Holding Onto Faith

Faith is the basis of our relationship with the divine… faith is the basis of our relationship with one another… in deed faith is the basis of our relationship with our highest selves.

To understand this basis is to first have a construct of what faith means. Faith is the confidence and trust that we place on a person… or entity. We have all heard faith used as a substitute for ‘hope’, ‘trust’, or ‘belief’. Faith though similar to these words is different. It asserts a set of positive beliefs that embody hope, and trust and live these elements out. Many would argue that faith is a set of beliefs held onto things unseen, belief in things that cannot be attained through reason. In approaching this topic I encourage you to hold fast to your sense of reason. Faith is a sacred emotion and can be easily misplaced in that which does not suite our highest self. In deed, faith and reason should walk hand in hand with one another allowing us to make meaning out of our life’s experiences, guiding us to an ever deepening sense of wonder, joy, trust, and belief in our future, in our communities, in our families, and in our selves. Faith is often the byproduct of the turbulent times in our lives.

Let us take a journey with a young girl and a little dog; and their journey to faith. In the story, The Wizard of Oz, we are introduced to a stubborn, often irritating little girl named Dorothy. She doubts the love and safety offered to her by her Aunt and Uncle. She doubts her own strength.  She has placed her faith in a presupposition that things are not going to come out all right for her. . .  So the doubting Dorothy is thrown into the tornado of life--and oh, what a ride it is. She spends an untold amount of time traversing a difficult journey--dodging flying monkeys, a wicked witch, and drug laced poppies that lull her into a false sense of safety and sleep. All along this journey Dorothy has carried with her a power that was beyond all these obstacles.  All along Dorothy had the power to overcome the challenges of Oz and find that which she sought.  She, however, lacked the one thing to make that power attainable--faith.

At the end of The Wizard of Oz, a perplexed and somewhat irked Dorothy finds out from a flighty fairy that seems to of spent too much time at the poppy fields herself, that Dorothy has always possessed the power to return home. She needed only to click together her fabulous ruby slippers. When Dorothy asks why no one told her sooner, she is met with an essential truth: even if someone had told her about the power she possessed, Dorothy would not have believed it and could not have used it. Like Dorothy, we each need to experience each step in our journey—including our crises of faith and our wonder—before emerging stronger on the other side. The strength of faith arises when it is supported by belief, by trust, and when the voice of reason says this is so.

Hear this… that Dorothy started with a sense of wonder. She struggled till she began to believe. Her experience granted her the strength to know.

Wonder…
Believe…
Know…

When we arrive to that which we can know, we give ourselves the spiritual wings to explore the deeper questions, the questions that seemingly have no answers, no proof…

Once she arrived home, Dorothy was unable to explain to those she loves dearest what has happened to her, she is unable to give adequate explanation to her journey that has transformed her. She is left with more questions than she had at the start of her journey, but somehow we know that this little girl will be able to live with her new found questions, for she has found her feet for the journey.

Faith seems to be an essential ingredient in the spiritual wholeness for which humans yearn. You, personally, may have faith in an entity greater than humankind, in the connectedness of all beings, or in a worldview that is uniquely your own.

Our lives are a tapestry of many journeys, filled with many quests, mountain top experiences, times of sorrow and doubt, all of which coming together to help form the picture of each individuals faith, brought together and made stronger through this shared inter connected Faith of ours.

Our Unitarian Universalist tradition embraces both the doubt and the inherent wisdom we each bring to the development of our own faith. When it comes to faith, poetry and Unitarian Universalism have some things in common. Both can help us pursue spiritual wholeness, and both provide more questions than answers. Poetry appears often in Unitarian Universalist worship, and some renowned American poets have a connection with Unitarian Universalism. A poem has the power to celebrate faith, capture our difficulties in keeping faith, present a challenge to faith, and--or all three…. I find that often a good poem is one that leaves me with more questions… more than that… I find that I have a sense of peace about those questions and the ability to live with the questions, more so to lean into the questions.

Hear now the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson as he takes us through his own poetic journey of Faith in his poem:

‘The Ancient Sage’

Thou canst not prove the Nameless, O my son,
Nor canst thou prove the world thou movest in,
Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone,
Nor canst thou prove that thou art spirit alone,
Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one:
Thou canst not prove thou art immortal, no
Nor yet that thou art mortal—nay my son,
Thou canst not prove that I, who speak with thee,
Am not thyself in converse with thyself,
For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise,
Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt,
And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith
She reels not in the storm of warring words,
She brightens at the clash of 'Yes' and 'No',
She sees the Best that glimmers thro' the Worst,
She feels the Sun is hid but for a night,
She spies the summer thro' the winter bud,
She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls,
She hears the lark within the songless egg,
She finds the fountain where they wail'd 'Mirage'!

Did you hear? Did you hear how the poet spoke of the items that he could not know the answers to many questions that he struggled with? Did you hear how the poet found value in these questions? The questions that we do not have the answers to are not invalid questions, they are worthy to hold onto, to ponder, and to come to our own conclusions.

Nothing worthy proving can be proven, nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise, cleave to the sunnier side of doubt, and cling to faith beyond the forms of Faith she reels not in the storm of warring words, she brightens at the clash of yes and no, she sees the best that glimmers thro the worst…

We build our faith upon the items of this life that we have come to know, come to trust, and come to believe in full blossom. Knowing that spring approaches during the coldest nights of winter, that summer days of basking in the sun will come again…. Holding onto these truths we are given strength to our faith that can weather the questions that have no answers, the questions in which both yes and no are valid answers. There is a sublime beauty in the mysteries of life, in the questions; this beauty gives me delight on even the darkest of nights.

Wonder leads us on our spiritual journeys to items that we can believe in, belief grants us the ability to know our own answers to the questions of life, and so new wonders appear before us, new questions, new journeys.

Wonder…
Believe…
Know…

Do you wonder more now than when you were younger, or less? Believe more now, or less? Know more now, or less? What things have changed from "wonder" to "know" or been shifted from the "know" to "wonder"?

My spiritual companions, Faith is a journey, it is a gripping journey that is awe-inspiring. That takes a hold of us as a tornado transporting us to unknown lands, with unknown wonders and mysteries. Let the wonder of this life take you to beliefs and knowledge that strengthens you for the beauty of the journey is in the questions. The questions are the mysteries; they are ever new, ever changing, and ever worthy of our pursuit.

Cleave to the sunnier side of doubt,
Cling to faith

Wonder…
Believe…
Know…

Namaste

Mindfulness - a Spring Time Sermon (I wrote for a church in Milford)

