Take, Eat
Take, Eat
October 7, 2007
Rev. Douglas Taylor
Yes, we are one! And what we share together, our common bond, is our covenant of love mutual support and encouragement in the ways of truth and spirit. We are one and would be reminded of our interconnectedness and interdependence with all that is. Oh, indeed we are one. Last month when we invited the evolutionary evangelists Connie Barlow and Michael Dowd to come into our space and talk with us about the Great Story, the Epic of Evolution as Sacred Text, we heard them telling us a message that resonated deeply in the beliefs and understanding of many among us. It was a story of interconnectedness and interdependence. They spoke of how life is structured in a series of nested creativities. They spoke of the scientific process as a public revelation of truth and how science supports this understanding of the interconnectedness of life. We are made of dust and dreams as scripture and poets tell us; star stuff pondering the stars – and science agrees. We are all made of the same stuff. We are one. Each level of creation is itself creative and therefore, to use the language of religion, is saturated with God. But what does that have to do with Communion?
Well, for me it starts with a John Travolta movie I saw ten years ago. The movie is called Phenomenon and it is about this small-town average guy, George Malley. The story begins with George standing outside of the bar one night and seeing a bright light coming at him from the sky. It gets brighter and closer until, with a final flare, he falls over onto his back. When George Malley comes to he discovers he has an increasing capacity to understand things. Reminiscent of the book, Flowers for Algernon, this phenomenon that Travolta’s character experiences causes him to continually grow smarter. It was not the most amazing movie ever, but it does break away from the formulaic patterns we usually see on the screen – and for that it is worth watching.
The primary way the movie shows that he is smarter is not that the character can recite the names of the US presidents in order backwards and forwards. It was not trivia or a mass of information that demonstrated his new level of intelligence – although he did have that. Instead it was his ability to see connections, to have clarity about how things can fit together or flow better or connect. Following his bizarre experience he starts winning at chess, learning new languages, and showing the postal worker how to travel her route more efficiently. In one scene he starts talking about a piece of trivia, “what is the largest organism in the world,” but he does it not to prove that he knows this piece of trivia. The point he tries to make with it about our connectedness.
What is the largest organism? Most people would not bat an eye if given the answer “Blue Whale.” However, the Blue Whale is really the largest animal, not the largest organism. Usually people next go to the single stem great trees such as a Giant Sequoia like “General Sherman” or a Coastal Redwood for the answer. However, there are three contenders for Largest Organism, depending on how you end up defining it, that are usually not considered. I’m not talking about something like the Great Barrier Reef because that is more properly termed a “superorganism,” a colony of unique creatures. If we let that definition stand then the whole biosphere of Earth would count (if not the entire Universe.)
The largest organism is a grove of Aspen trees, at least that was the agreement ten years ago when this movie came out. Aspen trees grow from a single tree, or parent tree, spreading its root system out and sending up a new genetically identical tree. The trunk of an Aspen tree is technically a stem! A grove of Aspen trees is connected by a single root system and is all one single organism. The largest known grove of fully connected Aspen is in Utah. When an event happens at one end of the grove, say a fire, the trees at the other end of the grove also respond. It is a single interconnected entity. In the movie, Travolta’s character mentions the Aspen grove to make a larger point.
Now, that was ten years ago, and to finish the point of information about the largest organism, I must let you know that new discoveries show that the Aspen grove is dwarfed by volume and mass when compared with either the Posidonia oceanica or the Armillaria ostoyae. The former is an 8 km marine plant in the Mediterranean Sea while the latter is commonly known as the Honey Mushroom. Of those two, the Honey Mushroom gets most of the attention. This particular fungus found in Oregon covers nearly 9 square km, which is almost 20 times larger than the Aspen grove in Utah. These thousands of little genetically identical mushrooms are really one mushroom which is completely connected underground and has expanded over hundreds of years from a single spore.
