Sermons

Middle Peace for the Middle-East
Rev. Douglas Taylor
November 2, 2014

Later today, at 2pm over at the Vestal United Methodist church, the Children of Abraham are hosting a lecture and discussion on the topic: “Interreligious Dialogue, in Binghamton, Israel, Palestine, and the region.” The speaker, Rabbi Ron Kronish, is and international speaker on the topic of peace. He leads conversations and programs in Jerusalem and around the world. He has been talking recently about the “Other Peace Process.” He is a strong supporter of the political efforts the Israeli and Palestinian leaders and others around the world working for middle-east peace.

He is not a politician and does not wade very far into the politics of the work. Instead, he is focused on the other peace process. Ron Kronish’s peace process is to bring “people from different religions and nationalities together to encounter each other substantively and sensitively in order to find ways to live in peaceful coexistence together.”

Kronish’s work reminds me of the quote from Catholic theologian Hans Kung: “No peace among the nations without peace among the religions. No peace among the religions without dialogue between the religions”

In an interview from 2012, Ron Kronish said,

In our interreligious work in Israel, we have been connecting people through dialogue and educational programmes for many years. We bring together religious leaders, educators, women, youth and young adults for long-term (at least 10 months and sometimes for up to 4 years) substantive and sensitive encounters with each other. All our programmes share four stages: 1) getting to know the other well as a human being, created in the Divine Image, 2) studying each other’s sacred texts, 3) discussing core issues of the conflict and 4) taking action in our communities, separately and together.
[from an article, The “other peace process” in Common Ground News]

He says that people are surprised sometimes to hear stories of hope coming out of the region. He and others he works with are hopeful that a peace agreement can be reached between Israel and Palestine. He cites other seemingly hopeless conflicts that have ended as evidence that it is not impossible: Northern Ireland, South Africa and Bosnia. “We have to keep this vision of peace alive,” he says, “and not despair because achieving peace is taking so long.” (Ibid)

Ron Kronish is the founder and Director of the Interreligious Coordinating Council in Israel. He is an excellent person for Childen of Abraham to bring in as we wade into the tricky conversations. Kronish focuses not on the politics, but on the people. “A lasting peace is not a matter just for the politicians,” he claims. The deeper possibility is found in regular people coming together for interreligious and intercultural dialogue. That is what it will take for real change to come.

The politicians and diplomats do have their work to do, certainly. Papers and agreements and the macro-level problems of the region are real and significant. Just this week, for example, the United Nations voted to acknowledge the State of Palestine as sovereign over Gaza and the West Bank. There is broad support for the two-state option at the UN. While world leaders such as these have their work, the regular people like you and me have a different level of work. This is where Ron Kronish puts his energy. We have the task to “change the hearts and minds of the people on both sides of the conflict to be able to live in peaceful relations over the long haul.”

It is not a simple task. The Israeli and Palestinian people have many barriers in the way of meeting each other. The ‘Us vs. Them’ mentality is strongly fostered. The sides each claim the same piece of land and have two very different justifications for it. They have different cultures, economies, and religions. A recent five year study showed that Israeli and Palestinian texts books teach dramatically different versions of the same historical events, each side ignoring the other side’s perspective.

One article I read [From Palestinian and Israeli Citizens Bypass Their Governments in Search for Peace, by Evie Salomon] offered the first-hand accounts of two individuals who experienced a change of heart, one Israeli and one Palestinian. They each talk about being raised with messages encouraging them to dehumanize the other. They each talk about taking up arms by joining the Israeli army or a Palestinian militant group. They each talk about a change of heart they experienced.

Here is a little of Mohammad Dajani’s story: “I never looked at an Israeli as a human, I looked at them as the enemy that needs to be thrown out of my country,” Dajani said. “… That was an ‘us and them’ education that I had.”

Dajani continued working with Fatah for eight years until he noticed the leadership was riddled with corruption. Disappointed, he left … The real change occurred in 1993, when his father was diagnosed with cancer…

“I realized that the doctors in the hospital were not treating him as an Arab, they’re treating him as a patient,” Dajani said. “It helped me to look at Israelis in a more humanistic way.”

A few months after his father’s death in 1995, Dajani’s second transformative experience occurred, when his mother suffered a heart attack while the family was driving from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Panicked, Dajani’s brother made a quick decision to take the Ben Gurion Airport exit to seek help.

“I was very skeptical they would give help because she is Arab and they are Jews and it was security, but immediately they cleared one of the security gates and called two ambulances and they started operating on her there,” Dajani said.

…“These experiences have helped me move from ‘us or them’ to ‘us and them.’”

Dajani went on to found a political and social organization that uses the Koran’s teachings to promote balance and negotiation rather than religious extremism. And here is a little of Adi Mazor’s story:
Upon turning 18, she enlisted in the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF), just as her father had done… “I loved the army, I was very proud of myself that I’m in a combat unit, serving my country,” she said.

…While patrolling at a checkpoint at the separation wall … she was ordered to toss a stun grenade at children throwing stones. Although Mazor didn’t see any rock throwing, she obeyed the command.

