‘Tis the cup seen, not tasted, that makes the infant moan.
For once let me press firm my lips upon the moment‟s brow,
For once let me distinctly feel I am all happy now,
And bliss shall seal a blessing upon that moment‟s brow.1

Time for All Ages
The subject of our service today is Margaret Fuller, born on this day 200 years ago. As was the case with some other prominent women of her day, including many famous Unitarians and Universalists, Margaret did not have opportunities for formal education like that available to boys and young men. So, as a young girl, she obtained a classical education at home from her father.

Later, however, she was sent to a traditional finishing school, to learn the arts taught to women of the day in preparation for being wives and mothers. This was a difficult time for Margaret, as she was torn between the wishes of her progressive father and a society that did not yet allow women to enter libraries, enroll in colleges, or speak on the lecture circuit.

So, today, I would like to lead you in a brief guided meditation. Close your eyes and imagine that you are in a large gymnasium, standing on the floor in front of a crowd of onlookers…You are a gymnast and before you stands the balance beam…As you mount the beam, your feet grip the four inch plank beneath you…The arena is silent as your arms stretch out to your sides for balance.

Imagine how women like Margaret Fuller felt in the early 19th century…pulled on one side by societal expectations and limitations defining the roles of women…pulled on the other by a well-meaning father who cultivated a love of learning and knowledge…Imagine these forces pulling you one way, then another…your feet cling tightly to the beam while your body makes constant adjustments…The pressure is intense, giving you a taste of the conflict women like Margaret Fuller experienced…outcast in one world, but not fully welcomed in another.

Now, feel within your core, at the pit of your torso, an inner strength…Something that helps you maintain your balance…This force sends tendrils of power through your arms and legs to your feet and hands, helping you to maneuver on the narrow path. As we will learn, Margaret Fuller found her core strength, her unique gift, that helped her to cope and to thrive in life. You, too, can find that gift, or if you have found it already, you can work constantly to hone that gift not only for your own benefit, but for the good of all humanity.

Reflection
Margaret Fuller was born 200 years ago today, on May 23, 1810. Although an educated and intelligent person, many occupations were closed to Margaret and other women of her day. So, at the age of 29, she began holding Conversations at Elizabeth Peabody‟s bookstore in Boston. For four years, Margaret offered two conversation series for women each year on subjects like education, health, and culture that were not typically part of a young woman‟s education.

She also regularly met with transcendentalists of the day, such as her friend Ralph Waldo Emerson. In that same year of 1839, Margaret was asked to serve as the editor of The Dial, a transcendentalist literary quarterly journal. As one of America‟s first literary critics, she began working on a manuscript eventually published in 1844 titled Woman in the Nineteenth Century. The work was the first book-length treatment on the equality of men and women, and spoke frankly on issues including economic and social barriers, prostitution, and homosexuality.

Hired as a journalist on Horace Greeley‟s New York Daily Tribune, Fuller became one of America‟s first foreign correspondents when she sailed to Europe, met famous authors, and wrote about the conditions of the poor and the common worker. In Rome, she met and fell in love with a nobleman named Ossoli who fathered her son Angelino. Both were active in the Italian Revolution, and were eventually forced to flee, sailing for America. In July 1850, their ship struck a sand bar during a storm off the shores of Fire Island, drowning Margaret, Ossoli, and their son. She died at the age of 40 and her manuscript on the history of the Italian Revolution was never recovered.

Sermon – Discerning Our Gifts
Imagine at the moment that you are born, you sit in a large chair at the head of a long table. This table stretches out away from you, so far that you cannot see the end in the dim shadows. Covering the table are wrapped presents of every conceivable shape and size. Some are wrapped in bright cartoonish patterns and colors. Some have elaborate ribbons and bows adorning their sides. Others sit simply in plain shades or foil.

Without lifting or unwrapping them, you can guess the contents of many of the packages. One large, irregular shape is clearly a bicycle. Another box has circular holes, perhaps providing air for a puppy or kitten. A spherical shape is almost certainly a bowling ball. And many have that distinctive shape of a folded shirt, or even worse, a row of socks.

Smaller packages abound as well. Flat and rectangular boxes for ties or scarves, long and thin boxes for bracelets and a few small cubes for earrings and, perhaps, even a ring? But, many of the contents remain mysterious, with no obvious clues to divulge their identities merely based on visual observation.

As you scan the horizon of colors and shapes, you sense that one of these packages somehow differs from all the rest. You perceive, perhaps on an instinctual, irrational level, that one of these presents contains something special and unique. You feel that there is one gift before you that no other person has on their table of life.

You have no idea what this special gift looks like, its shape or size, where it lies on the table, or what other presents surround or even cover it. Perhaps it sits in clear view, apart from other gifts. Or perhaps it lies buried beneath a mountain of other gifts of varying importance. Your special gift may be the first one on the table, right under your nose. Or it may lay far off in the unseeable future. But, somehow, you know that that gift is there, somewhere, in the world of things you will receive in your life.

“Discernment” is a very popular word among those involved in preparing candidates for the Unitarian Universalist ministry. Evaluations rely very little on actual knowledge or accomplishments. Instead, committees charged with admitting aspiring ministers into fellowship place the most emphasis on the growth the person showed during the process of preparing for the ministry, the discernment process.

Sadly, we don‟t place a similar emphasis on discernment in everyone‟s life. Instead, our schools and places of work depend on memorized facts and formulae, rather than the actual course of learning itself to evaluate students and employees. In fact, I might argue that far more important than diplomas and certifications rank the development of the love of learning, the openness to new ways of thinking, and the appreciation of the unique over the mundane.

So, with the help of Margaret Fuller, let us today explore a three-pronged hypothesis: first, we must acknowledge that we have gifts to be discerned; second, that in order to discern these gifts, we must suffer as that is the natural catalyst for identification; and third, we must know that this gift is not ours alone, but belongs to all of humanity.

