The "I" and the Room

May 28, 1967
Plainfield

The "I" and the Room

Faust said,

"All hearts that beat beneath the heavenly day —
Each in its language — say:
The same thing in all places,
Then why not I, in mine, as well?"

Why speculate about the origin and nature of men in life and life in man? Why do not I proceed immediately to offering my views on who Unitarians and Universalists are, according to the Goals Committee Report; and what Unitarians and Universalists believe their local churches and fellowships should be and do? Why not immediately "point with pride" or "view with alarm?" Because basic belief makes a difference in the character and intensity of opinion, I would speak with you about the "I" and the Room, a phrase which will be explained.

While I am aware of floundering as I attempt to say that which essentially is too deep for words, I attach importance to your becoming aware that much as I value the Unitarian Universalist Association as the basis of my professional qualifications and the continental organization of our wider movement, the U.U.A. is neither the center nor the cause of my religious loyalty. Much as I value the privilege of serving as minister of this Unitarian Society from which I receive my income and occupational fulfillment, this organization is not the center or cause of my religious loyalty. Gordon Allport, the Harvard social-psychologist wrote sentences (BECOMING, p.95) which illuminate my condition:

"Every man whether he is religiously inclined or not, has his own ultimate pre-suppositions. He finds he cannot live his life without them, and for him they are true. Such presuppositions, whether they be called ideologies, philosophies, notions, or merely hunches about life, exert creative pressure upon nearly all of a man's conduct."

In one of my first sermons here I said that we live in a universe of constant creativity. Greater marvel still, we are conscious of this creativity which is immersed in cosmic mystery. This fundamental pre-supposition I still maintain, although clear explanation is difficult for me.

The gods that have been named and worshiped have origins born of human needs, wishes, aspirations, vanities. "The God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob, "the Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ", the clockmaker God of the Deists, these and others are deities which stir my interest but do not lead me to worship. All popular and well-described gods are created by cultures and therefore limited by those cultures. In my time I have been captivated by Gandhi's aphorism that once he believed that God was Truth but came to believe that Truth was God. But such a theology becomes a tumbleweed too when one recognizes that Truth is relative to knowledge, Time, place, culture, circumstance, semantics, subject to the same qualifications we can make about all other gods.

But something else, although I believe it, I have no expectations of convincing the unconvinced that behind all the veils of our roles and goals and illusory perceptions there is a creativity of such stunning force and magnitude that indeed one could speak the word "God" with awe and reverence were it not that all the half-gods have robbed the title of its majesty and depth. Intellectually I know of no argument for this constant creativity that cannot be refuted. Emotionally, I feel with the philosopher that the "heart has; reasons the reason knows not of."

Analogies are always shaky, but the imagery used by the late C. S. Lewis in his little book, BEYOND THE BRIGHT BLUR helped me in this difficult area of merged feeling/understanding, where if one cannot get through on a verbal basis, he probably fails to communicate adequately. (Parenthetically, in many of his better-known writings, Lewis argued for a particular Christian interpretation; and there I respond only negatively.) But here are some of his words from BEYOND THE BRIGHT BLUR:

"What happens to me if I try to take it – "simply", is the juxtaposition of two "representations" or ideas or phantoms. One is the bright blur in the mind which stands for God. The other is the idea I call "me". But I can't leave it at that, because I know – and it's useless to pretend I don't know – that they are both phantasmal. The real I has created them both – or, rather built them up in the vaguest way from all sorts of psychological odds and ends.

"Very often, paradoxically, the first step is to banish the "bright blur" – or, in statelier language, to break the idol. Let's get back to what has at least some degree of resistant reality. Here are the four walls of the room. And here am I. But both terms are merely the facade of impenetrable mysteries.

"The walls, they say, are matter. That is, as the physicists will try to tell me, something totally unimaginable, only mathematically describable, existing in a curved space, charged with appalling energies. If I could penetrate far enough into that mystery I should perhaps finally reach what is sheerly real.

"And what am I? The facade is what I call consciousness. I am at least conscious of the colour of those walls. I am not, in the same way, or to the same degree, conscious of what I call my thoughts; for if I try to examine what happens when I am thinking, it stops happening. Yet even if I could examine my thinking, it would, I well know, turn out to be the thinnest possible film on the surface of a vast deep. The psychologists have taught us that. Their real error lies in underestimating the depth and the variety of its contents. Dazzling lightness as well as dark clouds come up. And if all the enchanting visions are, as they rashly claim, mere disguises for sex, where lives the hidden artist who, from such monotonous and claustrophobic material, can make works of such various and liberating art? And depths of time too. All my past; my ancestral past; perhaps my prehuman past.”

(C) 1963 by the Estate of C. S. Lewis. Reprinted from LETTERS TO MALCOLM: CHIEFLY ON PRAYER by C. S. Lewis by permission of Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc.

"Here again, if I could dive deeply enough, I might again reach at the bottom that which simply is.

"And only now am I ready, in my own fashion to "place myself in the presence of God." Either mystery, if I could follow it far enough, would lead me to the same point – the point where something, in each case unimaginable, leaps forth from God's naked hand. The Indian, looking at the material world says, "I am that." I say, "That and I grow from one root." Verbum superne prodiens, the Word coming forth from the Father, has made both, and brought them together in this subject-object embrace.

"And what, you ask, is the advantage of all this? Well, for me – I am not talking about anyone else – it plants the prayer right in the present reality. For, whatever else is or is not real, this momentary confrontation of subject and object is certainly occurring; always occurring except when I am sleep. Here is the actual meeting of God's activity and man's – not some imaginary meeting that might occur if I were an angel or if God incarnate entered the room. There is here no question of a God "up there" or "out there"; rather, the present operation of God, "in here", as the ground of my own being, and God "in there," as the ground of the matter that surrounds me, and God embracing and uniting both in the daily miracle of finite consciousness.

"The two facades – the "I" as I perceive myself and the room as I perceive it – were obstacles as long as I mistook them for ultimate realities. But the moment I recognized them as facades, as mere surfaces, they became conductors. Do you see? A lie is a delusion only so long as we believe it; but a recognized lie is a reality – a real lie – and as such may be highly instructive. A dream ceases to be a delusion as soon as we wake. But it does not become a nonentity. It is a real dream: and it also may be instructive. A stage set is not a real wood or drawing room: it is a real stage set, and may be a good one. (In fact we should never ask of anything "Is it real?," for everything is real. The proper question is "A real what?," e.g., a real snake or real delirium tremens?) The objects around me, and my idea of "me", will deceive if taken at their face value. But they are momentous if taken as the end-products of divine activities. Thus and not otherwise, the creation of matter and the creation of mind meet one another and the circuit is closed."

FIRST, who am I? (Not the e-y-e but the I) Who is this self, conscious of speaking to you, conscious of the room in which we are? Ever since Freud and continuing with his successors, we know that this question not only requires extremely complex, qualified answers, but also no answer suffices fully.

Each of us in his separateness of the "I" has his social roles and goals. We are individual persons, each one of us. We should remember too that "person" is from the Greek persona – he who wears a mask, as on the ancient stage, the player held the mask in front of his face as the lines were delivered.

Freud and his successors have taught us how much of our actions and apparent motives are rationalizations and re-directions of primitive energies and hungers, which if expressed, will be punished by the human social order by disapproving us, restraining us or rejecting us – and these are painful experiences.

Underneath the "I" we present to those we meet there are undisclosed feelings bubbling and seeking the surface – loneliness, hunger, anxiety, guilt, fear of old age, fear of death, a yen for experiences which Society labels "forbidden."

Sometimes when our feelings fracture the roles and goals, our social functioning is impaired. Impaired or malfunctioning in the manner Society expects, that is. Then, perhaps, we counsel with a psychologist, psychiatrist or analyst. Under his professional guidance we may get an insight into the manner in which our turbulent, rascal emotions have been the cause of disorder in our patterns of behavior or the cause of our going astray from the recognized, acceptable paths of social conventions.

But even in an age such as ours when knowledge advances and formulas are fashionable; when case studies are analyzed to arrive at "correct" interpretations, the fundamental question, "Who am I?" is not fully answered. The most thorough analysis never fully explains the self. Even when Society takes our tumbled feelings, sorts them out and impresses on us a proper direction for our roles and goals, there is underlying, basic force, eternally creating, which vitally charges with life that which is the "I". Important to me is that I am part of this creative nucleus, enlivened and articulated by it; and that to it I shall return. I like the way Alan Watts phrased it in THE BOOK, "We do not come into this world; we come out of it as leaves from a tree. As the ocean 'waves', the universe 'peoples'".

