Labels: anti-oppression, favorite scriptural passages, inter-faith, prayer, prophetic voices, racism

Labels: 0th UU principle, 5th UU principle, 6th UU principle, angry at organized religions, Christianity, Community, favorite scriptural passages, Islam, our mission, paradigm shift, pax hominibus, war and peace

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Today at the Faithful Fools Bible Study, by asking for 3 one-digit numbers from 0-9, and given 8, 6, and 4, then adding 100 to 864, and multiplying by 2, we ended up at page 1928 in The Message translation of the Bible that was at my seat, which brought us to chapter 2 of the Gospel of John. Inside I groaned a little at first, because it's the story of the wine miracle, and then JC casting out the money changers from the temple. Both of which I've heard so many times...

But a closer examination brought a few new insights, so I'm glad we did it.

According to the story he made approximately 150 gallons of wine (starting from six 20-30 gallon pots of water). That must've been a heck of a big wedding, or a lot of drinking happened. Actually the part I liked the most was the symbolism. The wine miracle story needs to be understood on the symbolic level, or the reading of it is almost entirely wasted.

The vessels were for Jewish vessels for purified water. Turning the water into wine--not just wine--but 150 gallons of really awesome wine is symbolic. This was our reading of the story: The wedding party had apparently been going alone just dandily until they were almost out of wine. Jesus' mother asks him to do that one trick he does, and he kind of snubs her, telling her it's not yet time for him to out himself, and not for a wedding (in the Gospel of John, he has not yet performed any miracles, so this would be the first). Then he decides to do it anyway. No doubt the bridegroom would've been pretty embarrassed to throw this big shindig and run out of wine.

The wine is the Spirit. Water is the raw materials (the unanimated, unenlightened life), but then when it's come alive, it's wine. (FWIW, the Spirit isn't some indefinable mojo that only the Church or some formalized Kergyma group has access to--it's simply our down-to-Earth connection to one another as divine beings. It is namaste and recognizing the light between ourselves and each other.)

But the party had run out of wine, and Jesus (as Christ) introduced a ton of it (actually closer to half a ton).

So the bridgegroom then would be the controller of the party. The party is life itself. And when life all around is debased to its raw materials, and for sale, and individualized, and neglects our connections, it's time for Christ to bring the miracle, to let loose with an abundance of connective Spirit.

The fact that it's a wedding, a joining together of two people (or in the thinking of the times, a man acquiring a woman) can be seen in terms of process theology. Things in the world coming together in a concrescence of events. This can sort of be shown a bit by the nexus within the horn torus in the video sermon I showed on Jan 3 at UUSF, which I'll eventually provide a link to once I finalize the images in the video material.

Also at the Bible Study, somebody pointed out how the story expresses Jesus' unwillingness to perform miracles* at times (his push-back on his mother, his denial of Satan during the trial in the desert, and his refusal to do much of anything at Herod's request). IOW, don't do your miracles (or your work) at the devil's request.

*multithetical belief allows for the possibility and impossibility of miracles--both the certitude and certain denial....


Regarding bringing things together, and the Just-in-Time business model, or "just-in-timeness" in general...

This quote is what led me to want to comment on it: "The philosophy of JIT is simple: inventory is waste." I would offer a contradictory/complementary philosophy: "Inventory is security."

"Inventory is waste" combined with "Inventory is security" tells a lot of story, and sometimes one is true, and at other times, the other is true. When the inventory we're talking about is critical for life, inventory IS security. Having enough food, clothing, shelter, and health-care on hand in case of emergencies is really important. In the case of Toyota producing cars, inventory may very well be waste. Imagine creating 10,000 more gas guzzlers than is necessary, and then they're just left sitting on the lot. Or creating way too many of any product--whether it's a raw material being pulled from the Earth, semi-finished materials like gaskets, mufflers, and circuit boards, or final products such as a car or an iPhone--creating too much is indeed a wastefully large buffer. Even though people may clamor for luxury goods, we will be able to continue living if there are hold-ups due to buffer underruns. Not so with critical goods like food. The Mormons are supposed to keep a year's supply of food on-hand, and Joseph told Pharoah to prepare for a seven-year famine. For food, we have the ability to create enough for everyone, to transport it to everyone who needs it, and to keep more than a JIT inventory. For our leaders and property owners to neglect to do so is criminal. Witnessing the tragedy of this week's earthquake in Haiti when many of our church buildings and other buildings in the developed West are earthquake retrofitted at the cost of millions per building sometimes tells a bigger story about inequity. Spending trillions of dollars toward war that would be much better-spent on emergency preparedness is another example of the US government choosing destruction and neglect over creation and preparation. I pray that the US govt, other countries, and other agencies will be able to deliver a strong response to save as many in Haiti as possible.

I envision a world where anyone can plant gardens in the public parks, on the roadsides, and even in the medians (for anyone to tend and to harvest), so that the neediest will never go hungry. Further, I envision a world where our namaste connection is between each of us to every other, even those we've not yet met. Where the call of that light between us makes us recognize who among us is more needy, and make sure their most basic needs are met, and that the buffer for the basic needs is always larger than the buffers for luxury items.

