Monday, April 3, 2006
Monkeys Throwing Poo
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"
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
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Sermon: Atonement as Humanity's Present Purpose
Atonement as Humanity’s Present Purpose
Delivered to UUFLG August 1, 2010
Why are we here? Perhaps the easiest way to answer that question is to frame it within a context where “here” means “in this building at this time.” Why do we come to worship in this building? You may have your own answers to that question, and a few things come to mind for me as well.
We are here because we desire to be among a chosen community—not just family or work mates.
We are here because connecting with each other in this community energizes us.
We are here to dedicate ourselves toward a common purpose—a purpose that gives our lives meaning.
Having a purpose we feel good about is critical to happiness. Further, our purpose in this community need not be different than the purpose of humanity at large.
I began with the easy question of why we are here in this building. Regarding the question of why humanity is here, or even why this Earth is here, perhaps it’s just luck and there is no purpose, other than to live and to seek happiness. Perhaps there really is an ultimate purpose to this existence we find ourselves in, and we still have yet to discover it.
I do know that humanity has created a purpose for itself. Through the actions of the Homo Sapiens species, we have done immeasurable harm to the planet and to others in the same species—immeasurable harm, but hopefully not irreparable. I believe humanity’s present purpose is that of atonement for those harms. Of putting things right again, and returning into right relationship with the planet and each other.
For many people, atonement is one of those religiously tinged words, and some even call to mind the substitutional atonement, in which Jesus Christ died on the cross in order to atone for humanity’s sins. When I’ve asked people to explain how that works, almost invariably, the explanation requires a great leap of logic or faith. Unitarian Universalism doesn’t ask those giant leaps of us. We can see that Jesus (the man) died perhaps as a result of people’s sins—people in his present day, unwilling or unable to live up to the community he was trying to build. We can also see that today Christ (composed of the movement of people seeking to save humanity from its own disaster) is still dying as a result of unatoned sins, and harm brought on by powerful people and corporate forces.
I just mentioned “sin” and I realize that with our theology of people with inherent goodness, some may be uncomfortable with the word “sin,” so I want to define it clearly as “missing the mark.” And what is the mark that is being missed, again and again? Right relationship! With the Earth, and with each other.
Restoring right relationship is what atonement is about. Being “at one” with the Earth, and “at one” with the human community is the creation of harmony. The seventh UU principle upholds “respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.” And our sixth principle is similar, except it’s about nurturing the interdependent web of human community, specifically “The goal of world community, with peace, liberty, and justice for all.”
Humanity is such an interesting beast. Humans have completely dominated the planet—scraping its surface for minerals, abusing its topsoil, and poking it full of holes to find fossil fuels, continually missing the mark of Earth’s Sacredness. But that’s only part of what’s interesting. The other part is that most of humanity does not consent to this. Many would choose far different courses of action, yet the power of our collective decision-making is far from democratic. Those who benefit from privilege and positions of power make decisions based on what will keep them in privilege and in power. In its desire to acquire this planet’s resources, that system of privilege and power also seeks to acquire the planet’s human resources as well.
In the process, it oppresses the rest of humanity according to class, race, gender, and other categories, while seeking to label them as workers and consumers, not as citizens and as humans. I will also note that there is complexity here. As an example: We, the good people of UU are sometimes complicit members of this privileged class, and at the same time, we may be among the oppressed.
Without a doubt, this way of life misses the mark and begs for restoration and atonement. So how do we atone? First, we certainly can’t do this alone. If all 200,000 UUs engage with our seven principles, and get into right relationship with humanity and the Earth, we do not have the critical mass to do the trick, especially since this all is interconnected. We need to invite everyone. We will do this by living our moral lives out loud, and by inviting others to do likewise—even sharing our faith as we find the occasion arises.
We must empower the part of humanity trying to save itself. This will require a concerted effort, because it means getting a strong voice in the public sphere. Often it seems that those who work to be a voice for the voiceless against the power of oppression find their voices squelched.
