Beyond Us and Them

"I am part of all that I have met."

-- Alfred, Lord Tennyson

Meditation: by Judy Chicago

And then all that has divided us will merge.

And then compassion will be wedded to power.

And then softness will come to a world that is often harsh and unkind.

And then both women and men will be gentle.

And then both men and women will be strong.

And then no other person will be subject to another's will.

And then all will be rich and varied.

And then all will share equally in the earth's abundance.

And then all will care for the sick and the weak and the old.

And then all will nourish the young.

And then all will cherish life's creatures.

And then all will live in harmony with each other and the earth.

And then everywhere will be called Eden once again.

Reading: by Unitarian Universalist minister Bruce Marshall, from his book A Holy Curiosity (p. 110)

“You know,” a new member of the congregation I serve said to me, “this is not the real world.”

“Oh?” I said, without understanding. This person when on to explain.

It’s not the real world because in the real world Christians and Jews and theists and humanists don’t even try to live together. And in the real world you don’t seek to understand another person’s ideas - you attack or ridicule or ignore them. In the real world gay people and lesbians and straight people don’t share in the same life together. And in the real world people are kicked around a lot and nobody cares very much, and you can pray to your God to hurt somebody else, and that’s acceptable.

And so you shouldn’t think that this congregation is the real world, because it isn’t.

Reading: a Congregational Covenant Statement crafted by the members of this church, and approved on October 2nd, 2005

We, the members of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Urbana-Champaign, strive to sustain a caring community that promotes the personal and spiritual well-being of our members and of the larger world in which we live. To this end,

We promise to participate actively in the life of our church, to contribute as we are able, and to express appreciation for others’ contributions.

We promise to join in shaping congregational life through processes that are open, inclusive, and transparent, and to support the decisions made by our chosen leaders and the congregation as a whole.

We promise to celebrate the diversity of our collective experiences and backgrounds including race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, physical ability and economic means even as we struggle to understand those differences.

We promise to express our differences openly and respectfully, speaking directly with those involved, listening closely, offering real solutions in ways that are constructive and not judgmental, and accepting conflict as an inevitable aspect of healthy relationships.

We promise to provide an atmosphere for the minister to challenge us to think critically and creatively about all issues, thus carrying our congregations’ commitment to a free pulpit.

We promise to respect our children, to encourage their development as whole people, and to teach them the values of our religion, and other religions, as well.

We promise to welcome those who are new to our church and faith by learning about their journeys, by providing opportunities to learn more about us, and by explaining how they can become more involved in the church.

We promise to support each other through life’s ups and downs by creating an environment in which people feel safe to share, and by responding to the needs of the members of our congregation.

We promise to encourage one another in our efforts to promote social justice and responsible stewardship in the larger community and the world.

Beyond Us and Them

A Sermon Delivered on September 25, 2011

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

Last week I had an amazing experience of community. A week ago Friday, to be more specific. It was exciting, captivating, heart-warming - and plain fun.

You see, last week I witnessed the football match at Urbana High School, at which the Urbana Tigers faced off against the Purple Raiders of Bloomington. It was quite a game. The first time in twenty years the Tigers beat the Raiders.

I confess, I was not an impartial observer in all of this. My daughter - after all - is a proud member of the Urbana High School marching band. And thus, in solidarity with her, and in solidarity with my wife Elaine, who is a hard-working member of the Urbana School Board, I have become a serious Urbana fan.

Now, I am not usually a big sports fan. I usually go out of my way to avoid rowdy crowds. And generally whenever two groups face off against one another, I try to consider the beliefs and perspective of both sides.

Not so last Friday. Last Friday my allegiance was crystal clear. We were orange and black. They were purple and white. The kids on our team were the “good guys.” The others were the “bad guys.” It was us against them.

As the game was going on, I was overcome by a profound sense of belonging, and an unmistakable sense of connection with the strangers standing in the bleachers around me: a colorful crowd of all ages and races - all of us crying out in one voice when our team fumbled the ball, and cheering as one when we scored a touchdown.

There is real power when we join ranks with our allies, and when our affiliation is clearly visible in the colors we carry. We may be a diverse crowd, but we are bound together as one, thanks to our unspoken agreement, and the clarity of our conviction that we are the “good guys,” and those people over there on the other side of the field, they are the “bad guys.”

Nothing seems to create a sense of community as effectively and reliably as a vivid experience of Us and Them.

Now, within the context of a high school football match, I think this is all fine and well. It’s all good fun.

Things become more problematic when these same dynamics are played out in other places. When the AstroTurf of the football field, is exchanged for the carpeted aisles of congress. And when the colors of the team uniforms are replaced by unmistakable party allegiances that are marked in blue and red.

In the real world - in the world of party politics, of international relations and of military interventions, in the world in which the interests of economy and ecology clash - in the real world the dynamics of Us and Them may be exciting and exhilarating, but the conflicts created in this way are not heart-warming fun and games. No, these conflicts are costly, and can easily lead us down a path of destruction and self-destruction.

The real world is plagued by deep divisions, and differences that seem all but irreconcilable. The game of Us and Them is a big part of the problem.

* * *

As Unitarian Universalists, we like to believe that we are not a part of this problem, but that we are part of the solution. If the “real world” is about being indifferent to people with whom we disagree, if the “real world” wants to divide us, putting gay people on that side and straight people on this side, if the “real world” is about praying to “our” God to save Us, and forget about Them - then we don’t want to be part of the “real world.” We want to help build a different world.

That’s what our congregational covenant is about. Our congregational covenant is an attempt to describe what that different world would look like. Some of the words we use are: respect, caring, inclusive, diverse, constructive, critical and creative, safe.

Our covenant is a promise we make to another, that we will try to practice these skills for living with one another, deepening our commitment to change the world beginning with ourselves.

Creating a covenant was an important step for us in 2005. But it is not enough. Covenants can be forgotten and covenants can be misunderstood.

* * *

I would like to believe that I am part of the solution and not part of the problems that plague the world. But truth be told - I often find myself playing the Us and Them game, too.

I confess, that I catch myself with great regularity, demonizing politicians with whom I disagree, or turning a cold shoulder to people whose beliefs differ from my own. I know I regularly gravitate toward like-minded groups of people, who share my views on foreign policy, or on human rights. And I do get a subtle charge when we collectively roll our eyes, or sigh as one, about that other half of the country that inexplicably disagrees with us.

