It’s been hot, hot, hot. It reminds me of my summers as a child in Lancaster, PA where the sun made the corn, tomatoes and fruit really sweet, and a breeze really welcome. While the summer always passes quickly, the heat slows you down a bit. So grab an iced tea and a good book and spend some time in the hammock, because September is coming very quickly.

Summer program services have had double digit participation. And no wonder… They have been great. Phyllis Tortora helped us learn about our Unitarian vocabulary, giving us some background on the words and symbols that we all love, but the sources of which we may not know. Ken Counselman, Marge Grimm and Gretchen Ostrander took us to this year’s UUA, giving us a front row seat at its many opportunities to meet UUs and to learn more about the GA plans. Amalia Connelly has us meditating and Jeanette Gould helped us learn how to be more caring about our communications with one another. That’s just what went on in July. There is still an entire month of programs that will enliven your summer including Peter Callaway’s “The Best of Jim (Covington).” I urge you to come.

July also gave us a beautiful, windy day on the river for our annual picnic. It was a lovely time to spend with each other in good conversation with good food.

Peggy Clarke, in addition to being our DRE, has become the Consulting Minister at Mohegan Lake. Peggy’s new ministerial experiences will contribute to the richness of her work with our RE program and give our Fellowship more opportunities to get to know our UU neighbors at Mohegan Lake.

The Board and the committees continued meeting over the summer to make plans for what will be a full new year of learning, transition and change. In October, Craig Hirshberg,Director of Ministerial Transition from the Metro District, will meet with the entire congregation to discuss our journey to our search for a new minister. Watch for the date and more information in the weekly bulletin. Just a reminder that the board meets monthly on the third Wednesday of every month at the Fellowship beginning in September. The dates are on the website calendar. You are welcome to come and see how we work together. Reach out to any of us at any time-Gerry Peet, vice president, Shahan Islam, secretary, Jeff Hass, treasurer, Rick Turner, Anne Pearl and Janet Englund.

Enjoy the rest of your summer. But come back on September 12 with a full pencil box and your pencils sharpened. We will have our water ceremony and our welcome back potluck in our B&G spiffed-up Fellowship. I look forward to a special and rewarding new year with all of you.

Best,
Nenette Kress, President
Board of Trustees

I was amazed how quickly it resonated with me. I recognized the language and attitudes immediately.I grew up in the South and felt immediately drawn into the emotional complexity of race written so poignantly in this book. My parents were working class. We didn’t have black maids,but a couple of my aunts as did a few of our friends. There was a community of blacks in our town, referred to as “colored” or sometimes “nigger town.” I often accompanied my father in the car when he would drive over to buy their amazing pit barbeque and a couple of bottles of whisky from the bootleggers.

When the civil rights movement began with Martin Luther King,Jr.and Rosa Parks,I remember well the outrage of the white community,including my father. I was about 16 then and supported the movement. So, the civil rights movement became a serious point of contention with my father, my minister, and eventually my church. I have often wondered why I immediately supported the movement. Quite frankly, the only answer I can derive is that I had learned from the teachings of Jesus in Sunday School that all of us were loved by God and therefore deserved the same rights-that we should do unto others as we would have them do unto us.

We have come a long way since then of course,albeit not without much pain, suffering and death. When I was 16, the prospect of there ever being a black president of our country was unfathomable. Nevertheless, racism remains persistently imbedded. The recent forced resignation of Shirley Sherrod,the Agriculture Department official,is but one example. As we know,her comments in which she, a black woman,appeared to admit to racial

discrimination against a white couple were taken far out of context. This incident speaks volumes about the fear and prejudice many of our citizens still hold toward the black community. Racial epithets are being hurled more than ever since Obama was elected. Movements spouting racist accusations are increasing. In an interview Sherrod stated: “You think we have come a long way in terms of race relations in this county, but we keep going backwards” (since election 2008).

It is timely that the UUA is addressing this issue, particularly since we are ourselves are a mostly white denomination. The undoing of racism is clearly an enormous and ongoing task, yet one to which our denomination has whole-heartedly dedicated itself. Our faith demands that we build bridges and break down walls. Our citizenship requires that we work for a society without artificial boundaries.

Our UU Metro District is dedicated to pursuing this work through the Anti-Racism and Diversity Committee (ARDC) that works to nurture and support the broad range of diversity and anti-racism work being done within our district. I am pleased to announce that one of our own members, Eddy Fried, who is chair of our Social Action Committee, also serves as co-chair of the ARDC.

Referring back to The Help, Stockett includes a quote by Howell Raines in her personal excerpt at the end of the novel: There is no trickier subject for a writer from the South than that of affection between a black person and a white one in the unequal world of segregation. For the dishonesty upon which a society is founded makes every emotion suspect, makes it impossible to know whether what flowed between two people was honest feeling or pity or pragmatism. An eloquent way to describe Stockett’s intentions for her novel and also to highlight the emotional challenge which still lies before us.

Jim Covington

With patience, affection and mutual respect we can launch a positive effort by addressing INCLUSION. Generally this means that we will work to replace barriers to persons and groups with particular identities, ages, abilities and histories with ever widening circles of support and respect. On Sunday we will begin to identify what INCLUSION means to us and what we would need to do to be more INCLUSIVE.

Babysitting will be provided.

Fellowship Annual Picnic at Senasqua Park, 12:00 noon. This is a  wonderful way to have some summer fun. Bring your favorite summer recipes, games and conversation. We will bring the beverages, charcoal and the sun.

For the first time, the Fellowship will celebrate a flower communion. If you are planning to attend please bring a flower of your choice, either from your gardens or from a field or roadside. You will be asked to place your flower in the vase at the altar at the appropriate time during the service. And then, we will follow up with a flower ritual, which will remain a secret for now, at the end of the service. 

There will be Second Collection for the Peekskill family of Julio Serrano, an Ecuadorian laborer, who was recently attacked and severely beaten by four young men.  The family of Julio in addition to suffering the consequences of this attack, are also suffering financial hardship.  The ministerial association in Peekskill, PAPA, is urging congregations in the area to give financial donations to help support this family.   The second collection announced in the Newsletter for the Solar Cookers has been postponed to a later date.

Spirits in Harmony at the 9:00 a.m. service and Fellowship Choir at the 11:00 a.m. service.

On June 13, our last formal worship service before summer, we will come together for a wonderful intergenerational service of celebration, music and worship. For the first time, we will celebrate a flower communion. People are asked to bring a flower of their choice, either from their own gardens, or from a field or roadside. Each person will be asked to place their flower in the vase at the altar at the appropriate time during the service.

Near the end of the service, each person will be asked to come forward and take a flower from the vase other than the one that they brought. Or perhaps the children can pass out a flower to each congregant. Peggy Clarke and I will make a decision about that beforehand. The significance of the flower communion is that as no two flowers are alike, so no two people are alike, yet each has a contribution to make. Together the different flowers form a beautiful bouquet. Our common bouquet would not be the same without the unique addition of each individual flower. Thus it is with our fellowship community in that it would not be the same without each and every one of us.

See you at the Fellowship! Jim Covington

So, although I often write of changes made, planned or under consideration, we will have to add a big one to the top of the list: we will soon begin a search for a full-time minister. As I mentioned at worship this last Sunday, Jim gave the Board ample notice of his plan to retire and the Board has used this time to read and discuss the search process. Board members Jeff Hass and Gerry Peet have led our ad hoc team on the intricacies, details and terminology of selection process- yes, it’s somewhat of a bureaucracy, but that’s how human beings organize and work together! So we will now turn to the UUA and rely on their experience and expertise to guide us ahead. There will be opportunities for all to participate in the search process. The first step will be to retain an “interim” minister who will begin in the fall of 2011. The interim minister cannot serve as Jim’s permanent replacement. The interim is an experienced minister who has been trained in the search dynamic/ process. He or she will guide us and help us navigate our way forward to “calling” a full-time minister to “settle” here. As I also mentioned on Sunday, if you have any questions about any aspect of our search for a full-time minister, talk to any Board member at coffee hour or on the phone.

This is just one of the many challenges that lie ahead for the 2010-11 Fellowship Year. In preparation for our next year, we will hold our annual meeting this coming Sunday, June 6 at 10:30 a.m. and consider a list of tasks: (i) (possibly) changing our name (or not), (ii) considering a Fellowship covenant, (iii) adopting a budget and (iv) electing 3 new members to the Board- among other things! I distributed a proposed agenda so members could familiarize themselves with the issues in advance. There are three seats open for election on Board of Trustees and the Nomination Committee has recommended the election of Jeff Hass, Gerry Peet and Janet Englund. I strongly endorse their candidacies and urge you to vote for each. Jeff and Gerry are each currently members of the Board and their service and respective contributions have been tremendous. I look forward to working with Janet who has been active in the Revitalization Committee (that’s an impressive credential for me!).

This is my final letter to you as President. Writing a letter each month has been an added chore, but also a task that has forced me to focus on our goals, our needs (our bats, our bills, etc.). Serving as President has been an honor. I follow a long line of better Presidents (and Board members) that were each inspirational and each gave so much to keep our Fellowship running. Serving as President is a role with unique rewards- first and most significantly: getting to know many members outside my personal “orbit.” My commitment to the Fellowship, and its future, has been forever enriched. Thank you for entrusting me with this special role.

Rick Turner, President
Board of Trustees

Fellowship Annual Meeting at 10:30 a.m.

Please join the Fellowship in learning about and celebrating the life and legacy of this extraordinary Unitarian woman.

I will attempt to summarize Rifkin’s presentation for us, sometimes quoting directly: In the last ten years or so, research in evolutionary biology, neuro psychology and child development has challenged some of our long held theories about human nature.  Through various experiments, using the MRI brainscanning machine, scientists have discovered that human beings, and perhaps some animals, are hard wired, or soft wired–with what they have named as “mirror neurons.” Which enable all humans to experience another’s plight as if we are experiencing it ourselves.  In the psychological world, this is called empathy.  In other words, empathy is as normal as competition. 

We’re not wired only for aggression, violence, self-interest or utilitarianism, but perhaps even more so for affection, companionship, attachment or connection, and most of all, with a desire to belong, which is considered “the first drive.”  In fact it is being asserted that self-hood goes together with empathic development.  This wiring is first noticed in infancy when in a nursery one baby will begin to cry, then so will the other babies.  This is called empathic distress.  It’s built into their biology. When a child reaches the age of 8, he or she has discovered where they have come from and that they will one day die–that they have a one and only life.  An 8 year old begins to intuit that life is fragile, that life exists between birth and death, and that therefore all humans are rendered vulnerable and share the same plight.  A child realizes that one day “I will die.”  This is the beginning of our existential awareness. When a child knows this about itself, then this knowledge enables him or her to empathize with others, because they are in the same boat as she is-having a one and only life, that life is tough, whether your are a human being or a fox, and the odds are not always good.   It is tough being on this planet.  Empathy is grounded in acknolwedgment of death, the celebration of life, rooting for each other to flourish.  Empathy is the invisible hand that holds us together. 

It should be noted that empathy is the opposite of utopia.  There is no empathy in heaven, because there is no mortality; there is no suffering.  Empathy is grounded in the acknowledgment of death. It’s based on frailties and imperfections.  So when we talk about a civilization of empthay we are not talking about utopia, but the ability to show solidariy with each other and all creatures who have a one and only life on the planet. 

So the question is this:  how does our consciousness change in human history?  As humans have developed, we have arranged different ways of expressing our empathy as our social awareness expands.  If that is the case, is it possible that we human beings who are wired for empathic distress, can extend our empathy to the entire human race as one family and to all creatures and the entire biosphere?  Without this expanded development of consciousness,  according to Rifkin, it is doubtful that humanity will survive, that we will save our planet as we know it. 

Again, according to Rifkin, empathy is the invisible hand that will hold us together.  It allows us to stretch our sensitiviey with another so we can cohere in larger social units. “To empathize is to civilize and to civilize is to empathize.” 

Historically, in hunter societies, communication extended only to the tribe. Everyone over the next mountain was the alien other.  So empathy only extended to blood ties. 

When we became an agricultural society the use of script and differential of skills allowed humans to expand their awareness which led to a theological explanation of existence and awareness that humans are connected to people beyond the tribe.  Humans began to associate and identify with and empathize with others through religious ties.  Christians, Jews and Muslims, for example, saw all others of their respective faiths as extended family. 

Then the Industrial Revolution led to nation states, so those who populated each nation state, which before were actually fictions, identified with respective nations as extended families–as Germans, French, Americans. 

