Sermons

Hope and Courage
9-23-07
Rev. Douglas Taylor

Have you even notice how the word “Discouraged” doesn’t mean, ‘to be without courage.’ It means to be without hope!  We do well to remember that hope and courage belong to each other in our language and in our hearts.  Let me tell you a story about it.

Back some time ago, in July, a man set sail from England, discouraged.  He was leaving behind him a life he was eager to forget.  He left behind the failure of his career, the loss of his friends, the grief over the death of his wife and their young child.  He left England’s shores nearly broke and clearly broken in spirit.  Several months at sea would have found him arriving in Philadelphia roughly around Sunday, September 23, (and if that date sounds familiar, yes today is Sunday September 23.)  But it is hard to be certain exactly when this man was to arrive.  And Philadelphia was not the man’s goal; rather the plan had been to head further on to New York harbor. As the boat and the man left Philadelphia and move up the coast, fog and miscalculations conspire to strand them on a sandbar off New Jersey shore.  This would be roughly Wednesday, September 26, (which is, yes, three days from now.)  Later that evening the man travels into shore to secure supplies and that evening he encounters an illiterate farmer who befriends him and persuades him to pick up his old career here in America.  With reluctance the arrangements are set forth and on Sunday, September 30 the man does indeed pick up his old career by stepping into the farmer’s countryside pulpit, preaching the sermon that will re-launch the ministerial career of the Father of Universalism, John Murray.  Of course I am not speaking of Sunday, September 30th, next week.  I speak of something that happened 237 years ago on Sunday, September 30th, 1770.

Yes, 237 years ago next week, John Murray preached his sermon in the small chapel near Good Luck New Jersey, preaching with the title, “Give them not Hell, but Hope and Courage.”  Murray preached the gospel of God’s everlasting love and the redemption of all souls after death.  He rejected the fear-based theology he heard from others.  Instead, he called the small gathering of neighbors to head God’s love and Jesus’ example to love other another.  He called the people to share the good news that God offers not the fear of Hell but love; give them not Hell, but hope and courage.  Murray had left England discouraged, but in America he received encouragement to preach the good news as he knew it.

The dominant theology at the time was a form of Calvinism, which in Europe was known as the Reformed tradition and in American became known as the Presbyterians.  John Murray’s Universalist preaching did not simply discard the basic Calvinist statement of double predestination; instead he broadened the concept to include everyone, the “whole family of man.”  Predestination, in John Calvin’s theology, is the idea that God has, from the beginning of time, preordained just exactly who will be going to heaven. The number is set. If you’re on the list then you’re don’t even need to RSVP, you’re going to heaven! Naturally people assumed that if you were saved, if you were on the list, you would be a pious person without significant want or suffering in life.  People assumed you could spot the elect here on earth because they would be living pious righteous lives.  (I’m not sure what they then did with the book of Job, but we pull that idea apart perhaps another day.)  The logical and obvious next step from this Calvinist perspective is that if there is a set number going to heaven, and the only other alternative is hell, obviously everyone not on heaven’s list is going to hell. This fuller articulation is known as “Double Predestination:” there is a set number, probably a very small number, going to heaven and a set number, probably a very, very large number, going to hell. The only reason, according to this line of thinking, that anyone is going to heaven at all is because Jesus died on the cross, thus atoning for original sin for a special select number of true believers.

The death and resurrection of Christ was the pivot of salvation history. What that means is that when Jesus died on the cross and rose again three days later, people could suddenly get into heaven. It is like that door was slammed shut when Adam caused original sin, and now Jesus has thrown that door wide open again. But of course the argument is always, well how wide did he open the door, just who gets to come in?

Murray likely used both of the biblical passages I read this morning – if not for that famous first sermon he preached in America then later in one of his many other sermons.  Murray was known for mining the Bible for passages that pointed toward Universalism, and them using them in abundance during his preaching.  “For as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.” (1 Cor 15:22)  That seems fairly blunt, don’t you think?  It doesn’t say all die in Adam and some will be made alive in Christ – no, all will be made alive in Christ.  If you’re going to play by these rules, then this is what it says!  And it doesn’t matter if you believe in Christ or not – right?  It says All.

If you ever find yourself in a serious conversation with someone about Hell, try this scripture passage with them.  If I say I don’t believe in the myth of Adam and Original Sin, I am told it doesn’t matter if I believe it or not – that’s just how it is: in Adam all have sinned, all are fallen, all die.  It doesn’t say ‘all who believe die,’ it says ‘all die in Adam.”  Well, then it goes on to say that in Christ all will be made alive!  It doesn’t say ‘all who believe,’ it says ‘all!’  The doctrine of universal salvation is basically predestination taken to its most optimistic extreme. Sure, there is a set number of people going to heaven, the number is absolutely everyone.

This really has always been and continues to be the heart of Universalism and the reason it is still a radical theology today.  Everyone is included.  As Universalism has evolved over the years, the core thread of radical inclusion has held strong throughout.  At first Universalists claimed that in Christ all will be made alive again and that eventually we will all be united with God and Christ after the final judgment.  Of course there would be a time of cleansing for those who were not ready to enter the kingdom, and while that might last a really, really, really long time, it would not be eternal.  The next generation after Murray offered a challenge to the timetable, saying instead that all are made alive in Christ, as they are right now!  Meaning that at death all would rise to glory with the Father without needing to go through some eon’s long ‘cleansing’ punishment in Hell, waiting for the Day of Judgment.

It was not long after that when Universalists began to say, why not bring the timetable even closer!  The Universalists still believed in God as a loving father who will call all His children home, but they thought, ‘why not strive to make heaven here on earth?’  As the passage says in 1st John, “Those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.” (4:21) and “Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another.” (4:11)  A great many Universalists were compelled by their faith to speak out against injustice, to work faithfully on behalf of those in need, to visit the sick and imprisoned, to feed the hungry, to give voice to the voiceless.  To love our brothers and sisters because that’s what it says we should do and also because who else ought we to respond to the love that is poured out for us!

Over the generations, Universalism continued to evolve though it ever held that core thread of radical inclusion.  This is not just about bit of interesting history from two hundred and thirty-seven years ago.  This is about you, it is about us, it is about people way beyond what even we usually mean when we say us – ‘though we ought to know better.

This is about you because you are accepted; you are part of the family.  In the old Universalist language you are loved by God as a child of God and are called by that love to love others.  This is about you because you need not be discouraged by the trials of life or the burdens that you carry.  Have hope, fear not!  You are accepted as you are.  This is about you today because there is work to be done in the world; work to heal the broken, to give voice to the voiceless, to stand up against injustice, and to tear down divisions that tell us we are not one human family at our core.  There is work to be done and you are among those who have shown up to do the work

This is not just about the history, this is about you and it is about those who are here with you now.  We gather as inheritors of the Universalist faith that has evolved to include so wide a range of beliefs as to be unrecognizable were any of the original Universalists or Unitarians to appear in our pews any given Sunday.  Unitarian Universalism, as a creedless non-doctrinal faith, allows each member to freely uncover beliefs.  We are Theists, Pagans, Humanists, Transcendentalists, Jews, Buddhists, Christians, Muslims, Agnostics, Mystics, and Seekers gathered together as one faith community.  We’ve taken that thread of radical inclusion to heart as is shown in our theological diversity.  We continue to strive to spread our diversity around other categories as well such as ethnicity and class, sexual orientation and gender identity, level of education and family status, age and ability or disability.  We continue to strive to heed the call of love to live with hope and courage.