I want to talk with you this morning about the wonder and beauty of life. About taking the time to NOTICE the wonder and beauty of life. I want to talk about making sure we don’t miss what is wondrous and beautiful around us.
Last week we observed the beginning of Spring, a time where everything starts a new, when life and birth is abundant around us. And I hope you have had the chance to enjoy the weather as I have. To walk out side your homes, and daily routines and just absorb the new smells that spring offers. It is as if the whole world is crying out that now is the time to celebrate new  births.This is a time to celebrate the fullness and abundance of life’s many gifts and expressions. That sounds simple enough, doesn’t it? During this time of new birth I encourage you my friends to make the time to really get outside and go for a hike or a walk on the beach. Let your lives be filled with moments of appreciation and joy.
But it’s just so hard to keep up that awareness of what’s beautiful around us. I don’t know about you, but I’m busy. From the moment I wake up in the morning, I have things to do. Every day I have things to do, every week I have things to do, every month, I have things to do. Every YEAR, I have things to do. And I’m not one of those frantically busy people who over-schedule myself or have an exceptional amount of commitments and obligations. I am actually very careful to keep my life in balance. It is simply that daily living requires a certain amount of activity and focus.
I’m not arguing for a life of sitting around, staring at the view. I don’t think it’s our BUSY-NESS that necessarily needs to change. The reason many of us have things to do is that we LIKE the things we’re doing. You know that stereotypical vision of heaven as sitting around doing nothing while soft music plays in the background? Doesn’t it sound awful? That might be all right for a day or two of vacation, but certainly not for an eternity. It sounds BORING.
I believe what we need is more mindfulness. Mindfulness is that practice of bringing awareness to our daily lives. Can we do it right now? Bring your awareness first to your breath, as you breath in and out, feeling the air move through your nose or mouth. Feel your stomach move in and out with each breath, feel your lungs responding to air. Bring your awareness to the chair beneath you, offering soft support. Notice the back of the chair, holding you. And your legs and their position...are you comfortable how you’re sitting? Were you even aware of whether or not you were comfortable? Bring your attention to your shoulders now; feel them drop a bit as you relax; notice who is around you, to your right and left, in front and in back. Notice the warm sunshine filtering in from the windows. Notice the stained glass around you the grain of the wood of the pulpit, the details of the room. Perhaps you notice something    have never noticed before.
Part of the practice of mindfulness is being NON-JUDGMENTAL in your awareness. So it doesn’t count as mindfulness if you just made a mental inventory of things that need fixing or correcting or could be better. That’s list making. Mindfulness is simply about observation and being fully present to that observation.
It’s a hard state of attention to maintain. Like meditation, mindfulness often results in a wandering mind, making lists, remembering tasks, even feeling anxious. Because being fully present and aware means that we notice not just what is good and beautiful, but also what is challenging or difficult. I think THIS is part of why we keep ourselves SO VERY busy. We keep ourselves stimulated with television and shopping and the internet—I do it too—because if we stop and bring ourselves into full awareness, it can sometimes feel devastating. We might notice that we are not as happy and fulfilled as we thought. We might remember relationships with family or friends that need work. We might notice that the world is filled with injustice and inequity. Yes, if we stop and bring ourselves into full awareness, it can sometimes feel devastating. But here’s the gift. When we are fully present and aware, we notice not just what is challenging and difficult, but also what is good and beautiful.
When we are fully present and aware, we notice not just what is challenging and difficult, but also what is good and beautiful.
The classic Chinese text, the Tao Te Ching, tells us: “When people see some things as beautiful, other things become ugly. When people see some things as good, other things become bad. Being and non-being create each other. Difficult and ease support each other. Long and short define each other. High and low depend on each other. Before and after follow each other.”
The Tao Te Ching would advise us to let go of our judgment of what is
beautiful and what is ugly, and that’s a wonderful goal to aspire to… Wonderful, but not easy. What I’m inviting us to do today is to remember the balance, to remember that beauty and ugliness, joy and sorrow, ease and struggle, that these things go hand in hand. To be fully present and aware is to notice ALL, not just one or the other. Not JUST the joy. Not JUST the sorrow.
If all we notice of the world is its beauty and goodness, then we are NOT fully aware. For those of us who lead comfortable lives, it can be easy to ignore the problems of the world, the injustice, the suffering. We avoid eye contact with the homeless person on the street, on the public transport. We don’t know the effects of immigration policy on the people in our cities. We distance ourselves from family members we don’t understand. But that is NOT full awareness. That is NOT mindfulness.
Likewise, if all we notice of the world is its tragedy and heartbreak, then we are NOT fully aware. For those of us whose lives are struggle, it can be easy to ignore the beauty of the world, the love, the generosity. We overlook all the good work being done to make the world a better place. We don’t see the love and friendship that abounds. We ignore hope in favor of despair. But that is NOT full awareness. That is NOT mindfulness.
What I’m inviting us to do today is to remember the balance, to remember that beauty and ugliness, joy and sorrow, ease and struggle, that these things go hand in hand.
I think this is PART of the reason why volunteering time—working at a homeless shelter or soup kitchen, teaching at a community center, helping at a local hospital—has been shown by multiple studies to improve depression, pain, mobility, and life satisfaction. I’m sure there are many factors as to WHY this is, but it seems to me that when we volunteer our time somewhere, we bring ourselves into full awareness that the world is not quite all right on its own, that our time is needed to help make this a better place.
And if we are fully present and aware, when we notice the world is not quite all right, we also notice that the world is nevertheless joy-filled and amazing.
And how wonderful to know that if you tend towards either extreme—seeing only joy or seeing only sorrow—that the remedy is still the same: to volunteer your time somewhere.
The tendency of most of us, I think, is to want to avoid extremes in favor of...routine. To-do lists: Television, shopping, Internet. Avoiding the lows, we also avoid the highs.
So let’s honor this time of year as a time to embrace and celebrate the beauty and wonder we tend to overlook.

Self Compassion

Sara Paddison, a best-selling author wrote, "When we know love matters more than anything, and we know that nothing else REALLY matters, we move into a state of surrender. Surrender does not diminish our power, it enhances it." 

We are not our mistakes. We overcome our trials in community and suffer when we pretend that we can do 'this' alone. Pretending we are ok carries too great a price. The illusion of comfort in denial or self-sacrifice is not ours to carry in isolation… . There is no shame in suffering…. , just as there is no healing in silent self-torment.

The moments of crisis in our lives are the "crossroads" of opportunities for soul searching and self-realization. Here is where truth meets with the anguish of the ego's overwhelming resistance to change.

It is here where… moment by moment …we have the opportunity of the mind and spirit to let go of what no longer suites ourselves, or each other.

It is here that we have the opportunity to choose the virtue that can come from gratitude, and the healing that comes in learning to embrace our selves with compassion, that we learn to be caring of ourselves. 

Be mindful of this present moment, for today gives you the opportunity to be compassionate to yourself. 

Marcel Pagnol was a French novelist, playwright, and filmmaker. In 1946, he became the first filmmaker elected to the Académie Française and wrote that "The reason people find it so hard to be happy is that they always see the past better than it was, the present worse than it is, and the future less resolved than it will be." 

Similarly, many look harshly at their lives, and pass judgment that is harder on them selves than any opinion that others may carry. What if, instead of judging the past, we embrace today, and let go of our expectations for tomorrow. We learn a new way of thinking… that allows us to embrace with love …our mistakes, smile at the opportunities that today presents, and leave tomorrow to itself. Once we are living in this present moment with compassion for ourselves, we learn that embracing our lives with the bravery that is love enables us to overcome more than we thought possible.

This kind of mindfulness can only be achieved by a life examined. One tool for self exploration which grants us the ability to be compassionate to our selves is meditation. But please do not think that this path is one free of irritation. What I am talking about is getting to know yourself, being familiar with your fears. It is a humbling exercise let go of our ideals…. Pick ourselves up a thousand times a thousand if needed. This is the path of self discovery. This has nothing to do with what you may believe or not believe. This is about having the courage to let go of the past, and embrace the present.

Recently I came across this story told by Pema Chodron in her book, “When things fall Apart,”

In 1960 Pema was attending a lecture about a man’s spiritual experience he had in India . He said he was determined to get rid of his negative emotions. He struggled against his anger and lust: He struggled against laziness and pride. But mostly he wanted to get rid of his fear. His meditation teacher kept telling him to stop struggling, but he took that as just another way of explaining how to overcome his obstacles.