The fascinating aspect of the debate is that this involves organisms that look like many different individuals but are really a single interconnected one. That was the character’s point in the movie Phenomenon. The trees or mushrooms seem to be independent but underneath, and in a very real way, they were all connected, they are one. George Malley tried to tell people in the movie that we’re like that too. Humanity is not a single organism connected by our toes or something. Instead, we are an interdependent, interconnected system of organisms. So much of the connection is hidden, metaphorically underground. Or, as Michael Dowd and Connie Barlow expressed as part of the Great Story, we are made of the same basic stuff, and are scientifically interconnected in ways we had not imagined before except through mythic understandings. We are one.
You are perhaps still wondering when this will begin to connect with Communion. Or perhaps you can see where this is heading. There is another scene from the movie I want to tell you about. Near the end of the movie it is discovered that the main character is going to die and he runs away from the hospital to be with the woman he loves and her two kids. George Malley is sitting at back fence with the two kids who are angry because they’ve just realized that he going to be leaving them. He looks at the apple in his hand and says, “We could put this apple down on the ground and in a few days it would spoil and go back into the earth. Or we could each take a bite of it and it would be a part of us forever.” Then he takes a bite and the kids each take a bite too. And Travolta’s character says, “Every thing is on its way to somewhere.” As I was watching that scene ten years ago my jaw dropped open and I said to my wife sitting next to me on the sofa, “They just took communion!”
I grew up Unitarian Universalist. My first memorable experiences of taking Communion were in Seminary, which as it happens is right around the time I saw this movie. My first two years of theological education were at a Methodist Seminary in Ohio where they were very welcoming and encouraging of my participation. So I never had personal negative attachments to this ritual of Communion, or the Eucharist, or the Lord’s Supper as it is variously known. I understand that some Unitarian Universalists have rejected the Communion ritual along with other Christian beliefs when they left a Christian background. Communion felt like an empty ritual, a nonsensical enactment that smacked of human sacrifice and cannibalism. The open Christian community I found at the Methodist seminary evoked nothing of that in me.
My first experiences were of wonder and community and acceptance. At first I refused to take communion with them. I would come to the Wednesday afternoon services but would remain seated during that part of the service. Finally after several friends invited me, one of the professors sat down next to me after the service and asked me why I didn’t take communion. I said, “I don’t want to be disrespectful. This can never mean for me what I see it meaning for the rest of the people here.” My professor smiled and said, “You’d be surprised by the number of interpretations gathered at the communion table. Please don’t stay away on that account.” Little did I know my professor was articulating an early Universalist understanding of the Communion meal almost word for word; although I’m not surprised. Universalist ideas ware rampant on that campus.
The Universalists and the Unitarians have, over decades, had many differing understandings of Communion. As I’m sure is no surprise, the Universalists adamantly insisted that the sacrament was to be open to everyone – no one would be turned away from the table. This, at the time, was shocking. They also insisted that there did not need to be one single understanding of what is going on or one form by which Communion was to be administered. Communion had long been fertile ground for theological disagreements, and the Universalists outlined agreements that allowed for their disagreements among themselves.
The Protestant reformation circled around issues or power and authority, but one important battle field was regularly the sacrament of Communion. Luther and Zwingli and Calvin all debated about just what was happening in the event, how it should or shouldn’t be administered, and what frame of mind was necessary for the event. They hung significant theological arguments on Communion. Meanwhile the Unitarians and the Universalists were poking at bigger theological fish such as the doctrines of salvation, the Godhead, and the person and function of Jesus.
As I mentioned earlier, the Universalists never did develop a big problem over Communion. The Unitarians, on the other hand, did. Obviously they had taken some significant theological stances in terms of Jesus and God that had implications on the sacrament of Communion. Ralph Waldo Emerson’s perspective was particularly pertinent. Indeed, the issue over which Emerson left the Unitarian ministry was Communion. He could not find a compelling reason in scripture to assume Jesus intended his simple farewell meal to be commemorated in perpetuity. I have said before that Emerson’s argument was not that the idea of Communion assumed too much, but that is assumed too little. More to the point he said we should not limit communion to bread and wine when all of life is communion in every moment if we will but be aware of it.
