Guest Sermon: The Profane and the Sacred

“In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.”

-- Mark Twain

Opening words

Friday was a beautiful day; sunny, about 75 degrees with cool breezes. My wife Lynn and I took the day off to do a 13-mile kayak trip down the Middle Fork river. We took the earliest trip available, 10 AM, though we would have preferred to start earlier in hopes of seeing more wildlife (and fewer people) before the day got too warm.

It was our best trip ever, by far. In five hours on the river, we saw many turtles, two water snakes, a “fisher cat” (our first ever), a troop of otters (our first ever), and a mature bald eagle taking off from the river’s edge, to be followed around the bend by an eagle nest high in a tree overlooking the river. We didn’t know bald eagles nested in central Illinois, but they do, and they have several chicks that look to be about the size of fully grown pheasants and are quite vocal. I encourage you all to take this trip down the Middle Fork, and to be mindful of the blessings that we do enjoy while living here.

This has nothing at all to do with today’s service, which is being led by Chris Hannauer and myself. Our subject today is profanity. You may have heard in our New Member Recognition ceremony that you can hear things from the pulpit in this church that would cost other ministers their jobs. Today we’ll be talking about things that could cost our minister his job.

Well, not really. But we are going to discuss profanity and its role in our lives, as part of our search for truth, wherever that search may lead us.

Meditation and Silence

From “An Obscenity Symbol” by Allen Walker Read, American Speech, December 1934, p. 274-75

In recent years our word has gained greater currency than ever before. The disorganization of life cause by the World War is no doubt responsible. The normal conversation of the soldiers has been described as “technically obscene in almost every sentence.” Writes John Brophy, “The obscenity was merely technical because, although gross and foul words were employed, they were used habitually, almost mechanically, as mere intensives. Ninety-nine times out of a hundred there was no thought in the soldier’s mind of the literal and obscene meaning of the word upon his lips.”

The use of a taboo word does not necessarily signify the breaking of the taboo. The utterance of such a word in order to feel the thrill of doing the forbidden, to insult someone, or to express the jangled state of one’s nerves is the observance of taboo, although in a manner contrary to the normal. This may be called “inverted taboo.” The only way that a taboo can be actually broken is to use the word unemotionally in its simple literal sense.

...

The soldier, compelled to outrage his inmost nature by killing his fellow human beings, found life topsy-turvy in so many respects that it is small wonder that his observance of taboo was in the inverted manner. The supporters of a civilization that can send forth its young men to kill each other ought not to be squeamish about the misuse of a few words. With nerves relentlessly exacerbated by gunfire, the unnatural way of life and the imminence of a hideous death, the soldier could find fitting expression only in terms that according to teaching from his childhood were foul and disgusting.”

Readings First reading

From Read, p. 264

The determinant of obscenity lies not in words or things, but in the attitudes that people have towards these words and things. To hazard a definition, we may say that obscenity is any reference to the bodily functions that gives to anyone a certain emotional reaction, that of a

“fearful thrill” in seeing, doing or speaking the forbidden. Thus it is the essence of a ban or taboo that creates the obscenity where none existed before.

What is the nature of this taboo? A distinction must be made, for our purposes, between a taboo of concept and a taboo of word. The taboo of concept is the relatively simple avoidance of a subject that is felt to be not suitable to the occasion. The enigmatic problem arises over the taboo of word: when a subject is admissible at all, why should not the plain, outspoken terms be the best ones to use? The ordinary reaction to a display of filth and vulgarity should be a neutral one or else disgust; but the reaction to certain words connected with excrement and sex is neither of these, but a titillating thrill of scandalized perturbation. Such a word, as Professor H.C. Wyld has said, ‘is endowed by the hearers with mysterious and uncanny meanings; it chills the blood and raises gooseflesh.” That is to say, the response is an emotional one, altogether out of proportion to the simple semantic content of the word.

Second reading

From Read, p. 271, concerning Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary

Shortly after the Dictionary was published a literary lady complimented him up on it and particularly expressed her satisfaction that he had not admitted any improper words. “No, Madam,” he replied, “I hope I have not daubed my fingers. I find, however, that you have been looking for them.”

Third reading

A message from the Governor of California to the State Assembly

To the Members of the California State Assembly:

I am returning Assembly Bill 1176 without my signature.

For some time now I have lamented the fact that major issues are overlooked while many unnecessary bills come to me for consideration. Water reform, prison reform, and health care are major issues my Administration has brought to the table, but the Legislature just kicks the can down the alley.

Yet another legislative year has come and gone without the major reforms Californians overwhelmingly deserve. In light of this, and after careful consideration, I believe it is unnecessary to sign this measure at this time.

Fourth reading

From Mark Twain, A Biography by Albert Bigelow Paine (1907):

A word here about Mark Twain’s profanity. Born with a matchless gift of phrase, the printing- office, the river, and the mines had developed it in a rare perfection. To hear him denounce a

thing was to give one the fierce, searching delight of galvanic waves. Every characterization seemed the most perfect fit possible until he applied the next. And somehow his profanity was seldom an offense. It was not mere idle swearing; it seemed always genuine and serious. His selection of epithet was always dignified and stately, from whatever source — and it might be from the Bible or the gutter. Someone has defined dirt as misplaced matter. It is perhaps the greatest definition ever uttered. It is absolutely universal in its application, and it recurs now, remembering Mark Twain’s profanity. For it was rarely misplaced; hence it did not often offend. It seemed, in fact, the safety-valve of his high-pressure intellectual engine. When he had blown off he was always calm, gentle; forgiving, and even tender. Once following an outburst he said, placidly:

“In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.”

SERMON Part One

The Profane and the Sacred
Profanity 101

By Sam Beshers

Sometime around 1990 I was driving down the Mass Pike with my wife Lynn and our son Max, who was a toddler at the time and riding in a car seat. As so often happens, another driver wanted to go faster than traffic would allow and abruptly cut me off. Enraged, I did what any proper Bostonian would do, namely pull up alongside him and give him the finger. His front seat passenger was duly delegated to give me the finger back, and so we drove down the Pike for a couple of miles, side by side, gesturing vigorously at each other.

