From Our Minister Archive
To the Glory of Life: A Prayer for the Ending of a Ministry
Spirit of Love,
I move into my own time of transition after being with people in theirs. So many feelings are alive in my heart. I feel the sadness that comes with having to let go – relationships that touched my heart are coming to an end… among people who honored me by opening their homes and hearts and lives. I grieved with them in their losses. I rejoiced in their blessings. I waited in the anxious moments, learned their histories and heard their hopes. The way their feelings mirror my own helps me feel the blessing of being with my people. Earnest. Kindred in purpose. Sometimes sensitive. Sometimes bold.
I have watched them face losses, feel pain, and respond to problems in creative and caring ways. I have been surprised by their spirit, their resilience, their commitment. And I have rarely seen communities able to have as much fun while doing what needs to be done. Sometimes I think they surprise themselves. There is much within the way they have shown me that reflects a holy purpose. The way people are meant to be together.
I have seen their impatient and contemptuous sides too. I’ve seen how they are sometimes timid in approaching conflict or afraid to speak their mind. I’ve seen how they can sometimes be stubborn and prideful. And I have seen myself in all of these things and I know they are my people. Help me to share my regrets and shed my smallness where I have failed to offer the kindness and generosity of spirit they might have needed from me.
Please, Love, be with them. Embolden them. Strengthen them. Make them flexible and resilient to walk into a future that will ask all of us to adapt and change in ways none of us can expect. When they are unsure, let grace abound. Share sensitivity with the bold and bring boldness to the sensitive; and help them find that which they need most in each other. Allow them to fashion coherence and vision from all the individual wisdom. Lift their hearts, which are already large enough, in the moments where courage is needed. And should they ever doubt, remind them that they are beloved in their own right, and always part of the beloved community of all souls.
And help us all to see, that although we will walk into the future on separate paths, we are headed to the same place.
To the Glory of Life.
P. S. One of the things that has become very helpful over the years is feedback. I would love to hear from you. Please take a moment to share your experience of the impact my work has had. You can share what was particularly helpful; or what was not helpful; or what you might have liked that I didn't do. All feedback is welcome. Please send to revgregfeedback@uusm.org
Thank you!!!"
This is the Sunday we say farewell to the Rev. Greg Ward, our Developmental Minister since September 2017. He is heading off to his new marriage and life in the Bay Area. After the service, all are invited to celebrate our time together over lunch in Forbes Hall. Please rsvp here and let us know you are coming and how you can help!
To the Glory of Life: Curiosity
Dear Friends,
They say that ‘curiosity killed the cat,’ but frankly, that sounds made up. Sort of like the kind of finger-pointing cockamamie story cooked up by a crooked politician. Something in a corrupt communication policy that tells the family of victims some bizarre obfuscation while concealing evidence. It’s what people say who have something to hide.
I would like to slip under the yellow tape and walk around the crime scene for a moment. Snoop about in search of clues. What I’d really like to do is to talk to the cat. Because if there is anyone who, for sure, has the straight poop on what went down in shady town, it’s the cat. But the cat’s dead.
So, of course, what you look for is the next of kin. Those in line for the throne. Whoever was hanging out with the cat around zero-dark-ten and counting. Like; the best friend. Except cats don’t really have best friends. They’re too aloof for sycophants, and no one whose living is made off other people’s tragedy owns a cat. Best friends are associated with dogs; i.e. “man,” (sic) which, as all know, are notoriously unreliable when it comes to giving the low down on high jinx.
So, I don’t think it was curiosity that did the killing. At least, not without some help. But let me confess. Because, truth to tell, I have some bias.
I’ve known Curiosity for a long time. Curiosity is the first born of an unlikely pairing of personalities. A whirlwind romance between Wonder and Worry. She got one parent’s imagination and the other’s darting eyes. When she was four, she got into long discussions with her Uncle Reason, who kept trying to explain the universe so that everything made sense. But each time he came up with a perfect answer, she countered with an even more perfect question. And always the same one: “Why?” Eventually, Curiosity backed Reason into a corner and, out of exasperation said, “Because God said so!! That’s why!!” Surprised even him, and resulted in Reason enrolling in seminary where he eventually become a Unitarian minister.
Curiosity was married numerous times. She couldn’t help it. And each time she married, she had a child. She met Fear when she was young and had a son, Anxiety, who became a detective. She left Fear and met Anger with whom she had a second son, Judgment, who worked in a courtroom. She fell deeply in love with Confusion, but while on their honeymoon, they got separated and never found each other.
After marrying Service, she had a daughter, Justice, who became an activist. And after a liaison with Logic, she had another daughter, Intrigue.
But then she fell head over heels for Love. They had twins: Honor and Reverence.
When the story broke about the cat’s demise, Curiosity was taken into custody. All her children gathered around her. Each swore vehemently that their mother could never kill anything. After all, they said, she deeply resisted the finality of endings.
The trial is coming up. So, it behooves all of us to look back on our affairs with curiosity. Consider the testimony of her children and all who’ve known her. They will tell you that curiosity simply allows one to go deeper and become more of who they are. If you begin with Fear or Anger, Curiosity will find ways to see, find, and validate more of the same. But in situations where Curiosity becomes the companion of Love, the result is Beauty, Appreciation, Generosity, Peace, Gratitude, Excitement, Warmth, and Hope. Cat thrived amidst all these things.