Finally the teacher sent him off to meditate in a tiny hut in the foothills. He shut the door and settled down to practice, and when it got dark he lit three small candles. Around midnight he heard a noise in the corner of the room, and in the darkness he saw a very large snake. It looked to him like a king cobra. It was standing in front of him swaying. All night he stayed totally alert, keeping his eyes on the snake. He was so afraid that he couldn’t move. There was just the snake, himself, and fear.

Just before dawn the last candle went out, and he began to cry. He cried not in despair but in tenderness. He felt the longing of all the animals and people in the world; He knew their alienation and their struggle. All his meditation had been nothing but further separation and struggle. He accepted – really accepted whole heartedly – that he was angry and jealous, That he resisted and struggled, and that he was afraid. He accepted that he was also precious beyond measure – wise and foolish, rich and poor, and totally unfathomable. He felt so much gratitude that in the total darkness he stood up, walked towards the snake, and bowed.  Then he fell sound asleep in the floor. When he awoke, the snake was gone. He never knew if it was his imagination or if it had ever really been there, and it didn’t seem to matter. As he put it at the end of the lecture, that much intimacy with fear caused his dramas to collapse, and the world around him finally got through.

Recently I came across the following quote on face book… and it really struck a chord with me because I was finally ready to hear it:

Never underestimate the pain of a person, because in all honesty, everyone is struggling. Some people are just better at hiding it than others

Pema Chodrom teaches us in her story to never stop running away from our fears. Move closer to them. Be there, and become familiar with your fears. As Zen Master Kobun Chino Roshi once taught, when relating to fear “Agree.. Agree with them.” The advice we usually get is to sweeten it up, and by any means make the fear and pain go away.

We do not need aids to disassociate our selves from our fear… we do this all to easily. When there is even the nearest hint of pain we often spin out of control in fear. Sometimes we check out… Facing our fears is not a measure of beating ourselves up. Embracing our fears is self compassion. 

When, however, we run out of options, we find that our lives have seemingly fallen apart the most profound spiritual truths can become pretty straight forward and ordinary. There is nowhere to hide. We see our truths better than anyone else. We then can begin to understand that though we cannot make our fear look pretty. We can embrace the teachings that we have learned through our lives.

We often think the brave are without fear that they are strong, and have no weaknesses. However the truly brave are well familiar with their fear. Allow yourself to experience your fear, to face it, and to act in spite of it. The trick is to never run away from your fear, even when the truth is not what you thought.

Nothing is ever what we thought it was going to be. Love, Courage, Fear, Mindfulness, Compassion for ourselves and compassion for one another, these are words that point to truths that we can only know with experience. When we allow our lives to fall apart, we become as Pema teaches, ‘Nailed to this present moment.’

Wounded Hero on a Shaman's Quest - A look at the parable of JOB

Response Paper: Wounded Hero on a Shaman’s Quest 

“Why does God’s “answer” to Job seem to be so little to the point? It is not only the behavior of Yahweh that is puzzling, but that of the hero and his comforters as well...  Why do the friends give such poor comfort, if that is indeed their aim?” (Wounded Healer on a Shaman’s Quest, Carole R. Fontaine, p.71)

            These questions have posed as the riddle of the book of Job for myself, and for my past teachers. Job’s tale seems to be of a good man, whom God sets Satan upon to torture, all so that God can prove to Satan that Job is in deed, word, and spirit a righteous man. In the past my theology has been that the book of Job was God’s answer to the human question, “How can a good God allow for evil to afflict those He loves?” This theology led to two different conclusions: God’s good is beyond our understanding, and that humanity does not have the right to question its God on the happenings of life. We, the created, do not have it within our capacity or right to pose such a question to our God. With this line of thinking Job’s friends come into the picture as a temptation from Satan, luring Job away from his righteous suffering, and admitting the wrong that he has done to warrant such treatment by God. The book of Job thus became one of my least favorite books, and I avoided it in teaching, preaching, and discussion. Job’s afflictions were so profound and varied that most people have experienced some, if not most, of his troubles by mid life. The only response that I could ever accept was that God’s nature was so vastly different from our own that we should think of it with fear, and awe. In such a theology the message of Job is to humble oneself in the sight of the Lord.

'Healing Rain' Painting by Chris Mundy

            What if the questioning of the problem of pain is not the nature of the book of Job? With the essay “Wounded Hero on a Shaman’s Quest” a new key to this book has been given, one more applicable and less esoteric. When we look at the book of Job as a folk tale that tells the story of a good man that has a series of terrible events occur to him. We see that even a good man can break, be traumatized, have an existential crisis, and heal, not in spite of the tragedies that have transpired, but in recognition of the pain that the hero has endured. Job learned how to stand righteously in the midst of pain, and then to continue on his spiritual pilgrimage with a greater understanding of himself, the people around him, and a world that does not distinguish between calamities visited upon the ‘righteous’ or the ‘sinner’.

Fairy tales are unreal, but they are not untrue; they reflect essential developments and conditions of man’s existence… One feels that fairy tales are concerned with portraying essential processes in life. Testing, threatening danger, destruction – and salvation, development, and maturation—are portrayed before our mind’s eye in images which are unreal, but for that reason fascinating.” p.73

            Viewing the book of Job as what Max Luthi refers to as fairy tale helps me to have a greater appreciation for the book of Job. In prior trainings I was taught that Job was a literal tale. In a literal portrayal of Job it was difficult to see him as a ‘righteous’ man, he seemed to me more than a tad self important, and struck me as the type that would be first to stand up in church with a prayer request for someone else rather than themselves. Job’s wife and his friends were portrayed as Satan’s helpers that tempt him to ‘curse God and die’ and the wife and friends that accompany Job at the end of the book were seen as different people in Job’s life that were equally righteous. This style of interpretation did not view the humanity, and the transformation that trauma whether personal or vicarious can have on a person.

            In looking at this tale as a folk tale while keeping in mind the setting, and equal humanity of Job’s wife, friends, and slaves it becomes a tale of the suffering of everyone. Each character in the story has an untold tale of their own of suffering.  The wife has lost her children, her husband his vocation, and brought home a disease that would render her unclean, and estranged from her community, yet it is not seen in the text any attempt of this righteous man to console his wife for her equal if not greater loss. Job’s friends who seem so villainous in their discouragement of a suffering man are equally made human, they see their friend who has lost so much, yet still has much that he can still hold onto, and rebuild with… Even though it is not within the text one can imagine the friends coming by and visiting Job to comfort him after each loss, his tragedy has been theirs; they have spent all their patience, energy, and sympathy for Job as he laments over his own woes and life. Yet in this tale there is an absence of Job ever having asked his friends how they were doing, perhaps the calamities that Job has experienced including the illness, loss of vocation, and death in the family had been visited upon the friends in some manner and time of their lives that was equal or greater than his own. In this tale we see a righteous man who losses much, he thinks of himself as being right with God, and associates his trauma as unfair treatment by his Lord. He has not wronged the Lord, so why has his God wronged him, is the question that is presented in the story.

            In looking at this story as a folk tale, I am reminded of the story by C.S. Lewis, Pilgrim’s Regress, in which a pilgrim sets out on his voyage of life, and in his naivety see’s that which is around him as being torturous, or set against him. As the pilgrim reaches his desired destiny he is reminded of his humanity, granted empathy, and so retraces his pilgrimage and sees that which stood against him as being agents that aided him in a personal transformation. So has Job experienced a pilgrimage, one of suffering, that has been transformative and helped him to see his self, and the world around him with a different perspective. It is then possible that it is not the friends and wife that seeming change so drastically from the start to the finish of the story, but Job himself that has been transfigured through suffering. His transfiguration has not made him superior or more righteous, it has made him more aware of what every one experiences in this life, for good or ill. Even the animals that the Lord lists to Job become a lesson for Job.

