Sermon 2025-26

How We Are Made
11-23-2025
Rev. Douglas Taylor
Sermon Video: https://youtu.be/LvV2OZ9aVhQ

We are a little like the bread. We have basic ingredients – you know, bones and muscles and brains and organs, all the important stuff. Add to that the vast variety of experiences we each have, times when we were babies, times spent in a school or at work or in the woods, times with friends, good times and bad times (you know I’ve had my share).  All these mixed in like different ingredients in different amounts at different times and in different orders, and then some magic happens – and yes that usually involves a little metaphorical heat. Like the bread, this is the way we are made. We are made by the way we take in these experiences, by the way we live and interact with the people around us and we become ourselves. Through some magic of interaction, the alchemy of living – just as the flour and eggs and such become bread – our experiences shape us into being us. For which we give thanks.

There was a bit in the story about how one beggar thanked the queen and the other beggar thanked God. It may seem like the story is telling us that the one who thanked God is better, but that’s not what the story is about. The story is about the queen and the queen’s realization. It doesn’t matter who you thank, so long as you are thankful. God, the universe, the powers that support and uphold life; the point of the story is about humility and gratitude. It’s about being thankful and appreciating your place in it all.

Often it is before a meal that we stop and give thanks, offer a blessing, notice and appreciate our place in it all. As in the story, when the beggars received the bread and gave thanks, many people take that moment before receiving food to offer appreciation for our place in it all. Really, this is all a message about communion. And I mean that word, communion, in a particular way.

Communion is a deeply Christian ritual, but many religious traditions – without using that word – have rituals of gratitude and connection associated with food. We Unitarian Universalists have gone a different direction; we use the word ‘communion’ with rituals not connected to food. We have our Water Communion in the fall and Flower Communion in the spring. We use the ritual to note our basic connection to life. Both our Flower and our Water services have all the necessary elements for communion, but do not use bread

As Unitarian Universalists, we see the world as an interdependent web. We see how the bread or the water or the flower is more than symbolically a way to remember our connection to that which sustains us, it is the same stuff as us. We are interconnected. It is all part of the alchemy of our living.

As I was saying earlier about how the bread is made – what makes it bread is the interconnection of the ingredients and the interaction with the heat.  And the bread is not the only thing interconnected with everything.

Think for a moment about how the bread connects to you simply by eating it.  At what point does the bread you eat cease to be ‘bread’ and suddenly become you?  Is it when the bread enters your mouth?  Or perhaps somewhere along the way when the bread is being broken down and absorbed into your blood steam?  Is it you then, and no longer something ‘not-you’? At some point, you and the bread become so connected it is not possible to tease out which is which.

People talk about ‘communing with nature’ to describe an intentional way of walking in the woods, a way of experiencing the overlapping of you and ‘not-you’.  But really, when are you not communing in some way with the universe?  Where does the universe stop and you begin?  Communion is a powerful ritual reminding us that some boundaries defining the self are traversed on a regular basis; and perhaps we can be mindful and intentional about what we bring in to ourselves and send back out.  About what ingredients are included in that alchemy of our living and the living of those with us on this journey.

When we are finished with the service, I will lead us to take the bread from the focal point out to the social hall. I hope you will find an opportunity to enjoy some of the bread, perhaps even take it as part of a ritual intention of gratitude for how you fit in with the grand interconnected glory of God and the Universe and all that is and ever shall be.

In a world without end,

May it be so

To Preserve What Is Sacred

Rev. Douglas Taylor

11-9-25

Sermon Video: https://youtu.be/KMEzq0n-oiw

Back in June we held a Question Box Sunday during which people were invited to write questions onto index cards, they were collected, and then (during the sermon portion of the service,) I responded to several of your questions. I did not get to all of them. One question I did not get to was this: “How can we preserve what is sacred?”

My initial interpretation when reading this question was to assume it was referring to things political; to the degradation of our democracy, the harm wrought against vulnerable people by the current administration, the rampant lies and cruelty, the obvious support of autocratic governments internationally including the ongoing collusion in genocide happening in Gaza, and the blatantly corrupt protection of people on the Epstein list. I figured the question arose in that context. How can we preserve what is sacred?

On further reflection, it may be that the question arose from a different context. It may have been a lamenting against something less sensational, something not covered in the news. It may have been a cry to protect the water or to save our earth. It may have been written in concern for too much secularism and not enough prayer. Maybe it was about wanting more music or art, or maybe a yearning for more joy, more love. I’m not sure.