Think hard before you cast Judgment and put Curiosity away. She is one of the most important characters to have in your team. Especially if you are trying to find you way to a place you’ve never been. Or find your way back to someplace you can’t quite remember.
To the Glory of Life.
A Pastoral Letter from Rev. Greg: PASTORAL ANSWERS TO R.E. QUESTIONS
April 19, 2019,
Dear UUSM Friends and Friends of UUSM,
On Monday, you received a message from our Director of Religious Education and our President, Jacki Weber, sharing the news of Kathleen’s resignation as our Director of Lifespan Religious Education. This has felt surprising by some and raised questions by others. And has been the source of some feelings by almost everyone. I wanted to reach out and respond to some of these questions.
Is it true that the proposed budget for next year reduces the time for our Director of Lifespan Religious Education from full time to ¾ time?
Yes, this is true. And speaking for what I know to be true for every board member, this is a source of great disappointment and heartbreak. What is also true is the Board’s efforts to be honest, accountable, and responsible regarding the two realities before them:
1. A $72,000+ deficit in the proposed budget; and
2. Registration for our Children and Youth Religious Education programming that dropped to just 17 families.
These both deserve a little explanation.
First, the deficit is something the Board has been looking at and taking very seriously. When I arrived, we embarked on a plan to address revenue. In formulating the plan we discovered that the congregation has, for some years, been overly dependent on a few very generous families to disproportionately cover the majority of the congregation’s expenses. As this information was discovered and has been shared, a very large number of families have significantly increased their giving. Over the last 2 years, over 100 families have increased their giving – some as much as 10% or more. This is outstanding. In addition, more than 20 families stepped up to create an incentivizing leverage fund (Sustainability Fund) to help bring pledging into a more sustainable range.
Unfortunately, this year also coincided with a couple of our highest pledging families reducing or eliminating their pledges (due primarily to declining health and to family relocation, and not to dissatisfaction). Just three families led to $40K in lost revenue which underscores our over-dependence on too few people.
UUSM has had to draw from reserves (money bequeathed to the congregation by generous members remembering us in their wills) to balance the budget for more than 10 years. The Board recognizes that this is not sustainable and, last year, set a target to get to a balanced budget within four years.
The Board, making some painful but responsible choices made some of the cuts which brought the proposed deficit from approximately $72,000 to approximately $37,500.
The second piece of information that’s important to understand is around the trends in children and youth religious education at UUSM. As you can see from the graph below, Religious Education numbers have gone down each of the last 5 years in a row.
It is known that Religious Education programming in UU congregations has been in decline across the country (4% / yr). That increase has been slightly more rapid in UU Congregations in our district (5% / yr). But the decrease here at UUSM has been at a level far beyond what can be explained by these regional and national trends.
There are currently only 17 children and youth registered and attending our RE program on a regular basis. The high number of professional hours we’d be spending to support so few children and youth is well out of proportion with what other congregations are doing. Reducing professional hours was extremely painful – for the Board making the decision, the RE volunteers, the families receiving the news, and for me sharing it here. And, yet, there’s more that needs to be said.
What’s the impact of this decision?
It’s important and appropriate for us to know that this news has a big impact… for children and youth, families, staff… But the impact for Kathleen is more immediate and personal. After only a brief period of reflection, Kathleen informed us that she would need to resign. Los Angeles is simply too expensive an area to have part-time work as a single parent.
Although disappointed, Kathleen has responded with a high degree of professionalism. She continues to understand and care for UUSM and families and a desire to see what’s best for the program and the church as a whole. Anyone who knows Kathleen would expect or predict no less.
In her letter on Monday, Jacki Weber laid out plans to assemble stakeholders and explore specific ways we can bring in a religious professional that will help us in the kind of out-of-the-box thinking that stimulates and energizes our approach to RE and our ability to constructively respond to this challenge.
Why did this happen?
I’d like to share a couple of other truths worth pondering. The dramatic reduction in families registered in RE is not Kathleen’s fault. Nor can responsibility be attached to the other staff in RE… or the volunteers who teach and serve on the RE committees… or the families… and certainly not the children and youth.
You can look at the graph and note that the numbers began to drop in 2015 – two years before Kathleen arrived. Some of what we are struggling with now is the delayed impact of a conflict that began back then.
I don’t believe that what’s happening now for RE is the end of Sunday School. But it certainly requires our attention. And our willingness to work together.
How is this an opportunity and what can we all do?
What we have in front of us is an opportunity to be really honest and explore some important truths. Some of which include:
Accepting that the world has changed a great deal and we probably need to look closely at what we need to do to change our approach as a congregation doing outreach in order to capture the attention and imagination of our most relevant stakeholders: children and youth and their families.
We’re going to need to reach out and engage these stakeholders and this is not the work that will be successful if we place the onus of responsibility on one person – or even a small cadre. If there’s one lesson we’ve learned from the financial side of the congregation it is that being overly dependent on too few people leaves us less resilient and less successful than we deserve to be. We were successful in raising pledges. We can be successful in raising children and youth. Because, even though we can’t change the fact that we’re growing old, we can certainly respond with a commitment to grow young.
Finally, this is a time for stepping forward and building a broad coalition to move in a common direction. It’s not time to divide into opinion camps. When I came here, that’s what I witnessed: division and intractability. We’ve worked too hard and learned too much to go back to that strategy.