So now, Rifkin asks the big question:  if humans can extend their empathy, their sense of connection and belonging from tribal ties to religious ties to national ties, can we through our modern technologies of communication and travel extend our empathy to the whole human race as one race in the biosphere?  Why would we choose to have only tribal based empathy or religious based or nation based empathy? When we now have the means to connect quickly to others around the world? 

The world’s response to the earthquake in Haiti is a case example.  Within minutes, through the use of cell phone videos, twitters and emails, the entire human race responded viscerally to the plight of the Haitians.  It was a universal human response! 

Unfortunately and depressingly at times, humans continue to fight each other over different ideas about the world and yet I believe humans are slowly beginning to understand that we all came from the same source. Never has the world seemed so completely united–in the form of communication, commerce, and culture–and so savagely torn apart-in the form of war, financial meltdown, global warming, environmental pollution and even the migration of diseases. Yet, I believe these very same issues can potentially pull us together.

No matter how much we put our minds to the task of meeting the challenges of a rapidly globalizing world, the human race seems to continually come up short, unable to muster the collective mental resources to truly “think globally and act locally.”  The very way our brains are structured disposes us to a way of feeling, thinking, and acting in the world that is no longer entirely relevant to the new environments we have created for ourselves.

We have to broaden our sense of identity. Otherwise, we may perish.  We have to rethink our human narrative. We don’t have to give up our previous family, theological or national identities but we need to extend them to identify with all humans as our fellow sojourners.  If we are truly homeo empathicus, then we need to bring out that nature, nurture it through early parenting, education, religious ties and business practices.  If we don’t, the secondary drives come:  narcissism, materialism, violence and aggression. 

 We need to bring out our empathic sociability, nurture it, teach it so we can truly begin to build a more empathic civilization. As the forces of globalization accelerate, deepen, and become ever more complex, the older faith-based and nation-based forms of consciousness are likely to become stressed, and even dangerous, as they attempt to navigate a world increasingly beyond their reach and control. Indeed, the emergence of this empathetic consciousness has implications for the future that will likely be as profound and far-reaching as when Enlightenment philosophers upended faith-based consciousness with the canon of reason. Humanity, Rifkin argues, finds itself on the cusp of its greatest experiment to date: refashioning human consciousness so that human beings can mutually live and flourish in the new globalizing society.

On our own local level in this congregation, I think we are doing this to some degree by covenanting… We are openly stating and promising to one another how we will be with one another and the major sources of those tenets with which we agree are compassion, mutual respect and empathy.  I also believe we are now at the time when we need to bring to greater awareness a covenant as humans with all humanity. 

Needless to say, empathy, or the degree of emotional attachment in early childhood affects to large degree one’s ability to empathize with others in adulthood. Empathy is the major healing force of psychotherapy. As a therapist, if I am unable to empathize with my patients, all is lost! I won’t be able to teach them anything. Many people who enter therapy have suffered a loss of empathy in early childhood.  If one has never felt loved, or secure in his or her attachment with parents, it will be difficult to be empathically present with others.  I first came to appreciate the importance of empathy in my studies of Carl Rogers.  But I have also come to appreciate the importance of empathy in marital relationships. Research indicates that is the cornerstone of healthy, happy marriages-the experience of each spouse feeling the other’s pain, being heard, emotionally present and understood.  Empathy is the highest form of compassion. 

And empathy is the core of most religious faiths.  Of course, being human, religious faiths often fail to live up to their own standards.  Nevertheless there is an innate awareness in all humans, manifested in most religious faiths, of the importance of empathy and compassion. 

For Buddhism, which is not technically a religious faith but is often considered as such, compassion or Karuna has more to do with empathy than sympathy. The Buddha demands his followers to recognize the connectivity of another person’s suffering with their own suffering, and such empathy should motivate them to do something to reduce that suffering.

According to the Dalai Lama: “In the first step toward a compassionate heart, we must develop our empathy or closeness to others.”  In other words, closeness means more than physical or emotional closeness; it actually means feeling concerned and responsible for another person’s well-being as much as for our own well-being. This connectivity, the brotherhood of all people, is at the heart of empathy and compassion.

Confucius comes to a similar conclusion but from a different perspective. One of the key constructs in Confucian teaching as recorded in the Analects is Jen. This word can be translated as “human being” and “humaneness”. Confucius believes in the perfecting of humanity through education by developing Jen as a universal virtue. In Analects, Jen means goodness, kindness, compassion, and tender-heartedness. It is defined as being selfless, and “the ability to take one’s own feelings as a guide” to understand the feelings of others.

The Islamic traditions teach that when the Prophet was asked who among people is most loved by Allah, he responded, “the one who is of most service to others.”   The Quran states: “O mankind, I have created you man and woman, tribes and nations, that you may know one another, not that you may despise one another.”

Christianity places a distinct spiritual emphasis on compassion. First, from both the Judaic and Christian traditions, love is a supernatural gift from God rather than the product of human efforts. It is the highest spiritual gift, and an unmistakable mark of a spirit-filled life. It is God’s love in our hearts  that enables us to love God and love others.

Second, compassion comes from imitation of Christ. “When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd”. Jesus said: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep”.

Finally, compassion is based on empathy. Self-love provides the criterion for loving others: “Love your neighbor as yourself” is a teaching from both the Judaic and the Christian traditions. This connectivity is more clearly expressed in the golden rule: “In everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets”.

Take a look at our own UU principles, and I think you will agree that they all based on the virtues of compassion and empathy.  In fact, empathy is central to my understanding of what it means to be a Unitarian Universalist:  We value each other as people– respecting the inherent worth and dignity of every person; we have respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part; we believe we are called upon to be of service to others.

In fact, empathy is the ground of all social justice efforts.  Yes, healthy anger is also involved, but it is empathy that drives us to see the injustices in the world, from hunger to poverty to racism-empathy for the downtrodden and oppressed and to act.  Empathy is not just a feeling.   

Interestingly, in his book The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama writes:  “It is at the heart of my moral code and it is how I understand the Golden Rule-not simply as a call to sympathy or charity, but as something more demanding, a call to stand in somebody else’s shoes and see through their eyes.”

When President Obama nominated Sonia Sototomayor for the U.S. Supreme court, suddenly empathy was over the news.  In describing his ideal Supreme Court justice, President Obama cited empathy as something he considered necessary and highly desirable.  He described Justice Sotomayor in empathetic terms.  Empathy was suddenly a bad value for many people.  This led me to the wonder whether folks who see empathy as a bad value really understand it?  

So what is empathy?  The English word “empathy” comes form the Greek “empatheia that means “feeling into.”  Empathy then is the quality of feeling into the lives and circumstances of others.  Empathy is a merging of your humanness with that of another person.  Empathy is that quality of human being that allows us to truly connect up with and care for other human beings.

A story: she witnessed men and women, even young children, dying in the streets, rejected by local hospitals. She felt the pain of their suffering and decided to dedicate the rest of her life to serve the poorest of the poor. With a few helpers, she found a home for the dying, so that she could care for the poor and lonely homeless people, regardless of whether they were dying of AIDS or leprosy. For over 50 years, she worked selflessly helping the poor, and earned the name “Saint of the Gutters.”

Later when people asked her what made her happy, she said that her greatest joy was to care for the poor in the last stretch of their earthly journey, so that they were able to die in peace and with dignity. She told her followers: “Keep the joy of loving the poor and share this joy with all you meet. Remember works of love are works of peace. God bless you. This remarkable woman was Mother Theresa.

Well, not everyone can be Mother Theresa and I am not suggesting that we should.  But how do we create a kinder and gentler world?  What I am saying this morning is that above all, we need compassionate empathy.  I believe empathy is perhaps the most important virtue of humans and that empathy is at the foundation of our beliefs about service to others and the inherent dignity of each person.  I believe we are called upon to nurture empathy in our own lives and the lives of our children. Empathy is something we can choose for our everyday living that can make the world a better place. The following two simple practices are universally endorsed:

First, before you do anything or make any decision, simply ask yourself: How will it affect others? Will it have a negative impact on their well-being? If I were in their shoes, how would I react? This practice is basically the golden rule.

Second, instead of being preoccupied with your own self-interest, everyday ask yourself: What can I do to reduce other people’s suffering? How can I bring some sunshine to someone’s life? How can I make a difference in my little corner of the world, here and now?

But you may wonder: what is the incentive to engage in these exercises? The answer may surprise you.  Here is the ironclad existential logic - you will find happiness and serenity only in caring for others. This point has been emphasized by many religious teachers and psychologists such as Alfred Adler and Viktor Frankl.  Furthermore, when these simple acts of compassionate empathy are practiced consistently by an increasing number of people, you can help create a kinder and gentler world at work, at home and in the larger community and ultimately, the whole human race-an empathic civilization!    So be it.

Heifer’s mission is to work with communities to end hunger and poverty and care for the earth. By giving families a hand-up, not just a hand-out, the families are empowered to turn their lives of hunger and poverty into self-reliance and hope.

With gifts of livestock and training, Heifer International helps families improve their nutrition
and generate income in sustainable ways. They refer to the animals as “living loans”because in exchange for livestock and training, families agree to give one of its animal’s offspring to another family in need. It’s called Passing on the Gift- a cornerstone of their mission that creates an ever-expanding network of hope and peace.

Read some of the inspiring Success Stories from the partners around the globe that have had their lives changed as a result of Heifer’s work:
http://www.heifer.org/site/c.edJRKQNiFiG/b.201453/?msource=kwg538

Religion is the way we face the mystery, the unanswered, together.

We live in great mystery. We don’t know far more than we do know. We don’t know what the future holds, what will happen next year, next week, in 10 minutes from now. And we’re almost as in the dark about our past, about where we came from as a species. We don’t know if we’re alone in the universe or if there are many planets like ours. We don’t know if life has meaning outside our individual tiny existence or if there’s some Grand Meaning Maker responsible for it all. And most of all, we don’t even know how much we don’t know. With each century of human life, we discover and uncover answers to ancient questions and with those answers, we reveal new questions.

Since humans have reached self-consciousness, we have questioned and we have found ways to respond to those questions, sometimes using reason, and sometimes using ritual. When our ancestors needed rain for their crops, they danced and sang hoping to inspire the rain to fall. Over time, we developed complex systems of irrigation and more recently we launched satellites into space that help us observe weather patterns. Of course, many of us still pray sometimes for rain and still struggle to find meaning in the suffering of droughtridden communities.

I believe it is a natural human impulse to want to live deeply, to ask questions about existence, to seek meaning. When we gather in groups to face into the great mysteries, we are being religious. How we ritualize or dogmatize our responses to mystery varies over time and geography. But humans have been doing it from the beginning.

Some religions attempt to give answers to the great questions. Yes, there is a god. Yes, there is life after death. Yes, there is a prescribed pattern of behavior that will guarantee happiness. Some religions declare, as Paul Tillich, the great Protestant thinker once said, that religion provides tentative answers to ultimate questions. And some religions, like ours, affirm little more than the reality of the questions themselves.

I can tell you as a woman who has taught theology for at least 15 years to students from the 5th grade through college, that declaring answers is a much easier task than helping others live with the questions. But that’s the great task of the Unitarian Universalist teacher. We don’t claim a corner on any truth. We don’t give students a definitive outline for ethical behavior or absolute consequences like purgatory if they don’t follow our guidelines. But, oh, how much easier life would be if we did!

Instead, we inspire students to live responsibly. We recognize that we are the meaning makers, it is up to us to live deeply, to discern ethical behavior and to accept the unknown and sometimes random consequences of our actions. The role of the UU teacher is to be, as in Robert Fulgum’s story, the one who reflects light into the dark spaces. Teachers are not the light, nor are they the source of the light, but they are the mirrors that direct the light, the ones who can help us at any stage of our lives to see for ourselves.

Unitarian Universalist teachers hold the space for students to ask big questions. But they do more than that. Because we are a covenantental religion - meaning that at our center we are in relationship with each other not to a doctrine or dogma - teachers build community in the classroom. They model individual UU behavior, they create community circles with their students and they construct examples of covenant with their coteachers.

But, as many of you know, my philosophy is that education is not limited to the classroom and teachers are not defined exclusively by formal titles. In congregational life, the sanctuary is the classroom, the kitchen is the classroom, the meeting room is the classroom, the parking lot is the classroom, the garden is the classroom. And we are all the teachers. We are one worshipping community always calling each other to greater life, always challenging each other to live deeply and meaningfully, always wrestling with the great questions of meaning and mystery.