Over time many Unitarian congregations have come to agree with Emerson. And by the mid-1900’s Universalist congregations were letting the practice of Communion faded as well. At merger only a handful of Unitarian Universalist congregations maintained the ritual on anything other than a very occasional basis if at all. Von Ogden Vogt is quoted in Carl Seaberg’s collection The Communion Book saying:
In the free churches the Communion Service, so far as it is retained, is interpreted as an act of commemoration and of consecration, exemplifying the power of sacrificial love and the triumph of good over evil, and as a symbol of the spiritual unity of the household of faith and of the continuity of the life of the spirit in all ages.
The Binghamton Universalists dedicated this building in the fall of 1958, and at that time they felt it necessary to include pews with those little holes in them to fit the small communion cups. Communion must have been a common enough event in the life of this congregation fifty years ago that our pews are designed to accommodate it. These days, we hold such a service once a year. I’ve been doing a Maundy Thursday Communion service since I came, and Rev. Marcel Duhamel did the same all the years he served this congregation.
I make a point of connecting the service to its historic roots; but I also work to stretch the service to be an authentic rendering of our modern understanding. During the Affirmation section I briefly tell of the meaning of the Passover Seder. Some believe the meal Jesus shared with his disciples was a Passover meal. There are compelling arguments against this perception, but I tell it this way because it points to the continuity of the shared meal from Jewish roots through Christian development and into Unitarian Universalist understanding. I go on to say how Unitarian Universalists see the world as an interdependent web, how the bread and juice are more than symbolically a way to remember our connection to that which sustains us, they are the same stuff as us.
As you take food and drink into yourself, the food and the drink become a part of you, and you become part of the food and drink. As we share the meal, we also share of each other. You become the bread, you become the juice. You become your neighbor, and shall love your neighbor as yourself. We become one with the poor and the disempowered; we become one with the suffering and the promise. We become one with tall who share food together, and we become one with all who have none. We become one with the trees and the hills and the vines and the fields. And we become one with our God. We are one.
Our communion service is a reminder that all of life is communion, that we share our basic connection with all of life. We use the particular elements of bread and juice, though ultimately it could be anything. It is the sharing and the intention that matters most. That is why our annual ingathering service with the water is a Water Communion and in the spring we traditionally do a Flower Communion. Both services have all the necessary elements for communion, but do not use bread and wine. Food, however, is significantly suited for this. Why? Think for a moment. At what point does the food you eat cease to be ‘food’ and suddenly become you? Is it when the food enters your mouth? Or perhaps somewhere along the way when parts of the bread and juice are being broken down and absorbed into the blood steam? Is it you then, and no longer something else? What about your breath? At what point does the air cease to be the wind coming into you and become your breath and the molecules circulating around your body?
We sometimes use the phrase ‘communing with nature’ to describe an intentional way of walking in the woods. When are we 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.
Is Communion necessary or sufficient? Of course not, what ritual is? Rituals serve to point beyond themselves to some essential quality of reality. They are not, in themselves that reality. So why bother? We need the intentional particulars of time and place to point us toward the qualities that transcend time and space. What better ritual than the communal sharing of a simple meal that invokes the historical roots or our faith and the scientific truths of our time while intentionally recognizing our interconnectedness and interdependence with the universe that gives us birth. If not Communion for you, then what do you do? Something with intention and with others – that would meet the general effect. We need the variety of particularity to help us see our essential unity. We are one.
In a world without end,
May it be so.
Hope and Courage
Hope and Courage
9-23-07
Rev. Douglas Taylor
Have you even notice how the word “Discouraged” doesn’t mean, ‘to be without courage.’ It means to be without hope! We do well to remember that hope and courage belong to each other in our language and in our hearts. Let me tell you a story about it.
