I have been thinking a lot about this topic in recent weeks, primarily because of recent isolated events of violence or potential violence by children in our society. The question in my mind has been, “What do these acts of violence indicate?” I also know that every generation has its own issues of concern about its youth. In my day, youth gangs and Beatniks were the symbols of youth alienation. The hip gyrations of Elvis stunned and outraged parents. You will remember that the Ed Sullivan show refused to televise Elvis’s below-the-waist gyrations when Elvis first appeared on television. So what do we make of the incidents of violence and the rising high school dropout rate of our nation’s children today? I don’t mean to be an alarmist about the state of affairs among our youth, but neither do I want to be in denial.

The first alarming incident I speak of happened two weeks ago and involved a group of eleven children, ages 8 to 10 who apparently were mad at their teacher because she had scolded one of them for standing on a chair. These third graders had made detailed plans to knock the teacher unconscious, bind her with handcuffs, and then murder her with a knife. Of course, no one knows if the students actually understood the seriousness of their intent. Regardless the incident was very disturbing. I would love to read a study of the family backgrounds of each of these children.

The week following this incident, a video appeared on YouTube and MYSpace showing the beating a 16-year-old girl received from several of her peers, all girls, who were angry that the victim has posted “trash talk” about them on her MySpace page. The girl was beaten unconscious and when she awoke, she was beaten even more. She suffered severe injuries. The beating was described by the County Sheriff as animalistic and of a pack mentality. Do these incidents represent a general state of poor impulse control among a youth? I believe these are isolated extreme events. But do they tell us anything we should know about today’s children?

In addition to these stories, two op-ed opinion essays appeared in the New York Times decrying the erosion of America’s educational foundations. Bob Herbert (Clueless in America) informs us that an American kid drops out of high school every 26 seconds. That’s more than a million every year. [1]

There was an equally troubling op-ed essay (A Nation At a Loss) the same week, on the 25th anniversary of a national report in 1983 entitled “A Nation At Risk,” which warned of the deteriorating educational system in our country. According to the op ed essay, not only has our educational system not improved, it has gotten worse. One third of our children do not receive even the minimal education required to be functioning citizens and workers in a global community. [2]

Now add to this list a report in 2003, from the Commission on Children At Risk, a panel of prominent neuroscientists, pediatricians and social scientists who believe that our present generation’s crisis is two fold: We are witnessing high and rising rates of depression, anxiety, attention deficit, conduct disorders, suicidal ideation and other serious emotional problems among U.S. children.

The report goes on to say that while we are using medications and psychotherapies, these are helpful but are not enough. Why? Because they do not address the broad environmental conditions that are contributing to growing numbers of suffering children.

Then the report gives us this insight: “In large measure, what’s causing this crisis in American childhood is a lack of connectedness. Their major thesis is that all humans are hard-wired from birth, to connect. When that connection is disrupted or unnurtured, then social alienation can often result. [3]

(also see:http://www.josh.org/download/HARDWIRED_TO_CONNECT.pdf)

Two kinds of connectedness are identified: close connections to other people and deep connections to moral and spiritual meaning. As a result, this group of scientists and experts on children’s health recommends that our society pay considerably more attention to young people’s moral, spiritual, and religious needs. They in fact argue for the importance of a new social science concept: authoritative communities.

I found this concept very interesting. The panel asserts that authoritative communities have gotten weaker in recent decades, partly due to the increase in divorce and single parent homes, the decline of social institutions, including the church, the breakdown of extended families and the overwhelming influence of popular culture perpetuated by the media. They insist that “authoritative communities, including positive religious involvement, appear to increase social connectedness.”

What are the characteristics of an authoritative community? 1) It is warm and nurturing. Children typically learn to be what they admire. 2) It establishes clear limits and expectations. Close relationships matter, but so do clear rules and expectations. Children need adults to set clear standards and a clear vision of the goals they are to achieve and the people they are to become. 3) It is multi-generational. Children benefit enormously from being around caring people in all stages of the life cycle. 4) It reflects and transmits a shared understanding of what it means to be a good person. The psychologist Jerome Kagan of Harvard University says: “After hunger, a human’s most important need is to know what’s virtuous.

With that bit of hard news, let me now present you with three stories about three children, all of whom are in trouble. One is middle-class, one is working-borderline poverty-class, one is upper class.

I read this story recently in a religious periodical I subscribe to where a minister writes about a horrifying story about his young adult son. It seems that the son is addicted to video games. He’s in his early twenties, and for a couple of years, he had spent all of his time in a virtual world, with virtual people, trying to accomplish virtual feats of honor and glory. He had become grossly obese, and his health was in danger. His parents told him that he could return home on two conditions: (1) that he would look for a job; and (2) that he would give up his computer. For months, he refused—he just could not give up his computer or his games. Now, he’s finally back at home again, and in recovery.

Story number two— these are the words of a twelve-year-old African American girl who had been bused to a previously all-white Boston School,

“I guess I’m doin’ all right… A lot of time, though, I wish I could walk out of that school and find myself a place where there are no whites, no black folk, no people of any kind! I mean, a place where I’d be able to sit still and get my head together; a place where I could walk and walk, and I’d be walking on grass, not cement with glass and garbage around; a place where there’d be the sky and the sun, and then the moon and all those stars. At night, sometimes, when I get to feeling real low, I’ll climb up the stairs to our roof, and I’ll look at the sky, and I’ll say, hello there, you moon and all your babies—stars, I mean! I’m being silly, I know, but up there, I feel I can stop and think about what’s happening to me—it’s the only place I can, the only place.”

A side note: One of every 5 children lives in poverty. For such families, a joyful, satisfying life is a fantasy, a dream. Economic inequity is at the root of so much of our national suffering, and so much of the suffering of our children. You cannot separate the anguish of children from the poverty and suffering of their parents.

And our third story— this one is a composite of children I have read about in the N.Y. Times. They are nine-year-olds who have decorators come into their home to discuss the décor of their bedroom. They are first-graders who have birthday parties that cost $25,000. They are middle-school girls who have their own hairdressers, and they insist on having their hair colored and streaked, as mother does.

These children are all deprived, in one way or another. All three are living in a culture whose values are corrupt. The first is connected not to people, but to a machine, his computer; the second is living in a world of concrete and steel and trash and garbage, and the third is being taught a terrible lie: that happiness comes through things and more things, rather than a giving of one’s self. Not one of these children is connected to the natural world, and not one understands the rhythms of nature or their relationship to the earth. And they are all suffering from the economic disparity in this country. Even the wealthy child? Yes, because indulging a child is just as bad as depriving a child, in terms of character development and sense of self.

It stands to reason, does it not, that we must find ways of preparing and equipping our kids for life in a culture that has a profoundly distorted sense of priorities. What does it mean to support children in a culture like ours? What can we do as parents? What can we do as a religious community that loves its children and wants the very best for them?

We do know this: every child, whether space cadet or chatterbox, whether introvert of social butterfly, needs connections, a village. The villages that nurture children in America are almost all gone. We have to create new ones.

A village is what we can create as a congregation. We must be the village for all our children.

As some of you know, when I was a child, I attended my Southern Baptist Sunday School every Sunday. I was one of those who seldom if ever missed a Sunday. As a result, the neighbors, friends, family, and church members praised my dedication. But there were two things about that early experience that stand out for me now: It was a good thing that I was made to attend SS and it was good thing that the community supported that notion and expressed its admiration of my commitment. Furthermore, in spite of the dogmatic aspects of Southern Baptist fundamentalism, I learned about some very important values: I learned about love and compassion, sin and forgiveness, justice and mercy and I learned something about my Self—that I have a purpose for being here and that the goal of my life is to fulfill that purpose. I believed I had a “calling.” I came to believe that life calls us to itself in some special way, not special in the sense that I am better than anyone else, but special in the sense of meaning and purpose. That early experience helped me discover my gifts.

Would I have learned about those values anywhere else? Well, probably, but who knows? In school? Perhaps. But for me, my Sunday School experience provided important connections. It gave form and sustenance to values through connections with people of all ages and through stories—stories of ancient biblical characters, stories of prophets and of course the story of Jesus. One of my earliest memories is my mother reading those stories to me as I sat on her lap. They had a powerful impact on me.

Fortunately and ironically as I grew older–I began to use those very values—love and forgiveness and justice—as I had come to understand them through the stories I had heard, to question the very dogma I had been told to believe, and not only that, to question the cultural biases against African-Americans or anyone considered as different or as “the other.” I came to believe that what really matters is that we should be humane, work for the common good, help those who are victims of poverty and oppression.

Do you know what humane means: It means “characterized by kindness, mercy and compassion.” That’s what really counts in a life, not some dogma about some god or great prophet. God, whatever you perceive her to be, or any prophet, whatever his agenda for justice, is not worth their salt, unless they help us live more humane lives.