Life is tough.  It is not something that can be managed well alone.  From earliest times, religion has served the function of binding people together, giving people a common bond to care and concern.  Any group, any group, for it even be a group must establish a base of trust, the quickest and most powerful way to establish that trust is to gather the group around a shared identity.  These are the people who are in the group and those are the people who are not.  We are God’s chosen people, we are Girl Scouts of America, we are the Steam Pipe Fitters Guild, we are Alcoholics Anonymous, we are the Henderson extended family.  These are the people who are in the group; those are the people who are not.

Life is tough; it is not something that can be managed well alone.  We need groups like these to survive.  We don’t need to be mean to the people who are not in our group.  Just because you are not a member of the Henderson extended family does not mean you’re not the best friend of the Henderson kids.  Most of the time, your groups don’t get in the way, they serve the greater good, the greater level of connection, the greater story of humanity.  Sometimes, however, your group will say, ‘these are the people who are in the group and everyone else is therefore less than us, or everyone else is wrong, or everyone else is willfully evil.  Now you can probably tell I am steering this toward religion, but this is also a basic level of all oppressions: sexism, racism, classism, ethnocentrism …  Major trouble brews when religion and oppression team up.

Many religions work hard to combat this element of group dynamics, dare I call it, a “demonic” element of group dynamics.  Many religious have scriptures that rail against negative and dehumanizing perceptions of people who are different or people who are not members of the group; many, but by no means all.  Universalism, since its inception, has boldly claimed we are all included; most assuredly those who are not in the room with us right now are nonetheless included.  “God’s love embraces the whole human race.”  Powerful.  Of course the down side is the amount of work we need to pour into both keeping that real (because we’re just as prone to laziness and hypocrisy as the next group) and in articulating a group identity that can establish trust and allow real bonds of support to grow.  When we say, “Everyone is special,” that is like saying everyone is above average: it just can’t logically be so!  When we say, “Everyone is included in our group,” that is like saying we don’t have any rules and it doesn’t really matter because nobody can ever not be in the group.

The original Universalism from 237 years ago has bequeathed us a radical understanding of how to be together.  Whether you are drawn, as the original Universalists were, to love your brothers and sisters because God loves you; or you are drawn to do so in recognition of the multitude of religious and ethical laws that offer a nearly identical commandment; or you are drawn to do so because you have had a glimpse of enlightenment revealing to you the oneness of all things; or you are drawn to do so because the scientific studies of anthropology and neuro-psychology have satisfactorily demonstrated the personal and global benefits to behaving in such a way – what ever has lead you to this understanding: This love will guide us to the hope and the courage needed to face the challenges of our day.

This isn’t about something that happened 237 years ago, it is about you and me and us.  It is about us it the biggest sense.  And you know it is evolving still!  God’s love embrace’s more than just the whole human race!  Surely this love is wrapped around all living things on earth and indeed all of creation.  Our circle of care and concern shall not be limited – the work of love to which we are called does not stop where previous generations boldly drew a new line.  Let us bring hope and courage to every need.

John Murray said, “Go out into the highways and the by-ways.  Give the people something of your new vision.  You may possess a small light, but uncover it, let it shine, use it in order to bring more light and understanding to the hearts and minds of men and women.  Give them not hell, but hope and courage; preach the kindness and everlasting love of God.”

Having Peace, Being Peace
9-16-07
Rev. Douglas Taylor

I’ll begin this morning with a responsive reading.  Please pull out a hymnal and join me in reading #602

If there is to be peace in the world,

            There must be peace in the nations.

If there is to be peace in the nations,

            There must be peace in the cities.

If there is to be peace in the cities,

            There must be peace between neighbors

If there is to be peace between neighbors,

            There must be peace in the home.

If there is to be peace in the home,

            There must be peace in the heart.

Do you think that is true?  Do you think that the key to world peace is for each of us to find peace in our hearts and to help those around us to find peace in their hearts?  My peaceful heart will lead to a peaceful home which will lead to a peaceful neighborhood and community and so on.  I think there is something to this, but it certainly doesn’t seem to cascade up the line automatically or we would be there by now.  Lao-Tse was on to something when he wrote this, but it’s missing the details of real life.  Actually Lao-Tse didn’t write this.  Our hymnal gives him credit, but it is doesn’t seem to fit any chapter of the Tao Te Ching with the possible exception of chapter 54 which reads in part:

            Cultivate Virtue in yourself and virtue will be real

            Cultivate Virtue in your family and virtue will abound

            Cultivate Virtue in your village and virtue will grow

             Cultivate Virtue in your nation and virtue will be abundant

             Cultivate Virtue in your universe and virtue will be everywhere

Translations vary, some use the word “Character” over and over rather than “Virtue.”  Still others say, “Follow the Way in yourself and in your family and so on … and you will have real power or abundant power and so on.”  So it is possible that the word “peace” could be a liberal translation of the Chinese characters and then have a reverse of the order of the lines.  Or it could be that this was a poem version of a passage from The Great Digest from Confucius.  Ezra Pound translates a section that read like this:

            The men of old wanted to clarify and diffuse throughout the empire that light which             comes from looking straight into the heart and then acting, first set up good government             in their own states; wanting good government in their states, they first established order             in their own families; wanting order in their home, they first disciplined themselves; …

So perhaps it was Confucius who wrote this great poem; maybe it was a modern day mixture of these Taoist and Confucian passages.  But someone wrote it, likely in Chinese.  It almost sounds Buddhist, but there is no Buddhist scripture that jumps out fitting the rhythm of this poem.  All the same, the writings of modern day Buddhists such as The Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh carry this message that world peace begins with inner peace.  The Dalai Lama will be coming to Ithaca next month.  There are lectures scheduled, and one of the topics he will be speaking on is “The Human Approach to World Peace.”  On the Dalai Lama’s official website, there is an essay on world peace with a section titled, “Compassion as the pillar of World Peace.”

This reading in our hymnal that says for there to be peace in the world there must be peace in the nations, in the cities, between neighbors, in families, in the heart, does indeed fit with Buddhist teaching.  This reading could easily be a Buddhist or Taoist or Confucian poem of peace.  If you want world peace then find peace in your heart.  Think globally and act very locally!

I used to fret and fuss at the Eastern religions because I saw them speaking about peace in terms of inner peace, personal peace, spiritual peace.  In my limited understanding as a novice to Eastern Religious traditions I would question where might there be some Justice-component to these religions.  Where is peace spoken of as world-peace and not just personal inner peace?  Meditation and compassion are great, but what about the poor and the oppressed?  Inner peace is a fine goal when your people are not being slaughtered, when your country is not being destroyed.  What do these religions have to offer about justice and world peace?  As I said, these are critiques and judgments I leveled before I had much understanding.  Sadly that is a popular activity among many people: making judgments without understanding.

When the Buddhists speak of non-attachment it almost sounds like “don’t get involved.”  When Confucius writes about the duty of filial piety it almost sounds like “the bottom of the pile is your lot in life, just deal with it.”  But, of course, such is not the case.  Now, when you dig into the depth of theology or philosophy behind all this you do get to profound statements that go far beyond one’s own personal inner peace.  Of course you do.