Back some time ago, in July, a man set sail from England, discouraged. He was leaving behind him a life he was eager to forget. He left behind the failure of his career, the loss of his friends, the grief over the death of his wife and their young child. He left England’s shores nearly broke and clearly broken in spirit. Several months at sea would have found him arriving in Philadelphia roughly around Sunday, September 23, (and if that date sounds familiar, yes today is Sunday September 23.) But it is hard to be certain exactly when this man was to arrive. And Philadelphia was not the man’s goal; rather the plan had been to head further on to New York harbor. As the boat and the man left Philadelphia and move up the coast, fog and miscalculations conspire to strand them on a sandbar off New Jersey shore. This would be roughly Wednesday, September 26, (which is, yes, three days from now.) Later that evening the man travels into shore to secure supplies and that evening he encounters an illiterate farmer who befriends him and persuades him to pick up his old career here in America. With reluctance the arrangements are set forth and on Sunday, September 30 the man does indeed pick up his old career by stepping into the farmer’s countryside pulpit, preaching the sermon that will re-launch the ministerial career of the Father of Universalism, John Murray. Of course I am not speaking of Sunday, September 30th, next week. I speak of something that happened 237 years ago on Sunday, September 30th, 1770.
Yes, 237 years ago next week, John Murray preached his sermon in the small chapel near Good Luck New Jersey, preaching with the title, “Give them not Hell, but Hope and Courage.” Murray preached the gospel of God’s everlasting love and the redemption of all souls after death. He rejected the fear-based theology he heard from others. Instead, he called the small gathering of neighbors to head God’s love and Jesus’ example to love other another. He called the people to share the good news that God offers not the fear of Hell but love; give them not Hell, but hope and courage. Murray had left England discouraged, but in America he received encouragement to preach the good news as he knew it.
The dominant theology at the time was a form of Calvinism, which in Europe was known as the Reformed tradition and in American became known as the Presbyterians. John Murray’s Universalist preaching did not simply discard the basic Calvinist statement of double predestination; instead he broadened the concept to include everyone, the “whole family of man.” Predestination, in John Calvin’s theology, is the idea that God has, from the beginning of time, preordained just exactly who will be going to heaven. The number is set. If you’re on the list then you’re don’t even need to RSVP, you’re going to heaven! Naturally people assumed that if you were saved, if you were on the list, you would be a pious person without significant want or suffering in life. People assumed you could spot the elect here on earth because they would be living pious righteous lives. (I’m not sure what they then did with the book of Job, but we pull that idea apart perhaps another day.) The logical and obvious next step from this Calvinist perspective is that if there is a set number going to heaven, and the only other alternative is hell, obviously everyone not on heaven’s list is going to hell. This fuller articulation is known as “Double Predestination:” there is a set number, probably a very small number, going to heaven and a set number, probably a very, very large number, going to hell. The only reason, according to this line of thinking, that anyone is going to heaven at all is because Jesus died on the cross, thus atoning for original sin for a special select number of true believers.
The death and resurrection of Christ was the pivot of salvation history. What that means is that when Jesus died on the cross and rose again three days later, people could suddenly get into heaven. It is like that door was slammed shut when Adam caused original sin, and now Jesus has thrown that door wide open again. But of course the argument is always, well how wide did he open the door, just who gets to come in?
Murray likely used both of the biblical passages I read this morning – if not for that famous first sermon he preached in America then later in one of his many other sermons. Murray was known for mining the Bible for passages that pointed toward Universalism, and them using them in abundance during his preaching. “For as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.” (1 Cor 15:22) That seems fairly blunt, don’t you think? It doesn’t say all die in Adam and some will be made alive in Christ – no, all will be made alive in Christ. If you’re going to play by these rules, then this is what it says! And it doesn’t matter if you believe in Christ or not – right? It says All.
If you ever find yourself in a serious conversation with someone about Hell, try this scripture passage with them. If I say I don’t believe in the myth of Adam and Original Sin, I am told it doesn’t matter if I believe it or not – that’s just how it is: in Adam all have sinned, all are fallen, all die. It doesn’t say ‘all who believe die,’ it says ‘all die in Adam.” Well, then it goes on to say that in Christ all will be made alive! It doesn’t say ‘all who believe,’ it says ‘all!’ The doctrine of universal salvation is basically predestination taken to its most optimistic extreme. Sure, there is a set number of people going to heaven, the number is absolutely everyone.