So last week I asked you all to help me stay open to this question. We told the story of the Memory Jars (by Vera Brosgol). In the story, the child tries to collect all the things she loves in mason jars to preserve what she loves, safe. I then asked you write about a ‘treasured memory’ on the half-sheet insert with a picture of a mason jar. You’ll notice we have those sheets posted along the windows here in the sanctuary. What do you all say you treasure? What do you want to preserve?

Our question last week was smaller, easier to get into. What is something you treasure? It is easier to sort that out than the question: what is sacred to you? But it starts us in the right direction.

The word ‘sacred’ is a very religious word. The definition is something like – connected to religious matters, connected to God, dedicated to a religious purpose. I use the word as part of the variety of ways I talk about God.

If you’ve heard me speak enough times you may have picked up on one of my idiosyncrasies. I do this thing I call “multi-framing’ as a way to acknowledge and encourage our theological diversity together. Instead of just saying “God,” I will instead say, “God, the holy, your high principles, however you need to frame it – I’m talking about that which is greater than you which calls you into deeper relationship.” Have you heard me do that? I am treating words and phrases such as ‘the holy’ and ‘sacred’ almost as synonyms. And I know they are not, exactly.

I am a theist and I talk about God. I believe in God. God’s love is a very important part of my theology and my ministry.  And … I also serve a religious community with a plurality of beliefs. The word ‘God’ does not connect for everyone here. So I talk about the sacred, or about love, and hopefully allow you to find your way into the wording that works best when we talk about these important things in our lives. 

So I want to reflect the question back to each of you – what do you hold sacred? What does ‘sacred’ mean to you? What is included under that word? For me it is the earth. Human beings are sacred. I would say certain principles and values are sacred – or maybe at certain levels they are sacred. Truth, for example. Compassion. Equity. How about for you? What do you hold sacred? Or … I could say, what do you love?

At the top of this sermon I said that I imagined the question was about the degradation of our democracy. When I say that, I am telling you that there is some part of the democratic process I see as sacred. When I said I imagined the question was about harm wrought against vulnerable people, I am revealing to you that in some fashion, I see vulnerable people as sacred – I see protecting or empowering vulnerable people as sacred work.

What do you hold sacred? I’m not going to make us all write it down on a picture of a mason jar like last week. But I do hope you’ve landed on a few answers for yourself as I move along.

In my write up of this sermon I reminded us of the profound quote from Adrienne Rich:

“My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.”

How can we preserve what is sacred?

Rich suggested that one way to preserve what is sacred is to let your heart be moved by all you cannot save. Let the grief in. Don’t numb yourself or let the overflow of news numb you. Let your heart be moved. Then, because so much has been destroyed, and it all seems hopeless and insurmountable, and who are we? You and I muttering here together about how so much has been destroyed? We who have no extraordinary power, we … will align ourselves with the sacred, with the vulnerable, with all that has been destroyed. We will pick a side and get to work. And in so doing, we will reconsecrate and reconstitute the world. We will rebuild it.

“My heart is moved by all I cannot save: so much has been destroyed I have to cast my lot with those who age after age, perversely, with no extraordinary power, reconstitute the world.”

Last week, I pretty much answered the question – how can we preserve what is sacred? – with the story about Memory Jars. In the story, the lesson was you can’t. You can’t preserve the things you love by locking them away in mason jars. You can’t wall up your heart and expect to fall in love. We can’t keep what we love in bubble wrap and expect our lives to thrive.

The lesson was to not try to preserve what is sacred. The lesson was to spend it. Give it away. Or as Adrienne Rich would have us do – perversely rebuild the world. Take the sacred out and show it off for others to see. That which is sacred does not need to be cordoned off behind a museum rope or locked up in a little tabernacle. I know, I know – in some religious communities that is exactly what they do. I’m saying, let’s not.

I’m suggesting that the sacred is not fragile, and it will grow in manifold glory when we let it. Don’t try to preserve what is sacred. Fan the flame. Feed the child. Share the news. Let the bird fly. Don’t hold it back or hide it away behind a screen or … in a sanctuary. That’s not what you do with the sacred. What we’re supposed to do is let it out, spread it around, help others discover it.