And we are doing this together. We are, for each other, mirrors that reflect the light into the dark places.

And we know, as Rev. Fulgum knows, there are always going to be questions.

Emerson, not unlike Channing and many other Unitarian and Universalist forbearers, insisted that religion isn’t belief or ritual. Religion, he contended, is Life. Not something to be gotten or understood or added, but a way of being human. He’s issued a great challenge for anyone engaged in Unitarian Universalist life. To be religious isn’t about going to church on Sunday or reading UU World or going to District meetings or congregational book groups, wonderful as any of those things might be. It’s about engaging fully in the act of being alive.

I’m at a place in my life when I no longer want to learn about; I want, instead to live meaningfully. I want the experience of loving and celebrating and mourning. I want to feel angry enough to take to the streets, committed enough to enter covenant, maternal enough to plant a vegetable garden. And as a religious educator, I want to inspire others to greater life, to create the opportunity for direct experience, to live a life abundant and to be part of a community willing and able to find our way, ultimately, into spiritual depth.

Our current UU curricula doesn’t do that. Some of our curricula is experiential or at least has some experiential elements, but none of it builds on the year before (and sometimes not even from the week before). Nothing is developmental which means that we do not - for children or adults - encourage a long, slow awakening into a rich and meaningful life.

We can create that for ourselves, which is not only possible, but wonderfully exciting. I’m talking (yet again) about a setting on fire the depth of who we are, an educating for wholeness and passion and a preparation for long-term covenant grounded in shared life informed by hope.

That’s what religious education is about, whether you’re in your first few years of consciousness or at the end of a long and full life. We are all capable of being more, of living more intentionally, exuberantly and meaningfully. We are all capable of being truly alive, truly religious.

Spirits in Harmony at the 11:00 a.m. service.

Our Association is currently engaged in a comprehensive investigation and consideration of ethical behavior regarding food. The Ethical Eating Resource Guide (written by the Core Team) declares ethical eating to be personal in nature and global in reach with implications regarding human hunger and nutrition, trade, racism, animal welfare, climate change and domestic food security.

Our First Principle regarding the inherent worth and dignity of every person calls us to consider the implications of lack of supermarkets in low-income urban areas and the under-funded school food program that feeds poor children fried and processed lunches. Our Second Principle calling us to justice, equity and compassion directs our attention to the treatment of American farm workers,Latino migrant workers, Central and South American los trabajadores del campo, and the new
American systems of indentured servitude and slavery. And, of course, our Seventh Principle challenges us to connect more with the animals whose bodies feed us, the chemicals that saturate the ground from which our produce grows and the fuel created and burned so that food can travel great distances to find us.

Supporting local farms and farmers is one step to creating an ethical food system. By knowing and supporting your local farmers, we can hold each other accountable to the humane treatment of animals, the elimination of long distance travel, saturation of the land in chemicals and just labor practices. In addition, the creation of community gardens encourages plant based diets and provides access to fresh, organic produce at reasonable cost to all residents. The added benefit? Both these options build local communities!

On Social Action Sunday, May 9, we’re going to investigate and celebrate the many dimensions of ethical eating. Join us!

Fellowship Choir: Alleluia at the 11:00 a.m. service.

At the very beginning, we’re talking about a revolution. This revolution was launched by Michael Pollen three years ago with these simple words: Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants.

We know far less about what we should eat than we think we do. We learn things and find out we were wrong. We’ve learned and unlearned plenty of information. Do you watch Mad Men? One of the joys of watching that show is seeing how differently Americans lived and ate in the 1960s. A favorite moment for me happens after Roger’s heart attack. Genuinely baffled about how this could have happened, and a little self-righteous about following doctors orders for years, being an excellent patient who heeds his doctors warnings, he says to his wife, “I did everything the doctors told me to do for the ulcer- I ate all that cheese and cream, just like they said.”

In recent years, we learned that low fat diets reduce the risk of breast cancer, and then that they don’t, that high fiber diets decrease the risk of colon cancer, and then that they don’t. Omega 3s have been all the rage, but after people have been popping millions of dollars worth of Omega 3 supplements, we’ve discovered that it only works in relationship to Omega 6.

We’ve taken a scientific approach to food, reducing each item to a list of nutrients. Then, like a puzzle, we add all the pieces we think we need like calcium or vitamin c to foods where it’s not generally found creating supermarkets filled with labels screaming ENRICHED! As a result, we are no longer eating food, but food-like products processed to retain all the currently fashionable vitamins and minerals.

What’s lacking in this approach is the recognition that we don’t know enough about food to break it down to the sum of its parts. One leaf of thyme contains a total of 36 nutrients. How they all work together or work with the other foods eaten with it is entirely unknown. For instance, those breast cancer claims led women to purchase skinless chicken breast and low-fat milk, but the rate of breast cancer wasn’t changed. So, maybe it wasn’t the fat in the skin on the chicken, but the protein in the meat or 100 other things yet to be discovered in a chicken breast.

Years ago, after observing that people who ate carrots were healthier than those didn’t, the humble carrot was heralded as were the 3 macronutrients they found in it. Then science took a turn and discovered dozens of vitamins in that simple carrot and more recently we’ve found polyphenols and carotenoids that have again allowed the carrot to raise the bar, but who knows what else is going on in the soul of a carrot? We’ve stripped our carrots of everything we know is there and added all those beneficial pieces to plenty of other foods, hoping that we can eat pop tarts now that they have all the vitamin A of a carrot.

We’ve come to love our health claims and many Americans feel great about themselves when they buy the fortified, enriched, low-fat, whole grain pasta. With the rise in popularity of this nutrient puzzle approach, is the rise of processed food, food whose benefits can be declared on a label. It’s actually happened that people concerned about health are more likely to buy food that comes packaged than to buy natural food like that unassuming carrot because whole, natural food doesn’t have boxes on which to make their health claims.

The food industry has found a very effective way to get Americans to consume their products. We are told to eat more- eat more low fat food, eat more low carb food which then dramatically increases the purchasing of low fat cookies and low carb beer. We love being told to eat more.

The concept that has become very popular in response to the rising acceptance of Pollen’s argument, is to eat whole food. His guide is to eat food your great grandmother would recognize. Yodels won’t make the cut. He says if you can’t buy all your food at farmer’s markets, which poses something of a challenge through the winter months, then we should shop around the outside of the supermarket, avoiding the aisles with all those boxed and packaged foods.

But I’d like to throw a little bit of a wrench into that plan. My problem can be well illustrated by the tomato. Tomatoes are arguably the most consumed fruit or vegetable in our country. (It is, btw, classified as both fruit and vegetable.) 28% of Americans eat a meal every day that contains at least one tomato. But tomatoes only grow locally in the summer. We all know the joy of a kitchen window-sill lined with fresh tomatoes in August and the creative cooking we all do to consume all those tomatoes before the season’s over. But, we can only grow tomatoes in the warm months. Immokalee, Florida is the tomato capital of the nation. It’s a desolate shanty town 10 minutes from Bonita Springs, a wealthy coastal town and about 45 minutes from Naples, one of the wealthiest metropolitan area in the country. The heart of the town is a 9 block grid of dusty, potholed, empty streets, lined with trailers fit for 1 or 2 with 10 or 12 pairs of shoes by the door indicating the number of people currently calling that box home. Per capita income in Immokalee is $8,500. 90% of all the tomatoes eaten in the US are grown there.

I know something about Immokalee because I’ve spent some time there working with - and along side of - migrant workers over the course of a few years. I used to run an undergraduate program bringing students around the country and abroad to serve the poor and study issues of justice. I knew a man who worked with this population and I asked his help  getting us in. The first year we worked in the migrant camps helping people find the services they need, and in food pantries and soup kitchens and that kind of thing. But, the real work happened that first year when I finagled our way onto the fields. I can’t even tell you how this happened because what happens in these fields is not open to the public. But we went and I was able to get out there year after year to learn what life as a tomato picker was really about.

Pickers stand in line on the street waiting for the buses in the dark of the morning. This makes sense to me, not because tomatoes need to be picked at 5 a.m., but because most citizens don’t want to see the faces of the men who work these fields. They pile onto the buses, hoping to get a space. Not everyone will have work every day. Once on the fields, they’re given a pair of gloves and a barrel and they’d head out to the rows of hedges. Once full, they hoist the bucket onto their heads or shoulders and carry them to a very large, open back truck. The foreman is standing at the top of the truck, having climbed a small ladder to get there. The pickers then throw the buckets over their heads and the foreman catches it, dumps the tomatoes and throws it back to the worker who runs back to the rows.

They were paid, believe it or not, .44 cents for each 32 pound bucket. Working at breakneck speed, some of these guys are able to pick a ton of tomatoes in a day, netting as much as $50 for their 12 hours. Everything has to go very right for that to happen, including not having this sorry white girl in the fields to trip over. I was able to sustain 2 buckets an hour which gave me a total of $7.04 a for my eight hour day. I wasn’t once able to throw that 32 pound bucket to the foreman, so as I approached the truck, someone else would throw it and I’d give him my 44 cents.

The tomato fields of Immokalee are also ground zero for modern slavery. This fall, one slavery ring was broken and the slaveholders were convicted, but that’s a rare occurrence. It happened because one slave who’s name is Lucas was able to break free. He was looking for work in the fields and didn’t know anyone in Florida, so he arranged a deal with a man for a place to live. The man offered credit for weeks there wasn’t enough work along with room and board. But when Lucas showed up, he found that the room for which he was paying $20 a week was actually the back u-haul truck that he shared with a dozen other men. It was better, though, than the boxes some men were locked in. There was no light or water or toilet of any kind in the truck and the door was locked. For his $20 he also got 2 meals a day of eggs, rice and beans and was charged for everything including $5 per use of the cold hose for cleaning and drinking. Lucas worked the field and his paycheck went directly to the slaveholder who then gave Lucas a few dollars a week while adding up the debt.

When Lucas tried to leave, he was beaten badly. He and the other slaves were slashed with knives, tied to posts and shackled in chains. There were no sick days without severe beatings. Early one morning after several years in this hell, Lucas saw a small hole in the roof of that u-haul and was able to break his way free.

More than a thousand people have been liberated in the past 10 years, but there are thousands more locked into slavery in Florida right now. There have only been 7 cases where slave holders have been convicted in these 10 years. 1,000 is the documented number from just those 7 cases. Most slaves will not testify which means there won’t be justice and those men and women will never be counted.

All this so our supermarkets can have bins overflowing with ripe tomatoes in January.

Like I said, when I was in Immokalee, the rate was 44 cents a bucket, but the Coalition of Immokalee Workers fought a national fight for the last 8 years to get the price raised to 45 cents. Burger King, McDonalds, Pizza Hut, Taco Bell and a few others have, after much public pressure, agreed not to purchase tomatoes if less than 45 cents per barrel was paid to the workers. Subway agreed to 1.5 cents to help cover the coalition’s administrative costs, and have instituted a special monitoring system to ensure fair labor practices and they will only purchase if the additional money has actually been paid to the workers.

Unfortunately, The Tomato Growers Exchange won’t release most of the extra money. They say they have legal concerns about the raises and will hold the money in escrow until it’s all sorted out. In the meantime, you can imagine how many migrant workers will be signing legal documents declaring their rights to that money. To make it more difficult for the growers, the Growers Exchange implemented a $100,000 fine to anyone caught paying the additional money.

Whole Foods is the only supermarket that has committed to purchasing from growers who pay a living wage, although what they call a living wage has been disputed by many labor watchdogs. Last March, Crist, governor of Florida, agreed to meet with 4,000 pickers to talk about labor conditions. He’s the 3rd governor petitioned to have this meeting and until recently, he was actively ducking the request, as a result of the national attention drawn to the state with the slavery conviction, he couldn’t hide any more. He did a very brave thing- something Floridian governors before him never did- he stated clearly that he is against slavery of any kind and will fight to eliminate it in his state. His exact line was “not even a little slavery is OK.” This might sound obvious, but it was in direct opposition to the previous governor’s implication that a little slavery was tolerable.

The most disturbing part of this story for me actually isn’t in these facts. It was in the comments I found by readers of a Floridian newspaper reporting the conviction of the slaveholders. Readers said things like “you don’t like the conditions, stay on your side of the border” or more pointedly “you get what you deserve”.