The perplexing parade of creatures in Yahweh’s answer to Job in 38:39-41:34 is not so out of place or irrelevant as is often assumed by commentators… They are there to convey information to Job that will help him complete his quest for meaning. Living illustrations of the mystery of creation, these animal helpers allow Job to place the suffering of human beings in a less parochial, more cosmic perspective.

            Using the folk tale interpretation method the story of Job becomes less irrelevant, and a tale told by a people that experienced trauma on a regular basis to comfort them. Job becomes relatable in his unmerited loss to the losses that every person eventually faces. If we are to see that Job’s journey is one of a folk tale “Shaman” instead of an arrogant man being made humble before a vast and unfathomable God, this tale is one of healing from trauma in a heroic fashion. The suffering of Job can be seen as his opportunity to rise to a greater level of awareness and social integration. The sufferer can become a healer; anyone can rise from the exile of illness and assist in the healing of others (p.81).

A shaman brings healing through symbolic activity that invoke imagery and emotions that trigger the limbic system which in turn has an effect on the autonomic nervous system, hypothalamus, and pituitary gland. This activation directly stimulates the immunological systems of the body (p.81). The story of Job acts in shaman form by invoking the images of nature, the height of creation and inspiring us, the audience, that even when the world that we have built, crumbles around us through illness and calamity, there is a world of wonder that is full of glory, wonder, and the ever healing Spirit of Life Itself.

            This interpretation of the book of Job has impacted me in a shaman fashion by reminding me to acknowledge, and then rise from the ashes of emotional and physical trauma by embracing that which I love the most. The play of a Papillion puppy, the embrace of my partner, outrageously stupid sci fi flicks that make me smile in their absurdity.  To grow through my personal pain while holding open hands to others aiding in the ever growing human bridge that spans the gulf of grief. 

February a month of four loves

Did you know that February comes from the Latin term februum, meaning purification? It seems fitting to me that the theme for the month is  “Love,” for I was always taught that perfect love drove out all fear (1 John 4:18). Love is a powerful emotion and the words when spoken to another carry much power, and is often used and received without much thought to how it is meant when spoken, or how it may be interpreted when received.

The Greeks had many terms for Love, and in English it seems that we only have one. C.S. Lewis wrote about the four most common types of love expressed in the Christian Scriptures; Eros, Storge, Phileo, and Agape.

Eros is an erotic love. Its base meaning can be restated as, ‘I love you for what you do for me.’ 

Storge is a love of camaraderie, this is the love that soldiers, co-workers, and communities hold for one another. We can restate this love as, ‘I love you for what we do for one each other.’ 

Phileo is the word for brotherly love, for the love that we hold for family, friends and a lover, it is less based on love of self and is based on our affections. It is delighting to be in the presence of another, and carries with it a sense of warm intensity. This could be restate as “I love you, in light of our relationship with each other.”  

Agape is the Greek word for charitable love. It carries with it not only passion but also compassion for one another. It is often referred to as God’s love, the Christian Scriptures uses this word when it speaks on God’s love for humankind. The Greeks saw Agape Love as a “Perfect Love.” Christian writers often referred to this word as the greatest of loves, and the greatest of virtues. It is a love that is not defendant upon what is done, or who the person is and can be restated as, “I love you without any reservation or desire.”

During this month when we write out Valentines Day cards, and greet one another with terms of endearment, I challenge everyone to ask themselves, what is meant when we say, “I love you” to those around us? What is meant when we say that we gather together in ‘Love’

A Spiritual Journey Of Hope

My Artistic Interpretation of Job (A Tale of A Mans Recovery from PTSD)

We all walk different paths, with different trials, and elements that can cause us to become disheartened. We go through seasons in our lives that are filled with the spring of hope, the summer of contentment, the fall in which we may lose that which we hold dear, and the winter of the spirit in which all may feel lost. As with the seasons, no emotional state is eternal. They ebb and they flow, and often we are carried with them. This is where having fellowship with one another is vital. Alone we can become lost to the ever-loud internal dialogue, in communion with one another we become stronger.

Hope is an emotion that is calming and supportive. Hope is also liberating and life affirming. When we face the storms of life, hope becomes an anchor, which keeps us emotionally centered. Hope lessens anxiety, liberates from oppression, gives resilient sense of self, and motivates us to embrace our future. The Sufi poet Rumi defines hope as, “the energy to go, the energy to move, to never think, ‘this is not worth it, I am done, I am tired…”

Ten years ago I attended a conservative Christian college. Throughout my time there I had to remain closeted about my sexuality, about who I was. After years of hearing repeatedly from various professors and mentors that homosexuals were cursed by God, and had no place in His church, or in ministry, eventually the message began to sink in. I stopped believing in a God of love, and in a world that was created out of love, and adopted a darker view of myself, and my world. I became reclusive.

There was however a professor who took a special interest in me. He took the time to listen to my fears, self-doubt, and feelings of futility. Through compassion and wisdom this individual was able to see my strengths, and passions that I had become blind to. 

It may be no surprise then that on my senior year internship, he challenged me to work with a group called Exodus, an ‘Ex-Gay Ministry.’ My assignment seemed simple. I was to answer a single question, “Is this a ministry of healing and hope, or one of spiritual abuse.”

Just as emotional abuse affects one emotionally, while physical abuse inflicts pain and bodily injury, spiritual abuse affects one spiritually. It is often the result of a leader, or spiritual system that tries to control, manipulate, or dominate a person, often with the tool of fear, this was the working definition, and the plumb line that I was given to hold to my internship.

The simple assignment changed my life. I observed not only what was being said to the attendees, but also how it affected them. I watched, as week-by-week the same people would repeatedly confess how they were unable to change their homosexuality despite prayer, fasting, and weekly attendance to the group. Those who failed to see any transformation in their lives were told that their failure was due to not having enough faith and hope in God’s healing power; new comers were instructed to cut ties with all those who tempted them to ‘sin’, to leave their friends, and sometimes to abandon their families and to immerse themselves within the organization. Instructions were given to imitate the body language and styles of straight members of their church congregations. In little time they replaced healthy relationships that fulfilled their desires with isolation, self loathing, and a never ending supply of guilt.

Perhaps my instructor had seen the same pattern forming in my own personality. I was constantly alienating those closest to me away with harsh humor, and isolating myself to my studies. In my solitude, and confessions to my mentor I would tell tales of how I was not worthy of God’s love, nor the love of another, because I did not have enough faith to change my sexuality. I had lost all hope of finding change within myself, and in turn had lost all hope of helping other people. 

The ‘simple assignment’ was anything but simple; it involved me taking a good look at not only at Exodus, but also at my own spiritual life. As I wrote my journal entries I began to see the pattern of spiritual abuse that my mentor had spoken of, not only at Exodus, but also in my own life; this was never so clear to me as while I was driving home from the final night of my internship. As an understanding of my situation began to grow I became overwhelmed with emotion. I pulled my car off the highway and began to cry. After a few moments of sorrow, I was filled with a sense of peace and love as the old Christian hymn came to my mind, ‘Just as I am without one plea, but that thy blood was shed for me, and that thou bidst me come to thee, O lamb of God, I come, I come…’ 

A sense of renewal washed over me as I realized in my heart that just AS I AM, I am worthy of God’s love and the love of my fellow brothers and sisters. I continued my drive home, wrote my final report for my internship, and resigned from my Bible College.