There is a wooden, novelty toy of eggs within eggs. Beginning at the size of a hen's egg, the separation of each successive surface reveals another egg, with the innermost being rather tiny, but carved and shaped as the outermost. I believe the basic stuff of human life is not an empty void, as one encounters eventually after opening wooden egg after egg, finally arriving at emptiness. Rather that which is at center after all the husks are peeled is a basic force, creating eternally. Such a force is the fibre of my origin and destiny, and yours. The poet helps me more than scientist or philosopher to understand who I am and who you are. Lines such as Richard Eberhart's in "The Incomparable Light":

"Elusive element, final mystery,
The light beyond compare has been my visitant,
Some sort of angel sometimes at my shoulder,
A beckoning guide, elusive nevertheless,
Under the mind where currents of being are running.
It is this strange light I come back to.
Agent of truth, protean, a radical of time."

SECOND - In addition to "I", there is the Room. There is reality external to Self. Reality is not only the self and its many layers but also the Room is real. The four walls are there. But like the self, there is much more than paint, wood, metal, glass and fabric.

During the Denver meetings, several of us took a day to sightsee in the Colorado Springs area, including the famous Garden of the Gods where reddish Colorado Sandstone appears in various, striking forms. To the human eye, there is a rock formation like unto two kissing camels; there is Steamboat Rock, shaped like the bow of a vessel and from which one has a superb view of Pike's Peak; there is Balancing Rock where a great mass seemingly is delicately poised on a thin edge.

But these jagged points and shaped forms were not fashioned to be kissing camels, steamboats or balancing rocks. For millions of years, great forces of heat and pressure beneath the crust of Earth were fracturing, folding, submerging, uplifting the accumulated deposits of incredibly ancient rivers and seas. When mountains and rocks were thrust into the atmosphere, wind, sand, water, freezing and thawing and other erosive forces wore away the rocks, sculptured the mountains, created the river valleys.

Our fine scenic experience was just one aspect of reality, for the creation forces are still engaged in change, even though that change is so slow in the human time-scheme that little if any change could have been noted in Balancing Rock from the earliest man to the latest tourist. The room is real, but just as real are the dynamic forces of everlasting energy.

The physicists instruct us that what appears to be solid is really a form of energy. Molecular structures are complex, with elements of different atomic weights active in their orbits. I'm told that more advanced studies have made the planetary model suggested by Niels Bohr somewhat dated, but it is illustrative. The atomic nucleus corresponds to the Sun, and the electrons correspond to the planets moving in orbit.

The reality of the Room is more than the appearance. We peel off layers of various realities. Yet we may not soon get more basic than to say that at the core of external reality are positive arid negative discharges of electricity. Which would be instructive if we knew what electricity was, really.

CONCLUSION – Which brings me to an attempt to summarize my feelings about these basic mysteries of the "I" and the "Room," of the Self and the Other. Without being able to present any evidence which would be persuasive to those who insist on tested assumptions, I believe that the same ultimate, creative force is the dimension of depth in Self and the dimension of depth in all that is not Self. In this, I certainly am not a rationalist for what I have been speaking about is not verifiable discourse.

But when I speak of the folly and cruelties of war, of the need for rights to be established for all people, everywhere, of the need to understand our conflicts, and other issues of a given day, such views are advanced not only for the cause in its own right, justified by that alone, but also because this Creationist Force is somehow involved when a person makes a serious commitment. Of course human values are established by human culture. Of course there is considerable relativism in manners and morals in different time, place, circumstance. Of course many persons with clearer insight into issues and greater courage than I would consider rubbish this feeling for a Creationist Force. Like Jacob, no one may wrestle with this "bright blur" without thereafter walking with a limp, figuratively. Sometimes I feel the mood which grasped Francis Thompson, poet-mystic, when he created the "Hound of Heaven":

"I dimly guess what
Time in mist confounds;
Yet ever and anon a trumpet sounds
From the hid battlements of Eternity;
Those shaken mists awhile unsettle, then
Round the half-glimpsed turrets slowly wash again."

What the poet describes as "the trumpet sounds", Maslow, the psychologist would call peak experiences. When this happens, we have broken through the crust of Self or Other or both. The interpretations we give these experiences not only differ because of the unlike complexities of individual layers of Self, but also words are inadequate, although they may be the best effort we can make in an age such as ours Alfred North Whitehead was more eloquent than most of us when he wrote (quoted by Margaret Isherwood, FAITH WITHOUT DOGMA, p. 102), " This creative principle is everywhere, in animate and so-called inanimate matter, in the ether, water, earth, human hearts. But the creation is a continuing process, and the process itself is the actuality since no sooner do you arrive than you start on a fresh journey."

Closing Words from Rainer Maria Rilke, 1875-1926 (quoted in THE UNIVERSAL GOD, p. 13):

"All those who seek Thee tempt Thee,
And those who find would bind Thee
To gesture and form.

"But I would comprehend Thee
As the wide Earth enfolds Thee.
Thou growest with my maturity,
Thou art in calm and storm.

"I ask of Thee no vanity
To evidence and prove Thee.
Thou wert in aeons old.
Perform no miracles for me,
But justify Thy laws to to me –
Which as the years pass by me,
All soundlessly unfold."

Religion is...

April 30, 1967
Plainfield

Religion is...

Religion is what? As those news items described it in Kankakee, San Francisco, Gainesville? This sermon is the first in a series, not necessarily consecutive, intended to be my response to the "Report of the Committee on Goals of the Unitarian Universalist Association." Although to begin the series by dealing with definitions may seem elementary to some of you, my view is that to deal with superstructures and future alterations without inspecting foundations is not only poor architecture but also poor churchmanship.

Would you define religion as "the feeling of absolute dependence on the divine?" I would not, although that was a popular definition coined by Schliermacher, a famous 19th century German theologian.

Would you define religion as "a belief in an everlasting God, that is divine mind and will, ruling the Universe and holding moral relations with man?" That was the affirmation of James Martineau, 19th Century English Unitarian minister and philosopher, but his definition would not be accepted by a majority of 20th century Unitarians who find Martineau’s definition no longer sufficient or precise.

There are many who would respond still to Matthew Arnold who wrote that "religion is morality touched with emotion," but there are more who would assert that such a definition omits much.

Definitions of religion are almost as countless as autos on an expressway. For this reason, the Committee on Goals considered findings in the framework of the definition of religion proposed by the Study Commissions of a few years ago (p. 23 THE FREE CHURCH AND THE CHANGING WORLD), "we are taking religion to be the way in which men in community personally relate to express or symbolize that which gives meaning to their lives and which is ultimately most significant for sustaining their being."

This is an excellent working definition for coming to grips with the question of what religion is, but the definition is vague enough so that persons could commit the error of glossing over real differences. I find myself somewhat confused by the phrase, "the way in which men in community personally relate." Does this propose that men bring their personal convictions to be shared with others so that the community may whittle out a minimum consensus – pare off differences to find the core beliefs which are common to all? In such a search for commonality is there likely to be discovered only banality?

From the newsletter of another Unitarian Church, I clipped the following Bertrand Russell anecdote. Russell went to jail for his pacifism during the First World War. When asked to fill in his religious denomination he wrote, "agnostic." The warden looked at the information and remarked, "I don't know what religion that is, but it doesn't matter since we all worship the same God." Russell later added in his memoirs, "that remark kept me happy for a week."

In our search for significant reasons to be together in a religious society, we should recognize our diversities frankly, for authentic unity must be more than a strained affability which conceals important differences. More than one of us, perhaps everyone of us, often enough makes the error of putting higher value on congeniality than candor in the mistaken belief that politeness requires evasiveness. One can be forthright and polite.