One of the implications here is that we don’t need migrant workers without papers to do this work, but just this winter, that was proven to be wrong. Because of the crackdown on undocumented workers in Pennsylvania, people stayed away from the tomato fields there, ultimately forcing the largest tomato company in the state out of business. The owner said that he usually employs 125 men during the picking season, all good men but none of whom were willing to risk deportation. And for 45 cents a barrel, there weren’t any legal American workers lining up to take their places. Of course, the majority of farm workers earn less than $10,000 a year and have no health insurance, sick days, or job security of any kind. The pay has remained nearly the same for 30 years.

So, what can we do? Here in NY there’s a bill coming up for a vote called the Farm Workers Fair Labor Bill which requires that the same rights afforded to other workers in the state be given to farm workers, a provision that is apparently not in place. It allows for collective bargaining, the right to 24 consecutive hours off each week, and establishes an 8 hour work day or the right to overtime pay. It also makes farm workers eligible for workers compensation and guarantees sanitary working conditions. Something we can do is learn more about this bill and encourage our representatives to pay attention to it as well. June 15th has been declared Farmworker Albany Day and if any of you are interested in joining me, I’m considering going to stand in solidarity with our farmworkers.

2nd, Anti-slave workers in the country are encouraging people to stop buying tomatoes grown in Florida until slavery has ended. Of course, Senator Bernie Sanders says that slavery is the extreme, but the norm is still a disaster, so we can refuse to send our money to the Tomato Growers Exchange until fair labor practices have been implemented for everybody.

The UU Church of Danbury in CT voted to join the new sanctuary movement, becoming the first congregation in the state to make such a public move. They’re taking a stand on the state of undocumented workers in this country and have been very vocal in CT on workers rights and immigration issues. Possibly our Social Justice Committee wants to consider what it would mean for this congregation to respond publically and actively on this issue.

And, maybe we need to amend Michael Pollen’s revolutionary statement. Eat Food. Not Much. Mostly Plants. Mostly Local. When we eat local food grown on small farms or in our own vegetable gardens, we have nothing to worry about. The labor is our own or that of our neighbors or farmer with whom we’ve built a relationship and there aren’t any boxes of fortified Coco Puffs growing in anyone’s back yard.

In the month of March, we imported 657 metric tons of vegetables and 1115 metric tons of fruit. We spent $652 million dollars to import grains, even though we were once the breadbasket of the world. And it’s not like we’re all that intentional about this; we import an equal amount of tomatoes from Canada that we export to Canada. While I would never advocate the end of the global market, we do need to include in the cost of our current food system the planetary consequences of hauling our food the average 2000 miles our food travels to our tables. At the minimum, the transportation of food has been estimated to be responsible for no less than 30% of the US carbon footprint each year. And we participate in this system mindlessly. I mean…Kellogg’s nutri-grain bar has ingredients from nine different countries!

One of the things I’ve done is to start InterGenerate, a non-profit organization committee to environmental and social sustainability. Last week we opened a community garden with almost 100 plots, several of which will be used to feed the Mt. Kisco Interfaith Food Pantry. We also opened a teaching garden at John Jay Homestead for neophytes like myself to learn how to become self-sufficient and increase our area’s food security. In addition, last year we started an intergenerational garden camp at Bedford Audubon to build a sustainable community while teaching children how to grow food and this year we’ve tripled in size and are adding an after camp program in South Salem.

We can all shift towards a more local lifestyle. Becoming a locavore is about joining a revolution. A revolution for health, for the earth, for food security and for fair labor practices. I’m not suggesting it’s easy or inexpensive. In fact, I’ll be completely honest in telling you it will be both difficult and costly. We’ll be eating less and paying more.

And maybe we have to go without tomatoes in January.

Next on the Board agenda, is the capital budget and again the same two themes emerge: (i) what must we do to keep our church safe and functional and (ii) what improvements would we like to see done. Many have asked for better handicap access and after being on crutches myself, I agree that is a very worthy project. Some improvements to the parking lot might get us an additional space or two and with the roof fixed, we need to repaint the sanctuary. But how much more money should we invest in this place-we’re bursting at the seams; some (Jim) Sundays are SRO and our holiday and social events verge on being too crowded to enjoy. Should we try to relocate or stay where we are? The capital budget will be voted on together with the operating budget at the annual meeting.

The other budget news is less glamorous, but equally important. Many of you may be aware that our stalwart Treasurer, Greg Kullberg, is leaving the board at the end of his term in June. OH! NO!! His service to the Fellowship has been a gift to all of us-the treasurer’s role is demanding and crucial to virtually every aspect of Fellowship life. With Greg leaving the Board, we will re-define the job to make it less burdensome on any one person and also take the opportunity to institute new fiscal policies. We were very, very fortunate to have Greg assume this role, but we cannot count on always being so lucky in the future; to insure that our cash management practices continue to measure up to the standard that Greg has set will take some work- it won’t happen by accident.

Lastly I want to thank the Church Revitalization Group (a part of the Adult RE program)for attending our last board meeting. The group is reading The Almost Church Revitalized, by Michael Dural (there are a lot of copies in circulation if you are interested). The group is talking about what UU’ism actualized and practiced could be and . . . what we can be. Their energy and spirit energized the entire Board meeting; thanks.

Rick Turner, President
Board of Trustees

This is especially true in marriages and in recent years, I have learned and taught many of the couples I counsel healthier, more positive ways of communicating when there are disagreements and when needs are not being met. The literature on the subject is vast. Daniel Goleman, for example, has written two popular books, Emotional Intelligence and Destructive Emotions (How Can We Overcome Them?). I have trained with John Gottman, a renowned research psychologist on communication in human relationships. The greatest emotional need human beings have is connection. One of the reasons we assemble in religious communities is to nurture that need.  Part of our own mission statement emphasizes this need as well: We are committed to nurturing the connections that draw us together… A Covenant on Right Relations is intended to help us do that.

I believe since we live in an increasingly complex world that seems to be more polarized than ever, and given the new science on emotional connection and communication, we have naturally become interested in defining how we want to be together in our relationships, families and communities. Some people do have serious reservations about a Covenant on Right Relations, with good reasons. Indeed, a Covenant of Right Relations, like anything else intended for a good purpose, can be misused and in some cases stifle expression and opinions. I trust this will never happen in our own community. A covenant can also be extremely wordy, losing its effectiveness.

One UU congregation in Seattle, Washington puts it this way: Basically, a covenant of right relations is a set of guidelines intended to help create a welcoming, respectful, safe and vibrant spiritual community. This purpose is served through respectful communication amongst individuals when engaging in congregational activities. Such guidelines are meant to reduce the amount of conflict, misunderstandings and hurt feelings that can occur when people speak passionately about subjects important to them. Right relations are the foundation on which a safe congregation is based. As we work together to articulate our understanding of and affirm our commitment to the practice of right relations, we will enrich our ability to love, respect, and nurture each other in our lifelong spiritual quests. 

Conflict is normal in healthy relationships. Disagreement, ideally, communicates caring and involvement.  When practicing right relations, people may disagree vigorously but still treat each other respectfully, stay connected, and learn together. Power is shared. A sense of wellbeing pervades the congregation as people minister to one another. This allows each of us to choose with intention and act with integrity on what we believe and value, in a framework of respectful relationship with members of the Congregation, community and wider world.

The Covenant on Right Relations is a living document. It can be reviewed by the Congregation at any time in the future and adapted to fit changing needs and circumstances. I hope this is helpful.

See you at the Fellowship.  Jim Covington

I have two favorite quotes on aging. The first is by Orson Welles who wrote in The Picture of Dorian Gray:”The tragedy of old age is not that one is old, but that one is young.”   And then a similar sentiment was spoken by Satchel Paige: “How old would you be if you didn’t know how old you was?”  Well that of course, depends on the particular day I arise from bed.  It is amazing how old I feel can change from day to day.  Most of the time, I feel that I am all ages-sometimes 20, 35, sometimes 50, sometimes-well, I don’t know if it’s sixty eight or not that I feel, but close.  One thing is for sure, reaching this age means that I somehow have negotiated every year to this point.  One doesn’t become 68 overnight or without effort.  I am the culmination of all those years of experiences. 

This truth is captured by an eleven year old girl, Sandra Cisneros:  “What they don’t understand about birthdays and what they never tell you is that when you’re eleven, you’re also ten, and nine, and eight, and seven and six, and five, and four, and three, and two, and one.  And when you wake up on your eleventh birthday you expect to feel eleven, but you don’t.  You open your eyes and everything’s just like yesterday, only it’s today. 

“And you don’t feel eleven at all.  You feel like you’re still ten.  And you are underneath the year that makes you eleven. . . Because the way you grow old is kind of like an onion or like the rings inside a tree trunk or like my little wood dolls that fit one inside the other, each year inside the next one.  That’s how being eleven years old is.” 

And that’s a little like what it is to be sixty eight, too.  Who am I, after all?  I am a 68 year old man, but part of what I am is what I was at 50 or 40 or 30 and 20 and 10.  I have incorporated in my being, decades worth of experience-happy and sad, wise and stupid, caring and selfish-all of which contribute to my spiritual self. 

I am decidedly not merely a dot on a time line, but a human being who has lived a life, who does not feel even close to saying farewell, who is eager to praise whatever powers that be for life and light and depth of meaning. 

The nineteenth century philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer said the first 40 years of a man’s life furnishes the text and the last 30 years supply the commentary.   Well that was in the nineteenth century.  Those years have been expanded a bit by now.  Besides, I am not sure the text is ever finished.  But at some point in a person’s life the commentary begins, a story begins to unfold. 

I confess, I have trouble with my aging, especially now that I am approaching the end of my sixties decade.  Often I feel just plain defiant like Winston Churchill who on the event of his 80^th birthday was having his photograph taken.  The photographer for the occasion said courteously that he hoped he would photograph Churchill on his hundredth.  “I don’t see why not, young man,” said Churchill, “you look reasonably fit to me.”   I can relate to that.  Someone said: “Old age is always 15 years older than I am.” 

Nevertheless, my life seems to go on with geometric rather than arithmetic speed.  It is not 1, 2, 3, 4 but 2, 4, 8, 16.  The decades fairly dance along-40, 50, 60.  The older one is, the greater the acceleration of the years-at least that’s the way it seems to most of us. I received an email from Peter Callaway this week-who is older than me by two weeks-who wrote: “Sixty eight, huh? How did we get this far so soon?” Our basic way of looking at the aging process is in terms of linear time. 

Life, of course, is linear, a series of instants along a time line, each of which has its own integrity, its own inherent worth.  However, our existence is decidedly more than a sequence of random events, without form or pattern or meaning.  If we are spiritually sensitive to our living, life is an experienced whole-a story-a story with meaning.  Our job is to fashion a pattern and a purpose out of those seemingly random events, those seemingly unconnected episodes.  Our lives have a plot which we fashion as we live.    I wonder these days what my own plot has been? 

Let’s see:  Born and raised in small town W. Tennessee, only child, loving parents, alcoholic father, born again Christian and  baptized when I was 9, called to preach at 16, called and was ordained a minister at 17, Christian college, married early at 21, two children, seminary, divorced 7 years later, left the ministry, attained custody of my two children, moved to New York, studied psychology, attended a liberal American Baptist Church, marched against the war, marched for civil rights, women’s rights and gay rights; worked with inner city youth, started a private practice in psychotherapy, raised my children, founded the NY Center for Men, became a UU, became a grandfather, remarried, felt called to return to the ministry, became minister at UU Fellowship of Croton, and here I am 20 years later… And all that is a mere sketch of events, changes, moves, text…What’s the plot?  What’s the story? 

Our task in life as we grow older, is to see our lives as a narrative with a beginning which was, a middle in which we now act, and an end which we wish to make worthy of the effort.  

Our temptation as we age is to measure our lives, not so much from birth as from death.  “How many years do I have left?” we ask, realizing poignantly that every day we awaken we are one day nearer to our final sleep.  As we grow older, however, the meanings deepen and we come to understand time-not as a line with birth and death defining each end-but by the significance of each precious moment.  In the linear understanding of life, we live by the clock and the calendar-not by meanings. There is linear time and there is meaning time.  As linear time shortens-meaning time deepens. What is key is not life’s linear length, but its felt richness, “the things unseen and felt-the things eternal.” 

And what are the meanings that sustain my understanding of life and death? Well, I know I am privileged to be a visitor, a guest of existence and I am grateful.  I have come to more fully appreciate the wonder that it has happened at all. 

