Facing Grace

Promise Keeping

2011-12-29T11:59:00.000-08:00

All of us have moments when life is wonderful and inviting, magnetic with promise. But, of course, there is also the other foot, life of trouble and pain. How do we move from one to the other? What drives us onward, even in the worst of times, to get up and keep going or perhaps if life is really bad, to even just live. This New Year’s I want you to promise to keep living and striving onward.

Life itself keeps us going. When we were born we had little choice in the matter. We were pushed into existence. Life lives us. Something drives us. Call it spirit, will, or fate, we are moving forward because we must move forward, as if some unseen hand - perhaps God? – wants us to go on. Sometimes it is even an obsession. I am reminded of the farm family who had to climb on top of their home to escape the coming flood. “Where’s grandpa?” asked one of the children. There was a straw hat floating around the water in front of the house. Grandma replied “Grandpa said he was going to cut the grass today, come hell or high water!”

Baring high water, hell is a very real problem for most of us who want to get on with our lives but we don’t know how. Not the hell of the afterlife but the hell of the present. Just recently someone outside of our congregation told me that her mother had died, her husband left her and she had been diagnosed with cancer! What do we say to that? Gee, I’m sorry? Some days it really does rain frogs; borrowing a wonderful metaphor from the plagues of Egypt in the Hebrew Bible. And then what? What do you do? Come on, you all know the answer. You get up and start again. Driven still by the promise that today is a new beginning.

Twenty five years ago when my religious life began in earnest, I thought I would change the world. As I finished my graduate training I thought “well, at least I can change the congregation I serve.” After putting a few churches behind me, I thought, “O.K. at least I can change a few lives.” Now I say, perhaps with a bit too much cynicism “At least I will change myself.”

I met Tan, my Buddhist teacher almost 25 years ago during a retreat. My life was more of a mess than it is now. I learned to “sit” from Tan. Not sitting in the sense of putting my posterior down on a chair. But cross-legged, on a cushion, quieting the mind, save for my breath. It wasn’t easy. The Buddhists say that the mind is like a drunken monkey on a hot tin roof. Always filling up with new ideas. After the second day, my legs were cramped, my behind sore and I was really wondering what in the world I was doing there. And I was getting really tired of Tan barking at me to sit up straight. Finally, I snapped. “Stop yelling at me.” Tan dismissed the group and then sat down across from me not saying a word. My temper had once again made me a fool. I was regretting the moment immensely. Finally, in a whisper he said “Your life is a mess. All life is a mess. Sitting for half an hour a day may be the best it gets; like a new beginning in the midst of a continual journey. You think I don’t know how to sit? When I was in Vietnam, the Vietcong came to our village. They raped the women, and shot the old men. My mother and father disappeared. Only my grandmother survived holding me in her lap inside of a large basket. We survived because she had taught me to be very still – to sit. We sat for our lives. My grandmother brought me to a monastery and they took me. I was scared and angry. It took me 30 years to learn to let go of the images of that day in the village. Each day I reminded myself, today is a new beginning. Sit and be with this day. Keep that promise.” He stopped, he closed his eyes. I closed mine. And a new beginning was before me.

My 2012 be the year of keeping the promises which truly matter.

With Grace and Grit, John

Brave New Roads of Thanks

2011-11-29T08:19:00.000-08:00

The story is told of the first few years of the pilgrim’s residence in the wilds of New England. Camped precariously on the edge of the great woods, this little band of white settlers had lost much to find their new home in North America. Battered and decimated by the long journey across the ocean, the Pilgrims set up their small settlement at Plymouth Rock. We all know the legend of that first Thanksgiving. Short of food, unfamiliar with the crops of the New World, they were saved; it seems by the generosity of the Native Americans whom they would someday make war upon.

Several years into the new settlement, the Puritan fathers had exhausted their resources, even with planting by the shore. The proposal was made to build a road into the interior to bring wood and other resources to the settlement. Much was said at that meeting but in the end, the fathers voted to not build that road. One young woman stood up after this decision and asked to address the meeting. Reluctantly given permission she said: “Here we have traveled thousands of miles over the most dangerous seas, fleeing a mighty persecution on account of our religion; facing savages not all of who are friendly, and staving off starvation only to be afraid to build this road several miles into the wilderness! Why would God give us such a magnificent creation if not to be seen and used? Wherefore that same courage good gentlemen that carried you here, cannot carry you on?” The assembled voted to build the road.

We can argue, of course, as to whether or not such a road was ever a good idea. After all, these Euro Americans would build a great many roads at a great cost to the environment. We would come to exploit all that the land had to offer and we would, most tragically, come to decimate the native peoples of this land. But the salient message in this apocryphal story is not the road but the courage to create something new. Ours is a world rent and ravaged by war and injustice, this great land for which we give thanks is a torn by sectarian and political divisions. The rich are getting richer and the poor getting poorer. And yet, we have the power to create something new, the power to build a new road into this wilderness of despair and bring people together as we are doing this evening, if only in our own small way. We have the power if we have the courage to speak our mind, and be who we are destined to be like this powerful young woman.

As we journey through the holidays consider the gift of courage for yourself and those you love. We are destined to change our world.

With Grace and Grit, John

Need What You Have

2011-11-10T13:11:00.000-08:00

Perhaps the first act of living a temperate, balanced life is to realize that you need most of what you have; the love of a family, the love of friends, food, shelter, comforts, this church. As we approach a season filled with consumption from things to food, ask yourself what do you really need? I will admit I ask myself this question all the time and it’s not easy to answer. Certainly I don’t need seconds of anything, from food to cars. We live with one car between us; it helps to focus your life and plans. We think about the food that goes into our bodies, it helps create justice for those poor of nutrition and spirit. We think about what we buy, almost always for someone else. We have all we need and then some. There is a distinction to be made though between having enough for your family and having enough for a community. Because a community is made up of people who need as much as they want and giving generously allows the community to respond to real needs such as shelter, health and spirit.

The harder part is needing what you don’t want. None of us wants to get sick but it teaches. It teaches all of us. I had a little reminder of this last week. It had been a full weekend. Frances and I were looking forward to getting home. As we were packing our bags and preparing to leave for the Denver airport, I felt a sudden twinge in my back. No, I thought. Not this. I know this. Within minutes my back was in spasms. Painful spasms. The kind that wrap all the way around your rib cage and with each contraction take your breath away. I laid down on the hotel bed. Now what? How was I going to drive in a car, manage a bus, get through security? There is nothing like pain to sharpen your options. Frances found some painkillers. She drove to the airport. She arranged for a wheelchair. She carried all the bags. She got me home. I laid there for two days. I realized that while I didn’t need the pain, the pain needed to teach me a lesson. To let go, to let God, or at least to let Frances do what she was always capable of doing. None of us is completely alone. Even those who travel alone, have kind strangers to help them along the way.

May we learn to truly want what we truly need,

With Grace and Grit, John

Finding the Hallowed in Halloween

2011-10-27T13:06:00.000-07:00

I ran across this piece by Maria Semple in the New Yorker which I want to share with you. I speaks to the essential angst so many of us feel about Halloween, the Day of the Dead and Autumn festivals. It is a series of emails from a pre-school teacher to her parents.

"Dear Parents: The Mountain Room is gearing up for its Day of the Dead celebration on Friday. Please send in photos of loved ones for our altar. All parents are welcome to come by on Wednesday afternoon to help us make candles and decorate skulls. Thanks! Emily

"Hi again: Because I’ve gotten some questions about my last e-mail, there is nothing “wrong” with Halloween. The Day of the Dead is the Mexican version, a time of remembrance. Many of you chose Little Learners (preschool) because of our emphasis on global awareness. Our celebration on Friday is an example of that. The skulls we’re decorating are sugar skulls. I should have made that more clear. Emily

"Parents: Some of you have expressed concern about your children celebrating a holiday with the word “dead” in it. I asked Eleanor’s mom, who’s a pediatrician, and here’s what she said: “Preschoolers tend to see death as temporary and reversible. Therefore, I see nothing traumatic about the Day of the Dead.” I hope this helps. Emily

"Dear Parents: In response to the e-mail we all received from Maddie’s parents, in which they shared their decision to raise their daughter dogma-free, yes, there will be an altar, but please be assured that the Day of the Dead is a pagan celebration of life and has nothing to do with God. Keep those photos coming! Emily

"Hello. Perhaps “pagan” was a poor word choice. I feel like we’re veering a bit off track, so here’s what I’ll do. I’ll start setting up our altar now, so that today at pickup you can see for yourselves how colorful and harmless the Day of the Dead truly is. Emily

"Parents: The photos should be of loved ones who have passed. Max’s grandma was understandably shaken when she came in and saw a photo of herself on our altar. But the candles and skulls were cute, right? Emily

"Ok Parents: It’s late and I can’t possibly respond to each and every e-mail. (Not that it comes up a lot in conversation, but I have children, too.) As the skulls have clearly become a distraction, I decided to throw them away. They’re in the compost. I’m looking at them now. You can, too, tomorrow at drop-off. I just placed …. Finally, to those parents who are offended by our Day of the Dead celebration, I’d like to point out that there are parents who are offended that you are offended. Emily

"Dear Parents: Thanks to their group e-mail, we now know that the families of Millie and Jaden M. recognize Jesus Christ as their Savior. There still seems to be some confusion about why, if we want to celebrate life, we’re actually celebrating death. To better explain this “bewildering detour,” I’ve asked Adela, who works in the office and makes waffles for us on Wednesdays, and who was born in Mexico, to write you directly. Emily

"Hola a los Padres: El Día de los Muertos begins with a parade through the square, where we toss oranges into decorated coffins. The skeletons drive us in the bus to the cemetery and we molest the spirits from under the ground with candy and traditional Mexican music. We write poems called calaveras, which laugh at the living. In Mexico, it is a rejoicing time of offerings, picnics, and dancing on graves. Adela

"Parents: I sincerely apologize for Adela’s e-mail. I would have looked it over…For now, let’s agree that e-mail has reached its limits. How about we process our feelings face to face? 9 A.M. tomorrow? Emily

"Dear Parents: Some of you chose to engage in our dialogue. Some chose to form a human chain….So we’re all up to speed, let me recap this morning’s discussion:
—Satan isn’t driving our bus. Little Learners does not have a bus. If we did, I wouldn’t still need parent drivers for the field trip to the cider mill. Anyone? I didn’t think so.
—An offering is just a thing we put on the altar. Any random thing. A bottle of Fanta. Unopened, not poisoned. Just a bottle of Fanta.
—We’re moving past the word “altar” and calling it what it really is: a Seahawks blanket draped over some cinder blocks.
—Adela will not be preparing food anymore and Waffle Wednesdays will be suspended. (That didn’t make us any new friends in the rest of the school)
—On Friday morning, I will divide our Room into three groups: those who wish to celebrate the Day of the Dead; those who wish to celebrate Halloween; and Maddie, who will make nondenominational potato prints in the corner.

"Dear Parents: Today I learned not to have open flames in the same room as a costume parade. I learned that a five-dollar belly-dancer outfit purchased at a pop-up costume store can easily catch fire, but, really, I knew that just by looking at it. I learned that Fanta is effective in putting out fires. I learned that a child’s emerging completely unscathed from a burning costume isn’t a good enough outcome for some parents. I learned that I will be unemployed on Monday. For me, the Day of the Dead will always be a time of remembrance.

Happy Halloween!

Emily ♦"
(adapted)
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2011/10/24/111024sh_shouts_semple#ixzz1c0SOfW5R

Halloween is a big deal in my family. In our last church we had a huge party for the entire church and community which we called ghost town. Our entire two acre farm was devoted to the festival. Each year had a theme, one year it was Aladdin and we had live camel rides! Most of our more conservative neighbors politely declined our invitation, one neighbor, a fundamentalist, told me he was considering forming a prayer circle around our property to protect them from evil spirits.

So inflammatory is this holiday that most schools don’t try anything as creative as poor Emily our preschool teacher. Most call it a Fall Festival. Which is really too bad. It’s too bad that Halloween has been hijacked by the gruesome and satanic. A little scary is kinda of fun, clowns that eat children, not so much. It’s too bad for another reason. That this scaring little kids and forming prayer circles to keep the devil at bay are not what Halloween or the Day of the Dead are about. What they are about is honoring the dead while affirming the living. What Halloween is about is scaring off the bad and making fun of the suffering that gets in the way of living. Like Christmas, another great pagan holiday, the eve before all Saints or Souls Day on Nov. 1st and 2nd is about preparing for a celebration of life. On Christmas eve we sing of the coming of prince of peace, and new hope for the world which arrives Christmas morning.

All Hallows Eve is the night of mischief and laughing at the ills of our world preparing a way for the re-affirmation of life the next morning.

For the past three Wednesday afternoons we have been standing on Hawthorne Blvd in Torrance with a large coalition of ordinary people who want their fellow citizens to know that the system of this country is broken, and pretty scary. We were all a bit conscious that there had been bloody clashes with the Occupy movement in Oakland and Atlanta. Still we were there, “looking ridiculous” as one motorist called us, dressed up as ordinary people protesting a corporate world. There were over fifty people, the most ever. A newspaper reporter was there. One motorist made a veiled threat about our rainbow flag, many waved, one woman told us to "get a life".

It was that last comment that made me pause. If anything, we were there standing on the side of love and compassion so everyone can “get a life”, so that everyone can celebrate the life we have been given, to stand up for those who can’t stand, the hold those hurt by the scary evils of this system in our hearts. We stood there on the eve of a new beginning to do precisely that, “get a life”, not just our lives but the lives of those being shattered around us. We are holding the hallowed in our hands, so that others may know the dawn which breaks upon even the most frightening of nights. Happy Halloween.