What do kids need in their lives? I think they need three things: (1) to feel safe, (2) to feel loved, and (3) to feel hope. Children get these qualities from positive contact with stable, loving adults within families and “authoritative communities.”

So how do children grow up feeling safe and secure? There are some basics. They need to have enough to eat, and that food needs to be healthful. Children need a structured home environment, with parents who have the time and energy to nurture them. They need to be kept away from the excesses of the popular culture—the destructive video games, the constant noise and advertisements and violence of the TV, the electronic gadgets that are such a poor substitute for human warmth, guidance, and companionship.

And then, speaking of hope, the big question that our children and grandchildren and their children will be asking is: are we going to have a viable earth? Right now, we need to begin answering that question hopefully.

If a child needs to feel safe, feel loved and to have hope where else will he or she have those needs met except through the adults in their lives—you and me? How else will they grow and discover and learn the greater meanings of being, if not through us? What better way is there than through our own religious community? This is our great challenge. Indeed it is our calling—to repair the world and teach our children the meanings of being.

In many parts of our nation, our children and youth are at risk. They need us. They need more than just good parents. They need a real community, a loving and caring village. They need a place to develop their spirits, to learn how to serve others, to learn to go deep within themselves, and discover their gifts.

The good news is that we can do this. We are doing a lot of it already. Sonya Lewis and Shahan Islam are doing some wonderful work with our youth. We need to do more. I have been talking recently about creating a “family life ministry program.” So let us rededicate ourselves to being the religious home, the religious village, our children and their families need—not a religion of fanaticism and creeds, but a religion of hope, justice, connection and depth. Together, let us create such a place for all our children. Then let us spread the word, tell other families, straight and gay, black and white, red, or yellow, about our religious village and invite them by the scores to join us.

Let me share with you something from the Masai tradition. The Masai are among the most accomplished tribes of Africa, their people deeply intelligent, their warriors fearsome. It is telling that the traditional greeting passed between Masai warriors is “kasserian ingera,” which means “and how are the children?” This greeting acknowledges the high value that the Masai always place on their children’s well-being. Even warriors with no children of their own always give the traditional answer: “All the children are well,” meaning of course that peace and safety prevail. The young and powerless are being protected. Masai society has not forgotten its reason for being.

I wonder how it might affect our consciousness if in our culture we took to greeting each other with this same question: “And how are the children?” I wonder if we heard that question and passed it along a dozen times a day, if perhaps we would begin to change in how we care for our children. What would it be like if President Bush began every press conference by answering the question, “And how are the children, Mr. President?” What if every governor, every legislator of every state, had to answer the same question with every public appearance? “How are the children?” What would happen if every adult, parent and non-parent alike, felt responsible for our children. I do not mean just our own birth children; I mean all the children; knowing that all the children are our children. I wonder if then we could truly say without any hesitation, “The children are well, yes, all the children are well.” And then, if the children were well, all would be well in our land. So be it. Amen.

David Diamond will be our guest speaker. David is a Special Education Supervisor for the Lakeland Central School District and the advisor for the Lakeland and Walter Panas High School Gay-Straight Alliances, as well as the technical director for the theater program. He is also the co-chair of the Hudson Valley Chapter of GLSEN, the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network, a national education organization working to ensure safe schools for ALL students, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. Further, he is a volunteer at Center Lane, Westchester’s only community center for LGBTQ youth and their allies. His full bio will be printed in the bulletin on April 27th.

And today, the message about the personal responsibility we all share to “think globally and act locally” as environmental stewards of planet Earth has never been more timely or important. Michael Pollan writes in today’s New York Times Magazine: “Climate change is upon us and it has arrived well ahed of schedule.” [1]

As Vaclav Havel has written: “Over the past few years the questions have been asked ever more forcefully whether global climate changes occur in natural cycles or not, to what degree we humans contribute to them, what threats stem from them and what can be done to prevent them. Scientific studies demonstrate that any changes in temperature and energy cycles on a planetary scale could mean danger for all people on all continents.”[2]

It is also obvious from published research that human activity is a cause of change; we may not know just how big its contribution is. But is it necessary to know that to the last percentage point? By waiting for incontrovertible precision aren’t we simply wasting time when we could be taking measures that are relatively painless compared to those we would have to adopt after further delays?

Maybe we should start considering our sojourn on earth as a loan. In the words of an old Kenyan proverb, “Treat the earth well. . . it was not given to you by your parents. It was loaned to you by your children.”

There can be no doubt that for the past hundred years at least, Europe and the United Sates have been running up a debt, and now other parts of the world are following their example, China and India being the most obvious. Nature is issuing warnings, that we must not only stop the debt from growing but start to pay it back. There is little point in asking where we have borrowed too much or what would happen if we postponed the repayment.

The effects of possible climate changes are hard to estimate. Our planet has never been in a state of balance from which it could deviate through human or other influence and then, in time, return to its original state. The climate is not like a pendulum that will return to its original position after a certain period. It has evolved turbulently over billions of years into a gigantic complex of networks, and of networks within networks, where everything is interlinked in diverse ways.

Its structures will never return to precisely the same state they were in 50 or 5,000 years ago. They will only change into a new state, which, so long as the change is slight, need not mean any threat to life.

Larger changes, however, could have unforeseeable effects within the global ecosystem. In that case, we would have to ask ourselves whether human life would be possible. Because so much uncertainty still reigns, a great deal of humility and circumspection is called for. The sage of ancient China Lao Tzu gives us spiritual and ethical direction in this work: “Nature sustains itself through three precious principles, which one does well to embrace and follow. These are gentleness, frugality and humility.” These are not popular virtues in our time. As we continue to mine the lands, decimate our forests and pollute our air and water, we are obviously harder on the earth than we are gentle.

And we are not encouraged to be frugal when we are bombarded day after tiresome day with messages urging us to buy - why wait? Enjoy the good life - the consumer life - now. I agree with whoever said, “Shopping is a form of mental illness.” We are victims of an attitude of endless expectations, somehow believing each of us is going to have more of everything. We are infected with instant gratification. We consume with reckless abandon, acting as if we were the last generation to inhabit the earth.

The third principle, humility, is a virtue sparsely distributed in the human race. American destiny was to conquer the wilderness. There is precious little wilderness now, but we are still in a conquering mood, denying the hard reality that all of us are totally dependent on nature and its resources.

But here’s my point: We can’t endlessly fool ourselves that nothing is wrong and that we can go on cheerfully pursuing our wasteful lifestyles, ignoring the climate threats and postponing a solution. Maybe there will be no major catastrophe in the coming years or decades. Who knows? But that doesn’t relieve us of responsibility toward future generations.

Whenever I reflect on the problems of today’s world, whether they concern the economy, society, culture, security, ecology or civilization in general, I always end up confronting the moral question: what action is responsible or acceptable? The moral order, our conscience and human rights—these are the most important issues at the beginning of the third millennium.

We must return again and again to the roots of human existence and consider our prospects in centuries to come. We must analyze everything open-mindedly, soberly, unideologically and unobsessively, and project our knowledge e into practice policies. Maybe it is no longer a matter of simply promoting energy-saving technologies, but chiefly of introducing ecologically clean technologies, of diversifying resources and of not relying on just one invention as a panacea.

I’m skeptical that a problem as complex as climate change can be solved by any single branch of science. Technological measures and regulations are important but equally important is support for education, ecological training and ethics—a consciousness of the commonality of all living beings and an emphasis on shared responsibility, starting with you and me, even if it means nothing more than changing light bulbs.

This latter point I make, the quest and practice of ethics—a consciousness of our commonality, of course, is the very mission of any religious community, certainly our own. I have said that we must respond as a religious people. We are gathered here today as a community of faith, and that should make a difference in how we approach this critical issue.

Let me be clear. As I see it, the religious community is not here to please congregants, as though you were good consumers of a product. The Beloved Community of faith is here to be faithful to its mission, to speak the truth to power—yes, to provide a caring community for its members, where they can grow spiritually, to welcome all human being who enter our doors, but not to participate in the massive denial of this society. If we do that, why even call ourselves a religious community?

When I attended seminary in Louisville, KY, many years ago, a group of us went on a trip into Eastern Kentucky, into the hills and hollers, because we wanted to see the strip mining that we had heard so much about. As we left the urban community and traveled across the Bluegrass Region of Kentucky and went into the mountains, the poverty was evident—people were living in run-down trailers perched on the sides of hills, in the midst of ruined land. And mountains had literally had their tops cut off by these gigantic coal-mining machines. These machines were like skyscrapers. The topsoil was gone, washed away, and the gain had gone to companies that had no care or concern for the poor of Appalachia. There is a theological term for this—it is called sin. Too often have religions emphasized personal sins—you know, those sins that are sung about in country songs: lying, betrayal, and adultery—but churches have not held up to view those systemic sins which wound the earth and sicken the people who live here. This is not just an economic issue here—this is a moral issue and the deep pain that we feel with the death of the land or the drying up of the salmon runs is not just economic, it is spiritual.