I like to read about the heavens-a heaven I can believe in-far more wondrous than the thought of my small self being made immortal.  Not too long ago, I revisited the Hayden Planetarium at the Museum of Natural History with my grandchildren.  Once again, we witnessed on its vast sphere a laser re-creation of how the universe began in a burst of radiant energy from a point smaller than a grain of sand. In half an hour, we witnessed the growth of the universe and learned that all of recorded history is but the width of a single human hair.  

 I’ve lost track of the figures-they keep changing as astronomers make their educated guesses on how old the universe is.    Is the universe contracting or expanding?  Cosmic time puts human time in humbling perspective-and humility is a virtue greatly to be desired in our time.  If I consider the clock on the wall, I realize that humanity did not come along until about twenty minutes to twelve.  And humanity as we know it today came in just the last minute.  We are a brief, barely discernible instant, in cosmic time.  

The Hebrew poets before Jesus, without our scientific understanding of time and space, nonetheless had a fundamental spiritual grasp of humanity’s place in the great chain of creation:  “When I consider the moon and the stars, the heavens, the work of Thy fingers, what is humanity that Thou art mindful of us, yet Thou has made us little lower than the angels and crowned us with honor and with glory.”  

Being a guest of existence in this cosmos is not insignificant matter-it’s just that it is helpful to keep our cosmic status in mind.  The cosmos is not all about us. 

All this stretches my mind-and my heart-and my spirit-to be a part of such a miracle.  We are a “temporary expression of the forces of the universe. . . obliged to make our contribution to what has been called ‘the boundless sweep of being.’ ” So, there’s the first commentary on the meaning and text of my being. 

Here’s a second commentary:  I appreciate the reality of the human condition.  Hopefully, I see things more realistically now.  You know, life becomes a great deal more interesting as we age.  People are much more complicated than had seemed the case when we were in a more dogmatic and youthful frame of mind.  We grow in our capacity for tolerance and maintain a sense of humor that enables us to laugh at ourselves and not take ourselves too seriously.  In the end we can possess a playful attitude toward life as a game that has its own seriousness. 

We also develop a sense of irony, suggesting that given enough time, all things human can go badly, but that the human enterprise nonetheless is eminently worthwhile. Yet, each day, I am struck by the tragedy of the human condition, that our greatest virtues can yield incalculable suffering; humanity’s greatest scientific invention can destroy masses.  In spite of great technological, medical, scientific advances, human beings still slaughter one another, still suffer, still inflict enormous pain, still struggle to get along.   This too is humbling.  I continue to be hopeful about humanity’s capacity to love, yet I remain painfully aware of how destructive we can be. 

What are some of the other meanings/commentaries that sustain my understanding of the text of life and death? 

Eric Erickson defines the last two adult tasks of life as “keeper of the meaning,” and “integrity.”  The former has to do with upholding and teaching the cultural and spiritual achievements of the past.  Integrity is the acceptance of one’s one-and-only life cycle as something that had to be.  Wisdom is the virtue of integrity-the ability relate to life now from the myriad experiences one can draw from.  For example, I know I am an imperceptible, but a miraculous part of a great stream of being which began long before me and will flow on long after I am gone.  I can’t but add my little tributary to time’s mighty river. 

I know that the older I get and the closer to the end, my life grows in intensity-I feel things more -I experience life more poignantly-I treasure moments more fully.  In many ways, life is better because I think I am closer to the heart of it. Integrity is deepened. 

I know that it is easier for me to say these things in the throes of relative health and happiness than in the coming days when health will fade and happiness will be challenged.  I can only hope I will be as convincing to myself then as I am now. 

I know that the most important aspect of life is friendship.  Without friendship, marriage itself becomes but a sham.  Friendship is the sustaining element of all good marriages and all other relationships.  We need one another.  We need the connection.  One of the most important ministries of this congregation is the ministry of friendship-connection.  We say in our mission statement: “we are committed to nurturing the connections that draw us together.” Interestingly, medical statistics indicate that those who remain connected to religious communities, live longer.  St. Ailred of Rievaulx:  “No medicine is more valuable, none more efficacious, none better suited to the cure of all our temporal ills than a friend to whom we may turn for consolation in time of trouble, and with whom we may share our happiness in time of joy.” 

I know that death may end life, but not relationship.  Those loved ones who have gone before me live in me still with memories etched in love.  Parents, mentors, teachers, friends, those in our own Fellowship who have died in recent years, live in me still and I pass on to my own children, to you, and to others the values I have learned.  I know that what I am able to make of my life-here and now-will not be forgotten.  At least a few will remember.  I am assured of my immortality in words said, deeds done, and love given away.  I am part of a living tradition. I am now the keeper of the meaning. 

I know that my mission is not to fear death, but to fear the inadequate life.  My best preparation for my ultimate departure is to live my life with intensity, integrity and joy while I may. 

I know that the “paradox of life is to love it all the time though we ultimately lose it…” (2) 

And so there you have it.  A bit of commentary on the text and meaning of my life.    I will not be trapped in the despair of linear time, measuring my life by the number of years lived.  Instead I seek to find in every day a fresh page of the story, of more text and commentary, knowing that each day I begin again.  I am, in the last analysis, a perpetual beginner; I am forever unfinished. 

In the end the poets say it best. Doris Grumback concludes her “Fifty Days of Solitude” with these words: “Like Don Quixote, I have learned that, until death, it is all life.”  And I intend to make the most of it. 

I would be like the master surgeon who said to her students at one point in open-heart surgery, “You have only thirty seconds to tie off this artery-so you have got to take your time.”  I refuse to live in a kind of spiritual panic that my years are numbered-the years are numbered for each and every one of us.  I don’t feel I have to cram in everything between now and some foreboding then.  I have to take my time, live well, savor deeply, strive mightily to save us from ourselves, work for the common good, and enjoy always.  I want to do a good job. I want to be a good human being. 

So be it…I love you.  May God bless us all. Or to put it another way: May the Spirit of Life always move and sing in your heart.

I think most of us agree that saving the Earth is a good idea. Who knows? We might need it later. For Pagans, caring for the earth is also a religious duty. Every act of ecological conservation is a prayer in action. If Pagans could add an 11th commandment, it would likely be “Thou shalt care for the Earth and preserve its natural bounty, for thou art neither above or below it, but a part of it.”  Actually that would make a nice amendment to our 7^th principle. 

Some Christians have noticed that the Bible instructs us to care for the Earth, too. Genesis says, man was put in the Garden to dress it and keep it, (not to slash and burn it): And God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’ . . . And God saw everything he had made, and behold, it was very good.

The earth was sacred…back then.   Our early ancestors venerated nature instead of deities.  The sun, bringing light and life, was worshipped; prayer and ritual dancing were directed to the rain god, whose water caused the plants to grow.  The Spirit was alive, diffused through all of nature, and tribal people felt at one with nature. 

Unfortunately, over time, as a result of population growth, the industrial revolution and now the technological revolution, that passage has become an invitation to live heavily on the earth. “Be fruitful and multiply” - an understandable imperative in a time of few people and much land - becomes a real hazard in a time with too many people and resources too poorly distributed.  The Worldwatch Institute, a progressive Washington think tank recently issued its report, State of the World 2010, noting there are over 1 billion undernourished people in the world who have too little, and an equal number of over-nourished people who have too much. Worldwatch reports with concern the steadily disappearing species of the earth, upsetting the fragile balance of nature. And some of us believe the natural world is touched with divinity — and the disappearance of a species by our hand becomes sacrilege. As William Conway of the Bronx Zoo said some years ago: “When the last snow leopard goes, there is no way we can make another.”

There is a conservative movement called “People First” that says environmental conservation should be secondary to providing the material needs of people. I would ask how we can provide for people if we destroy the environment that sustains us in the process. When one’s house is cold, one does not stay warm by tearing down the house for firewood.

Interestingly, the world population has grown from 3.7 billion forty years ago when the Earth Day was first observed, to 6.7 billion today, an 87% increase. Birth rates have declined in the last decade, but the United Nations projects that world population will reach 9.2 billion by 2050, even if birth rates continue to decline. Many scientists believe we are already exceeding the Earth’s capacity to regenerate resources, and unless we do more to support voluntary family planning, provide better education for women in underdeveloped countries and prevent unwanted pregnancies, we put the planet and all the species that inhabit it–including humans–at great risk, no matter how much we do to clean up the environment.

Supply-siders tell us that the Earth is a long way from being filled up. They argue that if you put everyone on earth in a city with a population density similar to New York City, it would fit in an area the size of Texas. True enough, but it would take the whole rest of the Earth to provide food, fuel, water, and raw materials for this Texas-sized city, and maybe a moon or two for a place to dump their garbage.

You and I live well on this overpopulated world because we had the good fortune to be born in America. The average American uses 30 times more natural resources than, for instance, the average Nigerian. For our Texas-size city to enjoy a New York standard of living would require several Earth-size planets.

There is a looming environmental crisis caused by living beyond our ecological means. We are facing peak population, peak oil, peak water, peak fish, peak copper, peak lots of things; that is, we are extracting them as fast as we can. Demand is increasing, but supply is decreasing. Some believe there will be a global crash within the next few decades if we don’t start living within our means, that is, within the means of our planet. I call it living lightly on the Earth so we can continue living on Earth.

Living lightly on the Earth does not mean freezing in the dark. One can live better by living lightly, and one can live well for less. Prosperity and conservation are synergistic.  How green are we? There are internet sites that calculate your ecological footprint, and they are fun to use. I tried lowimpactliving.com, which compares your footprint to the average for households in your area. 100 is average. A low score is better for the Earth. A high score is better for Exxon-Mobil. My score was 62.

I’m aware there are a lot of skeptics about global warming. I know there are those who believe I am one of those Green Cassandras shouting “Ain’t it awful!” There are those who believe global warming is a huge farce; that the earth can sustain still more people; that everything is getting better. And there are substantive debates on all these issues. I am not technically competent to resolve them, much less choose between competing experts. I can only ask: what if the optimists who deny the depth of these problems are wrong? What if they lose the bet? The consequences are harrowing. Living lightly on the earth not only gives us better odds of sustaining a congenial environment, but it is spiritually more fulfilling at the same time.  What do we have to lose by living lightly?

In recent months some climate experts have seemed to have misled the public by citing non-peer-reviewed research or failing to respond to legitimate questions. Although there remains a mountain of research from multiple institutions about the reality of climate change, the public has grown uneasy. What’s real?   And in addition, this past winter it snowed like crazy in Washington and the Northeast, rained at the Winter Olympics in Canada while Australia is having a record 13-year drought.  However, this erratic weather pattern is right in line with what every major study on climate change predicts: The weather will get weird; some areas will get more precipitation than ever; others will become drier than ever.   As Thomas Friedman has suggested in NY Times essay, perhaps we should avoid the term “global warming” and use the term “global weirding” instead, because that is what actually happens as global temperatures rise and the climate changes.  The weather gets weird.  The hots are expected to get hotter, the wets wetter, the dries drier and the most violent storms more numerous.

 Historically, we know that the climate has warmed and cooled slowly, going from Ice Ages to warming periods, driven, in part, by changes in the earth’s orbit and hence the amount of sunlight different parts of the earth get. What the current debate is about is whether humans - by emitting so much carbon and thickening the greenhouse-gas blanket around the earth so that it traps more heat - are now rapidly exacerbating nature’s natural warming cycles to a degree that could lead to dangerous disruptions.  I believe we are.

But even if climate change proves less catastrophic than some fear, in a world that is forecast to grow from 6.7 billion to 9.2 billion people between now and 2050, more and more of whom will live like Americans, demand for renewable energy and clean water and feeding a burgeoning population is going to soar.   I think it only makes sense, regardless of the extent of global warming, that we invest in family planning and education in addition to investing in renewable energy, energy efficiency and mass transit, import less oil, invent and export more clean-tech products, send fewer dollars overseas to buy oil.

Now let me speak more to the spiritual nature of this crisis.  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.

Gentleness is something of which we see little.  It is a lost art. Look about you and one can see how hard we are on the earth.  Lakes and streams continue to be poisoned by chemicals and DDT washed from the farmlands.  Forests are decimated by acid rain and merciless deforestation.  The air we breathe continues to be polluted with chemicals and fuel emissions. 

Frugality is what was practiced in the Great Depression - out of necessity - but it is rather ignored in our time. Our national savings rate is abysmally low, and why not? We are bombarded day after tiresome day with messages urging us to buy - why wait?  Enjoy the good life - the consumer life - now. If this is true, and I think it is, then, the whole nation is caught up in a frantic produce-consume cycle - a buying frenzy, and it is a serious illness.