“At first, I was very proud of myself,” she said. “It was the first stun grenade I was throwing as a soldier. I looked at the pin and I said, ‘Wow, this is a nice souvenir of what I just did, I should keep it.’”

But pride quickly turned to guilt.

“I was back in the Hummer and suddenly I saw the faces of the Palestinians from the other side,” she said. “They were so shocked and scared of what I did, and suddenly I was so ashamed. I looked at the pin again and I threw it out the window.”

It was then Mazor realized she was no longer the “good guy” in the story she’d learned growing up… Now 30, Mazor is a member of Breaking the Silence, a network of former Israeli combat soldiers whose goal is to expose Israeli citizens to the realities of West Bank occupation.

Over the past ten years, as the violence and tension and trouble has increase, so has the number of groups working to build a better way. In the midst of the terror and the bombs and the rockets, there are rays of hope, people gathering to build peace. Dozens of NGOs have begun popping up in the region; some of them run by Palestinians, some by Israelis and some are partnerships between the two. Each of these three categories are necessary to make the kinds of changes and reach the kinds of people needed for peace to grow. Israeli and Palestinian people working to dismantle the structures of violence and injustice through whatever means are at their disposal. We rarely hear about the efforts or their successes.

There are legal organizations working to support justice as well as business organizations advocating for a two-state solution for economic reasons. There are activist groups formed by former combatants and other formed by people who have lost family members to the violence. There is a chain of four Arab-Israeli schools called “Hand in Hand” that teach both Arabic and Hebrew. There are theater groups, such as “The Freedom Theatre,” and music programs, such as “Heartbeat,” using art to build bridges. “New Vision” uses graphic novels and other forms of creative media to highlight the efforts of Palestinian and Israeli activists who are nonviolently working to build a future of freedom, dignity, equality and human security.

Countless non-violent groups are actively working for peace. Did you know that? Did you know there were so many groups and individuals working for peace from inside Israel and Palestine? And we won’t hear about it in the usual news media. Yes the situation between Israel and Palestine is daunting and seems impossible, but there are many stories of hope and possibility.

And all of that brings me back around to the Children of Abraham lecture and discussion happening across town later this afternoon. There is a local component to this conversation. The reality is that Israel and Palestine are far across the ocean and have been in turmoil since before I was born. I willingly admit that the conflict has not been central in my thoughts, barely even peripheral. But over the past few years I have developed deeper relationships with people of Muslim and Jewish faith as well as people who are from or have family back in the Middle-East. Slowly this conflict has become more than just an abstract news story for me.

Several years ago a handful of clergy and laypeople gathered to create the Children of Abraham here in Binghamton, NY. The focus of the group has been to build mutual respect and understanding among believers of the three monotheistic religions. The first program was in May 2009 at the Islamic Center and it drew nearly 200 people. I was not involved in that first event, but I became involved over the course of the next year and have been involved ever since.

One of the goals of the Children of Abraham is to help people become ambassadors of religious peace and understanding; to encourage and empower more people in the Broome County region to see themselves as ambassadors of religious peace and understanding.

This year’s program was a bit of a stretch for us. We had been avoiding politics and hot button issues in favor of establishing and building relationships with each other and out in the community. Our topics have been about respecting the other, interfaith dialogue, and hearing our common stories. In preparing for this year’s topic: “Interreligious Dialogue, in Binghamton, Israel, Palestine, and the region,” we felt we had built up sufficient relationship to open this topic with each other.

This summer’s violence and strife put some of the religious leaders here in Binghamton in a difficult position regarding this topic. The event planners had a meeting in mid-September to consider cancelling. They decided to meet here in our building for that conversation because we Unitarian Universalists are considered neutral and open ground. So we gathered to consider what we would do about the trouble brewing for some among us. The purpose of our group, you may recall, is to build relationships and mutual understanding. If hosting this speaker would cause strife within the Muslim or Jewish communities I was certainly not willing to participate. I was among the initial advocates for cancelling unless we could find a way forward that didn’t put our relationships at risk.

Obviously we found a way forward because the event is happening. We shifted our expectations of how each religious community would endorse the program and asked our speaker for support in framing the circle discussions after his talk. This may seem like minor changes, and in a way it is. What really happened is that we all sat in a room and talked with each other. That’s the piece that really made it so we could move forward. We sat down and listened to each other.

If there is to be peace in the middle-east, it will begin with people seriously listening to each other. Issues of rockets and property, political positions and ideology all weigh heavy in the effort toward peace. The way forward will certainly involve politicians and activists, advocacy and witness. But it will also need a strong base of individuals who have gathered in groups to listen to each other, to hear each other, and find a way forward together.

Even here in Binghamton; even here there are things to gain, steps toward peace that are not insignificant that we can make. Let us do our part. Let us do what we can to move our corner of the world a few steps closer to peace.

In a world without end
May it be so.

Be Thou My Vision
Rev. Douglas Taylor
October 26, 2014

The hymn, Be Thou My Vision is full of theistic imagery and Elizabethan ‘thee’s and ‘thou’s. While it doesn’t capture the exact form of my theology I still find in it something powerful and moving. My vision for the future, for the people we can become and the person I strive to be is caught up in something transcendent, something larger than myself. It draws me into a perspective that is both humbling and empowering. It is that sense that who I am and who I yet maybe is held and nurtured and encouraged by something more than my own ego. As a religious community I see a part of our task is to be a channel or a focal point for that experience for people. Our work is to hold, nurture, and encourage the best within each of us and in all the world.