With Grace and Grit, John

The Challenge of Compassion

2011-10-14T13:02:00.000-07:00

Last Wednesday about a dozen of us stood in front of the Wells Fargo Bank on Hawthorne across from the Del Amo Mall protesting that banks treatment of American Vets returning from our wars to get relief on their mortgages. We were protesting under the Occupy Wall Street movement the fact that 99 per cent of us are being held hostage by a system of government and business that concentrates wealth in the hands of few fed by taxpayer dollars while 20 per cent of this country is unemployed.

We were protesting the fact that lives are being destroyed by a system that is broken and unjust and that needs to be fixed by either huge taxes on the very rich and their corporations or seeing these same corporations, who seem to have piles of cash, use that money to train the workers they claim they need. We were protesting because the system is morally bankrupt and this makes it our religious concern. We were there to stand on the side of love, to stand, at the very least, on a sidewalk in front of one of the most corrupt banks and let people know they are not alone. We didn’t expect to change the world that afternoon but we did want to witness our faith that people, ordinary people, of all colors deserve better.

Many of the motorists who drove by honked in support. We noted that they were mostly Priuses, old cars and public buses, which says a lot. At least one motorist gave us the finger. To which I and others among us felt like giving him one back. As I reflected on that obscenity and my reaction to it, I came to heart of our challenge as religious people. If we stand on the side of love and want to show compassion to those in need, how can we do it when some of those in need either don’t know they are in need or are fearful of what they think we stand for. Compassion is all well and good when the person you are showing it to wants your help. Quite a bit more challenging when they don’t want your help.

I still remember working in a soup kitchen when one of the clients threw the food back at me. I remember how angry I was at his ungratefulness until Frances reminded me that I had the privilege to think receiving a free meal was worthy of gratitude since it only reminded the desperately poor how dependent they are on the largess of the rich. A more compassionate response to either the finger flipper or the homeless man would have been to step away until my anger released its deadly grip. And to realize that it is more likely fear and her sister anger that force others to attack us, just as our reaction is naturally to return that anger and fear.

Compassion begins when we remember our own pain and then realize that anger and hurtfulness are expressions of that same pain in others. I am not saying we let people walk all over us. What I am saying is that we give people, even strangers, victims of injustice, the benefit of the doubt. What I am saying is that if you sat down with them and were able to hear their pain you might be able to judge them in a different light.

With Grace and Grit, John

Butterfly Kisses for Buddha

2011-09-16T16:55:00.000-07:00

My granddaughter Iris was delighted when she discovered what a Butterfly kiss was. “Come closer Grandpa” she said as she fluttered her eyelids against my check. “Now it’s your turn” We went back and forth for ages. She was completely lost in the joy of the moment and I thought of the Buddha’s teaching that happiness resides only in the present. Do not dwell in the past; do not dream of the future, concentrate the mind on the present moment. By living in the present we are so much more likely to be happy than in the past or the future. Happiness then depends on living as much as possible in the present and in showing compassion with to others.

In my last congregation one of my members was a postal carrier. For his entire life he had carried the mail on the same route. He brought letters (remember letters?) bills and checks, good news and sad. He knew his route so well that they would chat with them if they were home, sometimes opening the mail right in front of him and sharing their lives. But his personal life was a mess. His wife died years ago and he had struggled to raise their children. He took care of his mother as she battled Alzheimer’s until she died. He was looking forward to retirement; to spending time with his grandchildren, being able to volunteer at the church, working on his garden. Several months before he was due to retire he asked to see me. He told me he had been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, it was inoperable and terminal. He only had a short time to live. He wanted to know why God did this to him. I told him I wasn’t sure that God did. But more importantly I asked him what he wanted to do with the rest of his time? What would make him happy? Without hesitation he told me that he thought he would keep working. That doing what he did best for as long as he could would make him happy. And so he did. He never told his postal patrons he was dying. He just kept working and living in the present. More than three hundred people came to his memorial service. It was a testament to his life.

Ultimately we are only drops in the great ocean of life. And when we die, the Buddha teaches, we become the drop in the ocean, no longer cognizant of us as being but only one with the ocean. Compassion is the fastest way to realize in this life that you are already that ocean. Several years ago there was a terrible incident in Belgium of a man who kidnapped and tortured six young girls. Three of them died before he was captured. A Buddhist monk by the name of Claude Thomas went to visit the mother of one of the dead girls. For hours she spoke with anger and vengeance. Finally Claude asked her “how can you best acknowledge the meaning of your child’s life by killing her killer or working to change the world in which such crimes happen?” What a challenge! Claude was connecting the mother’s suffering to the suffering of all people. He was connecting her happiness to the happiness of others. Those who take refuge in the present must not ignore the suffering but accept it and seek to change it. Ultimately we are only drops in the great ocean of life. And when we die, the Buddha taught, we become the drop in the ocean, no longer cognizant of us as being but only one with the ocean.

Living in the present. Needing what you have, being who you are, doing what you can. I go by the same coffee shop every morning, and there are the same old men talking about the way things were. Are they happy? It seems to me that the ones who are happy are the ones who talk more about what they are doing now; sharing their stories and their time. I thought to myself, what if each of them, turned over just three hours a week to helping others whether in this church or with an agency instead of watching television, the great teat of consumerism? I am sure some of them do volunteer. But what if we all did. What if we all gave ten percent of our tine and income to making the world better than it is; whether feeding another or building a home for a family in need? What if we saw the world through the eyes of a child? Wouldn’t that make us happy?

With Grace and Grit, John

Beyond 9/11

2011-09-10T08:45:00.000-07:00

The 10th anniversary of the tragedies of 9/11. On a Sunday. A friend asked me if I would preach about 9/11. Why? I asked him. Why re-live the horror of that crisp and clear fall day, why rehase the squandered opportunity to change the world when everyone on this planet was with us, but instead we turned it into a war on an enemy that could never be seen, leaving the devastation of two countries, millions of lives and trillions of dollars in its wake. Why re-visit a horror that has left a culture of fear, and distrust, not to mention the political theatre of the TSA. Why?

We remember this tragic day in passing so that we can first eulogize the fallen, internationals all. I thought it no small irony that the funding for the twin beams of light that shine up from ground zero in NY will go dark tomorrow from lack of funding. Perhaps it is time we buried the horror and came to account for what we have before us now. Beyond 9/11. Right now. I run the risk of course of sounding political here, and I am, a bit. But what we all need to do, our president leading us, is to lean into our reality, not keeping pushing it back like it wasn’t our fault. What did the psalmist say, all is forgiven but many are responsible?

There are conditions to finding happiness: The first is to determine what matters most to you, whom or what do you ultimately serve. Serve that before yourself. The second is to learn optimism, especially in the face of adversity. Most of my children are under if not unemployed, all of them are working hard to make ends meet, and still we laugh. Finally, adopt an attitude of gratitude. Realize that only by being thankful for what is right can we face what is wrong in our lives.

And yet, ultimately we have to face what is wrong. I contend that we have the same potential for happiness today as we had on Sept. 10, 2001. The potential to find happiness hasn’t changed, it’s just harder to realize. And perhaps that realization will be all the more powerful if we can find it in the face of tragedy.

With Grace and Grit, John

Freedoms Call: A Tribute to Dr. King

2011-08-28T09:19:00.000-07:00

Although hurricane Irene postponed the dedication of the new Martin Luther King, Jr. memorial on the Mall, I am reminded that today is the anniversary of Dr. King’s “I have a Dream” speech in his march on Washington. Dr. King ended that speech with the gospel cry, “free at last, thank God all mighty, we are free at last”. If there was every an oration that spoke to power of being called to the freedom that every person so justly deserves, this speech was it. The irony of the remembrance of this event and the unveiling of Dr. King’s memorial with the calls for a return of our country to some private republican ideal is almost too much to bear. Literally in the shadow of his statue, Tea Party activists are calling for a rescinding of affirmative action, governmental oversight of civil liberty and, while flawed, a health care act the brings health insurance to millions of poor people. All this done under the banner of freedom; freedom from government, freedom to earn as much as you please, and freedom to ignore those less fortunate than yourself. Somehow I don’t think this is what Dr. King had in mind by freedom. As Cornel West put it in the NY Times, King would "want a revolution not a memorial" (NYTimes 8/27/11).

Freedom is not just a freedom from what we think oppresses us, freedom is a freedom to practice our religion, care for those in need and live a life of economic dignity. Freedom is not just liberty, freedom entails a responsibility. We are called to freedom as much as we are called out of freedom to change the world.

The question now is and has always been “will we answer the call to freedom, not just for ourselves but for those less fortunate than us?” Will we be able to answer the call to freedom by permitting such hate mongering to be displayed openly for all to see, or would we be better off driving that hatred underground where it won’t get any traction?

Freedom is not freedom to say anything we want or express any truth that comes to our minds. Civil society does not exist to permit just any freedom. We don’t allow child pornography, why would we allow hatred to be so expressed? Will the truth set us free? It depends on which truth.

One of our principles as Unitarian Universalists implores us to affirm and promote a “free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” Of all of our principles, I find this one the most difficult. Just who is it that decides what truth is? Is truth relative to each of us or is there an absolute truth? How do we even know where to look if truth is located only within our own hearts?

We live in a world, post 9/11, wherein freedom is seen to be more complicated than it once was. Charles Black, a Yale law professor asks his first year law students: Suppose a man has planted an atomic bomb in New York City and has been apprehended by the police. Are the police allowed to torture the man to learn the bomb’s whereabouts? Is torture ever morally correct? Most students respond no to the first question, the constitution prohibits torture but surprisingly they say yes to the second, that is torture is morally correct, even torture to death, if it saves millions of lives. When asked about this moral inconsistency, most replied that there is a difference between our laws that protect our freedoms and our individual conscience to save lives at any cost.

I would argue that the two cannot be separated. That the very laws that protect our freedoms, such as freedom from unlawful search and seizure, are the same laws that guide our moral conscience. That the act of torture, regardless of the ends is categorically wrong. Not so much because it denies the worth of the evil doer but because of it denies our humanity as torturers or supporting torture. It was Ralph Waldo Emerson who proclaimed that to deny another’s worth is to deny our own worth (see the Divinity School Address). If we deny the freedoms of others so entitled we deny our own freedom as human beings, whether it is the right to freedom, jobs, health or shelter.

Freedom calls us to protect the freedom of all, because we are a part of that all. This is what the Jewish theologian, Martin Buber, called the I-Thou nature of God. As soon as we start treating others as objects, as "it’s", as means to an end, we deny our essential humanity. We are an “I” because you are a “Thou”, and God lives in the relationships between us. Our freedom calls on us to help those closest to us. Our freedom calls on us to protest, to witness against injustice. How soon we have forgotten the lessons of 9/11 and Dr. King. Now is the time to respond to the freedom calling.

With Grace and Grit, John

Classism

2011-08-15T12:00:00.000-07:00

Classism is a failing of a community to find and hold its soul. We seek to create material, professional and educational status because we are so desperate for recognition from communities too large to care. Status is not the same as role. Some higher status comes with certain roles, doctors for instance. But holding that status as a marker of exclusivity is the disease rooted in a lack of community.

All oppression is about dominance, and keeping people down economically is a core component of this. Dominance is a result of unchecked capitalism, but not a necessary component of it. As Adam Smith, the very father of capitalism wrote “Wherever there is property there is inequality….By having the minds constantly employed on the arts of luxury, people grow …dastardly” (As quoted in How Much do We Deserve by Richard Gilbert, Skinner House 2001) My mother, who came from the upper class used to say that class is the greatest divide. Of course this is from the same woman who, when her grandchildren asked her what a household convenience was in her day, she replied “servants”

We hardly deal with the economic realities that affect each member of our society as whole. Viewing class changed with the financial meltdown and subsequent aftermath. In fact, we have been in this position twice before, during the gilded age of the robber barons and the roaring twenties. Now the real question in the press is the middle class disappearing? (see The Atlantic Sept. 2011 “Can the Middle Class Survive?” http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2011/09/can-the-middle-class-be-saved/8600/)

While that is important, the deeper question is what happened to the soul of our communities that has fostered this new unbridled classism?

The question is, how can we counter this growing classism which is deeply symptomatic with the growing economic disparity this recession has wrought? Creating jobs, which ought to be the job of our government is too large an issue for my topic today, but creating community so that we can counter the growing classism of our little corner of the world is something we can do.

With Grace and Grit, John

Journeys

2011-07-06T15:37:00.000-07:00

When I first entered the ministry it was customary for Unitarian Universalist ministers to take two months each summer to travel, read and reflect on their work. In fact, Unitarian churches were often closed for the summer in New England. There may be good reasons for this: before air conditioning it was hot in those old meeting houses, ministers drove ice cream trucks in the summer, God gave us time off for good behavior. Even when it was expected I never managed to be gone that long. It just didn't seem right to be away from the people whose lives were so intertwined with my own.

So these days I take time off throughout the year but in smaller increments, often combining it with other denominational duties. I will be leaving Sunday evening for a month of Sundays. I will first go to Chicago where I have some work to do on my doctorate (and Frances can visit her family who all live there), then onto New England to visit my family and spend some time in our little cabin off the Maine coast. I will go to read, write and generally relax. It is a great privilege to do so.