Margaret Fuller‟s work on women‟s rights and equality helped people understand that the possession of unique gifts was not merely the purview of men. The classical education she developed with her father equipped her to consider life options outside the realm of possibility for most women of her era. After a brief career as a teacher, Margaret realized that education was not her life‟s vocation. Her felicity with language, however – both in conversation and in writing – was her expertise. In her landmark treatise on the status of women, Fuller wrote:

Whether much or little has been done or will be done, whether women will add to the talent of narration, the power of systematizing, whether they will carve marble, as well as draw and paint, is not important. But that it should be acknowledged that they have intellect which needs developing, that they should not be considered complete, is important.
So much is said of women being better educated, that they may become better companions and mothers for men. They should be fit for such companionship. Earth knows no fairer, holier relations than that of a mother. It is one which, rightly understood, must both promote and require the highest attainments. But a being of infinite scope must not be treated with an exclusive view to any one relation.
Give the soul free course, let the organization, both of body and mind, be freely developed, and the being will be fit for any and every relation to which it may be called.2

This last part offers a spectacular wisdom from this otherwise common sense advice. If you find your unique gift and put yourself wholly into it, the result will prepare you to face every challenge of your life. The return on your investment in your gift will
far exceed any specific goals associated with its direct tasks in ways unknowable at the outset.

As we learned during our Time for All Ages, Margaret was deeply conflicted by her father‟s views on women‟s education that varied wildly from the social norms of the day. The conflict handicapped Margaret in her young adult years, leaving her feeling isolated among her friends. Unitarian Universalist religious educator Betsy Hill Williams writes that Margaret Fuller‟s life was “a constant balancing act between being part of the world in which she lived and being her own true self…She loved being a sister, daughter, wife, and mother, but she hated that many women were forced into being those things – even when they didn’t want to be.”

Beyond this conflict of spirit, Fuller also suffered from chronic migraines and insomnia for much of her life. The notion of the centrality of suffering in our lives would have been one of common discussion among Margaret‟s transcendentalist friends. The recent influx of the writings of Asian philosophers and religions would have exposed her circle to Buddhist thought on the subject.
The four Noble Truths of Buddhism center on the knowledge that Life is suffering. The source of suffering is our attachment to transient things, things that lack permanence. The core of Buddhist teaching consists of instruction in how to cease the suffering in one‟s life. In her Memoirs, she indicated an awareness of this philosophy when she wrote:

When disappointed, I do not ask or wish consolation – I wish to know and feel my pain, to investigate its nature and its source; I will not have my thoughts diverted, or my feelings soothed; ‘tis therefore that my young life is so singularly barren of illusions. I know, I feel the time must come when this proud and impatient heart shall be stilled, and turn from the ardors of Search and Action, to lean on something above. But – shall I say it? – the thought of that calmer era is to me a thought of deepest sadness; so remote from my present being is that future existence, which still the mind may conceive.3

Therefore, while no Buddhist herself, Fuller acknowledged the relationship of Life to suffering. Rather than simply ignore pain, she sought out ways to better understand how pain arose in her life. And, rather than avoid pain, she inquired into its revelatory possibilities.

The study of religion, and beyond to the nature of the human spirit, was a subject of deep interest to Margaret Fuller. Throughout her adult years, she identified increasingly with mysticism and that the “real church was the inward life of solitary spiritual illumination, not the building…whose very steeple pointed beyond itself.”4 Again, from her seminal work on women:

Mysticism, which may be defined as the brooding soul of the world, cannot fail of its oracular promise as to Woman. “The mothers,” “The mother of all things,” are expressions of thought which lead the mind towards this side of universal growth…if it be true, as the legend says, that Humanity withers through a fault committed by and a curse laid upon Woman, through her pure child, or influence, shall the new Adam, the redemption, arise. Innocence is to be replaced by virtue, dependence by a willing submission, in the heart of the Virgin-Mother of the new race.

Fuller and the other Transcendentalists saw mysticism as an intuitive quest for spiritual emancipation. Margaret especially saw mysticism as critical to defining the democratic individuality at the heart of this world view for women. And yet, she also possessed a Taoist appreciation for the cosmic implications of mysticism – what would today be a very modern quantum approach to a Universalist theology. Once more from her Memoirs:

I remember how, as a little child, I had stopped myself one day on the stairs and asked, how came I here? How is it that I seem to be this Margaret Fuller? What does it mean? What shall I do about it? I saw how long it must be before the soul can learn to act under these limitations of time and space and human nature; but I saw, also, that it MUST do it – that it must make all this false true – and sow new and immortal plants in the garden of God before it could return again. I saw that there was no self; that selfishness was all folly, and the result of circumstance; that it was only because I thought self real that I suffered; that I had only to live in the idea of the ALL, and all was mine.5

So, our conversation with Margaret Fuller today explored the notion that we must acknowledge that each of us has a unique gift to be discerned; that in order to discern these gifts, we must suffer as that is the natural catalyst for identification; and that we must know that this gift is not ours alone, but belongs to all of humanity. In a sense, we check this gift out of the cosmic library and may use of it throughout our lifetimes. Margaret Fuller‟s gift was her ability to see women as complete souls, deserving of the same rights and privileges of men, and able to contribute equally not only in the home, but in the community and the world. And, her gift included possessing the voice and the hand to speak and write that vision for others to heed. We have Margaret Fuller to thank for an unknown number of women and men influenced by her words.

The tragedy of our modern world is that, perhaps for the first time in human existence, every person has the capacity to discern their truly unique gift, their purpose in life. And yet, greed and ignorance, lingering tribalism, and ever present courage-sapping fear keep us from achieving this marvelous transformation of society. For if every person were free to discern and to act upon their gift, our reliance on systems of ownership and control would shrink into insignificance; our worship of celebrity would dwindle into the quaint purview of nostalgia; and our culture of violence would fade into a pseudo-history of myth and legend whose only remaining purpose would be to frighten small children and provide us with amusing anecdotes.