A true religious vision is one that sees the natural world as a gift, a kind of grace that we have neither created nor earned. We see it everywhere. I described my experience a few weeks ago about looking out into the endless sky and ocean while sitting on the sands of a Caribbean beach. But I also saw it this morning, as I drove up the highway to Croton along the Hudson River. I see how the sun comes up every day, and how life is renewed, and what a miracle even one leaf is, and my soul is lifted.

The religious traditions of all people ask them not to turn away from what disturbs them, but to try to be with whatever is—it is essential that we learn to “sustain the gaze.” If we want to deepen spiritually, we have to open our hearts to the suffering of the world, and we have to be present with our own fear and grief. Sometimes I just have to stop and sigh with grief when I listen to the radio or read the newspaper. I just have to let that grief come, before I can get on with my day. And so here we are today, talking about this hard stuff. How can we bear it?

What sustains us is our spiritual grounding, the roots that we have put down in this community, and the values that we have chosen to live by. We have a radical devotion to the whole of creation, which we see as sacred. We know what touches one touches all. And we are devoted to discerning the moral and ethical consciousness that will help us discern our moral responsibility.

If you are here today, and you are thinking that you want to be more intentional than you have been in living out of these principles, then we do have some help for you. At the Sustainability Fair, you can learn of alternatives of how we can all be gentler to our Earth home. And you can join our very active Green Sanctuary study group. It’s so much easier to sustain this work in community.

I like to think that in this Fellowship we work from a positive vision—a prophetic alternative. Here at this place we ask, “What gives health? What gives life? What gives hope?” And always we must ask, “And how are the children?” How can we not think about the kind of future that we’re creating for the children among us? It just breaks my heart when I think about it.

Because, listen, either we will achieve an awareness of our place in the living and life-giving organism of our planet, or we will face the threat that our evolutionary journey may be set back thousands or even millions of years. That is why we must see this issue as a challenge to behave responsibly and not as a harbinger of the end of the world.

Vaclav Havel reminds us that “the end of the world has been anticipated many times and has never come, of course. And it won’t come this time either.”[3] We need not fear for our planet. It was here before us and most likely will be here after us. But that doesn’t mean that the human race is not at serious risk as a result of our endeavors and our irresponsibility our climate might leave no place for us. If we drag our feet, not only our freedom, but our very lives will be at stake.

So we must re-imagine our world, according to spiritual values, human values. And as we do, a new world can arise, as it always does, out of the human imagination.

In the words of Denise Levertov:
“. . . we have only begun to love the earth.
We have only begun to imagine the fullness of life.
How could we tire of hope? - so much is in bud.
How can desire fail? -
we have only begun to imagine justice and mercy,
only begun to envision how it might be to live
as siblings with beast and flower, not as oppressors.
Surely our river cannot already be hastening into the sea of nonbeing?
Surely it cannot drag, in the silt, all that is innocent?
Not yet, not yet - there is too much broken that must be mended, too much hurt that we have done to each other than cannot yet be forgiven.
We have only begun to know the power that is in us if we would join our solitudes in the communion of struggle.
So much is unfolding that must complete its gesture.
So much is in bud.”[4]

Granted, this brief period of being president has required a sharper focus than I had previously. But I still remember the day Clare and I first visited a UU church. After 5 years we came to this Fellowship and I have never looked back. We became UU’s initially to give our children a religious identity, one that fit our value system. The boys are in college and we are still here.

So we started for the religious education of our boys. I asked my 21 year old what he thought of RE, and how it helped him. Martin is certain that it helped him be the adult he is now. His interest in ethics started with RE discussions. Being in RE broadened his view of the contributions of many faiths and cultures. He was not sure what his 19 year old brother will say. Eric still reminds us of his discomfort at taking the UU course in sexuality (OWL, Our Whole Lives for 7th, 8th and 9th graders) taught by his parents! (Dr. Clare, Midwife Kathy Herron, and I will be teaching OWL again next year, you will begin to hear more in April and May.) Bottom line, the boys are doing fine, and they did RE from age 2 to 16. Not bad. And reports are that our current RE program is nurturing a fine group of value-driven young adults. Be sure to congratulate our current teachers, our RE Committee and RE Director. They hold our future in their service.

And then there is the worship. Reverend Jim, the music, the hymns, the community. It is where I need to be on a Sunday morning. Today (3/23), Easter Sunday, Rev. Jim talked about Hope. In his inimitable way I heard reference to all that we do and all that we hope to be at this little fellowship in Croton. Erika and Spirits lifted me up. I know we are not supposed to clap in a religious service, but it was so hard to resist acknowledging the seemingly magic way their voices blend and take me to a spiritual place.

Speaking of “Spirits in Harmony”, I hope you came to their concert on March 15; it was beyond our (high) expectations. Entertaining, uplifting, awesome! I have spoken to enough of the Spirits to know that there is a lot of practice and preparations to bring us their Sunday performances. I cannot fathom how much time they put in prior to the concert. And we need to thank more than these wonderful vocalists directed by Roberta Kosse. The Fundraising Committee, chaired by Ginny Stillman, the donors of the auctioned items, and the Buildings and Grounds Committee members. What collaboration! What a great evening! And we raised more than planned. And what did Ginny and company say? We have more work to do on this building! (You see, all proceeds from Fundraising goes to the maintenance and improvement of our building and grounds.)

And if you like the music, we can have even more. If we raise more money in the annual pledge drive and if the congregation approves funding for a part-time music minister, there can be even more singing for all: In RE, during the week and on Sundays. This is called “music ministry” and we got some exposure to the potential when the singers from the UU church in Westport entertained us on February 3rd. Is it worth the money? We get to decide.

The Green Sanctuary Global Warming class is fully enrolled and the participants are enthusiastic. And now we have begun composting much of our kitchen waste right outside our kitchen. If we learn environmental responsibility at all levels, we will bring such practices into the mainstream! And have you noticed all the “green” in our “sanctuary”? Erika Schenker announced with pride and appreciation all the individual donors who made this possible.

Social Events hosted a family game night that participants declared to be both fun and a wonderful opportunity to get to better know some fellow congregants. Social Action continues to serve the surrounding community. Monthly they prepare a midday dinner for a hundred residents of the local shelter (Susan Peter coordinates); second collections go to programs that support some special programs we could not otherwise reach (Bearni Croft coordinates). And, coming on Social Action Sunday, will be guidance for those that want to be allies of GLBTs. Learn how to support your loved ones as well as how to take an appropriate role in those awkward/embarrassing/revolting moments when anti-gay words or behaviors need a response. Mark your calendars, Sunday April 27, 9 and 11am. Lastly, Social Action hosted a “community dialogue” on safety in our neighborhoods. On Thursday, March 27th Town officials, police and neighbors came together in our sanctuary to talk about the recent abduction and sexual assault in our neighborhood, while we learn what to do individually and as a community to make this a safer area for all. This is a bold new role that I am proud to say was put forward by Social Action and supported by the Board. We have much to discuss about our evolving role in the community.

Does all this enhance the experience of a “beloved community”? I hope so. So much going on… I hope there is something sufficiently alluring to draw you in. I love being a member of this religious community. I hope you do too.

The light is on, the door is open;
Please come in, we have much warmth to share.
Eddy Fried
President of the Board of Trustees

2. On March 15, many of us were moved by our women’s choral group, Spirits in Harmony, performance at the annual fundraiser.  The event reminded me, once again, how significant music is in our Fellowship. Worship and celebration are also essential to the ministry of our beloved community and music plays an integral part. Can we do more? I think so. Are we ready to hire a part-time music minister?

3. On Sunday, April 13, Rappin with the Rev has been scheduled. You will see the announcement elsewhere in the Fellowship News. Speaking of ministry, this meeting will provide an opportunity for all of you to rap with me about how you view the overall ministry of the Fellowship and share your ideas about how we can together continue to enhance and extend our ministry.

4. On April 20, we will celebrate Earth Day and the Green Sanctuary committee will sponsor a fabulous Sustainability Fair. And, on April 27, we will celebrate Social Action Sunday and have invited David Diamond, Faculty Advisor of Gay-Straight Alliance at Lakeland and Walter Panas High Schools to speak to us about how to be an ally for GLBT youth community.