We are victims of an attitude of endless expectations, somehow believing each of us is going to have more of everything. 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. We tend to believe that we are the apex of evolution - what God had in mind all this long time. But as one zoologist wrote, “The direction of evolution . . . has not been oriented toward (us). (We were) not planned. Nature chanced to discover (us) in her somewhat random search for better models.”

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.”  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 of gentleness, frugality and humility.   And as we do, a new world can arise, as it always does, out of the human imagination.  As conscientious human beings who believe in the inherent worth and dignity of persons, who hold respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part, we are always asking questions: “What is our responsibility to save and savor the world?   What do we need to do or stop doing to help save the world, preserve the gift of life and ourselves?  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? 

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.”

For me, in fact, the biggest reason for us to turn things around is our children. We want to pass on to them a world where they can breathe the air, where they can drink the water, where they can feel safe in purchasing food.

I ask you: What do the times that we live in require of us? What does Gaia require of us? What does our faith require of us? What do our children require of us?

We’re not talking about giving a donation to Greenpeace once a year, or the Sierra Club. We’re talking about seeing the earth as SACRED everyday and us as conscious participants in its SACREDNESS.

Let me tell you how I feel. There is something holy about the Earth that I cherish. Creation is not of our doing. Life is a gift beyond our comprehension or deserving. We are compelled to humility. This Earth I stride is part of the cosmic divinity in which I live. This globe on which I am, is holy to its very core. It is sacred. These animals with which I share the air and water and space do delight me, yet they are not here just for my pleasure. They are something of value in and of themselves. These hills I behold are holy ground, sacred groves, not only for my spirit, but themselves are worthy of worship. This air I breathe is sacred stuff, and I do well not only to keep it clean for my sake, but for the pureness of its own being.

We’re talking about the moral rights of the earth.  We’re talking about passing on to the next generation a viable living space for them and for their children. We are talking about keeping the whole Earth a sacred community.

What, I ask you, could be more important than this?

So be it.

Fellowship Choir: Will You Be There - at the 9:00 a.m. service.
Keith Harris at the 11:00 a.m. service.

Social Events is sponsoring the Earth Day Celebration Potluck luncheon after the 11:00 a.m. service. The theme will be the Three Sisters: Beans, Squash and Corn, which is explained in the Green Sanctuary article in the Fellowship April Newsletter.  Sign-up sheets are available after both services. For more information contact Social Event Co-Chairs: Susi Dugaw (914-275-3924, susidugaw@verizon.net ) or Maria Morressey (914-271-4336, mdm139@hotmail.com).

Also this Sunday, at 2:30 p.m. after the Earth Day Potluck luncheon at the Fellowship, the Senior Youth will be showing to all interested a one-hour video called “Our American Roots” which is about UU’s founding fathers and mothers in America.   The video is very interesting.  Some information about the video may be found at the following link: http://www.allsoulschurch.org/our-american-roots-dvd

I’m afraid I have to agree that this sentiment is too often a sad commentary on our present state of human relationships. There is a kind of judgmentalism abroad in the land. I wonder why? I am sure there are multiple reasons, but I wonder if it has to do in part with the speed and intensity of our time.  We have too much to do.

Everything is speeded up, including our very natural tendency to pass judgment on everyone but ourselves. 

We are so busy, we often are too tired to deliberate in the way that makes it possible to understand people as they are-intriguing and complicated mixtures of problems and possibilities.  The rhetoric of the media infuses us with a desire to exaggerate our feelings and express them quickly-often without thought.  We think anything less than a complete and total judgment isn’t sufficient. 

Be that as it may, still, unfortunately, being human is not always easy.  We have our differences and often those differences become battlegrounds for divisiveness, personal attacks, criticism and incivility both in personal relationships, national politics and yes, even in religious congregations. 

As a marriage therapist, I often witness how marriages become battlegrounds rather than havens of love and support. The reason many marriages fail is because of the way people talk to each other or not talk to each other when they are disappointed or hurt or have emotional needs that are not being met.  Kindness, empathy and acceptance go a long way in making relationships strong.  But communication is the key, i.e, the way we communicate.   Getting your point across without blaming or name-calling is always more productive.  I sat in session this week with a couple who were screaming at each other all because something had gone awry during the installation of a new bathroom sink in their home.  She was very unhappy about it and he was bewildered.  They had gotten into a huge fight.  Said she at the top of her voice:  “I don’t know which disgusts me the most, the bathroom sink or you!  Both of you disgust me!”  To which he replied:  “Yes, and you are a blankety-blank maniac!” And then I calmly said:  ”You come here to pay me for this? I’d rather you didn’t.   Let’s take a time-out and see if there’s something else going on,” which is usually the case, but it’s not being communicated well and consequently no one is listening. 

Criticism, belligerence, contempt-are styles of communication that label the other as being wrong or flawed or stupid.  “What’s wrong with you? Don’t be so stupid!  Let me tell you what you should do!” These are some of the negative messages partners often convey to one another either in words or tone. These are harsh negative expressions of anger that only serve to alienate. They never serve to connect or resolve. 

We also see this alienation in our nation.   It seems to me that the political polarization of our society has now reached a new and dangerous level. Honest disagreements over policy issues have turned into a growing vitriolic rage against political opponents, and even threats of violence against lawmakers are now being credibly reported. I am really appalled and disgusted by some of the comments being made in the media.

Interestingly, I received an email from Jim Wallis this week about this very issue.  Jim Wallis is a social activist evangelical Christian and his social justice work has recently been condemned by the Fox news commentator, Glenn Beck as a form of “Nazism”.   Jim reported that recently a deeply concerned, veteran member of Congress called him to express real despair about the alarming level of disrespect, personal attacks, and even hateful rhetoric that was occurring among her colleagues — reflecting a degeneration of public debate in our national culture. This month, another member of Congress called to express real fear about threats of violence he and other elected officials had experienced against themselves and their family members.

What really struck me however, was that Wallis was calling on people of faith from all religious traditions to agree to and sign “A Covenant for Civility,” calling for a much needed safe, civil and even sacred spaces for better public discourse at this moment in our nation’s history.  He writes:  We need to behave differently, for both the sake of our spiritual integrity and the health of our democracy.  We have forgotten some of the key values of faith:  respect, truth, honesty, humility, patience, kindness, confession, forgiveness and prayer…it is time to recover them again.  Let the change we call for begin with us.  So being the evangelical Unitarian Universalist that I am, I signed it.

Which brings me to us and the theme of this sermon: the necessity of covenant -in particular a covenant of right relations-a promise to respect and communicate with one another, even when we disagree.   In the article I emailed to our members in recent weeks, Practice Respect, Tom Owen-Towle writes: If we fail to be practitioners of right relations in our chosen tribes, then our admirable pronouncements and contributions in the larger society are bogus.  In actuality, it may be far tougher to practice our Unitarian Universalist Principle of “justice, equity, and compassion in human relations, in our families and congregations than anywhere else.  Indeed!  

He goes on to write: Healthy churches lift up the pain, create covenantal guidelines, and point fellow members in the direction of managing conflicts, if not resolving them.  They learn how to fight fairly, not cruelly; for impact, not injury.  Healthy churches heed what Native American activist Catherine Attla calls “the big law of respect.”  A respectful church is one where boundaries are kept, saboteurs are confronted, crises are faced. . . in a healthy congregation, members are always asking, “What does it mean to practice a kinder regard whether we are engaged in religious education or social outreach, maintenance or leadership development, or fund-raising.

Because we know only too well how our human impulses can lead to hurt and divisiveness we need covenant-a promise to one another that we will be on alert to behave civilly, respectfully and compassionately with one another, even when we disagree and pose radically different opinions!  This is what Jim Wallis is calling for across denominational lines.  It is also why we have marriage vows.  A marriage vow is a couple’s covenant, a promise as to how they will be with each other especially when times are inevitably difficult and when they disagree.  The Ten Commandments is a vow, a promise to God on how a people will live together. “Covenant” is Latin which means a  ”promise from the heart” regarding a course of action between parties. 

Living in covenant is not easy though.  Living in covenant takes compassion. It takes compassion to look at our own motives and behaviors in a conflict.  Living in covenant takes courage.  It takes courage to engage those involved in a conflict and ask or insist that they be accountable to the mutual obligations of our covenant.   Living in covenant also takes practice.  It doesn’t mean avoiding conflicts or minimizing differences. It means developing a trust that will allow all differences of opinions, beliefs and feelings to be expressed in a respectful manner.  The Beloved Community is not an accidental creation.  It is the result of hard work. 

I believe covenant is essential to Unitarian Universalist congregations. We are people of great promise and people who make promises. Jewish theologian Martin Buber reminds us that humans are “promise-making, promise-keeping, promise-breaking, promise-renewing.” Without promises it is hard to conceive that we could even imagine a future, let alone bring it into being. Through promises, we create a future, and by the keeping of those promises, we bring the future into the present. If we lived in a utopia with all needs satisfied, all social ills redeemed, and all injustices made right, there would be no need for promises. We do not live in utopia. There are chasms that separate us from the world we would create. Promises are one of the tools that we use to build bridges to that world.
Promises lift us out of our egoistic individualism. Individualism in Unitarian Universalism is either our original sin or our idol, a false God. Without covenant, the needs of the individual will always trump the needs of the religious community. We have mastered individualism, but not individualism in community. Covenant teaches us, as we practice it week-in and week-out, how to be an individual in community. It invites us to surrender some of our individual needs to the greater good of the congregation. Covenant calls us to be in right relationship with each other, and when those relationships become frayed, as they inevitably will, to repair the relationship.

Living in covenant is not easy for we must ask, “What does love require?” Living in covenant is not easy, but it has the power to transform. We must be willing to practice seventy times seven, to fail seventy times seven, to forgive seventy times seven. Eventually, we will learn how to do it and as more and more of us live in covenant, we will be transformed and transforming.

So my friends, let me remind you:  We are a covenantal religion, not creedal. Our principles serve as our covenant on how we hope to relate to the larger community.  A covenant of right relationship helps define how we intend to work together and communicate within our congregations.  Interestingly, after the Unitarians and Universalists merged in 1961, we seemed to lose our way. Again and again there were programs designed to articulate a Unitarian Universalist identity. We grappled with the challenge of what we held in common since we were not gathered around shared belief. We forgot that the glue was covenant. We found ourselves gathering because we were like-minded. Our churches felt like a liberal oasis in an illiberal desert. While we would have rebelled at being told what to believe, we found respite in this like-mindedness.

An aspect of this like-mindedness was a fierce individuality, which we struggled, often unsuccessfully, to balance with the idea and ideal of community. The weak force of community could not achieve equilibrium with the strong force of individuality, and many of our congregations failed to thrive.

There is a story that has become a bit of Unitarian Universalist “folklore” about our strong propensity for individualism.(1) It seems that in one of our congregations back in the late fifty’s or early sixties, there was a man who had a particularly unusual way of expressing his dislike of a sermon. He would stand up during the sermon and slowly begin taking his clothes off, one piece at a time, until he was completely naked. And then he would stand that way until the sermon ended.

What’s most amazing about this story, however, isn’t the man’s behavior; what’s amazing is that no one in the congregation made him stop. They apparently didn’t want to infringe on his individual right to free expression!

I have no idea if this is a true story; but I would bet that if not completely true, it’s at least based in fact, with perhaps some embellishments along the way. Because every congregation I know, of every faith, has stories of inappropriate or uncivil behavior.
Looking back it becomes clear that like-mindedness was never adequate to bind us together. Too often disagreements would emerge, polarities that could not be managed or resolved: theist versus humanist, rational versus spiritual, collective social action as a congregation versus social action by individuals outside of the church..  Our congregations cannot thrive if we are only like-minded, for we will always find sources of disagreement. More is needed. Since love is the doctrine of our church, we must become like-hearted in order to flourish.

For Unitarian Universalism, covenant is the alpha and the omega. (2)

Within Native American traditions, the drum is used in ceremonies because the rhythmic beat of the drum symbolizes the heartbeat of the tribe. Covenant is our drum.

The Torah within Judaism is sacred and portions of it are read each week in the Sabbath service. It illuminates the ancient covenant between the people of Israel and Yahweh. Covenant is our Torah.

Islam is built on five pillars which include surrender to Allah, daily prayers, charity, and pilgrimage to Mecca. Covenant is our pillar.