Three days ago, Unitarian Universalists in yellow “Standing on the Side of Love” shirts flocked to Arizona to protest the new profiling law SB1070. Twenty UU ministers and 63 others were arrested by the sheriff in Phoenix as a result of their intentional civil disobedience. These are people using the power of their voices and their bodies to serve justice. As Rev. Susan Frederick Gray said as she was being arrested, "Love is where our future is. Not fear, and not hate." And to help draw a clearer picture, this was not just a joyless protest of shouting at police dressed in riot gear. There was also a vigil for those arrested, including singing, salsa music, and dancing.
You may not be able to travel to Arizona or anywhere for events like this. To be sure, there are justice actions that we can and ought to make happen right here in the neighborhood Los Gatos. And we also must remember that efforts like these, to be sustainable, need economic power, also known as money. It cost these protesters quite a bit to travel to Phoenix, and also there is the question of bail money for those arrested.
Most important is that we engage, that we use our bodies, our hands, and our voices to do things that further impassion our lives. I do not know what actions can and ought to happen here in Los Gatos, nor do I know which actions are the best fit for you as individuals or for this congregation. I do not know which of you could become leaders, but I sincerely hope that none of you think, “I can’t be a leader. I’m not that extraordinary.” Leaders are often ordinary people who see a need and have a passion to fulfill that need. As Howard Thurman, an author, theologian, and long-time minister at the Church for the Fellowship of All Peoples says:
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
Coming alive now is what we each must do, as it’s obvious that NOW is the time! That’s not just a handy phrase for the UUA fundraising campaign. In each of our lives, every day is a gift, and an opportunity to make the world better. Perhaps there is some longstanding unfinished conversation in your life that you’d like to have, which has been emotionally blocking you from moving forward. Perhaps there is something you’ve always wanted to try, but never have. Perhaps there’s something in your life you want to give up. Today is always the only day in which we can make changes. You can never do it yesterday or tomorrow.
I recall musician Warren ZEvon, living the last few months of his life with cancer, responding to David Letterman’s request for wisdom on life and death. He said simply, “Enjoy every sandwich.” That, to me, translates as, “Don’t waste a single heartbeat.” Uneventful days could become a habit, but we are called to make every day count, in some large or small way.
We need to be unafraid of the tremendous impact our religion can make on the world, and share it. Now is the time for us to have maximum impact. There is an angel at work here. A very large, deep, compassionate angel that spans the ages. As it arrives, the world is taking notice. The arrival of this messenger is an eschatological age-ending event, a game-changer, causing a paradigm-shift. As if it’s the rapture, but in theological terms to which we can relate, with no people magically disappearing.
More and more people are awakening to an understanding of what the leak in the Gulf of Mexico really means about our relationship to the Earth. With the end of easy petroleum resources upon us, humanity struggles to get enough oil to energize the world it’s made.
The book of Revelation, chapter 8 refers to 7 angels sounding their trumpets, and 1/3 of the Earth being despoiled and 1/3 of the sea being despoiled. I sense we are getting pretty close to that. Knowing UUs as I do, I realize many of you may be skeptical of the sacred texts of revealed religion—and perhaps rightly so—after all, we could deconstruct the text, equating angels with messengers, and the trumpets with the clarion call of what the Earth is trying to tell us. However, in our nation, there are many who live their lives based on a concrete understanding of the Bible, and they will be called on by somebody to act.
By whom? By us!—we can call on them! We are at that time, one-third of the Earth, one-third of the water. The Gulf of Mexico is just one of many oil spills, and raw sewage makes its way into our streams and oceans. Don’t forget the giant growing collection of plastic in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We are in a time of much needed change. We can either have the change happen to us, or we can shine our light and work in concert to make the necessary changes in a controlled fashion.
So what is the light we hold? Our theology of a loving God is one of real saving grace that can help people get past the guilt, shame, and anger, and onto serving the world as love and justice-bearers. We have a growing religious inclusivity that is learning to make way for the many theologies and worldviews people bring upon first entering our doors. We each carry our own copy of truth and meaning, and know to value each other’s spirituality. And we know that community and action are every bit as important as having right beliefs, if not moreso.