Here’s the part where I get specific. What does it mean to use it, to spread it around?

I suggested that compassion is sacred to me. Perhaps it is for you. What will be do with that now? Compassion prompted me to show up at the No Kings Rally, to show up at the voting booth. It prompted me to participate in the get angry about SNAP benefits getting held hostage for political brinksmanship. Now what. How can we get closer, get involved? If compassion is sacred, lead in and use it.

I suggested that I see harm wrought against vulnerable people as a call to preserve what is sacred. Perhaps that’s true for you as well. What will we do with that now? Many of us helped out at the community meals, we donate money for the various programs we have to support the homeless and hungry and the vulnerable. What if we can become vulnerable too? Show up at the bus station, meet some people. Get closer, get involved. It that’s sacred, lean in and use it.

And maybe circle back and really pin yourself down about what is sacred. Get clear for yourself about that and then follow up on what you uncover. Maybe it’s the music or the joy. Maybe it’s about kindness shown to a stranger or shared food.  It’s not enough to just be angry about things that feel wrong.

I get it, believe me. It feels like the important things, sacred things, are at risk. It feels like parts of the world have gone off the rails, there is some madness among us that has broken out capacity to have empathy. It is as if we’ve forgotten how to share the work of being a thriving society together. I get it. There are traumatizing things, cruel things being perpetrated in our name, under the cover or our consent as a people in our country.

And … and that doesn’t mean the sacred needs to be sequestered into quarantine for its protection. In fact, the sacred is what we need shining out in the open for all to experience at a time like this.

And by “the sacred” I mean, our love for each other, our guiding values, our joy, the way we attend to the needs of others. We don’t need to preserve it, we need to use it. That’s how God works, that the nature of the holy, that what happens with the sacred. That’s what love is for. The more there is the more there will continue to be. Our work is not to preserve it, but to help it grow.

In a world without end,

May it be so.

Sometimes, Things Break
September 28, 2025
Rev. Douglas Taylor
Sermon Video: https://youtu.be/Yev2xYItGh0

Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, is the holiest day of the Jewish year. It comes as the tenth day of the Days of Awe, the first day of which is Rosh Hashanah, the new year. The ten days of the new year are called the Days of Awe because people feel reverence tinged with fear during this special time of judgment and forgiveness. Yom Kippur is a day of fasting, of self-reflection, and of seeking and offering forgiveness. This year Yom Kippur begins at sunset on Wednesday Oct 1.

There is a particular ritual practiced during some Yom Kippur services, a ritual of confession in which the whole congregation recites a list of sins together, confessing to them, regretting them, and making the commitment not to do them again. “We have lied, we have stolen, we have broken promises.” The point is not to suggest that each individual in the community has actually done every behavior listed in the confession. The point is to help people experience the communal aspect to it – or more accurately, that is one of the points. I offered a version of this ritual one year here in our congregation and it was profoundly unsettling for several people.

There is a very different understanding and experience of confession in the Christian community compared with the Jewish community. The communal aspect of personal behaviors is a tricky piece to work with. I suspect our Jewish siblings in faith are better equipped to navigate that.

In our reading this morning https://www.uua.org/worship/words/reading/already-home-without-knowing-it, my colleague Rev David Schwartz reflected on how our Puritan roots in this country have had a significant impact on our culture into our modern times – particularly in the Puritan perspective on shame and a fear of our imperfection and brokenness. One result Schwartz shares is how the shame tangled up in the brokenness leads to a certain self-righteousness because we build up a denial of our imperfection and brokenness.

I would add that the culture around us – perhaps due to our Puritan roots, although I’m not certain – our culture around us also makes this fear of imperfection and brokenness into a deeply personal issue … as if I’m the only one who does it. This push to be perfect, Rev. Schwartz tells us, leads us unnecessarily into shame and a rigid inability to admit mistakes or make amends when things go wrong. Our modern concept of crime and punishment is caught up in this old story of a Puritanical, judgmental God even when vast numbers of Christians no longer believe in that version of a God; never mind the number of people who no longer believe in any concept of God. And yet the impact of that old story remains strong among us.

Thomas Berry, 19^th century priest and cultural historian, talked about this same impact from the perspective of the old ‘science vs religion’ debates and the stories we collectively tell ourselves.

