Sermons

Invention of the Irresistible
December 1, 2013
Rev. Douglas Taylor

An old favorite Calvin and Hobbes comic strip has the mom and dad talking in the kitchen about their concern for their son Calvin. In particular, they are discussing the impact of the ads he is seeing on TV. In the last panel of the comic Calvin runs into the kitchen with panic in his eyes: “Mom, Dad, I just saw an ad for the most amazing thing that I absolutely cannot live without but did not know existed two minutes ago.”

Black Friday, our national holiday in honor of the God of free markets, has an irrational impact on our society. The theory from the perspective of the marketing agents is: people need to buy things for Christmas. If we get them in our store because of our great deals, they will be so tempted by the deals that the shoppers will buy more than they intended to buy and we, the store, will make more money. A fundamental purpose of a store is to make money selling a product. A fundamental purpose of Black Friday is for the store to make extra money from shopper making impulse purchases, collateral spending, if you will.

This is one way the concept of the irresistible comes into play. The allure of the irresistible appears in the commercials, courtrooms and psychology classrooms. It is tangled up in at least five of the seven deadly sins: gluttony, sloth, lust, greed, and anger can all be seen as the collapse of self-control in the face of irresistible temptations.

The reading (from Daniel Akst’s We Have Met the Enemy) suggests that we, like Odysseus, must take heroic precautions to secure ourselves from temptation. The irresistible ever beckons to us, ever calls us to stray from our own best intentions. If we could but rid ourselves of these pesky irresistible temptations in life then all would be well with the world.

Fernando Savater is a modern Spanish philosopher and professor of ethics who offers a different perspective on this. When I was 25 years old I discovered a slim book of his published a few years earlier entitled Ética para Amador. It is a book of ethics written for his son, Amador. I was a young man considering the ministry when I found the book. I have uncovered notes about this book that I wrote down in my journal – it had an impact on me.

Here is one significant passage that I wrote down from his book into my journal. He was talking about personal responsibility and society’s response to temptation.

Anything bad that happens is blamed on circumstances, or the society we live in, or the capitalist system, or character (“It’s just the way I am”), or bad education, or television commercials, or having been spoiled, or all the temptations on display everywhere, pernicious and irresistible. …

Savater goes on to suggest, tongue in cheek, that the goal of modern society seems to be to help create a world free from all the troubling traps that lead us into temptation. “Lead me not into temptation, I can find my way there just fine on my own.”

But consider all the silly warning signs and safety measures found on product packaging. Why would I need to be warned that the hot coffee I just purchased is hot? Not because the company really cares or thinks I don’t know that already. It’s because someone sued the company and won. Here are a few liability warnings on products from just a few years ago. There is a label on Nytol sleeping pills that warns: May cause drowsiness. It was apparently necessary to include the warning “Do not use while sleeping” for the Vidal Sassoon hair dryer and “This product moves when used” to the packaging of the Razor scooter. And consider this one: “The Vanishing Fabric Marker should not be used as a writing instrument for signing checks or any legal documents.”  That’s clever.

Savater goes on to say:

Think of the huge relief in knowing that if any loose temptation comes along, the responsibility for what happens lies with those who failed to wipe it out in time, not with those who succumb to it. What if I told you that this Irresistible is nothing more than a superstition conjured up by those who are afraid of their own freedom?

This isn’t just about silly product labels and the courtroom decisions that allow individuals to not be responsible for their actions by shifting the blame to the product for not giving enough warning of potential danger. Product liability is small potatoes to me when compared to rape culture and the way people are not held responsible for their violent behaviors. Are people culpable for their actions or can they plead that some temptation was irresistible?

We are thankfully seeing a shift in the courts away from allowing the “provocation” defense stance. It used to hold up in court that it was reasonable for a man to be provoked beyond reason by, for example, the sight of his wife in bed with another man. The difference between murder and manslaughter is premeditation rather than a fit of passion. The instances of rapists being let off because the victim was too tempting is also waning thankfully. The question of culpability and personal responsibility in the courtroom is still open to interpretation but with more female judges and lawyers, the misogynist results are in decline, though not eradicated.

“What if I told you that this Irresistible is nothing more than a superstition conjured up by those who are afraid of their own freedom?” I found and still find these ideas from Savater captivating. I’m not sure I can wholly agree without reservation but it is compelling to consider Savater’s statement: “We are not free not to be free … we have no choice but to be free.” As an ethicist, Savater comes down solidly on the side of Free Will.

Historically Unitarians and Universalists come down heavily on the side of Free Will against the opposing theological argument of predestination that claims the list of those saved is preordained and set. Well, Universalism had a unique response, but Unitarianism was a strong and vocal opponent to the idea that God already knows the few who will be in heaven, according to the doctrine of predestination. A major result of this doctrine was the implications people took for life here on earth, believing that we could tell my looking at a person’s life if they were one of the elect. The theology slipped from determination of the afterlife to determination in this life with predestination basically affirming that you are not free – every choice you think you have is already known and experienced in the mind of God.

Those who favor free will, such as me, see no freedom or responsibility in such a perspective. If God preordained my life, then am I really responsible for my actions against other people, against society, against the earth?

But in many ways, I find fewer people are interested in the theological side of this conversation and more interested in the sociological, psychological, and biological sides of this issue. There is a game we play at the New UU workshop each season. It is the theological continuum game. It asks us to line up from one side of the room to the other based on the answers to questions like Do you believe in God, yes or no – with the acknowledgement that the answer is not necessarily ‘Yes’ or ‘No’, there is a continuum possible.

So, one of the questions is “Do you believe in Fate or Free Will?” Most people find themselves somewhere in the middle, allowing for Free Will and choice, but also acknowledging chance, circumstance, genes, and past choices to have some say … not exactly fate, but not unfettered free will either.

In all the years I have done this game there was only one person I found standing at the wall in favor of Fate with minimal room for Free Will. He was a biological geneticist. He stood there for scientific reasons rather than religious reasons. He was saying, so much of what we consider our choice is preset by factors beyond our control such as on which continent you were born or in which century. The geneticist was taking the cosmic view. Even narrowing it down to the determination of your own personal life: you had no control over your race, nationality, biological sex at birth, or family of origin.

