2019.8.11 Faithful Wondering

2019.8.11 Faithful Wondering

Intro:

Whoever you are, however you are this morning, wherever you are on your spiritual journey, you are welcome here to this community, this time and place we make sacred by simply bringing ourselves as gifts to one another.

Our monthly worship theme continues to be “Wonder” this month. 

Wonder is a core spiritual practice for us as Unitarian Universalists. 

We “wonder” a lot, as in questioning, as in being curious, as in not taking someone else’s word for it, but needing to seek ourselves for the truth.

And we also believe the experience of “wonder” --as in standing in awe before the mysteries of life-- is a source of deep spiritual meaning.

Today we’re considering what it means to be faithful in the midst of our wondering and questions.  Do you consider yourself a person of faith?

Wisdom Story: “Answer Mountain”

Reading:

From “Faith: Trusting Your Own Deepest Experience” by Sharon Salzburg – Buddhist teacher, also rooted in her Jewish upbringing

“…the tendency to equate faith with doctrine, and then argue about terminology and concepts, distracts us from what faith is actually about.  In my understanding, whether faith is connected to a deity or not, its essence lies in trusting ourselves to discover the deepest truths on which we can rely.” (xiii)

“No matter what we encounter in life, it is faith that enables us to try again, to trust again, to love again.  Even in times of immense suffering, it is faith that enables us to relate to the present moment in such a way that we can go on, we can move forward, instead of becoming lost in resignation or despair.  Faith links our present-day experience, whether wonderful or terrible, to the underlying pulse of life.” (xiv)

When I was in high school I got labelled an atheist.  By which folks meant I wasn’t a person of faith, by which they meant I didn’t believe, by which they meant I didn’t believe in their definition of God, that is I did not subscribe to their theology, their God-talk.

Now, I did not call myself an atheist but I didn’t do a whole lot to argue about it and decided to let people think what they wanted to think. 

The truth is, even then, I did not believe in a supreme supernatural being.  But I also wondered.  I wondered a lot.  How is it that we are here?  Why am I here?  What is life supposed to be about?  Why is there such incredible beauty and goodness and also such pain and suffering and inequality?  How do we make things better?

I still wonder a lot, which is why I am a Unitarian Universalist, and these days consider myself essentially an agnostic!

Now, some of you might be wondering, “but Laura, you talk about God sometimes.  What’s that about?”

I have heard a magic teacher once said that “moments of jaw-dropping wonder (whatever their source) force us to suspend soul-numbing disbelief and open to Possibility!” (from Stephanie Etzbach-Dale)

I have lived long enough to have experienced enough moments of jaw-dropping wonder, that I need some powerful language to contain that mystery, I need language that opens me to possibility.   

The moments of jaw-dropping wonder I am talking about are not just beautiful and nice experiences, like looking at the stars or seeing a beautiful landscape, though I include those.

But also things like – being present when my father died, accompanying a friend over years of varying degrees of mental illness, watching children struggle and grow, the mysterious and ever-changing kind of challenging love that happens in a long term relationship, witnessing people rise up in the midst of terrible catastrophe to save each other.

I think you all know this, but when I say the word “God” I am not pointing to man in the sky who judges or saves.  I am not pointing to any being in any particular place.  I, personally, am pointing more to an action, a movement of love, the energy of life that is in all and that we are always in.  I am pointing to the tiniest seed of possibility for new life that is within even moments of great devastation. 

I can’t prove God, but I want to be awake to the something bigger than any one of us.  And so, I simply choose to use that language, that old powerful metaphorical language that all the great wisdom teachers have said never can really contain the meaning.  You might use different language.

The mystery of life on this earth, in this galaxy, in this universe is too great to be held by any one word, or any final human answers.  As mystical priest Richard Rohr says, a mystery isn’t something that can never be understood, it’s something you can endlessly understand. There’s always more to be known.  As a whole, Unitarian Universalism is an agnostic faith in this way. 

We understand that as soon as human beings make a final pronouncement – whether it is a theological one or a scientific one – very often something else happens that shifts that understanding.  There is no one answer that fits every question, every circumstance.  We are essentially “un-fundamentalist.”

And yet, we are most definitely a people of faith. 

And our language of faith has changed over time.