Have you sought out and identified your unique gift? What forces push and pull you as you walk the balance beam of life? And, once you find your gift, how will you utilize it to better not only your own life, but the lives of those around you?

Closing Words
Let me but gather from the earth one full-grown fragrant flower;
Within my bosom let it bloom through its one blooming hour;
Within my bosom let it die, and to its latest breath
My own shall answer, “Having lived, I shrink not now from death.”6

1 From Memoirs, (cited in The Wit and Wisdom of Margaret Fuller Ossoli, ed. by Laurie James, p. 1)
2 From Woman in the Nineteenth Century, (cited in James, p. 29)
3 From Memoirs, (cited in James, p. 17)
4 Schmidt, Leigh Eric. Restless Souls: The Making of American Spirituality, p. 48.
5 From Memoirs, (cited in James, p. 16)
6 From Memoirs, (cited in James, p. 1)

I took advantage of the wonderful warm weather this week to walk around my new town and explore. Last night, I decided to walk home via the railroad tracks that parallel the Youghiogheny River. The evening quiet was broken only by the sound of the river, swollen from the melting snow, and the occasional car driving over the crossing in the distance.

Then, I heard a whistle far off in the distance. So, I stepped over the tracks and down the sloped, heavy gravel roadbed to a place where I could sit. A minute or so later, I heard the bells of the crossing ahead and saw the incredibly bright lights of the engine approaching. I sat and watched the vague form of the behemoth rush past me in the dark.

Car after car flew by, probably one hundred or more, filled with who knows what going who knows where? What struck me was the massiveness of the creature zooming past and its relatively quiet passing. The well-greased wheels spun noiselessly and one could hardly imagine that thousands of tons were speeding by in the starless evening.

On the one hand, one can hardly help but feel insignificant next to such a marvel that would dwarf a blue whale, or even a herd of elephants. However, the train and thousands like it across the globe was built by us and controlled by us in a complex array of technology and effort.

I returned to the tracks, the sounds of the train now faded, replaced by the gurgling of the water and the occasional scurrying of a nocturnal animal. I breathed in the cool night breeze and looked again at the cloudy sky obscuring the cosmos I knew lie beyond. In spite of our modern accomplishments, nothing yet can replace the calm of strolling, feeling the crunching and shifting of stones beneath one’s feet, and reflecting on just being in that noisy quiet.

There are many famous architects in our denomination’s past. Charles Bulfinch was perhaps the first native born American architect, and whose famous works include many state houses and the U.S. Capitol. Frank Lloyd Wright is perhaps the most famous Unitarian architect of the past century. Some, however, might make a case for Buckminster Fuller, inventor of the geodesic dome and many other futuristic building notions.

A less well-known Unitarian architect was Bernard Maybeck, who was a prominent figure in the Arts and Crafts movement in California in the early 20th century. Charged with overseeing the creation of a master plan for the University of California at Berkeley, Maybeck wrote the following for the competition’s prospectus.

The University is a city that is to be created – A City of Learning – in which there is to be no sordid or inharmonious feature. There are to be no definite limitations of cost, materials or style. All is to be left to the unfettered discretion of the designer. He is asked to record his conception of an ideal home for a university, assuming time and resources to be unlimited. He is to plan for centuries to come. There will doubtless be developments of science in the future that will impose new duties on the University, and require alterations in the detailed arrangement of its buildings, but it is believed to be possible to secure a comprehensive plan in harmony with the universal principles of architectural art.

Bold words; the kinds of words that inspire and make one want to drop everything and become part of something great. Perhaps Maybeck left a less imposing legacy of projects than Bulfinch, Wright, or Fuller. But, then, an architect’s vision, whether built of stone or of words, best reflects his or her true legacy.

Sermon – An Architecture of Hope

Recession, high cholesterol, terrorism, global warming, unemployment, drugs, genocide, poverty, road rage, carcinogens. Our lives abound with threats: threats to our well being; threats to our happiness; threats to our very lives. Like most life forms, we possess certain instinctive reflexes at birth that protect us from harm. But, human society – civilization – cultivates our fear response like a masterfully crafted crop sown in fertile soil. We learn from our earliest days to fear sources of legitimate harm to our bodies and our souls. Elders teach us how to behave to avoid being ostracized – how to blend in. Our media bombard us constantly with warnings about everything from rare medical conditions to what constitutes unacceptable physical appearance and lifestyle choices.

Our ever growing and complex social infrastructure follows a blueprint aimed at guarding us from ourselves and from others, at controlling unwanted urges and fantasies, and at reducing the chance that our choices may cast us too far adrift of established paradigms. That blueprint represents the work of many architects, some working deliberately and others not, toward building an orderly society to manage human community.

We guarantee the progressive growth of our culture with safeguards and laws, checks and balances, and systems of vested interest. We buy insurance to protect our homes, our cars, our possessions, and our lives. We set aside earnings to fund our living costs decades in the future. We invest in corporations, which in turn invest in other corporations, with a goal of accumulating wealth as increasingly measured by electronic ledger entries and quarterly statements.

The events of September 11, 2001 seemed to escalate our architecture of fear in this country. But, I can remember a time when our collective anxiety cut like a honed blade. As a youngster, for instance, I remember that a day hardly passed without seeing a television commercial about the dangers of stray blasting caps to playing children. Thankfully, I just missed the era of students huddling under desks in response to the detonation of an atomic bomb. But, we still grew up in a period when the destruction of the world loomed as more than just a statistically significant probability.

I loved science fiction and horror television shows, from Boris Karloff’s Thriller to Rod Serling’s brilliant and timeless Twilight Zone. The best of these offerings, sadly, lasted only two short seasons. The Outer Limits premiered ominously just two months before President Kennedy’s death. The network deemed the original title of the show, Please Stand By, as too frighteningly similar to Civil Defense messages to broadcast.