Let’s use our energy constructively. Thoughtfully. Carefully. This is an amazing opportunity. Kathleen has been unbelievably understanding, compassionate and supportive of the program so that the volunteers, teachers, staff – and most of all – the families with children and youth – can be successful, even in her departure. It’s the least we can do for her, for ourselves, and for our future to give our very best.
To the Glory of Life,
Rev. Greg
Dear Friends,
I feel heartbroken about the events in Christchurch, New Zealand, this past month. Partly for the individual people and families who lost loved ones. Partly for the mounting hate and polarizing ideologies emerging and escaping collective accountability. Partly for our penchant for turning to unilateral extreme violence to address religious-political-ethnic ideologies. Partly because of the way our Muslim brothers and sisters feel when they watch people just like them be extinguished without the sustained international outrage that we’d expect if this were truly unacceptable within a committed coalition of solidarity. Partly because of the implicit message this sends to the world about our collective culture where the unthinkable becomes begrudgingly normalized.
Everywhere, we are seeing white supremacist intolerance fueling national and international policy making from leaders like the US (fear-based immigration policies and an irresponsible level of weapons sales to foreign countries); Great Britain (Brexit); China; North Korea; Italy; Brazil; and a dozen other countries whose political climate is controlled by extreme nationalism and fear.
I’m thinking of the Arab world… of Syria… of Iraq… and Iran… and Egypt… and Palestine… I am seeing the bias and prejudice running rampant. I’m thinking of the ways in which we “other” people we don’t know – casting them in a category of “less than human.” Of judgment so powerful that it swallows all the generosity, laughter, curiosity, and wonder we want for our world down into a giant sinkhole of despair.
This is happening on a global scale.
On a global scale, ideological hate separates us. It eliminates all the ways we might show up in one another’s hour of need to restore hope and make friendships whole. It makes it unlikely we’d break bread together in someone else’s home. Every day it becomes harder and harder to see the ways our lives’ frayed edges actually fit together. We lose sight of all the evidence that says we were made from whole cloth, ripped apart, and that we are trying to find our way together again.
There is a space between all things. It is a buffer that can be – indeed, I believe it was meant to be – a holy space of invitation. It was meant to be a space of hospitality, generosity, openness, and creative collaboration. But that’s not what seems to be rushing into fill that space. Whether we’re nations, states, neighbors, or individuals, what seems to be pouring into the spaces between us is fear. And still, we wonder why we’re feeling fragmented. Less than whole.
We’re feeling fragmented because, in our anxiety to fill the spaces between us, we are quicker to invite fear than curiosity and wonder into the parlor of our imagination. And when the music stops and everyone rushes to occupy the limited number of chairs at the table where decisions get made, fear winds up with the most seats and the loudest voices in the room.
Fear is really good at filling small spaces – like that space between our ears. More and more, that space in our minds – and in public rhetoric – is being filled with worry, doubt, cynicism, or despair. Fear speaks in the recognizable phrasing of the many internet trolls who use click-bait mechanisms targeting our reactionary survival instincts to access our time or money. Indeed, if you removed all the dog and cat videos, fear (and promises to avoid or escape what frightens us) has wrapped itself around most every other aspect of our internet lives.
I don’t really know the many people who make and distribute the news. I don’t know if they love their families, if they help their children with their homework, or if they go to school plays. I don’t know if they are sad at the sight of those who die. Do they weep for those near who lose their families or those far who lose their innocence?
But I do know that unless – and until – we can cultivate a generous and responsible sense of compassion for the suffering around us (instead of the unceasing preoccupation with the abatement of our own suffering), we will remain a frightened, fragmented, and hostile version of the interdependent web we were created to be.
This is as true for those of us sitting next to each other at our Unitarian church as it is for those sitting next to each other at the United Nations. Without a daily discipline of curiosity, connection, compassion, and care, we will be prone to hesitancy and suspicion, doubt and the “everyone-for-themselves” that results when we forgo our higher spiritual impulse of generosity and service.
I’m not one who says there’s nothing to worry about. That all this rhetoric is untrue and there’s nothing to fear. But neither am I an advocate of letting fear determine our response to everything. Fear distorts reality. And we’re amidst so many distortions that we’ve begun to believe that “objects are larger or closer than they appear.”
I think if we, indeed, want wholeness, we need to find as many ways as possible to be true to the humanity that binds us together. To begin practicing a radical kind of love that is the only revolutionary force that can resist this fear. A love that defies distortion.
Take as many moments as you can to reach into the spaces that exist between people. Between you and your neighbors. You and other religions. You and other races. You and the people you sit next to at church. Offer and expect wonder. Return what you find with compassion and acceptance. It is time to heal our world by being generous with every encounter. And to keep doing it until we are all connected.
To the Glory of Life.
April 6 Letter from UUCCSM Developmental Miister Rev. Greg Ward.
Dear Friends,
It is with a complex mix of emotions that I share the news of my decision to resign my ministry among you on June 23, 2019.
The tremendous joy that stems from deciding to make my commitment to Lucy permanent has changed me more than I originally was expecting. I felt, initially, that what called me to marriage was a promise of length — ‘till death do us part.’ But, after proposing, announcing our engagement and letting it sink in — for both of us — we began to realize that the promise we’re called to is one of depth as well.
I’ve worked a long time as an independent consultant, living at a distance from the people I’ve loved and who’ve loved me. But I have come to see things in a new way since arriving at UUCCSM. And, I must admit, it’s you who’ve shown me some very important truths.