In fact, in religious terms, it’s safe to say that the light we share when our words and deeds are at their best is nothing less than an expression of the divine working from within us. I believe that the light of our reason is critical in our conversations, because it helps to orient and focus the lights of others like a Fresnel lens (the really bright amplifying one you find spinning slowly in lighthouses). If we hold back our light (or are unable to deliver) when it’s expected or needed, the absence of our voices will be like an inactive lighthouse, which is more dangerous than a reef. We do not need more ships running aground. We want them not to miss the mark of right relationship.
Our nation, and some of its religious bodies, tend to think in terms of war. There are the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our government has declared a war on terror, a war on drugs (which is also a war on people of color), there was a war on poverty (and now it seems there is a war on the poor). Some Christians have labeled the penchant of merchants to say “happy holidays” as a war on Christmas, Fox News has been labeled a war on journalism, and the band Wilco has even declared a war on war. It’s rare for the US government or people to declare peace on something.
The peaceable people of this country have tried to declare peace many times, but it seems their overtures have been outright rejected. Last week, I mentioned Faithful Fools Bible Stud, part of a UU-affiliated community outreach ministry in downtown San Francisco. David, a regular at the Bible Study, introduced to me the concept of declaring LOVE on someone.
When you declare love on somebody and mean it, they can’t fight you as they may be in the habit of doing. It is love that comes from the heart level. Intellectual arguments and our search for truth have their place, but the way the light we carry is going to reach people is going to be when we complement it with a declaration of love. Perhaps that’s the key to our atonement
To the glory of light! Blessed be.
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel
Labels: 6th UU principle, sermons
Thursday, June 11, 2009
Eva Bovenzi: Messenger
.
At the library where I work, there is a series displayed by Eva Bovenzi, an artist I had never heard of before. I really like her work. The name of the series is MESSENGER.
Here are a couple excerpts from her artist's description of the series:
lyrics:
"Give it to me, please
I said to god.
It's only fair.
Instead, he sent three angels
To move the river,
So now it flows by my house,
So now it goes by my house."
From Angel, by Belly
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel
At the library where I work, there is a series displayed by Eva Bovenzi, an artist I had never heard of before. I really like her work. The name of the series is MESSENGER.
Here are a couple excerpts from her artist's description of the series:
Conceptually, they were born of my fascination with humanity's need to create a narrative that explains our presence in this unexplainable universe. "Who are we? Where do we come from? Where are we going?" are questions that can never be fully answered, yet we fight to the death over our constructions. Human beings insist upon meaning, and the stories we've told ourselves are both dazzling and poignant.
Angels have been particularly interesting to me, both visually and conceptually, and this work was made with the idea of angels in the back of my mind. Beautiful, powerful messengers, intermediaries between Heaven and Earth - human beings with wings: what a lovely, odd idea. Gabriel, the Annunciating Angel, is the most often depicted, and I have always found the story of the Annunciation resonant. A description of matter being charged by spirit, it speaks beautifully of our desire to unify our dual nature and of our longing to be touched by the divine - to "talk to God".
The diptych structure of this work obviously derives from the idea of two wings, but the inequality of the halves and their misalignment allude to the continuing imperfection of our knowledge. We see things askew, our answers don't add up, our efforts to improve the world often make things worse. And in these times, just whose God is or isn't talking to us? Human beings without wings: what a funny scary idea.
lyrics:
"Give it to me, please
I said to god.
It's only fair.
Instead, he sent three angels
To move the river,
So now it flows by my house,
So now it goes by my house."
From Angel, by Belly
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel
Labels: art, sustenance, theology
Tuesday, November 8, 2011
Sermon #6
“Fumbling for a Light in the Fog”
Delivered to First Unitarian Universalist Society of San Francisco, June 13, 2010
I want to begin today by saying “Thank you.” I began my first sermon back in September by saying that, not knowing what I was getting into, but confident that this congregation would have some very important things to teach me, if I paid attention. I’ve certainly been witness to some changes. You’ve shown me a capital campaign for the Beyond Sunday position. I’ve seen difficult staff transitions, and a variety of responses. You’ve shown me a way of being together politically, sometimes obstinately, while edging closer to determining the purpose of this society. I’ve met with many people individually and heard a desire to find ways of setting aside the spirit of confrontational debate, and to feel the strength of unity. From my one-on-one conversations, I know this obstinacy comes not from within people, but rather seems a learned way of being. It feels like a transpersonal force at work, teaching expectations of difficulty to each generation of members as they arrive. I imagine that spirit has been active here for quite a few decades. And I realize that with our fifth principle (the one about the democratic process and the right of conscience), that spirit may just be part of the Unitarian Universalist way, yet that spirit has played havoc with our ability to readily determine our purpose and identity. With so much riding on how we are in the world, and what we do, I think it’s most critical that we have our bearings correct on who we are and our reason for being.