There has been quite a bit of research into the biological and chemical aspects of decision making. Not surprisingly, there is a lot of research done in the name of marketing – how to get people to buy more and want more – particularly as it relates to food. There are studies that demonstrate how people are unwittingly influenced by the number of people sitting around us, our potion size, our plate size, the portion size of other people around us, the lighting in the room, and the music. One study showed that people ate “dramatically more M&Ms simply by [having] ten different colors into a bowl instead of the usual seven.” (Ibid, Akst p165) These studies undermine the notion that we are not free to not be free because choices are being made below our level of consciousness so can we really call them choices anymore?

Addictions lead us down another refutation of free will. Alcoholics and opiate addicts are not in control of their behavior in relation to the drug. It is irresistible. But interestingly the argument of addiction lends itself directly into the middle path I am looking for this morning. This is the path that does not say free will is all there is and our vices and destructive behaviors are choices we make freely and knowingly or we are fooling ourselves otherwise. This middle path also does not say free will is a sham and that our lives are determined by God or genetics or slick marketing tricks – one way or the other we are not in control of our actions. Instead, this middle path says yes the temptations are real and are hard, but they are also resistible if we know what we are doing and if we have help.

I remember Michael Dowd, the evolutionary evangelist proclaiming the good news of evolution and religion as two understandings of life that are complimentary rather than competing. He talked about the impact of our evolution on choices we make today. Look at our proclivity as humans for sweet foods high in fat. That was evolutionarily valuable early on when high fat food was rare. Now we manufacture it and make it available whenever we want it, and we always want it because we are hardwired to want it.

The same is true of the Bill Clinton phenomena or the Tiger Woods phenomena. Or name the phenomena for whichever male celebrity figure is in the news lately for sexual infidelity. The root of it, evolutionarily, is that men receive a boost of testosterone when they accomplish something of significance. We feel more powerful and virile, yes: more sexually potent. This is one of the layers of natural selection: more successful individuals are more attractive as mates to perpetuate the species. It has little to do with fidelity or morality; it is a base desire to perpetuate the species.

I also remember Michael Dowd saying that this knowledge of our evolutionary impulses should not be considered license to obey those instincts that are no longer leading us to success as a species. Instead it is an opportunity to understand where the urges come from so we can overcome them. We can point to our evolutionary predisposition for high-fat food and say “see, I can’t help myself,” or we can say “see, that’s why it is hard to control.” In a way, I am suggesting we have a choice: we can either pretend we have no choice or we can admit that we are all still responsible for our actions.

Which brings me back to Odysseus. In the Greek story, Odysseus knows the temptation of the Sirens will be strong. But he doesn’t say, “Oh, well – that’s just it’s my nature to succumb.” He also doesn’t say, “By sheer will power I will resist the temptation.” Instead he has his men bind him to the mast so he cannot comply with the temptation when it comes.

Daniel Akst, the author of our reading this morning (We Have Met the Enemy) offers a similar example from the children’s story series Frog and Toad, by Arnold Lobel.

In the story “Cookies,” Frog and Toad can’t stop themselves from eating a mass of freshly baked cookies, so Frog tries putting them in a box, tying it with string, even using a ladder to place the box out of reach. But each time, Toad points out, they have the ability to undo these weak forms of precommitment … Finally, Frog takes the cookies outside and gives them to the birds, who eat every last crumb.
The moral of the story is that, ideally, a precommitment should be binding. If it is to work, it has to be genuinely coercive – but the coercion is one we impose on ourselves.
[note: precommitment is when we choose to ‘constrain ourselves against the foreseeable strength of some later desires.”]

Our goal is not to be morally perfect, even if I were bold enough to suggest what that would look like I refuse to set it as our goal. Our goal is not to create a world free of temptation so we can blissfully follow every desire without counting the cost. Instead our goal is to align with our own best intentions, to accept our own personal responsibility but not assume we can accomplish our goals without support.

We are who we are and there are parts of us that are beyond our control – that’s just the way we are. However, we all have the capacity to become our best selves, to live in alignment with our best intentions. In the final analysis, even acknowledging chance and genetics predispositions, we are all still responsible for our actions and our responses to the vicissitudes of life. We are not free to not be free. Rather than claim something is ‘irresistible’ as an excuse to avoid personal responsibility let us claim that something is hard, and that we all occasionally need support resisting the temptation. Like Odysseus, we can acknowledge that it is best not to face the Sirens without a plan, or, for that matter, alone.

In a world without end
May it be so

Golden Rules
Rev. Douglas Taylor
November 10, 2013

A story is told of an ancient time when the people lived in an arid desert country. Trees were scares and fruit was sparse. It is said that God wanted to make sure all the people had enough to survive in the difficult landscape. He called upon a prophet and announced to him that the people must restrict themselves to eating only one fruit per day. “Record this in the Holy Book and be it known that to go against this decree is to sin against God and against humanity. This commandment is for all people for all time.”

This commandment was observed faithfully by the people for centuries. Eventually scientists discovered a way to irrigate the land and turn the desert into a bountiful home for grain and livestock. The trees grew plentiful and bent heavy with the lush fruit. But the fruit law was the law of the land, enforced by civil and religious authorities.

Arguments arose about the fruit that was left to rot on the ground because the law forbid a person consuming two fruit. Clergy would devote multiple sermons to upholding God’s commandment and how the righteous were those who obeyed. Many people became disillusioned with the commandment and so disillusioned with all of religion. Others secretly broke the law but felt deeply guilty for doing so. Some went through remarkable layers of logical justification to abide by the letter of the law while in fact breaking the commandment. The vast majority, however, continued to adhere to the one fruit rule and saw themselves as holy simply because they upheld the senseless and outdated custom. (This story is paraphrased from p85-6 of Anthony de Mello’s book Taking Flight.)

The Golden Rule is not senseless or even outdated. But it does arise from an era in which it was most necessary and in its time was the pinnacle of ethics. “Do to others what you would want them to do to you.” (from Luke 6:31) During the past half-century in particular, average people have become acquainted with the confluence of Golden Rules that are found in nearly all the major religions of the world. This is seen as evidence of its importance and global appeal.