This may be a cultural fault of our times. Jules Pfeiffer, the provocative cartoonist, wrote a play which opened earlier this week and closed last night. In what may have been a prediction of what would happen to the play, Pfeiffer said he would try to get away from the monotonous expectations which seem to create a successful play. He wrote (NYT Drama Section, 4/23/67),

“Axiomatic in the Theatre of Counter-revolt is that you can say anything you want to say, if, by the end of the evening, you've made clear that you haven't really said it. Rebels must learn that issues aren't as simple as they think. Blacks and Whites must learn that, beneath their masks of hate, lies brotherly love. Parents must learn to be patient with nonconformist children for they are certain to sell out. Erring husbands must learn that extra-marital affairs can never become meaningful relationships. Pregnant teenagers must learn that sex is always for grownups and in any case a mistake. Wives must learn that deep down men are just little boys and women wouldn’t want them any other way. And audiences must learn that it is not enough to allow themselves to be asked questions; they must be given false answers."

Perhaps Pfeiffer exaggerated the devious roles that playwrights and playgoers impose on each other; perhaps he overdoes the critique of current modes and manners. But as we consider over the months the issues that are identified in the Goals Report, I hope we will not make the error of glossing over what are real diversities or assuming that the only possible unities must be contained in vague ambiguities.

This is a formidable assignment, for a person's religion is much more than the intellectual content of propositions he believes. This diversity was well stated by Grensted in his PSYCHOLOGY OF RELIGION (p. 8). Before attempting to explain the way I think definitions of religion must be understood, let me read his analysis. You may find yourself fitting into one rather than another of his categories:

“...what religion means... For one it would mean a few conventional practices, with going to church and, possibly, saying one’s prayers, as the most general. For another it would mean a life of active and unselfish well-doing. In both these cases religion would be defined in terms of action. But when we turn to another of our friends, we should find, if we could persuade him to speak, that though these active aspects of religion are not denied, they are for him only superficial. Religion has the character of a deep inner sense of communion, carrying with it implications of guidance and security, and giving meaning to the whole of life. All this, to yet another friend, would be incomplete and unsatisfying because it leaves out of account the necessity for a reasonable faith, shaped into a known and accepted creed or system of beliefs, and resting upon a recognized authority, a tradition, a scripture or a Church.

“It will be noted that these correspond neatly with one of the simplest analyses of human nature, that which breaks it up into the trinity of action, feeling and knowledge.”

Action without feeling and knowledge, or feeling without action and knowledge, or knowledge without action and feeling are all impoverished views of what religion is, even though we may be deficient frequently in our feeling or our actions or our knowledge.

To me religion represents a search for meaning, a grasp of perspective and a sense of direction. It is in the dimensions of meaning, perspective, and direction that I shall respond to the numerous assertions found in the statistics and recommendations of the Committee on Goals.

I. One of the needs of every person is to find meaning in human events. Many persons find life baffling, frustrating, cruel, as well as revealing, gratifying and humane. Although our days are helter-skelter and most evenings busy, busy, we should stop now and again between the ring-a-ding of the telephone and the rush to the committee meeting in order to ask ourselves, What's it all about? Why do I believe this is important? What is the true pattern of living into which my strivings can and should be woven harmoniously?

For good or ill, persons who seek out Unitarian Universalist churches and fellowships no longer accept the ancient and accepted theological "Why" about life. The explanation based on the "Fall of Man" and atonement salvation by crucifixion and resurrection presents far more difficulties than it solves. We accept the ancient myths as symbolic poetry, if at all, which is a far cry from embracing the doctrines to explain the "why" of life, death, and the consciousness of the stream of human experience within our knowledge [of] the span of life's beginnings and endings.

Coleridge once translated some lines from Schiller,

"The intelligible forms of ancient poets,
The fair humanities of old religion,
The Power, the Beauty and the Majesty,
That had their haunts in dale, or piny mountain,
Or forest by slow stream, or pebbly spring,
Or chasms and wat'ry depths; all these have vanished.
They live no longer in the faith of reason!
But still the heart doth need a language, still
Doth the old instinct bring back the old name."

We too have such nostalgia at times, but the old and comfortable religious certainties of other ages no longer have validity in a religion of reason except by unreasonable re-interpretation. In a world where the margin of safety grows narrower day by day from extinction in a war that will destroy most people, we need to find meaning in human events today. In a world where unbounded population expansion will soon reach an intolerable level, we need to come to convictions about the meaning of life, why it is valuable, and how to maintain that value. In a world where the old answers irrelevant to the most crucial questions, we need to reflect upon and assign meaning to the origin, maintenance and destiny of human life.

One becomes dated when quoting 19th century Romantics, but I'm one with Robert Browning who said,

"life has meaning,
To find its meaning is my meat and drink."

What is religion – it is the search for meaning.

II. What is religion – it is a grasp of perspective, A sentence in Alfred North Whitehead’s RELIGION IN THE MAKING may stimulate you as it did me: "Progress in truth – truth of science and truth of religion – is mainly a progress in the framing of concepts, in discarding artificial abstractions or partial metaphors, and in evolving notions which strike more deeply into the root of reality." (p. 127)

In discarding concepts, myths, or metaphors which are no longer true or adequate, there must be recognition of perspective. In what kind of total experience are we thinking, feeling, acting? The universe is no longer a three-story structure with heaven above, hell below and earth the midway transfer station where one receives his one-way ticket for up or down. If one talks of origins and destiny, one must be aware of the tentative present conclusions about the complexities of time/space, biology, and geology. One can surmise that we have but scratched the surface and that many other complex scientific disciplines and discoveries will alter or enlarge the perspectives from which we dare assert what religion is and what one's religion should stir him to do.

Just one illustration. Dr. Barry Commoner, eminent biologist in his book, SCIENCE AND SURVIVAL (p.10-11), "Between 1860 and 1960, the combustion of fuels added nearly 14% to the carbon-dioxide content of the air which had until then remained constant for many centuries ... the temperature of the earth is sure to rise as the amount of carbon dioxide in the air increases By the year 2000, the extra heat due to fuel produced carbon dioxide might be sufficient to melt the Antarctic Ice Cap – 4000 years or 400 years (estimates vary). The consequent rise in sea level would be be catastrophe for much of the world's Inhabited land and many of its major cities."

Superknowledge may be more dangerous than superstition unless a more compelling ethic begins to prevail about the use of the world we live in. Stanton Coblentz once wrote (Christian Century, 7/20/66)

"Science, whose trained magician hands dispel
Mysteries noted once in awe and dread,
With rays and atoms weaves a deeper spell
And gives more fearsome mysteries instead."

I, for one, do not find it easy to understand many of the complexities of science, but I do know that one's religion should allow for the ever-changing nature of scientific perspectives. Furthermore, unless one's ethics deals with the consequences of the use of air, water, soil, fossil oils and the organic and plant life of the earth, one's religion will be trivial and antiquarian.

That is just one of the perspectives – for we must also deal with the new perspectives created by increasing awareness of our inner self and how that inner self influences what we see, hear, and understand. Jung suggested the importance of this perspective when he wrote, "In my picture of the world there is a vast outer realm and an equally vast inner realm; between these two stands man, facing now one and now the other, and according to his mood or desperation, taking the one for the absolute truth and sacrificing the other." (quoted by Shorer, BLAKE THE POLITICS OF VISION, p. 39)

What is religion – it is an effort to comprehend perspectives.

III. Religion is a sense of direction. In addition to finding meaning and allowing for the perspectives of NOW in order to achieve that meaning, one must act in ways coherent with meaning and perspective. One might be acting out a religious meaning if he advocated methods to prohibit men from using battleaxes in war, but the sense of direction would be turned backward. But if one tried to add his strength to the effort to put an end to ways of waging nuclear, chemical or other terrible ways of modern war, he would be headed in the direction where issues today are real, are puzzling, are contentious, and where following the direction of one's religious beliefs can be costly, personally. Kierkegaard wrote, “Life can only be understood backward, but it must be lived forward.”

There are millions of persons outside the churches. There are probably innumerable reasons for their absence, but if one listens, then one of the principal objections consists of doubt that organized religion has much power to make ideals real. Alan Watts, in THE BOOK has a verse that can be an allegory about this age-old debate of the nature of religion:

"The man behind the microscope
Has this advice for you
Instead of asking what it is,
Just ask, 'what does it do?"'