“It is all a question of story,” He writes. “We are in trouble just now because we do not have a good story. We are in between stories. The old story, the account of how the world came to be and how we fit into it, is no longer effective. Yet we have not learned the new story.” He goes on to say, “our old story … sustained us … We awoke in the morning and knew where we were. We could answer the questions of our children. We could identify crime and punish transgressors. Everything was taken care of because there was a story. ‘God is in his heaven and all is right with the world.’ It did not necessarily make people good, nor did it take away the pains and stupidities of life or make for unfailing warmth in human association. It did provide a context in which life could function in a meaningful manner.” (Science and Religion, p.123)

Earlier this hour I spoke with the children about the message Hosea Ballou brought about God’s Love and Universalism. Ballou was bringing a different story. What would our culture be like if we rooted the cultural ‘story’ of ourselves in a loving God of grace rather than a judgmental God demanding perfection and shame? What impact might that have on crime and punishment, on our expectations of children, on how we talk about mistakes we’ve made?

I remember a conversation I had once with the father of a person who committed murder; our lives intersected by chance and circumstance and I was offering a moment of pastoral support. The young man had committed what looked to be a ‘crime of passion,’ not premeditated – but still lethal. The father lamented about the long-lasting impact resulting of 30 seconds of thoughtless action. In my experience, most actions like this are part of a recognizable pattern. But I did not try to correct his mischaracterization of the murder. I had just bumped into him in the parking lot; we did not really know each other and I did not have his trust enough to challenge the stories he tells himself about his family.

But I have heard this sort of framing before – the perpetrator of a violent act made one mistake, this line of thinking suggests, had one moment of bad judgment, and will now suffer the consequences for a very long time. I am sure the father was not suggesting the consequences were unfair or undeserved. I can graciously presume this father was not trying to minimize the impact on the deceased victim. But that is part of what he was doing, minimizing the impact. But what troubled me more was his suggestion that the violent act was an aberration.

Rebecca Ann Parker once said something about how we too often think of violence as an interruption, like a flash of lightning breaking onto the landscape. Suddenly the event takes place and, like an afterimage on the back of our eyeballs, slowly fades. For people who think of violence this way, it may seem like we are suddenly seeing a new level of crime, violence of a harsher order. But that is not the only way to see it. It is perhaps more useful to recognize that violence in not an interruption, like a flash of lightning, rather it is like poison in the ground water, always present, a part of daily life for some, a part of what is going on in the world around us all the time. You may not be directly dealing with the poison in the water, but people around you are if you are willing to notice.

People occasionally say it feels like our country has taken a strange turn in which suddenly there is more violence, more anger, more hate. But I would argue we have long had a shadow of those traits at our heart. Shadowed, I say, because some of us are privileged to be in denial about it. Yet it is a deep part of who we have been as a country since our inception. It is something we can change, but it would be easier to change if we could stop pretending the violence is an anomaly that we don’t quite understand.

The Yom Kippur prayer of confession invites us to recognize the water we are swimming in. It invites us to see not only our part in things directly, but our part in the network of culture and experience in which we participate. We can shift away from asking who is to blame for this act of violence or that harmful behavior and begin to ask instead, what do people need to help them navigate their fear and anger in a healthful way? Love leads me to ask this differently. We can shift away from only seeing the 30 seconds of a violent outburst to recognizing the years of anger and the years of how people respond to a person’s anger and fail to provide the tools to deal with the anger. We can shift away from seeking to punish each transgression to seeking to support each need.

I was drawn to today’s message initially from a parenting blog that a colleague pointed out. https://www.majesticunicorn.biz/blog/2015/10/20/broken-things

The post talks about how the author, trained therapist with a swath of training in mental health, women’s health, family systems, and neurodiversity. The particular post my colleague highlighted was about anger and an incident with her son. She writes:

It took my breath away when my son stormed into the bathroom, frustrated, angry, fed-up for his very own, very significant to him, reasons.  And when he chose to SLAM the bathroom door, causing the heavy mirror mounted to the front to slip out of the hardware holding it in place and crash onto the floor – a million, BROKEN pieces were left reflecting the afternoon light. 

In her post, the author Kathleen Fleming reflects on anger and compassion, on how we can help our children navigate big emotions without harming ourselves or others, on how to be a parent with a child dealing with mental health needs. After dealing with the immediate safety concerns, after getting her own reactions in check, after checking in with her child and processing a bit, the two begin cleaning up.

