May I let my voice be a clarion call. I will use these words for justice. I will use these words for truth. And humour.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

 

Sermon: The Guardian of the Garden

Delivered to First Unitarian Church of Pittsburgh in the Undercroft Gallery (with wireless headworn mic), on June 30, 2013
On nights when it's my turn to get Henry ready for bed, after bedtime snack and toothbrushing, we read two books in his bedroom and turn out the light and maybe a prayer, and then I sing to him. Our standard default is “This Little Light of Mine” which I've been singing to him since he was an infant. But sometimes he asks for something new. And when “Swing Low Sweet Chariot” and “Hot Crossed Buns” didn't cut it, I offered him one of my own that I'd been working on called “Ode to Glen Eden.” The chorus and closing goes a bit like this:

♪♫“This is a beautiful garden, it has a dangerous guardian (x2).
We're going to melt that guardian down some time, we're gonna press our flames to that heart of ice (x2).
That heart of ice, (x3)
is my size....”♫♪


H: Dad I really like that song. What's the beautiful garden? (That was the easy question.)
J: Well son, the beautiful garden is the Earth, the only place where we can actually live, and we're so lucky that it provides us with food and wood and everything that people and animals need to live.
H: Tell me about the guardian Dad. (Of course I had no clue how to articulate this to Henry without going into adult details, so I punted a bit.)
J: Well, the guardian watches over the Earth to make sure and keep it safe, but it's not always friendly, especially when people are not good to the Earth.
He's getting to the stage of inquisitiveness now where he keeps drilling down with “Why?” followed by “Why?” followed by more “Why?” and... I don't recall how it ended up.
       I really do find the Earth as a source of reverence – I learned that while preparing for my first time preaching here at First Unitarian – Winter Solstice 2011. How amazing is this Earth in all the idiosyncracies that somehow exist so it can support life like us.
       And how very dangerous is the Guardian that protects it? Freewill creates its own karmic vehicle when we choose something harmful. And at the moment, collectively, we are choosing an abundance of things either harmful or potentially so – in our reading, Wendell Berry mentioned fossil fuels. The list continues: nuclear weapons; GMO foods and other genetic experiments; polluted air, water, and soil, imprudent use of medicines leading to more virulent drug-resistant pathogens that could one day bring us a pandemic. It's difficult to even imagine, but any of these things could potentially bring the end of the homo sapien species. And at the same time, there is very little likelihood that any of those could end life on Earth as a whole. The Earth would go on living, and perhaps vibrantly again without the avaricious hubris of competitive humanity plundering Earth's land, animals and people for industrial profits. The guardian would use humanity's selfishness and ignorance to end humanity's selfishness and ignorance.
       This is my pastoral message then to what Emerson called “the Oversoul” or as I see it, the collective soul of humanity – underneath our day to day perceptions is a common sense of dread, that humanity is living so recklessly beyond its balance that it may crash. Recently, Rolling Stone Magazine published an article entitled “Global Warming's Terrifying New Math.” A brief summary: credible climate scientists have estimated that humanity can only pump out 565 more gigatons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere before Earth's temperature will raise 2 degrees Celsius, a point at which ecosystems – and humanity – would experience devastating effects. And unfortunately, just with the presently-known fossil-fuel reserves, we are capable of adding 2800 gigatons of carbon dioxide – five times that amount! The biggest problem – cutting back would cut into the fossil-fuel industry's profits, and they have no plans to stop. I wonder if this is humanity's way of doing the guardian's work, judging itself as unfit for the garden it's been offered. [pause] The answer to that question I do not know....
       Prior to coming to Pittsburgh, I was a hospital chaplain, and met many people who were dying. I worked to comfort them, along with their families, and help them arrive at reconciliation, closure, and sometimes acceptance. It's a strange feeling to be with somebody soon to be breathing their last, a natural future experience we will all share. What's strangest is if/when they come to tranquility, understanding that “everything's going to be all right” and that means that they're going to be on the other side of the impenetrable existential barrier known as “dying.”
       For the collective human existence, however, the timeframe need not be limited to 100-odd years. Humanity could expire in a year, in 100 years, or 20 million years.
       On a rational level, we could say that “Species die off all the time. The fossil record indicates that prior to human intervention, up to 100 species went extinct every year. And now since the fruits of human activity have taken hold, scientists estimate an extinction rate of 27,000 species per year. Actually of all the species the Earth has ever seen since it first gave birth to life, 99.9% of them have gone extinct, most before humanity even entered the picture.” But of those that did go extinct, many of them lasted a million or more years. Humanity's known history is a fraction of that – perhaps humanity is practicing, “Live fast, die young?”