Thich Nhat Hanh uses the example of a small boat crossing the Gulf of Siam, a boat full of Vietnamese refuges.  He tells of how the small boats would often get caught in rough seas and storms and how many of the people in the boats would panic – causing the boats sink.  If one person can remain calm, if only one person on the boat could remain calm and aware and knowledgeable of what needs to be done, then the boat had a good chance of surviving the journey.  If there is to be peace in the boat, there must be peace in at least one person’s heart …

The key is your inner peace.  Once you have established peace in your own heart, you will be able to work our way up through the next levels.  Or as the 14th Dalai Lama says:  “We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.”  Elsewhere the Dalai Lama writes:

The greatest obstacles to inner peace are disturbing emotions such as anger, attachment, fear and suspicion, while love and compassion and a sense of universal responsibility are the sources of peace and happiness.

I love this.  Religious truths have a way of circling around each other at times.  Watch:  “We can never obtain peace in the outer world until we make peace with ourselves.” But we have trouble obtaining that inner peace because of self-focused emotions: anger, attachment, fear and suspicion are listed.  As a solution the Dalai Lama suggests practicing attributes with an outward focused – not an inward focus!  Love and compassion are relational emotions.  A sense of universal responsibility brings a sense of peace and happiness?  So you’re worried about world peace, get peaceful within yourself; and if you have trouble finding your inner peace try experiencing compassion and a sense of universal responsibility (which I think would lead you right back to worrying about world peace!)

The reading I offered this morning from The Buddha and the Terrorist, a Buddhist parable about how Angulimala, the ‘wearer of the finger necklace,’ was awakened to become Ahimsaka, ‘the non-violent one.’  The book was, I must admit, disappointing to me the first time I read it.  The Buddha comes along to meet this Angulimala and they quickly get into a conversation about why Angulimala is angry. It turns out Angulimala’s anger is rooted in an experience of rejection from his father.  I actually closed the book and put it down in disgust.  Are we to solve the world’s terrorism woes by submitting all terrorists to counseling for their daddy issues?  Is the answer to our political and theological problems to be found in a psychological analysis?

Then I noticed the endorsement on the back of the book as it lay closed in front of me.  Thomas Moore wrote: “There is a virus buried deep in all violence that is contagious, that inspires an equally brutal and mindless response.”  Of course: violence begets violence.  The only way to overcome hatred is by love.  The story is not about Angulimala’s anger at his father; it is about the results of anger, its contagiousness, its perpetual cycle.

There is another story that is similar to this one. In this other story the people of a town are fleeing because a great warrior is coming through the area with his army destroying everything in his path.  One monk remains in the temple praying while all the others flee.  When the great warrior enters the temple he draws his sword and approaches the monk, shouting, “Don’t you know who I am?  I am the one who can cut you in two without batting an eye.”

To which the monk replies, “Yes, and I am the one who can be cut in two without batting an eye.”  The great warrior, upon hearing this, bows to the monk and withdraws.

In looking at this short story compared the tale in The Buddha and the Terrorist, I can see why it wasn’t included in some way.  While I like the little story, it is unsatisfying.  Does the warrior continue on his way, destroying everything in his path except the small town or maybe just the monk?  Did the monk’s interaction with the warrior change the warrior, or was the warrior merely impressed by a greater, albeit different, show of power?  Would the Buddha just sit there meditating, or would he have gotten up to go out to meet the warrior?  What does this story teach us about how to deal with violence in the world: to sit quietly and wait for it to pass – or to meet fear, when it does come to our door, with calm resolution?  As I reflected on this I could see why this story was not used in the book.  The story of Angulimala offers us a path to follow, a path of active compassion and forgiveness.

I picked the book up again and kept reading, eventually getting to the part of the conversation I included for the reading, about ‘stopping.’

            “Stop, monk, stop,” shouts Angulimala.

            “I have stopped,” the Buddha replies.  “I stopped ages ago, but have you? … I stopped trampling over other people, I stopped desiring to control and dominate people.”

            Angulimala replies that injustice and inequality are the order of the day.  He is only trying to overcome the oppression that has ruled his own life for so long.  “I will not stop until I have killed them all.”

Yet something breaks the cycle.  Something enters in to stop the virus of violence, the contagious cycle that feeds on itself with the fuel of anger and frustration and desire.  It is initially the Buddha’s compassion that catches Angulimala by surprise; but ultimately what effects the transformation for Angulimala to become Ahimsaka is the power of forgiveness.  Forgiveness breaks the cycle; it is a way of getting unstuck, of loosening the bond that holds you to your anger.  Forgiveness does not change the past, instead it enlarges the future.

And so we are brought back to the same old worn-out tools we turn to so often: compassion and forgiveness!  If there is to be peace in the any level of our common living there must be compassion and forgiveness.  Some of you may perhaps recall that I preach once a year on the topic of forgiveness.  When I was serving my internship during seminary my supervisor told me “Preach on Forgiveness at least once a year, it is always needed.”  Typically I fit this in around Yom Kippur, the Jewish High Holy Day at the conclusion of Rosh Hashanah.  Yom Kippur has Forgiveness as its major theme.  But this year, I need to look at forgiveness from the perspective of another religious tradition from another part of the world.   And so, in digging into the concept of peace from the Buddhist perspective, we’ve uncovered the basic need for compassion and forgiveness for peace to become realized.

Thich Nhat Hanh, who quipped “peace is every step,” writes in his book, Being Peace, about the amount of frustration and anger he noticed in the peace movement.  This was in 1987 when the book first came out, but surely it is a timeless observation.  He wrote,

            The peace movement can write very good protest letters, but they are not yet able to write             a love letter.  We need to learn to write a letter to the congress or to the president of the             United States that they will want to read, and not just throw away.

Can you imagine the letters Thich Nhat Hanh sends to the leaders of the world?  Could you imagine writing such letters?  Or does anger get in the way of writing a compassionate letter to our political leaders?  I wonder if Thich Nhat Hanh writes letters to the leaders of North Korea or China, Burma or Cambodia.  Surely he writes to the leaders of Vietnam, for he is Vietnamese though he lives in France.

Certainly this is one of the major details of how it works for my inner peace to build into the peace found in my home which can build into the peace found between my neighbors.  In Buddhist teaching, my inner peace is rooted in compassion.  If I can interact with the world through my compassion rather than my anger, it will allow and even encourage a similar response from others.  This is where the parable of Angulimala takes us as well.  It is where the Dalai Lama takes us when he speaks out about world peace.

Just over 16 years ago the Dalai Lama visited Ithaca and gave a series of speeches.  In one speech he concluded saying: “We often talk about world peace. And world peace is important. But how can we attain world peace? World peace will not come from the sky, nor from the earth. World peace must come through mental peace. Genuine peace is not just the absence of war. Peace is more than that. Peace means genuine tranquility; I think peace must come from individual transformation. So, whether at the level of family members, or at the national level, I believe a good heart is the foundation.”

Basically he is saying if there is to be peace in the world, there must be peace in the nations, and in the cities, and between neighbors and in the home.  If there is to be peace in the world there must be peace in the heart.  The details are wrapped up in compassion and forgiveness.  If we could learn to practice compassion and forgiveness in our relations, and could inspire others to follow along, then world peace would cascade right up the line – just as our poem says.  Peace would be realized among all the world’s people.

In a world without end, may it be so.