Greek philosophers such as Socrates tell us: “Do not do to others what angers you if done to you by others.” The early Vedic tradition of India say: “This is the sum of duty. Do not unto others that which would cause you pain if done to you.” (from Mahabharata 5 1517 from the Vedic tradition of India) Confucius is considered the earliest proponent of this ethic of reciprocity: “Never impose on others what you would not choose for yourself.”

Buddhism: Hurt not others in ways that you yourself would find hurtful. (Udanavarga 5:18) Christianity: Do to others what you would want them to do to you. (Luke 6:31) Islam: “None of you [truly] believes until he wishes for his brother what he wishes for himself.” (An-Nawawi’s Forty Hadith) Wicca: ‘an ye harm none do as ye will. (The Wiccan Rede)

Clearly these statements have come from a wide spread of cultures and locations. Interestingly the majority of these statements arose at around the same time in the history of civilization. Not that the religions themselves arose at the same time, but these statements arose from within the various religions at around the same time. It is German philosopher Karl Jaspers who called this time period the “axial age” because it was a pivotal time in the spiritual development of humanity. The axial age marks the transition from ritual to ethic. It used to be enough to go through the correct rituals, to enact the mythic story or take on the role of the First Hunter or the Great Mother. It used to be enough to offer up the sacrifice as prescribed in the story. But as humanity matured and more was needed.

I hate, I despise your religious feasts; I cannot stand your assemblies. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. Away with the noise of your songs! I will not listen to the music of your harps. But let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream! (Amos 5:21-24)

We had to treat each other with respect, with justice. Ethics became important. The axial age demanded inner reflection so people could know their own motives and needs. What would you have done unto you, or not done unto you? This is the first step in understanding the motives and needs of another, in knowing what others would have or not have done unto them.

The Golden Rule served as the pinnacle of ethical behavior in its time. To this day the majority of people still consider it the best possible guide for ethical behavior. Its appeal, however, is not universal and there is a growing movement to critique it. It is not all that new a critique; Immanuel Kant, Friedrich Nietzsche, and Bertrand Russell have each grappled with its faults.

Jerome Slote is our Worship Associate today, he often brings me a David Seabury reading when he and I sat down to talk about the upcoming service, and this week was a prime example. We eventually selected the Shermer reading, but I can’t resist lifting up an excerpt from Seabury and his personal critique of the Golden Rule.

When I was a child, the women in my home kept me in long curls, starched white dresses, pink ribbons, bright buckled shoes and velvet-banded, delicate straw hats. They punished me when I climbed fences, shinned up posts, got out on roofs, chased cats, wandered in swamps, raced through thickets and shrieked when my tangled curls were combed. They loved white dresses, lace collars, fancy shoes. I was treated by the Golden Rule. (from The Art of Selfishness, p60-1)

Generally the root critique of the Golden Rule is that it limits the ethic to your own wishes. Karl Popper wrote: “The golden rule is a good standard which is further improved by doing unto others, wherever reasonable, as they want to be done by” (in The Open Society and Its Enemies, Vol. 2). This is considered a new Golden Rule or even the Platinum Rule. It clears up the oft-cited sadist/masochist dilemma. We can all breathe easier knowing the Platinum Rule allows the masochist and the sadist to get along.

Unfortunately this is more a play on logic and semantics then true ethics. If I like tea and my neighbor likes coffee, either the platinum or the golden rules could get us where we want to be. I could simply say, I like to be treated to my favorite hot beverage, I am sure my neighbor would as well – thus we need not disparage the Golden Rule, we need only adhere liberally rather than rigidly.

Seabury, considering things from the perspective of the little boy he was, takes issue even with Popper’s Platinum Rule saying it would not have helped for the women in his house to have been treated him as he himself at that age had wished to be treated because that would have left him running around near-naked with no manners and no self-disciple. Seabury suggests using neither your own wishes nor the wishes of the other when considering your actions. He says, “Do unto a small boy according to his basic needs, according to cosmic law, according to the ways of health and sanity.” (p 61) There are situations that a person’s best interests are not served by doing unto them as they would wish or as you would wish for yourself.

Kant, in Groundwork for the Metaphysics of Morals, suggests a similar situational critique of the Rule – Platinum or Golden! A criminal, convicted by due process, may appeal to the judge for release citing the Golden Rule: The judge would not want to be sentenced to life in prison and the criminal also does not want to be sent to prison. Seabury’s suggestion to go beyond Golden or Platinum Rules gives us the ground we need for this situation. We proceed not as you or I would wish for ourselves but in accordance with a greater need.

My point is that the difference between the Golden Rule and the Platinum Rule is a logical semantic difference that is important if you are going to adhere to the rule strictly, literally, and rigidly. And both serve in a significant number of situations, but not in all situations.

Let me shift tack and look back at the earlier note about how all the world’s religions share a version of the Golden Rule. The sentiment behind such an observation is to say, all of the religions are essentially the same. It is to lift up the common ethical root beneath all the different religions. Much like the premise behind the personal ethic of the Golden Rule that says – what I want in life is surely what anyone would want because we are all the same. We are all one human family, we are all children of the same God, customs differ but at heart we are the same.

This is one of those deep truths that can lead us astray if we do not pair it with its complimentary truth that we are all different and our differences matter. Physicist Neils Bohr has said, “There are trivial truths and great truths. The opposite of a trivial truth is plainly false. The opposite of a great truth is also true.” The Golden Rule is based on the recognition of the ‘other’ as sharing one’s own essential humanity.

As civilizations developed, the differences between groups became an obvious and understandable barrier. In some ways the barrier was evolutionarily and culturally important. So as we grew, a rule such as the Golden Rule opened people up to see that we do share certain commonalities in our efforts to live good lives on this earth. It opened us up to see that the ‘other’ might be more like us than we had previously believed. As the pendulum of group dynamics and culture swung, a movement developed in which we see past the barrier of difference, to see our commonality as more true than our differences.