The Us and Them attitude runs deep. In fact it is closely linked to the idea of covenant itself.

* * *

Our idea of covenant has a very long history. It reaches way down into our Christian and Jewish roots. The first covenant mentioned in the Book of Genesis is the covenant between God and Noah.

You probably know the story: Several generations had come and gone since Adam and Eve had left Eden, and all seemed to be well. Until Noah’s generation. When Noah was five hundred years old, God looked down upon the earth and saw that humanity had become wicked. Seeing such evil God was deeply troubled, and regretted ever having created humankind. So God said, “I will blot out man [and woman] I have created from the face of the ground,… and beast and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry that I have made them.”

The only good thing God saw on earth was Noah, the one single person on earth who was righteous and blameless. So, since all flesh upon the earth was corrupted, God decided to destroy everything. Everything and everyone - except Noah. God warned Noah of the coming flood, told him to build a boat. And God said, “I will establish my covenant with you, your sons, your wife, and your sons’ wives with them.” Noah built an ark according to God’s instructions and loaded it with two of every kind of animal. Together they survived the flood - and life on earth continued.

Noah was a prophet chosen by God, and with him God made a covenant. A promise.

In the generations that followed there were other prophets and other covenants: with Abraham, Isaac, Jacob and Moses to name a few. Together they tell a powerful story of God’s chosen people. It is not a simple story. And it can be understood in different ways.

One of the more troubling lessons some have taken from the covenant tradition is that God chooses some people - but not others. The covenantal tradition can provide some very ancient and very weighty theological justification for us to believe the world really is divided between Us and Them. It provides justification for those of us who want to believe: We are the “good guys.” They are the “bad guys.” God wants us to live. God doesn’t care if they die.

There is plenty of evidence that many believers in the “real world” have taken this interpretation to heart.

But that is not the only way to understand God’s covenant.

You see, when the rain stopped, when the water receded, when the ground was dry, and the Ark was emptied, God said, “I will never again curse the ground… I will never again unleash such destruction.” God wants Abraham and all things living to be fruitful and multiply. And God amends his covenant with Noah, he broadens it. It is no longer an exclusive covenant with Noah and his kin. It is an inclusive covenant with all life.

In Genesis 9:9, God says, “Behold, I establish my covenant with you and your descendents after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the cattle, and every beast of the earth… I will remember my covenant between me and you and every living creature of all flesh.” And God creates the rainbow as an eternal and universal sign of this covenant.

* * *

It is this understanding of covenant that we trace throughout our religious history - through Jewish and early Christian thought, through the Reformation and Protestantism, and the emerging belief that knowledge of God is not restricted to priests or prophets, but that every person has access to the divine. Our religious forebears came to see every believer is a priest. Every believer is a prophet. Every one of us.

Accordingly each of us is bound in covenant. Each of us is in covenant with God, with all living creatures - and also with each other.

This idea was brought to this country by the pilgrims and the Puritans: religious dissenters who rejected the authority of bishops and popes, and held instead that congregations should by governed by their members. This idea was carried on by congregational churches, many of which became Unitarian. This idea is the inspiration for our own congregational covenant.

* * *

There is perhaps no better way to create a sense of community, than to draw a circle around all of us, and to keep Us clearly divided from Them. But even though the feeling of community - the feeling of solidarity, the feeling of belonging - is real, the community is not. The community created by Us and Them is an illusion.

The lesson our covenantal tradition wants to teach us goes one step further. It teaches us that there is no Us and Them. There is only Us.

A covenant, at its best, reminds us of the connections that exist between those of us in this room, and with those of us beyond this room. It reminds us of our connection with the spirit of all life, the sacred universe, the divine.

A covenant reminds us that these connections exist - they are real, more real than anything in the so-called “real world” - and that we must foster these connections, we must deepen them.

This is the work of religious community - transforming the so-called “real world” into a world that is more real - beginning with our own lives, practicing respect and caring and creative, critical engagement.

Our covenant teaches us there is no Us and Them. It teaches us to exclude no one. It teaches us to welcome everyone.

If we do this, “then all that has divided us will merge, and then compassion will be wedded to power… then all will live in harmony with each other and the earth, and everywhere will be called Eden once again.”

So be it. Amen.

Time for Everything

“Live a balanced life - learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.”

-- Robert Fulghum

Sermon Part 1 - “Celebrations of the Autumnal Equinox” by Pam Blosser

This Friday, September 23rd, is the autumnal or fall equinox in the Northern Hemisphere. An equinox occurs twice a year, when the tilt of the Earth's axis is inclined neither away from nor towards the Sun. From the Earth’s perspective it appears the Sun is directly over the equator. The name "equinox" is derived from the Latin aequus (equal) and nox (night), because around the equinox, night and day have approximately equal length.

Through time and space the equinox has been observed and celebrated by many cultures on the planet. It marks not only the passage of time, but more importantly, the turning of the seasons representing cycles of growth and unfoldment. It is a time to honor as well as forgive what has come before and to allow ourselves to move into the next cycle of our learning.

The autumnal equinox is a time of reaping what we have sown, whether productive or non-productive. It is a time to observe the light and darkness with equanimity and in balance, seeing both as a beautiful dance of yin and yang, not only balancing but completing the other. For how can we truly come to see and know the light if there are no shadows? Yes, there is a time and a season for both.

To the astrologer, on the day of the fall equinox, the sun enters the sign of Libra -- the constellation which according to Roman mythology, depicts the scales held by the goddess of justice. Libra is also considered the goddess of balance and truth.

Ancient cultures were fascinated with the equinox and built huge structures honoring the movement of light through the heavens as it shown on the Earth.

In ancient Ireland the spring and fall equinoxes were celebrated. A cluster of megalithic cairns are scattered through the hills northwest of Dublin. One of them was designed so that the light from the rising sun on the spring and fall equinoxes penetrates a long corridor illuminating a backstone decorated with astronomical symbols.

In Britain, Stonehenge and other stone structures were aligned so that the solstices and equinoxes could be determined. At this time of the year, the ancient Druids also conducted a mock sacrifice of a large wicker-work figure which represented the vegetation spirit.