Welcome to the Emerald City
6-24-07
Rev. Douglas Taylor

“Why, then, oh why, can’t I?”  The lingering question with which the movie begins is the sort of question that could lead many people into transformative spiritual journeys.  Folks recall the Technicolor and great songs from the movie, the one-liners, the characters.  The movie is amazingly fun.  Yet there is a deeper level to this movie that starts with these lyrics.  “Why, then, oh why, can’t I?”   The song asks, ‘why can’t my life have happiness and dreams that come true?’  “Some day I’ll wish upon a star and wake up where the clouds are far behind me.”  So, if these happy bluebirds can get away from the clouds, how about me?  There is something plaguing me, some dark cloud hanging over my life.  I’m not settled in here, this is not quite my place; something is missing.  I yearn for something more.  “Why, oh why can’t I?”

I don’t think MGM planned for this to be a deep movie about spiritual searching, they were just bringing to the silver screen a delightful children’s book by Frank Baum.  And I don’t think Frank Baum was intentionally creating children’s books that had mythic heroes and journeys as the frameworks.  Maybe that was his intent, but I don’t think so.  In the end, however, this 1939 movie, which the AFI (American Film Institute) continues to rank among the top ten films of all time, has a deeper mythic connection that comes out if you are willing to notice.

Certainly, there are other movies that have been suggested as models the spiritual journey, even other movies and stories that have been suggested as particularly apt for Unitarian Universalists.  Perhaps you identify with the story of the Ugly Duckling: growing up, you didn’t fit in to the world around you until you discovered that indeed you are a terrible Catholic because in fact you are a Unitarian Universalist.  Or you may find yourself in the annual televising of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer as a denizen of the Island of Misfit Toys: here we all are because we didn’t fit in anywhere else, but together we can make do.  These are motifs from stories that seem to work particularly well as mythic stories or motifs for Unitarian Universalists.  There are many, many possibilities of characters or scenarios that lend themselves to this sort of spiritual comparison.

The Wizard of Oz is on a different order from these other examples because I’m not talking about just one scene or one character.  The whole movie is a model for a Unitarian Universalist spiritual life.  The Wizard of Oz is an epic journey.  And, again, there are other amazing movies that are based on epic journeys: think Star Wars, think Narnia; but what I lift up about the Wizard of Oz is that it seems to show this epic journey of spiritual searching in a Unitarian Universalist style.  The Chronicles of Narnia are a delightfully entertaining children’s story with a deep and recognizable undercurrent of Christian theology.  I think the Wizard of Oz, not intentionally of course, does this for Unitarian Universalism.

What stands out most is that this is the story of a person going on a journey to find her home, or at the end of the movie Dorothy says she was looking for her heart’s desire.  As the opening song also indicates, there is a longing, a desire, a hope for something more in life.  That is how many of us begin our own spiritual journey.  And as Glenda the Good Witch told Dorothy, it is best to begin at the beginning.  So we begin with the delightfully obvious metaphor of the yellow brick road.

The Yellow Brick Road is the path you follow in your journey to find the wizard who will help you reach Kansas. In Unitarian Universalism we speak of each of us being on our journeys to find wholeness or peace or enlightenment or Kansas which is home.  We’re all trying to get home.  The yellow brick road is the path.  When Dorothy in Oz, Glenda the Good Witch doesn’t say, “Here is a holy book that will explain your situation;” she doesn’t say, “Trust and believe in the wizard and he will take care of all your problems;” and she doesn’t say, “There is no such thing as Kansas, you need to let go of your delusion.”  Instead, she tells Dorothy that to get what she wants she must take a journey.  Glenda the Good Witch tells her to begin at the beginning and “follow the yellow brick road.”  In this mythic story seen as a spiritual search, you are Dorothy and your work is to be on the journey.  The yellow brick road is not a dogma or a creed.  It’s a path.  This fits quite well with our Unitarian Universalist understanding of spiritual deepening.

Along the way, Dorothy meets many different people.  In a way, everyone Dorothy meets in Oz can be seen as an aspect of Dorothy’s inner life as she follows her journey on the yellow brick road.  Likewise for us: as we walk along our paths of spiritual deepening, enlightenment, and understanding, the characters in the movie can be seen as aspects of our inner selves.  And, equally important, most of the time the characters also represent external aspects of life for us.  Most obvious, perhaps, are the three characters that travel with Dorothy: the Scarecrow, the Tin Man, and the Cowardly Lion.  On your spiritual quest you’ll need your brain, your heart, and your nerve. Being spiritual, especially the way that is meant in Unitarian Universalist circles, can’t b done without thinking, feeling, and courageously acting. My colleague, Tom Owen-Towle has claimed that UUs are “Freethinking Mystics with Hands,” meaning our faith involves the intellect, compassion, and a willingness to engage in the work of the world.  There are many ways to lay these three characters out.  But they all join Dorothy because they are each missing something – or they believe they are, at least.  Dorothy is missing her home, but if you will recall, she left home because she was missing something as well – but it is difficult to say just what was missing.  That is the trouble with spiritual yearning, half the job is figuring out what you’re after.

Two other characters that represent aspects of our inner and outer lives are the witches.  The Good witch represents our guides, those around us that offer wise council.  Your Good Witch may be a particularly good friend, your parents, or your minister.  The good witch is also our own inner encouragement.  Have you every said, or heard someone else say, “I think the universe is trying to tell me something”?  That would be akin to the work of the Witches from this story.  The Wicked Witch is pretty much the polar opposite of the Good Witch.  You’ve got things in your life that help you out and things that drag you down.  You have one or two people who look out for you and others that go out of their way to be snarky.  You’ve good burdens and blessings, ups and downs, joys and sorrows, Goods and Wickeds.  That’s life, that’s just the way things are.  Of course, the Wicked Witches are always more prevalent that the Good Witches, but there are ways of getting rid of Wicked Witches.

Of course, the Wizard deserves a comment or two.  Dorothy gets started on her journey with a goal in mind: to get home; and in order to do that, she has to go see the Wizard.  The Wizard is the one who will fix all the problems, solve all the dilemmas, and to give to you the things that are missing.  You’re missing something, remember?  That’s why you started on this journey.  So you go to your Wizard to find answers.  Guess what kind of answers the Wizard gives you!  Well in the movie, the Wizard gave our friends an outrageous task: go deal with that big thing you’re afraid of first, and then I can help you.  “Bring me the Wicked Witch’s broomstick.”  It reminds me of the story of the Lions Whiskers.  The stepmother in this Ethiopian folktale is heartbroken because her stepson rejects her. She seeks help from a wise medicine man, who tells her to bring him three whiskers from the ferocious lion that prowls in the black-rock desert. Over many months, she tames the lion through and discovers that she ahs the patience and courage to handle the situation.  In the same why she dealt with the lion, she works to tame the boy and make him need her and love her. So the Wizard says to them when they get back from the adventure: you want brains: didn’t you find that you had them when you needed them on this task I set for you?  Did you not find your heart and your courage by yourselves: what you needed was already there inside you?!