And we cleaned up the broken pieces.  We swept and we vacuumed.  It was quiet work.  It was careful work.  It was thoughtful work.

Sometimes things break.  Sometimes we break them.  It’s not the breaking that matters, the how or why.  What matters is how we choose to respond to the broken-ness.  Does it kill us?  Does it throw us into a downward spiral of blame and punishment?  

OR

Does it help us remember how to love deepest?  Does it push us towards compassion and over the hurdle of “rightness” and “wrongness” into LOVENESS?

Hear me, please: I am not saying there is never a need for consequences or punishment. I am not saying the rapist or the murderer should not have consequences or punishments. My point is to question why punishment seems to be our first and only response so often. My point is less about forgiveness this year, and more about grace. My point is that sometimes things break. But that doesn’t mean we need to jump to punishment. Sometimes we can thrive and grow in our imperfection, through our mistakes.

What if, when something breaks, we don’t rush to set blame, mark out punishment, or fall into shame. What if, when something breaks, we turn toward each other to find out what could make things better.

What if the child – or the grown adult – is angry about something unrelated to the moment? What if slamming a door is where they feel some control when they feel they have no power over a bully at school or the rejection of a friend or the expectations at a job or school. What if we could help people learn some control in those situations where they feel they have none instead of merely punishing them?

We find out a child breaks a mirror, and we sit with how hard it is to deal with big feelings like anger. Or we are suddenly sitting alone after we have broken something as an adult. There is a push to say ‘anger is bad and unacceptable – stop having anger.’ What if we can teach each other more about how to navigate our anger in ways that don’t cause harm instead of pretending we can just choose to not have anger.

What if we began with the basic premise that God loves you rather than the notion that God is going to judge you. What if we began with the fact that you are loved. Would that change how we respond to each other? Would that change how we navigate brokenness and broken things in our lives and in our hearts?

Sometimes things break. That doesn’t mean we are bad people. We can thrive and grow when broken, (perhaps only when we are broken.)

How we respond to the brokenness builds the world around us. It’s not the brokenness that matters. What matters is our response. What matters is the love.

In a world without end,

May it be so.

Do Not Oppress the Foreigner
Rev. Douglas Taylor
9-14-25
Sermon Video: https://youtu.be/7KmnS8jJB9E

Each Sunday morning we light the flame in our sanctuary chalice. The Flaming Chalice is the recognized symbol of our faith tradition. Fascinatingly, the origin of this religious symbol is pertinent to our topic of immigration this today.

Hans Deutsch, an Austrian artist, first brought together the chalice and the flame as a Unitarian symbol during his work with the Unitarian Service Committee during World War II. The Service Committee commissioned Deutsch to create a logo that they could use on legal paperwork for Jews and political dissidents fleeing the rise of Nazi Germany. It also developed as an underground symbol that transcended the language barrier for those assisting the refuges.

Our central religious symbol as Unitarian Universalists, the image that represents our identity, was first used as a symbol of hope and support for refugees escaping fascism.

The Chalice Lighting words I used this morning were written by Erika Hewitt. Rev. Hewitt wrote:

The chalice, as a symbol of Unitarian Universalism, arose as a beacon of hope in an atmosphere of tyranny. The chalice arose as a sign of promise that the marginalized would neither be forgotten nor ignored, because they are beloved and precious from the perspective of the Holy.

Our faith has a proud history of resisting tyranny and fascism. Of revealing hope, of holding out a promise to treat all people – particularly the marginalized and the vulnerable – as beloved and precious. That’s what it means to be Unitarian Universalist in face of rising tyranny.

You may have noticed the new signs posted on some of the doors in our building in recent months. The signs essentially declare some spaces as ‘private’ such as our main office, the library, the RE classrooms and so on. These signs are not meant to stop members of the congregation from entering those spaces. They are meant to stop Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents from entering. Our current federal administration reversed a long-standing position that said ICE agents would not enter sensitive areas such as hospitals, schools, and houses of worship. Ice agents are now being sent into these spaces to find people to arrest and deport. A house of worship is a public space, technically. This is an example of the administration pushing against the fourth amendment rights.

Broome County is not experiencing a surge of ICE activity in our streets. Instead we are seeing it in our jail where more that 25% of the roughly 400 people imprisoned there are part of the ICE arrests and detainments from around the state.