When I came, there were some things I was very sure of: I had some tools and experience that might be helpful. That you, as a congregation, had amazing potential, and although you’d been through some great challenges, you deserved great support. I was sure, as well, that I loved Lucy in a forever kind of way. I just thought there might be time before ‘forever’ began.
But there were some things I couldn’t be sure of: How much time and attention and care this community would need to get on with its forever. And how long my forever could wait. In the meantime, you’ve taught me a couple things:
You’re amazing people with a lot to offer
That you can’t rush building community — it happens at the speed of trust
That being ‘far flung’ — a phrase I’ve been using to describe the independence and autonomy I see operating at UUCCSM — also operates within some UU ministers.
I’ve come to realize it will take UUCCSM longer to get on with its forever than I could reasonably ask Lucy to wait for ours to begin. Although I’ve no doubt that, with work, you will succeed (the world needs you too much for you not to), I need to leave before the work is complete. I’ve also realized that I — and you — would both be crazy to think I was the only possible person — or even the best person — who could help you do the work you need to do.
I hope you’ve been able to learn from me as I’ve learned from you. And that you can see, like I do, how far you’ve come in just a short time. And that you will make it where you want to go.
UUCCSM President Jacki Weber and I will be hosting a short conversation after the 11:00 am service on Sunday where I can share a little more information about what’s next for me. Jacki will also be able to share the next steps for UUCCSM and the succession of Ministers (this process is not starting at square one. UUA and regional staff have been at work for a while and contacting the best Developmental Ministers available).
I will be with you for the next few months. And we will talk about the work in front of you. Because the real truth is, your destiny is really in your hands — not the minister’s. But that doesn’t mean, in the time we have, I will love you — or push you — any less.
To the Glory of Life.
— Rev. Greg
To the Glory of Life
THEME OF THE MONTH: JOURNEY
Dear Friends,
Like all of us, I was born into a story that came from authors whose first drafts had been submitted to the Great Publisher. And, as the Great Publisher is want to do, my story emerged as a mash-up of two different plot lines that no amalgam of common interest or common sense would have blended together. But, of course, that is the case with most stories that get turned in. And they are the stories the Great Publisher likes best.
To make the mash up possible, the two plot lines usually get braided together with strands of intrigue, excitement, confusion, convenience, pain, stubbornness, discovery, determination and love. These are among the elements the Great Publisher pulls out from the box called “conflict”. Turns out, no matter what two stories come together, conflict always gets woven in. From there, we are given the intrigue that every life needs. And we are asked to journey toward the heart of the matter.
Matthew Fox, one of the Great Publishers in the school of Creation Spirituality, studied the early mystics (those who understand how all things are connected together) and discovered that everyone is constantly working on writing and re-writing their story – as well as the stories in which they appear. He noted that everyone is working to become the author – not simply the actor – in their own story. To do so, we need to affirm what we truly are, accept what we are not, join with what the essence we’ve become separated from, and transform the world (as it, all the while, transforms us).
To paraphrase Michaelangelo Buonarroti, when asked how he is able to transform a block of marble into a creation like the great statue of David, simply said,
“I simply train myself to see everything that is David and cut away everything that is not.”
The journey of our lives is like this. We are called to find our true selves by disentangling ourselves from what is no longer us. As Albert Schweitzer said,
“The path of awakening is not about becoming who you are. Rather it is about unbecoming who you are not.”
Some of what we need to do – before we co-create each other and transform the world, is affirm what is true and let go what is not. This will reduce our story to its essential truth.
There is an exercise that is recommended in Soul Matters – the program we use to develop our monthly themes – that asks us to get to the heart of things by paring down our story to just six words. This was inspired by one of the great minimalist writers, Earnest Hemingway who accepted a bar bet to write a novel in 6 words. He responded, “For sale: baby shoes, never worn.”
What follows are some of the six word life journeys that have come from this exercise. Consider them for the insight they may offer in describing your own story:
Married by Elvis; divorced by Friday
Threw spaghetti on wall; some stuck.
We’re the family you gossip about.
Tried surfing on a calm day.
Wasn’t born a redhead; fixed that.
Mom was “earthy”; Now I’m “green.”
Son’s autism broke and rebuilt me.
Tore up my own suicide letter.
Sixty. Still afraid of the dark.
Class clown; Class president; town drunk.
Forged through fire; sustained by friendships.
Life’s GPS keeps saying, recalculating… recalculating.
The exits were entrances in disguise.
Born. Love. Love. Love. Love. Die.
I continue to work on my story. And I follow the adage of famous writer James Michener who said, “I’m not a very good writer… but I’m a hell of a re-writer.” Sometimes we need to live through the first draft before we get the right words. Then, when we get to the heart of that first version, we are ready to tell the story we were born to tell.
My story is like our story. It’s about Love. And it has faced – and overcome – the obstacles that kept us from having and sharing Love. But, ultimately, it’s about learning that we are more who we were meant to be when we figure out how to serve love, rather than be served by it. And ultimately, we’re called to be generous in such service.
I hope, this month, as we write the next chapters of UUCCSM’s story, we are generous with love. That we tell the truth, call out what matters, and help connect those around us.
To the Glory of Life.