That simple assignment from a man who barely knew me, but cared enough to take the time to reach out and aid me in my time of need, changed my life. I enrolled in a public university and majored in psychology. My new purpose was to understand who I was, in order that I may learn to fall in love with that Self, and to aid others in their lives. Rather than hope for a future salvation, I began to hope for a salvation realized in this life.

In our seven UU principles we affirm the statement, ‘Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.’ In so doing we declare our need for each other, a need for growing a supportive community that shows respect for one another. When we achieve this and start to care for people around us, intervening when each other is in need, we become stronger, we truly become a community.

One can envision ‘support’ as ‘to give hope to’. In supporting one another we create empowering relationships. These relationships instill a sense of hardiness; give us a sense of self; and ultimately allow us to turn stressful times into opportunities of growth and courage that aid us in realizing our potential.

To create this kind of empowerment we must first be mindful of our own lives, and then observant of each other. We must go beyond being bystanders of life and learn the art of challenging one another to rise above our circumstances and embrace our potential.  

Nelson Mandela once stated that, “Playing small doesn’t serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it is in everyone. And as we let our light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.”

Hope is not about denying that there will be hard times in life, and embracing a blinding sense of false optimism. True hopefulness is a spiritual practice that allows us to experience ourselves, our world, and to embrace our future. We are not passive souls staggering towards a New Jerusalem, or a mountain top experience, we are active participants in our own lives and in the lives of others. Cultivate one another’s strengths, skills, spiritual integrity, and you will cultivate a community of hope that will thrive against the test of time.

My fellow spiritual companions, Let us hold fast to the challenge of our seventh principle, let us live the interdependent web of life and become for one another what we hope for ourselves.

Suprised by Joy

"The robbed that smiles, steals something from the thief."

Life has a way of throwing us surprises, sometimes these surprises are welcome, and pleasant… other times we may be thrown off guard and give a rash response that we reflect upon later. Sometimes the scenario leaves us something to smile about maybe even laugh about, other times the surprise is completely unwelcome leaving us devastated upon receipt.

Take for example a scene from the hit sitcom Happy Endings, that I recently stumbled across while cleaning out my DVR ......On this episode, Jane a very high strung individual,  demonstrates for us just how bad a surprise... Even well intended ones can go... Janes friends had decided to throw her a surprise birthday party. Their efforts work so well that Jane screams out, not in pleasure but in terror.  Like any rationale person would respond to being jumped at shouting Jane reaches into her purse while screaming at the top of her lungs and proceeds to reward her well meaning friends with a can of mace.
...
...
 Even as a child I found that I held a special place in my heart for the writings of C.S. Lewis. Perhaps it was the discovery of Narnia and later on the realization that Narnia's creator was also a theologian. Perhaps it was his humorous portrayal of temptation manifest as the allegorical demon, Wormwood, which won my admiration... And so i read with hunger his works in chronological order of authorship so that I could witness how his theology changed through his life…
That winter I received a surprise of my own. My mother called me… I could hear in her voice that something was wrong… I knew that she had gone to the doctors that morning for a cancer screening. I knew from what she couldn’t say …that the results were not good. Even though I was half way across the country and without the ability to see her, I could hear the held back tears in her voice… She was afraid, she felt shocked, surprised… and yet here she was trying to console her son that she was ok, and that all would work out.
This surprise left me breathless… horrified, and without knowing how to proceed. For the first time in my life I did not know what to do next. I didn’t know how to respond… I was terrified.
That weekend my friends decided to try to cheer me up by taking me to see Anthony Hopkins acting as C.S. Lewis in the movie Shadow Lands. The title of the movie should have been a clue to us all in, on what part of this great man’s life the movie would entail… a hard part….
C.S. Lewis had written about the theological concept of how to balance the notion of a loving God and the fact that our lives are often filled with pain. His response was something that I had been holding onto. An emotion closely observed ceases to be an emotion and becomes a mental construct. Something we can look at, objectify, quantify, and disassemble. This trick of emotionally detaching from our lives can work… and often is the tool we each use to deal with the harder surprises that life throws at us. This is the tool that Lewis had used his entire life to mold himself into someone that could care for his ailing alcoholic father, and then play the same role for his elder brother who also had given in to the same affliction.
For Lewis… pain was a tool that one could use to better themselves… pain was something that you could channel to take a rough looking stone and chisel out the diamond that had been hidden. From this construct we have such statements from his writings as, “Pain is God’s megaphone for a deaf world.”
Up till this point I had agreed with that statement… that pain was a motivator that prevented us from doing that which did not suite our higher selves, pain was a motivator for me to ask the deeper questions in my life.
Lewis though… had yet to meet Joy when he uttered those words… Joy was something that Lewis had yet to encounter in his life. He had never been in love, he had never allowed an emotion to get the upper hand in his life. Growing up without a mother, and with a father that he had to care for, as if he was the parent, had forced Lewis to detach from his emotions early on, and to channel their energy in ways that helped him cope with his world.
Often we paint upon God characteristics that are only a representation of how we, as individuals see the world around us. We paint upon the divine, and in turn our perceptions of one another, watercolors brought to life with tears…
Lewis found Joy when he decided to allow himself to feel the wholeness of his life.
In the movie Shadow Lands, C.S. meets a young American female poet that he names Joy. At first he treats her with the same detached emotions that he has used to cope with life.
Joy has a young son that reminds Lewis of himself… and when Joy and her son are facing deportation back to America, Lewis steps in and offers Joy his hand in marriage. Joy accepts the arrangement and the two become legally married so that she and her son can stay in England.
Some time passes, and Lewis has grown to know Joy… but know her from afar. He enjoys seeing her… getting to know who she is… but never allowing her to become a part of his life. Then, one day, he is shocked to discover that Joy has cancer… she is dying and soon he will see Joy no more… how often is it in our lives that this is the same of us… we do not appreciate something till its time with us becomes threatened…
Lewis decided to let Joy into his life at long last. Instead of courting her from afar he lets her in. He decides to marry her and make her a part of his life. For the first time he embraces her and the two become one… when that which brought Lewis happiness is taken away from him he is left emotionally bedraggled. A colleague sees him in his grief and tries to console him… ‘it must be hard for a man of prayer, and faith… to not have God answer his own prayers.’ The man continues on trying to console him, but Lewis interrupts the man and torts back a statement that would in later days become famous, ‘I pray, NOT to change God, but to change myself.’
At the time, when I saw this movie it was hard for me to sit through it all… to sit through and watch the little boy with a dying mother… it was all too close to home… but the story painted a picture for me… it spoke on many levels, and it still speaks to me today.
We court Joy in our lives… we often hold it at bay and observe it from afar. Our reasons for doing so are each unique but we have all had the experience of not letting Joy in… not letting each other in…
When the moments of surprise hits you in this life, be they welcome or not, let these be moments of opportunity for you to embrace the joy of the gift that is called the present.
Joy does not come in the form of memories… joy is in the experience of the now. It is not an emotion like happiness, or being in love… one of my favorite definitions of Joy is that Joy is the source of delight.
Joy is the source… of delight.
From Joy we learn how to engage the world around us…  how to enjoy the world around us… we learn how to embrace the ever fleeting now to seize the day… We learn how to reach for something more than ourselves in this world.
Brother David Stendle Ross writes, ‘Have you ever noticed how your eyes open a bit wider when you are surprised, it is as if you have been asleep… merely day dreaming and all of a sudden you are awake… humdrum equals deadness… surprise equals life…’ Let the moments of surprise awaken you to see the moments of your life as moments of opportunity to seize the joy that surrounds you. Ross states, ‘My favorite name for the one I worship in wonder is Surprise.’ Surprise is a name for the divine….
Joy is something that we must hold onto… when we practice holding onto the deeper truths of our lives that bring us happiness and enjoyment of life we are more prepared to meet the challenges … we begin to see the moments that quickly pass by as opportunities to share of ourselves.
Let the surprises of your life open your eyes with wonder to the many sources of Joy in your life. See each other… see that which brings you joy and hold onto it the now.
Do not wait for Joy to enter into your life… learn to see how you may be courting it from a distance… learn to marry Joy with your life… learn to embrace Joy with a sense of wonder, and gratitude. Every well eventually runs dry my friends… so learn to find the many wellsprings of that deep joy in our lives. Joy come from many sources, the one thing that these sources will always share is that they exist in the now.