Here on this side of the Atlantic, there is a 4,000 year old megalithic site located on Mystery Hill in Salem, New Hampshire. Researchers have concluded that this site, called “America’s Stonehenge” was erected either by Native Americans or an unknown migrant European population. The site contains five standing stones and one fallen one in a linear alignment which point to both the sunrise and sunset at the spring and fall equinoxes.

From NATIVE AMERICAN SPIRITUALITY there are countless other stone structures created in the past and still standing in North America. One, called Calendar One by its modern-day finder, is in a 20-acre natural amphitheatre in Vermont. From a stone enclosure in the center, one can see a number of vertical rocks and other markers around the edge of the bowl. These markers indicated the sunrise and sunset at the both equinoxes and the winter and summer solstices.

Similarly, the ancient Mayans constructed a pyramid at Chichen Itza which displayed different patterns of triangles of light at the time of the solstices and equinoxes, the dates signaling the start of a harvest, planting, or a religious ceremony. On the fall equinox, seven triangles become visible on the pyramid's staircase.

During medieval times the Christian Church replaced earlier Pagan solstice and equinox celebrations with Christianized observances. Replacing the fall equinox is Michaelmas, the feast of the Archangel Michael, on September 29. By Michaelmas the harvest had to be completed and the new cycle of farming would begin. It was a time for beginning new leases, rendering accounts and paying the annual dues. Michaelmas was celebrated with a traditional well-fattened goose which had fed on the stubble of the fields after the harvest. In many places, there was also a tradition of special large loaves of bread baked only for that day.

NEOPAGANISM is a group of religions which are attempted re-creations of ancient Pagan religions. The most popular of these, Wicca, is loosely based on ancient Celtic beliefs, symbols and practices, with the addition of some more recent rituals. On the autumnal equinox, many Wiccans observe Mabon, celebrating the second harvest and the beginning of winter preparations. It is the time to respect the impending dark while giving thanks to the sunlight. It is a time for feasting together with family and friends. In the past when most were farmers, this festival mainly celebrated the harvest of food crops; in the present day, it can also apply to the “seeds of dreams and wishes” that were planted earlier in the year.

In JAPAN the spring and autumn equinoxes are observed as a six-day celebration: the Higan-e, celebrated for three days before and after each equinox. The ritual for the Higan-e includes repentance of past sins and prayers for enlightenment in the next life. It also includes remembrance of the dead with visits to family graves, which are cleaned and decorated and with offerings of Buddhist prayers and food. It is thought that the spring and autumn equinoxes, being the most temperate times of the year, are ideal moments to reflect on the meaning of life.

In China the Mid-Autumn Festival, also known as the Moon Festival, dates back more than 3000 years and is celebrated around the time of the full moon nearest the September equinox. It celebrates the abundance of the summer's harvest and one of the main foods is the mooncake filled with lotus, sesame seeds, a duck egg or dried fruit. The mooncake originated from the ancient tradition of making offerings to the sun in the spring and to the moon in the autumn. The Moon Festival is also a time for families to get together and people often travel long distances to be with their loved ones. The streets are decorated with lanterns, incenses are burned and fire dragon dances take place.

The CHUMASH, a Native American tribe from southern California, celebrate their fall equinox sun ceremony during their month of Hutash (September). It takes place after the harvest is picked, processed and stored. At this time the spiritual thoughts of the tribe would become focused on the importance of unity in the face of winter confinement, death and rebirth.

Finally, in the Jewish traditions two important holidays fall around the time of the autumnal equinox. One of these, Rosh Hashanah, is commonly known as the Jewish New Year. The Jewish New Year is a time to begin introspection, looking back at the mistakes of the past year and planning the changes to make in the new year. No work is permitted on Rosh Hashanah and much of the day is spent in synagogue.

A popular observance during this holiday is eating apples dipped in honey, a symbol of the wish for a sweet new year. Another practice of the holiday is Tashlikh (“casting off”). Observers walk to flowing water, such as a creek or river, and empty their pockets into the river, symbolically casting off their sins. Small pieces of bread are commonly put in the pocket to be cast off.

The second holiday is Yom Kippur. Yom Kippur is about balancing light and dark: seeking to illuminate our deeds, yet acknowledging the mystery of our human fraility. The autumn equinox, which marks when the days begin to grow shorter than the nights, is a time of going into darkness. So, too, on Yom Kippur we probe what we have covered over or forgotten, taking a journey into our own dark places (both good and bad memories) to remember who we truly are, and who we want to be.

As the nights grow longer, time is spent telling the stories of ancestors and remembering traditions. From this, the listener may learn who he or she might become. Yom Kippur is a time to connect with the ancestors through prayer, remembering loved ones, and telling the stories of ancient patriarchs and matriarchs, in order to seek role models for the future.

The autumn equinox calls to mind the harvest, the renewal of life, and the wonders of creation and many cultures celebrate it as a day to be grateful for the Earth’s bounty. Both Yom Kippur and the equinox are days to acknowledge the creative, healing potential of the Earth. May Yom Kippur and the equinox bring us balance, humility, gratitude and the wisdom of our ancestors.

Sermon Part 2 - “A More Balanced Life” by Barbara Jauhola

“Time is a holy thing. It is mysterious and elusive while being practical and substantial. Because of the ways we measure time and because we coordinate our lives by the passage of time, we can sometimes have an artificial sense of managing time. The truth is that none of us can manage time any more than we can manage a hurricane or manage the seasons. … We can’t control time, but we can mark it.” So say Lonni Collins Pratt and Father Daniel Homan, in “Benedict’s Way: An Ancient Monk’s Insights for a Balanced Life.”

Observing and honoring the changing of the seasons as we are doing today is one way we can mark time. At the autumnal equinox the hours of daytime sunlight and nighttime darkness are nearly equal, and this fact was the seed thought for a worship service that incorporated the concepts of time, seasons, and balance. It immediately brought to my mind this morning’s opening words from Ecclesiastes: “To everything there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

When I phoned our church administrator, Janis Hooper, minutes before the deadline for the Uniter with this Sunday’s topic/title, “Time for Everything,” I had no idea how ironic those words would later sound. The past seven days since I returned from vacationing in Vermont have been a blur of meetings, special events, appointments, and due dates, not just at my work place but also for church, political, and personal activities. It seemed as though the universe was doing its best to disprove Einstein’s statement that “the only reason for time is so that everything doesn’t happen at once.” Of course, everything wasn’t happening at once … and I knew that. It just was one of those times in life when achieving a balance was very difficult, nearly in possible, in fact.