In the process by which one becomes religious by one’s own definition, one forms certain standards or beliefs or principles. If these standards have any significance, one does something about it – one may pray, sing, meditate, study, listen. One is directed by his real beliefs to acquire certain attitudes and behave in certain ways with other people. (This should not be confused with one's professed beliefs, for frequently there is a wide difference). There are resources. The treasury of religious belief represents a store of wisdom and ways of excellence which must be constantly tested by action in new perspectives – that is, with recognition of the vast changes that are occurring in the modern world wherever you may look.

In our pursuit of correct interpretations and implications of the Committee on Goals, we will inevitably deal with religion in the forms I have suggested – meaning, perspective, direction, and many other ways of classification. As different persons we will respond with unlike intensities of action, knowledge, feeling. Some persons may be alarmed, other may be enthused at what Unitarian religious groups may be like in ten years. We will continue to seek to understand each other, hopefully with good will even when there is sharp disagreement.

But beyond theism, humanism, atheism, agnosticism, beyond the debate about the Church and social action – the group assertion vis-a-vis the individual; beyond hymns or no hymns; beyond these there is a basic question. Unless one has wrestled with this question; reached an answer for himself however tentative and then attempted to live faithfully to that answer, all talk and thought about religion is paltry and unreal. That question is, "Beginning in my home, on my street, in my Church, in my City, in my State, in my nation, in my world, what does it mean and what is required of me to be a decent human being?"

Healed by the Real

April 9, 1967
Plainfield

Healed by the Real

What can persons learn from the findings of a psychiatrist whose work with juvenile delinquent girls led him to discard many of the approved methods of his profession and develop what he calls, "Reality Therapy?" Considerable [insights] can be learned from the book, REALITY THERAPY, by Dr. William Glasser. This sermon is not to be a comparison of one method of psycho-therapy vis-a-vis another – that is for the professionals in the psyciatric field and certainly Glasser's theories are controversial. But quite apart from the fact that I hope and trust that none of us will be in detention in Ventura School and thus experience this method directly, there is considerable human wisdom available for the day-to-day encounters with what life is and how we should deal with experience.

Did you see the cartoon (Christian Science Monitor) where the little boy, depressed, enters the house, saying to mother, "I don’t have any adjustment problems, so the teacher ignores me." Now while if our adjustment problems are seemingly trivial enough so that we feel no need for professional attention, it may also be true that some of the attitudes discovered to be helpful for the ill may provide direction for persons who are well.

The foundation on which Dr. Glasser constructs his method is both simply stated and profoundly religious: (There are) "two basic psychological needs: the need to love and be loved and the need to feel we are worthwhile to ourselves and others. Helping patients fulfill these two needs is the basis of Reality Therapy." (p. 9) We all have these needs. But to fulfill these needs, one must go beyond verbalizations – theological verbalizations, pious verbalizations, poetic verbalizations, exhortative verbalizations. One must deal with reality, one must be responsible, one must recognize that human situations usually demand choice between right and wrong and that each must be responsible for his decisions.

As his theories were evolving, Dr. Glasser was deeply impressed that all his patients had a common characteristic: "They all (denied) the reality of the world around them." To a degree, we are all Walter Mitty playing a variety of fantasy roles in a world peopled by caricatures created by day-dream. But it makes all the difference in how we come to terms with life whether our day-dreams are brief interludes of comic relief or prolonged unhealthy retreats from reality. Apart from certain philosophies and metaphysical systems about the basic nature of the universe and our perception of it, there is a real world which demands our participation. There are such realities represented by tasks to be done in this world, there are situations constantly demanding decisions, there are other persons to meet and see as persons, not phantoms in our private dream world. This responsibility to relate to a real world requires another "r", respect for others and respect for onesself.

Respect for others and oneself can begin at an early age. Dr. Glasser writes of his own home as an illustration. When, after inconsistent behavior, his five-year-old son tossed a tantrum, father insisted on the particular rule of behavior in spite of the thrashing and wailing. When the little boy finally quieted without getting his way, father said to him, "Let me give you some good advice. Do you know what advice is?" The [boy] did, so he was told, "Never say no when you mean, Yes." Basic respect for others and onesself requires this honesty. More than a characteristic of good child-rearing, it is necessary for the process of having and granting respect for all persons. A few weeks ago, about the time I was reading this book, I clipped an item from the paper, which after chuckling over it, I discovered that the story registered as basic to this matter of respect for others and respect for self: “Walkout at the Mission: – ‘We’re sick of singing’”

[READ NEWSPAPER ARTICLE, 3/24/67. Excerpt:

“MARYSVILLE, Calif (AP) Transients who don’t want to since hymns for their meals boycotted a small-town gospel mission for the eighth straight day yesterday. ...”]

Now one can assume a variety of viewpoints, depending on many factors. But I am not impressed with charitable enterprises which with insufferable condescension refer to humans in need as being of "gutter level," and then in order to make the point offensively clear, assert that, "the primary purpose of the mission is not to feed, bathe, clothe or sleep the men, but to save souls."

Human need in a real world requires respect for the person, no matter how convincingly a gospel may be preached. The world of real respect requires more than assertions about love. Now and again I think how easy it is to speak glibly of human love and how difficult to practice. Verbalizations are so easy. Wouldn't the world be a better place, if there were no such word as love? If the only way to convey the meaning of love was by acting with living purpose?

In ancient times, the great playright, Euripedes (in "The Trojan Women") has Hecuba say when Menelaus is angry with Helen,

"Thou deep base of the World, and thou high throne
Above the world, who’er thou art, unknown
And hard of surmise, Chain of Things that be
or Reason of our Reason; God to thee
I lift my praise, seeing the silent road
That bringeth justice ere the end be trod
To all that lives and breathes and dies."

"seeing the silent road
That bringeth justice," etc.

It seems to me that wise Euripedes of old was getting at the difference between respect and alleged respect. The silent road – what we do.

In 1967, an educator was seizing on the same reality – that is, love is a way of behaving, not a theological abstraction. Speaking of educational techniques and methods (Douglas O. Pederson wrote, "a methodology is a compassionate human being in action. A curriculum is the interaction of student and teacher strengths." (quoted, TC Record, Feb. 1967, p. 372)

Suppose everyone of us considered the ways of business, the professions, public schools and Sunday church schools, our church functionings, our ways of dealing with community life as "compassionate human beings in action." Then there would come about authtentic ministries of business, ministries of the professions, ministries of teachers, ministries of churchmanship. Luther’s great phrase "the priesthood of all believers" would have power. And as there was interacting of strengths rather than the search for ths vulnerable, then we might know more of the great experience of dispelling the ghosts of irrational fears, of casting away the phantasms of guilt. For respect for others, WHEN REAL and created by action, heals the wounds of self and self-with-others.

Another pivotal hinge in Dr. Glasser’s reality therapy is involvement. We are healed by involvement with others in situations that will require choices that if made will increase accomplishments. Although the involvements of the therapist with the patient is not particularly pertinent to this talk, interestingly enough, Dr. Glasser illustrates the interweaving of involvement and responsibility by reference to Robert Bolt's famous play, [and] famous movie, A MAN FOR ALL SEASONS. Thomas More, Chancellor of Bngland, refused to grant legal approval of Henry VIII divorce from Catherine. Thomas More, devout Catholic, was responsible, lived and acted in integrity with his beliefs. He had become Chancellor because Henry VIII prized the responsible character of this man of State and of the Church. The King sought Thomas More’s approval of the divorce, not because such approval was necessary, but because in the King's words to More, "You are honest." More was executed because the king could not tolerate the refusal to state that the king was right. More's courageous stand was both a public and private rebuke against the powerful monarch who had power over everything in his land except a brave man's character.

Not all responsible involvements end in such disaster, yet the point of involvement with integrity is that behavior measures beliefs. When the chips are down – what happens? We are healed by the real when our behavior makes explicit that our values count for more than embarrassment, more than fear, more than retaliation.

There is some confirmation that "changing behavior leads to change in attitude." We gain experience through experience. We learn to drive by driving as well as instruction. We learn to cook by cooking as well as reading recipes. We learn to swim by swimming, not by exercies on the dock.

The same process follows for raising the quality of our integrity – by performance. The second speaking date goes better than the first; and by the thirtieth there is additional assurance, although possibilities for improvement never end.

Reality, Respect, Responsibility – whether or not the theory ever receives wide acceptance among therapists for the cure of ill personalities may be somewhat academic for most of us. But reality, respect, responsibility seem to characterize those who have accomlished much to lift the levels of human achievment. Think about your heroes and do not these possess at least these three qualities?