Sri Chinmoy writes
True inner joy is self-created.
It does not depend on outer circumstances.
A river is flowing in
and through you
carrying the message of joy.
This divine joy is the purpose of life.
What is joy then?
It is a bird that we all want
To catch…
It is the same bird that we all love
To see flying.
The ever mounting flame
Of my hearts aspiration – cry
Is the source of my life’s
Ever---Increasing ---Joy ---- and delight.

The world is round and the place which may seem like the end may also be only the beginning.

My friends, my fellow seekers… allow yourself to let go of your fears, allow yourself to find that Joy that is waiting for you… within you. In so doing you will allow yourself to find that Joy is waiting all around you.  When the moments of surprise hits you, be they welcome or not, let they be moments of opportunity for you to embrace the gifts of joy that exist in our present.
In the words of Reverend Kim Crawford Harvey:
May our eyes be opened to the gifts of the present. Spirit Divine, Let us cast our lots with goodness, and as far as possible take nothing for granted. Awake and curious, may we welcome the future, and may surprise unlock our capacity for gratitude and set us free…
So mote it be.

Faith Holds On

Holding onto Faith
Sermon, 1.8.2012

Faith is the basis of our relationship with the divine, faith is the basis of our relationship with one another, in deed faith is the basis of our relationship with our highest selves.  To understand this basis is to first have a construct of what faith means. Faith is the confidence and trust that we place on a person, or entity. We have all heard faith used as a substitute for ‘hope’, ‘trust’, or ‘belief’. Faith though similar to these words is different. It asserts a set of positive beliefs that embody hope, and trust and live these elements out. Many would argue that faith is a set of beliefs held onto things unseen, belief in things that cannot be attained through reason. In approaching this topic I encourage you to hold fast to your sense of reason. Faith is a sacred emotion and can be easily misplaced in that which does not suite our highest self. In deed, faith and reason should walk hand in hand with one another allowing us to make meaning out of our life’s experiences, guiding us to an ever deepening sense of wonder, joy, trust, and belief in our future, in our communities, in our families, and in our selves. Faith is often the byproduct of the turbulent times in our lives.

Let us take a journey with a young girl and a little dog and their journey to faith. In the story The Wizard of Oz we are introduced to a stubborn, often irritating little girl named Dorothy. She doubts the love and safety offered to her by her Aunt and Uncle, she doubts her own strength, she has placed her faith on a presupposition that things are not going to come out all right for her. So the doubting Dorothy is thrown into the tornado of life, and oh what a ride it is. She spends an untold amount of time traversing a difficult journey. Dodging flying monkeys, a wicked witch, and drug laced poppies that lull her into a false sense of safety and sleep. All along this journey Dorothy carried with her a power that was beyond all these obstacles, all along Dorothy had the power to overcome the challenges of Oz and find that which she sought, she however lacked the one thing to make that power attainable, faith.

At the end of The Wizard of Oz, a perplexed and somewhat irked Dorothy finds out from a flighty fairy that seems to of spent too much time at the poppy fields herself, that Dorothy has always possessed the power to return home. She needed only to click together her fabulous ruby slippers. When Dorothy asks why no one told her sooner, she is met with an essential truth: even if someone had told her about the power she possessed, Dorothy would not have believed it and could not have used it. Like Dorothy, we each need to experience each step in our journey—including our crises of faith and our wonder—before emerging stronger on the other side. The strength of faith arises when it is supported by belief, by trust, and when the voice of reason says this is so.

Hear this, that Dorothy started with a sense of wonder. She struggled till she began to believe. Her experience granted her the strength to know.

Wonder…
Believe…
Know…

When we arrive to that which we can know, we give ourselves the spiritual wings to explore the deeper questions, the questions that seemingly have no answers, no proof…

Once she arrived home, Dorothy was unable to explain to those she loves dearest what has happened to her, she is unable to give adequate explanation to her journey that has transformed her. She is left with more questions than she had at the start of her journey, but somehow we know that this little girl will be able to live with her new found questions, for she has found her feet for the journey.

Faith seems to be an essential ingredient in the spiritual wholeness for which humans yearn. You, personally, may have faith in an entity greater than humankind, in the connectedness of all beings, or in a worldview that is uniquely your own.

Our lives are a tapestry of many journeys, filled with many quests, mountain top experiences, times of sorrow and doubt, all of which coming together to help form the picture of each individuals faith, brought together and made stronger through this shared inter connected Faith of ours.

Our Unitarian Universalist tradition embraces both the doubt and the inherent wisdom we each bring to the development of our own faith. When it comes to faith, poetry and Unitarian Universalism have some things in common. Both can help us pursue spiritual wholeness, and both provide more questions than answers. Poetry appears often in Unitarian Universalist worship, and some renowned American poets have a connection with Unitarian Universalism. A poem has the power to celebrate faith, capture our difficulties in keeping faith, present a challenge to faith, or all three. I find that often a good poem is one that leaves me with more questions, more than that, I find that I have a sense of peace about those questions and the ability to live with the questions, more so to lean into the questions.

Hear now the words of Alfred, Lord Tennyson as he takes us through his own poetic journey of Faith in his poem:
‘The Ancient Sage’
Thou canst not prove the Nameless, O my son,
Nor canst thou prove the world thou movest in,
Thou canst not prove that thou art body alone,
Nor canst thou prove that thou art spirit alone,
Nor canst thou prove that thou art both in one:
Thou canst not prove thou art immortal, no
Nor yet that thou art mortal—nay my son,
Thou canst not prove that I, who speak with thee,
Am not thyself in converse with thyself,
For nothing worthy proving can be proven,
Nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise,
Cleave ever to the sunnier side of doubt,
And cling to Faith beyond the forms of Faith
She reels not in the storm of warring words,
She brightens at the clash of 'Yes' and 'No',
She sees the Best that glimmers thro' the Worst,
She feels the Sun is hid but for a night,
She spies the summer thro' the winter bud,
She tastes the fruit before the blossom falls,
She hears the lark within the songless egg,
She finds the fountain where they wail'd 'Mirage'!
Did you hear? Did you hear how the poet spoke of items that he could not know the answers to many questions that he struggled with? Did you hear how the poet found value in these questions? The questions that we do not have the answers to are not invalid questions, they are worthy to hold onto, to ponder, to come to our own conclusions on. Nothing worthy proving can be proven, nor yet disproven: wherefore thou be wise, cleave to the sunnier side of doubt, and cling to faith beyond the forms of Faith she reels not in the storm of warring words, she brightens at the clash of yes and no, she sees the best that glimmers thro the worst… We build our faith upon the items of this life that we have come to know, come to trust, come to believe in full blossom. Knowing that spring approaches during the coldest nights of winter, that summer days of basking in the sun will come again…. Holding onto these truths we are given strength to our faith that can weather the questions that have no answers, the questions in which both yes and no are valid answers. There is a sublime beauty in the mysteries of life, in the questions; this beauty gives me delight on even the darkest of nights.