5. On Sunday, March 30, our Pledge Drive will begin. You may have already received a letter about this in the mail. Our financial commitment is also a ministry. Why? Because it helps make a difference in people’s lives. You help make this happen all the time through the volunteer work you give to the Fellowship through committees, programs, and teaching. Just look at all the wonderful things we are doing as I have noted above! And there are so many other events and programs I have not mentioned! We are a busy little Fellowship! I think it’s wonderful!

But obviously, we also need money to pay the bills and adequately support the facility, the staff and the program! But I am suggesting that we think of our pledge as beyond the realm of bills. It takes money to fulfill visions and make it possible to minister to one another and our children and to reach out to those in need and those who are looking for a religious faith such as ours. Ultimately, the money we pledge supports the values, vision, hope and essence of our little community. What is that worth to you?

Well you could answer that it’s priceless! But we also have to get real. The range of our pledges runs from $50 to $7200. Suzanne and I will increase our pledge this year about 6.5% to $5000.00. Our Fellowship’s median pledge (midpoint of the range), however, is $660 and according to UU guidelines, it should be around $1,000 or $85 a month per pledging unit. So think about this figure as you consider your pledge this year. Obviously, we hope to increase the median range significantly.

But let’s be clear. Your pledge, whatever it is, is an opportunity to gladly give the best you can, as you are able, because you cherish who we are. You are giving to something you believe in. So as you decide upon your pledge amount - consider what this institution means to you personally, but also consider what it means to the larger community.  Then give as you are able out of a generous spirit, so that the values you cherish in our Fellowship might continue to take root and have life in you, in your family and in your community. So be it. Jim Covington

In a world with so much hatred and violence,
We need a religion that proclaims the inherent worth and
dignity of every person.

In a world with so much brutality and fear,
We need a religion that seeks justice, equity,
and compassion in human relations.

In a world with so many persons abused and neglected,
We need a religion that calls us to accept one another and
encourage one another to spiritual growth.

In a world with so much dogmatism and falsehood,
We need a religion that challenges us to a free and responsible
search for truth and meaning.

In a world with so much tyranny and oppression,
We need a religion that affirms the right of conscience
and the use of the democratic process.

In a world with so much inequality and strife,
We need a religion that strives toward the goal of world community
with peace, liberty and justice for all.

In a world with so much environmental degradation,
We need a religion that advocates respect for the interdependent
web of all existence of which we are a part.

In a world with so much uncertainty and despair,
we need a religion that teaches our hearts to hope and our
hands to serve. –Scott Alexander

My sermon thoughts today are a bit random. Let me just admit that from the start. I started out thinking I would speak about commitment, and I will, but in the process, found myself thinking about a number of things. Perhaps there is a connection. We’ll see.

Here is the first thing. I was very struck by our responsive reading today. Scott Alexander, the author of the reading, is a UU minister and serves a congregation in Bethesda, Maryland. He was formally director of the Office of Lesbian and Gay Concerns, and the AIDS Action and Information Program, of the Unitarian Universalist Association. There are two things that stand out for me in this reading. The first is the phrase, “we need a religion.” This phrase follows the general description of one of the various social ills of our modern world. In a time when religion has been critiqued so sharply by a number of writers and when we know how divisive and destructive religion can be, and I know many of you have immediate negative reaction to the term, why would we need a religion? Are we a religion? I believe we are and I believe our strength and growth depend on how well we define ourselves as a religious faith. The reading implies that we are. But what kind?

Here’s what I think: Religion is usually associated with belief in dogma or supernatural power. But the classical meaning of religion is that which binds or brings people together—that which connects. In that sense, the religious impulse is a natural response for connection or attachment. It may or may not have anything to do with supernatural being or dogma. Clearly, the religion referred to in our reading today, implies a commitment to relationship and social responsibility. Here’s a definition I like: religion is a system of thought, feeling, and action that is shared by a group and that gives the members an object of devotion. Religion is a system of thought based on intelligence, knowledge, analysis, facts. It is a system of feeling based on intuition, awareness, need and how the information we have affects us. Religion is a system of action based on what we know and feel in regard to social change and saving the world from ourselves. And our object of devotion? What might that be? Love.

As you know the reading today, is based on our 7 principles. These principles are not preordained or perfect or inerrent. Nevertheless, in my opinion, these principles outline our relgious outlook. They define our thought and feeling about our moral and social responsibility. There are two things that are emphasized: relationship or connection with one another and social responsibility:

Let’s talk about relationship. We deceive ourselves if we think we can be grasped by life’s meaning, or a sense of the holy, before we find and are found by our fellow human beings. [1] There is no sense of the sacredness of life, no sense of the holiness of sheer existence that does not come first through another person. Religious community is people reaching through all the facades people carefully place around them—people embracing people where they live and struggle– ‘creative interchange.” When we are most alive, we are in the presence of someone or something intensely with us….Nothing is experienced except in relation either with someone or with a presence within us, or both. It is participation in a religious community that stabs our consciousness into this awareness in the midst of a society that knows nothing about it.

Here’s the 2nd point, social response: The religious congregation that primarily looks inward for the discovery of meaning, wholeness and service, and spirituality (and does not move out beyond its walls to visibly, live its religion in the wider community) will not experience growth and depth. And inward-looking church that does not empower its people to take their faith to the streets in service to others is a church that cannot grow in responsibility or depth.

As you will note in our responsive reading today, the references to all the principles point to the ongoing search for Truth and social responsibility, i.e., relating to the world around us and acting in that world to ensure justice, equity and compassion in human relations. These are the principles to which we are committed to uphold through our lives and our actions in the world.

Last week I talked about hope, Easter’s hope. I defined hope as the anticipation of the good, an energy born of the human being’s innate nature and often found in the deepest, starkest realities of life. Hope is born of our common connections.

But of course, hope can sometimes be only a passive thing. We can hope and dream and without something else, hope will die. Hope needs commitment, i.e, an active response. It requires giving over to. It requires sacrifice and sometimes, anger. The best example of this is the civil rights movement in the 1950’s and 60’s. Anger and hope fueled and enlivened the Black community. But it was Rosa Parks refusing to get off a bus and Martin Luther king’s non-violent activism that kept hope alive and led to change.

Here’s another way to define religion: A religious life, a meaningful life, is all about love. And what is love if not a reaching out, a spirit that wants to share, to connect, to make a difference? Love is not love unless it is given away. Think about that for a second. Love cannot be hoarded. Love must be shared; love must be given away. And deep down, if you and I are honest with ourselves, if we are in touch with our deepest longings and our highest aspirations, we want to give ourselves away. The happiest people I have known, the people who live the most satisfying lives, are people who have learned to give themselves away.

We call ours a free religion. We are part of a long tradition of free churches. We hold freedom as a sacred value. No one is going to tell us what to believe, what to think, or what to do. Our first principle affirms the inherent worth and dignity of every person. We affirm each individual’s free and responsible search for meaning and truth.

And yet freedom is a lot like love. Freedom is like money. It only has value when we spend it. Freedom only has value if we give it away. Only when we lose some of our freedom do we build a life. Let’s explore that for a minute. What is getting married or entering into a committed relationship if not losing freedom? It isn’t freedom that brings us happiness; it is commitment. Think about having children. Any parent knows how much freedom we give up with children. Yet it is our willingness to give up our freedom, our willingness to commit to parenthood, that makes possible the sharing of love between parents and children.

Imagine a life without deep, lasting commitments. Imagine a life without making promises and keeping them. A life without commitments is a life that is empty and lonely. You and I create our lives by making commitments and keeping them. The larger our commitments, the deeper our commitments, the deeper and richer our lives. The dedicated life is the life worth living. [2]

This goes for our commitment to this Fellowship. We could be doing other things this morning. You are free to do so. But many of us have given up that freedom, to partake in a religious experience of meaning and depth. It means giving up time, giving energy, giving money to make it happen. But it is a commitment that brings depth and meaning that you are not likely to experience in general society.

Now having defined religion from my own perspective, which of course is also the UU perspective, let’s take a moment to think about us. Those of us in this sanctuary this morning come from widely different backgrounds. Most of us were born in another part of the country, or even outside this country. One thing the vast majority of us has in common, though, is that we made a decision to walk through the doors of this church for the first time. We came in search of something.

We did not want to pretend that we believed things we found unbelievable. Based on what I know about you, I believe your were and are looking for a place where you could join hands with others to work to create a meaningful life and a better world.

How many people do you believe are also looking for a religious home? How many progressive, open minded and good hearted people are there who have no religious home, who feel out of place in a more orthodox religious setting? How many parents are there who want their children to learn lasting spiritual and ethical values rather than dogma and fear? How many people are living lives of isolation and loneliness—people who long for friendship and connection? How many gay, lesbian and transgender people are there who long for a place where they are not ostracized, where they are accepted, where they can just be themselves?