       In case we do come to an early “live fast, die young” demise, I want to affirm that even then, it will be okay. It has to. After we're gone, the struggles will be over, along with the exhilaration and joy. And then there will be rest. But here's the rub.... What happens when one lives fast and recklessly, and doesn't die young? Humanity has been rough on itself and rough on its host planet. I can personally attest that being rough on my knees in high school sports, and on my shoulders in college – these things have brought injuries, making some activities painful. When I was high jumping at 18 and trashing my left knee, 45 years old seemed a long way away. Joel 45 would send Joel 18 a message, were that possible. In a similar way, Humanity 2100 will probably not have “died young” by then, and would ask us to prevent the injuries presently being created through these present generations' ways of living.
       And I'm not ready for humanity to buy the farm just yet, or even to go on causing itself such long term harms. To put this clearly, I'll quote Wendell Berry, “Do unto those downstream as you would have those upstream do unto you.” I interpret this “downstream” to mean later in time, where “upstream” means earlier in time.
What are we to do? Humanity seems somewhere between directionless, and directed toward this quarter's financial statements. I believe a small portion of humanity are developing a clear understanding of what is happening in a systemic sense. I believe that we would do well to continue communicating with each other, and with the rest of humanity, to counter the stories of those seemingly hell-bent on creating an early end, or perhaps only hell-bent on gaining power, money, and influence at any cost. Our stories and our perspectives are our light, and in their telling, the darkness within us, among us, and between us is diminished.
     (Include if appropriate energy: I'd like to go out on a limb and take a break and invite you all to tell stories to each other for a minute – without words. I was thinking maybe we could stand up and walk around and do this, but it's a bit too crowded to do that without introducing real chaos, so just from your chairs, I invite you to connect wordlessly – using your eyes, your faces, and your body language – to communicate with those around you, that for matters to you, for which words do not suffice. If you find this too intense, or you'd rather not participate, please feel free to just close your eyes and take a break. After several moments, I have these bells to ring. My family used to have these on the doors of our house that rang each time we exited or entered [wait 5 breaths, ring bells]. May we find ourselves in a new place and a new sense of purpose through this new connection to each other.)
         I propose that humanity does not know its true purpose. Because “true” is monocultural thinking in that it focuses on a single objective, assuming some prior nugget of truth was somewhere buried. Humanity must wait to discover its purpose amidst all its other activities? No. Humanity is ready to evolve from adolescence, no longer wanting to live recklessly on some Amish rumspringa – a period of hard-partying the Amish teens do as part of discernment of their values, then choosing whether to return back to their own culture. Rather, humanity entering into its adult phase aches to determine itself – not in a “mightiest-most-influential-voices-get-the-megaphone” kind of way, but through the speaking and hearing of all voices.
Unitarian Universalist values set an excellent model for this process. Democratic processes will be critical. A goal of world community is seriously important for coming together around a common human determination. A lack of respect for the interdependent web is how we got here, and something we as UUs say we want to change. Human worth and dignity – including humans now living, along with those whose legacy we carry and wish to respect, and those further on in the timestream who call to us for a good world in which to safely raise healthy children. Equity in relations is important as well. Our quest for spiritual growth, and our responsible search for truth and meaning calls us to then respond with our findings, and with our whole being.
         I know I said earlier that the democratic process will be important, however I believe that it may take considerable time for humanity to really come together for a determined unified purpose. Especially difficult for some reason is getting cooperation of those who have privilege to choose less privilege and convenience in a world like the one Wendell Berry speaks of.
       And I'm white, straight-appearing, male-appearing – I come from white monoculture, so I want to see THIS democratic process expedited (impatience with process is part of the white monoculture I grew up in and am accustomed to). I would like to prime the pump regarding our present purpose. Because I hear the voices of 2100 calling me; I think you might hear them as well. I propose that we choose for our present purpose the creation of a safe, healthy, and harmonious world for the people of the 22nd century, composed of safe, healthy, harmonious local communities. And I propose that we come together and have fun while we do it.
        I say that because I also hear the voices of 2013 calling to me. People suffering from great emotional and social distance with even their nearest neighbors; and more to the point, people suffering from lack of the basic necessities of life, even. Because when injury comes to humanity at large, the brunt of the injury tends to accumulate upon the least fortunate and most oppressed among us. I hear them saying that there is so much struggle over who gets how big a slice of pie that we're actually making less pie. I hear those voices say we should be focusing on just making sure that everybody gets an adequate slice at this Garden Family Picnic (side-note not mentioned: family picnics are much less enjoyable when monetized – can you imagine bartering with family over baked beans, chocolate chip bars or corn on the cob?)
        The way to a harmonized 22nd century is to harmonize the 21st, here and now. May we commit to finding the courage to risk joy. May we find our flame to melt the ice of each human heart we meet. And may we allow for the flames of our friends to work their magic on our own ices within. In this way – one by one – we will melt the heart of the guardian.