I look forward to this journey every year. There is something quite renewing about journeying away whether for a month, a week or even a day. I commend journeying to you this summer. Summer is a special time, a time to be more at ease from our daily lives. What surprise awaits your summer journey?

With Grace and Grit, John

Our Fathers, Our Mothers, Our Lives

2011-06-19T08:49:00.000-07:00

All of us said Carl Jung have a mother and father in us. We live our lives in one or the other, but the soul speaks to both. If we are rule bound and respectful of authority (the father) the soul will call us to be compassionate. If we dismiss pain and struggle as o.k. (I’m ok you’re ok, the mother), the father side of our soul calls us to admit we have fallen. The motherly side says “be careful you might fall”, the fatherly side says “go for it”. Recognize that your soul speaks to you out of your discomfort.

While the mother side of our soul gives us our depth, the father side of our soul gives us our breadth. Perhaps that is why it is so fitting to start summer with father’s day, a fitting time to wander, to explore, to be on a journey, an adventure with the soul. I often bless our family’s meal with the phrase, “We give thanks to mother earth and father sky” Like the sky, and the father within us encourages us to use our freedom, the first cycle of the soul. This fatherly dimension is the true meaning to the ancient understanding of destiny That following, that wandering, like the rest of summer before us, is the father of our soul. We will be good at what we love to do. And love has both a motherly and fatherly dimension. Motherly loves us no matter what, in spite of our failures, fatherly love wants to see some results from your wanderings. What did you learn? What would you have done differently? The rest of summer is the time to learn and grow, and try the new. The motherly is more likely Christmas, a time to come home, the fatherly the time to go out.

Sometimes these live in tension. Should I risk a secure livelihood to become an artist? The motherly side would say, “yes, there might be risks, you might fail, you might get hurt, be careful here” while the fatherly side might say, “go, on, give it a try, how will you know, if you don’t try?” Remember the little cartoons with the devil on what shoulder and the angel on the other debating with the character in the center trying to figure it out? Replace the angel and devil with a mother and father to your soul. That tension is at the heart of who we are. What the Taoists call the Ying and the Yang of all life. One needs the other to be in balance.

With Grace and Grit, Rev. John

Life Needs An End

2011-05-27T10:58:00.000-07:00

Memorial Day was originally a day to honor those who died defending our country. It has expanded to become a holiday welcoming summer and remembering all those who have passed from this life. Recently I have been pondering the wisdom in extending human life indefinitely.

There are real virtues to mortality. We feel the urge of time upon us and it makes us more productive. We strive to give our best knowing that we only have so many chances. We make room for the generations that follow so they too can bring beauty and comfort into the world.

For those who argue that human life is better without death, I would counter that life without death isn’t human or at least not much fun. Vampires never die but they don’t seem to be happy about. In fact, there isn’t any literature to suggest that immortals are happy (except the vague harp strumming immortality of Christian heaven which sounds pretty painful to me); the Greek gods were always fighting, Vampires are like parasites, even science fiction immortals live with a certain tragic sadness.

The power of life is in the living. Life needs an end, just as it needs a beginning. Finitude is good. Mortality makes life matter. To be mortal makes it possible to give one’s life to those who need it most; to the ones we love and the gifts we give. I will be happy to use up my body and give all I have away, sliding into home plate satisfied and exhausted.

With Grace and Grit, John

Osama Bin Laden Had a Mother

2011-05-04T14:55:00.001-07:00

Much has been written this week about the death of Osama Bin Laden. It saddened me, of course, to see people celebrating his death. Blood vengeance is not becoming to our better angels. Jessica Dovey, a grad student living in Japan said it best, encapsulating some words from MLK: I will mourn the loss of thousands of precious lives, but I will not rejoice in the death of one, not even an enemy. "Returning hate for hate multiplies hate, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that." MLK Jr.

(The first sentence is Ms. Dovey's own, followed by a quotation from King's 1963 book, "Strength to Love.")

Osama Bin Laden had a mother. We don’t know what she dreamed he would become but we can be fairly certain it was not to cause the death of thousands of innocent lives at his command and in retaliation for his actions, be the cause of many thousand more deaths by our own forces. We don’t know how hard she tried, but we can be fairly certain that she did all she could to raise him to be a righteous and noble man. I want to believe that if Osama Bin Laden had written a letter to his mother he would have asked for forgiveness. Perhaps. But at the end of the day, our mothers, our fathers, our friends, don’t determine our lives. We do. Heredity is not destiny. Mothers can only try to set us on the course. For better or worse, they have done what they could. The rest is up to us. May the peace this day truly proclaims remind us to hold love in our hearts, because of our mothers, indeed for all living beings.

With Grace and Grit, John

Life Renewed

2011-04-27T12:41:00.000-07:00

There are two sides to living and dying. What once was dead will be renewed to life again. Norma Lindbergh, a long time member of our church and our newsletter editor died at Torrance Memorial last Monday. The family had decided to take her off the ventilator, and make her as comfortable as possible. Teri, our Pastoral Care Director, called me about mid-morning to say that the family needed us as soon as possible. She was at least an hour away. I, oddly enough, was right around the corner at Lowes, where Frances and I were picking supplies for the work party at church. I said I would go even though I was still in my workout shorts from the Y. By the time I got there, Chaplain James Kim, a wonderful man who has known his own share of loss was already holding the hands of the family around Norma. I came in, joined the circle and we prayed. The next few hours as Norma slipped slowly into the light were some of the most intense I have ever experienced at the side of someone dying. We took turns stroking her forehead, the family crying, and my singing (can you believe it? Singing!) Spirit of Life into her ear, urging her on to the light.

Teri joined us at the very end. We cried, we prayed and we said goodbye. I got back in my car, picked up Frances from Lowes and we continued on with our errands. About an hour later, I pulled the car over. I started to cry. I just couldn’t go on with life as it was. A friend had died, a great being, a corrector of my bad grammar. My heart felt like it was breaking. Frances drove me home.

Later that night, her death began to renew me again. I remembered how Norma would remind me that every bad sentence deserves a second chance. So too, I thought, does every life, every failure, every mistake deserve a second chance. Easter was working on me that night. Easter was renewing my life even in so deep a loss.

We learn again, that beyond the stones of our struggles lies a new life of grace and giving, life renewed again.

With Grace and Grit, John

Jesus Was An Immigrant

2011-04-21T13:40:00.000-07:00

As the issue of immigration heats up again in Washington, I wondered what Jesus might have to say about all this. So on this Maundy Thursday before Easter I offer the following reflection.

Jesus was an immigrant like we are all ultimately immigrants. He was and remains a “spirit person”, a demi-god like figure like the Greek God Dionysus and the Egyptian God, Osiris who came to earth to bring completion and wholeness to humanity. The so- called Gnostics believed that the end of the world Jesus spoke of was only a death unto the suffering of life, believed that Jesus was part of a complicated myth of redemption. Once we find our way home, once we stop our wandering we will cast aside our immigrant status and become whole. Jesus claimed that he was sent by God as an immigrant to be a spiritual bridegroom to resurrect the marriage between the Goddess earth and the God father sky in the guise of love for humanity. The cross references to language of the gospels with the imagery of Greek, Egyptian and Near Eastern religions is startling. Some of the symbols such as the chalice, used for the Last Supper come right out of the goddess cults of Canaanite Mesopotamia two thousand years before Jesus was born.

The essential message of this myth is that Jesus was himself a Jewish version of the mythological “savior” which pagan religions had recognized for thousands of years and that he came to symbolize the initiation and transformation of the sinful into a cult of love. A myth which claims that Jesus never really died, because he never really lived. And that his relationships to the immigrants – to the marginal in his society and to women - was meant to deepen the spiritual understandings of patriarchal Judaism.

There really was a man named Jesus who had tremendous charisma and power, who wandered in search of the lost and lonely, those seeking refuge to find a new home where they could be fed. I really don’t care if he lived or died or even if he ate his Wheaties each morning. What I care about is what he means to me and to you and to millions of others who are looking for a hero, a symbol to give their life meaning.

Who was Jesus? He was a healer. The one who defied expectations and laws to simply touch and heal those in need. One of my favorite stories is when he healed the blind man on the Sabbath. Or the chronically menstruating woman on the Sabbath, or the lepers all on the Sabbath, why? Because compassion for those who are suffering knows no conditions. Beyond the laws, the customs, the prejudices, and the national hatreds, Jesus represents the Buddha heart of love, just do it! Just love. Jesus as healer holds great meaning for me personally. I reminded of him each time I give a wino five bucks.. I know he will spend it on drink, so what? For a moment there is peace.

Who was Jesus? He is the redeemer, not for our depraved nature but for our brokenness, which is really all the word sin means. We are all broken. All in need of forgiveness. Jesus taught us though that we need not follow the laws and make a submission to some “higher power” but simply believe that we are worthy in and of ourselves and that no fault, no mistake is so great that it cannot be forgiven. He called it faith. A faith that we can always be made whole again. And yes, while he called for a reversal of the world order, was he not also calling for a reversal of the human condition. Even the richest amongst us suffer, how can they find forgiveness. The real power of Holy Week is for me, not in the orthodox sense of payment for guilt, but in the transformation from triumphant life, to falling down, to even the death of my ego, and the grace which gives me life again. I have fallen, you have fallen, we all we stumble, but a new day will come and we will start again.

Who was Jesus? He is the one who suffered. The Roman cross was the most barbaric form of death imaginable. But its symbolism is powerful to those who ARE suffering. Not because they have good company in Jesus, but because they understand that God suffers with them. The shortest line in the entire bible is in Luke: He wept. Here was a man who understood what the Buddha had understood. Life does hurt. There is pain. But there is a way beyond that pain. Here the feminine side to the mysteries of Jesus come through in shining glory. Jesus was the first world prophet to truly welcome women into his community. Why? Because women understood the essential nature of suffering as something we go through not around. The feminine archetype of Jesus, claimed the great Carl Jung, was in his acceptance of suffering, not in resignation, but in recognition.

Who was Jesus? He was an immigrant reminding us that we are all immigrants of one sort or another, searching for our home. Jesus reminds us that we all wander but we need not be lost. That those who are suffering, the poor, the undocumented, the unjustly imprisoned, need our help. We are all immigrants of the soul, searching for that deeper meaning which gives our life purpose. There is a little bit of Jesus in each of us, wandering in search of meaning and hope.

I met Sister Mary Alice over 20 years ago working for a credit union. She had come in to take out a personal line of credit to help someone with their medical bills. Part of my job was to ask her why she needed this money. I mean, didn’t they have other means? She had one of those truly brilliant faces, she smiled and her eyes twinkled. It was the first time I have heard what has become a rallying cry for universal health care “Without insurance, life turns out differently. This was her insurance for this family. ‘This family’ were Salvadorian refugees. The father had diabetes and she was paying for dialysis so that he might live a few more years. I was not as sensitive back then “But sister” I asked, “Why are you paying to help them? They aren’t even legally here.” Still smiling, she touched my hand “Because young man, Jesus would want me to do it, I am called to do it.” I shook my head and approved the loan.

Only recently have I come to understand which Jesus she was speaking of in this story. It’s not about reason or certainty, it’s about faith. And faith, a faith in life and life’s promise, is what Jesus is really about. We are all immigrants, looking for the kingdom of love again. Jesus is calling on us to remember who we really are.

With Grace and Grit, John

Renewal

2011-04-02T15:06:00.000-07:00

I have begun to focus my ministry each month around spiritual themes. In March I explored the theme of brokenness and how we might begin to find healing. In April we consider the theme of renewal. Spring only reminds us of what is an immutable law of nature; life will always find a way to return. Even in our darkest hours, there are seeds that lay dormant waiting for a little warmth and rain to spring again. It might seem sentimental at best, trite at worst, to proclaim hope in a world as beset with trouble as ours. But consider this: how is that children keep being born, even though their parents know the odds they face. There is something undeniable about wanting to go on, regardless of your circumstances.

The trick is finding a way to go on. Ultimately, all theology (that is, the study of ultimate matters) is pragmatic. What we believe has to make sense to us most of all. When we proclaim that we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of all, we mean, first and foremost, that we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of ourselves. Once we accept that, it is but a short step to loving our neighbor, even when we disagree. In other words, the path to renewal begins with each of us. If we are worthy of living, so are those with whom we share our lives.

Despair begins when we have lost the faith that we are worthy of change. The hardest part of the journey is the first step. We exist for the dual purpose of reclaiming our worthiness as human beings and then, once attained, going out and helping to heal the world. As our bumper stickers tell it: Nurture Your Spirit, Help Heal the World. At either end we are here for each other, ever loving, ever accepting, ever hoping.

With Grace and Grit, John

Holes Everywhere

2011-03-25T13:20:00.000-07:00

Throughout the month of March, I have been speaking and teaching about the spiritual power of brokenness. Despite a thriving stock market, there seem to be holes everywhere. It almost as if we have a cross between an elephant and a kangaroo, a giant beast of misfortune, stomping big holes around the world. The Middle East is on fire with protest. Totalitarian governments are responding by shooting their people. And we are of course ever mindful of our sisters and brothers in Japan, so many thousands who have died in the Tsunami and the dreaded cloud of radioactivity that threatens the very life of the Rising Sun.

What amazes me most about the Japanese is how courageously they are living their lives even as they stumble from one hole to the next in their brokenness. Hanging on a stand in the chancel of our church are a thousand paper cranes, once folded by our children for our partner church in New Orleans, which now stand as a silent prayer of strength for our Japanese brethren.