And just look around at America today. We live in troubled times. We live in a culture of paranoia and confusion, greed and instant gratification. Many of us are deeply concerned about the state of our world and the leadership of our government. The souls of thousands of our neighbors and millions of our countrymen are deeply troubled. These souls are vulnerable to easy answers—answers that create division and scapegoats. People who are afraid can be made to see enemies everywhere. This week in peer supervision meeting with my professional colleagues, someone mentioned that we live in a traumatized culture. Everyone agreed–traumatized by war, violence, media saturation, divorce, family breakdown, abandonment, isolation. Many of our clients seem more despairing and numbed out than anytime in recent memory.

We live in a time that desperately needs a different religious message. We live in a time that urgently needs a religious message of comfort, a message of hope, a message of love, reason and tolerance. We need a message that says every single person matters, that each of us is connected to each other, that the common humanity that unites us is far more important than our differences. We need a religious message that urges us to gather together, listen to one another with an open heart and an open mind, and truly get to know each other. We need a religious message that says that we need to take care of this earth. We need a religious message that tells how important it is to live responsibly with one another, in our homes, our neighborhoods, in our nation, and with other nations.

I believe most people want to participate in making the world a better place. They want a place where their children can grow and be nurtured.

We yearn to have something in our short existence that somehow partakes of the infinite, the eternal – or at least something good and honorable that will outlive us. We find our most satisfying identity not by shining spotlights on ourselves, but by becoming smaller parts of something larger.

That’s what honest religion is about, and what this congregation is about: offering a place where personal and spiritual transformation is possible. We are religious liberals because we won’t accept creeds or dogmas, or mandated behaviors that come from priests, churches or traditions unless they feel honest, and they are useful to us. We reject creeds and dogmas not because we don’t care, but because we care too much to settle for mediocre versions of religion.

There’s nothing supernatural about all this. It’s the part of our human nature we’re trying to nourish, whether you want to call it the Buddha-seed, the God-seed, or the depths of our potential to become more fully human and alive. We’re all aware of needing to serve ideals higher than our own personal wants and needs.

But see how this is an example of how serving ideals that transcend our own personal wants are transformative, both of individuals and institutions? Now we come to your part in all of this. It’s simple. Your part is to be here, and be present. We’ll promise honest religion for head and heart – I’ll try and focus each Sunday on high ideals that can transform our lives and our world, and to present them in ways that may touch you, move you, and give you something worth taking home with you. But you have to be here for it to work. We could serve some of the finest spiritual meals in the world, and it wouldn’t make a bit of difference if you aren’t here. And if you want your children educated, they have to be here, too. It wouldn’t matter how good a religious education curriculum were if kids were absent half the time.

So come in, get active, bring your creative and constructive ideas. Add your voice. Be present. Make it your religious home. And help make it stronger and healthier. And then help us live out our ideals in the world around us by welcoming the stranger, the gay and lesbian, the outcast, working for peace and justice, feeding the hungry, keeping the community safe.

And support this institution financially. Discover where you belong in the range of financial giving here, and settle in. Our median pledge is about $660 per unit, but we have people pledging from very little to thousands of dollars a year. Think about where your income level fits in here. Is it about average? Lower? Higher? What is this place worth to you? All of the things I have been talking about, are intangible. It’s not like paying monthly payment for a car. We are talking about values, meanings, transformation. What is that worth to you? Ten dollars a week? Twenty dollars? It almost feels ridiculous to talk about “worth” in this manner.

Find your most responsible level of financial support, and settle into it. We’re not going to whine or beg – this is a grown-up church and you’re adults. We do hope that you will be generous and pay your way according to your ability. For those are also high ideals that help define and shape our character: supporting the institutions we believe in. So pledge something, and be generous in your pledge. It will absolutely transform the way you feel about this good Fellowship and about yourselves. That is what a religious community is finally about.

We don’t need to be clever. We need to be faithful. When we are faithful to our religion, our lives are filled with purpose and meaning. The love in our hearts will guide us. The passion in our hearts will empower us.

Let us begin here at home. Let us continue to welcome all who would make this their religious and spiritual home. Let us grow our faith together.
We would be one in building for tomorrow
a nobler world than we have known today.
We would be one in searching for that meaning
which binds our hearts and points us on our way.
As one, we pledge ourselves to greater service,
with love and justice, strive to make us free.
–We Would Be One

Easter is a holiday of resurrection. Life from death. The new isn’t created out of the old, but out of the death of the old. Flowers bloom from the corpse of last year’s growth. The death of the worm feeds the bird in the nest. From death will come life. Can’t you hear the poetry of it? What a hopeful holiday!

Perhaps hope is Easter’s truest meaning. Harvey Cox writes: Hope is what the Easter story hopes to evoke—a hope not based on weighing possibilities but on one’s own experience of what is most real in life.

The story of Jesus is a story about hope. I seriously doubt that Jesus physically rose from the dead. But I don’t have any doubt about his life, teachings and message of hope. He had radical hope even as the world was crashing down around him; even as poverty and corruption crushed his people; even as he was dying on a cross, that there was something worth living for. Jesus’ life and death was a surrender to this greater calling in humanity—to lay down sword and shield, turn the other cheek, love your neighbor as yourself, and in so doing, to give yourself over to hope.

In the midst of the presidential election we hear a great deal about hope these days. That’s because of so much despair both in regard to world affairs and political failures. Indeed, there are days when things in our nation and our world don’t look very hopeful. Strife and worry, war, poverty, economic downturns, global warming; genocide continues in Darfur, oppression in Tibet. And the rich are getting richer. If we want to change things, we need all the hope we can muster. Martin Luther King, Jr. once wrote: We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope. But hope for what?

Barack Obama has written a book on hope and in his inspiring, masterful speech this past week we heard him mention hope once more. As you know he tried to clarify his relationship with the Rev. Jeremiah Wright and the Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago which of course will remain fodder for political/media debate forever. But more importantly, in my opinion, he also addressed quite eloquently the racial divide and animosities that continue in our nation. He referred to “our common hopes.” “We have different stories,” he said, “but we hold common hopes—that out of many we are truly one.”

My comments about Obama are not intended either as an endorsement of a nonendorsement of Obama. My main emphasis in referring to him is on hope. Interestingly, Martin Marty, one of America’s foremost theologians and who I greatly respect and regularly read, wrote last week, that while he and his wife, both white, frequently attend the Trinity Church of Christ in Chicago, he is always greeted with warmth and hospitality. Marty writes: “The big thing for Wright is Hope. You hear hope, hope, hope. Lots of ordinary people are there; they are there not to blast whites; they are there to get hope.” I like that. I accept that. Reminds me of us. We are here this morning to get hope. Aren’t we?

What kind of hope? What do we mean by hope?

Hope is elusive. She has a cousin called optimism and a sister called faith, but she herself is hard to ferret out. One would think she could be found in mansions, but strangely enough, she is more likely to be found in hovels[1]. One would think that she would be at a holiday party, full of smiles and glitter festivities and wine, but the truth is she is more apt to be found at the bedside of one who is dying.

Hope is the very bottom layer of reality. Hope is not wishing, since wishing has an object of its desire, and wishing takes us into an imagined future, into a place where we might not actually want to be, once we get there. We need to take care in our wishing.

Hope is not optimism—optimism is more a gift of temperament, I think. Hope is not deciding and planning and controlling, for when we live with hope, in hope, all plans are open to revision—every day, every moment. Hope is not self-confidence, but rather confidence in something larger than the self. Hope is not the blissful but totally unfounded belief that everything will turn out all right. Sometimes the diagnosis is bad. Sometimes your spouse does leave. Sometimes the diagnosis is terminal. Hope is what holds you to life when, in fact, nothing is turning out all right. It is the paradoxical, inexplicable connection to—what shall I name it—something Holy, sacred, inexplicable that will not let you go. You can’t think your way to it, or capture it because you desire it. It is a gift freely given. When hope fills your being, you can be sure it has wafted in on the wings of grace. [2]

Emily Dickinson captured it so well. “Hope is the thing with feathers,” she says, “That perches in the soul/ And sings the tune without the words/ And never stops at all./ . . . . I’ve heard it in the chilliest land/ And on the strangest sea,/ Yet never, in extremity,/ It asked a crumb of me.” [3]

We use the word hope casually, don’t we? And that’s all right. But I’m using the term in a different way from “I hope I can get a reservation,” or “I hope it doesn’t rain today” or “hope all is well.” Hope is something we live by, something we are rooted in that fills our very being.