A theologian (Robert MacAfee Brown, 0.527 theology today, Jan. 67) calls attention to the interesting origin of the that worship word, "liturgy," which we avoid because it smacks of orthodoxy and overdone ritual. The roots of the word are in two greek verbs, laos and ergos – this means "the peoples work. Liturgy is what people do wherever they are, and it is a linguistic catastrophe that it has come to be associated with what people do in Church." The letter of James in the Christian literature, in its time, reflected these insights, "faith it if have not works is dead in itself."

Do you know the story of Thomas Garrett, a Delaware Quaker who was active in the underground railroad in the tense years before the Civil War? I was reminded of the story in the Parish Hall as the goods were being prepared for the auction, for this story concerns an auction. Thomas Garrett began his career of assisting slaves to reach freedom, when, at the age of 24, he rescued a Negro woman of his own household. Thereafter he devoted himself to the underground railroad and no one knows how many slaves he helped to freedom. In 1848, when Thomas Garrett was sixty years old, he faced his fifth prosecution for conspiring to aid slaves to freedom. He was found guilty, all his property was confiscated for the alleged abduction of two slave children. As the auctioneer disposed of the last item of his property, he turned to Garrett with a scornful jibe that maybe he’d think twice about aiding the underground railroad. Garrett replied, "Friend, I haven't a dollar in the world; but if thee knows a fugitive who needs breakfast, send him to me."

Thomas Garrett was one of those little known men who were impoverished but well, healed to high human stature by his facing the reality of his times on the basis of the value of the human person and willingly involved himself in the difficulties and costs that responsibilities sometimes requires. Whether called therapy, idealism, service or religion in action, the result is the same.

Written on the Wall

April 2, 1967
Plainfield

Written on the Wall (Belshazzar’s Graffiti and Ours)

"Coming events cast their shadow before" is an old cliche. It is a cliche because it is true frequently enough to have become a proverb. "The handwriting on the wall" is another phrase which for two thousand years or more has referred to accurate forecasts of impending events. I would like to speak today of words written on walls, not only because graffiti is "in," but also because there is wisdom born of long centuries of human experience which we should embrace.

"The ancient art of wallwriting," as the N.Y.Times defines Graffiti, is one of the literary and profane enjoyments of our time, just as it was in ancient Rome and Pompeii. The unknown authors of graffiti have had some influence on literary style, have tickled our risibilities, and now and again touched sensitive nerves of fear and guilt. Many fetching examples of graffiti are too earthy for pulpit review. But some graffiti may touch off responses among us as they have among others,

Edward Albee copied his famous title, "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?" from the wall of a bathroom in the Village. Anthony Newly found the title for his popular musical show in a similar place, "Stop the World, I Want to Get Off." Another author, Robert Saffron found the title for his book, "Is the United States Ready for Self-Government" scrawled on a subway wall. "Kilroy was here," and "Yankee go home," have become classics.

Some of the graffiti are penetrating, some are teasingly under-stated, others grotesquely over-drawn. But in many instances the under-statement or the exaggeration contain enough seeds of truth that should make us to think. Example, "Death is nature's way of telling you to slow down,"

Or, the one a serviceman wrote on a roadside shelter in Saigon, "I can't relate to this environment."

When some well-meaning author in the Dept. of Sanitation tried to encourage people not to litter, he had this exhortation printed on a poster, "Did YOU make New York dirty today?" An embittered New Yorker scrawled a rebuttal, "New York makes ME dirty every day."

Or consider that ominous prediction which may come true, "Tomorrow is called off. God."

In a slightly different religious commentary, following the evangelical slogan, "Jesus saves," many commentators will add, "plaid stamps," or equally irreverent phrase.

When a pantheistic believer wrote, "I am God, Thou art God, God is in each of us," a critical theological commentator appended, "so, why brag?"

Graffiti authors many times create absurd associations to bring out formidable political critiques. "Make love, not war," is the most frequent example today, although "draft beer not men" is gaining popularity. Our hang-up on psychological conflicts receives considerable attention from those who scrawl graffiti. Examples,

"Reality is a crutch."
"Iris is not very happy."

And one which is sort of baffling to find on a wall, "I think people who write on walls are immature and troubled and need psychological treatment."

Many Graffiti deal with aspects of morality although very few of the observations can be quoted here. One intriguing line read, "Love thy neighbor, but don't get caught."

The New York Times article reported that two California professors had spent five months searching the walls of Los Angeles coffee houses, restaurants, bus stations, in order to report, "What the Walls Say Today." The scholars propose that much of what persons living today really believe and feel can be discovered in the anonymous, surreptitious commentaries called Graffiti.

Another meaning for Graffiti with somewhat different emphasis refers to a variety of decoration for ceramic pottery which scratches through superficial layers to achieve a method of deep decoration.

The ancient biblical story of the handwriting on the wall is not only representative of the ancient as well as modern art of graffiti, but also the story of Daniel is one of those enduring religious reminders of the importance of breaking through that which is superficial to get at authentic priorities when choosing between the trivial and the important.

In the old scripture, the story of King Belshazzar and Daniel is a legend of magic Graffiti, a legend suggesting considerable truth about the human condition.

The book of Daniel probably took literary form about 168-165 BCE in a time of patriotic resurgence when the Maccabeans were leading that heroic fight for freedom. Daniel was a legendary hero whose great deeds were told again and again to a people who needed such inspiration to carry on their struggle against great odds. The story is set several centuries before, when the Hebrews were in exile in Babylon, and Belshazzar, son of the cruel conqueror, Nebuchadnezzar, is king. [READ DANIEL, 5th Chapter, 1-30]

You’ve heard the English Christmas carol about "seven lords a-leapin," - well, King Belshazzar's party was a real swinger with one thousand lords a-leapin. But as the old hero-tale has it, King Belshazzar did not know that his destiny was sealed. The handwriting on the wall proclaimed that the days of Belshazzar's kingdom had been numbered and the end was near, that he had been weighed in the balance, found wanting, and that his kingdom had been divided and given to others. The old story records Belshazzar's death the very night of the party. Even if Belshazzar had wanted to do something about it, it was too late, the handwriting on the wall inscribed events which were the unalterable consequences of previous events.

Is what is written on the wall a graffito for belief in determinism – that all events are fore-ordained, that each step in human events inevitably fixes the place of the next step? I shall comment later on why I do not accept a philosophical or theological determinism about human events. But acts and attitudes have consequences. Throw a stone in the pool and ripples will move out to lap all edges. What we say and what we do will influence the course of events, no matter how quiet one's voice may seem amid the din; no matter how weak may seem one's effort.

A. E. Housman (quoted Christian Science Monitor, 3/21/67) once wrote,

"This learned I from the shadow of
a tree
Which to and fro did sway
upon a wall:
Our shadow-selves, our influence
may fall
Where we can never be."

With an Annual Meeting of this Society approaching next Friday evening, we have writings on the wall. In the actual sense, on the wall we have the names of those proposed for leadership and those who will choose leaders. In a more figurative sense, there are other writings on the wall. Our Fund Drive Committee reported that pledges received were far short of expectations and hopes. Thus we are numbered, in that while the membership need not accept the recommended budget of the Board, any changes are limited re-arrangements of allocations. The results are in. The total is written on the wall.

Now our anticipated income is pegged at a certain total. This is a forecast on which responsible officers, trustees and Finance Committee must rely. But what is not limited is the spirit and way in which we will perform the tasks that members mutually take upon themselves to do. It would seem that there would be but one wide, deep foundation which justifies our organization. That is, that among the bright possibilities for our common effort is that religion is of vital importance – of more significance that some varieties of support would suppose it to be. From our strong, liberal traditions, from the fine traditions of the world's better religions, there can be healthy force applied to the individual and social problems of the day. We gather together because from this combined humanitarian heritage, we have something valuable to contribute to human experience today.

Our past is numbered and weighed: Reports will be submitted; appraisals made; reviews of praise, reviews of criticism; words of self-congratulation may be vulnerable to incisive critiques; suggestions for the future of program and leadership will be offered. Ballots will be marked and tallied. But such writing on the wall will not determine the future as simplistically as Daniel read off Belshazzar’s doom.