You may remember the opening sequence as images of oscilloscope sine waves and a commanding voice informing you “for the next hour, we will control all you see and hear.” When that voice took over the horizontal and the vertical control of my television screen, I sat in rapt attention to see how this week’s bug-eyed monster would wreak havoc on humanity.

Of course, as a seven-year old (who probably had no business watching the show in the first place), I did not comprehend that the “monster” was usually humankind itself, finding some new way to self-destruct, or learn too late that a hubris-induced course of action was horrifically misguided. Like the network executives, I wanted monsters, not morals. The challenge laid in creating a horror of entertainment that somehow surpassed our own endeavors to create terror in real life.

The third episode of the series, titled The Architects of Fear, involved a group of eminent scientists facing the imminent nuclear holocaust. In hopes of staving off an apocalyptic military confrontation between nations, they stage a fake invasion of Earth by an extraterrestrial power in an effort to unite all humanity against a perceived common enemy. To represent the attacking species, the scientists effect biological transformations on one of their own, Dr. Allen Leighton, using genetic material from a rather small and unimposing alien life form already in their possession. The transformed Dr. Leighton is launched into orbit with plans to land his craft in the United Nations plaza.

Of course, in the grand tradition of Greek tragedy and Shakespearean drama, the plan goes awry. The space ship fails to perform as expected, and fearful hunters fatally wound the horrific-appearing Dr. Leighton. The story concludes with the pregnant widow of the sacrificial lamb castigating the other scientists for their thoughtless inhumanity. The show ends with the following control voice narration:

Scarecrows and magic and other fatal fears do not bring people closer together. There is no magic substitute for soft caring and hard work, for self-respect and mutual love. If we can learn this from the mistake these frightened men made, then their mistake will not have been merely grotesque, it would at least have been a lesson. A lesson, at last, to be learned.

I love the juxtaposed phrases here, so let me repeat one sentence. There is no magic substitute for soft caring and hard work, for self-respect and mutual love. This language reminds me of another voice from that era, the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., when he described the beloved community. King envisioned a completely integrated society, a community of love and justice, in which men and women would live in true equality and peace in all aspects of social life.

Who are the architects of fear today, whether malicious or benign, for I believe both exist?

• Our news media, which with the passage last year of icon Walter Cronkite, displays the demise of journalism today. We have dozens of news outlets of marginal quality from which to choose, most owned and controlled by the same corporations with their own agendas as to what constitutes news.
• Our government, which continues to engage in questionable military adventures against alleged enemies whose origins often lie within our own attempts at economic control or geo-political domination.
• Our system of law enforcement, which after the sad arrest and treatment of Henry Louis Gates in Boston last year reminds us that it remains a rich and viable culture for sustaining racial bias and judicial double standards.
• Our overburdened educational system, asked to do more tasks and fulfill more oversight requirements with fewer resources each year.
• Our medical establishment, which produces mammoth profits for the few and inadequate care for many.
• Our organized religions, which preach rigid adherence to ancient views often with divisive and violent results.

And, lest we feel too comfortable among these indictments, we also shoulder some of the responsibility for this design work. For every time we fail to speak up against oppression, or quietly acquiesce to systematic power dynamics, we sign our own names to that blueprint as fellow architects of fear.

Who, then, are the architects of the beloved community? Who will craft our architecture of hope? First, let us look to our history. Nearly five centuries ago, the Protestant Reformation elicited waves of violence among people of differing religious belief. In Poland, one group seeking asylum from the violence created the Minor Reformed Church, later known as the Polish Brethren. A woman named Jadwiga Gnoinska persuaded her husband to obtain the necessary charter to form a new town where religious toleration would be guaranteed. Racovia immediately attracted many people of liberal Christian belief.

Racovia became the center, not only of the Polish Brethren, but of great scholarly activity. A school was established that trained over 1,000 students, and a printing press later produced a constant flow of books and tracts. One seminal publication, the Racovian Catechism, refuted the Christian doctrine of original sin as a founding precept of salvation. Baptism was described as a merely symbolic gesture and not a requirement for either infants or adults. Communion was reduced from its sacramental status to that of a common meal perhaps accompanied by preaching and prayer. And, finally, the Racovian Catechism denied the right of a Church institution to exercise authority over individuals, and that a church exists wherever truths are accepted and expounded.

Unfortunately, religious violence continued in Europe and began in Poland. Fighting between Catholics and Protestants broke out regularly and the Polish Senate eventually ordered the Racovian school and press closed. Residents were given four weeks to leave their homes to exile.
After seven decades, the Racovian experiment ended. But, the legacy lived on in the Catechism and other writings, influencing people from the philosopher John Locke to Thomas Jefferson.

An example of intentional beloved community from the 19th century derived from the work of Universalist and Unitarian minister Adin Ballou. Ballou believed in temperance, abolition, and a form of pacifism called Christian Nonresistance. The signatories of his “Standard of Practical Christianity” announced their withdrawal from “the governments of the world” that used force to maintain order.

Ballou came to believe that Practical Christians were called to make their convictions a reality and should begin to fashion a new civilization. After studying other utopian community plans, Ballou and others began to design their own community. In 1841, they purchased a farm and christened it Hopedale.

Hopedale included a boarding school, where many children came to live and learn, including some escaped slaves. One day, Adin called a student who persistently misbehaved to the front of the room. He told the boy that whipping was the usual punishment in most schools for disobedient students. He got a rod and said to the boy, “I cannot bear to whip you; perhaps it will do more good if you whip me. At any rate, I have concluded to try it.” Adin handed the boy the rod and told him to whip him for as long as it took to make him a good boy. The boy looked at his teacher, and at the rod, and began to cry. He promised he would not disobey again and gave no further trouble after that.[i]

After 15 years, the Hopedale Community ended. Two brothers who owned the majority of the shares withdrew their assets, claiming that the community was not using sound business practices. Lacking these resources, the community collapsed. Ballou later wrote, “Times and generations are coming that will justly estimate me and my work…for them, it has proved, I have lived and labored…to them I bequeath whatever is valuable and worth preserving of my possessions.”