When I was a child I attended the Unitarian Universalist church. I remember the big hallways and the huge sanctuary space where the adults gathered. I remember the crowds of adults with their coffee mugs and name tags standing around and talking to each other on Sundays. I remember the Sunday school classes where my friends and I learned about different religions and about ethics and the stories of our UU history. I remember feeling small, but then I felt small everywhere in a way that I am sure is quite normal; but there was something else because though small I also remember being noticed. I remember feeling like this building was open to me; it wasn’t just a place I would visit as a guest, it was a placed I belonged and it belonged to me.

I am a minister now, serving a Unitarian Universalist congregation and I see the children running around here, coming to Sunday school classes, listening to the stories I tell them in the sanctuary, enjoying the craft parties and the dance parties, paying attention during the Faith in Action Sundays where we talk about ethics and people. I imagine they are feeling some of the things I felt. I imagine they will remember some of the things I remember about belonging to a religious community.

Fifty years from now, in the UU Binghamton congregation of 2064, I hope the congregation is still alive and noisy with children. I hear about other congregations, Unitarian Universalists as well as other traditions, in which there are few or no children. Our congregation today has a full range of elders and children, parents and people in their middle-years. The various stages of life are here and honored. My vision for our congregation into the future is one that holds this vitality and joy – not just for the children but perhaps especially for the children.

As a teenager I remember spending time with my friends at church. We built bonds across the cliques created at school. The musicians and the jocks, the princesses and the nerds, the losers and the class presidents sat in the circle together on Sunday morning in my youth group. It wasn’t always smooth sailing but it was real. I remember times when I was able to practice leading, when other teenagers looked to me for what to do next – something I did not experience at school. I remember taking part in a peace vigil and in a stewardship dinner and in musicals for the church. As a teenager I was a valuable contributor even though I had no income and therefore no financial contribution to offer. I remember being held by that community through the tough times.

Over the years as the minister of this congregation I have seen many of the youth grow up and move through our youth group. I know the youth who were brought here by their friends and kept coming without their parents because they found the community so important. I know the youth who have been hurt by life and found support here. I know the youth who excelled in school and I know the youth who have not. I know the youth who have come out as gay or transgender, those who have questioned and wrestled with their sexuality. I know the ones who have had trouble with drugs and the ones who considered suicide and the ones who have spent time on the psych unit. I know the youth who have been leaders and the ones who will be and I think I know most of the quiet ones. Our youth today are some of our strongest assets of creativity and energy and authority. I know I am blessed by every youth in this community who has been part of my life.

This congregation loves to see young people contributing music or other talent in the worship service or pitching in at a faith-in-action event or offering reflections from the pulpit. Our Coming of Age services and our Youth services are consistently among our most highly attended services because this congregation values the youth among us. This community is not focused on youth, we are not a youth-empowerment institution; yet our youth are highly valued.

Fifty years from now, I envision a community in which our youth continue to build bonds across the divisions and are entrusted with leadership opportunities and a voice around matters of importance.

Of course, the ministry of this congregation does not reach only to the children and youth. I have seen many examples over the years, indeed just over the past few months in which this congregation has been a life-giving force in the lives of people. We change lives. In many ways the strongest asset we have is as a community of acceptance.

I hesitate to share the personal stories I have witnessed and participated in because they are not my stories but I must tell you they nurture me. The stories of welcome and acceptance and support are each unique but paint a larger picture of what the ministry and mission of this congregation is at this time. I know people in our congregation who wrestle with deep grief and the ones still suffering the consequences of abuse. I know people here proud of their prison time in the name of justice and those ashamed of their prison time. I know those of you who are impassioned to save the planet and those of you who want to build bridges across racial and cultural chasms. Our work is to hold, nurture, and encourage the best within each of us and in all the world.

Our mission and ministry is to heal and to hold and to challenge when necessary. I’m thinking about the person who said “I really needed that sermon” whether the topic was forgiveness or world peace. Something touched him, something shifted for her. I’m remembering the young adult who met with me to share something she was struggling with and said “I just needed someone to know that this is a thing in my life, someone who won’t judge me or think I am terrible.” I’m remembering the elder who asked for a hug in the receiving line after the service; he wasn’t one of the usual ‘huggers’ in the line but something important happened for him that morning.

I am reminded of the visitor from a few years back who came only two or three Sundays and then came out as transgender to several people from the congregation – we had been a community of acceptance and support during the questioning and testing time for him. When he told us he is really she, the response was “welcome.”

I am reminded of the widower whose introduction to this community was his wife’s funeral, ‘would we please open our doors and perform this ceremony.’ And he found not only a welcome and a life-affirming ritual but also a weekly connection as he joined the congregation and made new friends.

I am reminded of the activist trying to balance the urge to save the world and to savor it. And the parent trying to keep all the balls in the air and still find ways to make an impact for justice. This community means so much to so many.