There is always that which is imponderable in human events. The imponderable and unpredictable are the attitudes which will prevail as we attempt to put into form and substance the ideas of Unitarian Universalist religion and the methods of Unitarian Universalist organization. Will we deal with problems or personalities? In a difficult age such as this, will we attempt to establish proper congregational decisions or will we try to get one-up on persons? Alan Watts once quoted an old Chinese proverb, "Do not swat a fly upon your friend's head with a hatchet."

Such words in no way deny that members hold differing ideas about what a Unitarian Church should be and what a Unitarian Church should do and for what a Unitarian Church should be known. Such are pivotal areas for continuing discussion and clarification in order to obtain some working and tolerable consensus. There is a story about a sculptor who was commissioned to do a sculpture for a medical center and encountered controversy about design. One official urged, "make it non-objective so that nobody be offended." What such a proposal overlooks is that non-objectivity in art or religion is in itself controversial.

There is a variety of psychological theory, which, although I am not professional in that field, certainly appeals to me and squares with my observations of human experience, Called the "field theory," it generally proposes that life-situations are far more complicated than a linear chain of cause and effect events. What may be written on the wall, up to now, does not necessarily determine fully the “now,” even though the influence of all past experience has considerable weight.

The prevailing climate, the presence of tension supplanting the warmth of fellowship, the overcoming of a lesser attitude by a better attitude, the magnetic power of finer goals – all these exert pressure on the Now.

The chain of the past need not handcuff the present and future. Need not, although it may.

There is a legend that in 1781, when Cornwallis surrendered to Washington at Yorktown, the British commander ordered his troops to case the colors and march out with the drums beating and the fifes sounding the tune called, "The world turned upside down." (see article T.H. Hughes, "Foreign Affairs"). The tensions that plague us individually and collectively in this world make the tune appropriate still.

All the more reason then to resist being dominated by experiences that are past in order to deal with problems of the present and future. I like what Marshall Dimock, first moderator of the U.U.A. wrote in his book, A GOOD RELIGION. "The role of religion is to produce people whose spirit have a universal appeal, who become angry at injustice and the slow progress of mankind, and who also are compassionate and understanding in their dealings with their fellows. The test of a religious man is humility as contrasted with arrogance, is wisdom as contrasted with knowledge, is reverence for life as contrasted with a self-destroying egotism....

"A good religion achieves maximum results in inspiring its members to improve themselves toward the ideal in spirit, mind and body..." (p.11).

Social change creates personal crises; and our age is one of accelerated, dizzying change. Those who may have fended off personal crises still have to deal with identity in such an age as this – Who am I? Those who have found themselves and their reason for being must also ask themselves, Who is the other person? [What] do I do for him? [What] do I do to him? Anxieties are rampant, even beneath the assured facades of many. Uncertainty, anxiety, crisis are the graffiti on the wall of our inner self. What do we do? Strike out? Fade away? Make too-easy judgments? Take it out on the wife or husband or clerk or fellow-member?

I would not be where I stand now if I did not believe thoroughly that institutionalized religion can contribute to the achievement of community – where persons are persons and problems are problems and the prevailing spirit as well as the by-laws make the distinction between problems and persons. Our religion is both personal and communal. That solitary and precious internal experience most function externally with others. That is the interlocked, inseparable, dual nature of any religion deserving the name or worth the game.

As the Pilgrims were crossing to the New World, John Winthrop spoke to the occasion. It would be pretentious to assert that if we fail, all else fails. But it would be appropriate for us to take seriously the attitude expressed and the fears and hopes that are intermingled in this and any other religious enterprise. 347 years ago, John Winthrop said,

"So I hope that we may all take most seriously the remarkable opportunity that has been given us. If the ideas on which this experiment are based are sound ones our responsibility is especially heavy.

"We presume to constitute a community, and that of course is the true meaning of the discipline we impose on ourselves.... I think it unlikely if we fail that any one will soon again try such a plan."

Easter, Passover - Measure of Man's Potential

March 26, 1967
Plainfield

Easter, Passover - Measure of Man's Potential

The human family has always responded to the changing seasons. Spring, when new shoots of growth break through the crusty earth, has been the occasion of renewed joy and hope - new attitudes as well as new attire. When the time for the singing birds is at hand again, we look to brighter horizons, breathe fresher air.

The Christian churches resound today with their joyous affirmation that "Christ is risen." A little later, Jewish families will celebrate Passover, a solemn, grateful celebration of liberation from bondage. Most of us here would make a distinction between historical fact and Christian myth, between historical fact and Hebrew legend. We would be inclined to believe that Easter and Passover are transformations of pre-historical rites of Spring. At more abstract, or more theologically interpretive levels, the transformation of the ancient rites of Spring associate special acts of God with liberation from bondage and with victory over death. But however we may individually hold these ceremonies, something happens in our blood, our bones, our hopes as we become newly aware of the fertility of the earth and the worth of the human venture.

After brief references to these transformations as measures of man's potential, I would like to speak briefly of the importance of assuring man today neither with naive optimism nor disheartened pessimism, but rather with realistic hope. Considerable dependence will be placed on poetic words as expressed variously by those of unlike vision.

Passover represents the new life of the Children of Israel as they took the hard road to freedom in the Exodus from Egypt. In the old legend, the hand of death struck the first-born of the Egyptians, passing over the homes of Hebrew slaves. Because there was no time for dough to set, the families hurrying to walk the freedom road baked unleavened bread - thus that enduring symbol. The ancient nature festival has been uplifted to a memorial for freedom. But bitter herbs are on the table to remind the celebrants of the humiliation and degradations of slavery. Each one who takes the Passover ceremony seriously asks himself, "What is freedom? What does freedom demand from me?" Passover is a measure of human goals and human persistence even when conditions are cruel.

Easter (the name is that of the Saxon goddess of Spring) similarly transforms the rites of Spring into ceremonies that honor that which is good and excellent in human effort. That millions believe literally that which is mythical about dead bodies reviving and supernatural stone-rolling should not entirely prevent us from an appreciation of the high human aspiration interlacing the stories of Christian Holy Week.

The followers of Jesus discovered that his death could not prevent them from bringing the message to all their world. The disciples discovered in their own experience that although the public execution of their Master was a fright-filled shock that scared them for awhile, courage could be recovered by faithfulness to the ideas and behavior which they had learned in brotherhood [in the] community led by Jesus. They found self-realization and high purpose for living not only in the example of Jesus but also in their own experience of sacrifice and suffering for that which they believed of greatest importance.

In the myth of God becoming man there shines through the doctrinal fog that which is common to all great religions which have provided understanding: Man must take responsibility for man. As Thornton Wilder wrote, “Every good and excellent thing stands moment by moment at the razor edge of danger and must be fought for.” (quoted, American Scholar, Spring 1967).

Whether one can feel uplifted by any literal believing of miracles at Passover or Easter does not alter the opportunity to be moved by the symbolic expressions of man’s potential ability to resist oppression, to march to liberation, to overcome the fear of death and persist in his efforts even after good men are crucified. Hope in the human potential for courage is to be derived from the ancient heritage of religion, no matter how one may evaluate the precise historical accuracy of literary and doctrinal embellishments added by faithful believers.

How shall we evaluate today the potential of the human enterprise? What is man? What is he becoming? Where is man? Where is he going? Are the signs to be read hopefully or pessimistically? Under a silver-flecked Asian night some 2300 years ago, a poet, not unknown, asked (8th Psalm):

“When I consider thy heavens, the work of thy fingers,
The moon and the stars which thou hast ordained,
What is man, that thou art mindful of him?
And the son of man that thou visiteth him?”

One can be a rather naïve optimist and count on the words of the hymn we sing now and again, by John Addison Symonds (1880):

These things shall be – a loftier race
Than e’er the world hath known shall rise
With flames of freedom in their souls
And light of knowledge in their eyes.

They shall be so gentle, brave and strong
To spill no drop of blood, but dare
All that may plant man’s lordship firm
On earth, and fire, and sea, and air.

...

Nation with nation, land with land,
Unarmed shall live as comrades free;
In every heart and brain shall throb
The pulse of one fraternity.

New arts shall bloom of loftier mould,
And mightier music thrill the skies,
And every life shall be a song
When all the earth is paradise.