Much has been written about the importance to our physical and emotional health and well being of maintaining a balance between our work and our personal lives. But our lives are much more complicated than simply a division into work and non-work. As Hillary Clinton observes, “Our lives are a mixture of different roles. Most of us are doing the best we can to find whatever the right balance is.” Many of us have multiple roles: there is our “work” or “job” or “profession” which can take up a very large portion of our time and sometime overflows into what could be our personal or private time. Technology, which was supposed to make our lives easier and less stressful, has in some ways made us slaves to it, allowing work to follow us home at night, into the weekends, and even to tag along with us when we claim to be “on vacation.”

Our personal or private time is taken up with meeting the needs and responsibilities of a variety of roles with family (as spouse/partner, parent, grandparent, aunt/uncle, sister/brother, child of aging parents), friends (as confidant, companion, correspondent), church (as RE teacher, committee or board member, volunteer), and community (as volunteers, activists, campaigners). With all these roles, there is always someone or something to answer to. There are so many things that we must do, but there are also many things that we want to do. Finding a way to balance what we need to do with what we enjoy is a challenge – it is not easily accomplished.

St. Benedict, the founder of Western monasticism, was born more than a millennium and a half ago, in 480 A.D., into a culture in some respects as turbulent as the present day. The Roman Empire had just collapsed and many formerly stable cultural institutions were in a state of upheaval and change, splintering into different factions.

Amidst the chaos of this time Benedict brought forth a simple plan for living in order, sense, and peace – known now as The Rule of St. Benedict. He was careful to articulate in his rule that there must be time for everything: Work. Sleep. Food. Companionship. Solitude. Noise. Silence. Reading.

Most of us accept as a given that spending too much time on work will eventually lead us to burn out. But we can get out of balance when we spend too much of ourselves in any one activity. Too much solitude can make us self-absorbed. Too much sleep and we can become lazy. Too much play and we risk becoming pleasure-seeking fools. Too much mindless activity and our souls become starved. A balanced life has moderate portions of all things needed to nourish and sustain the mind, body, heart, and soul.

Balance does not mean spending equal time on everything. A first step toward a more balanced life is to establish what our priorities are – based on what we value, what is most important to us? Those are the areas of our lives to which we should devote the most time and energy. These priorities likely will shift and change over time, depending on our age and stage in life. No matter what our highest priorities are, we should try not to juggle too many big projects or plans at once.

Of course, this is not always something that we can control – as the saying goes “stuff happens.” There will always be unexpected problems, roadblocks and crises – some trivial which we can let pass without undue stress and some serious and life-altering. When the major family or career crisis happens, it may require devoting the major part of our time and energy to dealing with it and balance may have to wait until things are more settled. When life is back to more normal flow, it is important to take time for rest and activities that support healing and rejuvenation. Even during the crisis period, whenever possible, we should try to take time each day for activities which are enjoyable, even if it is just for a few minutes at a time.

The importance of this became clear to me during my recent vacation time on the family farm in Vermont. While certainly not a crisis, that week had the potential to be very stressful and far from a relaxing respite from work. My brother-in-law had a list of “things to do” that he expected my sister and me to assist him in accomplishing. Leisure activities were nowhere on his list, but such things as digging a trench around the house, cutting and removing brush, hauling away downed trees, and spraying mold retardant on the damp basement ceiling beams were. My sister and I helped him complete all those tasks and more, but we also managed to squeeze in some pleasurable activities: gazing at the stars and the Milky Way late at night, having dinner with our 93 year old neighbor and his family, visiting his 94 year old wife at the rehabilitation center, pruning the hydrangea bushes and apple trees, and making a big batch of apple sauce. Probably most important for helping maintain my own emotional balance was the half-mile hike up Turkey Hill that I took early every morning. It provided physical activity, some needed solitude, and a chance to enjoy the beauty and solace of being out in nature.

In part 1 of today’s sermon, we heard of many different rituals and customs that people have for celebrating the equinox and I would like to close with one more – one which may already be familiar to you. This is the “balancing egg” ritual – many eggs are brought out on the autumnal and spring equinoxes to be carefully balanced upright. But while it is indeed possible to get an egg to stand upright on the autumnal and spring equinoxes, it is also possible to do this on any other day of the year. It just takes a bit of practice and a large amount of patience. The same is true for achieving a more balanced life – it may require us to make a turn and break some old habits (and practice some new ones), but it certainly is possible and it surely is a goal to strive toward.

So let us live balanced lives – learning some and thinking some and drawing and singing and dancing and playing and working some every day!

Fear Nothing But Fear Itself

"We are all dangerous till our fears grow thoughtful."

-- John Ciardi

Meditation: a poem by Wendell Berry entitled “The Peace of Wild Things”

When despair for the world grows in me

and I wake in the night at the least sound

in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,

I go and lie down where the wood drake

rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things

who do not tax their lives with forethought

of grief. I come into the presence of still water.

And I feel above me the day-blind stars

waiting with their light. For a time

I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Reading: from a Buddhist story entitled “The Mustard Seed Medicine,” as retold by the Unitarian educator Sophia Fahs (From Long Ago and Many Lands, p. 156)

…A baby was born, a beautiful little boy, and [his mother] Kisa Gotami was completely happy. The days slipped by very fast as she watched her little son grow and learn. Almost before she knew it, he could run about and talk. She loved him more than anyone else in all the world. She loved him when he was obedient and when he was stubborn. She loved him when he laughed and when he cried.

But one day the little boy suddenly became very sick. Even though his mother and father did everything they knew how to do for him, the little boy did not get well. In a few days he died.

Kisa Gotami could not believe her little boy was really dead. She thought his sickness had only put him to sleep. Some kind of medicine would surely wake him up. So she wrapped the little body in its baby sheet and lifted it up in her arms. She carried it to her neighbor’s door.