Then all of a sudden my anger vanished and I just started laughing. How completely ridiculous. Here we were, playing with our lives and those of our passengers, all to show each other our middle fingers. Why would I vent my outrage, and get some measure of satisfaction, by showing someone my middle finger, and why would he in turn take offense? Could anything be more silly?

This experience has stayed with me, and made me think about what profanity really means and how it works, and this is what we are exploring here today.

Before we go any further, I want to state that our exploration does not include the actual use of profanity – though you may want to check Chris’s reaction when he realizes that I’m going to talk for the entire twenty minutes, and there’s not much he can do about it.

Just kidding.

I suppose it’s possible that some of you will be disappointed by our reticence, but I think most will not. We explicitly discussed this, and Chris and I agree that while profanity has its place in our everyday lives, it does not have a place in this, our sanctuary.

Why, then, have a service on profanity at all? I actually can’t remember how we decided to do this. I think in part it’s because we like a challenge. We also feel that as UUs we have both the opportunity and the obligation to explore all aspects of life, the world, and spirituality, not just the nice and easy things like peace, love and social justice. But I think also we independently were thinking that profanity has a lot to tell us about who we are and how we choose to live.

There are three things about profanity that I find compelling. First is that profanity is widespread and possibly universal across cultures. Exactly what is considered profane varies, but there’s usually something. The second is that profanity has a long and honorable history. Many of the words have derivations that are at least hundreds of years old, and a few appear in Shakespeare. The upraised middle finger appears to go back at least as far as the ancient Greeks. The third is in the origins of the word “profane”, which comes from words meaning “outside of the church”. What happens outside the church is the stuff of life, which is what we ponder and discuss inside the church.

By profanity, we mean a relatively small set of words that are considered “bad”, and not to be used. As George Carlin said, “There are 400,000 words in the English language, and there are seven of them that you can’t say on television. They must really be bad....”. Well, what are these words? They fall into two categories: sex and the elimination of bodily wastes, and it is both the actions and the body parts involved that are bad.

Why these words are bad is a more complicated question for which we do not have definitive answers. The fact that they are bad across most cultures points to biological roots of our feelings about them, but beyond that we are really speculating. I think it’s fair to say that most people, as we grow up, regard these matters with a complex and potent combination of interest, fear and disgust, with different feelings being more prominent at different times. One consequence is that discussions of sex and elimination are felt to be not appropriate for everyone and are restricted by social customs.

Profanity elicits strong emotional reactions. This can be true even if we’re accustomed to it. I did a thought experiment with Chris, sitting at his dining room table. Imagine that I’m sitting here pointing my upraised middle finger at you. We’re friends, we’re discussing a service on profanity, we know this is just a test...and yet it would still be impossible to ignore. We’re deeply conditioned to recognize these words and gestures, and to be ready to take offense.

Despite the fact that we’ve learned that these words are bad and we’re not supposed to use them, or maybe even because of this, their use is widespread. As with other parts of the language, there is a widely shared understanding of profanity and its uses that defies easy explanation. If I were to give you the finger, you would all know exactly what I meant .... except that you might not. Wikipedia offers five different expressions as “roughly equivalent to” giving someone the finger. Nevertheless, the offensive nature of this gesture is universally understood, at least in this country. Whatever the failings of our educational system, I am certain we are keeping pace with other countries in this regard. I learned most of the words by early middle school. Our son Max was more advanced; he learned everything he needed by the time he was seven, from listening to his mother driving in Boston traffic.

In fact, it’s only because everyone knows the words that the ban on saying them can be enforced. If they don’t know the word is bad, they can’t tell you that you shouldn’t be saying it.

So these words are forbidden but also widely used. How exactly does this work? What are the rules? Well, it’s complicated. Context is important. I don’t swear in church....at least, not in the sanctuary. On Sunday morning. During the service. I don’t swear around my father, but my children (both 18 and over) are not so restrained around me. I tend to not use profanity in academic or professional contexts – except occasionally, for effect. You can use George Carlin’s seven words on television, just not on one of the traditional networks. You can use them in plays, movies, poems, novels and songs, but generally not in public speaking. Not in church, and not in weddings and funerals.

Just this past week, my brother mentioned to me that at the funeral of Monty Python member Graham Chapman, John Cleese became the first person to drop the F-bomb in a British memorial service. You can find it on YouTube.

So clearly, the rules change over time. You can use profanity to make a point, draw attention, claim status, show that you belong, show significant anger, or to be funny. You just have to be clever, aware of the rules, and not get caught.

If you choose not to use profanity, or you find yourself at a tea party (small letters) there are other, “proper” words you may use that mean exactly the same things. Even in church we can discuss sexual intercourse if we have a good reason for doing so. The proper words are generally reserved for serious discussion, but there are still other options. We have euphemisms; these words have the same meaning as the “bad” words, and they can be used in public, and everybody knows that you are actually saying the “bad” word. In the film “Lenny”, about the life of comedian Lenny Bruce, Dustin Hoffman does a routine about two words that he can’t say without being arrested, using “blah” for both of them. It is perfectly clear what he is saying, and what he means when he says “blah”, and on the other hand what he means when he says “blah”.

Different ages have seen different levels of comfort with the offending words, and with the subjects of sex and elimination. In more tolerant times even the worst words may be freely exchanged in public, whereas in less tolerant times the taboos extend to words further and further removed from the original concepts. Allen Read recounts how a 19th century incident in which a man seriously offended a young lady by using the word “leg” in her presence. Other words that have been at times out of favor included stomach, corset, trousers, sweat, sneeze, ornery, stink, dung and belly. Read, listing several antiquated synonyms of our “F-word”, says that “The fourth, to occupy, is now in common use in other senses, and few people realize that it was once one of the most obscene words in the language.” Perhaps this will give us a different perspective on Occupy Wall Street.