As this idea plays out, the extreme end will claim there are no differences that matter and that all people, all ideas, all religions, all cultures are equal. This is sloppy thinking and devalues and dismisses great swaths of beauty and truth in the world as well as glossing over great evil and abuse.

Yes it is true that we are all one human family; that we are all children of the same God – but that is not what all religions say. That is what I say. The truth of my statement of universality is a tenet of my faith not of all religions. Not all of the Golden Rules agree with each other. Not all people want the same thing. If a man walks into a bar spoiling for a fight, I don’t think I need abide by the Golden Rule and give it to him. If a particular religious edict demands the conversion of all non-believers I don’t think I am under any obligation to support it or to pretend that such an edict is not important to that religion.

Step back from the details and consider the grand purpose of the Golden Rule. God delivered this commandment to the prophets for a reason. Early civilizations evolved this ethic to serve a particular survival need. The sage saw the wisdom of this ethic for the good of the people. Whichever worldview you live in, consider why this ethic arose.

It is basically an ethic of tolerance. It is a call to live and let live, to not treat other people worse than you would wish to be treated. The Golden Rule is meant to establish a minimum level of civility so we down burn the whole human venture to the ground. It calls us to consider the commonalities, our essential humanity and God-given dignity.

It is now time for us to open a new Rule that goes beyond tolerance. We could continue to stretch the Golden Rule into a more positive form and claim it says more than it did when it arose millennia back. We could reach to a new goal of full unity among all people despite the evidence of our differences. I would like to suggest that a next level of ethic is available already in the call to hospitality.

The next step past tolerance is hospitality. Tolerance is a cease-fire with the neighbor, and clearly is still needed in our word. In my Press and Sun guest editorial this week  I suggested Compassion as the guiding ethic for the new era. Perhaps hospitality is a more suitable candidate as it serves as intermediary between tolerance and compassion.

There are a great many people and cultures and religions in this world for us to tolerate. Tolerance is the low bar, the minimum respect afforded based on our shared essential humanity. Compassion, if we are honest with ourselves, is reserved for a higher level of interaction. Compassion assumes a deeper relationship and connection that needs to be built, earned, and worked out. Tolerance lets your neighbor be across the street with the doors between us. Compassion is to set up a room in our house for the ‘other’. Hospitality is in between, the door is open, the stranger becomes a guest but not a roommate.

As with the law of the fruit from the story I shared at the beginning, we can allow our religious ethics to reflect the times in which we live. We can recognize that we do share an essential dignity with all humanity but that our differences are real and do matter. Let us be hospitable to the stranger in our midst that we may learn and grow in spirit together.

In a world without end,
May it be so

In the Shadow of Lost Liberty
Rev. Douglas Taylor
October 27, 2013

Parker Palmer has said, of public discourse, “Political civility is not about being polite to each other. It’s about reclaiming the power of ‘We the People’ to come together, debate the common good and call American democracy back to its highest values amid our differences.” With these words in mind I welcome you into an important debate of the common good.

Edward Snowden is in the news again this week. He is a former CIA employee and NSA contractor who disclosed classified details of several top-secret United States and British government mass surveillance programs to The Guardian in May 2013. He is currently living in Russia under temporary political asylum and is considered a fugitive from justice by American authorities, who have charged him with espionage and theft of government property

Snowden has been variously called a hero, a whistleblower, a dissident, a traitor, and a patriot. His release of the NSA material is considered the most significant leak in US history since the Pentagon Papers; indeed Daniel Ellsberg has said Snowden’s leak has been more significant. One obvious result has been the public debate that erupted and continues to roll through our public discourse over mass surveillance, government secrecy, and the balance between national security and information privacy.

A Pew Research study conducted this past June reported that a little over 50% of Americans believe it is acceptable for the government to track phone calls and e-mails without permission to fight terrorism.  
What this tells me is that our nation is yet again divided on an issue of great importance.

The Fourth Amendment to the constitution, written as part of the first pack of amendments known as the Bill of Rights, states that people can expect their “persons, houses, papers, and effects,” will be secure against “unreasonable search and seizure.” So over 50% of our population is saying the current mass surveillance program of the NSA is not ‘unreasonable.’ But it goes even further than that. When search and seizure of this type of information is deemed reasonable, the amendment stipulates that a warrant is required, through probable cause, with details of where authorities may search and for what they are searching.

Maybe what the NSA is doing is considered beyond the scope of this constitutional amendment because telephones and computer e-mail are specifically named in the list of “persons, house, papers, and effects,” mentioned in the 1791 amendment wording. I suspect, however, that the courts have already cleaned up that interpretation, so I don’t think we’re talking about a technicality.

Ben Franklin quipped, “Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.” I think the question facing us revolves around the adjectives ‘essential’ as it relates to liberty and ‘temporary’ as it relates to safety.

Liberty and freedom are among the deepest core principles of our country. The heart of our nation is centered in these values. At our best, what it means to be American is caught up in the values of liberty and freedom. We may argue with some of the nuances of that, with some of the weaknesses therein, but it irrefutable: a key element of the American identity is liberty and freedom.

As such, our form of government has been called an experiment in democracy. Our exercise in self-governance has always been experiment. In the face of the political climate of extremism and fear, it is helpful to reconsider our essential values and aims. Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote, “The only sure bulwark of continuing liberty is a government strong enough to protect the interests of the people, and a people strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government.”

Over the past two and a quarter centuries that we have been a country there have been a multitude of crises in which the core concept of democracy has been at stake. Aristotle said, “A democracy, when put to the strain, grows weak, and is supplanted by oligarchy.” An oligarchy is a government run by an elite few. Theocracy, plutocracy, and the various forms of dictatorship are all candidates for the types of government we have flirted with over the years. Some have argued we have already lost. I am not one of them.

Abraham Lincoln, a president who saw our country through a significant crisis to our democracy, said, “Our defense is in the preservation of the spirit which prizes liberty as a heritage of all men, in all lands, everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism around your own doors.” Frankly when I hear that half the country believes warrantless monitoring of private phone and e-mail communications is an acceptable infringement of our rights, I worry for our country. This isn’t just serving to root out the terrorists among us. It also perpetuates the culture of fear and division.