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Monday, November 19, 2012

 

Regarding the Ongoing Catastrophes in the Middle East, Most Notably in Gaza

Hello World,

I suppose it's time I write something again.

Regarding the situation in Gaza, the Bible story of King Solomon threatening to cut the baby in half comes to mind.  I wonder who, among Jews or Muslims (or Christians, even), would step up and show true motherhood (and how that would manifest) right about now.

There is a law that is more profound than Islamic law.  A law more powerful than any so far revealed* in any religion, yet hidden in view so that only those who would wish can know it.

I await a humanity that cares to seek for this law through consensus from establishable common ground.  Else, destruction.  Even utter annihilation.  Every beautiful garden must have a dangerous guardian, and I'm trying not to be too attached to the outcome.

It does bring a tear to my eye and to my heart to reflect on all we love that we'd lose, and all we've lost already.

Lyrics: "This is a beautiful garden.  It has a dangerous guardian." from Ode to Glen Eden
Mood: Wistful
Colors: Orange, yellow, blue

Pax hominibus,
Agape to all,
Joel


*This is true only because although the texts do reveal this law, they cannot force any person to accept the revelation.  The ears have a difficult time hearing it amid the deafening noise floor of life in 2012.  I believe, however, that the heart of every human will begin to seek out this law, because it longs to know it. This law is simple to find, actually.  Just ask your neighbors about it, and your heart will begin to know.

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Thursday, July 28, 2011

 

Solar Power is Fastest Growing Industry in US

And it can create a ton of jobs.

I think that is one reason why solar energy is being resisted.  The other reason is that it frees the consumer from being tied to rising fossil fuel prices, which the energy industry magnates do not want.  Here is a brilliant comment which explains how our economy's capitalistic primary driver leaves  from slashdot user fuzzyfuzzyfungus:

There is are a couple of unfortunate wrinkles in what would otherwise be true:

If you don't have money, it scarcely matters what the price of goods is. You are still fucked. For virtually everybody this impecunious, having money = having a job, not selling some bonds or re-allocating your portfolio in the direction of a higher-dividend asset assortment. Given the er... not exactly small... number of people who have fallen off this particular bus(with the additional fun that periods of joblessness do wonders for one's future prospects of being re-hired...) "jobs" as something close to an end in itself does represent a net gain for a substantial number of people.

Secondly, you say that "Ideally you would want a world where you have unlimited energy that required no money (ie jobs). This is true If and Only If the gains from increased efficiency are allocated in a manner that gives you a slice of the expanding pie. If, however, the pie is expanding; but your share of it is shrinking even faster(because whatever you do is an "inefficiency", you are quickly sliding toward point #1.