And of course, JIT is not just limited to production of material goods--this understanding of just-in-timeness can also apply to provisional teachings in religion. Hopefully we can explore that some time.


lyrics: Once in a while, the zebras run to the spaceman and his gun, in the spider's web.
from Superhumans, by Flaming Lips

colors: pink and yellow

mood: procrastinatey

chant/prayer/mantra: let justice roll down like waters, with a half-ton buffer made out of wine (apologies to teetotalers and alcoholics).

pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: Christianity, favorite scriptural passages, metaphor, parousia, religious community, restorative justice, theological sources, theology

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Regarding Candlepower
Delivered 9.27.2009 at First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco


Light does not sit still. It wants to spread in every direction until it hits something to reflect off of, or to be absorbed.

But doesn’t the word “light” describe more than just matter or energy? From a spiritual perspective, light is knowledge, information, and reason—and even emotion. Light shows the paths available to us, and the light of understanding can help to dispel fear and confusion.
Candlepower is another term for luminous intensity, or how bright a light appears to be shining.

The title of this sermon is also a reference to actual candles. Now, I want to start with a brief story about a candle we have at home. He’s sitting right back there with his mom and grandma, and his name is Henry. Sometimes our infant wakes up alone in the bedroom with the lights out, and starts to wailing. I’ll go in and scoop him up to my chest, get the drool towel on my shoulder, and rock him back to sleep while singing in the darkened room. His favorite lullaby is actually a variant of “This Little Light of Mine” from our hymnal. He likes it best when I sing it under water. The underwater version goes something like this: “Thbibs lbibttble lbibliblbght obf mbibne, iblbl’m gmloblbing tblblo let it shine.” As soon as he gets close to nodding off, I switch over to a steady rhythmic version that I call the “Seraphim’s Lullaby.” In Judeo-Christian lore, the seraphim are the inner ring of angels singing songs of praise night and day to God.

This lullaby echoes the last word from “this little light of mine” in a rhythm as he starts to nod off. “Shine, shine,… shine, shine, shine,… shine, shine, shine,… shine, shine, shine ,… shine, shine, shine ,… shine, shine, shine ,… shine, shine, shine , shine-shine,” which then repeats. Then as Henry’s totally conking out from the monotony, I work my way down to singing “Shine…” every eight beats, until I can finally lay him down slowly in the crib.

That to me is one example of a candle, it’s some personal information, a message that I sing to my baby, a prayer whose seeds will hopefully be planted deep within, for him to shine his light steady and strong, whatever that may turn out to be. And each of us has different messages, and different light to shed onto the world. Our light is composed of our experiences, perspectives, passions and hopes. Getting in touch with the uniqueness of our own light is a process of constant unfolding. Then when we shine out, it’s through our words and our deeds—through our life itself.

When our candles of life come together, they inform each other. By listening intently to the experiences, perspectives, passions and hopes of another, the light in ourselves grows in intensity, or changes hue. We can feel more strongly about our truths, or develop a more nuanced understanding. And when our own light is flickering, one candle can always light another, and that’s one empowering blessing of being among a community of broad-minded thinkers and compassionate feelers.

When enough people share in community, we have a rich discourse that becomes a bonfire, where we can not only have light, but also warmth, and sometimes “heat” when we come to disagreements. I’ve already witnessed that this congregation’s conversations are often energized enough to grow from words into action. And the fire turns into steady-burning coals….19th-century Universalist Mary Livermore tells a story how before there were matches, if your kitchen’s fire went out in the night, you either needed to work flint and steel together until a spark caught so you could light your tinder and rebuild your own fire from scratch (a painful proposition), or you would beg a shovelful of coals from a neighbor. A vibrant and thriving religious community like this one has coals it can offer, not just to the Sunday afternoon fellowship, the Lutherans, the Buddhists, and the other groups that meet here, but to the wider community. And they have coals that would enrich us as well.

A campfire like ours at First Unitarian Universalist is highly visible, and draws people in from further away. That’s our goal—to grow spiritually as a community, and draw people in, so that new visitors and old members alike can come here to fan the flames of their passions for justice, and become more active in the world. Here’s a question to ponder, what things have you found here that make you come to life, and make it natural to devote your time and energy here?
[pause for water, smack water glass against pulpit by accident]

Yet while a roaring fire is more robust than an individual candle, even our campfires are in danger of being blown out or diminished by the rain and the wind of an environment that doesn’t know to value what we have here. It’s all the more frightful when we find our voices shut out of the mass media, and there are other voices amplifying values that run counter to ours. Our good news that God loves everyone, and that everyone is saved isn’t likely to be well-received if it can’t be heard, or runs contrary to nihilistic and damaging messages blaring through the airwaves.