The Japanese know, as the Buddha so long ago taught, that our brokenness is our first reality. The many holes these brave people are falling into and climbing out of is life. And yet, we live our lives not in the holes, but around them.

The Buddha would agree. Reality is an illusion. What we suffer is only a momentary sensory hiccup in the true emptiness of the universe. If we see the holes we fall into as illusions, we are suddenly free from trying to get out. The holes will vanish in time.

All of this is true in a sense. As the medieval mystic Julian of Norwich reminds us:

"Whatever we inherit from the fortunate
We have taken from the defeated
What they had to leave us—a symbol:
A symbol perfected in death.
And all shall be well and
All manner of things shall be well"

We live and die, and eventually we cease suffering, we cease from falling into the holes of our lives. Falling gracefully, we are released.

With Grace and Grit, John

Further Brave Living

2011-03-04T13:24:00.000-08:00

Much has changed as we live farther into this new millennium. The revolution in Egypt made possible by social networks such as Twitter and Facebook, was a hopeful sign that technology can aid us in our dreams for a better world. But technology can also work against us as evidenced by such threats as identity theft. Ten years is a long time in a world of accelerating change. Gone for many is that sense of buoyancy, the faith in our ability to change the world for the better, even the security of our homes and investments, if we were lucky enough to have them seem threatened. In its place is an all too familiar litany of woe: unemployment well over ten percent, a post-terrorist world that makes us fearful to travel, a new sense of frugality born out of disaster, world hunger, violence as real as ever and a planet that is growing ever warmer.

While it is true that for many of us our faith in what we held most dear has been shaken, there is still much to believe in. The difference is that we have to believe with more courage than we did before. I still believe that we are created equal even if it seems our economy has made some more equal than others. I still believe that God calls us to act with compassion and justice, even when it seems that our actions are thwarted by institutions too large to care. I still believe people want to do the right thing, even when instant news tells us continually about those who do wrong.

As Angela Henderson our intern minister so bravely reminded me, all of our nostalgia about how great it was a generation ago, she reminded us that it wasn’t so great if you were a woman, or gay or African American. It took courage to live in those simpler days as well. The world may have been simpler but there were fewer opportunities for entire classes of people to make a difference. While the world is faster and more complex than ever, individuals can make much more of a difference. The revolution in Egypt began with a handful of people sharing their dreams through the internet.

However, it wasn’t the internet alone that made the revolution in Egypt possible. It was people going into the streets with other people. Hopeful change may begin with social networking but, ultimately, it takes the courage to go out and be with others that creates a better world. Now more than ever, we need to exercise our faith by joining with others in community centers and places of worship. We need to look into the eyes of those we first met online.

It takes courage and effort to create good in this brave new world. I am reminded of what an elderly Buddhist monk once told me: “Life is hard. Stand up straight. Breathe deeply. Walk with courage. And touch others with love.” This is what it means to live bravely with faith in a world ever new. Be ever brave. Walk on together.

With Grace and Grit, John

Love's Glitter As Well

2011-02-17T12:49:00.000-08:00

When I was in India many years ago, I visited a Buddhist shrine. Now there are not a lot of Buddhist shrines in India despite it being the homeland of the Buddha. I watched as devotees, placed garlands and fruit at the feet of the serene and solid Buddhist statue. But the truly amazing was when a young woman opened up a small vial of what looked like paint and brushed it on the face of the statue. It was gold leaf. As one Buddhist put it “The Buddha’s statue is our refuge , but the gold is our adoration”.

The statue is our refuge but the gold is our adoration. Let us ponder that a bit. Think of all that you rely on in being with the ones you love. They bring you a certain sense of peace on good days, and annoyance on bad days. I can rely on my children to call me on my birthday. I can rely on them to call me when they need something. There is an understanding, a connection there. Not always what we might hope for but a connection none the less. Love is most often not the miraculous but the reliable. It is the basis for the day to day relationships we have. Ellen Goodman one of my favorite columnists once wrote: “We are told that people stay in love because of chemistry, or because they remain intrigued with each other, because of many kindnesses, because of luck. But part of it has got to be forgiveness and gratefulness in living day to day.”

The statue of our love is what we truly married to. In any relationship, it’s the little daily acts that hold a relationship together. And it entails, reciprocity, forgiveness and gratitude. Honestly, we are not married to love when those we love are never returning the favors of our love. It’s not a bank balance sheet but it is a feeling that you could rely on that person if you needed them. What is your best friend? The person you call in the middle of the night to bail you out of jail.

But we need the glitter as well. We need the amazement. It is the glitter that amazes me. It needs to be a little unusual, a little edgy even, but don’t ever be afraid of surprising the ones you love. Every year, my father would throw a surprise birthday party for my mother. Now she could count on him to throw the party but she was almost always surprised in how he did it. She would make him promise to never do it again, but he would. He would because he understood that amazement was necessary to love.

I try to carry love's glitter forward as well. Frances and I just celebrated 26 years together in the beautiful vineyards of Santa Ynez. We all have our struggles, but a bit of glitter, helps us be an inspiration to those we love. It’s not always so. We shouldn’t stay with people who are not treating us well, or where it’s all one way and not another. No amount of amazement will make that right. But even the most fragile relationship can be made better by a little amazement. We all need a little glitter as well.

With Grace and Grit, John

The Hero in Us All

2011-01-18T14:20:00.000-08:00

At the memorial service for those killed by the gunman in Tucson, President Obama said “Our hearts are broken by their sudden passing. Our hearts are broken - and yet, our hearts also have reason for fullness…heroism is here, all around us.”

If ever there were hero’s among us, these six brave people, and the 13 who have survived including Rep. Giffords, earn that accolade. A hero is not someone who lives an extraordinary life; a hero is someone who does something extraordinary with their life. And these brave men, women and a little girl were doing something extraordinary by living out their faith in our country and democracy. They did something extra-ordinary, when they tried to shield others from harm. The survivors did something extraordinary when they tackled the gunman to the ground, while other’s rushed in to help. Ordinary people doing something extra-ordinary in times of great peril. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it: “A hero is no braver than an ordinary man, but he is braver five minutes longer.”

This is the heroism we are called to live for. This is the sort of bravery we need to face the struggles of our brave new world. And all of us have been doing it for some time. I have a box full of stories about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. When serving as the chairman of the Human Rights Commission in Frederick, MD I met Sheryl, an ordinary woman working at an office job. Sheryl is white, a middle age mother of six, but, when one of her co-workers who was African American was clearly being harassed by a racist boss, she stood up for her. Her co-worker had a sick child, and she often would have to make arrangements for his care. This was all in keeping with the company’s liberal time management policy but the boss kept threatening her co-worker with losing her job. Sheryl had a child about the same age who was also often sick. She wasn’t treated that way so, with a great deal of courage, she walked into her boss’ office and complained about how her co-worker was being treated. At first he just listened perhaps a bit stunned, that she would do this. But then he became indignant and threatened her with her job. She didn’t bend, although she wanted to. She stood her ground and told him she would have to report the harassing behavior. He didn’t change and she reported him to his superiors and to the Human Rights Commission because this was clearly “on the job discrimination”. Sheryl was suspended but not fired. We went to work on her behalf and with time and patience, she and her co-worker were restored and the boss moved to another location. Heroes in our midst. There are so many other stories closer to home. As one of us wrote me this week there are so many workers today that are very afraid of losing their jobs, especially when there are six more people waiting to fill their shoes. And still there are heroes that stand up for fellow workers, take furlough days and unpaid vacations so that their fellow workers can go on. Not always with relish, but going on nonetheless.

When Martin Luther King was first asked to be the spokesman for the Montgomery Bus Boycott, he was anything but thrilled. King, like so many heroes, was an introvert by nature, and quite conflict adverse. But he sensed God calling and responded accordingly. He gave the rest of his life to racial justice. Several months before his appearance in Memphis TN in support of the sanitation workers strike, a friend asked him “how would this end?” King, answered softly, “with my death”. Like so many heroes who have been too long in the field he knew his time was coming to a close.

Just as Moses would not enter the promised land so too with Dr. King and so many heroes. Like Moses, King was a “freedom caller” who led people across the desolate landscape of hatred and bigotry. Like Moses, King reminded us that there will always be a struggle for freedom, who after the passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, turned his attention to the rights of the poor and ending the Vietnam war. And like Moses, King died in sight of the promised land, but not able to enter it. We are still waiting at its borders today. True, we have elected our first African American president, but freedom is still denied our GBLT brothers and sisters, the disabled, the poor and immigrants. The truth that is our American ideal has not yet set them free.

The heroism of Martin Luther King inspired heroism in those he came in contact with. Ordinary people like Rosa Parks who decided not to give up her seat for a white man. Heroes like Viola Liuzza a young catholic woman who drove civil rights workers to Selma and was ambushed and killed by the KKK. Heroes like our own Unitarian minister, the Rev. James Reeb, who along with two others was killed by a white gang after trying to desegregate a lunch counter. Ordinary people doing extraordinary things.

With Grace and Grit, John

Brave New World

2011-01-03T14:42:00.000-08:00

We welcome a new year very much different from where we were ten years ago. In January 2001 "google" was not yet a verb and the horrors of 9/11 and two wars in unequal retribution had not yet happened. We were full of hope at beginning of a new decade and a new millennium. Much has changed as we face the next decade of this new millennium. Gone for many is that sense of buoyancy, the faith in our ability to change the world for the better, even the security of our homes and investments, if we were lucky enough to have them. In its place is an all too familiar litany of woe: unemployment well over ten percent, a post terrorist world that makes us fearful to travel, a new sense of frugality born out of disaster, world hunger and violence as real as ever and a planet that is growing ever warmer.

It would be easy to look at this new world and decide to hunker down into a bunker of self interest. It would be easy to say, "I will look out for me and mine and forget the rest of the world". It would be easy and it would be wrong. Because we do not believe in some afterlife that will save us, we are compelled to do all we can about the life we still have before us. This is the heart of our liberal faith: we can make a difference, however small.

In years past I would spend the waning days of the year's calender resolving to make my own life better next year. Diets, financial stability, more time for relationships. Somehow those resolutions seem trite to me now; more like common sense than something worth resolving to do. My resolutions this year are more relevant to this new world we face. I resolve to give ten percent of my income to helping others, including my faith. I resolve to work more forcefully for interfaith and international understanding. I resolve to give voice to the plight of those marginalized by our society. These are my resolutions this new year. They are impossibly large and hard to measure but they are brave. What are yours?

With Grace and Grit, John

Miracle off Fifth Avenue

2010-12-16T14:51:00.000-08:00

When my first business failed in 1983, I felt exiled and alone. I was a thousand miles from anywhere I would want to call home and Christmas was coming. I watched slowly, painfully as the auctioneer sold my hard work and dreams away, knowing full well that whatever I had left would go to the banker and still leave me bankrupt. Three months before this moment of darkness, my divorce was final and my life was on a downward spiral. My best friend at the time was a bartender, and nothing seemed right in the world. Iowa is cold in December, that year it was colder than ever.

I spent the next year, waiting for a second chance. But nothing, not the alcohol, not the drugs, not the new job and not even a new relationship made anything about that dull pain O.K. I was alone off Fifth Avenue in New York City walking back from a party I didn't even want to be at, when I witnessed a miracle. I watched from across the street as a man, a rather wealthy man, walked quite briskly past a homeless man lying over a steaming grate. He took two steps past the man, stopped, turned around, and knelled by his side. The well-dressed gentleman took off his camel hair overcoat and draped it over the sojourners shoulders. This was an expensive coat mind you, easily costing over a $1000 and then he patted the old man gently reaching into his pocket and handing him a wad of money. No words were said. The well-dressed man got up and walked away, ever more briskly than before as if he was trying to make up for lost time.

I knew in that moment that there would never be enough reasons to feel good enough about my life if I kept blaming the world for my troubles. At that moment I had a revelation, an epiphany, the first light of my own salvation from none other than my own sorry self. I was living in material abundance but my soul was wanting a reason to live. I realized in that moment that there were angels all around me, in that rich man, who was as much a part of the problem as his overcoat solution, they were around the old man lying in the street keeping him warm enough to remind us that we, Yes WE my friends are the hands of God that make a difference, and I, lonely, sad, self-pitying, John Morehouse, was right there in those same angel arms, finding for the first time in years, a peace in my soul.

My way all find the grace of small miracles in this time of darkness. May we all find peace in this season of light.

With Grace and Grit, John

Chores of the Season

2010-12-09T14:15:00.000-08:00

All of us live with daily chores. Taking out the trash, washing dishes, cleaning the toilet. How often do we see those tasks as sacred work? How often do we realize the deeper metaphors that simple work entails? One friend told me recently that he loathed taking care of his ailing father. Here he was changing his father’s diapers as his father had once changed his. It made him feel something between disgust and pity. Until the day came when his Dad turned to him and said, “I am so sorry son that you have to do this”. Suddenly, he saw the man, not the figure he had resented all those years, suddenly his heart burst with love, an angel within giving him the wisdom to understand that all of us need love no matter what. With tears in his eyes he kissed his dad on the cheek and said “Its no problem Dad, I am just paying you back. I love you.”

The first chore of our angels is to remind us to love and praise. Every angry word, every hurt, while not forgotten can be forgiven. But our angels also remind us to strive, to interfere with what is wrong with our world as Bobby Kennedy once said:

"It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time someone stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or interferes with injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of hope.”