In some ways it is similar to the anti-Communist efforts of an earlier generation. A Powell Davies wrote, in his 1953 book The Urge to Persecute, about the red scare and the rounding up of suspected Communists in the 1950s. Mid way through his book he has a chapter titled “Must Freedom Protect its Enemies?” It is enlightening to read this inserting the word “terrorist” whenever you hear the word “communist”

Whenever it is pointed out that the methods of current investigations transgress American judicial principles and infringe upon the civil rights which are the very core of our national inheritance, it is protested that Communists are not entitled to the protection that the rest of us may claim, since they are conspiring to overthrow the system of government that provides it. Shall they be given the freedom to destroy our freedom? …

This protest should be carefully examined. It cannot lightly be brushed aside. For it is undoubtedly true that Communists are using our freedom with the intent of destroying it… The notion, held by some, that a free society is bound by its principles to give the shelter of its civil rights to a conspiracy against the society itself, even if the conspiracy is succeeding, is insupportable.

However, let the [phrase ‘even if the conspiracy is succeeding’] be fully noted. … The restrictions of freedom in order to protect it from its enemies all too easily becomes the withdrawal of freedom from its friends. Similarly, rights suspend because they are abused are soon lost to the entire society.

A. Powell Davies had the fight against McCarthyism and fear-mongering as a central element of his public ministry. And here, in a book he wrote on that topic, he is acknowledging that there are circumstances under which it makes sense to surrender portions of our liberty for the security of our greater liberty. Davies goes on to argue the point, however, that far too often the Committee on Un-American Activates turned up not evidence of actual Communists – instead they uncovered people whose opinions were not in line with the opinions of those in power. And soon non-conformity becomes akin to treason.

This summer President Obama said, while visiting Germany, “We know of at least 50 threats that have been averted because of this information not just in the United States, but, in some cases, threats here in Germany.” That number comes from NSA chief Gen. Keith Alexander. Some fact checking has been done on that number and winnowing out the cases that were not focused against the United States and those cases dealing with individuals who provided “material support” to terrorism. And we’re left with about 13 threats.  That’s still worth something – thirteen terrorist threats against the United States thwarted. Clearly there is an ‘effectiveness’ to the surveillance program. If only the NSA kept the scope within the purview of its original intent.

In the news today, the NSA is under fire for its surveillance program abroad. Not only are we doing the bulk mining of data on our own citizens, we are spying on the people and leaders of ally nations. Obviously we are spying on the nations and people we consider a threat as well. But our allies? The massive system of surveillance was sold to the American people as a necessary infringement of our liberty and privacy to stop the terrorist menace threatening our American values of freedom and liberty.

In an article by Glenn Greenwald from The Guardian yesterday I read:
Our reporting has revealed spying on conferences designed to negotiate economic agreements, the Organization of American States, oil companies, ministries that oversee mines and energy resources, the democratically elected leaders of allied states, and entire populations in those states.
Surely we have surpassed the original mandate necessitating this unconstitutional breach of our principles and values as Americans. It seems as though the NSA surveillance program is less about terrorism and more about our economic interests.

What are we to do with this? What is our role as citizens and participants in this great experiment in self-governance? It is a lot to think about. Thomas Paine once said, “When [people] yield up the privilege of thinking, the last shadow of liberty quits the horizon.” Paying attention is, in itself, a significant action to take. Pay attention and engage with the issue out loud with other people. Parker Palmer has said, “Political civility is … about reclaiming the power of ‘We the People’ to come together, debate the common good and call American democracy back to its highest values amid our differences.”

Here I turn to a new book by Parker Palmer. Palmer is better known for his books about vocation and teaching and uncovering your true longing and hidden wholeness. But recently he turned those themes to the state of our country in a book entitled Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit.

In the book Parker Palmer lifts up five Habits of the Heart that will help ‘heal the heart of democracy.’  Apropos of my focus this morning I will share with you the fourth habit in his list. The five are interconnected and I will need to find time soon to share them with you as a whole for they speak of creating community, holding tension, appreciating the ‘other,’ and recognizing we are all in this together. And they counter the focus on fear so prevalent in our society.

The fourth habit Palmer calls us to is to develop a sense of personal voice and agency. He writes:
Many of us lack confidence in our own voices and in our power to make a difference. We grow up in educational and religious institutions that treat us as members of an audience instead of as actors in a drama, and as a result we because adults who treat politics as a spectator sport.

Parker calls us to develop the habit of speaking up and participating, for to not do so will allow our democracy to atrophy from lack of use. The elite will keep hold of the reins of power so long as we remain complacent.

The issue at stake is not just the NSA’s mass surveillance program. The point is not that the program is or is not a reasonable and justifiable breach of our constitution. The point is not even how much of a liberty we are surrendering. The point is that We the People should be paying attention, should be holding the NSA and the rest of our government to account for how the program is used. I am not saying the government is wrong to behave as it has. I am saying we are wrong to let them behave thus without us really noticing or caring.

Democracy demands participation. Are we ready to let freedom and liberty slip from the center point of our country to be replaced by sensational entertainment and the expectation of cheap oil? Parker Palmer calls us to be actors in the drama of democracy. Lincoln claims that the spirit of liberty must be preserved lest we court despotism. And FDR said the people’s part of the bargain is to be “strong enough and well enough informed to maintain its sovereign control over the government.”

So wherever you find yourself coming down on the debate of how mass surveillance does or does not serve the common good, get informed and speak up. Liberty is always worth it.

In a world without end,
may it be so

Good Grief
Rev. Douglas Taylor
October 20, 2013

Rumi says to be as a ‘guest house’ and welcome each new arrival, even if it be a crowd of sorrows.  Invite them in, Rumi says.  Meet them at the door laughing, treat each guest honorably.  They may be clearing you out for some new delight.

Grief is not a welcome guest at most doors.  Grief is the companion of love, to be sure, but grief is a hard companion.  In her book Companion through the Darkness Stephanie Ericsson says,

Grief is a tidal wave that overtakes you, smashes you up into its darkness, where you tumble and crash against unidentifiable surfaces, only to be thrown out on an unknown beach, bruised, reshaped.