To the Glory of Life: Trust
Dear Friends,
Eric and Alice (not their real names) ‘were’ married. And I mean ‘were’ in the tenuous past-present sense that sits like a burning lead ball in the center of your heart. Alice made a mistake, the details of which are unimportant. Eric struggled in arriving at forgiveness. That’s where the relationship ended. And where a new one would begin – IF – they figured out how in counseling.
Counseling made it clear to everyone that Eric struggled with restoring the trust. Even though they had been happy. Even though the mistake was something Alice confessed and admitted, not something she was ‘caught’ doing. Even though she acknowledged and showed remorse for the pain she’d caused. Even though she’d apologized repeatedly and outlined a plan allow trust to return.
Alice stuck to the plan. But the tears didn’t stop and the trust didn’t return. Which is when it began to become obvious that the problem wasn’t as simple as it seemed. It’s not simple, because trust isn’t simple.
After some conversations, it became apparent that Erik’s struggle wasn’t in trusting Alice. It was in trusting anyone fully.
February’s theme of the month is ‘trust’ which is something we all need to know something about. Because we will find it – and lose it – many times.
Live long enough and you will be betrayed. When betrayed, you’ll face the choice of opening up to the heartbreak, the grief and the disappointment – or closing off to the pain. Most prefer to shut down – at least for a little – which makes sense, because pain is… well, painful. But without sitting with some of that discomfort, it becomes hard to let it go. Which makes it hard to re-prime the pump that love uses to give – or receive – love again. If we never really heal, or process through those early betrayals; each new betrayal will not be a ‘simple’ matter of healing the relationship you’re currently in, it will be the complex – even impossible – job of healing every relationship heartbreak you’ve endured to that point. And whether or not our brain wants to acknowledge it, our body keeps score in this game of trust from the moment we’re born.
In the words of therapist, theologian and author, David Richo:
Some of us trust easily and appropriately because we have had a safe and secure past. Many of us, however, have had a somewhat compromised experience of trust since our parents were mostly trustworthy, but sometimes failed us. A few of us were so betrayed and abused – traumatized early and often in life – that we lost our ability to trust appropriately and reliably. Our adult relationships then might seem like one long episode of post-traumatic stress.
Eric was not in the latter category, but he had been disappointed enough in childhood and adulthood that he became extremely cautious of trusting others. Since part of trust involves risk, extreme caution usually means not trusting or extending highly conditional trust (which rarely delivers the deep connection we desire).
Deep connection – being part of a bond of trust – has two components: (1) being trustworthy (the part we think of the most – and usually questioning ‘other people’s’ trustworthiness; and (2) cultivating and maintaining ‘trust-ability.’ This second part is actually more rare since it requires us to do the hard work of processing all the little (and big) betrayals we’ve encountered in life.
Does this describe you (even more than you’d like or at certain tender periods of your life)? Does it describe those you know? People at work? The Church?
Sure it does. Because all of this is part of being human. And we’re all human.
This month, we’re going to talk about trust. Because deep connection depends on trust. And any concerted plan relying on the interdependent commitment of a diverse array of people depends on maintaining a deep connection.
When people invite you to connect; to talk about what you dream; about and what has broken your heart, take a risk. Make room in your life. Trust there is a path. And that you can walk it.
To the Glory of Life.
To the Glory of Life: Possibility
Dear Friends,
If you’re like most human beings looking at the planet right now – or, even, just our little part of it – and you’ve experienced the sad frustration of intractability, you are who I am writing to now.
We live in a time of both inexhaustible potential – in terms of innovation, technology, intelligence and experience – and inexhaustible need. Somewhere, in the melding of these two realities, is the exciting realm of possibility. If you’ve ever wondered why, in the boundless array of opportunity before us, we fail to make the difference that is within us to make, you know the primary conundrum of the 21stcentury. To successfully answer what has brought the last few generations to stagnation, and prevents the next few generations from moving forward, we have to understand the art of possibility.
Consider this story about a shoe factory that sends two independent marketing scouts to a region of Africa. They wish to study the prospects for expanding business. One scout sends back a telegram saying,
SITUATION HOPELESS – STOP – NO ONE WEARS SHOES
The other – on the same day, in the same region – writes back triumphantly,
GLORIOUS BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY – STOP – THEY HAVE NO SHOES”
The theme of the month for January is ‘Possibility,’ and I can think of no more important or appropriate a topic for us to ponder as a church community who is re-examining its place and purpose in this new and unprecedented time in social, civil and global evolution.
I want to draw a little bit from a book written by Ben and Roz Zander about 15 years ago called the Art of Possibility. In it, they emphasize the importance for anyone who wants to have a relevant impact in an age of intractability, of letting go of what led you to a stuck place in order to pick up what will get you out. In other words, once you find yourself well over your head in a deep hole, it’s time to put down the shovel and look for what points ‘UP and out’ instead of what directed you to the ‘DOWN and out’ place you’re in.
To do this requires one of the easiest and most obvious – as well as illusive and hardest – changes: to recognize and let go of the agenda behind stuckness. The reason this is hard and doesn’t happen easily is because it’s so difficult to admit – or even recognize – we have an agenda in the first place. Agendas are often quite unconscious to the owner. And an unconscious agenda is often the greatest obstacle to moving forward.
Agendas – especially the unconscious kind – are often built using old unexamined hurts and fears assembled together to protect us from further pain. This is quite understandable. But it is often difficult to ‘protect’ and ‘perceive’ at the same time. A mind in ‘protection’ mode will only recognize a small bandwidth of available information to incorporate into problem solving. And keen, open perception – even information that, at first, seems uncomfortable – usually proves essential in constructing a solution with wide relevance.