Our message presents danger to some people. For some, our news means questioning their whole worldview based on a personal and everlasting life, and accepting a savior to overcome sins. For others, it means weighing their relationship to the Earth and the welfare of its inhabitants against their own self-interests. Questioning fundamental assumptions and habits like these is difficult, and when people first hear our good news—and I realize there may be some sitting right out here today, or perhaps listening online—when people first hear our good news, we are a new candle joining an existing candle, which burns differently.

So our light can attract hostilities as well as friends. Our message brings cognitive dissonance and fear to some. Our goals may run counter to their goals of maintaining their livelihood, their lifestyle, or their retirement plans, or their hopes and fears for an afterlife, so they will fight our message. From Jesus decrying the Pharisees killing of prophets in Matthew 23, to Hypatia of Alexandria, to MLK, all the way to Van Jones, the brightest luminaries have been under attack by powers with vested interests, with their light diminished, sullied, or even snuffed-out. Humanist philosopher Erich Fromm says, “Those whose hope is weak settle down for comfort or violence; those whose hope is strong see and cherish all signs of new life, and are ready at every moment to help give birth to that which is ready to be born.” What light exists that can finally burn brightly enough that it cannot be snuffed out?

The Sun is one such source of light that will be constant and shining for ages to come. What would it take to get our message THAT bright? How about a compelling enough message to help draw in a critical mass of people sharing their lights on a global scale? Our message is right on: everyone’s together in this spherical blue and green boat, everyone’s included, and nobody should be left behind. Our message is one of communities rooted where they are, and extending out to any other communities who would join in common cause. The sixth Unitarian Universalist principle, states “[We...covenant to affirm and promote] the goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all.” The thought that the sixth principle might come into reality is awe-inspiring, isn’t it? That’d be a huge change! One I hope we all learn to truly welcome.

The principle says “the goal of world community.” A goal is a dream with a deadline. We’re not about affirming the dream of a world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all. It’s a goal. There’s got to be a deadline, or the light is blurry. If we leave the deadline unset, then that’s just a dream deferred. That’s justice deferred, peace deferred, and liberty deferred.
So, what do we envision—how will we know when the goal of “world community” is successfully realized? It requires that we establish common ground on which to speak and listen freely. We can start by all acknowledging our common humanity, and the worth and dignity to be found in everyone. Until we do that, we’re standing on different ground, not common ground. From common ground, we can freely share the lights of our myriad communities of identity. And with that common ground conversation, we can equitably negotiate shared definitions for peace, liberty and justice.

We’ll need to do a lot of work to get to that common ground. From physics, power is defined asthe ability to do work in a given amount of time. A more powerful movement can get more work done more quickly. A more powerful movement is composed of more people participating more fully.

Today’s second lesson is the story of Aten, the god responsible for the Sun. This god was represented by a bright disk in the sky, with arms reaching out of it, each with a hand bearing gifts. More hands, more voices, more lives working for common ground means more power and faster work toward our goal. Not everybody’s going to join our churches. Perhaps they disagree with organized religion entirely, or perhaps they’re happy with the worship and the people of their own faith communities. But surely they will lend their hands and co-create with us once they see the light of our message, and our goal. And our fourth principle—the one about our “free and responsible search for truth and meaning” compels us to share this light with them, pronto. For when we truly embody truth and meaning, we find we’re responsible to act on it, and share it.

Until we create a deadline that we mean to be accountable to, there’s a disconnect at work here. The “end-times” or the “last generation” has been a concept people have anticipated at least since the book of revelation was written, and probably much earlier. For many people, the end of time, or to my understanding, the end of the age, was always “just a few years away.” But it’s been that way for countless generations. It’s time to get in sync, and focus our resolve and determination to bring the end of this age, through introducing a beloved world community.
The God I know and love, who waits with a plenitude of gifts that true community brings, has been ever-restless for world community to come into being. This God is getting less and less patient, first ringing the doorbell, then knocking, knocking, knocking, then pounding at the door, demanding, “Who put this door here? And why is it taking so long for them to answer?” There’s real pressure to answer the door, to answer this call, because nature has a way of making corrections. That danger to our environment is a real-life fire-and-brimstone scenario, which I’ll reserve for another sermon, some other time. We try not to work from a place of fear, so let’s instead look at the possibilities of opening the door and answering the call.

A few weeks ago, Rev. Fitch mentioned in his homily that this community needs to go public and show the world a new paradigm for the 21st century, and I would challenge us to take that a step further. To reach our goal, we need to shine the light of a 3rd millennium community. To guide humanity’s eyes toward the horizon and see the sunrise, and know that just as our message of world community starts to shine, so too, the fire of the human race is only just now beginning to burn like the stable star of today’s first lesson.

So I’ll ask, and this is not a rhetorical question, but you need not answer aloud right now: How soon do you think this world community can be delivered? How soon will we be able to establish common ground throughout the races, beyond national boundaries, and across ethnic lines? How soon until we can establish common ground for everyone based on the fact that they love and are loved, not based on what kind of person they love? And how soon until we can establish common ground that says nobody is left behind, that when we come to the economic table, nobody leaves hungry, without an adequate piece of the pie? What if that depends on us talking and acting on our goal of world community? How quickly can our light spread?