We are rooted and grew from the radical reformation and liberal Christian protestant tradition.  In the 18^th and 19^th centuries, for a long time Unitarians and Universalists in this country used Protestant language of faith, a basis in Biblical scripture, and plenty of God talk—though we were still considered heretical.  The Unitarians for believing Jesus was an important moral teacher but not God.  The Universalists for daring to believe that God will save everyone, no exceptions.

The transcendentalists in the 19^th century moved us away from traditional faith language and a reliance on Biblical authority– folks like:

--Ralph Waldo Emerson, who read the Hindu scriptures and was partial to the word OverSoul instead of God. 

--and Theodore Parker who preached a famous sermon called “The transient and the permanent in Christianity”—separating the historical forms of the church and its doctrine from the core ethical teachings of Jesus.

Humanists in our movement in the 20^th century steadily broadened us further with their focus on scientific discovery and ethical human action.  They helped us open even further to a way of being religious that wasn’t dependent on a traditional belief in God at all.

And in the latter part of the 20^th century and on in to the 21^st we’ve been influenced by those among us who find faith and meaning in neo-pagan and Buddhist practices.

So here we are today, with this diversity of theological perspective coexisting in one place.  Sometimes well, sometimes uncomfortably. 

Debating language and belief very often disconnects us.   Ask, “Do you believe in God or not?” and the room pretty quickly divides.

Asking each other to describe our faith, what it is we rely on, what comforts us in times of trouble and what lifts us out of despair—that can send the conversation in a very different direction.  Our opening words today were statements of faith members of this congregation wrote several years ago.  How did those statements sound to you this morning?  Does yours need updating, or is it still serving the flourishing of your life and the life of others around you?

We don’t simply claim that the answer is yes or no.  Instead, we build communities of practice, where we covenant with one another, walking together to discover the “deepest truths on which we can rely.”  This is a place where the answers are always under construction. 

From Faith Without Certainty: Liberal Theology in the 21st Century By Paul Rasor

“Liberal theology is not for the faint of heart. It points us in a general direction without telling us the specific destination. It refuses to make our commitments for us, but holds us accountable for the commitments we make. The liberal religious tradition is an invitation, not a mandate.

It invites us: -to live with ambiguity without giving in to facile compromise;

 -to engage in dialogue without trying to control the conversation;

-to be open to change without accepting change too casually;

-to take commitment seriously, but not blindly;

-and to be engaged in the culture without succumbing to the culture’s values.

Liberal religion calls us to: - strength without rigidity; -conviction without ideology, -openness without laziness. It asks us to pay attention. It is an eyes-wide-open faith, a faith without certainty.”

Ours is a faith that does not offer any easy answers, but challenges us to grow, to change, to respond to the movements of our spirits--

It challenges us to do some work and to be in conversation with one another—three specific opportunities right now:

Sign-up now for Circles of Trust where you can reflect on your own life experiences and values in supportive community.

Class offering this fall – Faith for the Unbeliever by UU minister Daniel Kanter—small book.  He writes in the introduction: “More than an adherence to a belief system, faith is an orientation to life.  It is loolking out at the world from a particular perspective, and using that perspective to consider the meaning of our existence.”  We’ll have four sessions, each one focused on one chapter of the book – considering Belief, Trust, Loyalty, and Worldview.

Worship service in two weeks – a response to your questions, your wonderings.  What are the questions you are asking right now?  What are you wondering about?  Could be big meaning of life questions, or could be questions related to understanding Unitarian Universalism, or could questions about me or questions about this congregation.  It’s not that I have the answers to all the questions – but this is a chance to be conversation about our wonderings.

We can have a faith without certainty, one that embraces the questions, and yet still be deeply convicted.  This kind of faith without dead certainties is alive, able to breathe and change!  Our faith is called a living tradition because it can be transformed by our own experiences, and by the experiences of those around us, opening us to new possibilities.

This congregation testifies every day to the power of a deeply convicted faith without certainty, a kind of faithfulness that shows up ready for the unknown, a kind of faithful wondering that is eyes-wide-open and present to the truth of our lives. 

It’s less about belief and more about acting faithfully.  As UU Rev. Marilyn Sewell puts it: For Unitarian Universalists, the question is never "What do you believe?" but rather "What kind of person have you become? What are the fruits of your living?" (in The Theology of Unitarian Universalists)

I know many of us in this room have come from other religious traditions where we might have rejected the doctrine and the creeds.  But I also know that showing up here, with one another, is an act of faith.  Showing up beyond Sunday morning to put our values into action is also an act of faith.