The framing that comes from our minds can both define – and confine – perceptions of possibility. That crucial first glance where we project confidence and invitation – or doubt and obstruction – can allow something to appear inevitable or impossible depending on the framing we provide. Creative and open framing of data causes many problems to vanish and new opportunities to appear
The UUSM board is working really hard at framing new ways to see beyond old stuck-ness. They are casting a vision that allows groups new ways to apply energy previously lost to confusion, old assumptions, hurt or distrust. They are setting goals and re-imagining every task so that everyone knows what ‘done would look like
And it’s not just for us here at the church. It’s so we, collectively, can be about the important work of bringing together Love and Leadership so as to create Justice. It’s so we can be about our mission of helping the world around us get unstuck. And so we can all move beyond old agendas and embark upon new possibilities.
To the Glory of Life.
To the Glory of Life: About “Mystery”
Dear Friends,
Has anyone noticed? It feels like we’re a little off-center! And it’s our off-centeredness that’s being reflected in the faces of the people… that’s why it’s dark and we’re all bundled up tight, bracing ourselves against the coldness all around us.
I’m talking about our planet being tilted on it’s axis and facing away from the sun. Our tilt – our off-centered-ness is, of course, the reason we have seasons. It’s why we have more darkness. Why this time is a time of coldness.
But you might have also thought I was talking about our political climate, rather than our seasonal, northern hemisphere climate. Because, if we were honest, we’d admit it’s true – we’re a little off-centered with one another too. A little tilted, facing away from each other. The anger and pain and hunger of the world is a lot to bear. We’re abound in a mystery and know not how to respond. It’s a mystery that leaves us questioning one another’s intentions… questioning our own… wondering what we could do. Unsure if we have what’s really needed… or enough.
There is a story written by the Director of Religious Education (Dawn-Star Sarahs-Borchelt) of Mainline UU in Devon, PA. that was shared with me this week. I thought it well worth passing on.
Once upon a time there was a family. Maybe this family had not quite enough to eat. Or maybe they had just about enough. Or … perhaps they had MORE than enough.
You might not have been able to tell. THEY might not have been able to tell. Sometimes it’s hard to tell if you have enough or not. It’s hard not to want more or different things than you have.
In any case, this family came together one autumn day for a celebration. A feast. A time of gratitude.
They gathered, as we have done, around a table. There was food. There was drink. There were flowers to remind them of beauty.
And then there was a call from the gate outside their door.
“Hello! We’re hungry and thirsty and we see you have a feast. May we come in?”
Well, the family didn’t know at first how to answer.
Who were these people at the gate? Was it safe to let them in? ‘Do we have enough?’ they asked. ‘Was there room?’
But they remembered. They remembered that most of them had come to this family, to this celebration, from someplace else.
They remembered that even they, who were there at that table, had not always been kind to each other. There had been times when they hurt each other. When they turned away, sad or angry or afraid. There is no way to make life completely safe.
They remembered times when others had shared with them, even when the others might not have had quite enough of their own.
They remembered when each new member of the family had been born, or come to stay, or married in. They remembered that they had always found a way to make room.
And they remembered an old, old saying: when you have more than you need, it is better to find a longer table than to build a higher fence.
We have enough, they said. We might have more than enough. We are many, and strong, and we can hold a safe space here in our home for all who come.
And so they went out of their door and to the gate. They opened it wide. They invited the people who were there in. Inside, they pulled out another table and made the space for newcomers. They covered it with a cloth. And the newcomers set upon it a dish full of something fragrant and delicious which was strange and wonderful to the family. Everybody shared. And there was enough.
I want us to notice that we only heard one part of that story. We heard the story of the people who were in the family in the house, ready to feast. We didn’t hear the story of the people at the gate, wanting to come in. We don’t know who they are or why they are there or what they bring to the table other than the strange and wonderful food! So when you hear other stories this Thanksgiving season, I want you to think about whose stories they are. And whose stories they aren’t. And what those other stories might have been.
This season of darkness is only upon us because we are tilted away from the light. And in our off-centeredness, the abounding mystery of such a season feels foreboding instead of ripe with possibility. When we respond from a place of fear, it’s hard to recognize what is inevitably true: we do, indeed, have room. In fact, if we just squeezed together a little, we might be close enough to hear the choir of angels singing. Reminding us that even a tyrant’s cold and callous hand cannot suppress the light of people called together.
To the Glory of Life.
To the Glory of Life
THEME OF THE MONTH: MEMORY
Dear Friends,
My religion is a good memory. And it’s come to me, a bit at a time. Scraps of synaptic data carefully culled together. There is an art to it that I admire. I liken a good memory to what painters or sculptors, or musicians or gardeners try to do: be as true as they can to the medium in which they’re working. Like artists, I want to work with what I’ve got and capture it honestly. If it’s bad, then paint it to look bad. If it’s confusing or chaotic or romantic or selfish or exciting or sublime, give it that shape by fitting together the parts strewn along the path I’ve taken. Do it in a way that others – years from now – will know my life in all its nuance and complexity. And when I compose the soundtrack, make sure it has whatever soul-stirring melody as well as that dissonant screaming solo. If it still puts a lump in my throat or opens my eyes in the middle of a dream, I want to make sure that’s the way I write it in the score. I believe if I want anyone to truly know and fully appreciate me, or – more importantly – accept, love and respect me, then I need the integrity to make sure my memory is photographically accurate. I hope they’ll see that I tried to turn the picture and get multiple frames of reference as I went.