As the beneficiaries of the legacies of Racovia and Hopedale, we owe it to our descendants to keep trying to design a better society. And we start with our congregations. First, we build and sustain sanctuaries where worship occurs in an atmosphere of beauty and caring; sustained by generations; and open to all who enter. Second, we support a free pulpit, whose occupants speak truth to power; speak truth in love; and speak the truth of ageless wisdom. Third, we provide an institution of education, of liberal thought and learning, where people of all ages study and seek meaning together with open minds and open hearts.

In his first Inaugural Address, Franklin Delano Roosevelt said that the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. This sentiment may oversimplify reality. But, fear is a worse enemy than all the objects of our fear. Later in that speech, he added:

Happiness lies not in the mere possession of money; it lies in the joy of achievement, in the thrill of creative effort. The joy and moral stimulation of work no longer must be forgotten in the mad chase of evanescent profits. These dark days will be worth all they cost us if they teach us that our true destiny is not to be ministered unto but to minister to ourselves and to our fellow men.

We have built a strong foundation in the 1,000 Unitarian Universalist congregations across this nation. Here in Smithton, we possess a sound and attractive physical structure, ministerial resources that staff a vibrant pulpit, and and the will to continuously educate ourselves and, in time, once again provide religious education for all ages. Every reason exists that the blueprint for this congregation could serve as a model for others struggling to respond to the economic challenges of the past year and to peoples’ desperate need for community.

But, to do that we as individuals must also emulate our churches, living as sanctuaries of caring and sharing, speaking as prophetic voices of truth, and engaging as lifelong teachers and learners. We can expand our religious selves into a 24/7 enterprise, spreading our beliefs and commitments into all aspects of our lives. We can use every opportunity available to us to become truth seekers and meaning makers in the world. And, we can never stop teaching, learning, and connecting in vital life experience with brothers and sisters everywhere.

This last point may be the most important. The will of society’s fear architects is powerful and their pockets are deep. We can be sure that the forces arrayed against those of us who stand on the side of love come fully armed with humankind’s most devastating arsenal of conflict. But, whatever calamity ensues, we can endure. We can endure the setbacks if we learn the lessons of our mistakes. We can endure any failures if we keep our toolbox filled with the fire of commitment, the warmth of unconditional love, and the torch of liberal theology. We can endure if we never stop imagining the beloved community, and strive to become its architects of hope.

Ours is an ever evolving religion – A Church of Learning and Experience – in which there is no room for sordid or inharmonious features. We should not limit ourselves due to cost, materials, or style. All should be left to the unfettered discretion of our members and their congregations to record a conception of the ideal religious home, assuming time and resources are unlimited. We should plan for centuries to come. There will doubtless be future developments that will impose new duties and require alterations in planned details. But, we will succeed if we never stop imagining that beloved community, and strive to become its architects of hope.

===========
[i] Pearmain, Elisa Davy. “Adin Ballou and the Hopedale Community.” from Faithful Journeys: A Tapestry of Faith Program for Children, field test draft, 2009.
http://www.uua.org/religiouseducation/curricula/tapestryfaith/faithfuljourneys/session12/faithfuljourneys-12-psv.doc

Beat writer Allen Ginsberg once wrote that poetry is “that time of night, lying in bed, thinking what you really think, making the private world public.” The same can be said of worship. Let us bring into this space of light, seated in community, our commitment to be with one another openly in search of deepest worth and meaning.

Reflection Reading
“Song” by Allen Ginsberg

The weight of the world is love.
Under the burden of solitude,
under the burden of dissatisfaction the weight,
the weight we carry is love.

Who can deny? In dreams
it touches the body,
in thought constructs
a miracle, in imagination
anguishes till born in human –
looks out of the heart burning with purity –
for the burden of life is love,
but we carry the weight wearily,
and so must rest
in the arms of love at last,
must rest in the arms of love.

No rest without love,
no sleep without dreams
of love – be mad or chill
obsessed with angels or machines,
the final wish is love –
cannot be bitter, cannot deny,
cannot withhold if denied:

the weight is too heavy – must give
for no return as thought
is given in solitude
in all the excellence of its excess.

The warm bodies shine together
in the darkness, the hand moves
to the center of the flesh,
the skin trembles in happiness
and the soul comes joyful to the eye –

yes, yes, that’s what
I wanted, I always wanted,
I always wanted, to return
to the body where I was born.

San Jose, 1954

Sermon – The Weight of the World

This congregation will soon celebrate the anniversary of its founding 150 years ago in 1860. Entering these doors, one might feel daunted by the rich history those years represent, the hundreds of souls who essences occupied this space, and the energy of heart and mind expended within these walls. The first time I entered this building, I immediately sensed the Universalist roots of this congregation. From the architecture of the structure to the warmth and friendliness of our members, I felt the sense of love, hope, and openness central to our Universalist core. Also, one can hardly help but notice the impressive proclamation on our wall that “God is Love.”

That phrase derives from the fourth chapter of the First Epistle of John the Apostle, which calls on us to “love one another, because… God is love.” The letter’s author explains that God’s love was revealed by sending his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. “Since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us… God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.”

Since the merger of the Unitarian and Universalist churches in 1961, congregations have wrestled with how we carry on the heritage of the founders of our distinct religious denominations within our new Association. In modern times, I can imagine people attending services here pondering these words and wondering, “What exactly do we mean in 2010 when we proclaim that ‘God is Love’ from a Unitarian Universalist pulpit housed in a religious community founded in Universalist traditions?” Do the words of an apostle nearly two millennia ago have meaning for us today?