We are trusting that there is something more to life, something bigger than ourselves, that we can discover together.  May our lives be an answer to the questions we ask, may our lives be a worthy response to the wonders of this life.

Blessed be and Amen.

2019.4.21 Coming Back to Life

2019.4.21        “Coming Back to Life”

Monthly worship theme: Restoration

Readings:

Blessing for a Broken Vessel by Jan Richardson

Growing Apples by Nancy Miller Gomez

John 21:1-19

I know, Easter, we’re supposed to be talking about Jesus and Jesus’ resurrection.  But today I really want to talk about Peter.  And Peter’s restoration. And what it tells us about hope, and love, and who we can be to one another.

This bit of scriptural story we just heard comes from the Gospel of John, and is the third appearance of Jesus after his resurrection.  And here is when Peter is basically given the mantle of leadership for the community that had formed around Jesus and his teachings – what would eventually become the church.  Peter, Saint Peter, who is known as “the rock” of the church, the first Bishop of the Christian Church.

But let’s rewind a bit.  Is this the same Peter who was with Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane just a couple of days earlier?  Yes.  The very same one.

The one who could not stay awake, even though Jesus had asked him to keep watch while he prayed in the garden.

The very same Peter who was so sure that he would not desert Jesus, even when things got really tough.  And yet, his courage failed him.  When the authorities came to take Jesus away, he ran like the others, and three times he denied even knowing Jesus.  On the night Jesus was taken away, Peter didn’t even fess up to knowing Jesus, let alone being one of his followers. 

Aren’t we all like Peter, sometimes?  I mean the Peter who forgot his promises and lost his nerve in the Garden.

Over and over, we profess to believe one thing, and then fail to act on that belief.

Example:  I believe in climate change, I think it is a crisis.  I affirm human interdependence with the earth.  And I drove a car here today.

Example:  I believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person.  And I have been witness to harassment of persons because of who they are, and failed to interrupt it. 

Aren’t we all like Peter, sometimes?

Scared, and acting out of fear rather than love.

How often do I let fear get in the way of loving people?  Fear of being vulnerable, fear of rejection, fear of messing up, fear of losing the person I love.

Aren’t we all like Peter, sometimes?  Don’t we worry, deep down, that if the day comes that the authorities come knocking to take away our friend, that we won’t have the courage to stick with them, to go with them?

Will we be able to stand with immigrants who are being detained and deported?  Will we be able to physically put ourselves on the line for our transgender siblings?  When black churches are burning, when the Highlander Center, a place of empowerment and refuge for liberation struggles is burned by white supremacists—do we have the courage to stick with them?

And aren’t we all like Peter, sometimes, when we don’t measure up to expectations, when we lose something precious to us and we wonder if we could have done something different.  Think about Peter after Jesus death.  Forlorn and drifting, not even able to catch any fish, and he was a fisherman! 

            àTime of grief and failure

And yet, here he is after Jesus death, the guy who messed up so many times, being given the role of shepherd to the followers.  In this resurrection appearance, three things happen: 

Peter is able to the thing he thought he couldn’t do any more—he is able to catch fish again. 

Peter is fed.  “Come and have breakfast” says Jesus. 

And Peter is reminded of who he loves.  Jesus and Peter have this very interesting dialogue—Do you love me?  Do you love me?  Do you love me?  Jesus asks Peter three times.  And in this way, remembering who and what he loves, Peter is restored to a new life.

I want to tell you about another man who was restored, another old story, though not quite as old, this time from the history of Universalism in the United States.  Like the biblical stories, this story has probably gotten changed and simplified as it gets told over and over.  This is the story of John Murray, recognized as the founder of Universalism in America. 

John Murray was a British man who lived in the 1700s, educated, fairly well-to-do, and a fire-and-brimstone sort of preacher who followed Calvinistic ideas about hell and damnation.  But over time John Murray’s thinking about the idea of hell changed and theologically he became a Universalist.  Someone who believed in Universal salvation, who didn’t think that God could ever damn people to an eternity in hell.  Someone who questioned the very existence of hell—except for the ones we create here on this earth.

But pretty soon after this conversion, both his wife and one-year-old son got sick and died.  Several of his siblings also died.  He lost his job and went into debt, and was put into prison because he couldn’t pay his bills.  He was depressed, and lost.

Eventually, he decides to sail to the North American colonies.  This is 1770.  We weren’t even the United States yet.  He was supposed to go to New York, but a storm came up and the ship got grounded in New Jersey.  John and a few others went ashore to get food and supplies. 