Wonder leads us on our spiritual journeys to items that we can believe in, belief grants us the ability to know our own answers to the questions of life, and so new wonders appear before us, new questions, new journeys.

Wonder…
Believe…
Know…
Do you wonder more now than when you were younger, or less? Believe more now, or less? Know more now, or less? What things have changed from "wonder" to "know" or been shifted from the "know" to "wonder"?

My spiritual companions, Faith is a journey, it is a gripping journey that is awe-inspiring. That takes a hold of us as a tornado transporting us to unknown lands, with unknown wonders and mysteries. Let the wonder of this life take you to beliefs and knowledge that strengthen you for the beauty of the journey is in the questions. The questions are the mysteries, they are ever new, ever changing, and ever worthy of our pursuit.

Namaste

Metamorphous

SERMON: “Metamorphous”, Christopher Mundy

This morning I’d like to talk to you about change, we all know that change in our lives is a constant… it is something that is unavoidable, needs to be recognized, and should be embraced. Change is indeed needed for survival. It is part of the natural process of life, of evolution, of our bodies, our psychological makeup, and even our beloved communities.

But change is not to be rushed. For change to be healthy we must be mindful of allowing it to occur within its own time.

Can you imagine planting a seed in a garden, watering it, giving it everything it needs to grow and then coming back an hour later, or a day later and being devastated that the seed hasn't turned into the plant and created fruit yet? I mean, HOW ridiculous is THAT? It's truly a crazy thought.

We, in many ways, do this all the time. We have planted the seeds of possibility and of our intention in the soil of The Uni-verse - and now we must tend to them and let them grow. Trying to rush the process will actually make it worse. Settling into the process makes things much more enjoyable.

Many of us are achievers. We are going to do something and we are going to do it well and be the best. And many of us have taken this point of view and applied it to our spiritual path. But that can't fly. We cannot achieve our way towards enlightenment or spiritual growth. It's something we must allow, we must get out of the way of and we must let it unfold.

One of the key tenets of The Path is patience. I remember the first time I asked The Uni-verse for patience, I thought I was actually asking The Uni-verse to SPEED THINGS UP! But instead, it slowed things down. And the JOKE was on ME!

I swear I was born in this life just to learn patience. I hate waiting. I really do. I get excited, I get happy, I get all ready to go and then things take twice as long or longer than I thought they would to happen.

There is a story told of a man that found a cocoon of a butterfly. ..One day a small opening appeared, he sat and watched the butterfly for several hours as it struggled to force its body through that little hole. Then it seemed to stop making any progress. It appeared as if it had gotten as far as it could and it could go no further. Then the man decided to help the butterfly, so he took a pair of scissors and snipped off the remaining bit of
 the cocoon. The butterfly then emerged easily. But it had a swollen body and small, shriveled wings. The man continued to watch the butterfly because he expected that, at any moment, the wings would enlarge and expand to be able to support the body, which would contract in time. Neither happened! 
In fact, the butterfly spent the rest of its life crawling around with a swollen body and shriveled wings. It never was able to fly. What the man in his kindness and haste did not understand was that the restricting cocoon and the struggle required for the butterfly to get through the tiny opening were the universes way of forcing fluid from the body of the butterfly into its wings so that it would be ready for flight once it achieved its freedom from the cocoon. Sometimes struggles are exactly what we need in our life. To go through our life without any obstacles, it would cripple us. We would not be as strong as what we could have been.
 And we could never fly.

Life is difficult, thank God. The problems we overcome allow us to experience the richness of life and its accompanying joy. Adversity adds spice to life and makes a wonderful teacher. Don’t the hardships we undergo create the ability to bear them? Is it possible to live through a disaster without growing stronger? I’ll let you answer these questions for yourself.
 Before emerging from its chrysalis (cocoon), the young Monarch butterfly has a fat body and folded, limp wings. It is hardly an image of strength and beauty. It cannot free itself from the chrysalis without a long struggle. As it pushes, strains, and convulses, liquid from its body is forced into the veins of its wings. Bit by bit the wings extend and grow stronger. Bit by bit an increasing amount of pressure is placed against the walls of the chrysalis. At last, a slim Monarch with robust wings breaks free.
 We are Monarchs. Our chrysalis is our comfort zone. Do you expect to break free without a struggle? Do you expect to fly before extending and strengthening your wings? Can you see how the obstacles we face are not our enemies but our friends?
 Our physical eyes weaken as we grow older, but our spiritual eyes should improve with age. What was seen as a devastating disaster in our youth, later appears as a less threatening but worrisome obstacle. As we grow in experience and wisdom, worrisome obstacles become less fearful and are reduced to difficult challenges. Later, difficult challenges are viewed as valuable lessons. And valuable lessons become wonderful opportunities. At last, we reach the point where every ‘misfortune’ is seen as a blessing in disguise. Each obstacle that comes our way is like a delicious fruit with a bitter skin. We don’t complain that we have to peel it before we can enjoy it.
It is our attitude that determines whether we benefit from misfortune. The same furnace that melts gold also hardens clay. With each affliction, those who have a hardened attitude grow harder, more callous, and cynical. Yet, those who willingly allow themselves to be forged, hammered, and shaped by adversity, endlessly grow into a better person, endlessly bloom into a flower to bright to behold.
 The greatest lesson suffering has to teach us is how others feel when tragedy hits. Our experience makes us more compassionate. Some learn at an early age. For example, the young girl who climbed the hill with a baby on her back. When someone said to her, "The baby is too heavy for you to carry," she replied, "It’s okay; he’s my brother."
To grow we must learn to accept the challenges that life may give us, we must learn to adapt our perceptions so that we are not overcome…

I asked for Strength ...
And Life gave me Challenges to make me strong.
I asked for Wisdom ...
And life gave me Problems to solve.
I asked for Prosperity ...
And life gave me Brain and Brawn to work.
I asked for Courage ...
And life gave me Danger to overcome.
I asked for Love ...
And life gave me Troubled people to help.
I asked for Favors ...
And life gave me Opportunities.
I received nothing I wanted
I received everything I needed.

So, today, if you have planted seeds or want to plant seeds, can you be at peace with the gentle unfolding and growing of what you've planted? Can you tend to it, can you water it, and can you help it along just a little bit day by day? Think about that. Can we allow things to unfold, instead of trying to achieve our way to happiness? Can we let go and let The Uni-verse arrange our life, instead of just trying to make things happen?

Instead of trying to push our life up the hill, can we allow ourselves to be gently pushed up the hill by angels? The choice is yours. I would like to leave you today with a poem by Mary Oliver.

The Summer Day
Mary Oliver
Who made the world?

Who made the swan,
and the black bear?

Who made the grasshopper?

This grasshopper,
I mean-
the one who has flung herself out of the grass,

the one who is eating sugar out of my hand,

who is moving her jaws back and forth instead of up and down-

who is gazing around with her enormous and complicated eyes.

Now she lifts her pale forearms and thoroughly washes her face.

Now she snaps her wings open, and floats away.
I don't know exactly what a prayer is.

I do know how to pay attention,
how to fall down
into the grass,
how to kneel down in the grass,

how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields,

which is what I have been doing all day.
Tell me, what else should I have done?

Doesn't everything die at last, and too soon?