The founders of this congregation likely agreed that “God” was the god of the Christian texts, the Father of Jesus, whose life and deeds brought the Word to the world. Today, however, “God” can mean many things for many people. And since our adult members were often raised in other religious backgrounds, we should consider the various definitions of this term for current and potential congregants.

For some, God may still represent some version of the Christian God. And, within this broad category lies a wide range of Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, and other representations of God. For others, God may be Yahweh, who made the covenant with Abraham and imbued Moses with the power to part the waters. Some people may view God as Allah, who spoke through his messenger Muhammad, Ever Forgiving, Ever Providing, the Lord and Cherisher of the Worlds.

Like many Deist founders of this nation, one may consider God the instigator of the universe, the Creator, but not a being involved in the intimate details of human history or in our daily lives. Another, like the Hindu, may consider God the ultimate seed of soul stuff from which we ourselves emerge and to which we will someday return. Still others view God as actively manifest in Nature, either here in the elemental components of our Earth, or perhaps beyond to the nuclear core of suns and the endless vacuum of space.

Then, there are those for whom the term God lacks practical meaning – the atheist who disbelieves God’s existence; the agnostic who lives life accepting that adequate knowledge of God may never arrive; or the nonbeliever who sees participation in a religious community and a theistic theology as mutually inclusive. For these tens of millions in this country alone, we need to be aware that this term may present a barrier to communication and mutual understanding.

I count myself among this latter group. As a child raised Christian, I accepted the Nazarene into my heart. As a teen, however, I grew disillusioned with a distant father God who allowed misery, hate, and violence to run rampant in our world family. As an adult, I rejected all notions of God as outdated, outmoded human concepts created to institutionalize oppression and localize power into the hands of the few.

Many years passed before I moved beyond the anger and hurt I felt when confronted with the term “God.” So, I understand how some people might feel entering our worship space. I know that tension in one’s vulnerable core longing to join with others in the search for truth and meaning. I have experienced that erection of mental barriers in the mind to unwanted messages. I have been that outsider, the Other, unwilling to bend his will to that of the prevailing dogma surrounding him. I know the pain of rejection, of betrayal, even when unintended, by caring people of faith.

Sadly, language does often hinder communication and understanding. “Love” is a term with many meanings and often misconstrued in its various contexts. When I say “I love you” from this pulpit, the assumed meaning differs significantly than speaking those same words at a gathering of friends and family, during the toil of shared labor, or over a candle lit dinner. And, when we proclaim that “God is Love,” one can well imagine these and many more meanings found within the infinity of human circumstance and emotion.

In his 1960 book, The Four Loves, C.S. Lewis discussed the ancient Greek terms defining types of love. For instance, affection or storge, describes fondness, such as that shared between family members or people who have become familiar with each other. Friendship describes the bond between people who share a common interest or activity. The Greek word, philia, is the root of the name Philadelphia, the City of Brotherly Love.

Eros, the root of our modern word “erotic,” means romantic love, passionate love, with sensual desire and longing. Eros, however, does not have to be sexual in nature. Eros can represent a love for someone for whom you feel more than the love of friendship. Plato added an appreciation of the beauty within that person as eros.

Lastly, charity or agapē often referred to a general affection rather than the attraction suggested by eros. Lewis saw agapē as the greatest of loves, a specifically Christian virtue. His chapter on agapē focused on the need to subordinate the other forms of love to the love of God, who is full of charitable love. Lewis compared love with a garden, charity with the gardening utensils, the lover as the gardener, and God as the elements of nature.

I suspect that long before Lewis’ analysis, our Universalist forebears embraced this interpretation of agapē. For them, “God is Love” emphasized ultimate love felt for the source of love itself. Universalists long plowed the fields of justice, planting the seeds to improve the human condition, cultivating the rights of the oppressed, and harvesting the brotherhood and sisterhood of humankind in common purpose.

So, in my garden, I welcome any definition of God, especially from those who resist the concept entirely. I cultivate the notion that “God” merely represents a term we use as a shortcut to encompass all of the magnificent mysteries of life that bring us together and through which we may experience moments of joy, of insight, and of peace. And, my intentional use of the term allows me to walk hand-in-hand not only with my own faith family, but with those of other religious traditions to effect meaningful change in the world.

Standing on the Side of Love is a public advocacy campaign recently created by the Unitarian Universalist Association that harkens back to this attitude and commitment to agapē. As the campaign materials explain, we live in a time of great hope and possibility, yet our communities are threatened by the increased prevalence of acts motivated by fear and hate. No one should be dehumanized through acts of exclusion, oppression, or violence because of their identities. In public debates over issues such as immigration and the rights of gays/lesbians, bisexuals and transgendered persons, religious people must stand on the side of love and call for respect, inclusion, and compassion.

Now, what does that mean for us, as individuals, or collectively as a congregation? Let us return to our previous discussion, because we still have one more word to analyze. Is. God is love. We do not proclaim merely that God was love. That is, our emphasis lies not solely in the doctrinal assertion that God was made manifest in the body of a first century Jew named Jesus and through whom salvation lies. We do not only proclaim that God will be love. Universalism historically distinguished itself from other Protestant faiths by affirming a belief that a loving God would not condemn us to eternal torment in hell and that all men and women will someday return to a blessed reunion with God in the afterlife. But, in the 21st century, our emphasis lies not simply in the future promise of heaven.

No, our Universalist forebears as well as our colleagues today proclaim that God is love – in the here and now. We may debate over the words of various prophets, or the interpretation of archaeological findings. We may engage in theological discourse over the nature of existence after the death of our mortal bodies. But, by Standing on the Side of Love, our congregations are asked to commit to increased community activism, to exploring new tools of social networking, and to enhancing the amount and quality of our outreach to the media. We commit to equipping ourselves to counter fear and to make love – the charitable love of God – real in the world.