In our country today, we are experiencing the rise of fascism in the form of White Christian Nationalism. This evil among us is targeting immigrants along with a handful of other vulnerable identities. Christian Nationalism is, at heart, a betrayal of Christianity. The practices and policies of the current administration are deeply anti-democratic, anti-Christian and immoral. I mean this in particular today as it relates to immigration, but my statement applies more broadly to be sure. But today, let us consider how immoral and anti-Christian this current administration is with regards to immigration.

In the Bible, we can find a multitude of times when the people receive commandments from God to treat vulnerable people in a fair and just way – particularly widows and orphans, the poor, and foreigners. We heard, for example, the passage from Exodus this morning, Exodus 23:9: “Do not oppress a foreigner; you yourselves know how it feels to be foreigners, because you were foreigners in Egypt.” This passage, and the sentiment it offers, is not a minor point. It is a seminal passage for the Jewish faith. But it has also served Christian ethical thinking as well.

And the passage from Exodus is not an outlier. It is a companion to multiple other times in scripture when we hear the same commandment. Deuteronomy 26:5 and 27:19, Ezekiel 22:7, Leviticus 23:22 and 24:22, Zechariah 7:10, Malichi 3:5, and Jeramiah 7:6 – along with another dozen or so more from Deuteronomy and Leviticus and Exodus. There are a few narratives from Gensis that frame the conversation as well. Add to these the passages from the Gospel of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount and Paul’s letter to the church in Rome along with that amazing passage from Hebrews 13:2, “Do not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” Taken together, they frame a very clear call for Jews and Christians to treat immigrants with compassion. It is appropriate to surmise that the overall message from the Bible on this topic is that compassion for immigrants is required of us. We should not abuse or oppress immigrants, and instead we should treat them like citizens.

In fairness, I will say the Bible does contradict itself often; and on this topic we find that to be the case as well. The book of Nehemiah is deeply anti-immigrant; and some Christians – particularly conservative evangelical Christians – do love to quote from that text. Nehemiah’s context is important to notice, however. The first Babylonian exile had happened recently and the temple had been destroyed. Nehemiah took on the project of rebuilding the city walls. Part of his project was to ‘cleanse’ the population of what he deemed to be cultural pollution – meaning there had been a lot of intermarriage between Jews and other groups. Nehemiah’s purity goals and anti-immigration policies served a purpose in his mind, despite being out of step with the rest of scripture.

But again, taken as a whole, the perspective found in the book of Nehemiah is an outlier compared to what the rest of scripture says about how to treat immigrants.

Religious advisors to the current Trump administration encouraged the president to use a hardline Nehemiah interpretation of scripture’s perspective on immigration. “Nehemiah went there to build a wall to keep the wrong people out.” What they don’t say out loud is the way Nehemiah’s rigid cultural purity was at play very strongly. They like that part, but know it would not be popular among the general US population. The general US population is far more welcoming of immigrants than the relatively small subset of white evangelical Christians in the United States. Far more US Christians are familiar with and in agreement with the passages that advocate for compassion toward the foreigner and the immigrant.

And here’s the rub. These religious arguments in our contemporary political debate are disingenuous. The Christian Nationalists using these biblical arguments for anti-immigrant agenda are Nationalists first. The part about being Christian is an adjective – it is a means toward their nationalism. Their goal is not strong borders and crime prevention.

If they wanted to prevent crime, they would not be kidnapping parents as they drop their kids at school or disappearing people who show up for their immigration hearings, or raid work locations. If they really wanted to prevent crime they would be arresting the business owners who exploit the workers, not the workers. But that is not their goal. It never was. Those are merely the arguments they present as they strive to shape our country into their Christian Nationalist dream.

You may have noticed a small nuance in my language about Nehemiah being used to advocate for anti-immigration policies and the scores of other passages such as Exodus and Hebrews being used to advocate for compassion for immigrants. Immigration the way we experience it today is very different from what is being talked about in the Bible. There was no Border enforcement police or deportation processes, no naturalized citizens exactly or work visas. We are extrapolating and interpreting when we use these old texts to guide current opinion and policy.

And if we are being honest, it is worth pointing out that it is a very small number of people who would say their true goal is to be biblically accurate. Most people, if they were being honest, would admit to a different motive.