Buddhists pursue enlightenment by committing to the eightfold path, which includes right intent, right action, and right mindfulness. Covenant is our path.

In Taoism, the Tao is the experience of harmony and is often called the “way.” Covenant is our “way.”

Hinduism understands “atman” as being the divine spark within each individual, which is related to Brahman, the godhead. Covenant is atman.

Finally, Unitarian Minister A. Powell Davies said, “The purpose of life is to grow a soul.” The purpose of covenant is to grow the soul of a congregation.

In his book, I and Thou, the Jewish philosopher Martin Buber speaks of relationship as the treasure of the human person: he distinguishes the “it” from the “thou.”  There are “things” and there are “people,” individual people.  He reminds us that a society that encourages the accumulation of things-things to do, things to possess, things to look at, to buy , to throw away, etc-risks undervaluing and forgetting the treasure of personal, heart=-to-heart relationships.  It is through relationship, through love, that we are fulfilled. 

Covenant is a promise to love, to care, to walk together, to work together, to do justice together, to pray together, to learn together, to grow together, to laugh and grieve together, to build the beloved community together.

This Sunday, marks the end of our Fellowship Pledge Campaign. A gala brunch will be held after each   service to celebrate!

Second Collection to benefit The LOFT.  For over 12 years, our Fellowship has supported The LOFT through a second collection.  Today, the Social Action Committee is sponsoring a second collection to benefit The LOFT.  Located in White Plains, New York, The LOFT is a not-for-profit, community-based organization serving the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgendered community of the lower Hudson Valley. The LOFT works to further the cause for inclusion, diversity and pride through education, advocacy and celebration. 

For more information, please go to the website: http://www.loftgaycenter.org/index.html  

On March 7, we had a “special” Fellowship meeting following the 11 a.m. service to discuss the possibility of changing the name of our Fellowship and (possibly) changing the name of RE at the Annual Meeting on June 6. And, at the most recent Board meeting, a representative of the Program Committee informed the Board that the Program Committee would like to change its name! (to the “Worship Service” Committee). I am not sure what all this name-change may mean; are we re-defining ourselves? Perhaps we are giving more thought to who we are, or who we want to be? Regardless of the underlying motivation, we take names seriously because the term used to denominate and identify a thing is the beginning of its definition. A name frequently conveys a message, whether intended or not. And so a rose by any other name may indeed smell as sweet, but the question remains would you pause and bring that same flower to your nose and dare sample the aroma if it were called something dark and menacing; I think not.

What a name connotes may be a bit circular, but there is a very real feeling among our members that our current name (Unitarian Universalist Fellowship at Briarcliff-Croton-Ossining, Inc.) is unwieldy and does not fit us well. Last year, the Board established a task force, headed by Anne Sumers, to explore the issue and . . . what a deep, rich issue it is! Are we a Fellowship, a Church or a Congregation? Must we include the term “Universalist,” or should we include the term Universalist? Do we limit ourselves by a geographical reference or . . . does a location convey where we can be found? On March 7, about 40 or so members met to discuss all these issues, meeting first in small groups of 4-5, and then as one group we listed various names, and in a voting process led by Des Fitzpatrick, everyone voted for his/ her favorite with a democratic twist: those members voting for the names garnering the least votes were eligible to vote again for any of the remaining names. We will use this same process again at the Annual Meeting, so let me explain: we stated with 12 names (as recommended by each small group) and everyone present voted for his/her favorite. We decided we wanted to end the process with four possible names to bring to the annual meeting and so the name with the least votes was struck from the list of possible candidates and those members who had voted for that same name were invited to vote again for any of the remaining names on the list. The process was repeated until the following four names remained: (i) Rivertowns Unitarian Universalist Fellowship; (ii) Hudson Valley Unitarian Universalist Congregation; (iii) Unitarian-Universalist Fellowship at Croton; and (iv)Hudson Valley Unitarian Universalist Fellowship. These four names will be presented to the membership in June for consideration and, in addition, the name recommended (unanimously) recommended by the Task Force, i.e., the “Unitarian Fellowship at Croton-on-Hudson,” will be on the list for consideration. In addition, members will also be offered the option of “no change” as well. So, there are the 6 options that will be presented to you at the annual meeting on June 6-please prepare for this momentous occasion: think about it, discuss it at coffee hour and in your community circle.

As many of us look forward to (possibly) adopting a new name, our more immediate goal is the 2010/11 budget. Des and Jean Fitzpatrick are leading the pledge drive this year and many of you have heard the pledge testimony from fellow congregants on Sunday mornings. The 2010/11 budget will, I believe, be a watershed; members talk about the need to undertake new programs and new initiatives, but these ventures cost money. And,although there are big expectations for the coming year, many of the underlying statistics presented last year remain unchanged: each Sunday service costs over $3,300 (!!); just 17 “pledge units” (or families) provide more than 50% of the operating budget; more than half of our brothers and sisters give less than the suggested minimum. If members want our Fellowship to undertake new initiatives and expand our programming, your financial support is essential. The recommended minimum pledge is $750.00; if you gave less than this amount in 2009/10, please think of how much you get out of our Fellowship, and our potential! For those meeting the minimum pledge, please be as generous as you can-we have some grand plans, big hopes and compelling needs on the horizon!!

Rick Turner, President
Board of Trustees

Naturally, you may be asking “Why do we need this covenant?” I believe the well-being, strength, and reputation of our Fellowship depend on the experience of connection and community among the members, friends, and staff. For this to happen, we must together consciously foster an atmosphere of trust, respect, and cooperation. A covenant of right relations is a set of promises to one another about how we want to be in community. It is an expression of our values, and a promise to practice them. Far more than a piece of paper, this covenant is brought to life by each of us. “Covenant” is Latin for “come together” and means a “promise from the heart” regarding a course of action between parties.

Basically, the Covenant on Right Relations attempts to define how to be a healthy congregation through compassionate communication and respectful interaction. Good communication enhances right relations.

I encourage you to read the document I emailed you two weeks ago-Practice Respect-or check this link for a sample of a covenant at a UU congregation: http://www.wsuu.org/covenantrightrelations.html

Please note that the communication style that is advocated is one that adheres to our UU Principles and Purposes, exhibiting behaviors that enhance the dignity and inherent worth of all participants-for example, through:
    expressing sincere appreciation;
    allowing for human fallibility (giving each other the benefit of the doubt-everyone makes mistakes);
    seeking and offering forgiveness;
    dealing directly with each other;
    speaking softly, not harshly (i.e.,without a tone of criticism, blame or contempt);
    maintaining a sense of humor;
    actively listening and clarifying what we hear;
    letting others have their say;
    respecting boundaries or views that may differ from our own;
    respecting confidentiality;
    refraining from harmful gossip about others;
    and speaking honestly.

In my notes I have this quote: By cultivating healthy communication, we make room for the creative, for the prophetic, for change and growth, and for one another. Taking responsibility for our actions and our feelings is an act of health and wholeness, and is an act of resistance to the larger culture which concentrates on conflict. It takes courage to create beloved community through covenanting together… and the world needs each of us to be willing to both transform, and be transformed. See you at the Fellowship.  Jim Covington

Fellowship Choir: The Smallest Things - at the 9:00 a.m. service.
Spirits in Harmony at the 11:00 a.m. service.

RE Easter Can Hunt sponsored by the RE Committee and assisted by the Junior and Senior Youth.

We ask: Who is calling, Who is called, Who is Ahab and Who or What is Moby Dick, and finally-What, if anything, does all of this have to do with us here and now?

Bio: ROBINSON LILIENTHAL, Ph.D. has been teaching philosophy, religious studies, and applied ethics for over 30 years, and for the past 20 of them - at Rutgers University. He received his BA from Reed College, Masters in Religious Studies from the Hartford Seminary Foundation, and Masters & Ph.D. in Philosophy from the Graduate faculty of the New School for Social Research.  His Masters’ Thesis in Religious Studies was:  Free Will, Grace, and Original Sin in Augustine, Aquinas, and Luther. His Ph.D. dissertation was:  Nietzsche’s Anatomy of Nihilism: The Philosopher as Physician of Culture.  As a philosopher, Dr. Lilienthal has a long standing interest in the social sciences, especially in environmental ethics & policy, and in psychoanalysis, in both its classical and postclassical traditions. He is currently a public lecturer for a wide variety of multidisciplinary audiences.  He had recently become a scientific faculty member at the Object Relations Institute for Psychotherapy and Psychoanalysis.

Spirits in Harmony-11:00 a.m. 

We are honored to have with us at both services today, the Intermediate All-County singers from Briarcliff Middle School  and Pierre Van Cortlandt Middle School (PVC) led by Wilma Messenger.  They performed Saturday afternoon at SUNY Purchase with the Intermediate All-County Chorus - a chorus of about 180 singers and we are delighted to have these 13 young people sing for us today!

Our pledge drive is not merely about raising money to pay the bills. Ultimately, I believe it is our most important program for measuring how seriously we live our beliefs as embodied in our principles. In that light we ask that you give out of your abundance, great or small, “as much as ye are able.”In these days of economic recession, it is difficult for many people to relate to economic abundance. But Dwayne Dyer once said: Abundance is not something we acquire. It is something we tune into. Fortunately we are blessed with an amazing abundance of talent, service, gifts and creative thinking within our active membership! We have a lot to tune into! I marvel everyday that we have so many hard-working, giving, spirited individuals like you who give generously of your time and have helped to create a vital spiritual community. As your minister, I deeply treasure your offerings and your service.

Because of the resulting growth, our needs for more staff time, fair salaries, and improved physical space have grown proportionately. But we also have a challenging opportunity to attract many others who would join us, tune into the abundance and make our community even more vital, more abundant. Out of our abundance, we create more abundance through worship, music, art, religious education, community service and committee actions.

So as each of you decides your financial pledge, remember that you are not merely giving to a building or place. Our Fellowship is a point of contact with the Ultimate Reality, however we name it, and with those proximate people with whom we make our spiritual journey. Our Fellowship is an extension of who we are. It reflects our basic ethical values and our vision of how we want to live out the meanings of our lives. How much is that worth to us?

Ultimately I think our financial pledge is a spiritual exercise, even a spiritual discipline. We give in many ways to the Fellowship: by our time, our energy, our words and by our money. Our monetary resources are also an extension of ourselves. They are an investment in the human race. They are a statement of faith in the future, a physical embodiment of a spiritual life and a moral commitment. They endeavor to make real in the world what is imagined in the heart. As Winston Churchill said, “We make a living by what we get; we make a life by what we give.” So be it. Abundantly. Tune into it!
See you at the Fellowship!   Jim Covington

Developing a fellowship-wide covenant will not be easy; it raises knotty issues, such as how do we enforce the covenant? How do we respond when a member dismisses the obligation of personal service, or demeans our potential to help heal a broken world and show hope where there is none in sight? I don’t know the answer, but if we can all discuss these issues together, that would be a terrific start. In short, we need everyone’s participation to make this as meaningful a process as it can and should be. The process of developing a covenant will begin with our meeting with Francis Sink on March 21; please come-especially if you are not actively participating on a standing committee, i.e., we need everyone’s ACTIVE engagement. At the March 21 meeting, it is the Board’s hope that a task force will emerge to shape and manage development of our covenant by organizing small and large group discussions of what a covenant might, or should, include. Ideally, this task force will collect the thoughts of our membership and work through the mechanics of drafting a proposed covenant to present to the whole membership for consideration at the annual meeting. Rev. Jim will ask the community circles to spend some time on discussing a Fellowship-wide covenant and if we really pull together, we should have a draft document that everyone has seen, discussed, debated, and thought about for consideration at the annual meeting. Anne Pearl and Gerry Peet will be the Board representatives on the covenant task force; are you interested in serving, participating or helping? If so, please let them know and please come to the special meeting on Mach 21 at 12:30 p.m. All the other news from the Board room is much more mundane. Committee budgets must be in to the Treasurer by no later than April 1 (no joke). If all committees can get a proposed budget in by April 1, the Board will convene a special meeting to discuss a draft budget on May 2 at 12:30 p.m. in the sanctuary-well in advance of the annual meeting when members will be asked to vote a budget up or down.