This really has always been and continues to be the heart of Universalism and the reason it is still a radical theology today. Everyone is included. As Universalism has evolved over the years, the core thread of radical inclusion has held strong throughout. At first Universalists claimed that in Christ all will be made alive again and that eventually we will all be united with God and Christ after the final judgment. Of course there would be a time of cleansing for those who were not ready to enter the kingdom, and while that might last a really, really, really long time, it would not be eternal. The next generation after Murray offered a challenge to the timetable, saying instead that all are made alive in Christ, as they are right now! Meaning that at death all would rise to glory with the Father without needing to go through some eon’s long ‘cleansing’ punishment in Hell, waiting for the Day of Judgment.
It was not long after that when Universalists began to say, why not bring the timetable even closer! The Universalists still believed in God as a loving father who will call all His children home, but they thought, ‘why not strive to make heaven here on earth?’ As the passage says in 1st John, “Those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” (4:21) and “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.” (4:11) A great many Universalists were compelled by their faith to speak out against injustice, to work faithfully on behalf of those in need, to visit the sick and imprisoned, to feed the hungry, to give voice to the voiceless. To love our brothers and sisters because that’s what it says we should do and also because who else ought we to respond to the love that is poured out for us!
Over the generations, Universalism continued to evolve though it ever held that core thread of radical inclusion. This is not just about bit of interesting history from two hundred and thirty-seven years ago. This is about you, it is about us, it is about people way beyond what even we usually mean when we say us – ‘though we ought to know better.
This is about you because you are accepted; you are part of the family. In the old Universalist language you are loved by God as a child of God and are called by that love to love others. This is about you because you need not be discouraged by the trials of life or the burdens that you carry. Have hope, fear not! You are accepted as you are. This is about you today because there is work to be done in the world; work to heal the broken, to give voice to the voiceless, to stand up against injustice, and to tear down divisions that tell us we are not one human family at our core. There is work to be done and you are among those who have shown up to do the work
This is not just about the history, this is about you and it is about those who are here with you now. We gather as inheritors of the Universalist faith that has evolved to include so wide a range of beliefs as to be unrecognizable were any of the original Universalists or Unitarians to appear in our pews any given Sunday. Unitarian Universalism, as a creedless non-doctrinal faith, allows each member to freely uncover beliefs. We are Theists, Pagans, Humanists, Transcendentalists, Jews, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Agnostics, Mystics, and Seekers gathered together as one faith community. We’ve taken that thread of radical inclusion to heart as is shown in our theological diversity. We continue to strive to spread our diversity around other categories as well such as ethnicity and class, sexual orientation and gender identity, level of education and family status, age and ability or disability. We continue to strive to heed the call of love to live with hope and courage.
Life is tough. It is not something that can be managed well alone. From earliest times, religion has served the function of binding people together, giving people a common bond to care and concern. Any group, any group, for it even be a group must establish a base of trust, the quickest and most powerful way to establish that trust is to gather the group around a shared identity. These are the people who are in the group and those are the people who are not. We are God’s chosen people, we are Girl Scouts of America, we are the Steam Pipe Fitters Guild, we are Alcoholics Anonymous, we are the Henderson extended family. These are the people who are in the group; those are the people who are not.
Life is tough; it is not something that can be managed well alone. We need groups like these to survive. We don’t need to be mean to the people who are not in our group. Just because you are not a member of the Henderson extended family does not mean you’re not the best friend of the Henderson kids. Most of the time, your groups don’t get in the way, they serve the greater good, the greater level of connection, the greater story of humanity. Sometimes, however, your group will say, ‘these are the people who are in the group and everyone else is therefore less than us, or everyone else is wrong, or everyone else is willfully evil. Now you can probably tell I am steering this toward religion, but this is also a basic level of all oppressions: sexism, racism, classism, ethnocentrism … Major trouble brews when religion and oppression team up.
Many religions work hard to combat this element of group dynamics, dare I call it, a “demonic” element of group dynamics. Many religious have scriptures that rail against negative and dehumanizing perceptions of people who are different or people who are not members of the group; many, but by no means all. Universalism, since its inception, has boldly claimed we are all included; most assuredly those who are not in the room with us right now are nonetheless included. “God’s love embraces the whole human race.” Powerful. Of course the down side is the amount of work we need to pour into both keeping that real (because we’re just as prone to laziness and hypocrisy as the next group) and in articulating a group identity that can establish trust and allow real bonds of support to grow. When we say, “Everyone is special,” that is like saying everyone is above average: it just can’t logically be so! When we say, “Everyone is included in our group,” that is like saying we don’t have any rules and it doesn’t really matter because nobody can ever not be in the group.