The use of profanity is full of paradoxes. We’re not supposed to say the words, but we do anyway, sometimes. We can refer to the same things by different words and all’s well. Or we can use euphemisms for particular words and everyone knows exactly what we’re talking about. We don’t use these words in church, but we’re having a church service on the subject without

actually using the words – though I see a couple of euphemisms have slipped in. Sorry about that. Profanity is ancient, universal, powerful and forbidden except when it’s not. And here to make sense of it all is Chris Hannauer.

SERMON Part Two

The Power of the Profane

By Chris Hannauer

So, if Sam is to be believed we’ve always had profanity and always will. If that is the case, then what are we supposed to do with it? Are we, like the dictionary writers of old, to pretend it doesn’t exist, or to maintain that it is beneath our dignity to consider it? Or are we to go the opposite way, and flagrantly and joyfully thumb our noses at social convention, trying to deprive these words and concepts of their mystical power by sheer overuse? I think the fact that we’ve made it this far into the service without any actual profanity should give you a clue as to where I stand, or at least to where I don’t stand. I think profanity is important, that it can play a real and constructive role in human encounters. But I also think that it is a tool that dulls quickly when overused, that it loses its power when engaged in unthinkingly or maliciously. The goal, I think, is to recognize the importance of the profane in our lives, to use it when we need to, to enjoy it when we can, and to avoid it when we should. We should also see, like Mark Twain, that there are times when our only route to the sacred may be through the profane.

In thinking about this service, I kept coming back to the story of the first time I ever uttered a swear word. I like this story, because it sums up pretty well what I think about the whole subject of profanity and its uses. I was six years old, a first child, and an inveterate rule follower. My best friend at the time was a boy named Jeff, a year older than I and as a result impossibly sophisticated and worldly. Where I knew that swear words were bad and that I should not utter them, he lived his life under no such stricture. For a two week period one summer Jeff made it his mission to get me to say a “bad word”. “Come on,” he wheedled. “Just try it. It’s fun!” The same words he would later use in successful campaigns to get me to play with matches and to throw rocks at the windows of an abandoned house. I resisted and resisted, but eventually he wore me down. I can still picture it like it was yesterday. We were outside my house and it was a beautiful sunny day when I finally gave in and timidly uttered the “S” word. I’m not sure what I expected, whether God would come down and smite me on the spot, or whether my father would leap out of a nearby bush and begin spanking me. What I certainly didn’t expect was what actually happened: the sound of trumpets and a chorus of angels singing from on high as I felt a sudden surge of power course through my little body. Jeff must have noticed my reaction, because he immediately urged me to say it again. Which I did. And again. Which I did, each time louder and more ecstatically. Soon I had moved on from the “S” word and was dropping every single bad word I knew (all five of them), over and over again, losing myself in a giddy sense of possibility born from transgression.

Within minutes it was no longer enough to share this awesome gift with just Jeff. At his suggestion (I think it is safe to say that Jeff was something less than a good influence on me), we decided to go across the street and share it with Jennifer Epley, a girl in the neighborhood a year younger than I. There she was, innocently sitting on her front stoop when Jeff and I came up to

her. “Hey Jennifer!” I said as Jeff looked on with what I can only imagine was a fatherly sense of pride. As she looked up I unleashed a torrent of obscenity calculated to knock her little socks off, and I was immediately gratified by the look of shocked horror she displayed at my blatant flouting of all that was decent in the world. As oath after oath passed my lips, I felt more and more drunk with the sheer power of these words, how I could use them to produce such a potent effect on myself and on other people. For a shy little boy not overly consumed with self- confidence this was new, uncharted, and wholly wonderful territory to be in. Until.

“I’m going to tell my mommy!” Jennifer cried as she fled into her house, to which I think my only possible response was “Oh S-word!” Instantly my sense of power and triumph transformed into abject fear and terror. I was a dead man, just as sure as if I’d walked into the kitchen and cursed out my mother to her face. Ashen-faced I turned and trudged back home, awaiting the inevitable call from my mother or, heaven forbid, my father. Power was instantly transformed to powerlessness, freedom to prison.

I certainly learned a lesson that day, but not the lesson you might expect. As it happens, that first timid “S” word was the progenitor of a long and illustrious line of profane utterances that I have employed in the 40 years since, though mostly, I hope, with better judgment. I never did have to pay a price for cursing at Jennifer. I don’t know if she didn’t actually tell her mother or, more likely, if she did but her mother just thought of it as a “boys will be boys” moment, not worthy of a complaint to my mom. In retrospect, I almost wish I had been punished, because I had decided in my first brush with this power to use it for evil, to shock and belittle a fellow human being for no purpose other than that I could. The lesson I learned was that there was real power in profanity. It took me a bit longer to realize the corollary to that: the old comic book cliché that “with great power comes great responsibility.”

Profanity can titillate. It can shock. It can make you laugh. It can make you cry. It can produce great emotion, and simultaneously ameliorate it. It is powerful, and as such it must be respected (but not feared). It is for good reason that we invoke “The F-Bomb” as our euphemism for that most hated (and loved) of swear words. As humans, we instinctively seem to recognize that the power of these words is not always controllable. And yet I would argue that we need not treat every use of profanity as something to be condemned. Even in the public sphere there is a place for the profane. In this church we like to emphasize the sacred, though our definition of sacred is maybe a little off that of most churches. The Spirit of Life, the Interconnected Web of Existence of Which We Are a Part. These ideas are very important to us. We tend not to dwell on the less noble aspects of life that are so aptly captured in our profanity. And yet these aspects can be just as important to us as their more acceptable counterparts. Profane words and symbols exist for a reason, and we ignore this reason at our peril. In this, as in so many things, balance is what matters. The Yin and the Yang of the Profane and the Sacred. Or maybe the other way around would better express it?

