-- Charles Caleb Colton
Reading: by Charles Duhigg from The Power of Habit – Why We Do What We Do in Life and Business (p. xv)
When you woke up this morning, what did you do first? Did you hop in the shower, check your email, or grab a doughnut from the kitchen counter? … Tie the left or right shoe first? What did you say to your kids on your way out the door? Which route did you drive to work? When you got to your desk, did you deal with email, chat with a colleague, or jump into writing a memo? Salad or burger for lunch? When you got home, did you put on your sneakers and go for a run, or pour yourself a drink and eat dinner in front of the TV?
“All our life, so far as it has definite form, is but a mass of habits,” William James wrote in 1892. Most of the choices we make each day may feel like the products of well-considered decision making, but they’re not. They’re habits. And though each habit means relatively little on its own, over time, the meals we order, what we say to our kids each night, whether we save or spend, how often we exercise, and the way we organize our thoughts and work routines have enormous impact on our health, productivity, financial security, and happiness. One [research] paper published… in 2006 found that more than 40 percent of the actions people perform each day weren’t actual decisions, but habits.
Reading: by Pema Chodron from Taking the Leap – Freeing Ourselves from Old Habits and Fears (p. 1, 2)
As human being we have the potential to disentangle ourselves from old habits, and the potential to love and care about each other. We have the capacity to wake up and live consciously, but, you may have noticed, we also have a strong inclination to stay asleep. It’s as if we are always at a crossroad, continuously choosing which way to go…
There was a story that was widely circulated a few days after the attacks of September 11, 2001, that illustrates our dilemma. A Native American grandfather was speaking to his grandson about violence and cruelty in the world and how it comes about. He said it was as if two wolves were fighting in his heart. One wolf was vengeful and angry, and the other wolf was understanding and kind. The young man asked his grandfather which wolf would win the fight in his heart. And the grandfather answered, “The one that wins will be the one I choose to feed.”
So this is our challenge, the challenge for our spiritual practice and the challenge for the world – how can we train right now, not later, in feeding the right wolf? How can we call on our innate intelligence to see what helps and what hurts, what escalates aggression and what uncovers good-heartedness? With the global economy in chaos and the environment of the planet at risk, with war raging and suffering escalating, it is time for each of us in our own lives to take the leap and do whatever we can to help turn things around. Even the slightest gesture toward feeding the right wolf will help. Now more than ever, we are all in this together.
Reading: by Robert Allen Zimmerman (aka Bob Dylan), from a poem set to music entitled “The Times They Are A-Changin”
Come gather 'round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You'll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you
Is worth savin'
Then you better start swimmin'
Or you'll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin'….
Come mothers and fathers
Throughout the land
And don't criticize
What you can't understand
Your sons and your daughters
Are beyond your command
Your old road is
Rapidly agin'
Please get out of the new one
If you can't lend your hand
For the times they are a-changin'.
The line it is drawn
The curse it is cast
The slow one now
Will later be fast
As the present now
Will later be past
The order is
Rapidly fadin'
And the first one now
Will later be last
For the times they are a-changin'.
Old Habits in a New Age
A Sermon Delivered on May 6, 2012
By
The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann
I am a creature of habit. Every morning I make my first cup of tea in the same mug. It’s always Irish Breakfast tea, steeped for five minutes, with a generous shot of half and half. Every evening I load the dishwasher with plates, cups, and glasses organized in the same order. I press two buttons that tell the machine start up two hours later. Then I go upstairs. And just about when I reach the top of the stairs, I can’t remember whether I had pressed those two buttons. So I go downstairs to check. Yup. I did. That’s my habit.
According to Charles Duhigg, we are all creatures of habit. Almost half of what we do every day is habit. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. Scientists say that when we engage in the same sequence of actions, again and again, we learn to act without thinking, automatically.
For instance, most of us who drive cars can do so effortlessly. When we approach a stop sign, we don’t think about what to do next, when to take our foot off the gas, where to bring our vehicle to a halt, how to cope with cross-traffic. We don’t need to give undivided attention to every parked car we pass, to on-coming traffic, to pedestrians stepping off the curb. We notice all of these things effortlessly, and act accordingly, constantly adjusting speed and direction. (There is nothing like supervising a teenage student driver, to remind you of all the countless decisions and judgments a car driver does need to make while driving.)
Our habits are helpful, because by acting automatically and unthinkingly throughout the routines of our days, we free up precious mental energy to focus on other issues, other concerns.
One of the problems with our habits, is that our unthinking routines can get us stuck in ruts that are unhealthy, if not downright dangerous. A habit, which served us well in one stage of our lives, can become a real problem when the circumstances of our lives change. Or when the world around us changes. And the world is changing.
The times they are a-changing. This was true when Bob Dylan wrote his song in 1963, and it is true today. This is something we as a church need to be aware of.
* * *
Earlier this year Peter Morales, the current President of the Unitarian Universalist Association, published a paper entitled “Congregations and Beyond.” In it, Morales makes the case that the way we think of ourselves as a religious movement, and the way we run our churches, is tragically outdated, and no longer appropriate for the society in which we live today.
Our style of religious organization developed in a different era. When this church was founded a hundred and fifty years ago, and when people first gathered for worship, the size of our parking lot was not an issue. People came from a few miles around, either on foot, or by horse-drawn buggy. There was no need, at the beginning of the service, to ask people to turn off their cell phones. Incredible changes have taken place in our society,
“To be limited to a traditional parish form of organization in the 21st century is like limiting ourselves to technology that does not require electricity,” Morales says.