Empirically, a great many people have reason to be concerned, and to have no particular room to hope that even steady encheapening of goods will allow them to do better than tread water, since labor is definitely one of the goods being encheapened. As this [investorvillage.com] cheery little J.P. Morgan report notes, in a discussion of the improvement of corporate margins: "There are a lot of moving parts in the margin equation, but as shown in the second chart, reductions in wages and benefits explain the majority of the net improvement in margins. This trend has continued; as we have shown several times over the last two years, US labor compensation is now at a 50-year low relative to both company sales and US GDP (see EoTM April 26, 2011)."

Improvements in efficiency do you absolutely no good if somebody with more market power than you have is capturing them. This would appear to be the case. Under such conditions, the people with less market power(ie. about the bottom 95%) don't have a rational interest in efficiency; because they won't capture the gains from it. While(from the perspective of people's actual state of knowledge) the fascination with "jobs" might be largely sentimental populism, it is arguably not economically irrational. If essentially all gains from efficiency(which includes reduction in human resources costs) are being captured by people who aren't you, it is very much in your interest to demand greater inefficiency and attempt to roll back the reduction in demand for you.

Only in a society where everybody has a boat is the fact that the 'rising tide lifts all boats' a comforting one. If a substantial portion of the population is stuck in the mud, the rising tide is not a welcome development...

Here's a good link on how little subsidies the solar industry gets from the US government.  It's as if the government WANTS solar to wither and die on the vine, and would prefer to have an untenable and security-problematic fossil fuel system as long as it can.  Hey, what gives, America?
. . 

lyrics: "it would be so fine to see your face at my door, it wouldn't have to last very long" -flaming lips
colors: green
mood: okay
chant/prayer/mantra: this is a beautiful garden, it has a dangerous guardian.

pax hominibus, 
agape to all, 
joel

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Tuesday, November 8, 2011

 

Sermon: It's a Rorschach Test


"It's a Rorschach Test"
Delivered for UU Fellowship of Los Gatos, July 25, 2010
Introducing the Rose
This is a rose. [hold up rose]
As Gertrude Stein said almost a century ago: “A rose is a rose is a rose.”
Yet it is so much more!
This rose is yellow.
It is visually pleasing.
It is fragrant.
This rose is from my next-door neighbor’s garden.
It is dangerous. So please be careful of the thorns, as you pass it around.
As it makes its way to you, I encourage you to reflect upon any associations that may come to mind.
According to Shakespeare:
“That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet.”
Ultimately, this thing exists independently in a pre-verbal existence before we ever had words to name it.
Ultimately, it is just this. [hand off rose]

Metaphor Everywhere: For many people, similes and metaphors are just figures of speech, reserved for poets. But when we consider the translation from pre-verbal existence into words, we’re always defining one thing in terms of another. This is this. In the dictionary, words are always defined in terms of other words. They don’t ever give the direct experience of the word. And almost every sentence has some form of the word “is” in it, which places some form of metaphor between our stories and the underlying world those stories are trying to tell us about.


Henry Learning Names: Our 14-month-old child Henry is getting to the age now where he’s just learning to talk. The only words I can make out reliably are “S’at?” and “S’is?” which I interpret to mean “What’s that? What’s this?” He points at anything and everything, wanting to know its name. Now that he’s communicating, and realizes that things have names, he’s soaks it all in like a sponge.
“Sa?” – “A kitty cat.”
“Sa?” – “Grapes.”
“Sis?” – “A shoe.”
“Sis?” – “A Pedometer.”
“Sa?” – “A handle.”
“Sa?” – “A housing for the handle.”
“Sa?” – “A blue star.”
“Sis?” – “A toy car.”
“Sis?” – “A product of China.”
“Sis?” – “A molded piece of plastic large enough that it’s not a choking hazard for you.”
“Sa?” – “It’s a Rorschach test.”
“Sa?” – “A Rorschach test."