I am reminded of those who find ways to share their gifts, ways to serve and ways to play here in this community. I am reminded of those who debate the words for our liturgical covenant or the way we do Joys and Sorrows, or who point out errors in the order of service or the spelling of someone’s name in a document – because we know that the words and the rituals and way we do these things matters on this deep level of acceptance and meaning.

Fifty years from now, I imagine a congregation still connecting people in new ways, reaching out and healing the broken places in our lives and in our communities.

The Long Range Plan we vote on next week calls for some infrastructure improvement – let us do the good we need to do and let us do it more wisely. Let us build on member connections, helping people find those life-giving ways into the community and into the call of the spirit. Let us get clear about the use of our physical space and what we need. Let us build on the call to serve with strong leadership training and support.

There are also elements in the Long Range Plan around outreach into the community – outreach to promote the life-giving message of our faith and outreach through justice ministries in which the whole congregation can engage. And more, the Plan calls for the development of a financial strategy so we can express our values more effectively. Let us get real about the money.

Our congregation is at a crossroads. Do you see the road diverging ahead of us in this yellow wood? We stand at a moment in time in which we must move forward with decisions about our mission and vision as a religious community and the allocation of resources that will shape who we are and where we are headed for decades to come.

It is a crossroads of our own construction. Where we have been and the ministry we have had in the past has been good and life-changing for many people. With our vote for the Long Range Plan next week and our Super Goal Sunday pick-up pledge campaign today, we are in a moment when our actions will set the tone and the scope of how we move forward through the next several years or even decades for this congregation.

Let us remember to give thanks for the vitality and the challenges we have before us – if our congregation were irrelevant or meaningless we would not have financial troubles or conflicts because no one would care. No one would have clean up because we would never make a mess. If this community were insignificant we would not have to figure out who will make coffee next week or how to change the light bulb the regular ladder can’t reach. If this place were irrelevant we wouldn’t have disagreements or need grace and forbearance and covenants.

But this congregation is relevant. I see the evidence every week, sometimes daily. Our mission and our ministries matter. But that is not what is at question. The question is what we will do with the challenges and the direction of our mission and ministry.

In a world without end
May it be so

Habits of a Healthy Community
Rev. Douglas Taylor
October 19, 2014

Typically when we are talking about being healthy, we mean physically healthy. And healthy habits include things like good diet, exercise, rest, play and going to the doctor when you are sick. Emotional health is also a common enough concept – laugh and cry, when you are angry you should talk about what’s bothering you, and seek help and support when you are emotionally unwell. I’ve preached about Spiritual health before and talked about healthy habits that echo those mentioned from these other aspects of health: good diet of spiritual nourishment, spiritual exercise, spiritual rest and play, seeking help and support when you are spiritually unwell.

So I wondered if the echoing could continue when talking about habits of healthy communities. And it does not; or at least not without the rigorous contortion of concepts and manipulation of semantics… which might have been fun but I was tired last night and opted to really grapple with this instead.

The primary difference is that our topic here is about groups rather than individuals, and the fact that there are individuals in the group is a fundamental source of where things can go amiss. Indeed, the bulk of the information I uncovered about creating and sustaining a health community was largely about navigating the needs of the individual within the needs of the group.

When I uncovered this pattern I was at first a little distressed. I’ve preached about navigating the needs of the individual and the needs of the community plenty of times already. I’m not sure what I can say that is new and fresh. But then I remembered! A few years back a BU student gave me an abstract about community health from an evolutionary perspective. I was fascinated! I was used to thinking about evolution on the epochal level and in particular about biological evolution. Yet here was a paper about how communities develop … evolutionary sociology perhaps. The paper talked about collective-choice arrangements, well-defined boundaries, graduated sanctions, and nested enterprises. It had sentences like: “The first condition is that both appropriation and provision rules conform in some way to local conditions, … such as its spatial and temporal heterogeneity.”

But before your eyes glaze over, let me tell you a story.

I was at a minister’s conference a few years back, the topic was on leadership and authority. There were a few dozen of us in the multi-day course, and when we came in to the room after our lunch break on the second day, the presenters had set up a game for us.

There was tape on the floor dividing the room into thirds. We were each assigned a section with most of us in one section, a smaller number in the middle section, and about five people in the last section. We were given only one rule – don’t cross the lines.

At first, knowing the course was about leadership and authority, we played along. After about ten minutes, we started crossing the lines just to see what would happen. When nothing obvious happened, most of us roamed the room. Some people pulled up the tape and used it to make art or create new boundaries. I started at the big end, but over the course of the activity I occupied every section of that room you can be assured. Eventually I say down and started a rousing hymn sing.

Some of what we learned while processing the experience is that when left with no direction or aim, no leadership, people tend to accomplish a significant amount of nothing in particular. We also learned that Unitarian Universalists tend to be ‘boundary crossers’ which can be a good thing and it can be a bad thing depending on the boundary and why it is being crossed.

Crossing boundaries is good and just when we are partnering with the oppressed, when we are meeting the ‘other’ across our differences, when we challenging a status qua that is unjust. Crossing boundaries is bad when we are abusing our power or other people, when we are taking advantage of the trust that has been given to us, when we see every boundary as just a challenge rather than as a guide to navigate the needs of the individual with the needs of the group.