As he was walking ashore, John saw a farmhouse with a small chapel or church beside it. It belonged to Thomas Potter. Thomas Potter greeted John, gave him food for everyone on the ship, and invited John to come back and have dinner with him that night.

When John came back, Thomas Potter showed him the chapel. Thomas Potter said that he believed in a loving God who wanted to accept all people into heaven. John said that he believed the same thing. Thomas Potter told John that he had built the chapel and was waiting for God to send him a minister. “You, John, are that minister. I have waited for you a long time”.

John did not want to hear this. He was not a preacher anymore and he was determined to never preach again. Yet, Thomas Potter seemed confident that John was the Universalist preacher he waited for and he asked John to preach on Sunday. “I can’t preach on Sunday,” said John, “because as soon as the wind changes, my boat will set sail and I must be on it.”

“If the boat has not sailed by Sunday, will you preach?” asked Thomas Potter.

“If I am still here on Sunday, I will preach,” said John Murray.

And it turns out that John Murray did preach on Sunday morning, September 30, 1770, in the chapel Thomas Potter built many years before.

John Murray went on to be the minister of the first Universalist congregation in the United States. 

Today we carry his legacy, and the legacy of so many others, who believed that the message of Jesus was that No One is outside the Circle of God’s Love. 

Like Peter, John Murray had failed.  He was adrift, and disconnected from his calling. 

And like Peter, he was restored to a new life through an encounter with a person, Thomas Potter, who helped him do the thing he thought he couldn’t do any more, who literally fed him, and who reminded him who and what he loved.

Anyone who has restored an old house or an old car knows that restoration does not mean going back to exactly the way it was before.  Restoration is not the same thing as preservation.  Restoration is a kind of resurrection.  It is both a return and a transformation at the same time.  It is a return to the core of who you are, to the essence of Love and the energy of Life that is within you.  And it is waking up to a new life, a shared life that depends on others.  Restoration does not happen alone, but in relationship with those who love us and who remind us who we love. 

As the poet Jan Richardson writes,

You hold the memory
of what it was
to be whole.

It lives deep
in your bones.
It abides
in your heart

It is Love that restores those broken places, puts it all back together into something new and beautiful.  Peter experiences this, and John Murray experiences this. 

In our theological tradition, this is the core message of Christianity.  Jesus didn’t substitute himself for us, in some economic way paying the price for us, dying for all of our sins.  Jesus didn’t defeat death through a supernatural bodily resurrection.  Instead, our Unitarian and Universalist tradition says: Jesus taught a way to live.  A way that is focused on what is liberating and life-giving, a way that restores us to ourselves, even when that is dangerous and goes against the powerful. 

It is a way that is hard, that requires much of us, but that is nonetheless simple:  feed one another, tend and care for one another.  Remember who and what you love, even if it is taken away from you.   Perhaps especially when it is taken away from you.  This kind of Love, agape Love, does not require that we like one another, but to remember that we are all both broken and whole, and that we are all absolutely dependent on one another and the earth for life.

That is the message that we remember today and we symbolically enact it through the ancient ritual of communion.  The words I’ll be using for today’s communion are taken from ritual words used in our Unitarian and Universalist traditions.

Like so many prophets before and after him, Jesus acted as if the world is ordered by Love and not by human greed and hatred.  This acting as if all people mattered, changed the world.  And so in communion, we also act as if that is our reality, a reality of Love where all are fed, all are restored to abundant Life.

A Meditation in the face of loneliness

2019.3.3 A Meditation in the face of loneliness

Spirit of Life, God of Love, Great Mystery of this Universe—

Some of us come seeking quiet and solitude this morning.  To simply be here together, to be able to pause in life, one individual among many.

Some of us come seeking the known and the familiar, to see a kind face who knows a bit about my life and will ask, how is it today?  Tell me about it.

Some us come tentatively, seeking something, not sure what, but a yearning so clear to be with others, to not be alone today.

Some of us arrive with ease and joy, without a second thought. 

Some of us arrive, finally, after a very long journey, after starts and stops, and detours through other lands, through islands of loneliness.

Some of us arrive with help, with encouragement, after someone found our lonely island and said hey, do you want to come visit a bigger place?

We come aware of our separation, of the differences among us, nervous about how we should act or whether all of who we are will be welcomed.