Before relaying my story of the San Francisco fog, I want to complexify a common notion. People often think of the big battles in life as good vs. evil, as light fighting to shine in the darkness, and that’s partially true. But also, in this age of information, I think the case is frequently about discovering the source of the light amid the fog reflecting and diffusing it with conflicting information and confusion. Now my story: A few years ago, I was driving to meet up with Stephanie at the UCSF nursing school on Parnassus. When I got to the city, it was really foggy. I remember turning off of Market onto Duboce. Inexplicably, the car was devoid of maps. With no map, compass, or GPS, I figured if I just proceed west, I’d hit Stanyan or Divisadero or Masonic or some big street, which would lead me back to Fell or Parnassus and from there, I can get to UCSF. I went west and the easy-to-navigate grid ended when I ran into Buena Vista park. I went a little ways around and my best guess is that I took a left onto Upper Terrace, which turns into an odd curlycue cul-de-sac. After getting turned around and around at least twice, and then being spat back out, I had completely lost my bearings.
I looked to the sky to see the position of the sun that morning, or perhaps which direction the shadows of the trees were falling? No such luck, because of the thick blanket of fog. I kept repeating my patterns of lostness, ending up twice on the curvy section of Market, and twice on 17th Street, but not quite sure which direction to get to UCSF. I was completely baffled in that fog and must’ve wasted upwards of half an hour. In this case, my confusion was of relatively little consequence, as it just meant Stephanie just had to wait a little bit longer to get picked up, and was a little amused.
But in the other kind of fog—that metaphorical fog—the effects of getting waylaid may be much less inconsequential. People’s lives may be on the line based on what we do or do not do. When we’re disoriented and not arriving in a timely manner, if people depend on us, there will be trouble.
That said, I think as UUs, we have a tendency to underestimate our importance in the world, AND strangely enough, to overestimate it at the same time. We underestimate ourselves when we forget that our rich discourse of theology and worldviews can lead to amazing transformations in individual lives and in cultures that we touch. Yet we overestimate our importance when we forget that that discourse provides only a rich bedrock foundation for determining one or more courses of action, and then following them. Without significant and meaningful action, our theology lacks teeth and meaning, standing inert in the world.
Along with the seven UU principles, our theology of a loving, all-saving God and of humans living up to their potential, shines a light to help inform our identity. As individuals in US culture, the point has been hammered home that we are consumers and workers. But that way of thinking tries to confuse the fact that you and I may want to choose our greater purpose to be that of sharer, problem-solver, advocate, or witness. Given conflicting messages, psychologically speaking, we become ambivalent, so we have a tough time deciding between courses of action, and then we may likely just fall back into our old habits.
In this congregation, our default purpose may seem to be that of staying financially solvent, or growing in membership, but those don’t tend to tug at people as strongly as might a haven of spirit and culture for personal growth, or the purpose of fomenting social changes in immigration laws, advocating housing rights for the homeless, or even a purpose as straightforward as training new ministers. (I did mention my gratitude, right? This congregation’s history of taking on ministerial interns has helped nurture many new UU ministers into our association. And in turn, every UU minister you’ve seen in this pulpit--including not only Greg and Fred, but also Kay, Denis, Alyson, and Jeremiah—every minister here has been trained as interns somewhere at a UU congregation.)
Just as with the individual level, if a congregation has conflict revolving around identity or purpose, it can lead to ambivalence and inaction, which presents as a tendency to shy away from changes and reversion to the basics of church survival. With the changes afoot this year, I am seeing the congregation pursuing the greater purposes. With the introduction of Rev. Jeremiah and the Beyond Sunday ministry and with Jeff’s passion for an empowering system of finance, I see this congregation moving into a place of discerning, fostering and fulfilling purposes that touch our neighboring communities deeply.