“Please, my friend,” she begged, “give me some medicine that will cure my child.” But when her neighbor lifted the sheet and saw the baby’s face, she shook her head sadly. She knew there was no medicine that could cure him.

Reading: by Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32rd President of the United States, Inaugural Address, March 4, 1933, when this country was struggling to recover from the Great Depression:

This is preeminently the time to speak the truth, the whole truth, frankly and boldly. Nor need we shrink from honestly facing conditions in our country today. This great Nation will endure as it has endured, will revive and will prosper. So, first of all, let me assert my firm belief that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself—nameless, unreasoning, unjustified terror which paralyzes needed efforts to convert retreat into advance. In every dark hour of our national life a leadership of frankness and vigor has met with that understanding and support of the people themselves which is essential to victory. I am convinced that you will again give that support to leadership in these critical days.

Fear Nothing But Fear Itself

A Sermon Delivered on September 11, 2011

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

This morning in downtown Manhattan a memorial was dedicated, which is part of the National September 11 Memorial and Museum, on the site at which ten years ago the twin towers of the World Trade Center stood.

The memorial was designed by a young architect, a man of Israeli descent, named Michael Arad. Seven year’s ago, over five thousand artists and architects submitted proposals in the largest design competition ever. Arad’s design was the winner.

Maybe you have seen pictures of the memorial. Unlike many other memorial statues, walls, tombs or towers that command the attention of visitors, the September 11 Memorial is defined less by an object of observation, than by a thoughtfully constructed emptiness.

As Paul Goldberger describes it, “Early on, public officials made the sensible decision that, whatever happened at the site, nothing new would rise exactly where the Twin Towers had stood. Arad didn’t tiptoe around the footprint; instead, he made it the basis for a strong, almost minimalist design, turning the footprint of each tower into a square hole, with waterfalls running down the sides into a reflecting pool below. At the center of each reflecting pool is another, smaller square, into which water tumbles, as if it were flowing to the center of the earth. Arad figured out how to express the idea that what were once the largest solids in Manhattan are now a void, and he made the shape of this void into something monumental. The names of those who died are inscribed in inch-and-a-half-high letters cut into bronze panels that surround both pools. The lettering will appear dark during the day, and by night will glow, with lighting hidden below the panels.” (“Shaping the Void,” The New Yorker, September 12, 2011)

The memorial is brilliant in its stark and poignant simplicity. Its presence evokes absence. Arad says, he was hoping to make a “stoic, defiant and compassionate” statement. And from what I have seen and heard about the memorial, I think he succeeded.

The names of those who died in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania ten years ago are an important aspect of memorial. The names remind us that those were real people who died - not just faceless figures, counted up in news summaries: “2,996 deaths, including the 19 hijackers and 2,977 victims,” categorized according to country: “93 nationalities were represented among victims.”

These were real people. Someone’s father. Someone’s mother. Someone’s sister. Someone’s brother. Someone’s child. People as real as our own family members and friends. People as real as you and me.

* * *

When it comes to memory, specifics matter. Especially for those most directly affected by death, especially for those who suffer loss most profoundly.

An article in the News-Gazette last week reminded me how desperately we crave specific information when the life and death of a loved one is at stake. I was surprised to learn that while the ruins of the destruction from ten years ago have long been removed, and memorial services for the deceased have long passed - the effort to identify the remains of victims continues to this day.

Grieving families continue to long for closure and confirmation that their loved ones, whose bodies were never found, were actually victims. Thus in the course of the last ten years, tens of millions of dollars have been spent on the ongoing forensic examination of tiny traces of DNA salvaged from sites of disaster. Seven days a week a small group of scientists examines specimens in an ultra-modern lab on Manhattan’s east side. In the course of the last five years, these scientists were able to make only 25 new identifications. Over a thousand victims remain unidentified.

This effort says a lot about human nature. Burdened by grief, we long for specifics. Burdened by the fear so effectively evoked in acts of terror, we long for information, which will explain how and why events unfolded as they did.

According to the Wall Street Journal one in ten Americans knew someone who was hurt or killed in the attacks ten years ago. So it is not surprising that an enormous amount of information and commentary has been published about it. The New York Times website has an entire section devoted to it. It’s entitled “The Reckoning - America and the World a Decade After 9/11.” It includes countless photographs, articles, interviews, blogs and videos, which chronicle the day, the aftermath, first person accounts, international and Muslim perspectives, political and economic analyses, coverage about civil liberties restricted and military action expanded, and countless testimonies of grief and fear, of heroism and compassion.

I am sure we have each sampled a certain amount of the coverage and commentary available. I certainly have. And while on the one hand doing so leaves me feeling over-saturated with information, on the other hand I am left with an ever increasing sense of the countless aspects of September 11 that continue to elude me. The more I know, the more I know I don’t know.

And even as I am overwhelmed by the wealth of information easily accessible to me, I can’t help but wonder about information that is conspicuously absent, and much more difficult to find.

I wonder what stories will be told in the exhibits of the National September 11 Museum, scheduled to open next year. And I wonder what stories will remain untold. I wonder which of the events leading up to the terrorist attacks will be portrayed. Will we hear stories of colonialism and Cold War alliances, and a long history of troubling economic and military interventions? I wonder which of the consequences of 9/11 will be shared and which omitted.

* * *

As a nation, we have tried desperately to right the wrongs committed ten years ago. We have attempted to balance the scales justice, which were thrown out of whack by a brutal crime. Our efforts have been fueled by fear and grief. Thus it can be difficult to determine the appropriate proportion of our response. And while many consider the United States to be a Christian nation, the prophetic message of Jesus that calls us to love our enemy does not seem to have had much influence on our country’s chosen course.

Jesus envisioned a radical love, which superseded the ancient law of justice captured in the formula “an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” As Dr. King, quoting Gandhi, aptly said, “an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind.”

And yet in our collective response to the terror and grief of September 11, we have done far more than exact and eye for an eye. According to the New York Times, Al Qaeda spent roughly a half million dollars in the preparation and execution of their attacks. The U.S. response - war in Afghanistan and Iraq - has cost this country 3.3 trillion dollars - that’s one fifth of this nation’s debt. This is not a dollar for a dollar, a tooth for a tooth. But rather for each single dollar Al Qaeda spent to commit their crime, we spent 7 million dollars in response.