Rorschach as a Method of Perspective Recognition


Also known as an Inkblot Test, the Rorschach Test is a tool in which psychologists show subjects several cards with non-descript inkblot pictures. They then ask the subjects to describe what they see, in order to determine a person’s personality characteristics. A person obsessed with one thing or another will tend to interpret the images in terms of their obsession.
The basis of this method of analyzing what people see in an image can be extended and applied to people’s subjective interpretations of experiences and events.
When presented with any object or event, if we step out of the way of standard thinking, of naming things as they come, we realize that in a sense, anything capable of being interpreted or named is a lot like a Rorschach test, giving an opportunity to learn about where our thinking is rooted.
Here’s an example: A few weeks ago, I was attending the Bible Study at Faithful Fools’ Street Ministry program in downtown San Francisco, and the topic of study was Jesus’ “Parable of the Great Feast,” in Luke 14. In this parable, a man prepares a great banquet, and sends out his servant to summon all of his friends to come. Each of his friends comes up with an excuse of why they can’t attend. So he sends his servant back out to invite all the ailing strangers in off the street, and there turns out to be plenty of food and entertainment to go around. One member of the Bible study, who had been having a rough go of it lately, said, ‘I think a better name for that story is “The Parable of the Rude Friends!”’ He saw that story from an entirely different perspective.

Another example: On the day of the protests regarding the trial outcome over the killing of Oscar Grant, as I was walking into Whole Foods Market in Oakland, I overheard one woman talking to another. She said, “I’m going to avoid the idiocy happening downtown.” I wondered what her perspective was that she would use words describing 1000+ justly angry people assembling to convey that anger as “idiocy?”

One final example: Proposition 19 is going before the voters of California in November, regarding the legalization and taxation of cannabis (marijuana). Those in favor say that by treating cannabis more like alcohol, our cities will be safer, our state will save and earn money, and non-violent people (especially young males of color) will be much more free from police harassment and unnecessary incarceration. Those against the proposition say legalization will cause a big upsurge in use, it will cost the state money, and it stands against current federal law.

“Parable of the Great Feast,” or “Parable of the Rude Friends?”
“Idiocy?” or “An expression of anger?”
“Liberation?” or “Status Quo?”
Perhaps in these cases, both views have merit.
Maybe neither is all that accurate.
Whether it’s a rose, a parable, a protest, or a proposition, there is the thing in and of itself, and then there are the words that describe the thing. The words naturally reflect the perspective of the speaker, and rarely do full justice to the actual thing. A person experiencing only descriptions will necessarily experience something different than the actual thing.


The Mirrors of Conventional Reality


How is this spiritual?
Where does this fit into worship?

The words we use on ourselves, on others, and on our world, help to shape and form the spirit. Likewise, the words that others assign to us can shape our spirits as well, sometimes for the better, but often for worse.
In Mahayana Buddhism, there is an understanding of the world existing in two primary realms. First, there is ultimate reality, which is the underlying nature of all the events and matter in the world. Ultimate reality is the actual events that occur, and the matter that does exist, prior to anybody speaking a word about it, or even thinking upon it.
In contrast, there is conventional reality, which is composed of the stories that we tell. Conventional reality is the books and magazines we write, and the media we produce and consume. Conventional reality has a tendency to feel “consensual” and shared within cultures. Yet each of us has our own conventional reality stored within the frameworks composed in our own minds. The story we each think about the world is not accurate. Often, it’s inconsistent, and it’s impossible for our worldview to be comprehensive.
The two relate like this: Conventional reality is the mirror that we use to try to obtain a view of ultimate reality. When a story is blown out of proportion, that mirror may be curved like a clown mirror, making our midsection look 4 feet long. Or our conventional reality may be a make-up mirror, allowing a close-up view so we can focus really deeply on some aspect of life. The mirror may be really choppy like a wavy lake reflecting the sky on a windy day, so it’s difficult to make sense. And sometimes the mirror is mostly dark, or there is no mirror at all, because there are parts of reality that receive little to no attention.
Ultimate reality is the whole truth. Conventional reality is the story we use to make meaning out of some portion of that truth. Our fourth Unitarian Universalist principle speaks to this: “We, the member congregations of the UUA, affirm and promote a free and responsible search for truth and meaning.” A lot of this world we live in centers around meaning. We see the stories in the news and then a pundit explains what it means. Events happen in the world, or in some sacred text, be it the Bible or a Kurt Vonnegut novel, and we want it to mean something, to make sense.