On the world scale, humanity’s purpose seems ill-defined and as foggy as ever. It seemed for a time that our purpose has been “progress” but to those paying attention, the technological progress has been matched with an equal or greater amount of regress in our ecology and our social interactions. Other purposes that we tend to fall back on are that of consuming the Earth’s resources to manufacture more products, or that of simply “not dying out.” I say the true purpose of humanity is simply, TO BE. To support life’s purpose, to synch up with nature, so that this planet Gaia can thrive again. The ambivalence sets in when we hear conflicting information. Despite a preponderance of clear scientific evidence indicating that global climate change is a real and looming danger, our system of media tends to give equal time to those who choose to deny that global warming is real. With such wide-reaching ramifications, ambivalence and inaction may prove to be globally perilous.
On many levels, it’s obvious that NOW IS THE TIME! That’s not just a handy phrase for the UUA fundraising campaign. In each of our lives, every day is a gift, and an opportunity to make the world better. Perhaps there is some longstanding unfinished conversation in your life that you’d like to have, that has been emotionally blocking you from moving forward. Perhaps there is something you’ve always wanted to try, but never have. Perhaps there’s something in your life you want to give up. Today is always the only day in which we can make changes. You can never do it yesterday or tomorrow. I recall musician Warren Zevon, living the last few months of his life with cancer, responding to David Letterman’s request for wisdom on life and death. He said simply, “Enjoy every sandwich.” That, to me, translates as, “Don’t waste a single heartbeat.” Uneventful days could become a habit, but we are called to make every day count, in some large or small way.
Now has always been the time for this congregation to recreate its place in the city. Under the guidance of Thomas Starr King, this congregation was once the flagship for Universalist Unitarian belief and action on the west coast. I offer a challenge, to resurrect that flagship, and to determine a course. I see the coming couple of years as a time when this congregation will unearth members’ passions and engage that passion with life-changing purposes. That may mean being a voice for homeless advocacy, so that when we read the phrase “take care of the homeless” in the SF Chronicle, people understand it to mean providence and assistance, not harassment and subsistence. Your passion may lead you to begin negotiating the long but rewarding path toward becoming a multi-generational, multi-cultural, anti-racist congregation. But those are just my thoughts, and I’m leaving soon. The purpose of this congregation will be of your own collective volition. One thing I do know is that this city NEEDS this congregation to shine like a beacon. To declare a moral compass and to boldly lead. I hope you are ready to take that challenge, to be a bold voice like Beacon Press, often presenting the unpopular before it becomes popular, if it ever does. This congregation has power deep down, to make its voice heard, all week long and citywide. A couple months back, Greg mentioned the WWJD--What Would Jesus Do wristbands. Imagine your friends saying, “WWUUD--What Would a Unitarian Universalist Do?” If you hear that happen, be sure to bring them by for a service, because they want to be here. They are lost in the fog with information that doesn’t come together quite right. The light of our beacon can bring clarity.
Now is the time for this world to determine its purpose. Not to waste another heartbeat, another day, another year. I’m not sure what the world enjoying a sandwich would look like, but applying the Warren ZEvon quote from earlier would at least imply “Enjoy.” I daresay much of this world right now is not enjoying the experience. The birds in the Gulf of Mexico, the people being exploited for their labor in developing countries (and this country), the trees being clearcut in Brazil, and the ocean life in the pacific all are not enjoying their sandwiches. So what would UU do?
We need to be unafraid of the tremendous impact our religion can make on the world, and share it. Now is the time for us to have maximum impact. There is an angel at work here. A very large, deep, compassionate angel that spans the ages. As it arrives, the world is taking notice. The arrival of this messenger is an eschatological age-ending event, a game-changer, causing a paradigm-shift. As if it’s the rapture, but in theological terms to which we can relate, with no people magically disappearing. The ongoing media coverage of the leak in the Gulf of Mexico is waking up more and more people to some new realities. With the end of easy petroleum resources upon us, humanity struggles to get enough oil to energize the world we’ve made.