Profanity is what you make of it. When confronted with it, you can choose how to react. You can be self-righteously offended, and certainly this is the appropriate response some of the time. When the profane is used as a tool of domination, of belittling, of bullying, we are properly made angry and should condemn it. But sometimes, in my opinion, the most awful swear words, in the right context, can be sublime. In the words of Twain’s biographer, they can

“give one the fierce, searching delight of galvanic waves.” I call your attention to today’s third reading, the veto message from the Governor of California to the state Assembly. That Governor, of course, was Arnold Schwarzenegger, and the bill he was vetoing was sponsored by a San Francisco Assemblyman named Tom Ammiano. A few weeks before this veto was issued, Mr. Ammiano had publicly invited the Governor to “kiss [his] gay posterior”, substituting the more commonly used three-letter synonym for “posterior”. The veto message seems pretty standard political boilerplate, but viewed on the page it sends an entirely different message. It is an acrostic, in which the first letters of each line spell out a commonly-uttered two-word imprecation. (How closely were you listening when I read it?) While it is unclear whether the Governor realized what he was signing at the time, what is clear is that it caused a minor storm of righteous indignation around the nation (though interestingly, not on the part of Tom Ammiano, who thought it was “very creative”). Though not a big fan of “The Governator”, I thought this incident was absolutely fabulous. True, Schwarzenegger answered vulgarity with vulgarity, but at least he did so with a modicum of cleverness. Our political discourse is so stilted and devoid of true meaning that to see one politician tell another politician what he thinks, frankly, honestly, and in public, was a delight. Similarly, and more personally, there is the example of Cee Lo Green’s huge hit song from a few years ago, the radio-friendly version of which was entitled “Forget You”. In case you were on sabbatical in Antarctica that summer, the chorus went like this:

I see you riding ‘round town with the girl I love and I’m like, “Forget you!”
I guess the change in my pocket wasn’t enough So I’m like “Forget you,” and “Forget her, too!”

At the time this song was a hit, a very good friend of mine was going through a painful divorce. His wife had custody of the children and was living with her boyfriend in the house on which my friend was still paying the mortgage. It was a very rough time for him, and though Mr. Green’s song was every bit as crass as its critics claimed, it perfectly captured the emotions that my friend was going through. It was also true and honest in a way that singing “I’m like, really angry with you” just isn’t. As I said to Jody the first time I heard the non-radio-friendly version of the song, “Sometimes you just have to say that, don’t you?” “Galvanic waves,” indeed.

In a way, for me, the profane, properly experienced, is itself sacred. It is powerful, moreso when invoked sparingly, and it can be transformative. Mark Twain is quoted in one of today’s readings as having said, “In certain trying circumstances, urgent circumstances, desperate circumstances, profanity furnishes a relief denied even to prayer.” I’d like to close today with another story about the power of profanity in my own life. A few months ago a dear friend of mine from college passed away from cancer. Wayne had always been a kind of hero to me: he was my neighbor in the freshman dorm, and in addition to being a great guy and scarily smart, was British and therefore also unspeakably cool. At the time I was (still) not weighed down by an overabundance of self-confidence, so the fact that this amazing guy would be my good friend turned out to be an important influence on the man I would become. Wayne was always a step ahead of me. He graduated in four years with a master’s degree, he got engaged first, married first. I vividly remember my own wedding, feeling at some level that I’d finally caught up to him. At a small gathering the day after the wedding Wayne said to me “Chris, I will

always, always remember your wedding day.” “How nice,” I thought, basking in the glow of his love and approval. “Because,” he went on, “it was the day I found out I was going to be a father.” Ahead of me again! Sadly, he was ahead of me in death as well.

When the time came to go to Wayne’s memorial service, the circumstances were such that I had to go alone, though Jody had also been a good friend to Wayne. I ended up going with three other men, all of whom, myself included, had shared the experience of living in the same squalid Evanston house as Wayne during our college years. The service was held in a large church, and as I sat in the pews with my friends, I slowly came to realize that the emotional release I’d hoped to experience there wasn’t going to happen. The religious aspects of it left me a little cold (Wayne’s wife and children are Christian, though Wayne wasn’t a believer), and the eulogies were mostly about Wayne the prominent local businessman rather than on the Wayne that I had known and loved. After the service and the reception, my friends and I piled into our car and headed off to Perkins for a last meal in honor of our friend. And it was there, in the back seat of a Ford Fusion, that my grief finally found its vent. Not though the blessed, church- sanctified rituals of death, but in a conversation among friends that grew more and more profane the closer we got to our destination. I laughed so hard at one point that tears started streaming down my face, and when I finally was able to breathe again I was aware of a sense of serenity and peace that I had been missing ever since Wayne died. For me, in that moment, the profane was indeed truly sacred.

As we go through this life, may we all have the ability to recognize the sacred when it comes to us, whatever its disguise. Amen.

Closing words

From Richard Pryor

“What I'm saying might be profane, but it's also profound.”

[Note added after the service: several people commented to us about the use of “blasphemy” (damn, hell, etc) and “hate speech”, eg racist and homophobic slurs. We did not include these in our service because of time constraints and because we wanted to keep things simple. We find, at least for ourselves, that we do not react strongly to the blasphemy category, and we are far less comfortable with hate speech than with standard profanity. We might say that hate speech is the real” profanity.]