We are not alone. We have allies. Who are they? “Anybody who will answer to the call for this world community we yearn for.” But the call is critical. It brings the power of suggestion into play. Some people have forgotten their dreams, or do not believe we can achieve this goal. Perhaps they’ve never even thought about the possibility of world community. If we who carry this torch don’t invite them, they won’t know when or where to show up, or to show up at all.
And here’s more good news: for the most part world community happens as people come to life and join one at a time, empowering each other. The people you share this message with—your friends, family, maybe even people you’re just conversing with for the first time, they might really need Unitarian Universalism.

Before last week’s service while I was talking with a parishioner, I shared a little about this sermon, and I mentioned how long it took me to stumble upon this religion, and how there are a lot of people in the world out there who want—who need—the gifts of our theology. She shined her light right back and said, “and they have gifts that we need.” To me, that is a reminder of the true give-and-take involved in this commission.

Some say we need to get more people in our doors, and into our congregations, but I think it’s more than that. Howard Thurman, the longtime minister at the Church of the Fellowship of All Peoples just up Larkin Street, said: "Don't ask yourself what the world needs. Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive." So get in touch with your passion and find or create an avenue to manifest that passion, either within or beyond these church walls, and get other people excited about it. And listen to others, and hear their passions, so they can realize their goals as well.


May the work that we do shine like the fusion of the Sun, and may this community achieve that goal of world community, with the inclusion of everyone and energy of everyone working toward it. And when you go forth from this place, may you know in your innermost heart that you carry the Sun within.

Amen.


Please stand and take a few moments to greet your neighbors during the hymn’s introduction, and then join in singing the Hymn of Hope, This Little Light of Mine, #118 in your hymnals.

There's a link to an audio recording of this sermon (and the full service) at http://www.uusf.org/AboutUUSF/SermonArchive/index.htm

prayer/mantra: 1 down, 10, 100, 200, 500, 1000+ to go...?

pax hominibus,
agape to everyone,
joel

Labels: astrophysics, favorite scriptural passages, globalism, heaven on earth, Henry, inter-faith, our mission, pax hominibus/bright shiny future, religious community, sermons

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Here are two readings, related to the sun, that I am considering using for the upcoming service I'm putting together. I'll probably trim the latter down a little.

The Fabric of the Cosmos, by Brian Greene, p.171 (2004)

Where did our highly ordered sun come from? The sun formed about 5 billion years ago from an initially diffuse cloud of gas that began to swirl and clump under the mutual gravitational attraction of all its constituents. As the gas cloud got denser, the gravitational pull of one part on another got stronger, causing the cloud to collapse further in on itself. And as gravity squeezed the cloud tighter, it got hotter. Ultimately, it got hot enough to ignite nuclear processes that generated enough outward-flowing radiation to stem further gravitational contraction of the gas. A hot, stable, brightly burning star was born.
So where did the diffuse cloud of gas come from? It likely formed from the remains of older stars that reached the end of their lives, went supernova, and spewed their contents out into space.



Child of the Sun, by Margaret Dulles Edwards, p. 37 Beacon Press (1957, originally 1939)

This is the story of the Pharoah named Amenophis (a.k.a. Amenhotep
Suddenly, without changing the direction of his gaze, Amenophis raised his arm and threw a stone with all his strength into the water. At the sound of the splash, as if some magic spell had been broken, the whole garden became alive. The fish went scurrying to safety. The lotus flowers swayed on their long stems. The cat sprang lightly to the branch of a sycamore tree. The pharoah rose to his feet. He was still looking into the pool, but now his eyes were seeing, watching the ever-widening circles on the surface of the water. The ripples sparkled in the sunshine.
"It is a sign," he said. Today I will act. I will give one great command. As the stone causes these widening circles, so at my word the truth will spread in my kingdom.

“Too long priests have followed their own ideas and planned their own ceremonies. The people have worshiped gods in many forms. I shall allow this no longer. No more wavering; no more half-way measures. I will carry out my ideas. Ever since that day just ten years ago when Mesu and I talked together about the sun, I have tried to find the truth about the gods. Now I am sure. There is but one God, the power of life behind the sun. My people have always known of the greatness of the sun. Today they shall worship this power with new understanding. They shall call his name Aten.

“This day is called my 'Name Day.' It will be a 'Name Day' never to be forgotten in the history of my people—a day of new names and new meanings.

“I will give myself a new name. No longer will I be called amenophis in honor of the god Amon, but Akhenaten, 'The glory of Aten.'

“We will have a new symbol for our god. Since ancient times the sun has been known by many symbols: a pyramid, a bird, or the wings of a soaring hawk. But these signs are understood only in Egypt. Aten is the god of the whole world and his symbol shall belong to all peoples wherever they live. Aten shall be known by the disk of the sun with rays reaching down like hands with gifts.”