We come wanting love, wanting recognition, wanting to be seen for who we are.

Some of us come wanting human touch, a hug or a hand shake, because most of the week we don’t have that.

Some of us have children crawling all over us all of the time and just need to feel like a separate person for a while.

Most of us, all of us, come needing to feel safe and in control of our bodies, needing clear boundaries and consent for that hug or handshake. 

We come with all of our invisible “stuff” – all of our hopes and expectations, our personalities and egos, our sorrows, joys, frustrations, quirks, gifts and flaws. Our loneliness.

And here we are, together.  Unique human beings who are both utterly separate and always connected.

What is visible is shallow compared to the invisible: the deeper self we want to bring forth, the sacred and silent pull towards love and acceptance, between you and me.

2019.3.3 "Between You and Me: the Shared World"

2019.3.3          “Between You and Me: the Shared World”  Rev. Laura Bogle

Reading: Gate 4-A     by Naomi Shihab Nye

Unitarian Universalist minister and Army chaplain George Tyger reflects on a time when he was deployed overseas for a stretch, and he felt so lonely, missing his family.  His 8 year old son sent him a teddy bear, all dressed up in an Army Combat Uniform, with a note that said, ‘When lonely, press left paw.”  So George did, because he was feeling lonely, and when he pressed that paw out came the recorded voice of his son saying “I Love you, I miss you.”

George writes:  “There are some values honored by all faith traditions: compassion in the face of suffering, love in the face of hatred, hope in the face of fear. But on some long, lonely nights, what really matters is closer to our hearts than any of these eternal values. Right now, what matters for me is a stuffed bear dressed in ACUs and a voice that says, “I love you and I miss you.”

George’s loneliness is a kind of loneliness that “makes sense” in a way. 

It’s a situational loneliness, having to do with living far away from his family for a while.  It’s a loneliness that is recognized and even held up as a sacrifice of his service.  It doesn’t make it any less hard, but at least it is seen as valid.

I’ve thought that it would be useful to have different words for different kinds of loneliness in our culture.  You know, like the Inuit people have 50 different words for snow.

There’s the loneliness of having to live far away from your family, or moving to a new place where you don’t know anyone.

There’s the loneliness of feeling left out of your friend’s plans.

There’s the loneliness of being ill or disabled, unable to go out, and feeling isolated.

There’s the loneliness of deep grief, when no one else exactly understands.

There’s the loneliness of being in a group of people, but not feeling like an important part of who you are is seen and recognized or valued. 

There’s the loneliness of being different, the only one in a group of people – the only woman, the only person of color, the only gay man, the only person under 35, the only Unitarian Universalist, the only single person… you get the idea.

There’s the loneliness that can arise in long term relationships or marriages, when one day you realize you’ve been so focused on the kids and the work and the older parents and the house repairs, you have forgotten each other.

There’s the loneliness of really wanting to be partnered or married and you’re not.

There’s the loneliness of leadership-- sticking with your principles and saying or doing something even when it is unpopular.

There’s the loneliness of wandering around the shopping center or the grocery store and in the midst of thousands of things to buy wondering if life has any meaning at all.

There’s the loneliness that can come when living alone—whether you do so by choice or not.

So many kinds of loneliness….On any given day, as we encounter others, how can we tell if someone is lonely?

It’s not just that someone is alone.  Being in solitude doesn’t equal loneliness.

Wouldn’t it be nice if there were a secret sign – some sort of signal that said, “Hey, I need a friend today.”  Because it sure is hard to say it directly. 

It might be even harder to say than admitting an addiction or naming depression. 

Imagine with me for a moment:  walking in here on a Sunday morning and when someone asks how you are doing, simply saying “I’m lonely.”  Or, “I’m feeling lonely today.” 

Maybe hard to imagine for some of us.  Some of us may even have a hard time identifying that loneliness is what we are actually feeling.

Saying “I’m lonely” might be like saying I’m the last one to be picked on the playground.  For someone who is already isolated, that’s just another layer of vulnerability.

Or saying “I’m lonely” might show that everything is not all right in my world of relationships.  For someone who is generally sociable, saying “I’m lonely” might feel like it wouldn’t make sense to anyone else.  How could you be lonely when you have a marriage and kids and a job and community work and a church?

Loneliness is often invisible—either because we don’t really see the folks who are lonely and isolated, or because we don’t understand that we ourselves are lonely. 

Yet it is all around us.