So, as your minister, I am committing to stand on the side of love here in Smithton and in the surrounding communities. I will explore with you your current commitments to social justice and ways that we might expand our impact for change. A redesigned congregational web page and new Facebook group, which I hope you will all visit and offer feedback on, enhances our presence on the internet, reaching out to new generations through their tools of interaction and learning. And I hope to work with you to deliver our liberal religious message to a broader population seeking solace from the stress and strife of the world.

This work is the imperative of our 21st century congregation, for the weight of the world is love. Too many souls struggle, crushed under the burden of solitude, under the burden of dissatisfaction. The weight, the weight we carry is love.

We dream of a just future, construct in our minds a miracle of fairness and equality, which lies anguishing in our imagination until made real by the work of our hands. The burden of our lives, burning with purity in our hearts, is love.

And, as we strive every day to achieve our goals, we must occasionally rest. We rest in the arms of love, of the philia we share in this religious community. For, though we may disagree on the nature of the universe or on the existence of or appearance of any higher powers, we cannot deny that the final wish is love.

This weight is too heavy to bear alone. For all the excellence of dedication and commitment, of ideas and emotions, salvation is not attained in solitude. Here, in this place, our bodies can come together, shining in happiness. Taking a stand for love, proclaiming that God is Love, our souls will come joyful to all eyes.

For most of my life, had you called me a communist, postmodernist, or an anarchist, my reaction would have been derogatory (and probably rude). But, the other night I was talking with a colleague during the annual Convocation here at Meadville Lombard Theological School – doing my usual pontificating about the state of Unitarian Universalist ministry and the world – and she told me that I was a postmodern anarchist. To my surprise, I took the attribution not only kindly, but with some measure of prideful acceptance.

Some of my transformation has resulted simply from living for 52 years and observing mountains of evidence for the seemingly infinite capacity of the human animal to create absurdity. Part of my journey occurred while writing religious education curricula and wrestling with “isms” from deconstruction to existentialism to nihilism. The most recent chapter arose during the dialogue my son and I have had during the past year on intentional communities, as I have outlined in previous blog posts.

But, while I have toyed with anarchist writings and thinking, I have never regarded myself as an anarchist. But, that night we heard a presentation from David Bumbaugh, a venerable icon of Unitarian Universalist ministry on The Marketing of Liberal Religion. During his talk, he uttered a sentence that spoke to me, not so much in the context of his talk, but in my growing sense that I live at the fringes of my religious home. David said, “I have felt like an orphan who has
been taken in by a kindly family, but who never has mastered the skills necessary to be fully a part of that family.” As a humanist, a religious atheist, and yes, as a budding anarchist, I too have felt at times like an orphan in my kindly Unitarian Universalist family.

Why have I felt this way? Largely, I feel this disconnection because I grow increasingly impatient with the direction society and human life on our planet is going. I am growing less and less convinced that slow, methodical change will ever bring us to a global beloved community. And, I am becoming more convinced that the time is ripe for revolution – not the bloody overthrow of the dominant paradigms, but a peaceful rebellion of souls seeking a better way.

So, I started with that modern arbiter of all truth…Wikipedia. There I found that Anarchist Communists “propose that the freest form of social organisation would be a society composed of self-governing communes with collective use of the means of production, organized by direct democracy, and related to other communes through federation.” I was pleased to see Anarchist Communism affiliated with communitarian thinking, having been fond of Amatai Etzioni’s work for many years.

I find some comfort in the ability to use the term anarchist without affiliating it with mad bearded bombers intent on the overthrow of government. While I do have a beard, and my choice of explosive is words, my goal is to make the case for a better way of living and the form of government necessary to promote such a community. So, there it is. I am an Anarcho-Communist – I hope perhaps a kinder, gentler version that in years past. Viva la revolucion!

As a seminarian, I of course have no life. Between classes, student ministry that feeds my spirit, my job that feeds my body, and various interviews and requirements, I don’t get out to the movies often. But, since I am a huge Lost fan, and a lifelong addict of horror/monster movies, I had to go see J.J. Abrams new movie, Cloverfield. If you have not read any reviews yet, DON’T. Just go see the movie without any knowledge of what it is supposed to be about. If you have already read reviews, then try forget what everyone has said (I know that’s like telling you to ignore the elephant in the middle of the room) and go see it.

Cloverfield is not a great movie. But, I think it is an interesting movie with real potential for teaching moments and coffee shop discussion. And, I believe that the film has Unitarian Universalist implications worthy of consideration.

First, let me respond to some of the criticisms being leveled at the film. (spoiler alert! From here on, I will assume that you have seen the movie and will discuss relevant details.)

The characters are two-dimensional/stereotyped — At the beginning, the 20-somethings are presented as urban yuppies in standard stereotypes. But, after everything explodes, much happens against type. The “ice-queen” sacrifices herself to save someone whose advances she has been rejecting. The “dork” sacrifices himself to film for posterity the extraordinary events. The main character’s epiphany, while seemingly sudden, is very real. Nothing really matters in life except true love.

The jarring film quality is annoying and unrealistic — On the contrary, I thought the film looked exactly like a film would look shot under those conditions, taping over a previously taped set of events. If you have ever used a hand-held video camera, you will recognize its reality.

The story is nonexistent — But, that is the point. There is not supposed to be a “story.” This film is one tiny snippet of chaos in a world gone mad. There are no scientists or generals coming to save the day here. Will Smith or Bruce Willis does not dramatically defy the odds. Like most of our lives, when stuff happens, we don’t really understand why. These are real people in an incredible situation. They have no super powers or specific expertise to help them.

The movie is insanely short — You got me there. At barely 70 minutes without the credits, this hardly qualifies as a television episode. Still, it will have zero impact on the small screen.

So why did I like the film? I liked Cloverfield because it provides us some useful opportunities for discussion. For instance:

• If you thought you only had hours to live, what would you try to do at all costs?
• For what cause or action would you be willing to risk your safety, even your life?
• How do you define yourself? Is it job or possessions, or is it the quality of your relationships and who you are as a person?
• In a crisis, are you a leader or a follower? What drives you toward either?
• As Unitarian Universalists, how would you assess the actions of the characters? Can you imagine any of them being UU?