Let me see if I can bring it down to a story. A minister colleague tells of a hospital visit with a parishioner diagnosed with terminal cancer. On this day, the parishioner, a woman was crying, fearful. An understandable response when a person is about to lose everything she ever loved—and about to cross over to the other side, to the unknown. The minister listened to her fears, encouraged her to cry, and then after a while, asked her, “What is the source of your hope?” thinking to himself, this may be a really stupid question, considering the state she’s in. But in spite of her tears, the minister thought he saw hope in her face. The woman was quiet for a while, thinking, and then she said, with eyes wide open, “Hope is the essence. It’s not about ego. It asks nothing. It just bubbles up within me, from some source other than me.” There it is! [4]

Hope is the energy within that sustains us on a passage that would be too arduous and dispiriting otherwise. Hope is the mysterious sense of something or someone more beyond what we touch and see, that calls us beyond what we touch and see and thereby enables us to engage what we touch and see without being defined or trapped by what we touch and see.[5] Hope is an anticipation of the good. So that’s the first thing I want to say about hope.

Here’s the 2nd thing. Hope is the balm of connection. The connection of each human being to each other is the mother of hope. This is what Jesus was telling us. That is what the Buddha taught. We are all one.

Connectedness. We are brothers and sisters. The health of one is the health of all. Once we can understand that lesson, we can be that connected person. You can be that person who feels, who knows in your bones that your fate is not different than anyone else’s.

That is what this connectedness, the root of hope, is. It is being with each other. Being connected, we have no choice but to feel the pain of others. We have no choice but to truly do unto others as we would have them do unto ourselves. We will know that we are not different, that my well being is utterly linked to your well being regardless of my sexual orientation, my race, my gender, my class. As Obama intoned: We have different stories, but we also have common hopes—that out of many, we are truly one…..

Here’s the third thing: There are places where hope lives. And in finding these places, finding those rare and authentic people who have the faith to live hopefully, we may find inspiration for our own hope.

Wendy Wright, a teacher of theology, says that she was 50 years old before she found hope. She met her on the island of Hispaniola, on the westward side of Haiti. Wright was accompanying students on a semester-abroad program.

Passing through innumerable tiny Dominican villages, their little troop saw concrete block one-room houses painted bright pink, blue, and green. A family goat might be tethered by the roadside, and there was always a rooster strutting as if he owned the place. Outhouses are the norm, but just about every hamlet features at least one colmado, where Coca-Cola can be purchased.

Haiti is the poorest nation in the hemisphere. Haitians typically earn $200 a year. Seventy-five percent of the people are illiterate. Seventy percent are unemployed or underemployed. The hills, once lush, have been plundered for wood, leaving the landscape barren. For decades the cruel military dictatorship run by the Duvalier family took the wealth of the land.

So what did Wendy Wright find hopeful about this scene? Where could hope possibly lodge? Perhaps in the fledgling democracy. Or in the amazing resiliency of the Haitian people. Or in the color and vitality of the culture. But no, Wright said. She said, “Hope met me in all the places where I least expected her.” She met me in the empty spaces. In absence, abuse, neglect. In the ravaged soil. In the palpable sense of danger left over from the years of vicious repression. Where there was no reason for hope, there she appeared. She was found where everything else was stripped bare. Hope lives at the deepest layer of reality, beyond reason, beyond expectation, beyond what might be dreamed. So this is the third thing: hope is found in the deepest and sometimes starkest realities of life. [6]

In fact this is the very truth the followers of Jesus awakened to on Easter morning. Despite the harrowing experience of Jesus’ death, they found a spirit in their midst that comforted them and gave them hope. They eventually call this inexplicable and ineffable presence the Holy Spirit. It was not divine in the usual way, however, like a cosmic patriarch who controls the universe or a divine savior who dies to save humanity. Rather, it was a spirit that enabled them to see themselves and each other in a different light.

Slowly it dawned on them that the world would be saved not by divine intervention, but by human action. They began to see themselves not as pawns of a capricious god or passive followers of a divine messiah, but rather as agents of transformation in their own right. Jesus had always been clear with them about these matters. You are the light of the world, he insisted; the kingdom of God is among you.

Much of the religious legacy handed down to us suggests that agency lies beyond us; in a supernatural god or in a divinely appointed prophet or messiah. The moment this illusion dies is the moment we can begin anew, as child of a God who stands not above us or in place of us, but within and among us. In my view, God is the idea we use to convey our conviction that we come from the same mysterious source and share the same ultimate destiny. We are all in this together. In this sense, God provides a vital connection for me with life.

And my final word this morning is this: hope is not without lament. Sometimes we hope against hope. Meaning, sometimes, the things we hope for will not come to pass. Sometimes our hope for the end of shedding of innocent blood, the end of wars, the end of hatred and fear by the force of love and openness, will not come to pass. So hope and lament cannot be separated in a fallen world. But we cannot despair.

We cannot change the world. None of us can—no matter how loudly we shout, no matter how hard we work for peace, or end domestic violence or make our towns and children safe from crime and our families safe from racist cross-burnings, or bigotry. By that I mean, we cannot change human nature, or so it seems. There will always be strife.

And yet, we are also not foredoomed to be defeated. Hope affirms that events can be influenced, that change for the good can happen, that wars can end. We may not be able to change the world irrevocably, but we can save the world from ourselves, again and again and again!

Jesus knew his death wouldn’t change the world. The reality and myth of his death and resurrection inspired hope in his followers and it continues today. Hope frees us to make the choice to do what we can. So live my friend and live hopefully: work hard to be that connected person. Live hopefully: do what you can, even though you have considered all the facts. Accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope that you can make a difference for the good. I do not hope my children will avoid all suffering and pain; but I do hope in them—that they too will save the world.

So live hopefully as your authentic self, answering the call of the Holy each and every day that you live, “knowing that suffering produces endurance and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us.” (Romans 8, New Testament).

In his talk Dr. Barszcz explains that Emerson resigned from his ministry in Boston, a vocation he followed for only four years, when he was directed to offer the communion celebration, or the Lord’s Supper, as a regular part of his services. In his view, this ritual was an outdated distraction from true spiritual pursuits, and he would not comply. In a fascinating final sermon, Emerson justified his decision to leave the ministry in a manner that is at once plain and densely suggestive.

Dr. Barszcz will show how the sermon documents Emerson’s distaste for formal religious observance, and also what Emerson offers in its place: a kind of every-day poetic work we can all participate in. He argues that the sermon is vitally linked to the works Emerson would produce in his second career–the essays, poems, and lectures that gave life to the strong tradition of American literature that bears his name and that thrives to this day.

James Barszcz earned a PhD in English Studies from Rutgers University and taught for many years at colleges and universities in New Jersey.

There will likely be as many answers to this question as there are members. I hear people say they come to hear Reverend Jim’s sermons which help us to reflect and refocus our week and our lives. The music deepens our religious experience. The religious education program anchors our children in our values and principles and they are becoming impressive adults. Coffee hour and other activities gather together people of similar values and we have the opportunity to become an extended family…people who care about and support each other.

We also have the opportunity to become personally involved in righting the wrongs in our community. Our Green Sanctuary activities offer the opportunity to learn about the environmental impact of our lifestyles…and the opportunity to change our practices. Starting with our personal practices at home, continue with the use of resources at our fellowship, and move on to the activities in Westchester and beyond. We provide this opportunity at UUFBCO because it is an essential element of our faith—Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part. The Green Sanctuary activities are just one example of how our participation is part of a transformational process. I wrote about transformation last November. Briefly, being committed to transformation suggests that it is not enough to attend our Sunday Services, educational programs and other activities to be entertained or gain insight or make friends.

I suggest that an import reason we come to our Fellowship is to change ourselves into the persons we want to be, and to change our community. “We are committed to reaching out to help build a more just and compassionate world.” This is from our Mission Statement.

Our Social Action Committee has taken recent strides to increase its programs to address this commitment to transformation. We are very pleased with the early reports from that committee. Do mark your calendar for the worship services on April 27th. The Social Action Committee has arranged for David Diamond, Faculty Advisor to the Gay – Straight Alliance of Lakeland and Walter Panas High Schools to speak on support for young people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or questioning. “Mom and Dad, I have something to tell you… How to be an ally for youth today.” It will address the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and guidance for dealing with the private struggles and public hate that continues unabated in our local community. We hope to draw visitors who will find a safe place in our congregation, and a welcoming environment with a commitment to transformation.

The light is on, the door is open.
Please come in; we have much warmth to share.
Eddy Fried
President of the Board of Trustees

Even so, I was surprised by my initial reaction to the subject. Although the session plan raised some interesting questions, I wondered, “how can we talk about love in a substantive manner without it becoming an inconsequential, meaningless discourse? Love can mean anything? I love my car—my Subaru! I love my shoes. I love theater. I love my wife. My family. I love you. What does love mean?