Your wizard is the minister, guru, rabbi, or teacher who becomes the focal point for you.  Your wizard is your external focal point.  You show up here with questions and find bigger questions, or find that what you thought was lost is there inside you and has been all along!  There is a great quote for a wayside pulpit: “Seeking Enlightenment?  Inquire Within.”  Certainly if you think I am your Wizard I will tell you I am only a Humbug!  Oh, I know how to put on the show with the smoke and the pyrotechnics, if you will.  But I hope when I am saying, “Pay no attention to that man behind the pulpit,” it is not because I want to dazzle you into submission.  Rather I how to get out of the way so you may better see God or at least yourself more deeply.

Now, I want to point out a very important distinction, one that most folks notice, but forget if they don’t watch the movie every year: The Wizard did not give anything to Dorothy, did not solve her problem.  His one attempt to help her is spoiled at the last moment as he flies away in his balloon without her, which necessitates Glenda the Good Witch to put in another appearance.  But it is not Glenda who saves the day either.  Glenda doesn’t give anything to Dorothy, does not solve her problem for her.  What was it in the end that got Dorothy get back to Kansas?  The Ruby Slippers, right?  Wrong!

Listen, when the Wizard floats off with the balloon at the end, everyone is crestfallen.  Suddenly Glenda’s bubble appears and every one is hopeful.  The first words out of Dorothy’s mouth are “Oh, will you help me? Can you help me?”  Glenda says, “You don’t need to be helped any longer. You’ve always had the power to go back to Kansas.”  Over the years that has been a most frustrating answer.  Well, why didn’t you say so earlier, Glenda?  In fact, the Scarecrow asks that very question and Glenda says Dorothy wouldn’t have believed it at the beginning; she had to experience it for herself.  Experience what?  That the shoes had the power to take her home?  No, it’s not about the shoes!  Glenda doesn’t say, ‘it’s the shoes.’  She talks about the shoes later, but it’s not the shoes that do it.  I wonder if the Shoes are like Dumbo’s Feather: just a prop to help you see what you can accomplish.  “She had to learn it herself,” Glenda says.  It is the experiences Dorothy went through that allow her to use the shoes to go home.  What takes Dorothy home is her own lived experience of the journey.

What you need has within you all along.  This is what we mean when we put so much emphasis on your path, your journey, in Unitarian Universalism.  One of the regular jokes about us is how much we are interested in the journey and not so interested in the destination.  The Wizard of Oz gets it!  The journey is the whole point; without the journey, the destination is meaningless.

Now, I could go on.  I could tell you all about what the Munchkins and the Winged Monkeys could represent.  I could talk about what Oz and Kansas are meant to represent in spiritual terms.  I could go on.  But I want to mention only one other aspect of the movie this morning and how it might relate to the spiritual search as we Unitarian Universalists know it.  I want to talk about Toto.  Really, when you think about it, if it weren’t for Toto, there wouldn’t be much of a movie!  Several of the very significant events were advanced due to Toto’s actions.  From the whole beginning of the movie with Mean old Almira Gulch taking him away and then Dorothy deciding to run away to save Toto, up to when he runs away from the witch’s castle to bring help for poor Dorothy and sneaks over to pull back the wizard’s curtain, all the way to the very end when he leaps from the balloon as the wizard is about to take Dorothy back to Kansas, Toto is a great literary device.  When some part of the script is stuck, have Toto do something and suddenly everything is moving again.  Toto is also a great spiritual device – and for the same reason.  Toto can be seen as an extension of Dorothy.  If each of us is Dorothy, we all have an adventurous little Toto inside us as well.  Toto is that adventurous aspect of our spirit, he is our spiritual whim.  I encourage yourself to let your Toto off his leash more often and hold on to your red shoes – for your inner Toto of spiritual adventure may very well dash off to wonderful lands.

That’s what life is like sometimes: you find yourself on a journey, you are given guidance and there are companions to walk with you; but there will also be roadblocks and hurdles to overcome.  Quite likely your will not find quite what you are looking for, or what you expected; and more mill be asked of you than you imagined when you started out.  But in the end, the road will lead you home.  Through perils and joys, blessings and great trouble, this road will lead you home.

In a world with a Kansas and an Oz without end

May it be so.

Honoring Our Elders
Rev. Douglas Taylor
5-27-07

Have you ever built something?  Have you ever worked with other people to create something new?  Last week at the 24-hour Spirituality Retreat we began two communal art projects on Friday evening which lasted through until Saturday evening.  One project was a collage, or rather a series of collages.  We cut out pictures and words, pasting them onto three large boards with the loosely defined goal of creating communal artwork.  The other project was a Sand Mandela or Sand Art picture.  Using various bold-colored sands and beans along with small shells, pasta wheels, and little plastic lizards – we built layer upon layer of designs.  The big lesson for these two communal art projects centered on the shared nature of the project: one could not get too attached to anything in the collage or on the sand design because it could be changed, altered, overlaid, or amended by the next person.  The big lesson was in making your contribution and letting go of the results.  Have you ever taken part in a project like that?  Have you ever been responsible to create something which others would finish – and likely finish it in ways you had not foreseen as possible let alone desirable?  Have you ever taken part in a project like that?  Of course you have!  You are a part of this church, are you not?  Our congregation is like a shared work of art in which each contributes.

Reinhold Niebuhr wrote, “Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetimes; therefore we are saved by hope.  Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished along.” Ours is a communal project.  This congregation is as a work of art upon which each person pastes a new picture to fit among those already present.  We each add a layer of color or texture to what has come before.  This is what is meant by the phrase “the living tradition.”  Our current hymnal is titled Singing the Living Tradition.  It is meant to suggest an ongoing spirit to our community which “reveres the past, but trusts the dawning future more.”  So this morning I take a moment to revere the past.  To peel back a few layers to see what the project looked like during an earlier incarnation.

This is our Auction award sermon.  Susie Ravage outbid everyone else during the Service Auction last year to win the chance to select the sermon topic.  You still have a chance at the same honor for the coming year if you wish; the sermon topic is cast as “A Sermon Topic and Lunch with the Minister” in our Dining for Dollars fundraising event going on in our social hall this and next week.  But Susie won it last year and Susie wanted to hear about the people who built this church, the people who were here when this current building went up.  She wanted to honor those individuals in particular, but also in general to honor all the folks who have put in their time, who provided their share, who did their work when it was their turn and now are taking their ease or bearing their age as gracefully as they may while these young whippersnappers come along and pour new sand over their designs or paste new pictures and words overlapping the previous things.  And so we take a moment to recognize and honor our elders.

The congregation held the open house for this building on a Sunday in November, 1958 – and it felt like the beginning.  There are few among us who can recount the experiences preceding our time in this current building.  The congregation, however, was already one hundred twenty three years old by the time we moved in.  Allow me, please a brief digression, for it will help frame what comes next.

In 1835 the first organization of Universalists met and began forming a church society.  On April 17th, 1843 they met for the first time in the Court House and were incorporated as the First Universalist Society.  Almost a year later they purchased a lot on what is now the Court House Square.  This location served them until the 1968 fire at which point there appears to have been no formal worship services held for the next twenty years.  In 1889, however, the energy was revived and a small group of thirty or so Universalists responded to the call for reorganization.  A few years later they purchased a lot on Exchange St and Congdon Pl. which, interestingly, was almost directly opposite the site of the original 1840’s church.  Prior to purchasing this lot, the church had been offered a lot on the corner of Oak St. (near to where the current Binghamton High School now sits) but they declined on the grounds that it was too far out of town.  Within 25 years they were kicking themselves for not taking the Oak St. lot.  In 1929, the Binghamton Savings Bank offered to buy the land; thus the congregation left their second church home and migrated across the river to the old Smith Mansion at 131 Front Street.