The book of Revelation, chapter 8 refers to 7 angels sounding their trumpets, and 1/3 of the Earth being despoiled and 1/3 of the sea being despoiled. I sense we are getting pretty close to that. Knowing UUs as I do, I realize many of you may be skeptical of the sacred texts of revealed religion—and perhaps rightly so—after all, we could deconstruct the text, equating angels with messengers, and the trumpets with the clarion call of what the Earth is trying to tell us. However, in our nation, there are many who live their lives based on a concrete understanding of the Bible, and they will be called on by somebody to act. By whom? Us. We can call on them! Today, for the online listening audience and Christians in the crowd, I’ll put my voice out there. We are at that time, one-third of the Earth, one-third of the water. The Gulf of Mexico is just one of many oil spills, and raw sewage makes its way into our streams and oceans. Don’t forget the giant growing collection of plastic in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. We are in a time of much needed change. We can either have the change happen to us, or we can shine our light and work in concert to make the necessary changes in a controlled fashion.
So what is the light we hold? Our theology of a loving God is one of real saving grace that can help people get past the guilt, shame, sin and anger, and onto serving the world as love and justice-bearers. We have a growing religious inclusivity that is learning to make way for the many theologies and worldviews people bring upon first entering our doors. We each carry our own copy of truth and meaning, and know to value each other’s spirituality. And we know that community and action are every bit as important as having right beliefs, if not moreso.
In fact, in religious terms, it’s safe to say that the light we share when our words and deeds are at their best is nothing less than an expression of the divine working from within us. I believe that light is critical in our interfaith and ecumenical dialogs, because the light of our reason helps to orient and focus the lights of others like a Fresnel lens (the really bright amplifying one you find spinning in lighthouses). If we hold back our light (or are unable to deliver) when it’s expected or needed, it may indeed be the case that an inactive lighthouse is more dangerous than a reef.
Our nation, and some of its religious bodies, tend to think in terms of war. There are the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Our government has declared a war on terror, a war on drugs (which is also a war on people of color), there was a war on poverty (and now it seems there is a war on the poor). Some Christians have labeled the penchant of merchants to say “happy holidays” as a war on Christmas, Fox News has been labeled a war on journalism, and the band Wilco has even declared a war on war. It’s rare for the US government or people to declare peace on something.
The peaceable people of this country have tried to declare peace many times, but it seems their overtures have been outright rejected. Faithful Fools Bible Study meets at Fools’ Court on Thursdays at 10 a.m. Each of you are invited. David, a regular at the Bible Study, introduced to me the concept of declaring LOVE on someone. When you declare love on somebody and mean it, they can’t fight you as they may be wont to do. It is love that comes from the heart level. Intellectual arguments and our search for truth have their place, but the way the light we carry is going to reach people is going to be when we complement it with a declaration of love. Perhaps that’s our purpose.
To the glory of light! Blessed be.
pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel
Thursday, September 8, 2005
Islam on prophets and messengers
Color me wowed.
Near to every prophet you can also find an angel, and you'll find they are inseparable to the point that you can't tell which is which. Angels are God/Allah's messengers.
EOM.
Near to every prophet you can also find an angel, and you'll find they are inseparable to the point that you can't tell which is which. Angels are God/Allah's messengers.
EOM.
Saturday, March 16, 2013
sfood "why the dark angels like the dark"
J: Oh you don't know angels yet? Let me get this book…. So here are pictures of angels. They're God's messengers. Do they teach you about God at the JCC? El Shaddai, or Adonai?
H: No.
J: Jahweh?
H: No.
J: Well, they bring light to the world and deliver God's message to people about what it means to be good.
J: Oh, and here's the fallen angels, sometimes called devils. They like to make the world darker.
H: I think maybe that's because they can see better at night.
J: Hang on.... I have to write that down, because your words offered some new theological insights, regarding moral frameworks of reference. Thanks amigo.
H: Lumpy dumpy wissy woo!
H: Lumpy dumpy wissy woo!
Blessings and gratitude,
Joel
"May we trespass together into prophetic imagination." -Rev. Karen Tse
Labels: angels, Henry, oppression, theological sources
