, 1993, 465.