From that time until they left the building in 1958, the little congregation grew and dreamed and struggled and experienced setback after setback.  They labored through the Depression and the Second World War with disappointments and disagreements.  At one point they considered merging with their next-door neighbors, the First Congregational Church which still sits on the corner of Front and Main today.  Finally with the work of a few notable ministries, the congregation pulled itself toward the ambitious project of moving to a new location.  In 1954, with the newly ordained Richard Woodman, the congregation chose a five-acre site on Riverside Drive leading all the way down to the Susquehanna River.

This history (the preceding two paragraphs) is described well in a little booklet written by a member of the congregation, Charla Hull, in 1966 called The History of Liberal Religion in Boome County.  Charla was mentioned to me several times as I spoke with people over the past few weeks.  Charla Hull was a powerful and well respected attorney.  Her history booklet has a special note of thanks on the front cover to Mr. Lynn Smith, another character I was referred to a lot.  Lynn Smith was a one of the deep pockets of the congregation – one of those folks who funded a great deal of activity and thus held considerable power and authority.  Well, Charla and Lynn would go head to head at times.  In looking through the records I could find over this past month, Mr. Smith and Ms. Hull were on the same committees over and over again.  I can well imagine how these two powerful characters left such an impression on the institution.  I regret not having the opportunity to talk with them.

There were, however, several folks I was able to talk with – not nearly enough people or all the people I could have talk with.  I spoke with Velma Taft, Evalyn Seaver and Alda Kleske, as well as June and Roland Austin – although the Austins came after the church was built.  I also spoke over the phone with Rev. Dick Woodman who served the church from 1954 to 1963. And indeed I also spoke over the phone with Lillian Gaffney.  Lillian Gaffney has been a member of this congregation for a little over 68 years and holds the longest membership among us, having joined the congregation on April, 6th 1939.  She remembers being a teenager over at the Smith Mansion on Front Street.  The teens held dances in the carriage house behind the mansion.  There was a catacomb in the basement where they had their Halloween party each year.  Of course, she was quick to add, they had Sunday school classes too.  Sunday school classes were before church; she and the other youth sang in the choir.  She told me about wearing the black robes with white collars and sitting up front next to the minister facing the congregation.  Ah, it was a different era!  Lillian made a point of telling me about how wonderful the older women were with the young people.  They always made her and her friends feel comfortable and welcome.  This obvious carried Lillian forward, she described for me how she and Marilyn Gruber had kept the Children’s Religious Education program going after moving into the new building.

The ‘new’ building!  This new building is nearly fifty years old now.  The ‘new’ building was first occupied in the summer of 1958.  The open house was held in November of 1958.  The timing of this sermon topic from Susie is fortuitous!  If not for my research to put together this sermon, I might have missed being able to plan for a fiftieth anniversary celebration.  We’re all so excited with our own work in the congregation now, so wrapped up in today’s programs and plans that we might have missed the upcoming 50th anniversary of this building!  Happily we now have all of next year to prepare for a celebration in November of 2008 to mark the occasion.

Indeed the first “official” gathering was not the November open house; it was a wedding in the summer of 1958 – the wedding of Janet Greenwood and Herbert Landow.  The Landows and the Greenwoods were both prominent families in the congregation over the years.  Herb and Janet have recently moved back to this area – rejoining the church.  When I spoke with Dick Woodman about the event he told me that Herb and Janet specifically asked to be married in the new building and asked when it was likely to be ready for an event of this sort.  Rev. Woodman told them it was scheduled to be usable by June of 1958, so they set their wedding for July.  Well, construction schedules being what they are, Herb remembers painting the lounge, what we now call the Fireside room, the evening before the wedding.  His father Bernie was a force to be reckoned with as he moved through the rooms over the preceding weeks, preparing and painting each of the rooms around the building.

Bernie Landow is also remembered for inventing and building along with Chuck Seaver the first sound system in the building.  Janet’s mother, Gertrude Greenwood has quite a few stories that can be told of her.  Gertrude’s Garden by the parking lot is in honor of the years she spent landscaping and beautifying the outside and inside of the building.  One delightful story from her later years sums up Gertrude quite well.  She was out working in the garden as usual and Marcel Duhamel, the minister who served here during the 1990’s, came out and said, “Gertrude, I know it is none of my business, but I’m concerned about you working out here like this at your age; aren’t there younger folks who can do this work?”  Gertrude looked up and said, “Marcel, you’re right.  It is none of your business.”

Did you know that our ‘new’ building was originally planned as a split level with the offices and lounge directly below the sanctuary.  Because of the slope on the original lot, the front door would have opened into the sanctuary and the back door would have opened into the offices one floor below.  Then the Religious education wing along with the kitchen and social hall would have been on the split level in between.  But that was the plan when the architect designed the place for the original five-acre lot that Lourdes Hospital had sold us roughly 200 feet to the east of here at the corner of Riverside Drive and Beethoven.  The plan for a number of years was to build on that lot, but at some point in the early part of 1957 Lourdes approached the congregation with a desire to buy back the land as the hospital had new plans for growth.  Well, the congregation was not interested in selling unless we could get a comparable site!  Does this sound familiar?  We’ve been talking with Lourdes like this for fifty years!  Well, eventually a swap was suggested and settled.  The architect said it was even a better plot of land for our building because we could stretch it out on all one floor which is what we have now (except, of course for the basement rooms at the end of the hall, but you see those rooms are from a addition that happened in 1968.  But that’s another story for another time.)

Dick Woodman and all the people of the congregation worked hard to make this dream come true.  The years spent in the Smith Mansion on Front Street had been troublesome.  They made the best of it, of course.  They had spotted problems almost immediately in 1929, but with the Depression they could do nothing about the problems.  The time on Front street in our third building was generally thought of as a 30 years of temporary housing.

The new building may have solved some problems for the people, but it inspired new ones to be sure.  A year and a half after moving in, Woodman worried that we were becoming splintered into separate interest groups with no center.  Another major concern Woodman noticed was in worship.  Specifically he felt a need to increase the dimension of beauty found in the service.  He called for more art, drama, song, and poetry.  And third, he noted a need to rise to the challenge of action implied in our message.  “More than courageous talk,” he wrote in his 1960 annual report to the congregation, “we must increasingly find avenues and channels for constructive action.”  Summing up his concerns, Woodman wrote “We must build fellowship, creatively celebrate, and significantly act – that we might live             into our future.”  Reading this I can see why we are so intentional about quality of our fellowship, our worship, and our justice work.  It is interesting to me that Rev. Woodman did not mention the need to keep an eye on Religious Education.  Perhaps we’ve never been in danger of shoddy quality in that area!

I wish I could tell you more of the stories I heard, but you have picnics to attend.  I heard about the Antique show and sale and the crafts sale and about the Rummage sale that came along next.  I learned about Candlelight dinners and the Couples club, the wild youth, the making of this pulpit with its matching chancel table, the beginning of the “beacon” newsletter and the various teams of editors over the years, the Hog Farmers incident and many, many other good stories.  But I needed to focus myself this morning, to narrow myself just to the late 1950’s; and I left those other stories for another time.  So we will call this a good start – perhaps we shall monthly story telling evenings sharing the history by the decades beginning with the 1960. We’ll talk about the merger with the Unitarians as well as the civil rights movement and so much more.