One can be a pessimist as was William Butler Yeats when he wrote those ominous lines he called “Second Coming”:

“Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the second coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of the Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight; somewhere in sands of desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches toward Bethlehem to be born?

One can be realistic, be neither pessimist nor optimist, but what James Farmer called once a “popsimist,” and lines called The Face of Man by Stanton A. Coblenz (NY Times, 5/8/61) may suggest this mood:

“The face of man, while old perspectives change
From ox-trails to the clanging motor street,
Has scarcely altered in a minor range
Since plunderers burned the halls of fabled Crete.
The head of Khafra, fixed in fadeless stone,
The Hermes of divine Praxiteles,
Are such as even you and I have known,
Unravaged by the raging centuries.

“And in the mind whose movements mold the face,
Though forms of thought rotate like women’s styles,
No change is clear since men of Helen’s race
Roared down as pirates on Aegean isles.
Meanwhile quicksilver science domineers
A world new hours transform like ancient years.”

The catalogue of man-made problems is far too threatening to permit the slightest measure of unqualified optimism. But the accomplishments of man are of sufficient quality and promise so that unadulterated pessimism would be as disassociated from reality as naiveté.

Man stands on the brink of disaster unless he gains political as well as scientific control over the devices he has made. Man stands before the gate of unparalleled opportunity to radically diminish the sum of human misery in the world, if wisdom and courage can be brought to bear on ways to provide and maintain such relationships between men and nations as will recognize the rights and aspirations of all members of the human family.

Many people prophecy that the people of the world will destroy themselves by some stupid aggression, mistaken retaliation or silly accident. This is entirely possible – given present trends, one can begin to use the word, “probable.”

Also we live in a world where, increasingly, transactions occur in larger dimensions. Where once we shopped the corner grocery store, now we tour the supermarket – seldom do we know the clerk; never do we meet the owner. We meet national political candidates through an electronic tube, not a street parade. We may be an IBM punch card at our job as well as on the Social Security records. This increasing largeness will continue and expand.

But a portion of my hope, personally, is that we can build new ways of person-to-person encounters and meetings. The small-group [discussion] in areas of religious understanding, political affairs, educational issues, recreational enjoyments – these I believe are increasingly vital to both the effective expression of conviction and the healthy survival of our personal selves.

If we are to be popsimists – we must never forget that man lives on bread. This is what the world-wide revolutions are all about. People who never had bread now know there is bread in the world. Not for long will they tolerate the starvation of their children.

Just as vital, man does not live on bread alone, but on recognition of his dignity, acknowledgment of his human rights and admission to the councils of the world. This too is what the revolutionary peoples are seeking.

The two goals of bread and spirit will not be easily achieved. We who have bread will have to overcome our anxiety that in helping the underprivileged we will lose our surplus and our place in the pecking order. We are human; we not only fear the enveloping chaos, but also we fear a loss of our own material goods. Like the young man Jesus confronted, we too might turn sadly away if we were advised to yield our possessions for a more abundant life.

What is man? We may still believe there is a road which avoids both naïve optimism and fatalistic pessimism. Enough people will come realize the dignity and worth of every individual – that, in tune with the transformed symbols of Spring, Easter, and Passover, we can achieve liberation even though the modern Exodus may demand courage and vision which will stretch fully our strength and will; we can overcome fear of death if the goals of the way of freedom, fellowship, and human dignity convince our minds and capture our hearts.

[Editor’s note: the following introductory lines are crossed out: “I have found renewed strength in two affirmations with which I shall conclude. First, some lines written by a young teacher a few years ago, which I prize:”]

Sum of the Parts (Bette Berman)

“Thinking realistically, we know for sure
That Man, the product of the ages, Man
is nothing more than the result of words
of those he’s heard, of those he’s read,
And what he’s seen:
No mental chastity has given birth
To intellectual discoveries.
Yet we should not despair,
For from our wealthy heritage
The elements resolve perpetually
Into unending formulae,
And countless combinations form our thoughts
That other men have known for centuries,

Seeing what is new to us
And learning what was once unknown,
We then become the whole and something more.”

And finally, lines which so artistically and powerfully fit my attitude toward life and the future that for me, they are the superbly pertinent message for an occasion when the rites of Spring are transformed by the American rural experience to authentic appraisal and authentic hope for all that we humans are and can be – “Birches” by Robert Frost:

“When I see birches bend to left and right
Across the lines of straighter, darker trees,
I like to think some boy’s been swinging them.
But swinging doesn’t bend them down to stay.
Ice-storms do that. Often you must have seen them
Loaded with ice a sunny winter morning
After a rain. They click upon themselves
As the breeze rises, and turn many-colored
As the stir cracks and crazes their enamel.
Soon the sun’s warmth makes them shed crystal shells
Shattering and avalanching on the snow-crust –
Such heaps of broken glass to sweep away
You’d think the inner dome of heaven had fallen.
They are dragged to the withered bracken by the load,
And they seem not to break; though once they are bowed
So low for so long, they never right themselves:
You may see their trunks arching in the woods
Years afterwards, trailing their leaves on the ground
Like girls on hands and knees that throw their hair
Before them over their heads to dry in the sun.
But I was going to say when Truth broke in
With all her matter-of-fact about the ice-storm
I should prefer to have some boy bend them
As he went out and in to fetch the cows –
Some boy too far from town to learn baseball,
Whose only play was what he found himself,
Summer or winter, and could play alone.
One by one he subdued his father’s trees
By riding them down over and over again
Until he took the stiffness out of them,
And not one but hung limp, not one was left
For him to conquer. He learned all there was
To learn about not launching out too soon
And no so carrying the trees away
Clear to the ground. He always kept his poise
To the top branches, climbing carefully
With the same pains you use to fill a cup
Up to the brim and even more above the brim.
Then he flung outward, feet first, with a swish,
Kicking his way down through the air to the ground.
So I was once myself a swinger of birches.
And I so dream of going back to be.
It’s when I’m weary of considerations,
And life is too much a pathless wood
Where your face burns and tickles with the cobwebs
Broken across it, and one eye is weeping
From a twig’s having lashed it open.
I’d like to get away from earth awhile
And then come back to it and begin over.
May no fate willfully misunderstand me
And half grant what I wish and snatch me away
Not to return. Earth’s the right place for love:
I don’t know where it’s likely to go better.
I’d like to go by climbing a birch tree,
And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk
Toward heaven, till the trees could bear no more,
But dipped its top and set me down again.
That would be good both going and coming back.
One could do worse than be a swinger of birches.

The Proposed New Jersey Bus Law and The Separation of Church and State

March 19, 1967
Plainfield

The Proposed New Jersey Bus Law and The Separation of Church and State

This bill has passed the State Assembly and may come up in the State Senate tomorrow. Because this bill has far-reaching implications in that sensitive area known as the "Wall of Separation Between Church and State," and because the proposal is being hurried through the New Jersey legislative bodies without sufficient discussion, those who believe that the Constitutional principle is necessary, as well as those who may be concerned about unnecessary and exhorbitant costs, should give immediate attention to the proposals.

From my point of view, the subject is divided into a (1) review of the constitutionality aspects; (2) the fear that the proposal, if enacted, would be a considerable setback to American public school education; (3) the suggestion that this Bill could have consequences of deeper erosion of the wall of separation between Church and State; (4) an observation that the unseemly haste with which our New Jersey Assembly have acted is a good reason to slow things down and a thorough public discussion by our elected representatives should be conducted.

The bill, called the "Assembly Committee Substitute for Assembly Bill 21," seeks to amend previous legislation concerning transportation of pupils to school by providing that each School District would be responsible for transporting pupils to non-profit private schools and parochial schools, whether or not these schools are near the public school bus routes. There is a condition in the Bill that the school must be within twenty miles of the student's residence. Many additional busses would be necessary.

The provisions would apply to the private schools whose students represent the wealthiest segments of society as well as the many parochial schools. Present estimates indicate that there are now 335,000 pupils attending such schoools in New Jersey, 1/4 of the school population.

The State of New Jersey would pay each School District 75% of the cost of busing the District. Each District would have to assume the additional 25% of all costs incurred under this proposal if passed.