I loved the fact that you never know anything about the events of the film beyond the first person experience of the main characters. The film meticulously refuses to sate our curiosity about where the monsters came from, why they are attacking the city, or what happens afterwards. I think the movie successfully avoids all of the typically cloying plot devices we have grown so used to in most popular films today.

Part of the problem, I believe, is that we tend to over-analyze movies. Analysis is not a bad thing, but can limit us if we start from a set of assumptions which do not fit the particular film. For instance, many people hated the 28 Days films because everyone knows that zombies can’t run – George Romero taught us that. Who says? Why does a filmmaker have to explain anything to me? Why can’t people act irrationally (they certainly do in real life!)

So, I say, give Cloverfield a chance. And, especially, try to avoid the standard “Oscar” questions and get to the more visceral meanings of the film.

Our schools abound with amazing people and success stories. But, the general decline of education in America continues in spite of the dedicated efforts of talented people. Thousands of research projects in recent decades have produced no universal answers to the problem, and massive bureaucracy limits the scope of our interventions to mere incrementalism.

Before identifying the causes of the problem and possible solutions, we must recongize that schools as we know them today are a very new invention of human society. And yet, there are those who want you to believe that the institution is sacrosanct; that the current structure exists for good reasons. The fact is that the American educational system remains the biggest social experiment in human history, but that this juggernaut has no captain or navigator.

I believe that the problems of the American educational system are many, but are mostly rooted in these issues:

• Lack of equitable funding — How can we ever hope to overcome classism, racism, poverty, and other societal ills when some schools get $20,000/year to spend per student and others get $2,000/year per student?
• A time structure that is out of sync with society — At a time when most couples must both work to survive financially, it is madness to send children to empty homes in mid-afternoon and for one-quarter of the year.
• Lack of student focus — Our curriculum is far too rigid to allow teachers the freedom to facilitate student-centered learning and the encouragement of unique talents.
• Isolation — Our schools have become the easy repository of too many community problems without the benefit of community support and interaction.

None of this is news to anyone familiar with our educational system. However, if we start with the assumption that every element of the school paradigm is negotiable, where would we start? For instance, imagine:

• a daily school schedule with hours of time for recreation, socialization, and open exploration;
• a curriculum based not on grade levels and standardized test scores, but on each student’s individual capabilities and talents;
• full integration with family and community life so that school is more about learning and less about indoctrination and discipline; and
• a goal of producing independent thinkers, free spirits, happy and creative young adults, who leave school knowing what they want to do with their lives.

In an intentional community, a new paradigm of school is not only possible, but essential. The organization of work must provide parents more time to integrate family and school. We must re-examine the concept of “adolescence” through a postmodern lens to determine the real purposes of formal education in society. Every child must feel safe, healthy, loved, and wanted not just in the schools, but everywhere in the community. Children can develop a sense of worth if they see a point to school and are encouraged to develop their talents to their full potential. Education can succeed if goals come from a community-based core, not a corporate core.

Sitting here trying to work, and all I can think about is Lost returning to TV tonight (woo , hoo!) Now, I watch my share of television programming, but have found myself uninterested in the recent hit shows. Reality television bores me and I can’t bear to watch these cruel competition series. And frankly, after 50 years, there just are not too many new ideas out there.

But, looking back over my life, there have always been one of two shows that I never missed. I don’t mean shows like Law and Order, which I have eventually caught in re-runs, but shows for which everything else in life stopped. In a world of TIVO and On-Demand viewing, I think people are missing out on the expectation and planning involved.

So, here is my life defined by shows I never missed (at least until they ran their creative course – I can’t watch the death throes of past favorites).

• Lost
• West Wing
• ER
• N.Y.P.D. Blue
• Beauty and the Beast
• L.A. Law
• Hill Street Blues
• Dallas
• M*A*S*H
• Hawaii Five-O
• All in the Family
• Rowan and Martin’s Laugh In
• Star Trek
• The Addams Family
• Outer Limits
• Twilight Zone

I imagine that there is a psychology/self help book in here somewhere — you know, some kind of typology like Myers Briggs. I would be an RFCJ, a Realistic Fantasist with a sense of Comedic Justice.

Of course, I’m sure others might look at my list and think, “no wonder he is so strange – look at what he watched growing up!” It is bizarre that Unitarian Rod Serling had such an impact on me as a child, since I did not discover Unitarian Universalism until long after his death. And, Gene Roddenberry had far more to do with my theological formation than any minister.

So, what does the list of your life look like?

Everywhere we go, people ask about us and thank us for taking the time away from our families to help out their city. I think that New Orleanians will one day excel in helping others in need, since they so well understand the value of the services given through the kindness of others. Interestingly, I heard the other day that the First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans collected funds recently and sent them to our church in Findlay, Ohio, which suffered huge losses from a flood recently. So, maybe all of this giving and caring is not only contagious, but comes back when you least expect it.

No, not the snack crackers. Combos as in combinations. Combos are a recurring theme in my life. I firmly believe that everyone possesses talents and that few of us ever really get the chance to hone those talents to their maximum potential. It took many years, but I eventually realized that I had a talent for combining ideas in unique ways. I always had a gift for making connections or recognizing similar threads in different concepts.

Also, I have always had a fondness for those old-fashioned stores that provided two wildly different products or services. Like hardware stores with post offices in them. Or those gas stations down south that serve fantastic ribs in the back. That’s why my blog depicts two major themes.

Of course, the key to a successful combo is that the product of the combination must exceed the sum of the separate components. Whether my muse kennel and pizzatorium will succeed as a combo remains to be seen. If you are reading this, then it has already succeeded on a very basic level. It piqued your curiosity. Now that I have your attention, I hope that my combo will plant seeds of ideas and nurture them into maturity.