Today I want to specifically honor a handful of our elders, those who were members from back in the Smith Mansion on front Street.  We honor Lillian Gaffney (’39), Velma Taft (’55), Mary Diegert (’56), Evalyn Seaver * (’56), Claire Burkhardt (’57), Janet Greenwood Landow (’57), Herbert Landow (’57), and Anna Helisek (’58).  And for all those who are not among us anymore, the Hibbards and Hebbards and Hulls, the Smiths and the Deckers, the Sweets and the Lambs, and so many others beyond count through the years; for all these who did the good work in the fields and the vineyards that we might have life more abundantly: we give thanks.

And I ask you, have you ever built something?  Have you ever worked with other people to create something new?  You are welcome to add another layer to what this church is all about.  You are welcome to paste your picture and add your words into our collage.  You are welcome to join with us in creating this work of art we call our religious home.

In a world without end,

May it be so

The Fruits of Our Challenge
Rev. Douglas Taylor
4-15-07

Almost six months ago I offered a challenge to the people who happened to show up for church that Sunday morning in October. The challenge was quite simple.  I had nine sealed envelope (I gave three out at first service and six at second service).  All that was required for a person to accept the challenge was the willingness to make a difference and to write a one page about the experience. That’s all the information people had.  I was amazed by how many hands went up that morning.  It was a powerful experience for me to hand out the envelopes.

I later revealed the challenge in a newsletter column.  The contents of each envelope were identical.  Each contained a slip of paper with the parable of the sower and instructions to ‘make a difference by being a philanthropist with someone else’s money.’  Each envelope also contained a one hundred dollar bill.  I want to share with you the response I received from these amazing people who accepted my challenge.  I have edited for length, and have left their names out – but perhaps some of you will be able to guess anyway.

First, [I felt] a rush of adrenaline – being trusted with a $100 (nice crisp bill, no less) for the church with which to do good deeds.  Huge, huge ideas formed, in the initial phase they were mostly superhuman feats spun to really do right by the church.  After the flights of fantasy calmed down, I started scanning our local paper.  I often do not read our local paper, as I have found I am much less depressed without this daily peruse.  This, [however] was an affirming use of the paper as a source of connections in our community.

Then came the most important piece for me: I opened it up to my friends for suggestions. This aspect is truly a growing experience for me.  My life has been so much about surviving on my own.  [It] has been my ‘job’ as of late, to change this aspect of myself.  So this [challenge took me away] from my instinct to ‘do it on [my] own.’  [It was great] to ask [my] friends what they think.  This think-tank approach did produce the idea of the New Years’ brunch.

The New Year’s Brunch was a great success.  This person used the seed money plus fifty dollars of her own money to pay for the food.  She selected three local organizations that were important to her: The SOS Shelter, the Addiction Center of Broome County, and The Animal Care Council.  Not only was the New Year’s Brunch an enjoyable, memorable, and meaningful event for everyone involved, (which in itself is a fabulous accomplishment); it also raised over $250 total for the three charities.  And, as this respondent wrote, “The huge reward for me was the outpouring of energy and help that came from more people than I can say.  I was blessed with healing.”

One person who took the challenge struggled to use the money in some way that was not connected to her work.  But her work has been a compelling way for her to make a difference in the lives of others; she eventually gave up and invested her challenge there – but in a delightfully unique fashion.

In the latter part of October I took a new position as an after school childcare provider [at the YMCA]. In talking to my coworkers at a Holiday Program for the children we began to talk about the need for resources for the teachers so that we could provide a quality program for the children. At the YMCA we teach the children four basic values Respect, honesty, caring and responsibility. Finding ways to teach these things in such a way that would be fun and easy for them to understand was something that we all found difficult.

Finally around the holiday time it came to me to put together a lending library for the teachers at the program. It was quite a treat to be able to do something like this because at the holiday time there is always the feeling of why am I doing this, do they really need this, will it be liked. I had actually found something that I was able to give that answered all of those things in a positive way. I found myself teary behind all of that. It was great fun to put together a selection of books on character education, conflict resolution, and non-competitive games for children as well as craft books that were needed. Those books are now in place and are being used by all the teachers.

One of our respondents was an eleven year old.

When I heard about the UUCB challenge, I didn’t know if I should do it or not. But I did because I like surprise challenges. When I read what the challenge was, I knew exactly what I wanted to do.  [I would use the money to help the Ross Park Zoo.]

In the mail every winter, the Ross Park Zoo sends out a wish list. Every year the list is the same because nobody buys the items, I thought it would be a good idea if I bought some of the items on the list for them. Because I was raising money for animals, I thought that it would be nice if I made something that was related to animals too. I decided to make homemade dog biscuits. After buying the supplies, I made the biscuits and sold them. I sold every one of them.

My mother and I decided that I should get a banking account and a checking account. I did. Altogether with interest and the challenge money included, I had about $117. My mother and I went to Lowe’s and we bought a baby gate, a 3 drawer plastic organizer, and a welding kit. After that, we went to the dollar store and A.C. Moore to spend the rest of our money on kid’s scissors and markers that they had on their wish list also. It worked out perfectly. I felt really good that I was able to donate $117 worth of supplies that they wanted all by myself!

Our next respondent found several ways to creatively double, then triple, and then even further multiply her seed money.

Needless to say I was very surprised to get home and find a $100 bill in my envelope.  I came up with all sorts of ideas.  My thoughts went to how children are really the future of the world and I found the web site for Save the Children.  I decided that I would like to raise enough money to sponsor at least one child for a year thus making a difference in their life and most likely mine as well.

[To begin with,] my grandson helped me raise an additional $150 by trick or treating for the cause on Halloween.  I was touched by people’s generosity and extremely proud of my grandson for his willingness to help. My second effort involved getting donations from area businesses to hold a raffle.  This entailed a lot more work that I bargained for but I’ve pulled it off.  The raffle [was] held February 26.  I raised $320 on the raffle.  Add to that $150 from Halloween, the initial $100 seed money and another $102 of my own and I was able to sponsor two children thru the Save the Children organization.  I was appalled to learn of the poverty/illiteracy in the US so I sponsored a young boy in Kentucky.  However, I also know that our money goes further abroad so [the second child] I sponsored [is] a girl in Africa.

In retrospect, participation in this project has made me look at my life differently every day. I’ve realized that we can make a big difference just by being compassionate and aware of the needs of others.  Sometimes even something as simple as a smile or a kind word can change a person’s day.

One respondent was caught in the middle of moving to Albany when she accepted the challenge.  She dreamed up several possible ideas for the $100, but writes that “The envelope sat in a drawer for a couple of months.  It wasn’t forgotten per se, but rather was left to grow and manifest an answer to my prayer of finding a meaningful way to use [the challenge].”  Eventually the answer came when one of her students returned from South Africa excited and energized.  This student organized a large community fundraiser in the Albany area to help the Community Hospice Africa Partnership, a support program for HIV positive patients where they are taught to create crafts for sale.  “You will be please to know” this respondent writes, “that your generous donation is on its way to South Africa right now and will make a real difference in the lives of many women.”

“I am sure I am not the only one to tell you about the shock and slight sense of horror at finding a hundred dollar bill in that little white envelope,” begins another one of our respondents.