And in order to atone the deaths of almost 2,977 civilians on U.S. soil - according to United Nations figures - we have killed 137,000 civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan, and forced 7.8 million people to flee their homes as refugees.

This disproportionate response is evidence of a powerful nation consumed by fear and grief.

* * *

There are few experiences more devastating for the human psyche than grief and fear of loss. The magnitude of our grief and fear is in direct proportion to our capacity to love.

This is the lesson of the story of Kisa Gotami. Kisa Gotami’s grief is the grief any person suffers when someone deeply loved dies. Her grief, and her fear of losing her beloved child, drives her to hope against hope, that her child was merely sick, and can still be saved. She turns desperately to her neighbors, seeking a medicine that can heal her child. She knocks on every door, pleading for help.

The neighbors feel very sorry for her. But they see the child is beyond help. Among themselves they wonder whether Kisa Gotami has been driven mad by her grief. Finally Kisa Gotami is told to visit a wise teacher they called Buddha, and that perhaps he could help.

As the story goes, Buddha looks tenderly at the anxious mother. He knows the child is dead. He knows he cannot bring the dead to life again. But he also knows he can help the mother feel peaceful and comforted. So Buddha says to the woman, “You must help me find the medicine to cure your child. Bring me a handful of mustard seed… but the mustard seed must be from a house where no one has ever died or it will be of no use.”

Elated that a cure seems within reach, Kisa Gotami rushes to the door of her closest neighbor. The neighbor is happy to provide the mustard seed. But when Kisa Gotami asks whether anyone had ever died in their house - a father or mother or grandparent - the neighbor responds in surprise, “Have you forgotten that our dear grandfather died here less than a year ago?” She had forgotten. So she thanks her neighbor and quickly rushes on to the next house. There she has a similar exchange. The mustard seed is easy to find, but then she is reminded that this family’s son had died tragically ten years ago.

And so it goes, on and on. At last, tired and discouraged Kisa Gotami sits down under a tree outside the village. She slowly realizes that there is no medicine that can bring back her child, and she weeps bitterly for a long time. But slowly she grows calm, and slowly she realizes that she was not alone. Slowly she realized that though her beloved child is dead, and though she doesn’t know where he has gone or why, he had died like thousands of other people had died, also. As she herself would some day die, just as all people on earth must sometime die.

By reaching out to her neighbors, by learning of their losses, she is able to put her own sorrow within the context of a larger context of living and dying, a larger context of compassion, sympathy and love.

Yes, the memories of her son continue to mean a great deal to her. But rather than leading her to close her heart to the world around her, her memories inspire her to open her heart to her neighbors and their struggles. In this way, she re-discovers the wellspring of love and compassion in her own heart.

* * *

Helen Keller, the deaf and blind political activist, wrote, “We bereaved are not alone. We belong to the largest company in all the world - the company of those who have known suffering. When it seems that our sorrow it too great to be borne, let us think of the great family of the heavy-hearted into which our grief has given us entrance, and inevitably, we will feel about us their arms, their sympathy, their understanding.

Believe, when you are most unhappy, that there is something for you to do in the world. So long as you can sweeten another’s pain, life is not vain.”

* * *

The human power of love drives us to remember those dear to us we have known and lost. Mindful of both love and sorrow, we have a choice. We can either close our minds and hearts, remaining trapped within our own grief and fear. Or we can open up and reach out to others, seeking to understand their experience, sharing our lives, our sorrows and our joys, our knowledge of suffering and our capacity to love.

Religious faith teaches us to choose to second option. Our faith tells us to open our minds and hearts, to expand our circle of compassion, to reach out to those around us, so that we might be reminded of the humanity we share.

There is so much we don’t know about our neighbors. There is so much we could learn, if instead of bombing their homes, we would knock on their doors. There is so much we could gain if we ask them to tell us about the loved one they have lost. Their stories could disarm us all.

* * *

The most striking feature of the September 11 Memorial in New York City, is the void it evokes. What we see there should remind us of all we can’t see. The names we read there should remind us of all the names we can’t read. 2,977 names written in bronze should remind us of the 137,000 names that remain unwritten. The tragic stories we hear about victims on U.S. soil should remind us of the tragic stories we don’t hear about victims far away or close by. And even as we remember the tragic violence of one particular day ten years ago, we should remember the tragic violence that preceded it, and the tragic violence that followed.

It is spiral of violence driven by grief and fear. Grief and fear is what we easily see. My hope is that the memorial in Manhattan reminds us of what we too easily overlook: that the sting of our grief and fear is in direct proportion to depth of our love.

May we come to recognize the truth, that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

May we recognize the truth, that the path to peace is within our reach,

if only we have vision to see the love within and around us,

if only we have the courage to open our hearts.

Amen.

Getting to Work

"We put our love where we have put our labor."

-- Emerson

Meditation: by Jan Beatty, a poem entitled “My Father Teaches Me to Dream”

You want to know what work is?

I’ll tell you what work is:

Work is work.

You get up. You get on the bus.

You don’t look from side to side.

You keep your eyes straight ahead.

That way nobody bothers you—see?

You get off the bus. You work all day.

You get back on the bus at night. Same thing.

You go to sleep. You get up.

You do the same thing again.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

There’s no handouts in this life.

All this other stuff you’re looking for—

it ain’t there.

Work is work.

Reading: by William Zinsser, from On Writing Well (p. 3-4).

About ten years ago a school in Connecticut held “a day devoted to the arts,” and I was asked if I would come and talk about writing as a vocation. When I arrived I found that a second speaker had been invited - Dr. Brock (as I’ll call him), a surgeon who had recently begun to write and had sold some stories to national magazines. He was going to talk about writing as an avocation. That made us a panel, and we sat down to face a crowd of student newspaper editors, English teachers and parents, all eager to learn the secrets of our glamorous work.

Mr. Brock was dressed in a bright red jacket, looking vaguely bohemian, as authors are supposed to look, and the first question went to him. What was it like to be a writer?

He said it was tremendous fun. Coming home from an arduous day at the hospital, he would go straight to his yellow pad and write his tensions away. The words just flowed. It was easy.

I then said that writing wasn’t easy and it wasn’t fun. It was hard and lonely, and the words seldom flowed.