For me, my motive behind how I think about immigration is this: I believe in the power of our differences, that we are a better community when we have a variety of perspectives and experiences among us. E Pluribus Unum!  Our strength is in our compassion for those who are different, in particular for those who are vulnerable.

For others, the motive seems to be a desire gain control through fear, to dehumanize certain people, and create a monoculture – a white supremacist or Christian Nationalist dream of exclusion and power. They are using the immigration issue because immigrants are one of the easy groups to target in their culture war.

We, as Unitarian Universalists have a role to play in the face of this hate. We have a calling to light our chalice and resist tyranny, again. We must resist the fear and hatred and lies that seek to divide us. Our faith calls us to be generous and gracious with the vulnerable among us who are being attacked and abused.

I encourage you to seek truth, to protect the homeless, our trans siblings, and the undocumented among us. Refuse hatred, but call out that hate when wherever you find it. Go out and meet people, experiences the differences of the broader community. Help the marginalized and vulnerable people under attack to know they are not alone, they do belong, they are beloved. Know that you are not alone, you do belong, you are beloved.

In a world without end,
May it be so.

To Save or Savor

8-31-25

Rev. Douglas Taylor

Sermon Video: https://youtu.be/OEj-ifcUj5I

I know E.B. White as the author of beloved children’s books like Stuart Little and Charlotte’s Web. Perhaps you know him for that definitive book about English writing – Strunk and White’s Element’s of Style. Then there is a vast collection of pieces he wrote of the course of years he spent as a regular essayist for The New Yorker. One of his pithy pieces is the starting point for my reflection today. E. B. White once wrote, “I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.”

In my description of today’s worship service, I suggested that in the full quote White decides that savoring is more important. This is not true. The full quote only heightens the tension revealed in the shortened version.

The full quote was from a piece he did for the New Yorker in 1969 – after he’d won awards like the Newbury, so he had people’s attention.

“If the world were merely seductive, that would be easy. If it were merely challenging, that would be no problem. But I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day.” The New York Times (11 July 1969)

Do you improve or enjoy the world? Do we save or savor the world? E. B. White is not remembered as an activist, exactly. His name is on the list of amazing writers, but not really on the list of social reformers or change agents who tried save the world. He certainly spoke about the issues of the day, advocating for justice and civil rights, for democracy and virtuous principles. But he said his desire was to improve the world and one can easily argue that he did.

He lived and wrote during challenging times. But they were not only challenging, they were also, as he says, seductive. His books and his pieces in The New Yorker had an impact on our lives – but the character of his writing leads me to believe he was able to enjoy the world splendidly. E. B. White seems to have been able to both improve and enjoy the world.

How do you plan to spend your day?

White said the times in which he lived were challenging. We also live in challenging times. It  has become numbingly normal to get news about the erosion of our democracy or attacks on the rule of law perpetrated by the executive branch of our federal government. Meanwhile thugs in masks are kidnapping people on the streets under the protection of our government. Meanwhile our trans siblings are losing protections and seeing society encouraged to fear them. Meanwhile our health care system is being run by conspiracy theorists instead of scientists, our Homeland Security is run by white nationalists, and our federal intelligence agencies are actively colluding to cover up the Epstein Files in plain sight. Plus we have a war in the Ukraine and a genocide unfolding in Gaza, and ridiculous international trade wars we are paying for here from our own pocketbooks. Billionaires keep getting richer and AI companies are stealing our data and identities for their own profit.

So, yes. I do arise each morning with the desire to improve the world. Do you want to save the world too? I want to protect the immigrants and refugees, I want to fight for better healthcare and vaccines, I want to defend the rights and protections of LGBTQ people. I see our unhoused and hungry people right here in Broome County and want to do something about it.

I have this desire to improve the world, and thankfully I’m part of groups that are doing exactly that. Our congregation just co-hosted a huge community barbeque that served over 400 meals. The UUA launched a campaign around Abolition with a focus on prison – and our congregation is going to tap into that this year. Our Systemic Housing Crisis social action team is working to raise funds and awareness of local legislative changes we can make and have partnered with a community land trust to create more sustainable housing to people. The Interfaith group that I am a part of is rebuilding itself after the pandemic – we are reestablishing local interfaith relationships. And our first official action was a Peace Walk at which we talked with and listened to each other – especially about Gaza.  And so much more – we’re in the middle of this, in the thick of it together. We are acting on that desire to improve the world, responding to the challenging times in which we live.