On March 14 the annual pledge drive will begin. We have ambitious goals that will require generous pledging. For example, the Board wants to increase the time commitment we pay our employees more fairly to more accurately reflect to time they give and their value to our community. We need to keep improving this facility to make the limited space we have as functional as possible. And we need to improve our administrative and management systems-we’re growing and as we grow we must add to our infrastructure: we need a safe to secure petty cash, we need better internet and telephone access and we need to pay for our new roof and bat eviction! In 2009, the Board established a suggested minimum pledge of $750; many are not yet at this level of commitment; if you are not at this level please think about the personal value of our Fellowship to you in you life and . . . the POTENTIAL of the UUBCO, Inc.!

Lastly, the annual meeting has been scheduled for June 6 at 10:30 a.m. There will be a regular service at 9:00 a.m. and at 10:30 a.m., we will convene the annual meeting. Three trustees are up for election; if you are interested in serving on the Board, please contact any member of the Nomination Committee.
Please try to attend - it’s your Fellowship.

Rick Turner, President
Board of Trustees

A few minutes later, I introduced myself to another visitor and entered into an equally engaging conversation….during which this individual asked if he could be a member here if he believed in God…..not an anthropomorphic God, but as a presence in the world and in his life.

I share these stories to highlight the differences of attitudes, needs and expectations by those who visit us, looking for religious community. In general, according to a recent survey, people in our nation are more skeptical about religion than other previous time, particularly amongst the millennial generation-those young adults under the age of 30. In a recent poll taken by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life, it is found that compared with their elders today, young people are much less likely to affiliate with any religious tradition.  The millennial generation is quite skeptical of religious dogma, creeds, and beliefs. Yet more than three-quarters of young adults (76%) agree that there are absolute standards of right and wrong, a level nearly identical to that among older age groups (77%). More than half of young adults (55%) say that houses of worship should speak out on social and political matters  And 45% of young adults say that the government should do more to protect morality in society, compared with 39% of people ages 30 and older.  And in spite of their negative attitudes toward religion, most young adults still believe in God, prayer, life after death, similar to older adults.  [1] 

In fact Harvey Cox has written a powerful volume entitled The Future of Faith in which he claims that there is a growing religious movement in the world today away from beliefs and dogma and moving more toward social justice and spiritual experience. I find all of this very interesting and I will speak to it again later in the sermon. [2]

For now, I want to simply define for those of you who are new and are checking us out, as well as to those of you who have been long time members, the religious beliefs we hold.  This is a bit of an irony for me, because on one level, I don’t think beliefs are that important. We tend to think of religion as a set of beliefs as defined in a creed. That is a huge mistake. Religion is much more about what we love and do than about what we think. Yet, in light of the long traditional association of religion with beliefs, I think we still have to be ready to say what our beliefs are to give people an idea of our religious view and our faith.  But even our faith is understood differently: not a belief in creeds, but our “confidence” in the values by which we attempt to live our lives.    

Interestingly over the years many people have said to me, “I’ve been a Unitarian Universalist and didn’t know it.”  Certainly that was true of me.  When I first attended a UU congregation, I knew I was in the right place.  I joined that congregation, because it represented and defined the values which I had come to embrace for myself through my own thoughts and experiences.       

Unfortunately, people will often leave a conversation about our faith with the conclusion that we can believe whatever we want…which is absolutely not true….Yes, we do hold diverse theological beliefs, but our belief system has more to do with deeds rather than creeds or theological beliefs.  So, no, you can’t believe whatever you want.  We believe in those values that when followed will make us better citizens, parents, partners. If your beliefs don’t do that, we don’t go with them. 

There is an old story in the Jewish tradition of the man who asked Rabbi Shamai to teach him Judaism while standing on one foot. Shamai, notoriously impatient, chased the man away. Then he went to Rabbi Hillel and made the same request.  While standing on one foot, Rabbi Hillel responded: “Don’t do to others what you wouldn’t have them do to you.  That is all the Torah; all the rest is commentary.  Now go and learn it.” 

While I am not delivering this sermon while standing on one foot, I will attempt to answer some frequent questions about our faith.

What is your view of religion?

To be human is to be religious. Being alive and knowing we shall die, we can’t help but ask questions about the meaning of life.  I call this the religious impulse, our response to the dual reality of being alive and knowing that we shall also die. To be religious is to make connections. Religion means to bind together the frayed strands of our being - to bind together a broken humanity. It is a core of ultimate meanings and values and convictions to which we commit our lives. To lead a meaningful life among the many competing forces of the twenty-first century, each of us needs support in making meaningful re-connections to the best in our global heritage, the best in others, and the best in ourselves. Ultimately, religion has more to do with love and justice than to creed.

What does Unitarian mean?

Theologically, a Unitarian believes God is one; historically this is denial of the trinity of Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Unitarian also refers to a cosmic reality held together by natural law in distinction from the supernatural. Everything is naturally divine and partakes of the power of being. We are all one.  We are born of the same source and share the same destiny.

Then, what is the meaning of Jesus?

Jesus was a first century Jewish prophet - a moral and spiritual teacher who went about doing good. He sought to reform the Judaism of his day by placing emphasis on its moral and spiritual dimensions rather than on its ceremonies. While his message was designed for a first century agrarian society, the spirit of his teachings, which had to do more with love and justice has inspired people across the ages, and moves us today. Because he was a threat to the religious and political establishment of his day, he was crucified.

Is there life after death?

We do not and cannot know. Many of us doubt such an existence, but do not close our minds to serious attempts at understanding the death process. Others do feel strongly that there is life after death and have had powerful experiences that have convinced them.  We do affirm the immortality of influence: those who have lived well live on in the lives of those they touch. At other times I feel that we are too busy with this life to worry about a future one. The more important question is - is there life after birth?

What about heaven and hell?

Heaven and hell are mythic creations of ancient peoples. We need no thought of heavenly reward or hellish punishment to motivate us to be and do good. Our heavens and hells are here on earth and are of our own making. They are states of the soul. Heaven is participation in the Beloved Community; Hell is indifference to our neighbors.

What does Universalism mean?

Historically Universalism refers to universal salvation - the final harmony of all souls with God. It was a reaction to Calvinist theology in which some were predestined for heaven and others for hell. Universalists believed in a God of love who would ultimately restore all people to a state of grace. Today, theologically, we believe that cosmic and eternal source of conscience and meaning that is greater than all yet present in each, is refracted through many different windows. In the Cathedral of the World there are many windows through which the Light of Truth is refracted.[4]  This “light” illuminates human minds and human hearts in different ways, but ultimately leads us to live compassionately and justly. Those religions from either the right or the left that proclaim that the Light of Truth shines only through their window pane, enshrine a very tiny egotistical god on their altar.   Ethically, Universalism refers to our responsibility for the human family of which we are all members.

Do you believe in salvation? If so, what is it?

Salvation means health or wholeness of being. We do not accept salvation as the gracious act of an omnipotent God who redeems us from sin. Salvation comes through the work of our own hands and the compassion of our own hearts. It is the struggle toward wholeness as a human being - generosity of spirit, depth of meaning, responsibility of action. It is the work of justice.  Salvation is accomplished by deeds not creeds. 

What about human nature? Do you believe in original sin?

Human nature is neither tainted at birth with original sin to be expunged, nor are we born noble savages corrupted by an evil society. We are born in finite freedom. On the one hand we are selfish creatures who think we are the center of creation. On the other, we can transcend that self-centeredness and expand our interests to include our neighbors. We are intriguing and sometimes tragic contradictions - the “glory, jest and riddle of the world.”  We are our own most perplexing problem and our own final hope. We are neither sinners in the hands of an angry God nor saints in the arms of a loving one. We are both saints and sinners, but more importantly, we are seekers.

Do you believe in God?

I believe in a creating, sustaining and transforming power - a cosmic creativity which is the power behind the natural world of planets and flowers, pine cones and photons. It sustains our very existence, but it does not play favorites; it is indifferent to us as creatures - the rain falls on the just and the unjust. Some among us personalize this power in prayer; others do not; Some Unitarian Universalists employ God language; some do not.  It really doesn’t matter.  Forrest Church has said, “God is not God’s name.  God is our name for that which is greater than all and yet present in each.” [3]  Call it what you will: spirit of life, ground of being, life itself; it remains what it always has-in Rudolph Otto’s definition of the Holy-a mysterium tremens et fascinans, an awe-inspiring mind-bending mystery.

Do you believe in spirituality?   To me, spirituality describes a way of being-an openness to truth-the truth of one’s own soul and the truth of the unfolding cosmos as we understand it.  It is living from the depths of being.  Spiritual experience springs from two primary sources, awe and humility in the face of the miracle of life, the miracle of consciousness, the miracle of hope. Spirituality is not really something you discover, but something you live.  

What about the Bible as a source of truth?

The Bible with its Jewish and Christian scriptures is a vast and valuable compendium of human wisdom and folly collected over a period of centuries. The lovely legends of creation, the poetry of the psalmist, the insight of Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, the zeal of the prophets, the moral imagination of Jesus, and the eloquence of Paul are a rich resource. It is a human book, however, shot through with the best and the worst of human nature. It is not the word of God to humanity, but the word of humanity about its understanding of humanity and divinity and where they meet in human life. There are other religious scriptures to which we would also turn. The ethical demands of the Koran, the beauty of the Tao Te Ching, the simple ethic of the Analects of Confucius, the mystical insights of the Bhagavad Ghita, the existential wisdom of the Sutras of Buddhism - and the rich abundance of the whole human literary, artistic tradition - all these contribute to our human store of goodness and beauty and wisdom.

We celebrate a loose-leaf bible which affirms that revelation is not sealed. Truth has not been embalmed in any one age or tradition; it is an unfolding process. The truths of yesterday are often the superstitions of today. We need the freedom to remove from our loose-leaf bible ancient ideas that no longer stand the test of time, keep those that do, and add our own insights to its pages.

In closing I want to return to a comment I made earlier that true religion is less about beliefs and more about love and justice…In light of all that I have just shared with you about our beliefs, this is what I mean by that statement: [5]

True religion for our time must draw upon many religious traditions while transcending them all. I need not reject the precious gifts of community, compassion and passion for justice from my conservative Baptist Christian upbringing. Yet I must transcend the narrow theology that would have me think of everyone else is condemned to hell.

True religion must be about wholeness, integrity, and engagement.  It must promote the spiritual practices that give us depth and insight: worship (as we are experiencing this very moment), meditation, prayer, listening, small groups, and music. It must touch our hearts as well as our heads.

True religion must promote deep reflection, but it must never, never, become an escape from life or descend into navel gazing narcissism.  True religion must be prophetic. It must speak truth to power. It must raise a powerful voice against violence, injustice, racism, economic exploitation, and the destruction of life on our planet.  True religion is not afraid of power. It uses power. A religion for our time must strive to transform the world.

Beyond this, true religion must have a vision of the future. It must invite people to come together in love to help create new world-a world of peace, justice, equity, compassion and stewardship of the environment. It must draw upon ancient and undying human longing for harmony, for beloved community, for bringing the reign of love and justice to earth.

Just imagine such a religion! Imagine a religion that believes in the inherent worth and dignity of all people; that seeks justice, equity and compassion; that draws upon the wisdom and insight of many faith traditions; that is open to new learning; that invites and welcomes scientific discovery; that respects and celebrates human diversity; that promotes peace; that demands good stewardship of our planet.  Can you imagine that?  Do you know of such a religious view?  Do you know of a religious community anywhere that believes all of that? 

I am sure there are many such communities.  But you know where I’m going, don’t you?  Surely, I believe one such religious community is us! All the rest is commentary.  Now go and live it and spread the word.

But, wait, you ask, just what do you mean when you say “Environmental Justice?” 

Manna Jo Greene, Environmental Director for Clearwater, will help us to understand the concept of Environmental Justice as an ethical question for humankind. And she will share with us some specifics of the project in Peekskill that she is overseeing. This service will focus on our seventh principle: “Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”

Manna Jo Greene has been a lifelong environmental professional and community activist who supports collaborative land use planning and problem solving. Working to promote sustainable agriculture and green building and landscaping practices, she teaches communities how to integrate environmental preservation, economic prosperity and social equity using effective communication. Environmental Director for Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and founder of the Hudson Valley Sustainable Communities Network (HVSCN),Manna has an long history of leadership in areas ranging from civil rights, activities in support of world peace, and community development of green practices.

Manna is committed to the beliefs that humans can live in harmony with each other and the Earth, and that if your cause is just and you are persistent, you will eventually triumph. Her presentation on February 28 will help us to understand the concept of Environmental Justice, a cause in which she is taken a leadership role in our region. She will provide some examples of how we can participate in local environmental justice projects.

Please join us in welcoming our guest speaker, Manna Jo Greene.