Tell me,
what is it you plan to do

with your one wild and precious life?

First Day Of Snow

Two nights ago you walked ahead of me as the snow kissed the city streets, there laying a cold blanket that covers the ugly with a glittering field of white diamonds. As you walked I knew your mind was elsewhere, I turned inward, where it was still warm.

Two years ago I returned to Boston in the Summer time. I thought my life was over, that everything I had held so dearly to now gone, ruined, or defiled. My memories of loved ones were tainted with anger. In the anger I found solace, I found a ground I could stand on. The words that were spoken and echoed in my mind could no longer hurt me on this new solid ground. The city streets of Dorchester might be dirty and filled with rats, but here I could stand in Anger and turn my back on the pain.

Two nights ago it snowed, as I watched the litter filled streets become crystallized and perfected, my mind turned inward, where I could still feel the warmth. The warmth had once come from the fire of Anger, but now it came from a deep rooted sense of love, and achievement. Even the dirty color of Anger can be eventually subsided with beauty. My mind drifts in the snow to a quote by C.S. Lewis:

There is no safe investment. To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly be broken. If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket—safe, dark, motionless, airless—it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable. The alternative to tragedy, or at least to the risk of tragedy, is damnation. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers and perturbations of love is Hell. (From The Four Loves, By C.S. Lewis)

We have a choice in this life, a choice to be safe, or to choose to take those chances that can bring us the greatest of joys and greatest of pains.

In self examination many of my choices have been those to persevere, and at times that has meant closing my heart off to those around me, to dart at the first sign of the risk of being hurt. The danger of self protection is self isolation, to turn our hearts away from our friends, family, and loved ones and serve only ourselves. C.S. Lewis saw this option, and commented on it as a sure way to self damnation. I could fill my life with frivolous activities to escape the silence that exists when we are alone, or I can be open to the love of those around me, I choose to be open; it is an active, daily, and persistent choice for the heart closes fast.

As I walk in the snow and observe the covering of the dark littered streets, I find a sense of peace that I am taking the risks that I am making the effort, and I find gratitude for those around me that continually do the same for me.

“Ne te quaesiveris extra”

Regardless of faith, finances, social status, or any other factor I can imagine, life is a tear paved street that has many stores of Joy. We find happiness and love from those closest to us in spirit and in heart. We struggle with the same demons all our lives with mere moments of release. For every struggle we overcome we find that the foot hills only lead us to the mountains that will be our biggest challenges in life. We are fragile jars of clay that contain the greatest of treasures.

Our hearts are fragile and the trials of this life threaten to fossilize it. Our lips are parched and we thirst, we thirst for ever more, more of God, more of pleasure, more of all that we seek and rarely realize that peace is found in the Now. That the past is gone though we still feel it, it can hurt us no longer. The future is uncertain and nothing is promised to us for tomorrow, that which we love, that which we loath interchange so rapidly, and are always mere moments from departing from us. We find the balm for our hearts deep within ourselves. Some know of this as the Spirit of God, others call it their Self.

I use to identify myself as a Christian because I had accepted Jesus as my Christ, and God as my father. I saw the love and compassion in the gospels and had hoped that I would find the same in his church. I thought I had found it, and felt it while we sang to the heavens of God’s glory.

Yet during my time at not one, but two Bible Colleges I found that others identified people as Christian by what they did and did not do. Not only that but I found that the church saw a hierarchy of Spirituality the more you did, the closer you ‘evidenced’ your relationship with God. I learned that even though God had taught me that He loved me without one plea, His Church could only do likewise so long as I conformed, behaved, and pretended to be someone I was not. When I confessed to my floor mates and the leaders of the school about my sexuality I was prayed for, and counseled. I was told that I had the gift of celibacy and unless I wanted to work for a Gay outreach program I should keep my secret.

During four years of training for the ministry I found others that shared my sexuality and I saw how we carried this as if it were a demon within us. I met one boy that had lived as a street hustler, he professed loudly how he hated gays, and that they deserved death a week later he asked me if he could borrow some socks from me as he had none left to wear, as I retrieved the socks for him he exposed himself to me while stroking himself. I pretended that nothing had happened and walked away handing him the socks. A year later a floor mate that had professed the wickedness of gays, crawled into my bed in the middle of the night while I slept, when I jumped out of bed he claimed to of been sleep walking, and left my room at full attention so to speak. When I asked for prayers and help to fight against being gay I had someone that represented the school try to convince me that massaging each other would be a good way of venting out our latent sexuality without sinning. I listened to those I respected the most tell me how homosexuals were self absorbed narcissistic people that only sought to love themselves. I listened as still yet other leaders of the school I attended tell me that Homosexuals were cursed by God because they didn’t love him.

For my senior year internship I decided to work with an Ex-Gay ministry in New Hampshire that was related to the Exodus Ministries. I thought that if I worked with a ministry that directed God’s love to homosexuals that I would find something different. I thought that I would see mercy and compassion but more than anything acceptance. Once again I found that being a Christian was defined as a black and white concept, if you slept with men you lived in Sin, if you lived in Sin then you lived without the Spirit of God. Our actions defined us, not what truly resided in our hearts.

While interning with the Exodus Affiliate I started going to a Youth Outreach program for Gay, Lesbian, and Transgendered youth in Boston. There I found a diverse group of kids who were as different from each other as night and day yet still they forged a friendship. It wasn’t so much that their friendships were formed because they were Gay, their friendships were forged out of a desire to be accepted by others, to find a place where what resided in their hearts would not be placed as an item of shame and condemnation. Their desire was my own.

During that summer I found peace with myself. Through watching the people in the Exodus program, and watching these children at the GLBT Youth Support group in Boston. I discovered that if we do not find a healthy way to express that which we are, then we find pathological ways to become our true selves. Learning this I felt I had to leave Bible College, had to leave the Church and had to find my own way in this life.

Within a year I went from identifying myself as a Christian, to an agnostic, to an atheist. During that time I fell in love for the first time. The relationship was intense and ended almost four years later. During the course of that relationship I read Emerson’s essay “Self Reliance.” The passages of this essay moved me; I was absorbed with what this man had to say. His essay taught that love first came from self and then went out to others, that unless I truly loved myself I could not love others. It reminded me of Jesus teaching the greatest of all of God’s laws, Love your brother as yourself. I tapped into this Self Love and absorbed many New Age books on loving yourself and loving those around you. Their water was sweet to the taste, but always proved a path with no destination, driven by Authors that sought self glory.

My mother passed from breast cancer four years ago, and within the course of a year my father had remarried, and pitted himself against his children. I fell into a deep dark depression in which I wanted release from this life. I felt the hunger that surrounds us, people’s desires that they seek to satisfy without regard to the damage that they do to others. I held on for one reason and one reason alone, I could not add to the misery of others by taking my own life. I started going to therapy for my depression, and started trying to deal with my issues in a more healthy fashion.

I turn back to Emerson’s Essay on Self Reliance, and the teachings of the Gospels that peace comes from within. That Love in its purist of forms is Self Love, and without it all our actions are that of loathing and hunger. I don’t speak on narcissism which is not Love, but self obsession. I speak on living with a healthy Ego that allows us to share Love with others.

We are fragile Jars of Clay that contain the most valuable of all gifts. It does not matter if we call it the Soul, the Holy Spirit, or the Self, all that matters is learning to Live in Love of self and Love of others.

When I think of what it means to be a Christian, a Buddhist, a Muslim, a Believer I find the definition to be the same: Someone who has found that Spirit of Love inside, and desires to share it.

“Ne te quaesiveris extra”