I’ve discovered that having a good memory is not convenient. Or comfortable. And where, in the past, I’ve failed to be careful carrying out attention to detail, I was often left with random images and fragments that had lost sequence with my other memories. The parts that don’t integrate – where edges don’t match, or the terrain goes from rough to smooth too easily and characters appear or disappear without explanation – these things bother a good memory.
When I was a little boy, I put comfort in charge of my memory. It wasn’t until years later, with hindsight, I figured out this was a mistake. Comfort only liked to save the bits where I looked good: where I was handed the trophy in Little League, or received mentions in the school paper, or the got all As on report cards. The problem with this turned out to be that all my report cards were just clips and fragments because I had clipped out all the parts in the commentary, the re-marks under the ‘high-marks’, where my teacher wondered why I talked so much during lessons or could never remember my homework.
The hardest thing about putting comfort in charge was all the things it couldn’t explain. I didn’t realize until later that Trauma and Shame had keys to the room where my memories were stored. They left things, often just by painting them on the walls (so they couldn’t be removed). At the time I chalked it up to vandalism. Those things were so out of place! They weren’t me! What I failed to account for was how compulsive and round the clock comfort was working to hide or bury anything that disagreed with its editorial content. Comfort often posted and ‘liked’ submissions of food, and it put out countless calls for content to run like advertisements. It especially sought episodes of reckless adventure. Or manufactured intimacy (a cheap knock-off of Love) which I began to feel obliged to provide.
When there weren’t enough comfort-approved entries in my memory to cover things left by trauma or shame, a group was formed called the Perfection Committee. Their job was to denounce anything submitted by anyone other than comfort. And a consortium was created from two partners – Addictions Inc. – which organized stealthy, impulsive expeditions to pursue pleasure and comfort, and Confabulation Enterprises, whose job it was to dress up ordinary and mundane entries to look better than they were. Unfortunately, the work of the Consortium wasn’t careful and kept getting reported to Wasted Time Management, a division of Self-Loathing.
Eventually, a very expensive team was brought in called Worth and Dignity Unlimited. They insisted on going through everything ever submitted to memory. They dug out things that had been mislabeled, had never been filed, or simply weren’t remembered correctly. They studied every single submission with the goal of not filing it until it was fully understood, accepted, and appreciated. After a few years working with them, they provided integrity. All the rough edges started to fit together. Fewer and fewer gaps or discrepancies appeared and a useful map began to come into view.
The Dali Lama says his religion is kindness. We’re on the same page because I believe a good memory IS kindness. At least, integrity is an indispensable step toward it, because in order to reveal kindness around us, we need to feel it within us. Who we are and what we know becomes what we show and what we do. If we lie to ourselves, we lie to others. But we can never really fool anyone.
What we’re seeing all around our culture, with claims of “fake news”, compiling contradictions, and playing fast and loose with facts, is simply a failure to integrate our internal reality with the world around us. It is the result of having our own memory managed in chaotic fashion, which leads to a surplus of internal loathing that breaks all containment and spills out in a flood of loathing unto the world.
I like this quote in our hymnal by Thoreau. I especially like substituting the word “truth” for “life”.
“I did not wish to live what was not [truth], living is so dear; nor did I wish to practice resignation, unless it was quite necessary. I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of [truth], to live so… as to put to rout all that was not [truth], to cut a broad swath and shave close, to drive [truth] into a corner, and reduce it to its lowest terms, and, if it proved to be mean, why then to get the whole and genuine meanness of it, and publish its meanness to the world; or if it were sublime, to know it by experience, and be able to give a true account of it in my next excursion.”
I call us all to the religion of kindness and integrity – of making truth from our life, because that is what religion asks us to do. It asks us to see that it is not always comfortable. Turning trauma and shame into something we can accept and appreciate requires the transformative power of love, and it requires the amazing company of people who know it is not addiction or confabulation that make life what we want. It is acceptance, understanding, and the truth of our word and deed. When we do this in our memory, then what comes from our lives will always lead us with integrity.
To the Glory of Life.
To the Glory of Life: About “Sanctuary”
Dear Friends,
I want to tell you about “sanctuary” – our theme of the month.
And, to do that, I invite you to listen to this song by UU singer/songwriter Peter Mayer. If you haven’t heard of him, he wrote one of the favorite hymns in our new teal hymnal, “Blue Boat Home”. But this is a different song; instead of being about someone who’s grateful to be free on the open water, it’s about chance. A roll of the dice and coming up on the short side of the odds. It’s a song that calls us to a new way of seeing, a new way of being accepting and accepted – welcomed. It’s called, “Nobody Asks.”
And it’s worth reading the lyrics as you listen…
Nobody asks to be born
They just show up one day at life’s door
They say, “here I am world, I’m a boy… I’m a girl
I am rich, I am sick, I am poor”
Nobody asks to be born
No one is given a say
They’re just thrown straight into the fray
The bell rings, it rings sire, and someone yells fire
Some just end up on the floor
Nobody asks to be born
No one’s assured of a grade on the curve
Or a friend they can trust or a house where they’re loved
And no life includes a book of “how-to’s”
Because nobody has lived it before
So to all the living be kind
Bless the saint and the sinner alike
And when babies arrive with their unholy cries
Don’t be surprised by their scorn
‘Cause nobody asks to be born.