Boundaries are a tool, how we use them is the question. Consider the boundaries that have been town down in our national discourse around civil rights and marriage equality. Consider the boundaries for things like becoming a judge or a police officer, or the boundary established by a labor union. Not every boundary is a bad boundary. One mark of a healthy community is well-defined boundaries. They serve as guides to navigate the needs of the individual along the needs of the group. Part of the trouble is when a boundary no longer serves or has been manipulated to perpetuate harm.

But boundaries was just one principle among several mentioned in that abstract about the evolutionary perspective on healthy communities. There were principles around monitoring and conflict-resolution and the recognition of rights.

Another article I was reading told the situation of the lobster fisheries in Maine. The population of lobster is a limited, though regularly replenished, resource. The fishers in each area organize themselves and coordinate where they will each lay their traps. There are laws in place at the state and local level, but most of the establishment and enforcement of the group’s norms are done at the informal in-group level. The Lobster fishers coordinate, monitor and sanction themselves as a collective.

There is no room for an independent lobster trapper to work, they have to be part of the ‘harbor gang.’ A person cannot just decide one day to go out into the harbor one morning and catch a few dozen lobster and start a side business. They have to join the ‘harbor gang.’ This is perhaps a troubling boundary if we are talking about freedom and inclusion, encouraging entrepreneurs, and welcoming the stranger. But the boundary serves not only to protect the current lobster fisher, it also maintains the fishing at a sustainable level and protects the ecosystem. The boundary navigates the needs of the individual with the needs of the group. Part of the function of this habit is to protect the viability and sustainability of the lobsters as a resource – to guard against the tragedy of the commons.

On the global scale, however, these issues play out in the conversation around developing countries seeking to exploit and overuse resources as a means toward the end of achieving what they see other countries have achieved. The concept of stewardship keeps coming up for me; not simply conservation of the resources, but careful and wise use of the resources.

In the example from the Garrett Hardin reading this morning, he says ‘freedom in the commons brings ruin to all.” Hardin then offers the vignette of leaders in the community asking a member to stop overusing the commons while secretly thinking that person a fool if they abide by the request because those leaders continue to exploit the resources.

But what if we imagined a model in which the leaders did not use coercion or deceit as their technique to seek compliance. What if instead the leaders used persuasion and example? I’m not suggesting that the grand solution to the tragedy of the commons is personal integrity of the leadership. But it is, to my mind, one of the key components.

The models out there in game theory and economic theory and now this evolutionary perspective as well, emphasize the observable and empirical evidence: this is what we see human beings do when they are in groups. Individuals in groups are often self-focused, looking to achieve a sustainable and comfortable position.

But one of the pieces of my role is not just to observe, it is to cast a vision of how to be better at this. So the habits of a healthy community I would support include the boundaries and the graduated sanctions and collective-choice arrangements. But more than that, I want my communities to also have the habits of encouraging personal integrity and fostering stewardship. A recognition of fallibility and room for grace would be helpful as well, but I’m not sure how to institute that … except by example.

In the end, the best habits will be those that help align the needs of the individual with the needs of the communities. They are the habits of individuals in the community, but they are also the community norms and ethics.

What are the habits you see as productive and healthy in a community? What patterns of behavior do you find helpful in others and in yourself that further this human venture in community? Where do you find helpful boundaries and personal integrity encouraged? Consider your groups, your communities, your local and national and global communities … What are the habits you would lift up and promote?

May we all find places where our integrity and example can make a difference. May we discover ways to foster the norms in our communities that build rather than destroy, that bless rather than curse, that hold rather than tear apart. May we learn the habits that make us whole.

In a world without end,
May it be so

The Power and Importance of Laughter
Rev. Douglas Taylor
October 5, 2014

Norman Cousins is famous for being a journalist, an author, and a peace activist. Did you know he is also a trailblazer in the field of laughter? He was editor-in-chief of the Saturday Review for 30 years; he authored books and essays about politics, history, and literature; he was an unofficial ambassador between Kennedy, Khrushchev, and Pope John; and during his lifetime he was awarded the Albert Schweitzer Prize, the Eleanor Roosevelt Peace Award, and the United Nations Peace Medal.

He is remembered for saying things like: “Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside us while we live.” “Life is an adventure in forgiveness.” “Laughter is a powerful way to tap positive emotions.”

Later in life, he had an experience of illness that led him to develop what he called the laugh-cure. He was diagnosed with a form of debilitating arthritis. He chronicled his struggles in has book Anatomy of an Illness, published in 1979. He was told by doctors that he had little chance of surviving.

So he went about developing his own recovery program involving mega-doses of Vitamin C, along with a positive attitude, faith, hope, and laughter induced by Marx Brothers films. He says:

I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain-free sleep. When the pain-killing effect of the laughter wore off, we would switch on the motion picture projector again and not infrequently, it would lead to another pain-free interval.

He went on to live ten more years, during which he had a near fatal heart-attack, wrote several more books about health and healing, and continued to advocate for his ‘laugh-cure.’