And here is a link to the data behind an astounding fact: it can take 100,000 years for photons of light created in the sun's core to make their way to the surface. Once they get to the surface, it only takes 8.5 minutes to reach the earth (which, since it's moving at the speed of light, is interestingly enough, moving magnitudes of order faster than lightning).

I would also like to add this link, regarding the types of stars in the universe. Though I may not touch on this topic directly in the sermon, the general concept is implied.

chant/prayer/mantra: stay calm, carry on, enjoy your time. breathe.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: astrophysics, favorite scriptural passages, metaphor, renewable energy, sacred texts, theological sources

I just realized that this blog is a place where sometimes I put down my thoughts in public for my own reference, and for yours. These include recipes, my artwork, the books from the school library I wish I could read, and now I'm going to start adding some favorite Bible verses and quotes from other texts.

As a reference, so I can remember the stories (not presently recalling all of them by book/chapter/verse), the ones that most readily come to mind are: john 3:17 of course, the one where Jesus gets P.O.'ed at the church leaders for carrying in th footsteps of previous leaders by killing their prophets, the one where the rabbis call on jesus and recognize him as having values that transcend those of human society, revelation 10, john 1:1. I need to scrape together several from other sources, but those are all over the place.



pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

Labels: favorite scriptural passages, John 3:17

music: nothing

colors: nothing

mood: tired, relieved.

thoughts: Here is a nice big hunk of dung I delivered today in my preaching class. The main feedback I got was that the sermon was a big buffet of very nice food, but that I need to deliver individual meals. Dang, it was way too long and with too many supporting messages to fit into the traditional 15-20 minute sermon format, but might work better here. The text might very well be good to read, but I was tired enough today that I wasn't really able to focus as much as I'd like so the delivery was kinda subpar. Anyway, read it at your caution:

Thoughts are Messages, Angels are Messengers (or 'Wrestling with Angels')

Good morning everyone. Today, I'd like to spend some time discussing the state of life in general, our lives in particular, and the critical role that our thoughts play in all of our triumphs and miseries. Here we are in the United States of America, on Earth, in 2006, gathered together in a community with kind and gentle people who are of like-minded persuasion in many regards.

In our daily lives, we are surrounded by the most - amazing - things. We have at our disposal complex and powerful technology that can enrich our lives to bring us a standard of living well beyond the dreams of our ancestors only a century or two ago. On any given morning, we may find ourselves eating processed cereal from a box, or low-fat apricot mango yogurt, perhaps microwaving our breakfast where at the turn of the 20th century, people cooked grains in a pot of water over a wood-burning stove or fire. We may drive to work in an automatic transmission car and pay for gas with a magnetized strip on a piece of plastic associated specifically to our person, where early American settlers walked or depended on horses, and bought horse feed by trading tobacco, shells or deerskins.

We may listen to tapes, CDs, MP3s, or the radio on our way to work, while driving past 20-story steel-reinforced buildings. Then we may park in a large yellow-line painted parking lot, enter into a security-controlled specialized work environment with phones, computers, copiers, fax machines, and email. From there, we can instantly connect with many people at once around the globe, where for our ancestors the best available means of communication was only person to person via pony express, or a runner carrying a message from Marathon to Athens.

We have electricity and water available at the clap or wave of our hands, mobile phones we could use around any sufficiently populated area, a media system which makes available instant humor, visual history, or lots of attractive and sexy celebrities; We have advanced plumbing and sewage-treatment systems, miracle-working medical facilities, Doppler radar for weather forecasts, ever more lethal military technology, an educational system with more knowledge than any person could grasp, and that only scratches the surface of our achievements. Much of this new technology could be supremely beneficial.

So what's impeding us from fully realizing these benefits? Why has our massive collection of human knowledge, along with our technology thus far failed to create the utopia we've been working toward?

The problem may simply be that we are only human, and prone to mistakes on many levels. And in the course of recorded history, we've brought some of the most grievous actions to life. This next part may seem a bit dark, so please keep in mind that in working through this, we will be creating the light at the end of this tunnel. And remember to keep breathing and we'll make it through.

OK..., regarding some of these grievous mistakes: though it may not be obvious at first, at an individual level we suffer because of our tendency to take advantage of these technological advances, - often taking them for granted without a second thought. In the process, many of these advances are taking advantage of us, or more specifically, allowing us to be taken advantage of. Despite the allure of having computers to make our lives easier, so that we can do our work in less time, we find ourselves working long stressful hours for corporate employers with deadlines. In the process of being pulled closer to our jobs, we suffer as we begin to feel more distant from the people we love, and may even come to resent ourselves for allowing that distance.

And every day, our senses are beckoned away from who and what we love, being bombarded by advertisements through television, radio, magazines, billboards, and now the Internet. These ads are often created by people with graduate degrees in marketing, sociology, or psychology. They have insidious effects on us, ungrounding us from our humanity, convincing us to consume their product specifically, or perhaps worse, convincing us -- or reinforcing the belief that -- our primary role here is to consume products, and that to accomplish that, we need to work hard for our paycheck. Breathe - the light is coming.