No, nobody asks to be born. And yet here we are. Arriving by the millions, every day. We show up and check into the room that was pre-reserved for us. If it’s in the top 1%, it can be pretty sweet – all we need is right in front of us. Even the top 10%… or 20%… is incredibly good. Lots of perks and advantages. But truth to tell, anything above the bottom 30% is usually okay. We learn to be resilient, adaptable and creative.
But for the lower 20%, it can be pretty hard. Down in this range, everything is a crapshoot. Food… water… shelter… safety… Even basic things, like whether or not we have a parent who cares.
I grew up somewhere in the middle. And still, I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t had places to turn when what I needed was suddenly nowhere to be found. The place I went most often – the place my family took me when we were running low – was church.
At church there was music and there were games played together. People who asked you how you were, and who listened no matter what you said. At church people seemed nicer than the people at my school – friendlier than on my street or at the store. Even my family was kinder when we were at church. And sometimes there were donuts.
As a small boy, starting out, I felt overwhelmed and under-prepared. I had a lot of uncertainty about the world. Without church, I wouldn’t have found the salve for growing pains, removed the chips on my shoulder, or learned to be kind. All that came from being part of others’ lives. Being “born again” in a place where I wasn’t so all alone.
From the Latin, sanctuarium, we get the suffix “-arium”: a container for keeping something sacred or safe. And the prefix, “sancti”: something holy or cherished. When I was most unsure, with nowhere to turn, I was cherished in a safe place. Sanctuary.
But it’s different for the bottom 10%. Children born in peril. Families displaced by war.
The Sanctuary movement was a religious response to the tragedy of the early 1980s. The US provided safe respite to Central American refugees fleeing civil war. Today it has become a compassionate alternative to heartless immigration policies.
Last month the US set the lowest refugee resettlement allowance (30,000) since the paranoia following 9/11 – despite 25 million people being displaced worldwide by violence or war. Some churches choose to become “Sanctuary Congregations,” giving sanctuary – a container of beneficence – to families who would otherwise be separated and deported.
I’m not suggesting that UUSM do this, but I do believe we can recognize the pain and alienation people are feeling today – no matter what class they were born into. I do think we can welcome every single person who comes to us with kindness and compassion, no matter the color of their skin, or the language they speak and the rituals they learn soon after.
The things that divide us are so artificial and unnecessary. They create a strata of class and privilege out of race, gender, culture and class. But all of that disappears in a true sanctuary. Because in a true sanctuary, inherent worth is what guides everything.
To the Glory of Life.
To the Glory of Life
Dear Friends:
I glanced at the news as I sat down to write this article on “vision” and noticed an interesting headline on my newsfeed: “Church Pastor Struck by Lightning.”
“Okay,” I thought, looking heavenward to the great global newsfeed. “You have my attention.”
Turns out, on August 13, in Alabama, immediately after Sunday services, Pastor Ricky Adams of Argo Church of God was struck by lightning just as he was leaving and locking the church doors. Pastor Adams explained it as “God had his hands on me.”
Suddenly, I was curious. Was this a hoax? “Fake news?” Nope. Corroborated by all the papers and news stations. So, I next wondered how many times this happens. A lot, it turns out.
On July 1, 2003, lightning struck the First Baptist Church in Forest, OH. And it happened during church. DURING THE SERMON. Kid you not. Snopes verified.
“It was awesome, just awesome,” said church member Ronnie Cheney. “You could hear the storm building outside and Pastor Hardman (a guest preacher from Virginia) just kept asking God what else he needed to say.” “God’s voice often sounds like thunder,” Hardman preached. “That’s right, God! We hear you!” And then — KA-POW! — Lightning struck the church’s steeple. From the back row, Erick Smith saw sparks traveling from the belt pack to his head mic on the wireless system. “He was asking for a sign and he got one,” Cheney said.
Later that summer, lightning struck another church close to Forest. That one burned to the ground, which led one local reporter to quip that the memorable July strike on Forest Baptist Church was merely “God’s practice throw.”
Of course, that’s not true. Natural disasters, contrary to claims by fundamentalists as a sign of God, are leverage for neither pastors nor politicians. As much as I wanted to say that lightning would strike a pastor for locking his church or having the hubris to assume God is speaking directly to – or for – them, it doesn’t work like that. God doesn’t strike churches with lightning to make a point any more than God pushed Katrina to landfall.
Why? Because that’s not the way “vision” is transmitted. Unlike lightning, vision doesn’t come in a flash and isn’t usually limited to one person.
Real vision, like lightning, comes from a place that’s charged up. And it seeks to connect with something receptive to that charge. Real vision looks to share energy with what is truly grounded around it. Real vision, like lightning, brightens the landscape and shines light on what were once shadows.
If you’re waiting for lightning to strike here, in Santa Monica, I need you to understand this: in churches like ours, it doesn’t happen that way. In churches like ours, energy comes OUT of the church. And usually not from the pulpit. It comes from the pews.
It’s time UUSM uncovered its lightning in a bottle. Then, throw away the bottle (in a recycling bin, of course). It’s only when we’re grounded and connected and focus on making magic with the world that we will truly harness our vision.
To the glory of life.
— The Rev. Greg Ward