Part of the reason he believes our understanding of congregational life needs some serious re-thinking, is that the vast majority of self-described Unitarian Universalists today are not members of any UU congregation.
In North America, UU churches have a collective membership of about 160,000 adults. But there are about 650,000 Americans who identify as Unitarian Universalist. So, for every one of us here this morning, there are three others who are UU, but aren’t part of any church.
Morales wants to find ways to invite the 500,000 unaffiliated UUs to be more actively involved in our movement. Along these lines, he says, outreach is essential. We could make better use of technology and social media – websites, blogs, facebook, YouTube, twitter – they are all great tools to help us connect. We could also provide more opportunities for face-to-face interactions in small groups – whether at church or in peoples’ homes, at coffee shops or university residence halls. And we could do more to provide opportunities for social activism and meaningful volunteerism. All of these are crucial ways to connect.
On a very basic level, Morales believes our congregations should focus more on connection and less on “membership.”
* * *
This morning during our New Member Recognition, Gail Schiesser described some of the key ideas we associate with membership: a commitment to share your creative thoughts, your vital experiences, your questions, and the principles that matter most to you. This is how we imagine membership at its best. But this is not the only shape church membership can take.
My colleague Roy Phillips, once described a cartoon that captured a different kind of membership. The cartoon is entitled “New Member’s Worst Nightmare.”
“[It] shows an elderly man with a long, flowing beard, speaking to a young couple new to the church. The couple looks at a huge bulletin board listing all the congregation’s committees. At the top is emblazoned: “Our Committees Need You!”
The old man says, “Most people are on nine or ten committees, but since you’re new I’m sure people will understand if you only join six or seven to start.” The best part of the cartoon is the list of committees themselves: Finance Committee, Investment Committee, Board of Trustees – yes. But it goes on… Thermostat Control Committee, Committee for More Comfortable Pews, Committee for the Promotion of Committees, Plant Watering Committee, Pigeon Control Committee.” (Transforming Liberal Congregations p. 3)
Phillips says the cartoon makes him laugh, but also makes him wince, because it is so close to the realities of church life he knows only too well. People come to church in search of community, and we give them committees. And that is a tragedy.
Now, don’t misunderstand me. There is a place for committees in congregational life. I am a big fan of committees. They offer great opportunities for involvement, great ways to contribute to the work of our church, great ways to put our principles into practice, and get to know one another in the process. But committees are not enough.
As the Methodist minister Kennon Callahan puts it, “People come to... church longing for, yearning for, hoping for… [a] sense of roots, place, belonging, sharing, and caring… We make the mistake of assuming that, putting people on a committee, they will develop ownership for …the church… [But] their search is far more profound and desperate than that. They are looking for home, for relationships. They are looking for the profound depths of community.” (Effective Church Leadership, p. 106-107)
As Callahan sees it, we come to church looking for four things. The first is a sense of community. The second is a sense of our own individuality – our worth, our uniqueness, our preciousness, our power – a sense of how we are each one-of-a-kind, each of our lives an unrepeatable phenomenon. Third, we come to find some sense of meaning – to know that our lives matter, that we are each uniquely qualified to make a particular contribution to the human venture. And finally, fourth, we come to find hope – a sense that we can make a difference, and that it is worthwhile to care, to question, and to try. (Phillips, p. 8)
* * *
People have been seeking out religious communities for a long time, searching for a sense of community, a sense of individuality, a sense of meaning, a sense of hope. But the times they are a-changing. The habits that once helped us meet our deepest spiritual needs may no longer be serving their intended purpose. Our old habits are not enough.
Bob Dylan wrote the song “The Times They are A-Changin,” when he was twenty-two years old. He was trying to write an “anthem of change for the moment.” A lot of listeners thought it was protest song about the “generation gap” and the political divisions in the 1960s, surrounding the civil rights movement and the Vietnam War.
But Dylan himself said he was less interested in describing a generational divide, or making a political statement. He was trying to express a feeling. He was trying to describe the distinction between aliveness and deadness. In order to be fully alive, we need to be engaged in the realities of the world around us, not stuck in the habits of a world that once was.
* * *
Religious practice is an effort to distinguish good habits from bad, to discourage the bad and cultivate the good. This is how Pema Chodron describes the goal of Buddhist mindfulness. Good habits promote happiness and clarity. Bad habits cause confusion and pain. Good habits help us to be attentive to the world around us, to be kind, and generous and patient, to be grateful for the blessing of life, and to be respectful toward others. Bad habits of mind are when we grow self-centered and narrow-minded, indifferent to others, concerned only with our own needs and desires. It is a bad habit of mind, to let our universe grow ever smaller. Before we know it, we become needy and greedy.
We need to learn new habits. The new habits we learn need to be ones that move us toward aliveness, rather than deadness. We need new habits that help us wake up, rather than put us to sleep.
What would this look like? Pema Chodron describes people she has known, people who have cultivated a habit of aliveness like this. She says, “They’re fully conscious of whatever is happening. Their minds don’t go off anywhere. They stay right here with chaos, with silence, with a carnival, in an emergency room, on a mountainside: they’re completely receptive and open to what’s happening. It’s at the same time the simplest and the most profound thing…” (p. 14)
* * *
We are all creatures of habit.
May we have the wisdom to realize how some of our habits help us
and others hinder us from living the life we want to live.
May we dare move beyond treasured old habits,
So we might learn treasured new habits
- habits of kindness, of compassion, of connection –
that we might change our lives and our world for the better.
Amen.