As a society we suffer because of an economic system which demands growth and artificially scarce resources to thrive, while devaluing people - and relationships - by putting us in the awkward position of supporting contemporary forms of slavery or servitude. By this I mean that the working class and working poor are exploited not only by business executives and corporate investors, but also by those of us who are working hard ourselves, and simply trying to save something for retirement through investing in mutual funds and IRAs.

In government, the apparently intractable corruption - in existence allows for our state and national capitals to become clearinghouses for trillions of tax dollars toward special interests, prisons, and war. This spending comes at great cost to our working poor, our homeless, our children, and future generations who are all given short shrift because they can't afford lobbyists or congressional advocates. Breathe. That great sucking sound at the capital clearinghouses vacuums up resources not only away from people today but leaves our unborn with a debt resulting from luxurious spending from their past which they will never have the opportunity to partake in.

We suffer because the military advances purchased by our tax dollars have brought us new wars causing inestimable casualties, both physical and spiritual. Between the wars and our nation's complicity or tacit acceptance of genocide and deplorable living conditions in many developing countries, our nation suffers as its relational capital with the rest of the world continues to dwindle. Meanwhile, our nation's democracy, always reliant upon leaders with authentic integrity, on checks and balances, and a populace informed by a free press, now exists only - in – name. In addition, and perhaps most lasting, the mistreatment and contamination of our earth, water, and air is an embarrassment and a disgraceful legacy which we will leave behind for many generations to come. Breathe.

Meanwhile, many people in our nation follow the contemporary Christian church's biblical interpretation that Jesus is coming to save them, essentially hedging their bets in case there really is a heaven/hell afterlife. Rather, they would do well to hedge their bets that He may have actually been talking about our responsibility of stewarding in heaven on this Earth right here, and that their soul might carry on in this very world, breathing the same molecules they breathe now. In the meantime, we are watching our planet fall toward the very hell they're seeking to avoid. On the other extreme, our country has many people turned off to religion entirely by religious zealots who feel that their God has called upon them to put forth the angry narrow intolerance toward all that which offends God's ego.

Even in Unitarian Universalism, which we tend to hold in such high esteem for its free-thinking values, we have made, and doubtlessly continue to make, mistakes. These mistakes include walking on eggshells regarding any mention of Christian topics in our meeting houses, thereby alienating ourselves from our Christian roots and cutting short meaningful interfaith dialog. We also make the mistake of forgetting that our free and responsible search for truth and meaning calls on us to report, even sound out, the results of that search. Further, we unintentionally neglect the deep intricacies of the web of life when we come up with premature answers to problems so difficult that we may not - yet - even - be asking the right questions. Breathe, the light is coming up.

So here we are – together in our searching community, trying to get a handle on all these problems and more, searching for the right questions to ask about them, and then obtain some answers. Where to start....?

The method I'd like to apply begins by deconstructing the problems en masse, and asking, “From where does our technology, our knowledge, and our social fabric actually originate?” They all appear to have one thing in common – they began with thought, either conscious or unconscious. If you noted the title of the sermon in the bulletin, it also mentions angels, and I promise to shed some light on them shortly, and then begin to tie things together.

Before I go further, I feel compelled to make a quick note of inclusion regarding the forthcoming arguments. For those who were not here for my “God and Not God” sermon last month, it's important to note that while I am going to be making reference to God, through the process of associating various forms of the Divine with each other, which I refer to as “multithetical unity,” we allow for a translation from references of one form of the Divine to apply to others, to the degree that they possess similar qualities. If you're interested in finding out more, I will be offering an adult ed. class on this topic coming up in the fall.

OK, continuing on...

In Genesis, chapter 32, verses 24-28, we find the story of Jacob wrestling the angel. From the World English Bible, the story goes thusly:

Jacob was left alone, and wrestled with a man there until the breaking of the day. When he saw that he didn't prevail against him, he touched the hollow of his thigh, and the hollow of Jacob's thigh was strained, as he wrestled. The man said, "Let me go, for the day breaks."

Jacob said, "I won't let you go, unless you bless me."

He said to him, "What is your name?"

He said, "Jacob."

He said, "Your name will no longer be called Jacob, but Israel; for you have fought with God and with men, and have prevailed."

Though in this story, the text says he wrestled with a man, it's generally understood to be an angel which Jacob wrestles. As noted in the reading, the angel also pronounces that Jacob's name shall be changed to Israel, which translates as “He struggles with God.” This particular angel was likely Uriel, one of the most powerful among angels, whose name translates, among other things as “God is light.” At one point, within the apocryphal texts, Uriel says “I have come down to earth to make my dwelling among men, and I am called Jacob by name.” Well, that's a lot of names - and associations - to take in, but be not confused. And be not afraid, and don't worry about the confusion, because we won't be charging headlong into a full deconstruction of how the identities and associations get interchanged between human and angelic entities here.