When Cousins did this in the late 70’s, few researchers really took him seriously. But over the past decade or so, we have been coming back around to a holistic sense of health, and laughter can be part of the conversation. Health researchers have begun to take laughter seriously. [http://science.howstuffworks.com/life/inside-the-mind/emotions/laughter-cure-illness.htm]

For example, research shows that laughter decreases the body’s cortisol levels. Cortisol is a stress-induced chemical related to heart disease and high blood pressure. Laughter also strengthens your immune system and increases the production of antibodies. Researchers state that a good laugh has many of the same benefits as a brisk walk. As Norman Cousins had said many times, “Laughter is inner jogging.”

Laughter increases your air intake. Increasing your oxygen-rich air intake stimulates all of your organs and relaxes your muscles. The Mayo Clinic advocates for laughter as a means to boost your immune system, sooth tension, relieve pain, and improve your mood. [http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-living/stress-management/in-depth/stress-relief/art-20044456]

The piece that I’m noticing in all this is that the researchers are not talking about humor or about finding something funny. They are advocating laughter – the behavior of laughing. Charlie Chaplin has said “Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.” There is Laughter Yoga and Laughter meditation out there, laughing groups even that meet and simply laugh together.

Laughter is a vital part of life.  I don’t mean life should be a laugh a minute. Simply that life is full of tragic suffering and hardship that can overwhelm a person; but laughter makes life sweet. And life should be sweet. With all life’s bitterness and difficulty, laughter is a balm, a balancing mechanism to keep you steady. “Laughter is the tonic, the relief, the surcease for pain.” 

There is that classic scene in the movie Mary Poppins with actor Ed Winn as “Uncle Albert” who has gotten himself stuck on the ceiling with his laughter.  He sings “I love to Laugh,” and it turns our Ed Winn adlibbed much of his lines for that tea party on the ceiling.  “I Know a man with a wooden leg named Smith” Bert says. “Oh really,” Uncle Albert replies, “What’s the name of his other leg?” Later Bert tries to cheer Uncle Albert up with another joke that isn’t as funny, and he says with a sigh, “My dad always said there’s nothing like a good joke.” And Uncle Albert says “And that was nothing like a good joke.”

Humor often has a bit of an edge to it. The early Greek philosophers saw laughter as a mixture of anxiety and pleasure – part of that old slippery-slope into immorality.  They saw it as a great moral danger and potential weapon.  As if to laugh is to succumb to some great inner flaw or at least as a temptation toward vice. 

Plato held the perspective that laughter arises from our desire to feel superior over other people. He also warned that laughter could lead to an undermining of authority and ultimately to the overthrow of the state. 

Well, certainly I have seen how humor and laughter can poke fun at arrogance and pomposity. I have seen how laughter can disarm people. Plato may well have the truth of it. Laughter is an equalizer, we all laugh. Plato’s warning was about the upset of our hierarchies, and yes, laughter can certainly do that. 

Jewish thought has always held a valued place for joy.  Oh, sure there are lines in Hebrew scripture such as Ecclesiastes 7:3 “Sorrow is better than laughter” but there are also a fair number of stories and verses about dancing and joy and celebration. One commentator noted that while professional comedians make up 5% of the population in the United States, something like 80% have been Jewish. 

The early Christian church was a fair mix of both Jewish thought and Greek thought. Clearly the Greek thought won out on the question of humor in Christianity for a long time. The Early Christian Church denounced laughter on the grounds that Jesus is reported to have wept but never to have laughed….so weeping alone led to unity with God.

Elizabethan England had some staunch defenders of seriousness. Laughter was considered a form of ‘losing control’ of oneself. It was seen as uncouth, even dangerous. One critic, George Catlin, warned that regular laughter irreparably damages your teeth.” (“Shut Your Mouth”)

“Consider the bizarre events of the 1962 outbreak of contagious laughter in Tanzania . . . . “ It began as an isolated fit of laughter (and sometimes crying) in a group of schoolgirls. This isolated event, however, spread to epidemic proportions. “Contagious laughter” propagated from one individual to the next, eventually infecting adjacent communities. The epidemic of uncontrollable laughter was so severe that it required the closing of schools. It lasted for six months. (from Laughter by Robert Provine) Uncouth, even dangerous – the Elizabethans counsel. It could lead to societal breakdown – Plato cautions. It might irreparably damage you teeth, we are warn. 

Or it could be natural. Babies all develop laughter without being taught to laugh. And babies and children laugh at least ten to twenty times more often than adults. It is not laughter that is taught, but seriousness. How much better things are now that laughter and humor are seen as healthy. Researchers and doctors support the perspective that such levity promotes health.

But laughter is not simply something for your personal health. Norman Cousins calls laughter inner jogging and researchers compare a good belly laugh to the benefits of a brick walk. Yet taking a brisk walk all by yourself is quite normal and healthy. Laughing all by yourself, alone with no external stimulus such a book or video, is uncommon and perhaps cause for concern.

Robert Provine, in his book Laughter, offers the insight that on a social level, laughter fortifies our sense of belonging and trust in others, “Laughter is more often a consequence of relationships than of jokes.”

I can certainly attest to this in my experience. Gathering my three children in the room with my wife and myself will often result is joyful laughter. Laughter brings people together. Victor Borge said “Laughter is the shortest distance between two people.”