Questions on Your Mind

"The wise [person] doesn't give the right answers, [but] poses the right questions."
-- Claude Levi-Strauss

Reading: by Jennifer Michael Hecht from Doubt: A History (p. xi) 

In every [religious tradition] there are records of questioning, doubt and disbelief. In fact, the great religious texts are a great jumble of affirmation and denial, and the greatest of them record valiant efforts to reconcile these impulses: in the Hebrew Bible, Job rants at God, and Augustine, the early church father, tears at his hair in Confessions, beset with doubts. Whether you are a non-believer, or you belong to a religion without God, or you are a believer troubled by dark nights of the soul, we are all part of the same discussion. This is because, whatever your position may be, we all have the same contradictory information to work with. Sometimes it feel like there is a God or ultimate certainty, and it would be a great comfort if such a thing existed and we knew the answers to life’s ultimate mysteries: who or what created the universe and why; what is human life for; what happens when I die? But there is no universally compelling, empirical, or philosophical evidence for the existence of God, a purposeful universe, or life after death.

Reading: by Mary Oliver a poem entitled “Some Questions You Might Ask”

Is the soul solid, like iron?

Or is it tender and breakable, like

the wings of a moth in the beak of an owl?

Who has it, and who doesn't?

I keep looking around me.

The face of the moose is as sad

as the face of Jesus.

The swan opens her white wings slowly.

In the fall, the black bear carries leaves into the darkness.

One question leads to another.

Does it have a shape? Like an iceberg?

Like the eye of a hummingbird?

Does it have one lung, like the snake and the scallop?

Why should I have it, and not the anteater

who loves her children?

Why should I have it, and not the camel?

Come to think of it, what about maple trees?

What about the blue iris?

What about all the little stones, sitting alone in the moonlight?

What about roses, and lemons, and their shining leaves?

What about the grass?

Reading: by the 17^th century Sikh teacher Tegh Bahadur

Why do you go into the forest in search of the Divine? God lives in all, and abides with you too. As fragrance dwells in the flower, or reflection in the mirror, so the Divine dwells inside everything; seek therefore in your own heart.

Questions on Your Mind

A Sermon Delivered on May 18, 2014

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

There are a lot of things I like about the religious enterprise in general, and Unitarian Universalism in particular. But perhaps the single idea that means the most to me is that religious truth can be found anywhere and everywhere.

Theodore Parker said, ours should be a religion which like sunshine goes everywhere; its temple, all space; its shrine, the good heart; its creed, all truth; its ritual, works of love. And I agree.

Truth and goodness can be found everywhere. But in order to find them, we need to look. In order to find the answers to life’s perplexing problems and greatest wonders, we need to ask the right questions. Each of us has very good questions that point the way toward important insights and revelations. Our service today is an effort to honor your very good questions.

As many of you know, I put a call out a few weeks ago inviting you to write down questions you have about religion or spirituality, ethics or morality, and to drop them into this Question Box (show box).

Well, a few of you have done just that. Reflections on five of your questions are the substance of this morning’s service.

1) Why do most religions generate so much intolerance and hateful actions? 

Why do religions generate so much intolerance and hateful actions? This is a very good question. History seems rife with examples of religious intolerance and violence. Crusades and religious wars have been waged, witch hunts and pogroms carried out, and more recently crimes are committed by religious radicals who pick up guns and build bombs for the sake of their own battles against whoever they consider a religious enemy or infidel. It is true, there is plenty of religious violence in the world.

Nevertheless I am not convinced that religious people are more violent than non-religious people. Does religion generate intolerance? Or is intolerance a human trait that is expressed in many different ways and areas – whether it is in religion or politics, whether driven by ethnic or economic interests?

Prompted by the attacks of 9/11/2001, the religious scholar Lloyd Steffen wrote a book about the power of religion to either inspire or restrain violence. He makes the case that religion can create both community and divisiveness. Because religion touches into our deepest existential concerns, it can be a potent force for either good or evil. Religion is both powerful and dangerous, he says, much in the way fire is powerful and dangerous. 

“Religion is like fire,” he says. “[Just] as fire is an elemental phenomenon of nature, religion is an elemental phenomenon of human culture.” Fire requires three things: oxygen, fuel, and an ignition. Similarly religion needs three things. Our spiritual needs and our longing for transcendence are like oxygen, they keep religion alive and moving. Our religious activities, our holiday observances, our worship and rituals are like the fuel that makes it possible for religion to grow and spread. The sparking source, the ignition of a fire is the experience of “ultimacy.” (strike match) Ultimacy is the passion we feel when we are focused on what matters most in our lives. Paul Tillich calls it our “ultimate concern.” It is when we care deeply and intensely about something. Some people care most intensely about God. Others may care most deeply about their country or their career, about money or about their marriage. 

The spark is at the center of the religious enterprise. Without it, you don’t have religion. You just have a vague spiritual longing, and empty ritual. But when you bring the three together – oxygen, fuel, and ignition – you have religion, which is powerful and dangerous. 

Whether our religion generates hate or love is up to us. I would like to believe that our faith is firmly opposed to violence, to hate and intolerance. But is it? 

2) How does one know when violence is an acceptable solution to a problem?  This question occurred to me while I was listening to some lectures on the Transcendentalists.  I recall there was a preacher (Theodore Parker?  I might be mixing up names already!) who kept a gun in his pulpit for fear that slave-catchers might try to abduct any of the people who gathered to hear his sermons. 

This is a very good question.

Yes, indeed, the Unitarian minister Theodore Parker was known to keep a pistol in the pulpit. He was a fervent abolitionist, an outspoken opponent of slavery, especially in response to the Fugitive Slave Act 1850. And he was indeed concerned for the safety of the former slaves who were members of his Boston congregation. Responding to critics, he said, “Yes, I have had to arm myself. I have written my sermons with a pistol in my desk,— loaded ... and ready for action. Yes, with a drawn sword within reach of my right hand. This I have done in Boston; in the middle of the nineteenth century; [I have] been obliged to do it to defend the [innocent] members of my own church, women as well as men!"

Does this mean we who worship today should all be carrying guns? Does this mean I should keep a pistol in our pulpit? I don’t think so. You may have noticed that the entry doors to our church now have a sign on them showing a gun with a red slash through it. We put the signs up in response to the Illinois “Concealed Carry Law” that was passed this year. Those signs convey the clear and legally binding message that guns are NOT allowed here. 