However, in order to make the next statement, it's necessary to note that the Greek translation of “angelos,” the root word of angel, means “messenger.” Suffice it to say then, that in this wrestling match, the angel, the man, the messenger and the message become so enmeshed - with each other that it's nearly impossible to distinguish them apart. Does that mean that Israel/Jacob wasn't actually struggling with God, or the angel, but rather with His message?

At this point, I'd like to bring a few more pieces of information into the mix, so that we can answer the question of Jacob's struggle, and also get to a point where we can understand a direct association between angels and thought, and then find a decent way to actually apply this to our lives, honoring our commitment to work against all this suffering.

First, let us consider that angels are messengers of light, and information is associated with light – for example, providing information is described as “shedding light on the subject,” and the phrase in the new testament about not hiding one's light under a basket refers to sharing the truth which one knows.

Second, thoughts are the basic means of expressing and organizing information within the mind.

Third, a branch of theology called “process theology” teaches us that at every infinitessimal moment, we are experiencing an event, influenced or informed by events we recall from the past. Every event's action, in addition to being informed by past events, is informed by a multitude of messages of potential courses of action, provided by the Divine. As each moment passes from the now into the past, we take an action, however small, even if its only a thoughtful reflection, which then informs further events, and the process then continues ad infinitum. For the record, process theology is actually a bit more complicated than that, but that's my attempt at a very brief distillation to make this point. At every single moment, God is presenting us with messages from which to choose to act on, which then affects what becomes manifest in the world.

Here's the question that I've been working toward. Who carries those messages?

Those messages must be carried by some type of messengers, so for the sake of argument, and looking back at the Greek word 'angelos,' we'll call those messengers angels. These messages are the thoughts that occur to us: from the definition of thought at selfknowledge.com, these thoughts may carry reflections, or perhaps a judgment or perception, or they could carry an intention or purpose. Reflections, judgments and perceptions are those ruminations which remain in the mind, whereas thoughts carrying intentions and purposes are more often interested in manifesting some change in our shared physical world. Intentions and purposes are the ones I'd like to focus on.

These thoughts exist on a continuum from being salvifically beneficial all the way down to being catastrophically detrimental. Knowing their potential effects, and the possibility they may be unleashed out in the world, and borrowing from standard religious parlance, we'll call the beneficial ones 'angels' and the detrimental ones – you guessed it – 'demons.' Originating as thoughts, the size of each of these at the outset is tiny – a potential answer for the age-old question: you could fit “quite a few” on the head of a pin. As they are reflected upon, released, discussed, expounded upon further, and their purpose implemented or their intention executed, they physically manifest among us.

If a thought takes hold and many others adopt it, add input to it, and modify it, it becomes not the cute little cherubic angels we see in the paintings of Raphael, or the human-sized crimson-red horned devil creature of legend, but they grow to carry the weight and momentum of a great, big, Mack truck going well above the speed limit, or even to hundreds of feet tall, able to nourish or devour entire cities or civilizations. This is how the problems we have before us today came into existence and grew over time to the size they have. And it is also the key to solutions. And this is why it is critical that we learn to exert judicious control over our thoughts, specifically the ones we allow to manifest from ourselves, or the thoughts of others we may allow ourselves to propagate.

I can't stress enough that every endeavor undertaken by humans, including our quest for gathering and storing intelligence, our quest to create new technologies, and the way our social systems have been shaped, including languages, economies, nations, national boundaries, governments, communities, religions, music, art and science – the list goes on and on – every endeavor is the result of our thoughts growing into fruition. If they've turned out amiss, we need look no further than to the root.

Our thoughts count.

What kind of tools, understanding, and knowledge do we need in order to tend to thoughts responsibly?

First, we must each recognize our role as personal gatekeepers. We can and must learn to control and operate our own thought processes, lest they be controlled for us by outside forces. If we can hone our ability to recognize the values and merits of our thoughts, along with their potential for good or bad, we can become adept at filtering out incoming or outgoing thoughts with purposes counter to our goals and aspirations, and at solidifying, releasing, and amplifying thoughts that support our goals and aspirations.

Second, we can recognize that problems can arise when two or more thoughts have purposes that run counter to each other, especially if their continued propagation appears to be mutually exclusive. In that case, especially in the case when one or more demons have been brought to life, we must find methods of elimination, realizing that depending on the size of the adverse thought, the amount of time required for elimination may range from instantaneous up to hundreds of years. Some methods of elimination include dissolving the thought by showing its end results, or creating an alternative thought to supplant the one gone awry, or to inoculate ourselves against the thought with preventative thoughts so that the unwelcome thought does not have fertile ground to grow on in the future.

Third, we can learn how to amplify and align our own thoughts. This can mean that we devote significant time and mind power to focus our individual or collective attention on developing a thought fully so it gains strength and momentum. It can mean getting others to start talking and propagating a thought. It can mean developing a culture for our community to think and share in, knowing that our thoughts are empowered when surrounded by the fertile soil of other amicable thoughts to grow side by side with. It can mean flooding the world, echoing our thoughts until everyone hears them and buys in. Such is the case with memes, which Australian Graduate School of Management professor Robert Marks defines as “A unit of cultural information that represents a basic idea that can be transferred from one individual to another, and subjected to mutation, crossover, and adaptation.”