Next Dr. Brock was asked if it was important to rewrite. Absolutely not, he said. “Let it all hang out,” and whatever form the sentences take will reflect the writer at his most natural.

I then said that rewriting is the essence of writing. I pointed out that professional writers rewrite their sentences repeatedly and then rewrite what they have rewritten. I mentioned that E. B. White and James Thurber rewrote their pieces eight or nine times.

“What do you do on days when it isn’t going well?” Dr. Brock was asked. He said he just stopped writing and put the work aside for a day when it would go better.

I then said that the professional writer must establish a daily schedule and stick to it. I said that writing is a craft, not an art, and that the man who runs away from his craft because he lacks inspiration is fooling himself. He is also going broke.

“What if you’re feeling depressed or unhappy?” a student asked. “Won’t that affect your writing?”

Probably it will, Dr. Brock replied. Go fishing. Take a walk.

Probably it won’t, I said. If your job is to write every day, you learn to do it like any other job…

“Do you put symbolism in your writing?” a student asked me.

“Not if I can help it,” I replied. I have an unbroken record of missing the deeper meaning in any story, play or movie, and as for dance and mime, I have never had even a remote notion of what is being conveyed.

“I love symbols!” Dr. Brock exclaimed, and he described with gusto the joys of weaving them through his work.

So the morning went, and it was a revelation to all of us.

Reading: by the Jewish scholar Martin Buber, from a book entitled Chinese Tales (p. 67), which was first published in 1910. The book consists of a collection of Taoist stories drawn from the writings of the Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi, who live in the 4th century BCE. This story is called “The Stand for Chimes.”

Qing, the master carpenter, was carving a wooden stand for a set of chimes. When he was done, everyone who say it thought it had been fashioned by supernatural beings. The prince of Lu asked the mast, “What is the secret of your art?”

“Your subject is only an artisan,” replied Qing. “What secrets could he have? Yet there is something. When starting out to make the stand, I guarded myself against any loss of vital energy. I collected myself in order to subdue my spirit to an absolute calm. After three days I became oblivious to whatever reward I might receive. After five days I became oblivious to whatever fame I might be accorded. After seven days I forgot my limbs and the rest of my physical self. Even the thought of your court, for which I was supposed to work, was gone. Then I got down to my art, undisturbed by anything outside. I went to the forest and looked at the shapes of trees. When I caught sight of one that had the right shape, the stand for the set of chimes appeared to me, and I went to work. If I had not found this tree, I would have had to cancel the job. My divinely inspired capability and the divinely inspired shape of the tree coincided. What is credited to the supernatural in my work, is due entirely to this coincidence.”

Getting To Work

A Sermon Delivered on September 4, 2011

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

This summer I have been exploring new dimensions of parenthood. These experiments have been prompted by the fact that my infant son, Noah, suddenly and inexplicably has become a high school senior. And though it seems like yesterday that I was showing him how to tie his shoelaces, and teaching him how to ride a bike, I realize he is now less than a year away from high school graduation and legal adulthood - and hopefully one big step closer to a life of adult responsibility and financial independence.

It’s the “financial independence” that my fatherly brain latched onto. And all my parental instincts, loving concern, and wise counsel boiled down to a six word mantra that I found myself reciting to Noah with increasing frequency. The six words are: “You need to get a job.”

I freely admit, there is more to growing up than getting a job - there are high school grades, for instance, and college visits and applications, and any number of practical and social skills, all of which contribute to the maturation of a young adult. Luckily, Noah has a mother who can help him with those things.

For reasons I myself don’t fully understand, my own parental ambitions grew surprisingly narrow. Soon I was left wondering whether my new mantra, which initially seemed so inspiring, was turning into an annoying, nagging litany. Perpetually prodding Noah to read the classified ads and to set up job interviews - I began to suspect - was perhaps not necessarily creating the warm-and-fuzzy father-and-son bonding experience I had hoped.

But it did teach me something about myself, and some of the hidden circuits buried deeply within my brain that link adulthood, security, health and happiness with attaining gainful employment. The questions and concerns that arise along these lines in my parental mind, I realized, are very different than the questions I remember mulling over when I was seventeen. My seventeen-year-old concerns felt much bigger and deeper than simply getting a job. When I was seventeen I was wondering: What do I want to be when I grow up? What do I want to do with my life? How can I make a difference?

The grown up parent within me, I realize, has little patience for the big questions. My internalized Father says you need to learn to live in the Real World. That means getting a job, earning a living, building a home. Life in the Real World is full of difficulties and dangers. If you don’t learn to put aside your dreams, you won’t survive.

This may sound like the voice of a bitter and cynical old man - but even a casual look at the news confirms that we are living in difficult and dangerous times. Our economic slump and the specter of rising and long-term unemployment are undeniable.

Last week the news said there are “Some hints of Optimism in Economic Data.” According to a new government report, fewer people applied for unemployment benefits last week. The job market may be improving. But in yesterday’s paper I read that a “Stagnant jobs report renews fears.” In an alarming setback, the most recent report says no jobs were created in August, thus, yet again, stoking fears of another recession.

A job fair in Chicago last month, had job applicants standing in a line a half-mile long, thousands of men and women, young and old, desperate to find work. A young woman named Candace Mitchell stood in the line, because her current work as independent hairstylist isn’t enough to make ends meet. Every time she puts a couple of gallons of gas in her car, she needs to decide - will she spend these few dollars on gas to get home, or on dinner, or on her son’s football uniform, or on a needed doctor’s visit - which will it be? An older woman named Velvet Hays-Dawson stood in line hoping for work, because her current job as a bus-driver provides the only paycheck in the family. They recently had to decide whether to pay their mortgage or pay for their daughter’s college. They chose college, and now their home is in foreclosure.

Candace Mitchell and Velvet Hays-Dawson don’t have the luxury to ponder what they really want to do with their lives. And the only difference they want to make, is to keep their families fed, and to provide their children with the basic necessities they need to grow up and succeed. Or, at least that’s the message Jan Beatty’s father tried to convey to her, the message conveyed so clearly in her poem: work is work. Nothing more, nothing less.

* * *

Is the work we do an integral part of living a meaningful life? Or is work simply a brute necessity for economic survival? Is our work an opportunity to make a difference in the world? Or is work merely the domain of employers and employees, a realm from which millions of Americans are currently excluded?