What have I gotten myself into?! Although I felt I ought to do something right away, I had no idea what to do. So I thought about it a lot. How to make the most of this money? I thought about the myriad of ways to reach out into the world and touch others. It did not take me long to decide to do something to support the Heifer Project, which, as I’m sure you know, is focused on providing resources to people and communities in order to help stimulate renewable growth.  I wanted to involve the overlapping communities of my life in helping people around the world, like the concentric circles rippling out from a pebble thrown into a pond – the church – my broader connections – out to the unknown world.  I just wasn’t sure [yet] how to do it.

Life went on and as Christmas time approached I was involved in other projects – one of which was to compile some of my favorite poems and readings into a little chapbook. That first hasty project really captured my imagination.  [It reminded me of a favorite quote] “If I had but two loaves of bread, I would sell one of them and buy white hyacinths to feed my soul.” (Elbert Hubbard (1856-1915) rephrasing Muslihuddin Sadi, 13th century Persian Poet)  For me, that collection was a white hyacinth – it fed my soul and that was when I realized how I would respond to this challenge.  I would write to those people who have touched my life, tracking down many with whom I have not spoken to in a long time. I would let them know what they have meant to me and that I had not forgotten them.

The $100 was finally spent in producing 60 copies of my little chapbook, envelopes and enough postage to send a 2 page letter, the chapbook and a stamped self-addressed envelope for these far flung members of my community to take an easy opportunity to reach back. Within the letter, I have described the challenge given me and have invited these wonderful people to send out contributions to the Heifer Project either on their own or in the return envelope with a note to me. I offered a direct connection to the Heifer Project – so each person could give or not give guilt free and not necessarily a part of their reply to me.

So I have little to report to you on the return on your investment in me; except to say thank you. It has been and will continue to be a great gift to me and I hope to many others as well. I continue to write letters and send out packages a few each week. Generosity flows and the project continues.

And here I must break confidence, though I do so at the request of this respondent.  Kate Thorpe wrote that she did not include anyone from church on her list, difficult though it was to do that.  There may, however, be people here that would like to take part in her project.  An Incomplete Collection of Favorite Poems and Readings is available this week (or by request) for a donation to the Heifer Project.  Kate will be in the Social Hall after both services this week if you are interested.

Here is what another respondent offered:

The UUCB Challenge came at a time in my life when I was really feeling the need to examine my spiritual life more closely and to make some significant choices. “Am I making any difference with my time here?”  I took a lot of time to ponder the meaning [of this challenge.]  I really wanted to use this $100 to make a difference in our local community, something grassroots and geared toward a population I knew to be underserved.  I thought a lot, spoke to trusted friends; it turned out that going out to lunch with a friend provided the answer for me.

Portfolio’s Café is a Catholic Charities program which serves as an employment program for young adults with a history of mental health issues.  The Café opened in 1987 and since that time has employed over 300 individuals, many of whom have established a successful job history for the first time and gone on to successful competitive employment.  I have been lunching there for years.  Tips are pooled and when they get enough they use the money (at around $200) for a special night out such as dinner and an activity.

I picked this organization (and added $100 of my own) because I believe those with mental health issues to be an underserved population in society.  Portfolio’s is local, grassroots, and it fosters future independence of the [employees].  Hopefully many lives will be positively impacted by the continuance of this unique and creative program in our area.

Finally, we hear from one more respondent.

So There I was.  It was late in the afternoon of October 22, in the final throes of a birthday party for my oldest son, Daniel, now 25.  Family…friends … all helping us celebrate this milestone in our wonderful son’s life.

At church that morning, I had raised my hand when Douglas offered a challenge.  I don’t normally do that … raise my hand first when I don’t have a pretty good idea what I’m in for. But with my own birthday soon upon me I had already promised myself I would do at least one … new … slightly scary thing each week.  Raising my hand to take on Douglas’ challenge seemed to fit right in.

So there I was, late in the afternoon of October 22, in the final throes of the party.  I suddenly remembered THE ENVELOPE [Douglas had slipped into my raised hand earlier that morning] and I knew it would be the perfect time to open it and have fun doing group-think.  Mind you … I still had no idea what was in the envelope, only that it presented a challenge.

In front of about 20 or so remaining friends and family, I set the stage (such as I knew it at that point). I opened the envelope. OUT FELL A ONE HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL!  I was outrageously proud of my family that no one grabbed for it!  I listened, fascinated, as [my friends and family] dreamt about what they would do [with the challenge.  However,] nothing trumped what had slowly been percolating in my own mind.

This past summer I gathered with my Vestal High School classmates to celebrate our 40th class reunion.  A month later, on August 3, one of our classmates became the victim of a worksite, steam explosion at the IBM Huron Endicott campus.  You [probably] read about it in the newspaper.  Ron Walter, my classmate, was severely burned.  His colleague was killed in the blast.  Because I had just seen Ron at the reunion, it was very real.  Ron was released from Upstate Medical Center on September 22, seven weeks after the explosion, [one month before I sat around my living room with friends, family and a one hundred dollar bill imagining how I could make a difference.]

I learned of a fundraiser being planned for Ron of December 9.  He had already racked up substantial medical bills, had no use of his hands due to the severe burns and was looking at a future filled with physical therapy and more and more bills.  His medical insurance would end on December 31.  I had already bought a ticket to the December 9 event and donated a few dollars beyond.

But with the ONE HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL, Douglas’ challenge moved me to a different place.  I realized that with it, I could make [my seed money multiply like] loaves and fishes.  It was fun and incredibly gratifying to plan it out with [Ron’s] daughter.  We selected raffle items which included gift certificates to restaurants and the Oakdale mall.  We figured that winning a $50 gift certificate to the Oakdale mall – just two weeks before Christmas – would be pretty compelling for people, encouraging them to buy more and more raffle tickets.  By my ‘ponying’ up some funds toward other gift certificates, I convinced two other local businesses to double the dollar amount.

The fundraiser did occur on December 9, and hundreds of Ron Walters’ family, friends, and total strangers attended.  The gift certificates I had gleaned were among [the] many to be raffled.  But they were included among [the larger $5-per-ticket items.]  Trust me, that paper-bag with entries for the $50 gift certificate to the Oakdale Mall easily had at least a hundred tickets in it.

At the event I purposely did not introduce myself to Ron’s daughter – she and I had only communicated via e-mail; she didn’t know who I was.  So [that day] I was just one of the many event planners, workers, and well-wishers [among the crowd.]  In the end I realized that my contributions were really to and for her.  I so admired the way she had shouldered her family troubles.  She was incredibly gracious, but funny with her dad at the event.  She has earned more than my respect … she has won the love and admiration of a total stranger.  And that is her gift to me.  One hundred dollars worth of giving? No … priceless.

While it is difficult to calculate based on a few of these, I can confidently tell you that those who accepted this Generosity Challenge raised over $2000 for worthwhile causes both locally and globally.  They thought long and hard about their choices, and many drew on the resources of friends to meet the challenge.  While a great many strangers have benefited from the generosity here displayed, those who accepted the challenge also benefited, being spiritually deepened by this work.  I am now in their debt for they have taught me much.  And each of us today, hearing these stories, are now challenged to find new and creative ways to make a difference in the lives of friends and strangers around us.  Until our next challenge, may we each find the means to live well.

In a world without end

May it be so.