Others say grief is like a vast and lonely plain where all the echoes are of only one sound.  Some say grief rises suddenly, in unexpected moments; others say it is a constant ache, ever present.  Or consider C.S. Lewis when he exclaimed, “No one ever told me that grief felt so like fear.” And Rumi suggests we treat each guest honorably, to welcome them, to invite them in.  No simply task, that’s for sure. 

It is better by far to share it, to speak of it, though it is wrenching to do so.  William Shakespeare noted: “Give sorrow words; the grief that does not speak whispers the o’er-fraught heart and bids it break.”  The difficult path through grief is the only path that exists. “Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture,” invite it in. 

Grief does not always appear as tears, it affects people in different ways.  Grief can make us cry uncontrollably and it can make us go numb.  Grief can make us feel guilty or depressed or fearful or angry.  Grief can cause emotional problems in our hearts and physical problems in our bodies.  Grief can put us in a state of disbelief; it can make us withdraw; it can make us feel like we are going crazy. In other words, no matter what the textbook tells you, the stages of grief do not offer a direct route. 

Elizabeth Kubler-Ross’s model from her 1969 book suggests the passage is: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  It is often forgotten that Kubler-Ross also said the list is not comprehensive and can happen in any order.

“The Five Stages of Grief” by Linda Pastan

The night I lost you
someone pointed me towards
the Five Stages of Grief.
Go that way, they said,
it’s easy, like learning to climb
stairs after the amputation.
And so I climbed.
Denial was first.
I sat down at breakfast
carefully setting the table
for two. I passed you the toast–
you sat there. I passed
you the paper–you hid
behind it.
Anger seemed more familiar.
I burned the toast, snatched
the paper and read the headlines myself.
But they mentioned your departure,
and so I moved on to
Bargaining. What could I exchange
for you? The silence
after storms? My typing fingers?
Before I could decide, Depression
came puffing up, a poor relation
its suitcase tied together
with string. In the suitcase
were bandages for the eyes
and bottles of sleep. I slid
all the way down the stairs
feeling nothing.
And all the time Hope
flashed on and off
in defective neon.
Hope was a signpost pointing
straight in the air.
Hope was my uncle’s middle name,
he died of it.
After a year I am still climbing,
though my feet slip
on your stone face.
The treeline
has long since disappeared;
green is a color
I have forgotten.
But now I see what I am climbing
towards: Acceptance
written in capital letters,
a special headline:
Acceptance,
its name in lights.
I struggle on,
waving and shouting.
Below, my whole life spreads its surf,
all the landscapes I’ve ever known
or dreamed of. Below
a fish jumps: the pulse
in your neck.
Acceptance. I finally
reach it.
But something is wrong.
Grief is a circular staircase.
I have lost you.

There are patterns, yes; but each person experiences grief in unique ways.  Some griefs are harder than others.  Smaller losses and griefs can serve as practice for the bigger ones.  The grief that comes with the death of a loved one is not the same as the grief that comes with the loss of a job or of youthful friendship or of a role in the community.  These smaller losses (if ‘smaller’ is the right term) are opportunities to meet grief and practice it for the bigger losses.

Joan Didion says “Grief turns out to be a place none of us know until we reach it.”  Didion is the author of the 2005 book The Year of Magical Thinking.  The book is an account of the year following the death of her husband.

In a 2005 radio interview, Joan Didion was asked what advice was most helpful to her during this painful time in her life. She answered: “Emily Post.” Post’s 1922 book, Etiquette in Society, in Business, in Politics, and at Home, offered guidance because, Didion explained, “Death was still up close, still in everybody’s house. Everybody was still expected to know how to deal with it … But at some point after that, we medicalized death. We put it in the hospital. And around the same time, we stopped being able to look it in the eye. We stopped knowing what to do or say.”

I was curious about this suggested source of help and so looked into it.  Chapter 24 of Emily Post’s 1922 book of etiquette begins with this:

AT no time does solemnity so possess our souls as when we stand deserted at the brink of darkness into which our loved one has gone. And the last place in the world where we would look for comfort at such a time is in the seeming artificiality of etiquette; yet it is in the moment of deepest sorrow that etiquette performs its most vital and real service.

Post does indeed talk at length about what one is to wear and what not to wear while in mourning, and how best to make use of your butler, parlor maid, and footman at such times.  But she also speaks of how: “Upon the death of an intimate acquaintance or friend you should go at once to the house, write, ‘With sympathy’ on your card and leave it at the door.”

She says one should always go the funeral of family, friend and business associate.  She writes about the usefulness of offering a bit of warm food for the bereaved in the earliest days of grief; and how brief cards and encounters are valuable and of service to those mourning.  Under the heading, Protection of the Mourning, Post says:

If you see acquaintances of yours in deepest mourning, it does not occur to you to go up to them and babble trivial topics or ask them to a dance or dinner. If you pass close to them, irresistible sympathy compels you merely to stop and press their hand and pass on.

This was written nearly a hundred years ago.  Convention and fashion have continued to evolve, but the notion that etiquette can show us how to still interact is worth noticing.  Stephanie Ericsson, whom I quoted earlier as saying grief is a tidal wave, also said “[Grief] shoves away friends, scares away so-called friends, and rewrites your address book for you.”  Perhaps the artifice of etiquette allows us the features of interaction where authenticity leaves us artlessly nothing to say.  This, I think, is Didion’s point when she claimed Emily Post as a source of help moving forward through her grief.  Treat each guest honorably, Rumi said.

Let me read to you a few paragraphs from one of the NPR This I Believe essays.  It is by Mary Cook from 2006 and is titled “The Hardest Work You Will Ever Do.”

The day my fiancé fell to his death, it started to snow, just like any November day, just like the bottom hadn’t fallen out of my world when he freefell off the roof. His body, when I found it, was lightly covered with snow. It snowed almost every day for the next four months, while I sat on the couch and watched it pile up.