Not too long ago I received something in my email where that very question was posed to a group of 4 to 8 year-olds. The answers were deeper and broader than anyone expected:

When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love. Age8

Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well. Age6

Aren’t those wonderful! And to my surprise, the discourse that followed in our CC meeting, eventually reached a depth that I believe touched all of us. We have many stories to tell, do we not, when it comes to describing our experiences of love, or sometimes, lack of love. I found myself confessing that love is the central calling of my ministry. I speak about it often, don’t I? Why is that? I wonder. It’s certainly not because I am always a loving individual. Far from it! But it is something I know I am constantly attempting to understand and to practice. Perhaps going to Sunday School every Sunday when I was a child and singing over and over, “Jesus loves me, this I know,” had something to do with it.

As you know I am also a marriage counselor and have counseled hundreds of married couples who are finding it difficult to love. Our culture emphasizes romantic love. But the couples who come in to my office have discovered that romantic love, wonderful as it may be, doesn’t sustain its intensity. Instead they often have emotional reactions to one another that can be painful, disconcerting and distancing. It’s a universal phenomenon. They have discovered how different they are and how they must learn to love one another in spite of their differences. I call this intentional love as opposed to automatic love. Intentional love from the heart.

To be romantic, in the derogatory sense, is to yearn only for automatic love. But the work of love begins where automatic love ends.

Intentional love is the love expressed and taught in most religious traditions. In Christianity we have the words: Ye have heard that it hat been said, Thou shalt love they neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, Love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you and pray for them which despitefully use you. The New Testament teaching about love centers around the Greek word agape. Agape is the love that pours out from fullness, not from incompleteness or desire even. Agape is not automatic though. It is intentional and from the heart.

In Judaism, intentional love is defined by the Ten Commandments. The first five commandments concern the human being’s relationship to God: Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thine heart and soul and might….. Some of us have difficulty with the concept of God. I understand that. But theology is poetry—it is the use of words to express a deeper meaning. In this case, I suggest the love for God is the expression of gratitude for the miracle of life, the creation, for all that we have been given, for that which is greater than all yet present in each. But again, gratitude is not necessarily automatic. It is intentional. It has to be a whole mindful expression of one’s whole heart and soul.

The 2nd five commandments have to do with your relationship to other human beings. Honor your father and mother; Thou shalt not kill. Thou shalt not commit adultery. Thou shalt not steal. And so on. These commandments are the basis of all ethical morality, Eastern as well as Western. They are given to be practiced and cultivated, even against all one’s impulses and desires. But that’s the whole point, isn’t it? Following the commandments are acts of love. Intentional love.

In India in the Hindu tradition, the word bhakti points to devotion (love), the surrender of one’s multiple personal desires to the single will of the divine. It is intentional. It develops in the individual through the struggle to free oneself from entrapment in the personal emotions. It doesn’t mean living in denial of one’s emotions, but while experiencing one’s multitude of emotions, being able to remain steadfast to one’s core values—in the Hindu tradition—to the value of devotion.

In Buddhism, followers are urged to regard all human beings as individuals striving for enlightenment. Buddhism calls men and women to regard all beings as-in some profound sense—seekers of the truth—yes even those who lie, kill, oppress and cause suffering in others. Dating from perhaps over five hundreds years before the birth of Christ, the following fragment of Buddhist scripture expresses the ideal of intentional love:

Let no one deceive another or despise any being in any state, let none by anger or hatred wish harm to another. As a mother watches over her child, willing to risk her own life to protect her only child, so with a boundless heart should one cherish all living beings, suffusing the whole world with unobstructed loving-kindness. Standing or walking, sitting or lying down, during all one’s waking hours, may one remain mindful of this heart and this way of living that is the best in the world……. Again, intentional love.

The idea is conveyed in Islam. In today’s responsive reading, we read: The journey of love is a very long journey…..my heart and eyes are all devoted to the vision….

I could draw examples of the value of intentional love from other religions, but time will simply not allow. Hopefully you get the idea.

And so what about us? What about Unitarian Universalists? Without question the value of intentional love is written in our first principle. In a sense, intentional love is the ground of all of our principles, but it is particularly implied in the first: We believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person.

But how can we make such a claim when obviously there is so much evil in the world. By evil, I mean human behavior that seeks to annihilate, plunder, deceive, oppress. Don’t some people, by their actions, effectively withdraw whatever inherent worth and dignity they might have had? And if we continue to affirm and promote their worth and dignity, aren’t we being as naïve as a ridiculous “love-in” crowd?

In a world where violence is rampant, where genocide is a reality and where torture is being performed not just by shady foreign types, but by our own government, our answer matters a great deal. The Russian writer, Alexandre Solzhenitsyn wrote: Gradually it was disclosed to me that the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political parties either, but right through every human heart, and through all human hearts. So we also have to accept that while love and goodness may be inherent, there are other impulses as well, that are inherent. Call them what you will, demonic, evil, destructive, selfish, hateful….. We are contradictory creatures - capable of great goodness, but also capable of great evil.

If strict Calvinists err by overemphasizing original sin, it is surely more dangerous to ignore it, and to cover the human condition with a childish happy face.

To me, inherent worth and dignity does not excuse inhumane behavior; rather it challenges us to respond appropriately, acknowledging that there are consequences to our actions. When we refer to our first principle, people will often to mention how selfish, violent and tyrannical human beings have always been. They mention Hitler. Or I might mention Stalin or Milosevic or Pol Pot. “Every person” includes both victims and the perpetrators, in other words, it includes the batterers, the abuser, the murderers, the child molester, the rapists, the mass murderers.

Do I really believe that worth and dignity exists in these people? I do, in the sense that inherent worth is independent of what we choose to do with our lives, that inherent worth cannot be extinguished by our behavior, as heinous as that behavior may be. As a Universalist, I believe we are all children of God, of the universe, and have the capacity to be good, but all of us have also missed the mark, and thereby have sinned– we must all hold ourselves and each other responsible for the behavioral choices we make.

Within family life, even within our own congregational life, we can at times be absurdly tolerant of individual behavior that should not be allowed because it is destructive of the community at large. WE sometimes allow unhealthy individuals to exert undue influence, because in our dedication to accept individual differences we do not distinguish between individual worth and individual behavior.

Living our first Principle is no mean task. Our religion, for all of its emphasis on freedom, also brings responsibilities. Nevertheless, we are called to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person. This is not a call to release a generic, sunshiney, one-size-fits-all statement designed to make us feel good about ourselves.

Our first Principle is a call to make the time and effort to get to know people in their particularities—especially those people from unfamiliar backgrounds. A religious community covenanted to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person is gently yet continuously stretching itself—noticing who is missing, actively seeking out those whose lives seem foreign, building relationships with and spreading the stories of those whose worth and dignity are jeopardized—and doing our best to help them be restored to a place of worth and dignity.

Inherent worth and dignity, therefore, is not a theological end-point, but rather a starting place in our understanding of ourselves and our sisters and brothers.

Ultimately, I don’t think the first principle is really about other people. It is about you and me. It’s about who you choose to be in the world and how you and I face the oftentimes painful realities of what it means to be human without being more naïve than we have to be.

Humans have the capacity to do awful things…but also great things: to forgive, to express compassion, to love, to endure and keep going despite all the reasons not to, and to work toward a better world where human worth and dignity is not just a quaint religious notion, but a way of life…for all.

This is who we say we are: people who stand up for the worth and dignity of all people; who actively promote justice, equity and compassion in human relationships. This is who we say we are. We fall short of this mission every day. But let us hold close to our heart not only the freedoms but also the responsibilities of our faith.

This is what I mean by intentional love. It is a commitment not only of the mind, but also of the heart. Let us listen to the demands of that love in all that we do: in marriage, family life, church, and yes, our nation. The future of humanity depends on it!

Born in Brooklyn NY, Frank Morris graduated from SUNY Binghamton in 1989 with a degree in Rhetoric.  He has been a Sierra Club member since 1997.  Frank is active on the Clean Energy Committee, Farm and Food Committee, and Executive Committee of NYS Sierra Club.  He is also Vice President of NY Interfaith Power and Light www.nyipl.org.  He lives on Long Island and is founder of Ecologic Advisors www.ecologicinvestor.com/ea, a NYS Registered Investment Advisor specializing in environmental investing.

Hopefully, today’s sermon will be a helpful review for all of us and I welcome those of you who honor us with your presence as visitors or newcomers. You may know little or nothing about this remarkable faith, but may wish to; it may even be that we are your last, best chance to find a faith you can respects.