The original Universalism from 237 years ago has bequeathed us a radical understanding of how to be together. Whether you are drawn, as the original Universalists were, to love your brothers and sisters because God loves you; or you are drawn to do so in recognition of the multitude of religious and ethical laws that offer a nearly identical commandment; or you are drawn to do so because you have had a glimpse of enlightenment revealing to you the oneness of all things; or you are drawn to do so because the scientific studies of anthropology and neuro-psychology have satisfactorily demonstrated the personal and global benefits to behaving in such a way – what ever has lead you to this understanding: This love will guide us to the hope and the courage needed to face the challenges of our day.
This isn’t about something that happened 237 years ago, it is about you and me and us. It is about us it the biggest sense. And you know it is evolving still! God’s love embrace’s more than just the whole human race! Surely this love is wrapped around all living things on earth and indeed all of creation. Our circle of care and concern shall not be limited – the work of love to which we are called does not stop where previous generations boldly drew a new line. Let us bring hope and courage to every need.
John Murray said, “Go out into the highways and the by-ways. Give the people something of your new vision. You may possess a small light, but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men and women. Give them not hell, but hope and courage; preach the kindness and everlasting love of God.”
Having Peace, Being Peace
Having Peace, Being Peace
9-16-07
Rev. Douglas Taylor
I’ll begin this morning with a responsive reading. Please pull out a hymnal and join me in reading #602
If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.
Do you think that is true? Do you think that the key to world peace is for each of us to find peace in our hearts and to help those around us to find peace in their hearts? My peaceful heart will lead to a peaceful home which will lead to a peaceful neighborhood and community and so on. I think there is something to this, but it certainly doesn’t seem to cascade up the line automatically or we would be there by now. Lao-Tse was on to something when he wrote this, but it’s missing the details of real life. Actually Lao-Tse didn’t write this. Our hymnal gives him credit, but it is doesn’t seem to fit any chapter of the Tao Te Ching with the possible exception of chapter 54 which reads in part:
Cultivate Virtue in yourself and virtue will be real
Cultivate Virtue in your family and virtue will abound
Cultivate Virtue in your village and virtue will grow
Cultivate Virtue in your nation and virtue will be abundant
Cultivate Virtue in your universe and virtue will be everywhere
Translations vary, some use the word “Character” over and over rather than “Virtue.” Still others say, “Follow the Way in yourself and in your family and so on … and you will have real power or abundant power and so on.” So it is possible that the word “peace” could be a liberal translation of the Chinese characters and then have a reverse of the order of the lines. Or it could be that this was a poem version of a passage from The Great Digest from Confucius. Ezra Pound translates a section that read like this:
The men of old wanted to clarify and diffuse throughout the empire that light which comes from looking straight into the heart and then acting, first set up good government in their own states; wanting good government in their states, they first established order in their own families; wanting order in their home, they first disciplined themselves; …
So perhaps it was Confucius who wrote this great poem; maybe it was a modern day mixture of these Taoist and Confucian passages. But someone wrote it, likely in Chinese. It almost sounds Buddhist, but there is no Buddhist scripture that jumps out fitting the rhythm of this poem. All the same, the writings of modern day Buddhists such as The Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh carry this message that world peace begins with inner peace. The Dalai Lama will be coming to Ithaca next month. There are lectures scheduled, and one of the topics he will be speaking on is “The Human Approach to World Peace.” On the Dalai Lama’s official website, there is an essay on world peace with a section titled, “Compassion as the pillar of World Peace.”
This reading in our hymnal that says for there to be peace in the world there must be peace in the nations, in the cities, between neighbors, in families, in the heart, does indeed fit with Buddhist teaching. This reading could easily be a Buddhist or Taoist or Confucian poem of peace. If you want world peace then find peace in your heart. Think globally and act very locally!