One morning, I shuffled downstairs and was startled to see a snowplow clearing my driveway and the bent back of a woman shoveling my walk. I dropped to my knees and crawled through the living room and back upstairs so those good Samaritans would not see me. I was mortified. My first thought was, How will I ever repay them? I didn’t have the strength to brush my hair let alone shovel someone’s walk.

Before Jon’s death, I took pride in the fact that I rarely asked for help or favors; I could always do it myself. My identity was defined by my competence and independence. Two hours after Jon died I canceled every obligation in my life. The identity crisis that followed was devastating. Who was I if I was no longer capable and busy? How could I respect myself if all I did was sit on the couch every day and watch the snow fall?

Learning how to receive the love and support that came my way wasn’t easy. Friends cooked for me and I cried because I couldn’t even help them set the table. “I’m not usually this lazy,” I wailed. Finally my friend Kathy sat down with me and said, “Mary, cooking for you is not a big deal. I love you and I want to do it. It makes me feel good to be able to do something for you.”

Over and over, I heard similar sentiments from the people who were supporting me during those dark days. One very wise person told me, “You are not doing nothing.  Being fully open to your grief may be the hardest work you will ever do.  Watching your willingness to be vulnerable and to fully embrace your grief is a gift. The line between giving and receiving is constantly blurred.”

I began to think about how good it made me feel to help people, how the joy was always in the giving rather than the getting, and that maybe that was true for my friends and neighbors, as well. I also came to realize that I didn’t have to repay anyone in kind, but that I could pass on their love and compassion to others who needed it. Most importantly, I could accept their help in the spirit in which it was given – with grace and humility.

“Being fully open to your grief may be the hardest work you will ever do.” There is something in grief that makes a virtue of turning inward.  We need to turn inward at such times.  Though it is a little paradoxical, we also need to be touched by others at such times.  We need both, but the timing and the rhythm of this turning inward and reaching out is not obvious.  There is no rubric that holds always true for when to leave a friend alone and when to impose, when to grieve alone and when to let others in.  So, with no broad recognition of etiquette guiding us anymore, we are each left to figure out on our own how to navigate our grief and the grief of our friends.  It is fraught with uncertainty.

This is that uncertainty that Barbara Pescan wrote about in our reading. 

It is very hard for us middle-class Americans to not do something. It even seems irresponsible to us to not do something, even when we don’t know exactly what to do.

And herein lies the heart of what I would like to offer you all this morning, whether you look at it from the perspective of a person in grief or from the perspective of someone longing to comfort a person in grief.  Letting your grief in opens you to gratitude.  Letting other people in opens you back to life. 

I know this is a lugubrious topic, bringing us to not only consider our sadness but to also feel it this morning.  But also there is gratitude, also there is joy, also there is love.

Sorrow comes only where love abides. Out of sorrow shall come understanding and through sorrow you are joined with all that live.  These are delights that turn grief into gratitude.  This is the heart of the lesson offered by grief – that love still lasts.

Rumi says to be as a ‘guest house’ and welcome each new arrival. Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows, who violently sweep your house empty of its furniture, invite them in, Rumi says.  Meet them at the door laughing, treat each guest honorably.  They may be clearing you out for some new delight.

In a world without end,
May it be so.

Peace Prayers
Rev. Douglas Taylor
September 22, 2013

Prayer during Anthem “We Pray” by Nick Page

O Spirit of life, God of us all
We gather for healing and for peace this day
We see conflict in the world and indeed even in our own hearts
We long to build a peaceful world and to be a peaceful people
May we be restored and made whole

For peace in the world, for peace among all nations and people
For peace in our neighborhoods and in our families and for peace in our hearts
But not only for peace, O God, we pray also
For hope and understanding, grace and strength to lift us up

With humble voices we lift our hearts seeking a balm
When we are discouraged help us know we strive not in vain
Fill us, O Spirit with faith and with courage
And with the audacity to believe we can make a difference

Sermon

This morning between services we have planted our Peace Pole back in the courtyard.  It is Patty Parsons who made the Pole for us back in 2008.  She did the design and the wood burning.  She removed it last year to clean it up and refurbish it.  A Peace Pole is a monument, often a 4 x 4 wood post, with the words “May Peace Prevail on Earth” in the language of the country where it has been placed, and then usually 3 to 7 additional translations as well.  The movement began in Japan and came to our country in the 80’s.  A unique feature of our Peace Pole is that instead of translations of the prayer “May Peace Prevail on Earth,” our pole has symbols of the world’s religions, local leaf prints, and local animal prints on the remaining sides. 

Spirit of Peace and Life, may our Peace Pole stand as a symbol of humanity’s common vision of a world at peace.  May it remind us to seek peace and harmony in our lives as well as in the world community.  May peace prevail on earth.

A companion to the story and meaning of the Peace Pole is the story and meaning of Peace Day as September 21.  There has long been an international United Nation’s Peace Day.  Through the 1980’s and 90’s it was celebrated at the opening session of the United Nations each fall on the third Tuesday on September.  It was a relatively unnoticed day until a young man named Jeremy Gilley worked over four years to get it changed from the third Tuesday of September to the 21^st of September, and then he continued to work over the next several years to raise global awareness for the day.

One of the important aspects that Gilley also pushed for was an expectation that it would also be a 24-hour cease-fire around the world; a “day of global ceasefire and non-violence… through education and public awareness and to cooperate in the establishment of a global ceasefire.”  This is important because Gilley was advocating a shift not only from a private UN observation to a globally celebrated event, but also a shift from a passive effort to celebrate the ideals of peace to an active effort to create peace through the cessation of violence.

It took four years of effort, but Jeremy Gilley did manage to bring the United Nations delegates a resolution that passed unanimously.  The vote happened on the 7^th of September twelve years back now.  A press release was scheduled for four days later to announce to the world that International Peace Day was now officially September 21^st and officially a day for non-violence. 

It is a painful irony that the date of this press release was September 11, of 2001.  At 8:45 as part of the press release, children from around the world were performing music meanwhile planes were crashing into the World Trade Center.  Jeremy Gilley and his press release for peace had to evacuate the building.  It was not an auspicious beginning.  Yet it does highlight the hard reality that peace does not happen just because we make an announcement, pass a resolution, or plant a peace pole in our church courtyard.  It takes continued effort. 