A large study of 20,000 adults published last year indicated that over half the United States rates as lonely according to their scale.

“According to the survey, 54 percent of respondents said they sometimes or always feel that no one knows them very well. Even more (56 percent) reported sometimes or always feeling like the people they’re surrounded with “are not necessarily with them.” (Atlanta Journal Constitution )

Perhaps surprising to some of us-- For younger adults—those born in the 1990s and early 2000s--the rates of loneliness are even higher than for older adults over age 72.  

It’s getting some attention because loneliness is being seen as a public health problem – an epidemic associated with the same kind of health outcomes as smoking 15 cigarettes a day.  Former US Surgeon General Vivek Murthy has noted loneliness as the most common pathology in his professional experiences.

Other work has found that loneliness is contagious, and spreads through social networks through feelings of mistrust and negativity.  If I’m feeling lonely, I am less able to reach out and treat you with unconditional positive regard, so our relationship falters, which leads to you feeling more lonely and that impacts your relationships with other people! And so on…

One of the doctors who worked on a study of how loneliness is contagious, writes: 

“When we pay attention to the experiences of those at the periphery, when we make an effort to prevent this sad experience of loneliness, then we can stabilize the whole social network…. We all benefit when we attend to the needs of those at the margins.”  https://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/12/01/why-loneliness-can-be-contagious/

So, how do we do that, faith community?

In our story this morning, fuzzy monkey was one of those at the margins.  Isolated and lonely on their own little island.  While Fish and Parrot reached out, tried to get fuzzy monkey to a bigger island with the other animals.  They were nice, but they weren’t able to help much. 

We learn from their experience that simply reaching out and being nice isn’t much help if you are expecting the lonely person to be like you.  To be able to swim or fly in order to find a place of belonging.

We sometimes do this in our communities and congregations – usually unconsciously, not intentionally.  We individually and collectively build up certain norms and ways of being that say, to belong here you have to be able to swim or fly to get here.  In building our connections and friendships with people who are already here, in the ways that we are used to gathering, we can unintentionally become exclusive just to those people. 

It was SamSam the grandfather turtle who was able to be with Fuzzy Monkey, to accompany Fuzzy Monkey to a new place of belonging.  SamSam did not ask Fuzzy Monkey to learn to swim or fly.  SamSam carried Fuzzy Monkey on their back until they reached solid ground again. 

And then!  The welcome at Bigger Island!  The Shared World!  This is the kind of welcoming I hope we model here in our congregation! 

We are glad you are here.  Tell us about you.

There is a place here for you. Let me show you around.

We will share our food with you – what do you eat?

Do you want to play with us?  You’re invited.

We may not know everything about monkeys but we are willing to learn.

We may not know everything about your particular story, but here is a place where we will reliably say “I Love You” -- just like George’s teddy bear.

Every week we say “Love is the spirit of this fellowship”  -- here is a place where we believe in the shared world that Naomi Shihab Nye described in our reading this morning.  A shared world where even perfect strangers in an airport will cross barriers of language and culture to help a woman feel safe and included, will even sample her cookies, a shared communion.  We believe it is possible and we will act to make it so.

Look around at this bunch of people, and think “this is the world I want to live in.”  The shared world. Not a single person … apprehensive about any other person. We notice one another.  We offer a place to be known, not just a place to fit in.  We offer one another sustenance, in body and soul.  We ask for help and we offer the help that is needed, the help that actually helps.  We carry each other. 

This is the task of religious community.  The root of the word religion is religio to bind together.

But Unitarian Universalists don’t believe we are bound together by creed or class or race or gender or generation or culture or musical taste or whether you like the word God or not. 

We do affirm that we are always, already bound up with one another in a great web of interdependence. That web can transmit loneliness and isolation like a contagion, in fact this is how our current culture is set up.  But we know that web can transmit love and connection and generosity, the shared world, between me and you.

This is how we bless the world: being mindful of that interdependence, living into the truly shared world, making the invisible ties that bind visible, ties of Love rather than disregard. 

If there is a God, this is how I understand God—as that link between you and me where Love can arise, even in the hardest of circumstances, even across differences.

I end with this blessing prayer for all of us by the late Rev. Nancy Shaffer:

May each one among us have… bodies that
want to stand next to other bodies, not alone,
while singing and bending, stirring soup.
…so that no one
stands alone and no one aches and does not say so.