Breaking our Bodies Free: We live in bodies abundant with stories. When you look in the mirror in the morning, whether you think it’s a bad hair day, or it seems you’re looking extra snappy, that story has a tendency to stick with you all day. Now imagine that the mirror tells you a categorical story about the quality of your sexuality compared to others, the quality of your skin color compared to others, of your gender, of your physical ability, and the quality of your economic location. There are also stories told onto your lifestyle, your culture, and your nationality.


I think most of those stories have about as much meaning as eye color and shoe size. Our first UU principle—the inherent worth and dignity of every person—tells me this. As part of this beautiful creation, we are a part of ultimate reality. Our bodies and our lives exist prior to the words. Whatever these things “body” and “life” are, they exist even before and beyond these words we sum up as “body” and “life.”
Now where does that leave us??? It leaves us with our feet on the ground (another metaphor), and with a lot of power. When we intentionally determine which stories we will allow upon our selves, and which stories we will tell upon others and the world, we gain a great deal of control. We can decide to step out of the story and analyze the story to find out more about the storyteller. We can ask questions about why they’re telling that story, and how close it is to our understanding of ultimate reality. We can ask how well it correlates to our own actual experiences. Then we can confirm, edit, or dispel the stories as they’re told.
During an interview with the UK Guardian in 2002, Richard Gere shared this wisdom: “I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe, and someone said I was a snake, I'd think, no, actually I'm a giraffe.”
Who are we then? Who am I? Who are you? On our spiritual course, we may identify ourselves as one thing or another, or we may find ourselves telling a story such as, “Oh, that’s not me. I just couldn’t do that.” Who is this me? If we are part of a larger community, there is a responsibility to remove our self-imposed limitations and go beyond our self. After all, in addition to all the ways we might describe ourselves, we are also possibility. And we are the breath of our ancestors. And we are dust. We are great visions. We are lovers of life and builders of nations. We are nothing less than beautiful, and we are whole, and perfect in our imperfections.
Please take a moment to pick up your hymnals. Actually, the hymnal you’re holding is not yours. It is a hymnal, technically owned by this community. Yet, even ownership is just another part of the stories we tell. The receipts and titles we hold that say we rightfully own something are part of a story told onto ultimate reality. As with much in this world, we are only stewards of these hymnals during our shared time here on this planet.
I believe it’s critical that as Unitarian Universalists, we tell our stories into that conventional reality, because it provides a dynamic mirror for people that they may not get elsewhere. Tell them about our search for truth and meaning. Tell them about inherent worth and dignity. Each of the principles we promote has a story to tell about the condition of the world, and about our vision for how things ought to be.

Is vs. Ought: This brings me to a very important spiritual point. In addition to telling accurate stories about the way things are, and have been, we also must share our vision of the way they ought to be. By sharing the stories of possibilities, of how this world can and ought to be in community together according to a democratic process, and by including the totality of the Earth’s interconnected web in our decision-making, we affirm a direction, with an energy both positive and inviting. That same energy may even draw people into this fellowship.


This Community: So, when Alice’s caterpillar comes to this congregation, wanting to know more, and asks that tough question, “Who are you?” What can you say to draw them in? Would “We are the UU Fellowship of Los Gatos” suffice? What if we tell them we’re inclusive and welcoming? Does that give them a mirror reflecting our deep meaning? We might tell them that we are transforming ourselves into a band of love and justice bearers, so that we might prophetically influence the direction of the community-at-large. Any of those may bring meaning. Perhaps the deepest thing we can share with them is the inadequacy of words to describe the passion we have for justice based on love and compassion, followed by sharing that deeper part of ourselves that comes before all other words. [long pause].






Amen.


pax hominibus,
agape to all,
joel

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