A lot has changed in the last two hundred years. Just as science and technology have progressed, our ethical ideals have progressed, too. It was Theodore Parker who coined the phrase, “the arc of the universe bends toward justice.” Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was inspired by Parker, and built upon his ideas. “The moral arc of the universe is long,” King said, “but it bends toward justice.” And a century after Parker, King realized that violence only begets more violence. As a way of achieving justice, violence is both immoral and impractical, he said. If Parker were alive today, I think he would agree. And by the way – even though he often had a pistol close by, to defend former slaves, he never used it.

Figuring out how to put our ethical ideals into action isn’t easy.

3) My questions are a conglomeration along the lines of, how can we be a more loving, welcoming, giving congregation?  Kind of like, how do we translate the 7 principles into action?  Age old questions I suppose.

This is a very good question. 

The seven principles mentioned, are those that are printed on the back of our Sunday bulletin, and which were adopted by UUs across the country thirty years ago, as an updated expression of our shared values. They’ve been encapsulated in a nutshell like this: (1) each and every person is important; (2) all people should be treated kindly and fairly; (3) we are lifelong learners; (4) we search for what is true; (5) all people need a voice and a vote, (6) we want to build a fair and peaceful world; (7) we care for our planet earth.

How to put these principles into action is indeed an age old question. One ancient answer is found in the Jewish Book of Leviticus. It says that we should “love our neighbors as ourselves.”

A few years ago, we as a congregation had extensive conversations about how we want to treat one another. We came up with our own principles and promises, our own congregational covenant. They are written on the yellow insert in your order of service. Rather than seven principles, we came up with nine promises. I encourage you to take a look at them. Take them home, and read them slowly.

If I had to offer a nutshell version of our nine promises, it would be this: (1) We promise to participate actively in congregational life, (2) we promise to be open and inclusive in all we do, (3) we promise to really understand our differences. (4) We promise speak our minds honestly and respectfully, (5) and dare to be both critical and creative. (6) We promise to see our children as the whole people they are, (7) and help newcomers find a place in our midst. (8) We promise to support each other through life’s inevitable ups and downs. (9) And we promise to join to together to build a better world.   

So how do we put our principles into action? Well, I guess the first step is thinking deeply about what our stated principles and promises mean for us. And then, once we have reminded ourselves and one another of our shared convictions, after talking the talk, we need to walk the walk. 

What makes this especially tricky, is that even if we manage to agree on the substance of our nine promises, we may realize that we differ on how to practice what we preach.

4) How can we deal with differences of opinion more openly and honestly? 'Midwest politeness' often plays out as avoidance of open discussion, and fear of conflict, to the point where there is much underlying tension but no way to address it, understand it, resolve it or move past it. 

A good question. “Midwest politeness” is what in other circles is known as “Minnesota Nice.” Wikipedia describes it like this: it’s “the stereotypical behavior of people [in the Midwest, who are] courteous, reserved, and mild-mannered. …Cultural characteristics… include… an aversion to confrontation, a tendency toward understatement, a disinclination to make a fuss or stand out … Critics have pointed out negative qualities, such as passive aggressiveness and resistance to change…”

Ah yes. While I am not originally from the Midwest, I think I have long had an affinity for “Midwest politeness.” For better and for worse. Being polite and reserved is just fine. But I have come to realize that being persistently non-confrontational and conflict-averse can be a problem. This is true for any relationship, but especially in a church setting this kind of politeness can be counter-productive.

I find it helpful to reread the sound advice of my colleague, the church consultant Anne Heller, who reminds me:  

“[Conflict is] normal and can be healthy and transformative. It is not processing [conflict] that creates problems…. A congregation that processes conflict regularly and effectively has essential healthy behaviors, such as: open communication, no secrecy, no gossip, civility,… well-developed skills in active listening, [and] assured opportunities for everyone to be heard…” (Churchworks, p. 138-9)

Whether in our churches, our friendships, or our families, “loving our neighbors” is not only sunshine and roses. Our relationships thrive when we dare to respectfully address both our agreements and disagreements. This is the path that leads to true understanding, greater wisdom, and deeper love. 

5) What are some paths to personal peace?

Finding personal peace… what a good question. 

We say our congregational mission is to: build community, seek inspiration, promote justice, and find peace. This morning we have heard about how we build community by putting our promises into practice. We have heard that seeking religious inspiration is a three-part effort that can be both powerful and dangerous. And we talked about how promoting justice has long been our goal. 

Building community, seeking inspiration, and promoting justice, in my mind, is certainly one path to personal peace. 

Practicing what we preach is a path to peace. Coming together to search for truth, or justice, or love, or the Divine, and supporting one another as we struggle to put our ideals into action, is a path to peace.

For each of us the path will look different. And new questions will confront us at every turn. The toughest questions are often the best. 

The history of religion is a long record of questioning, of doubt and disbelief, a jumble affirmation and denial. When we are able to reconcile our wide-ranging insights and impulses, we may not find definitive and universally accepted answers, but we will gain greater understanding of ourselves and each other, and we will discover a deeper peace. 

Religious truth can be found anywhere and everywhere.

But we have to look. We have to question.

Our temple is all space around us.

Our shrine is the good heart within us.

Our rituals are works of love among us. 

May our questions inspire us, 

and may our every answer take us one step further along

our path to peace, to justice, and to love.

Amen.

Talking to Strangers

"There are no strangers here;

Only friends you haven't yet met."

-- William Butler Yeats

Reading: by the Christian author Henri Nouwen from Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life (p. 49) 

In our world the assumption is that strangers are a potential danger and that it is up to them to disprove it. When we travel we keep a careful eye on our luggage; when we walk the streets we are aware of where we keep our money; and when we walk at night in a dark park our whole body is tense with fear of an attack. Our heart may desire to help others: to feed the hungry, visit the prisoners and offer a shelter to travelers; but meanwhile we have surrounded ourselves with a wall of fear and hostile feelings, instinctively avoiding people and places where we might be reminded of our [good] intentions.