May our doors be so open it is drafty inside,
and people sometimes shout because noises without
come also within. May those sheltered here
sometimes cry, all at once, letting tear
water clean what words by themselves cannot.
In silent times, may every one present hear
every one else breathing, and know this is not
separate from how the world breathes all night.

May we always have enough room for those
many who want to come in. May those who cherish
this {congregation} be so glad they cannot stop speaking,
stop asking, and may that crowding itself be a gladness
as we keep adding rooms. May we notice
each one who is new and invite her to stay.
May our list of names for the Holy not ever
be finished; and may we hear God chuckling
with us as we find still more.

(from "Instructions in Joy")

May it be so.  Amen.

2019.2.3 Can I Get a Witness?

2019.2.3 “Can I Get a Witness?”

What does it mean to be a witness?

Well, you can be on the witness stand, like in a courtroom—being examined and cross-examined.  Giving testimony about what you know, what you saw, what you experienced.

You can also be a witness to faith—giving testimony about how you have been saved, or transformed.  What you know to be true in your own life and experience.  I’d venture a guess that many of us UUs are uncomfortable with this kind of witnessing because it is linked to proselytizing, pressuring others to accept your own faith claims.

Today I want to push us on this a little bit—to broaden our understanding about what it can mean to be a witness as Unitarian Universalists….  In January I was in Arizona, working with groups who provide humanitarian aid on the border, and am fired up to be a witness to what I saw and experienced and learned.

I don’t have to tell you all that we are living in a world of “alternative facts” and fake news.

What is actually true and how do we figure that out?

German Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt has some guidance for us about this – She herself was an exile, a refugee from the Nazis – she got out of Germany in 1933 and settled in the United States.  Even if you don’t know her you probably know her phrase “the banality of evil.”

I am simplifying here, but what I understand from her is that evil happens when human beings are unable to have a moral conversation – either with themselves or the world.  We have to be able to think and be able to put ourselves into different worlds. 

Academic Leslie Stonebridge studies Hannah Arendt’s writings, and has said “What Arendt wanted was actually something a bit more radical than [empathy], is to imagine something that’s not your world, that makes you feel uncomfortable. And that’s where the work has to start. And that’s why she was also very committed to thinking. To the activity of thinking, which is how you do that. …

And what she called “the banality of evil” was the inability to hear another voice, the inability to have a dialogue either with oneself or the imagination to have a dialogue with the world, the moral world.”

Arendt says truth is always something that happens in dialogue, in relationship.  It is not some solid object out there, waiting to be found.  And this is what makes it different from a fact.  She wrote, in her essay, “Lying in Politics”:

“Factual truths are never compellingly true. The historian knows how vulnerable is the whole texture of facts in which we spend our daily life. It is always in danger of being perforated by single lies, or torn to shreds. Facts need testimony to be remembered and trustworthy domain of human affairs. From this it follows that no factual statement can ever be beyond doubt.”

Facts need testimony in order to be a trustworthy domain. 

So, for instance, when we are having a national conversation about a border wall, we need to hear the testimony of the actual people it will effect.  And we need witnesses to their reality. 

Last year in the run up to the mid-term elections, I saw some political ads that made it seem like we as a country are under attack by alien invasion.  Some folks accept that as truth.

Today, I simply want to share with you a little bit about my experience in Arizona.  From my perspective, in a short amount of time, in one particular place – in and around Tucson.  This is just a glimpse into a much longer story.  This is my testimony.

Slide 1:  Mountains

·       As I landed in Arizona—such an alien landscape.  Sonoran desert.  Seemed like every plant had a thorn.  No water anywhere.  Even in January the sun could be intense during the day.  Cold at night.  Physically being there is quite different from watching it on the news.

Slide 2: Nogales

·       One evening we visited the border town of Nogales around sunset.  As we drove down the interstate I could see the hillside covered in colorful houses.  Suddenly the whole picture came into view and I realized I was looking over into Mexico, and the there was a border wall/fence between us and that place.  Topped with razor wire.  It used to be that you could walk freely from one side to the other here. 

·       Later that night we drove through the checkpoint that is about 25 miles north of the border.  These were set up as “temporary” about 8 or 9 years ago.  Still there.  Every car is stopped and questioned by armed Border Patrol and sniffed by working dogs.

Slide 3: Borderlands UU

·       Later that evening we visited the UU congregation north of the Border in the Amado area.  They just changed their name to Borderlands UU.  In this picture you can see Barb who is a member of that congregation.