And it can be a lot. And is anyone here feeling overwhelmed by it all? Are you feeling scattered, frustrated, and numb? Sometimes I need to check out, escape, just drop everything and stare at some patch of earth or a quiet stream for a bit – or play keepy-uppy with my granddaughter for a while.

How about you? I am reminded that the better world we are building does not need me exhausted and burned out. This is more than just a conversation about self-care or justice-fatigue. You’ve heard the argument that we need to do our justice work like a choir singing a prolonged note together – different choir members take their breath at different times so the experience of the note is sustained while the individual singers each get to breath and no one person is carrying the whole prolonged note alone. You’ve heard that metaphor perhaps?  That’s not what I’m talking about.

E. B. White said the world is seductive. And he arises with a desire to enjoy the world. To savor it. This part is not just about taking a break. It’s about pouring some of your good energy into loving the world powerfully – savoring the beauty of it, enjoying life. Do you enjoy life?

This is not simply a matter of scheduling your day to do some improving in the morning and wrap that up to have time for savoring by 3:15. There is a way in which the desire to improve the world is borne from a critical dissatisfaction with the way things are. Things could be better, let’s get to work on that. But the desire to enjoy the world is borne from a recognition that the world is beautiful right now, just as it is.

Look at that amazing sunset! Listen to this elegant piece of music. Can I describe to you this cool game I found that I’m loving? Check out my new shoes – they look great and are soooo comfortable. If all my energy is on improving what’s wrong, how much energy do I have for enjoying what’s right?

Ah! But if I am so invested in savoring what’s right – am I blocking out or in denial about what’s wrong in the world around me? How might we both save and savor? Enjoy and improve?

Here’s a trick that works against us: we live in a late-stage capitalist society that pushes us to be dissatisfied with trivialities – Does your body smell wrong? Are you performing masculinity wrong? Is your dry skin keeping you from dating the right people? What if you are embarrassing your children because you drive the wrong car or buy the wrong food!

We certainly need to step back from this manufactured dissatisfaction and instead simply love the world as it is. The world is already amazing and so are you! You don’t need to be perfect to be loved.

And if you still feel compelled to be dissatisfied, let me gently tell you: no one cares about your ear hair – but brown-skinned people are being profiled by ICE, the CDC has stopped promoting vaccines, and the Epstein Files are still being covered up.  

E. B. White did not resolve the dilemma. White intentionally kept the tension of this dual yearning to both enjoy and improve the world. He did not want us to have the solution; he wanted us to experience the tension. I was wrong when I suggested that E. B. White’s full quote revealed his conclusion that savoring is more important than saving. He didn’t say that. It was a farm and garden blog I read that said that.

Katie Spring is a health-conscious, modern young blogger who writes about tomatoes and cabbages, about women-owned seed catalogues and ‘5 ways to stay grounded and avoid burnout when while starting a farm.’ In one of her posts, she raises E. B. White’s dilemma about saving and savoring the world https://katiespring.com/save-savor-world/ and says:

“It resonated so fully within me: the pull between wanting to protect, defend, and fight for the world and wanting to laugh, explore, and sink into the world’s beauty.  The two acts appeared so separate.”

She eventually realized that the two are not separate, but intwined – and indeed they begin with savoring. “Savoring leads to saving,” she writes, “because savoring leads to love.” It’s that simple.

I found her reasoning quite sound. “Savoring leads to saving because savoring leads to love.” That reminds me of a quote I had on a t-shirt when I was a teenager in the ‘80’s. The quote is by Senegalese conservationist Baba Dioum, who wrote: “In the end we will conserve only what we love; we will love only what we understand; and we will understand only what we are taught.” 

We will only save what we love. So my goal is to encourage you to love the world, to love you neighbors, to love those who live at the edges. To love the beauty you see in the world. “Savoring leads to saving because savoring leads to love.”

E. B. White loved the English language. He enjoyed the creation of an elegant English sentence. That one he wrote about enjoying world or improving the world was a product of his love. And it has spurred generations so far to grapple with the concept. Just in that one small example, he has improved the world.

Go read that cozy romance, play your lute, take a dance class, hug your people, make pithy protest signs, take someone on a hike to your favorite view, savor that fine meal, love your neighbor, and enjoy this world. We will only save what we love. Savor life, that you remember why it is so worth saving.

In a world without end,

May it be so.