Reading: by the journalists Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton from an article entitled “Hello, Stranger” (The New York Times, 4/25/14)

If you’ve ever been on a subway or public bus, you know the rules. Don’t make eye contact, stay as far away from other people as the space allows, and for the love of God, don’t talk to anyone. But what if the rules are wrong?

The behavioral scientists Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder approached commuters in a Chicago area train station and asked them to break the rules. In return for a $5 Starbucks gift card, these commuters agreed to participate in a simple experiment during their train ride. One group was asked to talk to the stranger who sat down next to them on the train that morning. Other people were told to follow standard commuter norms, keeping to themselves. By the end of the train ride, commuters who talked to a stranger reported having a more positive experience than those who had sat in solitude.

Reading: by the Buddhist teacher Sharon Salzberg from The Kindness Handbook. Here Salzberg recounts her attempt to fly from New York to Tucson to hear the Dalai Lama speak, but instead find herself stuck in the plane on the runway La Guardia airport for over four hours. (p. 127)

Looking back on it, I sometimes refer jokingly to those hours as “the breakdown of civilization.” It was hot, and it grew hotter. After a point, people started yelling, “Let me off this plane!” The pilot resorted to getting on the PA system and saying sternly, “ No one is getting off this plane.”
 
I wasn’t feeling all that chipper myself. I couldn’t seem to get in touch with the people who were supposed to pick me up at the airport, and I was concerned about them. I had an apartment to go to in New York City, and kept thinking, to no avail, “ I can just go back there, and try again tomorrow.” I was hot. I felt pummeled by the people shouting around me.

Then I recalled an image that Bob Thurman, professor of Buddhist studies at Columbia University, often uses to describe kindness and compassion that comes from seeing the world more truthfully.  He says, “Imagine you are on the New York City subway, and these Martians come and zap the subway car so that those of you in the car are going to be together…. Forever.” What do we do? If someone is hungry we feed them. If someone is freaking out, we try to calm them down. We might not all like everybody, or approve of them – but we are going to be together forever, and we need to respond with the wisdom of how interrelated our lives are, and will remain.

Sitting on the airplane, I was struck by the recollection of Bob’s story I looked around the cabin, and thought, “Maybe these are my people.”

It was fascinating to note that my impatience – “Couldn’t’ you be a little quieter?” – and distress – “How much long is this going to last?” – changed to taking a greater interest in those with me: Who are these people? Is it really imperative that they be on time? What is awaiting them? I watched the interplay of forces in my own mind as interest opened the door to a measure of kindness, and as “How much longer?” encountered “Forever,” I saw my worldview shift from “me” and “them” to “we.”

Talking to Strangers

A Sermon Delivered on May 11, 2014

By

The Reverend Axel H. Gehrmann

“Don’t talk to strangers.” That seems to be the perennial lesson every mother teaches her young children. Our mothers are concerned for our safety. When we roam out of earshot, they want us to be watchful and cautious, and mindful of dangers that may await us out in the world. 

* * *

Now, though my mother was loving and caring, and certainly always concerned about my well-being, I don’t remember her ever saying, in so many words, “don’t talk to strangers.”

And when I conducted an informal survey of my family yesterday, our kids, who are now 18 and 20 years old, said they didn’t have a clear recollection of ever being told by their mother or father that they shouldn’t talk to strangers. But they both said they were well aware of the rule, which they say they probably picked up at school, or watching kids TV programs. 

* * *

Maybe it’s the messages we received as children, for the sake or our safety, that have led us to be distrustful of strangers as adults, when we travel, when we walk the streets, when we stroll through the park. 

Maybe it’s the messages we received as children, that have taught us the habit of keeping to ourselves on subway trains or public buses. 

* * *

Jared Diamond, the author of the Pulitzer Prize winning book Guns, Germs, and Steel, recently wrote another book that takes a very long historical view of human civilization. It’s called The World Until Yesterday: What Can We Learn from Traditional Societies? 

In it he makes the case that for the vast majority of human history stretching back millions of years, we lived in small clans and tribes, and in this territorial and competitive tribal context developed some deeply seated social habits. For instance, in these small-scale societies, we learned to divide people into three categories: friends, enemies and strangers. Friends, he says, 

“are the members of your own band or village, and of those neighboring bands and villages with which your band happens to be on peaceful terms at the moment. “Enemies” are members of neighboring bands and villages with which your band happens to be on hostile terms at the moment. Nevertheless, you probably know at least the names and relationships, and possibly appearances, of many or most individuals in those hostile bands, because you’ll have heard of them or actually met them in the course of negotiations […or] periods of peace.

[But “strangers” are] unknown individuals belonging to distant bands with which your band has little or no contact. Never or rarely do members of small-scale societies encounter strangers, because it is suicidal to travel into an unfamiliar area to whose inhabitants you are unknown and completely unrelated. If you do happen to encounter a stranger in your territory, you have to presume that the person is dangerous, because the stranger is really likely to be scouting in order to raid or kill your group, or else trespassing in order to hunt or steal resources…” (p. 49-54)

Thousands of years ago, as our societies grew larger, and as our first cities were established, we learned to see strangers not as threats, but potential friends. As our earliest market economies developed, as we learned to trade with neighbors near and far, we learned that strangers have “potential positive value as prospective business partners, customers, suppliers, and employers,” writes Diamond. 

And so it is perhaps no coincidence that many ancient mythologies included stories about strangers who turned out to be gods or goddesses in disguise. The moral of these stories was that we need to be kind and hospitable to strangers. In the Jewish Torah there are 36 passages that instruct us to welcome strangers. Our obligations to the stranger are mentioned more often than the love of God, or the call to keep the Sabbath. The same sentiment is found in the Christian scriptures, most memorably in the Letter to the Hebrews, where it says: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares.”