Spirit of Peace and Life, may this day of peace shine as a reminder that every day can be a day of peace.  May the violence and horrors we still find in the world neither dishearten us nor tempt us into cynicism.  May peace prevail on earth.

The prayer to not be disheartened despite the events of our world is an important one.  Have you been watching the news lately?  I trust many of you are aware of the Syrian government’s use of chemical weapons on their own citizens a month ago.  The past few weeks have been tense, watching the global community respond.  The use of chemicals weapons, like sarin gas, was banned by United Nations agreement, a document signed by the vast majority of the world’s nations.  Syria, it is noted, is one of the six nations who have not yet signed on to the agreement.  It is heartening to hear about the progress toward diplomatic solutions.

The situation was distressing as it unfolded.  I felt conflicting values within me as I watched.  As people of faith we talk about our values of peace and compassion and justice.  I am certainly rooting for peaceful and diplomatic solutions to win out.  I have great confidence in the power of diplomacy.  I will certainly be watching this coming week’s news about the proceedings at the United Nations with great interest.  It seems like there is an opening for that third way of negotiating mentioned in the How to Get to Yes reading.  Not soft negotiation with concessions and capitulations, but not hard negotiations either with a test of wills and winners and losers.  The third way, the diplomacy way, values the principles at stake and honors the people involved.

It is heartening to see Syria coming to the table to talk about signing the ban and destroying their stockpile of chemical weapons.  But I am well aware that a key component to bringing the Syrian government and its allies to consider diplomatic talks was the threat of swift and extreme force on the part of the United States military.  The threat of violence was one of the steps to the current possibility of peace in Syria.  This fact is something I have been struggling with.

I try to live out the statement “There is no path to peace, peace is the path.”  And yet here is a real example of the threat of violence being instrumental in opening the way for the possibility of a peaceful resolution. 

“Lord, make me an instrument of your peace,” says the first line of St. Francis of Assisi’s famous Peace Prayer. “Make me an instrument of your peace,” and I have taken this prayer to heart.  This is the prayer of my heart of how I live my life. “Where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy.”  That’s my work.  That’s what I am doing every day – or perhaps more accurately, that is what I strive to do every day.

I aim to be a person who uses peaceful means to reach peaceful ends and to advocate for others to do the same.  I am grateful to see the situation with Syrian moving toward a peaceful, diplomatic end. But I am well aware that the present progress toward peace was won through a very real threat of violence on the part of our president.  And, I am conflicted inside because I understand that threat of violence.  I see the point of such a threat.  And it worked.

The United Nations banned the use of chemical weapons, along with nuclear and biological weapons. These weapons due to their scope were deemed too inhumane to use.  In the face of the use of such weapons, in the face of nearly 15 hundred Syrians dead, almost a third of them children, is there not a moral imperative for us to act?  Is there not a moral imperative for us to respond with a strong condemnation to this atrocity?   There are some behaviors and actions so heinous we simply cannot allow them to happen without response.

Yet one of the prayers in our hymnal (#508) offers the phrase “save us from the weak resignation to violence.”  Save us from being resigned to violence, from thinking of it simply as a given fact we can do nothing about. 

There were some people who saw and heard about the use of chemical weapons against Syrian rebels and innocent citizens, and they were resigned to the violence.  “That’s not our problem.  Syria’s civil war is going to involve bloodshed and casualties, that’s the nature of it.  We can’t do anything about it.”  That sentiment is a resignation to violence and it is a weakness in us we must resist. 

There are some people who saw and heard about our president threatening to launch cruise missiles at Syrian targets, and they were resigned to the violence.  “That is the reality of the situation; we must send a firm message that will be taken seriously.  The use of chemical weapons cannot be allowed to occur without firm response.  We must at least send a few token bombs so they know we will respond.”  That is a resignation to violence and it is a weakness in us we must resist.

Spirit of Peace and Life, may we always stay open to the possibility of peace though our words and our actions.  May we remain maladjusted to violence and discontented with easy solutions involving violence.  May peace prevail on earth.

This leaves me in tension.  I want to rail against the violence the Syrian government wrought upon its citizens.  But knowing my country’s threat of violence is what brought them to the table is sobering and takes the wind out of my sails.  I wish I had a clever solution for this to share with you. 

I am striving for peace and I do not want to strive in vain.  I want to have an impact, I want to be effective.  What can I do?  The evidence is that the world is not a peaceful place.  The evidence is that violence and the threat of violence is an effective way to bring global bullies to the negotiation table.  The evidence is that my small efforts are insignificant.  Or is that really what the evidence shows?   

When I stop to think about it, I do have influence in certain circles.  We all do.  And more than that, we each know people or maybe even are the people who move through several circles of influence.  How you treat people in your circle of influence, how you advocate for peace or any other high principle that guides your living, how you negotiate your conflicts will influence the people around you.  And that has an impact.  It isn’t a direct impact on the conflict involving the chemical weapon attack in Syria, but it is a start.  And it shifts the conversation about peace from ‘peace as an issue’ to ‘peace as a way of living.’

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 or frustration or hopelessness get in the way of writing a compassionate letter to our political leaders?  I would think the point would be to say what you need to say about war and violence, but to say it in a way that the can be received. 

Spirit of Peace and Life, may the meditations of our minds and the words of our mouths be set on peace and compassion even when we would have the nerve to speak truth to power.  May peace prevail on earth.

That is one of the classic answer I hear to that question of feeling insignificant.  School your own heart first, make the change within yourself and let the impact ripple out through your words and actions.  Inner peace is a necessary prerequisite to world peace.  Gandhi advised us to be the change we wanted to see in the world. 

The world is filled with turmoil and trouble.  But it is also filled with example after example of people who have made a difference, people who listened to their conscience and spoke out for what is right, people who were effective in building a better way for the future.  People like you and me who struggled with the issues and did not turn away in resignation. 

Spirit of Peace and Life, may our minds be set on peace with freedom and justice.  And may a song of peace take root in our hearts and sing to us gently through all the tumultuous days ahead.  May peace prevail on earth.

In a world without end
May it be so.