If you leave here disappointed, we will regret it, but we will bear you no ill will or condemnation, rather godspeed in your sacred quest; if you are helped in your understanding of us, we will be grateful and thank you for your attention; if you find here a place to continue your search, we will hope to serve you further and take great joy in your presence. Whoever may be here as a fellow seeker;: do not regret that you may have burning questions within, or doubts about yourself or about religion or life itself; we have those all the time. We know how you feel because that to us is the essence of religion.

If you come seeking the human spirit and all its possibilities, well, this is a good place for that too. If there were obvious and absolute proof of a god, and if we knew the mind of that god, we might be surprised to know how much of this life is up to us and not up to god. So we seek also the mysteries and glories of the human spirit, and the questions we are destined to ask whether or not we will ever know the answers.

This religious community is a laboratory of learning in which we help one another navigate the sometimes treacherous waters of living. Our genius is not that we all think alike, but that in all our differences we have committed ourselves to walk together living our values as grounded in our principles.

The Unitarian Universalist congregation, then, is a school of the spirit - helping us probe the depths of worship and worldly work.

It is a locus, and perhaps the only locus, where we can ask those basic questions about the fundamental meaning of our existence. That schooling, I submit, is serious business.

We have no creed to which allegiance must be given. Blind obedience to anyone or anything is out; responsibility to formulate our own faith is in. We are not only allowed, but encouraged and enabled, to become theologians in our own right -putting together the core values that will guide our living.

Let me share with you some of my own journey. As many of you know, except for a few years after I left the Southern Baptist ministry in my late twenties, I have always remained a member, if not a minister of a religious congregation. Upon resigning from the Southern Baptist ministry, I entered the mental health field and moved Northeast, and eventually to New York City. I then joined an American Baptist congregation in the Village in New York City. After about 15 years of active membership at the Judson Memorial Church, I became a Unitarian Universalist and joined the All Souls Church in New York City. I remained an active member there for a couple of years before I decided to return to an active ministry as a UU, transferred my ordination and soon afterward was asked to become the minister of this Fellowship. That was 18 years ago.

I often ask myself, if I weren’t a minister, would I have remained active as a member in a religious congregation? Many of my friends do not participate in any religious organization. And they are all fine outstanding citizens and good human beings. So obviously it is not necessary for one to belong to a religious community to be a good person. Why has it remained so important to me? Even after I resigned from the ministry, I still remained active in a religious congregation. Why have I done that?

I speak only for myself. By now, I know and appreciate that people have different journeys. We live by different subjective realities. So I am not suggesting that my journey is the only true journey. But as to why I have remained active in a religious congregation, the most obvious answer is that I need community—but not just any community, such as a town or village. Those communities are also important. But I need a place where I can join and interact with other human beings in my natural quest for meaning, connection and value.

The quest for meaning is the natural response of the human being who being alive, also knows he will also one day die. This natural response to the duality of life and death, I consider a religious response, from which arises the eternal human questions: Who am I? Why am I here? What is my responsibility? What is my destiny?

The quest for connection, which is not altogether different from the quest for community, is also born of a natural human need for attachment, belonging, and affiliation. We can find that connection fulfilled in many different ways, of course, obviously through marriage, family and friendships, even work. But the connection I experience though religious affiliation, for me, is one of depth, a depth that transcends the immediacy of my life, while it also certainly addresses that aspect. But this connection also nurtures my deepest nature, my soul; and it also connects me to a great tradition, a legacy of human beings who lived long before me, who together, like me, like us, sought to live meaningfully and responsibly—a legacy that will continue on after my own death. It is a connection of the “eternal now.”

As I have matured, my world view and my faith have changed, but rather than abandon faith altogether, I sought and found a new faith that spoke to my own experience and resonated with my changing knowledge of things. And the faith I speak of, is a faith in the core values of my life—values that define the kind of person I want to be and that help me be the best human being I can be—values that will help sustain me in world and ground me in a life that is responsible and compassionate. I believe that the essential nature of the human being is to give—give attention, give interest, concern for detail and for the well-being of another. Call it love.

Being a member of a religious congregation that teaches values of love and compassion, helps me remain true to my faith. God knows, I need all the support I can get to live my values in a world. While one of the basic tenets of my faith as UU is the freedom to choose my own worldview, it does not preclude my responsibility to live the basic values as taught in most religions: love, compassion and justice. While I could certainly live my values without being affiliated with any religious organization, as many people apparently do, I find that my own faith is strengthened and enriched by my membership in a beloved community of human beings who share my values and my quest. These values are best expressed in our 7 principles. We have different beliefs about God, Jesus, heaven, after-life, but our faith is value-centered. Our values are what hold us together. We can’t really answer the question “what do Unitarian Universalists believe?” but we can answer the question, “What do Unitarian Universalists value? It’s just that simple.

However, the major distinction between my faith and that of traditional religious faith, is that I believe in these values, not because they are dictated by religious authority, or a great Enforcer God, but because they are the essence of who I am, honed and shaped by study, observation, experiences, loving parents and a host of wise human beings. I choose to be responsible, to do good–not to be saved from hell, or please God, but to live life in the most meaningful way. I do good for nothing.

I recall one evening many years ago when a Roman Catholic, learning I was a minister, asked about my religion. When he learned that I neither feared hell nor sought heaven, but believed in “the importance of being good - for nothing,” he was incredulous. He said that if he didn’t fear eternal punishment or seek eternal reward there would be no telling what he would do. He was bound to the Great Enforcer, not the moral power of unenforceable obligations.

Why do we honor our marriage covenant even when we are at times unhappy? Why do we sacrifice to raise children when that seems hopelessly frustrating? Why do we keep promises even when we could get away with breaking them? Why do we obey the law even when there is little danger of being caught?

Why do we involve ourselves in community service and social action when no one seems to notice and we often fail? And why have people done these things for centuries? No external power is forcing us to meet these obligations; we are truly on our own, as Boris Pasternak said: not coerced by a club “but an inward music: the irresistible power of unarmed truth, the powerful attraction of its example”.

Finally, ours is a this-worldly religion - our goal is not to escape from the messiness of existence, but to accept our responsibility for helping to clean it up.

I hope I have been able to help you understand the nature of our religious faith. I realize I am speaking up for religious faith at a time when religion has been getting bad press. Religious violence is part of our daily lives. (Think about how easily that phrase, “religious violence,” rolls off our tongues! “Religious violence” should be an oxymoron.)Yet violence is just the beginning of the mess religion is in today.

In an era of bursting human population the Catholic Church continues to oppose birth control. A narrow and distorted reading of ancient purity codes in scripture is used to justify the persecution and marginalization of millions of gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender people. Hundreds of millions of women are oppressed by religious dogmas that treat them like property. The list goes on and on. Horrible things are being done in the name of religion. No wonder we are seeing a reaction against all religion. Books like The End of Faith and The God Delusion are bestsellers.

But my contention is that there is evil and corruption in all things human including religion. We know only too well how oppression, divisive ideology and abuse of power can become the means of control in all human efforts whether they are pursued through religion, politics, government or culture. The problem is not religion per se, or politics, but the human being. While human beings have the capacity for compassion, they also have the capacity for great harm and self-deception. This does not mean that either politics or religion should be abandoned. Rather than abandon them, they must be transformed. Human institutions, yea, even our very lives, always need to be transformed or in the Christian vein, born again, not to be saved from hell, but to save this life, this creation, this world!

Today, we live in a new world, a world in which once isolated religious traditions are in constant contact. We desperately need new religion for a new world. The old religions lead to tribalism, violence, suspicion, hatred, and oppression. We need a religion that transcends divisions, religion that unites enemies, religion that points to a new future that includes everyone.

What might a religion for our time look like? What would a religion need to be today to transcend our tribal allegiances, to harness idealism and compassion, to change lives and give life meaning? This is a huge, huge issue. This affects the future of humanity.

First, I do not believe that a religion for our time can ask people to reject the religious traditions they grew up with. We can, however, create a religion where we draw wisdom and strength from our religious pasts even while we transcend them. I need not reject the precious gifts of community, compassion and passion for justice from my conservative Christian upbringing. Yet I must transcend the narrow theology that would have me think of everyone else is condemned to hell. I need to learn to be open to the great spiritual gifts of other traditions. A religion for our time must draw upon many religious traditions while transcending them all.

A religion for our time must see science and human learning as a partner, not an enemy. We must move beyond treating myths and poetry as if they were history or science. A religion for our time is open to learning and delights in discovery. This tension between science and religion is madness.

And just as a religion for our time respects humanity’s diverse traditions, so too must it respect human diversity. It must begin with the premise that each one of us matters. Women matter. People of all racial backgrounds matter. Poor people matter as much as the rich. Uneducated people matter as much as scholars. People of all sexual orientations matter. Children matter. The aged matter. A religion for our time does not merely tolerate human diversity, it celebrates it.

A religion for our time must be about