·       Barb is a retired nurse, 77 years old.  She is part of the Green Valley Samaritans who leave water and other aid for refugees crossing the Sonoran desert.  She also does other things, like helping people get to safe houses.  She is bold and public and often she is breaking the law.  She says as an older person, she has nothing to lose. 

·       That night we also heard from another person connected to the congregation.  A woman with young children, who is also involved in helping refugees but in a quieter way.  She’s only lived in the area about 5 years, and she told the story about the first time a border crosser knocked on her door for help – which happens fairly often in the area.  It was a 13 year old girl travelling by herself, with bloody feet.  There was a language barrier, but she helped her, sat on the porch together and amazingly figured out how to laugh together.  Because she didn’t know what else to do, Shawna called the Border Patrol that time.  Every time someone has knocked on her door since then—and it has happened several times—she has now called the Samaritans.  Sweet interaction between the two women– both their approaches are needed.

Slide 4:  No More Deaths

·       This picture is of the area of the Sonora Desert called the Arivaca corridor.  The red dots represent places where human remains have been found just during the years 2012-2015.  Since 2004 the organization No More Deaths—No Mas Muertes has been tracking the numbers of people who have died in the desert as they try to cross into the United States.    Because no one else is tracking that information.  Some estimates put the number over 2,000 in the last 20 years.

·       No More Deaths is a ministry of the UU church in Tucson.  They also leave water and food and medical aid for people in the desert.  They choose the locations partly based on what they know about where the most people have died.

·       9 of their volunteers were arrested on misdemeanor charges like littering, abandonment of property.  4 of them were just convicted of these charges and face fines and jail time.  4 more are still awaiting trial.  One of their volunteers is facing felony charges, ironically for “human trafficking” again for giving medical care and humanitarian aid.

·       Canvassing – putting out signs that say “Humanitarian Aid is Never a Crime—Drop the Charges.”

Slide 5: Operation Streamline

·       We spent a whole afternoon with this woman, Lois.  She took us to the federal court where we watched Operation Streamline in action. Over the course of a couple of hours, over 70 people were sentenced to prison time (in privately run prisons) for the crime of crossing the border. After serving time in prisons they will be deported. Lois and others show up to witness every day and monitor what is happening.

·       I won’t go into all the details of Operation Streamline here.  I will emphasize this: the only so-called crime these people were charged with was illegally entering the country, or re-entering.  They were handcuffed and their legs were shackled. 

·       The prison sentences I saw handed out that day totaled 2, 775 days.  At a cost of $161/day to be housed in a privately run for-profit prison, that is a total of almost half a million dollars of tax payer money.  In one afternoon in one courthouse. 

·       Lois also volunteers with No More Deaths. She spent last Saturday looking for someone lost in the desert. She is 84.  The bar has been set very high for retirement.

·       The cartoon she holds reads: “This court finds the No More Deaths Border Samaritans guilty as charged on all counts.
4 counts of premeditated compassion
4 counts of first degree humanity
4 counts of involuntary kindness”

Slide 6: Love greater than Fear

·       I had a little hesitancy about this trip. Should I use the resources in a different way?  What could I really do coming in as an outsider and being there for just a couple of days.

·       What was really clear is that these folks are hungry to be seen, for what is happening there to be witnessed, and they one thing they all said was: go back home and tell the stories.  Testify and witness to what is happening here.

·       But one of the truths that I understood in a new and different way:  the border is not just in California and Arizona and Texas.  Invite Sheri Liles and Karen Petrey up to discuss the local Witnessing Wednesdays.

Closing:

It is crucial that we have witnesses – people watching and being in relationship with those who are the most impacted.  People who can then go tell what they saw.  This is not just about gathering facts to put into an argument, but about searching for the truth.  During our trip, some of us asked a lot of questions.  We wanted to get all the facts down, we wanted to learn as much as possible.  But then one of our trip leaders asked us “What is the deeper question underneath all these questions you are asking?”

·       How can this be happening here?

·       One of the No More Deaths volunteers has asked, “If giving water to someone dying of thirst is illegal, what humanity is left in the law of this country?”

·       What separates me from the border patrol agents, from the lawyers and judges?

·       What separates me from the refugees?  From the mothers separated from their children?

·       What is the deeper truth of my faith and what is it calling me do and be?  What risks would I take to live out your values and potentially save lives?

May we all find our own ways to witness to the Truth.