There is no single answer to these questions. We can choose to treat work as one or the other of these options, and live our lives accordingly. And we can teach our children accordingly.

We can choose the attitude with which we approach our work. We can expect our work to be easy and tremendous fun. Or we can assume our work will be hard and lonely. We can do our work only when the spirit moves us. Or we can approach work as a daily discipline, a craft, which we practice, rain or shine, on good days and bad.

Our respective experiences of what work looks and feels like can differ amazingly. This is the surprising revelation William Zinsser experienced years ago at a school in Connecticut. It was a revelation to see how differently Zinsser and Dr. Brock understood the work of writing.

Zinsser makes sense of their differences by linking them to the notion of vocation as opposed to avocation. Writing is Zinsser’s vocation - his profession, his job. His writing pays the rent. As such, the act of writing is tinged with worries about bills to pay, and the sober realities of economic survival. He writes every day, because if doesn’t, he’ll go broke.

For Dr. Brock, writing is an avocation - it is a hobby, driven solely by his desire for fun and relaxation. It is a welcome distraction from his day job.

The words vocation and avocation are both drawn from the same root, the Latin word “vocare” - which also is the root of vocal and voice - and which means “to call.”

To have a vocation is to be called. It is to be drawn toward a particular kind of work by an inclination, a circumstance, or a voice not entirely our own. To be called means to be guided toward one’s work by an impulse deeper or greater than we can fully understand.

To have an avocation is to be called away. We are called away from the work we do for pay, called away from work defined by duty and drudgery and economic necessity, to a different kind of work. A work that arises from different motives and moves toward different goals.

* * *

We, who gather here to this place of worship, we do so for many reasons. We come here to build community, to seek inspiration, to promote justice, and to find peace - this is what we say in our mission statement. But that is not all we do here. We also celebrate and sing, we share meals and stories, we teach our children and learn from them, and from each other - about religion and God, about morality and the meaning of life.

We come here to grapple with the questions that matter the most to us. We come here, because we know, we can’t find the answers - and more importantly, we can’t live the answers - alone. We can only do this together. Together, we come here to hone our skills and deepen our understanding. Together, we come to find the critical challenge and the caring support we need to get a better grip on what it is we really want to do with our lives, and to figure out how we can make a difference.

Let me be perfectly clear. Coming to church is not all fun and games. It is work. And if you have read our newsletter, or heard announcements from this pulpit, in which individuals report on the good work dedicated members and friends have done either at community events or within the walls of this church - then you know I am not kidding, when I say this is a place of work. This is a place where a lot of good people come together to do good work.

The work we do here comes in all shapes and sizes. It looks and feels different depending on the time and the task at hand. And depending on the attitude of those involved. Sometimes it looks like to Dr. Brock’s enthusiastic avocation - and our work is done effortlessly and joyfully. Other times our work seems similar to Zinsser’s disciplined sense of vocation, and we stick with it, even when real effort is involved, even when it isn’t fun. We stick with it even when our work is draining and demanding.

We do this - not because we are masochists, or gluttons for punishment - we do this, because the call we hear, the call that arises from somewhere deep within us or from far beyond us, this call compels us to fulfill a profound purpose.

Our labors’ reward is measured neither in dollars and cents, nor in perpetual pleasure - our reward lies in that deeper satisfaction that is found only when we join together with friends to serve a greater good. The sense of meaning we find in such work can be a revelation.

It isn’t always easy to figure out what the work is we are called to do. The Christian author Frederick Buechner writes about this challenge. Our problem often is not an absence of calling, he says, but rather learning to deal with conflicting calls. “There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of Society, say, or the Superego, or Self-Interest… The place God calls you to,” Buechner writes, “is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s hunger meet.” (Wishful Thinking, p. 95)

* * *

I don’t know whether what you need to do here, is be called away from one kind of work, or to be called toward another kind of work. But some kind of calling is involved. There is a voice we need to discern before we begin our work.

Before we pick up our tools and proceed with the task at hand, we need to listen closely in order to understand what our task truly entails. We need to listen closely, in order to understand the complexity of the need we hope to address. We need to pay attention to subtle clues, both within us and around us.

Like the master carpenter, who began his work by turning his attention to the world within - attending to body and soul - with diligence and discipline calming his mind, letting go of all distractions, quieting the clamor of the voices of ambition and pride, as well as their flip-sides: fear of failure and inadequacy.

Then he turned his attention to the world around him. He went into forest and examined the shape of every tree he encountered - its height, its width, its hardness and softness, its color and texture, its perfections and imperfections.

Only after attending diligently to the world within and around him, did he take up his tools - his ax and saw, his chisel and hammer. He yielded to a vision of an object, which he saw contained within the tree. He yielded to a still, small voice that whispered instructions, guiding his hands - the angle of the chisel on wood, and the force of the hammer’ s blow.

The outcome of the carpenter’s work was not merely a beautiful object to behold, and not merely an example of divine inspiration - the outcome of the carpenter’s work was of pragmatic value. It served a concrete purpose: a stand for chimes. And in so doing, in a small but very tangible way, served a greater good. In a small but tangible way the carpenter made a difference.

The integrity of intention and action, the harmony of the spiritual and the practical, the unity of discipline and devotion - the commitment to combine both dimensions in the work at hand, this is what allowed the completion of a work that seemed supernatural.

* * *

Work is work. There is no denying it. Work is work. And we need to work.

We need work to sustain our bodies, to sustain our souls. We need work to give concrete shape to the meaning of lives, and to bring our unique gifts to bear upon the needs of the world.

Our work calls us to draw from the deepest wellsprings within, so that each of us in our own small and idiosyncratic way, can make a difference in the world around us. This work may involve a degree of difficulty and drudgery, but it is nevertheless marked by a deep gladness.

This is my mantra: We need to get a job. We need a job that will give shape and form to our dreams. And if the job we find fails to embody our ideals - if work is work, and truly nothing more and nothing less - then may our job inspire us to listen more intently to our true calling. Then, may the very limitations of our work teach us to dream of vocations as yet unimagined.

May our dreams be for us a revelation of the true work we are called to do.

May we join together, and take up our work joyfully.

So that all our dreams may come true.

Amen.