* * *

Whether it was our mothers who told us to be wary of strangers, or whether it is an echo of our ancient tribal history – there does seem to be something within us that is fearful of strangers.

It is as if there were dueling impulses within each of us: a tendency toward independence and isolation on one hand, and on the other, a longing for connection, for relationship, for belonging in a supportive and caring community.

Scientists say most people dread the thought of speaking with their seatmate on the bus or train. And when asked what constitutes a pleasant commute, most people say, it would involve sitting alone and undisturbed. We imagine that by avoiding eye contact we will be more comfortable and happier. But research shows actually the opposite is true. Our collective assumptions are wrong. When we keep to ourselves and miss opportunities for connection on our train ride to work, we have “fewer positive emotions than any other common daily activity.”

In another study, scientists asked people on their way into a busy Starbucks to have a “genuine interaction with the cashier.” Simply smile and have a brief conversation. Others were told to be as efficient as possible: get in, get out, get on with your day. What the researchers discovered is that those who lingered for a moment for a friendly word left the coffee shop feeling more cheerful. Efficiency, the study seemed to show, is over-rated.

Another study examined the effect of avoiding eye contact, and found this common form of avoidance is not as harmless as we may think. The experiment went like this: at a large Midwestern university, like the U of I, a young woman walked by people on campus and either made eye contact and smiled, or directed her gaze beyond the ear of the passers-by, deliberately avoiding eye contact, or looking right through them. Surveying the people who for this fleeting instance were ignored, researchers discovered that they felt uncomfortably disconnected.

“Simply acknowledging strangers on the street may alleviate their existential angst; and being acknowledged by others might do the same for us,” Elizabeth Dunn and Michael Norton write. And they conclude: “Rather than fall back on our erroneous belief in the pleasures of solitude, we could reach out to other people. At least, when we walk down the street, we can refuse to accept a world where people look at one another as though through air. When we talk to strangers, we stand to gain much more than the “me time” we might lose.”

* * *

Reaching out to people is one of the three movements Henri Nouwen identifies as essential for a healthy spiritual life. The first movement is to reach inward, to re-connect with our own inner world, our hopes and fears, our experiences of hurt and happiness. The second movement is to reach outward to other people in a spirit of hospitality rather than hostility. The third movement involves reaching out to the ultimate reality, which he calls “God,” and which involves piercing the illusion of separateness, and realizing how deeply we are connected with one another and with all existence.  

Scientists and religious scholars agree that we are deeply social beings. We cannot thrive in isolation. As Sharon Salzberg puts it, 

“We humans are social beings. We come into the world as a result of others’ actions. We survive here in dependence on others. Whether we like it or not, there is hardly a moment of our lives when we do not benefit from others’ activities. For this reason, it is hardly surprising that most of our happiness arises in the context of our relationship with others. Nor is it so remarkable that our greatest joy should come when we are motivated by concern for others. But that is not all. We find that not only do altruistic actions bring about happiness, but they also lessen our experience of suffering…  In our concern for others, we worry less about ourselves. When we worry less about ourselves, the experience of our own suffering is less intense.” (p. 125)

Henri Nouwen says, if our goal is to 

“reach out to strangers and invite them to become our friends, it is clear that this can take place on many levels and in many relationships. Although the word stranger suggests someone who belongs to another world than ours, speaks another language and has different customs, it is important, first of all to recognize the stranger in our own familiar circle.” (p. 55)

* * * 

We like to think of this church as a caring community, a welcoming congregation, a community of friends. We say we welcome all people: young and old, rich and poor, gay and straight, black and white, liberal and conservative. That’s the kind of community we want to create; a place where all are treated fairly and welcomed kindly. We want to build a better world, beginning with ourselves right here. 

But I have to tell you, we are not always as welcoming as we would like to be. Because we are profoundly individualistic, we easily assume an attitude of independence and isolation, and we miss precious opportunities for connection.

We are all travelers, each of us on our own individual life journey. We each come from our own particular past, heading into our own unique future. We sit side by side in this sanctuary on Sunday mornings, sometimes sharing a ride, sometimes simply stuck. Sometimes we try to sit in silence, alone and undisturbed. Sometimes we stay as far away from other people as space allows, especially strangers, because we imagine we will be more comfortable and happier that way. 

We are each surrounded by strangers. I think it is safe to say, not a single one of us knows the name of everyone here this morning. And – if we stop and think about it – in many ways even the people we know are strangers. It was Mary Tyler Moore who said, “Sometimes you have to get to know someone really well to realize you're really strangers.”

There is something within us that resists reaching out to strangers. But we will be happier, and we will make others happier, if can learn to overcome our resistance. When we are able to overcome the walls of fear that divide us, we are taking a crucial step towards creating a better world. 

We all feel better, when we are able to reach out.

And so let me take this opportunity to depart from our usual sermon format, where I do all the talking, and you do all the listening. Instead, I will invite you, for a few moments, to talk and listen to each other. I invite you to make eye contact with each other, and smile, and say a few words. I invite you to do this twice. 

I invite you to turn to someone close by, maybe say your name, and then each share a few words about a favorite place you have visited, a favorite place you have been in the past – this might be where you came from this morning, or a place you visited long ago. Then I will strike the chime, which will be your sign to turn to someone else, maybe say your name, and then each share a few words about a place you hope to visit in the future. Then I will strike the chime again, and invite you to be seated.

(congregation engages in conversation)

* * *

“Don’t talk to strangers,” is what our loving mothers taught us. And for children, that is often good advice. But some mothers take a different approach, they teach their children a lesson that we as adults should certainly have learned: to talk to strangers, kindly and carefully. 

We are all surrounded by strangers. And we always will be. Forever. Think about it. The people around us are our people. And when we learn to talk with these strangers, our world view will shift from “me” and “them,” to “we.” 

May we learn this lesson.

Amen.