Most of all, I believe the chores of our angels is to help us expend energy where it is needed most. This may be the best scientific argument for angels I know of. The Catholic mystic Matthew Fox and the biologist Rupert Sheldrake make a compelling case that the law of entropy which states that energy flows from its highest to lowest forms might actually have a moral dimension. Who can say the Universe doesn’t think? Who can say we aren’t called to help those who have less energy, measured in money, shelter, health and love, than we have? (The Physics of Angels: 1996) After all, those rich Wall Street Bankers are not taking any of their money with them; they leave it to their kids or the ex-wife, or, if some see the light, maybe even a charity. You get to decide. And who is to say we aren’t being called by our better selves to expend that energy where it is needed most?

Bill and Melinda Gates have it right. Provide more than enough for your heirs but leave the rest to those who need it more than you ever would. Isn’t that a chore we can fulfill? Instead of bemoaning the fact that the Democrats have failed to provide a social safety net for those in need, why not take some of that tax you now won’t have to pay and do their job for them? Your church, a charity, a friend in need; you are already being called. It’s not a bother, it’s a privilege. It’s a sacred chore that might actually be calling us on this holiday season. From greater energy to lesser. The chores of our angels. Calling us to strive for a better world.

With Grace and Grit, John

Thanks and No Thanks

2010-12-02T11:15:00.000-08:00

It seems to me that every thanksgiving should have a time to remember what we want to do away with as much as what we are thankful for. Perhaps this is the purpose of New Year's resolutions but what do we say 'no thanks' to?

I say no thanks to this economic recovery masquerading as "slow but steady". If this is slow I would hate to see slower. Yesterday the unemployment benefits for millions of Americans ran out because some in Congress think we are "coddling" the unemployed. I know half a dozen people who are out of work and I can tell you that aren't feeling coddled by unemployment checks. They are desperately seeking work and barely surviving.

I say no thanks to pretending that climate change isn't a reality just because the party in power says so. We are melting. And we need to do something about that now.

I say no thanks to putting up with bullies, whether those we know personally or public figures who think they can call us ungrateful. The reality is that most people want to do the right thing if they have the means. In this troubled world, it is sometimes hard to remember the less fortunate. Still most of us try.

Today at the grocery store I saw a woman, while clearly not wealthy herself, gave an extra twenty dollars to the feed the hungry program at the check out. She inspired me to give forty.

I still give thanks for the millions who, despite their own troubles give food, shelter and money to those in need this holiday season. They are the real angels on earth, the true embodiment of grace.

With Grace and Grit, John

We Are All Ministers

2010-11-13T14:51:00.000-08:00

Many years ago I served a small church that always seemed to be clean. I mean spic and span clean. And painted. I had assumed that all this good work was being done by the small group of volunteers that took care of the grounds. I recognized them for the cleanliness of the place from the pulpit. After the service a woman came up to me and said “Rev. John we appreciate your comments about the building but it wasn’t our doing. It was Glenn.” “Glenn?” I asked in amazement. “Yes” she said, “he comes in here very late every Saturday night and cleans this place spotless.” I looked around but Glenn was not in the coffee crowd. As I asked around I learned even more. Glenn turned out to be doing important ministry. Not only did he clean the church but he made sure that the few shut ins in our congregation had their homes picked up as well. It occurred to me that I had missed something very important.

That afternoon I stopped by his house. Glenn was a bachelor, living simply. “Come in Rev. John” he said, as if he had been expecting me. He offered me coffee, “Glenn I had no idea it was you who was cleaning the church each week….” He put up his hand “Now I don’t want to talk about that, that is nothing. I don’t have much money to give so it’s the least I can do.” Wow! I thought to myself, if that’s the least you can do, I’d like to see the most! I was incredibly humbled. I was about to be even more so. “John” he said, “I’m dying. I didn’t feel well this morning which is why I didn’t make it to church. I don’t want your pity, although prayers would be nice, this can’t be changed, I have the cancer. I’m 87 years old, it’s been a good life and I am ready to go. But before I go, I need you to know about the money. I am leaving the church in my will and I want the money to go to two things; a new garden and some playground equipment for those kids. Will you see to that?” I was in awe of his ministry and generosity. “Yes Glenn” I said quietly, “I will see to that”. “There is one more thing Rev. John” “What’s that Glenn?” “I don’t want any recognition of my decision until after I die.”

One year later, on a cold spring day we dedicated a new garden and play ground set to a man who understood what ministry was really about. I believe we all have a ministry, a grace to give the world. If only we will set it free.

With Grace and Grit, John

You Choose

2010-10-22T14:14:00.000-07:00

Too often I think we judge the world, others and ourselves by someone else’s measure of what should be. I am the exact same age as George Clooney. I look nothing like him, nor am I as rich, nor as smooth. But seriously, why would I want to be George Clooney? If I were George Clooney, I wouldn’t be a minister, I wouldn’t be serving a church I love, I wouldn’t be married to the love of my life, I wouldn’t have the children and grandchildren I adore. I am who I am for a reason, I may not understand that reason but I do my best to meet the challenges of each day with grace and humor. That is choosing to live out the potential I am given. I make mistakes but I try to learn from them, for mistakes are part of our potential as well.

We can look at the world any number of ways; as half full or half empty, as wanting or more than enough. We can see ourselves and each other as yet unrealized potential of compassion and love or as selfish beings ruled by the secular virtues of possession, consumption or competition. Each view is actually valid. So you get to choose. Which will it be? Am I a person waiting to be even more giving or a person afraid there won’t be enough love or money to keep me safe? Which will it be? Will we celebrate our gifts and try to reach out to those in need, or will we believe we can’t really afford that, we have to tighten our belt, get real, survive. Each of these world views is a potential. But we get to decide, individually and collectively. We choose.

With Grace and Grit, John

Agonistic Respect

2010-09-16T14:35:00.000-07:00

Today we stand at the cross roads of pluralism. Layers upon layers of identity create frictions of differing world views, greased from one to the next by the media and the internet. The debacle over the burning of the Koran, despite a worldwide out pouring of tolerance and restraint shows us just how powerful identities can be and how difficult it can be to find a middle ground. The six decade struggle between Israelis and Palestinians is the longest running example of the ugly side of pluralism.

The sad news is that this will not get any easier. With the speed of media transmission and the demise of news reporting towards the blogs of political position staking, we are in a world of agony. What will save us? How can we help save this world?

I have been struggling with this question for many years. All my professional life I have believed that we could dismantle fears through understanding and dialogue. I founded an interfaith alliance after the attacks of 9/11. I have invited Muslims to preach in my pulpits. I partnered with a Pentecostal minister to achieve civil rights in housing and employment. I have initiated discussion groups with Christians, Jews and Muslims. I have done all this, and while I and those who participate feel good about that work, I have to say honestly that I am not sure it has made much difference.

What I found is that inclusive pluralism does not necessarily lead to meaningful social change. Increasingly, I found myself frustrated with the reluctance of inter-faith organizations to work together towards change practically (such as feeding the hungry) much less politically (such as taking a policy stand on hunger). The dialogue we encouraged seemed to keep us safe from our differences as long as it was wrapped in the mantle of respect. These inter-faith organizations shied away from action because to do so would be to offend the other or, even worse, to risk censure by the religious authorities these good meaning people had to report to.

The result of this was a disappointment and a retreat for me. Not only did I begin to disengage from inter-faith work, but I stopped trying to involve others in that work.

Something, fortunately, has changed. I realized it this summer while studying in Chicago. It was there that I met young and committed people, Unitarians, Buddhists and Christians who understood that while dialogue is a first step, ultimately it takes something more. And that something more is happening.

Micah’s Porch is a universalist community church in Chicago dedicated to bringing people of radically different religious and political views together for worshipping the God of Love and, more importantly working together side by side to change the world (see link below) . And the important characteristic is that the members of this church are almost all under forty, most under thirty years of age. Evangelical Christians alongside professed pagans working on the front lines of a soup kitchen. The more I learned about this model, the more enchanted I became. Could this actually be the respect that might save our increasingly pluralistic world?

There is a generational shift occurring right around us. I believe we must acknowledge that shift and be a part of it or we will fade into mediocrity as people of faith. The prevailing theology of fundamentalism is there is only one way: One mountain, one path. Those of you who are older than me are inclusive of other religions: One mountain, many paths but our path is best ;). My late boomer generation is more pluralistic, believing that we may not have the best path towards ultimate meaning: One mountain, many paths, take your pick. The generation of my children, are “radical pluralists”; willing to engage from multiple faith perspectives: Many mountains, many paths, (and a few valleys) all good. Our role must be not to hold stubbornly to what we once were (you are welcome but here is how we do things) to helping us shift to what our more progressive children call “many kinds of welcomes”. We will need to create more, not less, spiritual opportunities; pagan circles, Buddhist meditation, even bible study. But even more important than that is how we can partner with people who are agonizingly different than us. Religious liberals working alongside members of a fundamentalist church.

The name for this paradigm shift is what the philosopher William Connolly calls “agonistic respect”, centered on social action towards the most vulnerable in our community. “Agonism implies a deep respect and concern for the other; indeed, the Greek agon refers most directly to an athletic contest oriented ...the importance of the struggle itself.” (Wikipedia)

Agonistic Respect. Agonizing as in agony. Respect as in accepting the other people as people. Protecting your enemy from an unjust death. Building a house with someone who thinks that even though you seem nice, you are going to hell because you have not accepted Jesus as your only savior.

The reason we have to do this is because the alternative is untenable. We can remain for the next fifty years being comfortable with who we are, attracting and surrounding ourselves with people just like us or we can be truly open to grace: we can make an effort to work alongside others who are very different than us.

Where talking fails to promote a radical pluralism in this post modern age, perhaps acting will. In Connolly’s words: “…Agonistic respect is a cardinal virtue of deep pluralism.” We might actually learn more about what we truly believe, not in discussion groups, but in action groups. Less talking more doing. Facing grace through our actions not our words.

One of my greatest insights recently was that I have been measuring success with the wrong yard stick. I have been trying to create a common theology from which our action can emerge, when what is needed is to engage in a common action through which theological understanding can emerge. The kind of trust that comes from working together breaks down the barriers that exclusivist doctrines have erected. By working alongside people of different, even agonistic faith positions, we will not only broaden our own religious understanding, but encourage those of other faiths to broaden theirs.

Perhaps even more importantly such multi-faith action will move us towards relevancy with the next generation of radical religious pluralists. Rather than arguing or even acting from within a doctrine, such multi-faith social justice orientations might open doors of understanding and deepen our faith. The Christian proclamation “That if you want peace work for justice” can just as easily be understood by the Buddhist understanding “That if you want justice work for peace”. True pluralism might actually be more likely among those engaged in multi-faith justice making which actually compels us to live out our beliefs in the company of others who might challenge those beliefs.

And when you truly understand the other you soften the edges of your differences. I am not saying we are all the same anymore. We are different in more and more ways all the time. Where before we could unite under the banner of our nationalities or political persuasions, I realize now that our pluralism has overtaken those identities. They are not enough to hold us together. The downside of so much diversity is a tendency to segregate into smaller groups. That is how a wacko Pentecostal minister in Florida can get the President of the United States to pay attention to him. He never claimed to represent Pentecostalism, just his little church “doing the work of the Lord” by burning Korans.

What will hold us together beyond our increasing pluralism is a respect of the other as other. The generations that will follow us will not have the ability to unite us all in a "brotherhood of man". But they will have the time to take on projects together that help people in need. And that may just be enough to save the world.

With Grace and Grit, John

http://www.micahsporch.org/

We Must Be Prepared

2010-09-09T12:43:00.000-07:00

This Saturday will be the ninth anniversary of 9/11 a time when the terror of the world came home. In many ways, not much has changed since then; the poor are still getting poorer and the rich richer. Corporations have more power than before. And we are clearly the world’s imperial power. But in other ways, subtler, and more personal, life has changed for almost all of us. We grieve those losses still, with a mixture of sorrow and righteous anger. We have politicized that anger in our foreign policy and we have ratified our fear domestically through terror alerts and homeland security.

Our world is such a fragile place. A pastor in Florida is planning on burning Korans this Saturday in protest to Islam as “a religion of the devil”. Religious pundits are making political hay from speaking out against an Islamic center being built near the World Trade Center. Religious intolerance seems as prevalent today as it was on 9/11/2001. If we ever needed to work toward restoration in our world and even among ourselves this would be the time.

What happens after a traumatic event, an illness, a disaster, a fight, or the loss of a loved one is that we tend to lose our way. We become fearful, we change. We hunger for a return to our true and better selves. I believe that all this anger and conservative backlash, including Glenn Beck’s “I Have a Scheme” speech on the National Mall around the same time MLK gave his dream speech a while back, is a misguided attempt at restoration. A return to what is familiar is often born of fear. What we need, rather, is a return to promise and hope, along with the loss and change which brings us through our darker hours.

In order to be restored we must be prepared to speak out against fear. We must be prepared to speak truth to ignorance. We must be prepared to bear witness to reason and love. We must be prepared to stand on the side of love.

With Grace and Grit, John

Being Different About Indifference

2010-08-19T13:01:00.000-07:00

We talked long into the humid summer evening about what was so different about Unitarianism. He reminded me that we have led the way on immigrant rights in opposing the new law in Arizona, which we now seem to be the leading denomination. “But” he reminded me “you have sterilized your faith of one the greatest difference makers of all time: Jesus” And then that minute he emailed me a poem by the Christian poet, Studdart Kennedy:

“When Jesus came they hung him on a tree

They drove nails through his hands and feet and made Calvary

They crowned him with a crown of thorns red his wounds and deep

For those who were crude and cruel days and human flesh was cheap

When Jesus came to Birmingham they simply passed him by

They never hurt a hair of him they only let him die

For men have grown more tender and they would not give him pain

They only passed down the street and left him in the rain

Still Jesus cried “Forgive them, for they know not what they do” and still it rained the winter rain and drenched him through and through

The crowds went home and left the streets without a fight to be

And Jesus crouched against the wall and cried for Calvary.”