Theologically, laughter is a sign of joy. Medically, it is seen as a means of stress relief. Psychologically, it is a means of mood enhancement. Philosophically, it may mean chaos or equality for humanity. Sociologically, it is a social phenomenon of group bonding, the establishment of group mores, and a means of conflict reduction. There are many meanings tucked inside this physiological near-autonomic response life.

Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson went camping in the forest. After a good dinner and a bottle of wine, they went to sleep in the tent. Several hours later, Holmes awoke and nudged his faithful friend, Watson.

“Look at the sky and tell me what you see.”

Watson answered: “I see millions and millions of stars.”

“And what does that tell you?”

Watson thought a minute and answered: “Astronomically, that tells me that there are potentially billions of planets. Astrologically, I see that Saturn is in Leo. Chronologically, I deduce that it is approximately three ten AM. Theologically, I see that God is all powerful and that we are small and insignificant. Meteorologically I suspect that we shall have a beautiful day tomorrow.”

Holmes was quiet for a minute and then said: “Watson, you idiot, it means someone stole our tent.”

Laughter may mean many things, but let me spend a few minutes offering a case for the spirituality of laughter: laughter as a spiritual practice. First we need to recognize it as a particular kind of spiritual practice. Specifically, laughter is a form of public spirituality – social spirituality. “Laughter,” theologian Karl Barth has said, “is the closest thing to the grace of God.”

Laughter affects us on a holistic level; our bodies, our emotions, our minds, our spirits, even our relationships. Laughter can be healing, connecting, and healthful. We don’t choose to laugh – we don’t recognize the humor of something and then choose to laugh. It just happens. But we can cultivate a practice of being open to and aware of life in a way that promotes laughter. We can develop our sense of humor. That may be one of the aspects by Barth compares Laughter with grace. Grace is not something we can control, but we can cultivate our lives to recognize and welcome grace when it comes. So it is with laughter.

Cultivating a sense of humor in response to life is something we can choose to do. I commend behaviors of forgiveness and surrender as openings to the absurdity of life which can lead us to laughter. If you want to develop more laughter, work on surrender and forgiveness. Notice how absurd your life can be. When I am frustrated or anxious, impatient or irritated, it is hard to let go of such feelings. They are like negative feedback for a situation. My frustration and impatience are responses that don’t really ease the problem I am experiencing. When I can relax, when I can let go, forgive, and have empathy for others, then I am lightened. I can laugh. When I am laughing I feel stronger, I feel more connected with others, I feel capable of weathering the storms of life.

Laughter does not end the trouble and turmoil of life. Laughter does not stop depression or grief. Laughter is not an end to sadness and sorrow – only to seriousness. When we look for laughter in our lives, when we choose to meet the world with giggles and guffaws, what withers away is not the pain or the grief. It is instead the gravity of it all that fades, the solemnity and seriousness that dwindles. Let us take all of life – the laughter and the pain, the joy and the sorrow. Laughter is important and powerful in how it can help us frame our outlook on the affair.

Your well is deep and your life is rich. Laughter rises and bubbles forth in abundance if you open your heart to the full range.

In a world without end,
May it be so.

Forgiveness and Healing
Rev. Douglas Taylor
September 28, 2014

Part One:

One of the interesting stories out of Dr. Luskin’s Stanford Forgiveness Project is the work they did with people from Northern Ireland. The roots of the conflict there is centuries old and in the past hundred years alone, thousands have been killed or maimed in its sectarian violence. In1997 a cease-fire agreement was reached and the goal shifted from achieving a cease-fire to building relationships across the division so that the cease-fire would become a lasting reality.

In 2000, Luskin hosted a week of forgiveness training for five women whose sons had been killed during the troubles. They established a series of metrics for before and after the training. This is one of the features of Forgiveness studies that always catches my interest – the scientific measurements. They “measured the women’s overall levels of depression, anger, optimism and perceived stress, and the degree of pain they felt over the loss of their children.” (https://alumni.stanford.edu/get/page/magazine/article/?article_id=39032)

As you might expect all five participants showed dramatic improvements in their scores, and when they returned to Ireland they “sustain[ed] their newfound sense of peace.” (ibid)

A year later, 17 men and women, protestant and catholic, joined in the week of forgiveness training. Interestingly, the workshops did not focus on reconciling with specific people who had caused the participants harm.  Often when I speak about forgiveness, I emphasize that it is about repairing relationships, about reconciling with people so you can move forward. Luskin’s Forgiveness Training offers a way forward but not necessarily through reconciliation.

When Magee was invited to [the] Stanford workshop, she says, “I asked, ‘Can the forgiveness just be in my own mind?’ I could never go to the persons who did this to my brother and say, ‘Oh, I forgive you,’ not in a million years.” Assured that it could be, and that forgiveness in her own mind was in fact the goal, Magee agreed to make the trip. (ibid)

This is interesting to me. This opens up the question of what is the whole point of this work we call ‘forgiveness.’ What the participants in Luskin’s training find is healing. Healing of the grief and anger, healing from the way the story of ‘how they were wronged’ had taken over their lives and absorbed their identity. The healing involved forgiveness of themselves for letting the tragic loss take over their lives, and a letting go of the past as the center point of their identities. We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.