I used to fret and fuss at the Eastern religions because I saw them speaking about peace in terms of inner peace, personal peace, spiritual peace. In my limited understanding as a novice to Eastern Religious traditions I would question where might there be some Justice-component to these religions. Where is peace spoken of as world-peace and not just personal inner peace? Meditation and compassion are great, but what about the poor and the oppressed? Inner peace is a fine goal when your people are not being slaughtered, when your country is not being destroyed. What do these religions have to offer about justice and world peace? As I said, these are critiques and judgments I leveled before I had much understanding. Sadly that is a popular activity among many people: making judgments without understanding.
When the Buddhists speak of non-attachment it almost sounds like “don’t get involved.” When Confucius writes about the duty of filial piety it almost sounds like “the bottom of the pile is your lot in life, just deal with it.” But, of course, such is not the case. Now, when you dig into the depth of theology or philosophy behind all this you do get to profound statements that go far beyond one’s own personal inner peace. Of course you do.
Thich Nhat Hanh uses the example of a small boat crossing the Gulf of Siam, a boat full of Vietnamese refuges. He tells of how the small boats would often get caught in rough seas and storms and how many of the people in the boats would panic – causing the boats sink. If one person can remain calm, if only one person on the boat could remain calm and aware and knowledgeable of what needs to be done, then the boat had a good chance of surviving the journey. If there is to be peace in the boat, there must be peace in at least one person’s heart …
The key is your inner peace. Once you have established peace in your own heart, you will be able to work our way up through the next levels. Or as the 14th Dalai Lama says: “We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.” Elsewhere the Dalai Lama writes:
The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger, attachment, fear and suspicion, while love and compassion and a sense of universal responsibility are the sources of peace and happiness.
I love this. Religious truths have a way of circling around each other at times. Watch: “We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.” But we have trouble obtaining that inner peace because of self-focused emotions: anger, attachment, fear and suspicion are listed. As a solution the Dalai Lama suggests practicing attributes with an outward focused – not an inward focus! Love and compassion are relational emotions. A sense of universal responsibility brings a sense of peace and happiness? So you’re worried about world peace, get peaceful within yourself; and if you have trouble finding your inner peace try experiencing compassion and a sense of universal responsibility (which I think would lead you right back to worrying about world peace!)
The reading I offered this morning from The Buddha and the Terrorist, a Buddhist parable about how Angulimala, the ‘wearer of the finger necklace,’ was awakened to become Ahimsaka, ‘the non-violent one.’ The book was, I must admit, disappointing to me the first time I read it. The Buddha comes along to meet this Angulimala and they quickly get into a conversation about why Angulimala is angry. It turns out Angulimala’s anger is rooted in an experience of rejection from his father. I actually closed the book and put it down in disgust. Are we to solve the world’s terrorism woes by submitting all terrorists to counseling for their daddy issues? Is the answer to our political and theological problems to be found in a psychological analysis?
Then I noticed the endorsement on the back of the book as it lay closed in front of me. Thomas Moore wrote: “There is a virus buried deep in all violence that is contagious, that inspires an equally brutal and mindless response.” Of course: violence begets violence. The only way to overcome hatred is by love. The story is not about Angulimala’s anger at his father; it is about the results of anger, its contagiousness, its perpetual cycle.
There is another story that is similar to this one. In this other story the people of a town are fleeing because a great warrior is coming through the area with his army destroying everything in his path. One monk remains in the temple praying while all the others flee. When the great warrior enters the temple he draws his sword and approaches the monk, shouting, “Don’t you know who I am? I am the one who can cut you in two without batting an eye.”
To which the monk replies, “Yes, and I am the one who can be cut in two without batting an eye.” The great warrior, upon hearing this, bows to the monk and withdraws.