When he continued he was quieter now, clearly feeling his way to the right words as a former Southern Baptist, “Jesus” he said “can still be a hero for all of us. He represents our collective struggles; sometimes tortured, but more often ignored. That’s what so many don’t get about Christianity. We focus so much on the exclusion, but all of us feel wounded, as Jesus reminds us, all of us suffer. And sometimes the worst suffering is to be ignored.”

The worst kind of indifference comes from ignoring the very existence of another. How many of us good meaning folks, he asked me, just go sleepwalking by the ones who are most vulnerable, perhaps even in our own communities?

I thought about my own dark moments of the soul. When my business and marriage were failing, I would have given anything to have someone notice the beast perched on my shoulders, but no one wanted to interfere. His point was well made: the first step to undo the indifference in our lives may be to recognize that the person next to you may be angry or surly for a reason. And then to ask “what is happening with you?”

Normalcy can be a mask of indifference. So often evil is done not by the people who are bad, but by people who do nothing. When the Baptist Church in Birmingham was bombed in the early days of the civil rights movement, the good white folks kept their distance, only the Unitarian minister, his president and another lay person walked down the dusty lane to pay their condolences. All they said was that they were sorry and then everyone, black and white cried. It didn’t change the bombing but it changed the world after the bombing. “All it takes for evil to flourish is for a few good people to do nothing” wrote Edmund Burke. Poor election results are only a symptom of what we need to see. That we have to care; we have to feel the Jesus in all of us. And we have to care with seeing that pain in those closest to us.

We can make a difference with our money and our time but most of all with how we notice the differences with those we know and love. The difference we make is so much more than you think; even the smallest moments of kindness can reverberate through the universe.

With grace and grit, John

A Tale of Two Forests

2010-08-08T06:39:00.000-07:00

I just left the Maine coast where our family has a summer cabin. The trip was elegantly restful. The mornings were spent reading, writing and, after breakfast, repairing the old cabin. We have become the quintessential American family much to our dismay; a family scattered on two coasts who dreams of coming together again someday. The cabin in Maine, first envisioned by my mother, and built by our families over three decades, is as close to home as we have. I call it my "soul's home" and I find I must repair to its simplicity every summer.

After lunch, we went hiking. The Maine woods, especially coastal Maine, is a more sylvan experience than the crashing California surf line I call my current address. The woods are old; built on thousands of years of vegetative waste atop solid granite, they unfold to the sea shore, all roots, and moss and streams. To walk in them towards the coast, especially at high tide, is to meet an old friend.

Frances remained on the island to work and meet our daughter Emma and her friends for another week. I stepped off the ferry onto a bus and then a plane for the trip west, shocked at how jarring the so-called 'real' world can be when you have been virtually disconnected from the web. Indeed, the web, as Nicholas Carr in his new book The Shallows points out, throws a net over our minds, limiting our attention, and flattening our ability to do deep thinking. Another argument for the spiritual practice of reading a real book for an hour a day.

Arriving in Oregon, I, son-in-law Aaron and grandkids went for a beautiful hike into the mountains to see the most amazing waterfall. As we hiked along the rushing stream, I commented how different this forest was from the sylvan woods of Maine; more majestic, even dramatic, dry and towering, the water of the falls shouting out into the cathedral of trees. Indeed, these are much younger and impetuous hills. Where the forest of downeast Maine was restful, the forests of the Oregon Cascades were thrilling. Each has its place.

All of which helped me realize that grace meets us in different ways. The throb of mediocrity, can, if we permit it, yield to new resolve. The thrill of excitement can give way to a serious reflection on why more of our life isn't that way. The weariness of body and soul can find rest in a simple walk in the woods.

In a week I return to Southern California and the more pressing work of our congregational life. I am deeply thankful for the forests and the space they have provided me. Even more thankful for the nature of my vocation that helps me step back and see not only the trees but the very leaves that give them life.

With Grace and Grit, John

At Least We Can Try

2010-07-27T08:01:00.000-07:00

I just finished an intensive course in public theology at Meadville/Lombard Theological School at the University of Chicago. Other than the blistering heat, the ideas and energy expressed by my colleagues, gave me hope about the future of our faith as progressive liberals. One of the primary ideas came from our professor Dr. Micheal Hogue. Drawing on the work of William Connolly, Dr. Hogue expressed the need to embrace the radical pluralism of the new generation of thinkers: multiple platforms of understanding, respectfully co-existing around projects that help the most vulnerable.

The most challenging task for me is to bring those of radically different, even antagonistic faith traditions together around such projects. Its one thing for Unitarian Universalists and Catholics to work together toward the promise of justice, quite another to ask a fundamentalist who doesn't even think the world is worth saving.

At the end of the day, I realized, what matters is that we at least try. Grace works its way into our lives when we prepare the way for the possibility of very different people to work together. If we throw up our hands and say it can't be done, the only certainty is that it won't.

I walked away understanding that justice can be done, even between those who see the world differently; not because we are all the same, but because God calls us to help in more than one way.

Now if I can just get that idea down in less than twenty pages while enjoying our retreat to Maine.

With Grace and Grit, John

The Grace of Neighbors

2010-07-15T12:05:00.000-07:00

While I was serving as the Chair of the Human Relations Commission in Frederick, MD we heard from one woman, an African American who had moved into a very white neighborhood. She had just lost her husband and son in a traffic accident, and, as a single Mom, she was doing her best to raise her other son. Her new home was to be a place of hope and renewal. It turned out to be a living hell. Her next door neighbor, a bigoted and angry man started calling her the ‘n’ word. When she ignored him, he upped the ante. He started calling the police and telling them she was trespassing on his land. She put up a fence. He installed video cameras over the top of the fence. She put up tarps, he built a watchtower. Her life was so out of control. Her neighbors became her saving grace. They took turns watching her house while she was at work. They walked her son to the bus stop. When finally, this hate filled man blasted this poor woman with a high pressure hose, she went to the police to file charges. They had been expecting her. In fact, because of her neighbors they already had a task force assigned to stop this madman. But as I found out, stopping hate is not so easy. He had a good lawyer. But because of her neighbors, and a new hate crime bill that had just passed the Maryland State legislature, he was convicted, forced to move and she had her life back.

I commend to you a sense of neighborliness when life is out of control. We had our first break in in our neighborhood since we moved here five years ago. Someone broke into our neighbor’s home across the street while she was away at Fourth of July festivities. She might have scared them off because she heard noises coming into her home and nothing was taken. She phoned everyone in the neighborhood to let them know this had happened. Yes, she was still shaken, her life out of control, but she wanted her neighbors to be aware since the police had told them there were other break-ins nearby. Our neighbors were sympathetic, my wife Frances brought her a big bouquet of sunflowers. Our neighbor placed them in her front window for all to see. A sign of compassion in her life which for a while seemed so out of control. This might just be the summer to learn your neighbor’s names. Think of it as a spiritual practice.

The feminist author Annis Zinn once wrote: “We don’t see the world as it is. We see the world as we are.” As we face the trouble of our lives, when life is most out of control, take a deep breath, look around, so what you can do, ask for help and help others. Julian of Norwich put it best, “all will be well, and every kind of thing will be well.” Enjoy your summer and get to know your neighbors.

With Grace and Grit, John

Out of Control? Act on What Matters Most!

2010-07-09T14:17:00.000-07:00

As we were preparing to cross the bridge over the Columbia River on our way to my daughter Courteny’s winery in Washington State, we had motioned for an older gentleman to merge in front of us in the line waiting to pay the toll. He smiled and waved. When we got to the toll booth the attendant told us that he had paid our 75 cent toll for us. He was just pulling away as we were approaching. And, we imagine, he was looking into his rear view mirror to see our smiles and waves of appreciation and then BAM! his car hit the median curb, threw off his hub cab and flattened his tire! All because he was looking at us in the rear view mirror. He was already on the bridge at that point and – because it is a very narrow bridge – he kept driving on the rim to the other side because he knew if he stopped it would tie up traffic for hours. We jumped out, retrieved his hub cap and followed him over to the other side.

His car was pulled over on the shoulder. It was an older car and in pretty sad shape. I stopped and got out. “Are you all right?” I asked. “I am fine” he said in a very slow speech. It occurred to me he was deaf as well. “You did a beautiful thing back there, paying our toll for us. We are heartbroken that you have a flat tire for your trouble.” Thinking to myself, no good deed goes unpunished. “Can we help you change it? Do you have someone we can call?” He kept insisting he was all right, that someone was coming. Talk about life going out of control. We drove away. We had gone some miles down the road and Frances turned and said “its not right”. I said, “no its not” and although we were five miles down the road we swung back around. As we approached, someone else had come, family it seemed, and they were helping with the tire. I pulled out all the money I had in my wallet, $60 and gave it to Frances. She jumped out and handed it to him. “Thank you for helping us” she said, “let us help you, this is for a new tire”. He put up his hands “no, no” he said, “I can’t”. “Yes you can” said Frances “you can pay it forward someday” and she stuffed the money in jacket pocket and jumped back in the car. He ran up to us both smiling and shaking his head, “no I can’t” but Frances had closed the door and we smiled and waved and drove away. And as I watched in my rear view mirror I could see he was saying “God Bless You!”

It is when life is most out of control that I believe we must act upon what matters most. Sometimes it as simple as taking time to pray or meditate or walk; finding that still point within matters a great deal to me. So does affirming our place in the human family. Sure there are mean people who will take advantage of us, but more likely, the small acts of compassion we show, help us take control of that part of our lives that matters most, our sense of caring and self-worth.

Enjoy the summer's ride.

With Grace and Grit, John

There is More Than Enough

2010-07-01T13:52:00.000-07:00

I have never been a big fan of the fourth of July. The loud noises scare dogs and little children. I am also a bit ambivalent celebrating what our country has become; an imperial power in a world of need and want.

Still, I do believe that the fireworks should go off for what our nation still can promise: a freedom to believe, a chance to create, and a home for those in need. I will continue to work for meaningful immigration reform so that all those who want to be a part of our dream are able. It is sad that fear and bigotry are running wild across our great land. We need to be the voice from the other side.

There is more than enough for those in need. There is more than enough love. More than enough food. More than enough jobs. More than enough, if we look at the glass half full.

Representative Keith Ellisons recent address to the General Assembly of the UUA says its best:

http://blogs.uuworld.org/ga/2010/06/27/film-rep-keith-ellisons-address-to-general-assembly/

With Grace and Grit, John

Blessing the World

2010-06-04T11:56:00.000-07:00

There is an old joke about what you get when you cross a Jehovah Witness and a UU: someone who knocks on your door and asks you what you believe. Well, that is not so far from the truth. We need to create opportunities to create new meaning. To value what the other has to say, to speak the truth in love.

But that won’t be enough to change our world; the world our young people stand to inherit. It won’t be enough to have communities of people ready to ask new and probing questions and suggest exciting new ideas about why we are here. We will actually need to change the world. Or at least create opportunities to change the world. As the President of Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, Dr. Rebecca Parker puts it “It is not enough to celebrate inherent worth and dignity and assert confidence in the gradual evolution of progress….UUs tend to focus on values and ideals as the foundation of social justice work…motivated by something that does not exist: an imaginary better world…” (From her essay “Resisting Evil, Reverencing Life” in A People So Bold). We tend to place more faith in humanity than is warranted. Our young people know this, while perhaps we like to forget.

Evil is a real force in ourselves and our lives and it must be resisted. So any growing on from who we are now for the next three generations will have to deal more effectively with this reality. How? Young people consistently tell us that they want to DO something. It doesn’t have to be much, and it doesn’t have to be new; we can hang onto someone else's project. But Dr. Parker suggests something else to engage us and the next three generations even more powerfully: Don’t forget to Bless the World. Don’t forget to celebrate life. Don’t lose sight of the fact that we make a difference simply by being here.

Some have complained that I don’t spend enough time in my preaching railing against the injustices of the world. I don’t but for good reason. If I did so what? What if I rail on about poverty or the oil spill? Will that change our world anymore than making our anger at it all more justified? We are already angry, if we are paying attention. What we need to be are a angry and gentle people. To provide opportunities to change the world outside Sunday morning and then use our time together to bless what is good about life. As Rebecca Parker puts it “The foundations for social justice work need not be a dream of what could be. It can, instead, be doxology – praise for the gift of life, delight in what we have tasted and seen of beauty, love, tenderness, courage and steadfastness.” (Ibid, Parker)

We begin by blessing the world and then acting out of that blessing.

With grace and grit, John

Holidays and Holy Days

2010-05-14T11:24:00.000-07:00

Holidays and Holy Days

Unlike many other Western Democracies, America has always had a fluid relationship between the sacred and the secular. Despite the so called separation of church and state, religious symbols are permitted on the occasional public property and God is on our money. Nowhere is this push and pull more evident in our national holidays. We close governments and business for Christmas and Easter, but rarely for Yom Kippur. In a diverse nation such as ours it might be tempting to expand this list, save for the fact that every day is religious holiday in some tradition and we would soon find ourselves permanently on vacation. So we pick and choose, mostly according to those holidays celebrated by the greatest number of people. It will be interesting to see if this changes as Islam continues to grow in our country and the world.