Fourth, we can realize that thoughts do not exist in a vacuum. Logic and intelligence on their own can have a tendency toward being amoral. We must learn to trust our feelings and convictions as guides to provide direction, and to help us set up our filters regarding which thoughts deserve to live, and which the world actually may benefit from having be “no more.” This should not be construed as a vehicle for the cold compassion of censorship, but as an invitation for our spiritual knowledge, true compassion and reason to come together to nurture that which heals and to abandon that which damages.

Fifth, we can recognize that underdeveloped ideas can be among the most dangerous of all, especially if they're implemented before they're ready, or before their potential results are adequately considered. And we also can understand that an even more dangerous idea is the one that a thought is fully complete. In this instance, the angel starts to deliver the message, and is interrupted. We deny or cut off the rest of the message. Instead, we can understand that every thought is a revelation which is always capable of continually being built upon, saying “and, - and, - and.”

Sixth, we must allow ourselves freedom of thought. The philosopher Soren Kierkegaard once said “People demand freedom of speech as a compensation for the freedom of thought which they seldom use.” Just because we're disciplining ourselves about which thoughts we want to escape into the wild doesn't mean we need to confine the arena of thought in our own minds. Our minds are powerful playgrounds, in fact, they've been breeding grounds for some of the most horrific demons we battle today. But when we allow our divergent, artistic selves to shine, our minds are also capable of giving birth to benificent messages and manifestations truly worthy of the name 'angels.'

Now for real-life applicability: Using these tools, we can see that a thought put upon us that our job matters more than our home life needs to be filtered or countered. We recognize the thought within ourselves that we need to manifest to our families the thoughts we have had about wanting to be with them.

We recognize that the advertisements and commercials on buses and television are amplifications of thoughts from marketers, convincing us to consume – thoughts that perhaps shouldn't have made it out into the world in the first place. We develop our own thoughts, that the buses, TV, and radio could all still exist just fine without commercials, and could be replaced with art for art's sake, to the benefit of the stifled culture in our country aching to be let out again, escaping the bonds of commercial oppression. We develop thoughts to counter the argument that says “How could television, radio, buses, and subways exist without advertising money to support them?”

We spread thoughts that our current economic system is only one opinion of a way to use natural resources and human labor toward producing and distributing goods and services among us. We focus our thoughts toward developing ideas and implementations of alternative systems of production and distribution. We also are able to recognize that the capitalist economic system, injustices to the exploited excluded, has indeed been very beneficial in many ways to the advancement of humanity in general up until some time in the mid 20th century, but with that in mind, we also recognize that sometimes our angels - go - bad, while we keep hanging onto them, wishing they were still good.

We realize (or make truly real to ourselves in our minds) that our feelings and convictions have been correct about the state of corruption in our government and the effect it has on us and our world. We understand that we need to empower ourselves by creating a culture which amplifies the thoughts necessary to bring about a way of salvaging and reworking the system that should manifests our ideals of democracy. And we may find ways to synthesize thoughts together to become new safeguards which make our system of government less corruptible.

We may find that the people of the world have all been searching for peace, and that by disempowering our economic systems, the military-industrial and prison complexes, and many other industries founded on the old system will discover that they no longer are needed. We will then find that those people who have worked in the sectors of the economy that have dissolved will have free time, while we still are able to provide the same real goods and services we have today to everyone, but can now do it more efficiently.

We may find that the staggering amounts of debt incurred by many nations and people are only socially agreed-upon numbers, and that if we erase them tomorrow, the world will have the same ten trillion hours of human labor available per year that it had today, only the control of that labor permeates throughout societies, rather than resting only in the hands of an elite few.

We may find that more and more people are out of work as we use our technology to develop robots to make our menial tasks happen automatically for us, and we'll find that those out of work people now have time to read the paper, or learn piano, or sit with their children, or under a tree.

We may find that the thought of true global security unleashed from someone's mind has developed and flowered to a point that it becomes unnecessary to worry about resources
for our childrens' education, or our individual health care, about nuclear warfare, or terrorism, or hostile corporate take-overs.

We may find that our fragile world begins to recover as we slay these demons – perhaps it will be a little worse for wear, but then it would give our descendants some worthy restoration goals to work toward. And we may find that the thought of heaven on earth unleashed from the mind of a bright thinker many centuries ago may still come to fruition as the bright angel its conceiver originally intended.

And may we also find that an all-inclusive - multithetically unified - system of religion waits there for us with open arms.


chant/prayer/mantra:
K.I.S.S.

pax hominibus,
joel

I intend to explain why I keep including this quote below, then dispense with always including it sometime soon.

"And so, Theodore Donald Karabotsos, in accordance with what we think your dying wishes might well have been, we commit your final mortal remains to the bosom of the Pacific Ocean"

Labels: anti-oppression, favorite scriptural passages, Multitheticalism, paradigm shift, Process Thought, sermons, theology