In looking at this short story compared the tale in The Buddha and the Terrorist, I can see why it wasn’t included in some way. While I like the little story, it is unsatisfying. Does the warrior continue on his way, destroying everything in his path except the small town or maybe just the monk? Did the monk’s interaction with the warrior change the warrior, or was the warrior merely impressed by a greater, albeit different, show of power? Would the Buddha just sit there meditating, or would he have gotten up to go out to meet the warrior? What does this story teach us about how to deal with violence in the world: to sit quietly and wait for it to pass – or to meet fear, when it does come to our door, with calm resolution? As I reflected on this I could see why this story was not used in the book. The story of Angulimala offers us a path to follow, a path of active compassion and forgiveness.
I picked the book up again and kept reading, eventually getting to the part of the conversation I included for the reading, about ‘stopping.’
“Stop, monk, stop,” shouts Angulimala.
“I have stopped,” the Buddha replies. “I stopped ages ago, but have you? … I stopped trampling over other people, I stopped desiring to control and dominate people.”
Angulimala replies that injustice and inequality are the order of the day. He is only trying to overcome the oppression that has ruled his own life for so long. “I will not stop until I have killed them all.”
Yet something breaks the cycle. Something enters in to stop the virus of violence, the contagious cycle that feeds on itself with the fuel of anger and frustration and desire. It is initially the Buddha’s compassion that catches Angulimala by surprise; but ultimately what effects the transformation for Angulimala to become Ahimsaka is the power of forgiveness. Forgiveness breaks the cycle; it is a way of getting unstuck, of loosening the bond that holds you to your anger. Forgiveness does not change the past, instead it enlarges the future.
And so we are brought back to the same old worn-out tools we turn to so often: compassion and forgiveness! If there is to be peace in the any level of our common living there must be compassion and forgiveness. Some of you may perhaps recall that I preach once a year on the topic of forgiveness. When I was serving my internship during seminary my supervisor told me “Preach on Forgiveness at least once a year, it is always needed.” Typically I fit this in around Yom Kippur, the Jewish High Holy Day at the conclusion of Rosh Hashanah. Yom Kippur has Forgiveness as its major theme. But this year, I need to look at forgiveness from the perspective of another religious tradition from another part of the world. And so, in digging into the concept of peace from the Buddhist perspective, we’ve uncovered the basic need for compassion and forgiveness for peace to become realized.
Thich Nhat Hanh, who quipped “peace is every step,” writes in his book, Being Peace, about the amount of frustration and anger he noticed in the peace movement. This was in 1987 when the book first came out, but surely it is a timeless observation. He wrote,
The peace movement can write very good protest letters, but they are not yet able to write a love letter. We need to learn to write a letter to the congress or to the president of the United States that they will want to read, and not just throw away.
Can you imagine the letters Thich Nhat Hanh sends to the leaders of the world? Could you imagine writing such letters? Or does anger get in the way of writing a compassionate letter to our political leaders? I wonder if Thich Nhat Hanh writes letters to the leaders of North Korea or China, Burma or Cambodia. Surely he writes to the leaders of Vietnam, for he is Vietnamese though he lives in France.
Certainly this is one of the major details of how it works for my inner peace to build into the peace found in my home which can build into the peace found between my neighbors. In Buddhist teaching, my inner peace is rooted in compassion. If I can interact with the world through my compassion rather than my anger, it will allow and even encourage a similar response from others. This is where the parable of Angulimala takes us as well. It is where the Dalai Lama takes us when he speaks out about world peace.
Just over 16 years ago the Dalai Lama visited Ithaca and gave a series of speeches. In one speech he concluded saying: “We often talk about world peace. And world peace is important. But how can we attain world peace? World peace will not come from the sky, nor from the earth. World peace must come through mental peace. Genuine peace is not just the absence of war. Peace is more than that. Peace means genuine tranquility; I think peace must come from individual transformation. So, whether at the level of family members, or at the national level, I believe a good heart is the foundation.”
Basically he is saying if there is to be peace in the world, there must be peace in the nations, and in the cities, and between neighbors and in the home. If there is to be peace in the world there must be peace in the heart. The details are wrapped up in compassion and forgiveness. If we could learn to practice compassion and forgiveness in our relations, and could inspire others to follow along, then world peace would cascade right up the line – just as our poem says. Peace would be realized among all the world’s people.
In a world without end, may it be so.
Rev. Douglas Taylor 