It is part of our civic religion to celebrate religious holidays as civic reminders of our deepest values. While our founders did not establish our republic as a Christian nation, we are clearly informed by Christian values. It is entirely fitting to recognize Christmas as a holiday when it reminds us of the hope of new life and Easter as a holiday when it calls us to believe in the resurrection of what we hold most dear. In this way, we honor the holiness of what these holidays are celebrated for. I, for one, would like to see us expand that list, to include Jewish and Muslim holy days as well.

Equally important to our national character are those secular holidays which carry for us deeper and more sacred meanings. Presidents Day, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, and even the Fourth of July, call us to remember what we most cherish about our past; the resolve of our leaders, the fight for equality and the can-do spirit of anyone fortunate to call this home.

Several holidays strike me as peculiarly sacred in their secular context. The first is Thanksgiving, although shadowed by our eventual decimation of native peoples by our European ancestors, the impulse to remind ourselves of our fortune strikes me as a sort of collective prayer; we thank God and fortune for what allows us to grow and change the world. Originally, Mother’s Day was a call to mothers everywhere to speak out for peace. None other than Julia Ward Howe, the author of the Battle Hymn of the Republic, wrote the original proclamation for a “Mother’s Day of Peace” following our bloody Civil War: “Arise then, women of this day! Arise all women who have hearts, whether your baptism be of water or of tears….Our husbands shall not come to us reeking of carnage for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience….” After repeated attempts, it wasn’t until 1914, in the midst of another great and bloody war, that President Woodrow Wilson reluctantly proclaimed a “Mother’s Day” on the second Sunday in May but without reference to its original pacifist intent. The meaning has evolved, noble as it is now, from a far more political foundation, to become sacred for us in a different way. It is altogether fitting that we celebrate the nurturing gifts of mothers.

Another such evolution is underway with Memorial Day. Memorial Day, originally called Decoration Day, is a day of remembrance for those who have died in our nation's service. It has been recognized as a holiday in one form or another since after the Civil War. Some of us bemoan the erosion of its original meaning, honoring those who have fallen in the line of duty to a three day weekend famous as the official start of summer and an excuse for barbeques. For many years, I have celebrated the Sunday before Memorial Day in a more expanded sense; taking an opportunity to remember those who have passed on and celebrating the lessons and sacrifices they made for all of us.

Regardless of how you feel about a holiday recognizing those who have died in war, it is still a holy day if we remember that those soldiers, like all those we have known but who are gone, left us better for their living. I can imagine Memorial Day being the counter point to Mother’s Day, originally a day to honor war’s fallen, just as Mother’s Day honored those who fought for peace. I can imagine Memorial Day evolving into a day when we remember and honor all those whose lives have ended, just as we honor mothers for the life they brought into the world.

We are blessed as Americans in so many ways. Let us not get caught up in what a holiday once was, but imagine what a holiday could be: A reminder of what is most Holy and Sacred in our lives, and a time to celebrate that holiness as a people.

With Grace and Grit, John

Taking Stock

2010-05-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

Taking Stock

I was almost amused at how much panic the stock market dip of this week caused people with money. Just when they thought it was safe to wade in the capital along comes some crisis in Greece and a few fat trading fingers and the whole house of cards comes crashing down. It recovered. Never mind that the Greek people will be suffering from this monetary puzzle for years, at least our stocks are safe.

If you spent a lot of time worrying about this, I would suggest you need to look at your priorities again. Real people are suffering in this recession. Those of us fortunate enough to have a little investment need to take a look at the bigger picture and imagine how we might be part of the solution in getting people back to work.

I believe that the best way to find the more of what we are looking for in life is to first take stock of what we have. Not in some platitude to an unnamed God but some real heartfelt appreciation of what few blessings we have. Thankfulness, I believe, is one of the touchstones of meaning and it helps us to adequately judge what we are really looking for in the world. When we take stock of what we really want we will often find it is not more things. “Imagine no possessions” sang John Lennon (although I am reminded that he was a millionaire).

Imagine (pray if you can) that the world could provide for each according to their needs. Imagine what it would mean to stand on the side of love, not profit, and take stock of what you have and what you can do with it.

With Grace and Grit, John

Out of an Empty Tomb

2010-04-10T12:23:00.000-07:00

What would it take for any of us to experience a resurrection, to come down off the cross and emerge from the tombs of our lives? “Life” observed an old friend of mine “is the tomb”. We are surrounded by finitude. There is only so much time to fill, only so much money to spend, the people we love die or they go away and our days are, more often than not, filled with sorrows punctuated by happiness. It was the Buddha who said, “life is attachment, and with that comes sorrow.” What would it take to emerge from the tomb and feel the sunshine on our faces once again?
Life can only come from death. One depends on the other. Only from the renewed earth do tulips rise to a warming sun, only from the ashes does the phoenix rise, only from the tomb does Jesus walk. Only from death comes life, physical or otherwise. Think about those new directions that your life took after some failing in another; the death of the loved one, a divorce, losing your job. The good news is this: Each of has an Easter waiting. It’s not reserved just for the holy, or even the courageous. Each one of us has the power of resurrection, right here and right now. Today, one of you is feeling the pain of a separation, today one of you is struggling with the demons of addiction, today one of you is feeling numb after seasons of meaningless labor, today, more than a few of us are feeling the chill of winter’s sorrows. We want to feel spring but it’s so hard!

What stands in our way? The stones of doubt, control, and fear. One of us must face a life of new choices but feels powerless to move. The stone of fear. A marriage seems stuck and while others have suggested how to get it going again we resist. The stone of control. We feel anger at a loved one for an almost unspeakable hurt. We know we need to forgive but how? The stone of anger. We need to make a decision about our future and soon, but what if the path we are considering is the wrong one? The stone of doubt. But even when these stones are rolled away some of us stay in the tomb, empty save for our fears of stepping out. It is not always easy.

But with hope, trust and love we can always try.

With Grace and Grit, John

Great Expectations

2010-04-01T14:10:00.000-07:00

Palm Sunday.

What were the people expecting that fateful day in Jerusalem? The messiah. Since the time of the great Kings of Israel and Judah, Saul and David and Solomon, the Jews had fallen into despair. Here were a people imprisoned literally by the Roman occupation and spiritually by a God as foretold by the prophets they would suffer for their wavering faith. This lone man, Jesus of Nazareth, held their promise of freedom. He defied authority, by proclaiming a New Kingdom of God, proclaiming the first shall be last and the last shall be first. Had not the prophet Isaiah proclaimed that one would be sent who “would be used by Yahweh to give light and salvation unto the world’ (Isa. 49:6), just as Jesus had done? Had not Isaiah said one would come “to liberate the suffering” (Isa. 61:1) “to guide the thirsty to water” (Isa. 44) and to “set all people free” (Isa. 42:7)? All as Jesus had proclaimed.

The coincidences were just too much for a people poor, hungry and enslaved. Their spirits ached for a new message, a new beginning, a new hope. The people wanted to belief in a savior, even though Jesus spoke of a different kingdom, they saw him as the savior for them now. Jesus, perhaps expressing his own darkness, knew he would die for the message he was bringing to the center of power. His expectation was death.

So perhaps it is for all of us. We elected Barrack Obama on the same message of hope. We placed upon him the mantle of a savior. And then, as with all leaders, we realized that he was not a savior, but a human being dealing with a complex and fractured world. Jesus would die in this story of Holy week. For a while we thought our dreams of a president who could deliver had died as well. A part of them has. We are all, I think, a bit disappointed in what he has been able, even willing to do to alleviate the ache of so many. But with the passage of Health Care Reform, as imperfect and inadequate as it is, we have some our dream back. The new loan principal forgiveness program announced by the President last week is yet another bright ray. Perhaps some relief is coming.

Not a moment too soon. Because just as those ancient Hebrews who placed such faith in Jesus on Palm Sunday knew all too well, economic injustice is the status quo of empires; Roman or American. Our poor, grow poorer every day. Our families, indeed even some in this church, have lost jobs, most certainly income. The minimum wage is still woefully below a living wage. We have so far to go. And yet our hope is strong. We still have Great Expectations. Easter Sunday always follows Good Friday.

With Grace and Grit, John

Desperately Seeking Satan

2010-03-11T18:34:00.000-08:00

Why must we hate? To answer that question I want to look at the nature of evil itself. Evil has been called many things; the devil, temptation, hatred, even the absence of good. I can remember in my first church in South Bend, IN we had a problem with cars being broken into during Sunday worship. While discussing what to do about this problem the board ran the range of explanations and solutions. “Maybe they are doing this because they hate Unitarians” or “This is the result of our capitalistic society, what we need is a revolution”, or "why are we even driving cars to church". Beyond calling the police, one member of the board, completely serious, offered to wait outside until he caught someone in the act and then explain to them how that was hurting other people. Being a native New Yorker, I declined his offer on the grounds that he might get shot. We ended up posting guards with cell phones to call the police.

Most of us don’t like to name evil as a force unto itself. After all we know what happens when you demonize another, we were once burned at the stake for our liberal views. Calling the Soviet Union the “Evil Empire” or North Korea and Iraq “the Axis of Evil” is only the tip of the ice berg. And yet, I don’t think any of us would deny that we are capable of doing some pretty horrendous things. In fact, innocence seems to invite evil into our lives. Is it any wonder that we feel the need to caution our children about being hurt. I believe evil exists but it is born from fear and ignorance more than demonic possession.

Last week the local mosque was denied a building permit by the city council on grounds that the traffic would be too much. As I wrote to the editor, “What is sadder still is the not so thinly veiled fear (the building of the new mosque) engendered in people but that so many are unaware that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful and loving people. After following the (paper's) blog on this issue, I am convinced that it is ignorance and fear that are more in play than parking. Invoking thanks to Jesus for the council's decision is particularly painful. Hate is not the doctrine of any religion.”

As Jonah Blank wrote in his book Arrow of the Blue Skinned God: “Most often evil lies not in the ends but in the means..Humanity’s finest aspirations produce its most hideous crimes – as soon as the goals come to dominate the methods (evil springs forth). Mao dreamed of a perfect human society and instituted the Cultural Revolution killing as many as 40 million. Pol Pot, Stalin, Hitler all had visions beyond personal aggrandizement and that is what made them so dangerous. Dreams twisted but dreams nonetheless.” (Arrow of the Blue Skinned God, Double Day: 1993)

Evil exists in the shadow of us all. And evil seems to exist as a means to an end. It’s not that we want to do evil towards Muslims or women or the Afghans or the Earth, it’s that we are afraid and want to stop the fear, by any means. But just as evil exists in our souls so does love. The part we have to play is to shine more light into the darkness of fear and hate. We must name fear and hate where we see it although, I tend now to shy away from calling people and institutions evil, for in the name calling we fall prey to that same shadow. So then we must work to alleviate suffering and engender understanding. Simply standing witness, on the side of love, can loosen our need for Satan. We have the opportunity every day. Rather than blaming another, perhaps we would do better to create understanding. Rather than anger, why not a non-anxious presence? Be courageous in the face of bigotry. Tell people their racist or sexist or homophobic jokes aren’t funny.

Let's stop desperately seeking a satan to feed our fear.

With grace and grit, John

Love, Life and Death: A Valentine's Meditation

2010-02-19T12:26:00.000-08:00

Love lives at the junction of life and death. Death is the reminder that our time is too precious to waste it on what and whom we don’t love. Life is the permission we have to keep loving until death takes us and then only our memory will serve as love’s force. When I first began my ministry I would pronounce a couple married until “the death in two people’s hearts”. What a self-help cop out! That was almost permission to throw in the towel! Then I shifted to pronouncing them married “until death do us part”. That was more like it. But only after I did a wedding for a former Mormon couple did I realize that I was still missing the point. Mormons believe that marriage is for eternity. In some ways, we are still married to the ones we first loved, still parents to the children we have lost, still connected to the parents now gone. I have revised my pronouncement once again, “I will love you, from each sun to each moon, from now to forever.”
Love never dies. It may be as immortal as time itself.

With grace and grit, John

Lost and Found

2010-02-04T13:53:00.000-08:00

I was once interviewed by the children and I asked them what they think I do. They thought about this, and one boy said, “You talk to people on Sunday…" pausing for a moment and then adding “and they listen”. Amazing! Another girl said "the minister is one who marries people!" Nicely done! And then ensued an open discussion of what marriage means, and who in the class of preschoolers is in love with whom and who loves who but finds that love unredeemed and so on. There I was dispensing pastoral care and marriage advice to a bunch of preschoolers. Who says a young person's life isn't complicated?

When they got to Administrator’s job the kids were a little more perplexed. Just what does our administrator do? (Of course for those of us in the know the question is really what doesn't he do?!) Finally, one little girl hit upon the answer "Isn’t the administrator the one who runs the lost and found?" Indeed! An important function if you are a little person who has lost a favorite toy or blanket. Well, of course, the administrator is the lost and found department. In fact, we all are. The more I thought about our church as place for the lost and found, the more I realized that it was so true.

Why wouldn't our homes and communities be a place for the lost and found? We come having lost our way, lost our soul, lost a mate, lost a job, lost our shoes, lost our hope. I would hazard to guess that almost all who first come to my church come because something was lost in your life. Something needed desperately to find again even if it is just a reason to go on living. It might not be something as desperate as your life, but perhaps you are looking for something. What might that something be?