Most of us do not have this level of trauma or tragedy in our lives. A few of us do, I know; but all of us have a share of having been wronged or aggrieved. All of us could use healing for something in our lives. For the moment, let us set aside the work of forgiveness, it may come along for the ride – we’ll see. But for the moment let us focus on healing.

I would like to offer you not only thoughtful words about healing, but an experience of it if possible. Take a deep breath and relax yourself into a comfortable position. Think back on a grievance you have carried. You grievance story may be from your childhood or your adult years, it may involve your parents, a spouse, a sibling, or a friend. Perhaps your grievance is against God or the universe or life. Who are the other people in your story? Your grievance story is about a time when you were wronged, when you were hurt, when you were treated unjustly or unfairly. Consider your grievance story.

There are feeling attached to your story. Perhaps you still react to the memory with feelings of anger or fear. Perhaps your heart rate increases or your breathing gets shallow. Perhaps remembering your grievance is unproductive. Perhaps you are happy to not think of it, to bury it. Yet the feelings linger and resurface all the same. Perhaps none of this stuff about feelings is the case for you, or perhaps you are slipping into the feelings even now.

One feeling I suggest for you is the feeling of grief. The words Grief and Grievance have the same etymological root: gravis, which means heavy, serious. Perhaps there is some grief in your grievance story, some sadness for the way things occurred.

1. I invite everyone to take a deep breath and focus on the area around your heart. Begin a gratitude list of all the aspects of your life for which you are thankful. For sunshine, breathing, and the gift of life itself. Perhaps you will include certain people in your life on your gratitude list. Perhaps you will include certain communities, activities, or gifts you have given and received. Focus on your gratitude.

2. With all that still in mind, focus again on the grievance you have been holding. Think about what you wish had happened instead of what did happen. Think about how you wanted it to go. Perhaps you wanted closeness or happiness, respect or justice, love or comfort. All of these are very normal human desires for us.

3. With another deep breath, acknowledge that things did not happen as you wished. To the extent that you can, accept the simple fact that things did not occur the way that you wish they had. With another deep breath release that old wish, that old desire.

4. Again bring your focus to the area around your heart. Relax and again feel the gratitude you acknowledged earlier of sunshine, autumn leaves, the gift of life itself, whatever is on your gratitude list.

In the order of service is a slip of paper for you to tear in half. On the piece that says “Letting go” I invite you to write a few words about your grievance story or about the grief for what did not happen in the event. Vicky will play some music while the ushers will come down the aisle to collect your papers. Later, after the service, immediately after the receiving line, I will place all of the collected papers – all of the things you have written to ‘let go’ – and I will release them into the fire in the Fireside Room. Any who wish to help me with that may do so.

Part Two:

There is a second half to the slip of paper. And it is as simple as this: when you let one thing go, there is room for something else.

I remember the day I realized my father was never going to become the person I longed for him to be for me. He had several years of sobriety by this point. I was an adult starting a family of my own. He had been supportive of me, he welcomed the opportunity to be a grandfather with my two little babies, he helped put me through college. Yet I had a story of him as being absent from my childhood, a story of being angry with him for not being there.

And one day I realized that even though he was no longer absent and even though he was supportive, I had not stopped wanting him to be someone other than who he was. I realized that the piece missing in our relationship was not him, but the figure I had created in my mind that he was not. We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love. I let go of my anger and grief over who I wanted him to be for me. What I was then able to do was have an adult relationship with the person that he actually is. And to this day, it is not a perfect relationship but is it a real one.

In letting go of my grief and my grievance, I made room for something else. I allowed more room for love, and love changes everything.

That is what I invite you to write one the second half of the slip of paper. If you can let go, what do you make room for? Write that onto the paper and then fold that paper and put it in your pocket. What can you welcome into your life now if the grief of your grievance is not occupying that space?

This is what forgiveness can be like. We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love. It does not only serve as a tool for repairing relationships, it can be about healing your own spirit so you can move forward again. Forgiveness is about freeing up the energy we had spent in our anger, our resentment, our grudge. Our anger and grief consumes our spirit. Forgiveness is about letting go, about allowing healing.

All of us have been hurt. Rehashing those experiences can tempt us to thinking of them as key pieces of our identity. Before I let go of my grievance, I wondered who I was if I was not the one hurt by my father’s absence or by his alcoholism. Those events, that absence was a significant element in the story of who I had become as a young man. But that was not helping me figure out how to be a father to my children, stewing over who my father was to me. No. I had let my grievance become too important to my identity.

What I let go was my need for my father to somehow become the father I thought I need when I was a child. What I cleared space for was more than just the actual relationship I could then have with him. There was more for me in that healing than just that. I also cleared space for me to learn how to be a father for my children. I cleared space to welcome more presence and support that I could both offer and receive. I cleared space to grow beyond the boy I had been. We forgive ourselves and each other; we begin again in love.   

Healing is not instantaneous, forgiveness does not automatically roll in. But by clearing the way, we can allow our spirits to grow. We can make room for healing because healing is what naturally happens. That is how the Spirit works. Focus on your breath and on all for which you are grateful.

In a world without end,
May it be so