The days are growing longer but our troubles seem just as dark. Our economic recovery is slow and slower. People are out of work and in need. From ancient times we have been searching for a reason to go on through the darkness, lighting huge bonfires at the solstice to ward off the darkness and welcome the sun back into our lives. Every holiday harkens back to this primal urge to find what was lost. And so with each season, also with our lives. As the 23rd psalm reminds us "Yeah though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death... " We go through the darkness to find light in our lives again, we don't stay there. Whether that light is Jesus, Mary, Krishna or any child born into this hurting world.

As Spring approaches, this season of expectation is a reminder that while darkness comes, lights always follows. While we may lose everything something or someone will take its place.

Twenty seven years ago I thought I had lost it all. Bankrupt, alone after a failed marriage, I was walking the streets of New York around Rockefeller Plaza on Fifth Avenue. I had turned onto a side street walking for no reason at all, It was cold, bitterly cold, Across the street hovered over a heating grate was a homeless person wrapped in a thin blanket. I couldn't tell if it was a man or a woman. Just then walking around the comer with great purpose came a well‑dressed businessman. He passed the person on the grate without looking at all. Suddenly, about 10 feet away he stopped, turned around and walked back to the homeless person. Without a moment's hesitation, he took off his expensive camel hair overcoat, draped it over the shoulders of this homeless person and reached into his pocket, pulled out a wad of money and put it into her hand, Then picking up his briefcase walked on even more briskly as if he were trying to make up for lost time. I stood there watching this awe struck. True, that overcoat, which easily cost close to a thousand dollars, probably meant little to the rich man but to the homeless it was life itself. Leaving aside all the systemic reasons for homelessness for which the rich man was more part of the problem than the solution, I felt as if I was in the presence of a divine moment. Not the rich man, not the homeless person but the action of giving. It was a radical epiphany for me; a moment of profound realization that somehow life would be all right again. Whatever was lost in me (and to this day I couldn't tell you what that was) I found witnessing this holy act of love. Through the darkness new light was found.

I implore you to join together in searching for what was lost. I believe the light is what we all yearn for. If ever there was a place to begin your search for the lost, this is that place for the lost to be found. It may not come to us all at once. It may only be a hint, a small clue to our search, but let this place and this season be the time to search for it. You won't find it in the lost and found box in the close. But you may find a way through the darkness and back to the light with those we love.

With Grace and Grit, John

Making Paradise

2010-01-14T18:37:00.000-08:00

Of course, our hearts and our money must go out to the people of Haiti. They are living now in a hell far removed from paradise. I wonder what the early Christians, who suffered their own kind of hell under Roman domination would have to say. I have thought a great deal about John Corrado’s description that we are more interested in “getting heaven into people, rather than people into heaven.” In many ways, I believe this early understanding of Christianity is where we are bound as Unitarian Universalists and perhaps even, ultimately, as a human race.

Up until the advent of agriculture in the ancient world, our view of the world was eco-centered; that is our culture and our religion focused on the power of the earth as the giver of life. The goddess of the earth was in her ascension and the relationship between human survival and meaning was rooted in a certain obedience to the earth. This was the real garden of Eden; not free of want, but certainly free of eco-genocide. With the advent of agriculture and a surplus of food, control of those resources led to an increasing culture of domination by those who had the means of production, initially the priesthood and later kings. The earth became a thing to be manipulated and controlled for power. (See David Korten’s The Great Turning) With the increasing domination of empire, our view of what constituted paradise shifted away from what the earth could provide to what a distant deity would reward. In other words, the more power we gained, the farther paradise slipped from our grasp. For much of the last 3000 years we have come to believe that paradise could at best be walled off in private gardens on earth, or rewarded for following doctrine in the afterlife. (See David Eisenberg’s The Ecology of Eden) As empires grew we entered into what Harvey Cox has called “The Age of Belief” in which what we believe could save us or earn us ever lasting damnation. (See Cox’s The Future of Faith) The suffering crucifixion replaced the blessing of baptism as Christianity’s predominant symbol. Early Christianity, as a not yet empowered religion, recognized the ancient meaning of paradise as on earth. (Parker and Brock Saving Paradise) Echoing the words of Jesus, "The kingdom of God does not come with your careful observation, 21nor will people say, 'Here it is,' or 'There it is,' because the kingdom of God is within[a] you." Luke 17:21

We are, in other words, the community of God’s chosen, here to bring paradise into the now. This is, in fact, what our Universalist heritage teaches: not only are all of us not going to hell, but paradise is ours to make right now and right here. Give generously my friends.

With grace and grit, John

Leading Human Indicators

2009-12-31T11:10:00.000-08:00

Daily, it seems, we hear reports of how the economy is improving; the Dow Jones Industrials have crossed the ten thousand mark, the banks are returning the government bailout money and are earning record profits. Even the jobless picture seems to be improving; less people filing for unemployment this month than last. Economists tell us that a bullish stock market is a “leading economic indicator” of good times to come. Calling this a “jobless recovery” strikes me as oxymoronic at best, and deeply insulting at worst. To the many thousands who have lost their jobs this holiday season and the many more who are desperately trying to find paying, much less meaningful work, talk of a “recovery” must seem out of touch and deluded. Can there really be a recovery if people don’t have the jobs needed to pay their bills and keep their homes? Sure, those of us fortunate to have investments are seeing a slight rebound, but can there be any real value in this economy until people are back at work and caring for their families with dignity and promise?

Measuring a recovery from the bottom line is poor economics. The human cost to this Great Recession is far greater than how far our portfolios have fallen. Divorces are on the rise, people are depressed and our state budget, so deeply dependent on taxes generated from economic growth, is unable to help the many who need it most.

What we need in this New Year is a recovery of the human spirit. What we need to be looking and working towards are the “leading human indicators” that our world will not only recover from this fall but grow in deeper and more meaningful ways than how much we consume. What would some of those human indicators look like? Well, some are already evident. Communities are reaching out to those in need. Not the governments of communities but communities of people united in a faith for a new beginning. This kind of recovery isn’t measurable by domestic output. It shows up in more subtle ways and is often deeply personal. Religious communities, especially, have seen both an increase in attendance but also an increase in giving to meet the needs of those amongst us who are most in need. We have a long way to go but it is a start. Volunteering to help, whether in a community of faith or in the many secular organizations dedicated to compassion would be another indicator that we are moving on. Feeding the hungry, helping a child to read, answering a help line, are all indicators of a real recovery.

I believe that a rebound in the arts might be another sign that we have grown from this crisis. It’s tempting to measure productivity by what we make or build or consume, but there is a deeper economic vitality in celebrating what makes us human. When we support every form of art again, just because it feeds our souls, we will be well on our way to a deeper recovery. Jobs will be created and the Holiness of what is beautiful in this world will be reclaimed.

As we begin this New Year, let us do so with a deeper hope that our wealth will expand in ways not measured by economists. There are other economies besides the monetary; the barter between friends, the care we show our neighbors that they may one day return to us, and the deep satisfaction that comes from helping another in the name of all that is Holy and good. May this be the year of a deeper good, a new beginning of hope and promise.

With Grace and Grit, John

Staying Through the Storm

2009-12-12T11:27:00.000-08:00

Of all the tests in our lives, of all the struggles wherein our destiny is determined, our relationships, especially during the holiday season, are the hardest to judge. How do we know when to stay through the storm? Relationships are a lot like the weather. Often tolerable but sometimes stormy. Some seasons are better than others. There are those days when we welcome the dawn with open arms. Glorious as it is, our lives seem in sync. But we all know that these relationships can run head long into a full blown gall, or be becalmed by mediocrity and fears. And then we despair. The question is then when do we leave?

Here I apply what I call my “theology of persistence.” As the psychologist Albert Ellis put it so poetically “the art of love is largely the art of persistence.” Or more understandably for me at least as the novelist Richard Ford put it “Writing is the only thing I've ever done with persistence, except for being married. “ To understand the place of the Holy in our lives we can’t give up on staying through the storm of life looking for the rainbow. In fact, meaning is more often found after a storm, at the end of the dark night than before it. This is why I sign off so often with the paradox of grace and grit; grace for the everyday miracles of being alive, grit for staying alive long enough to make it mean something.

With Grace and Grit, John

Inner Harvest

2009-12-02T11:00:00.000-08:00

Time is the one commodity that has no way of repeating again. Its harvest comes instantly at every moment we experience and then it is gone. This moment will never be repeated. This is the essence of the Buddhist understanding of moksha or illusion. Because this moment is so unique, its preciousness implores us to harvest it for the power of life that is before us. We spend so much time worrying about the past or being anxious about the future that we rarely see the preciousness of this moment. It is not that the reality is any less real. Pain hurts, weapons maim, poverty throbs in millions of lives. The entire universe, said the Buddha, 2300 years before Quantum physics, is destroyed and reborn in each moment. So it is with our lives, our past actions remain, memories persist, but the new moment before us is all there really is.

As she lay dying with cancer, Mary recited that wonderful phrase from Edith Pilaf "Je ne regret a rein." I have no regrets. And indeed she had none. We had known each other four short years but she had taught me so much. She would be the first to teach me that “time waits for no one” and “the past is past”. She was also the person who made the bridge from not regretting the past to learning how to harvest meaning from the experiences we did have. She helped me learn that appreciating the gifts of the present is far greater than any “thing” we give each other. As it says in the bible “You have sown so much but harvested so little”. “John” she told me close to the end, “don’t wait until you are like me to do your inner harvest.”

Even though time passes us by we can still learn what it leaves behind in the present. “Life” wrote T.S. Elliot “is the experience we pull meaning from”. My daughter Portia and her husband Scott and our little grandson Ashur have come to live with us. Whatever worries we had about living together have passed us by, we are having a wonderful time being a family. Every so often I am saddened by the possibility that they won’t live with us forever. And then? And then so what! Why am I sacrificing the now for a worry of the future? Now is the harvest… the blocks on the floor, the toys on the shelves, this is the time to harvest this now! Thanksgiving is only a reminder that we are on this planet for a very short time. What we learn to do with that time is up to us.

Monkey Law

2009-11-18T12:59:00.000-08:00

I ran across the idea of monkey law the other day. When certain monkeys go from tree to tree, they have a firm hand or tail on the next branch before they let the old one go. How many of us live by monkey law? Sometimes, its important to know that you have a firm grasp on the future before you release your past. And every so often it is important to take the leap of faith, reaching out to the future while letting go of the past especially if that past has been painful. Letting go in order to reach for a new hope may be just the kind of faith we need.

with grace and grit, John

The Other Economies

2009-11-10T11:26:00.000-08:00

As I ponder the rapid rise of the stock market juxtaposed as it is to the even more rapid rise in unemployment, I have to ask myself, which economy are we measuring? The GDP has started growing but our DHH (Domestic Human Happiness) is falling. When are we going to learn that more "stuff" is not more fulfillment?

As we approach thanksgiving, that most American of holidays, I would ask you to consider not only giving thanks for what makes you happy (and I would guess its not more things) but also to consider dedicating a portion of your energy to growing our other economies; the barter of kindness we show those we love, the exchange of time to help those in need, and the giving of your talent and money to change the world for future generations.

What we don't need is another gadget, what we do need is a longer view: to see the world as finite and our responsibility to is to pay it forward for the generations to come.

With grace and grit, John

Lights Out

2009-11-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

She died last week, All Saints day, just before church. Into her eighties, hers was a life well lived. I am still humbled by death. Two days earlier I had sat by her side and we talked about final things. Two days hence she had left her shell for other climes. At her side I asked her what she thinks happens after she dies. Its always a little scary asking that question. She took off the breathing mask and said "I believe this is the only life I have to live. Lights out." She had no regrets, after a long life, six children, twelve grandchildren, she knew she would live on through them. We said our good-byes.

Preparing for her Memorial Service I pondered her brave appraisal of the great beyond; "light out", seemed so, well, final. That was her faith and she went bravely forth into the unknown. Regardless of what I believe, the grace of that moment was that her light did go out, at least as far as her body was concerned. But, at the very least, since energy is neither created or destroyed, her light went out only to flicker on somewhere else in the cosmos. We may not ever know heaven, but we can rest in the assurance that the grace of the cosmos returns us to the star stuff from which we came.

With grace and grit, John

What's in a name?

2009-11-03T19:04:00.000-08:00

Welcome to my new blog! I chose to name this "Facing Grace" because I believe we need to boldly come face to face with the grace of the Cosmos. Grace is a word too lightly used in our time but has tremendous depth of meaning. There is, of course, a certain elegance to the very sound of grace but in its deeper meaning, grace are those unearned gifts of life that both comfort and afflict us. We often think of grace as a positive but we can just as easily find ourselves the recipients of a harsher, brighter, even more painful gift. We lose our jobs and find our very souls torn asunder until we see the opening that lose has provided. Even the great "C", cancer, can open us to seeing the world more clearly than ever before, or bring family together in new ways. In facing grace we might have to first face the possibility that what befalls us may not be about us at all....

One more thought: when naming this blog, Denise Shiozawa of Ume Works, my colleague and designer, told me the "facinggrace" had already been taken so she added a hyphen between the two. That little hyphen is even better! It represents all that keeps us separate from knowing grace in our lives. It reminds me that grace is always surrounded by some grit, in the words of Ken Wilber, it takes both "Grace and Grit", to know the beautiful truth of being alive.

Welcome! John Morehouse

Welcome to Facing Grace

2009-10-31T16:45:00.000-07:00

Welcome to new blog by Rev. John Morehouse. Read my latest musings.