1) What seems to be the prospect that such legislation would be considered constitutional by the U. S. Supreme Court? Proponents of the Bill base assertions of constitutionality on the famous Everson Case of 1947 – a case originating in the New Jersey courts. By a 5 to 4 majority, the Supreme Court ruled that the transporting of parochial school school children on Public school bus routes did not violate the First Amendment because such assistance was a service to the child, not a financial subsidy of a particular religious organization. Professor Paul Freund of Harvard, defining the legal issue in 1965 stated (p. 11, RELIGION AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS), "bus fares to parochial schools may be provided by the State, but need not be.... These are areas of legislative choice without constitutional compulsion one way or another.

This would seem to be the constitutional foundation on which Governor Hughes justifies this proposed bill. But there is considerable difference between permitting parochial school students to ride the public school bus routes and organizing separate additional systems to supply free transportation to private and parochial schools,

Furthermore, the Supreme Court decisions in recent years involving issues of Church and State have been such that any definition of a single pattern is difficult to trace.

The McCollum case (1948), declared unconstitutional the use of public school facilities for released time instruction.

The New York Regents’ Prayer case established the principle that classroom use of prescribed prayers was unconstitutional.

The Pennsylvania and Maryland cases strengthened the Wall separating Church and State when the Supreme Court decided that devotional use of the the Bible in public schools was unconstitutional.

The Zorach decision (1952) weakened the Wall by rendering constitutional the practice of released time for religious education when such classes were held outside the public school property.

(2) While one must admit that the present constitutionality of this proposed legislation to provide free school busing for all non-public school children is at least somewhat in line with the Everson decision, not only are there distinctions, but also there are other considerations involving the general welfare of the entire public.

A basic consideration is the importance of improving the public school systems in this State and every other state to the end that equality of educational opportunity will become more real than promised. The Supreme Court ruled in 1954 (Brown vs. Board of Education) that segregated education is unequal education. Studies by educators have confirmed this sad reality of our time. If private school education is encouraged by increasing Federal and State subsidies, more and more parents who are prejudiced or who shrink from the demands of the need for equal opportunity will transfer their children to a private school.

At the time of the 1965 Federal Aid to Education act, there was a trend indicating that as favoring legislation makes it possible to draw on Government funds for teachers, services, facilities, transportation, the number of private schools will increase. The magazine CHRISTIANITY TODAY (1/29/65) reported that during the last nine months of 1964 it received inquiries from 69 groups who wanted assistance in establishing Christian day schools – four times the comparable number in the year before.

The persons least able to provide private school tuition and costs will be the poor people who, even now, are becoming sorely tried and increasingly troubled by the deficiencies of segregated education. If one school pupil in four now attends private school, will not the proposed subsidy of private and religious schools increase the degree of segregation in public schools by additional removals of children by the more affluent families? My opinion is that it will increase the degree of segregation. Can there be much doubt that such policies encouraging segregation will increase the sense of desperation felt by the poor and segregated and discriminated-against?

(3) With such downgrading of the free, public school, there will be increasing favoritism and more subsidy of the private and parochial schools. This is not just a vague guess, because already there are signs of such happenings. The Federal Aid to Education Bill of 1965 provided many startling innovations in aid to parochial schools. Many of these have yet to be tested in the U.S. Supreme Court for constitutionality.

The New York Times recently referred editorially to a specific instance which should make every defender of the American free, public school think. Taking advantage of provisions of the Federal Aid to Education Act of 1965, the Board of Education decided to provide one remedial reading teacher for every 157 pupils in parochial schools, although the rate in the public schools is one remedial reading teacher for every 230 pupils. One of the pressing needs of the public schools here and everywhere is to bring disadvantaged pupils in the publie school up to reading grade level. So there occurs a specific instance of the reality that favoring the private school acts to the detriment of the public school. The consequences of such practices would rip wide gaps in the social fabric. The NYT editorial summed up the consequences of erosion of the wall separating Church and State in education, "Instead of adhering to principle, the Board has played a numbers game in which the winning figure was reached by satisfying the bargaining agents for the nonpublic parochial schools."

Furthermore, the pressure points we all will feel concern not only principles but also money. Public education costs great sums of money and will cost more even without increasing subsidies to the private and parochial school systems. Proponents of the measure estimate that the plan would cost $6 million during the first year of operation, $5 million the second year and would increase 10% per year after that. However, Assemblyman Raymond Bateman asserted that costs would be in the neighborhood of 25 to 30 million dollars per year.

Both Watchung and Fanwood-Scotch Plains Boards of Education went on record this week as opposed to the Bill. Comments of the Scotch Plains Fanwood Board are interesting. The Bill would cost that school district $140,000 the first year and costs would increase more than 10% per year as additional private schools qualified. That Board's statement also questioned the somewhat fantastic burden that provisions of the Bill would require. The Scotch Plains-Fanwood Board would have to transport pupils to Elizabeth, South Orange, Gladstone, Somerset and other towns. More significantly, supporting mandatory busing for parochial school students would surely deprive important public school progams of important funds, because few school districts would hardly vote for this sudden large investment in non-public education and at the same time vote for the sustaining and expanding educational requirements which all educators believe necessary in our times.

Even now, it is believed that a substantial [percent] of the votes against expanding school budgets are cast by families who presently send their children to private or parochial schools. This negative bloc would surely gain in numbers if the proposed legislation were passed by the Senate and became law.

(4) Even those who may favor this proposed legislation or are unconcerned about its consequences might well consider, with concern, the unseemly haste with which the bill is being rushed through. The Governor has stated his opposition to public hearings on the grounds that "ugly arguments" would be aired. This attitude is wrong. To deny public hearings is to prevent the proper functioning of the legislative process and deprives legislators of the expert testimony and public opinion which should be among the considerations determining votes in the Assembly and Senate.

The Governor errs badly, or is playing the demagogue, when he implies that those who oppose this legislation do so from "ancient and ugly" arguments. There are those of us who believe that Constitutional principle, practicality, and the public good would best be served by defeat of this bill. I, for one am not going to be put off by any allegations that my objections are those based on prejudice, even when such inferences come from high places.

In my opinion, to assert as the Governor seems to, that opposition is prejudice, is in itself a variety of intolerance and a wretchedly unpromising introduction a to sensitive, candid debate on the issues of Church and State and what are, and what are not, constitutional as well as sensible distinctions.

Let me cite again Assemblyman Raymond Bateman of Somerset County, who accused the Democratic leadership of "high pressure tactics" and that the Assembly Education Committee had not held "five minutes of discussion on the merits of the bill."

My opinion is that there is great pressure on the Assemblymen and State Senators to get this bill rushed through quickly and without public hearings. On March 2, 1967, I wrote Senators Stamler and Hughes, Assemblymen Gavan, Henderson, Higgins, and McDermott, stating to each of them my opposition and asking each to inform me of his views. Not one of these has written an acknowledgedent. This sudden shyness is rather revealing about the stature of our Union County representatives. At the least, they are astonishingly negligent in acknowledging the opinions of a constituent.

There are few avenues open, but there is at least one, although time is short. The Senate may move on this Bill tomorrow. If Senator Matthew Feldman, Chairman of the Senate Education Committee receives enough requests he may acquire the political courage to conduct public hearings in the State Senate before bringing the bill to the floor. Two of our members, Ruth Gray and Al Kempler, have petition forms and information on sending telegrams and special delivery letters which, if sent immediately, would reach Senator Feldman tomorrow morning. There might be a volunteer who would bring these to Trenton today. Of course such communications represent individual, not official group concern.

There are those of us who believe that many far-reaching changes are being enacted in the principles, patterns, and politics of private and public education. No one should feel excused from the opportunity to keep informed, to come to his own convictions, and to attempt to influence the nature of political decision.

The Constant Source

March 5, 1967
Plainfield
EMC Theme

The Constant Source

This morning I am affirming a few variations on the theme suggested by the reading, “The Church and the World.” The opening sentences of that reading fit my condition, “The Church has long been my world – not the building, but the concept and the people.”

“I was born into it; nurtured within it; got my outlook on life from it; found it the constant source of meaning in a shifting, confusing culture; decided to spend my whole life with it and for it.”

Those of you who were able to attend the hostess meetings during the past two weeks know that I believe the programs and services of this society deserve your pledge. Following this service, and continuing until 9 tonight, our Fund Campaign Organization will have canvassers available to discuss your pledge, if you choose. Otherwise the regular pattern of home canvassing will be followed. We are counting on your cooperation. One problem we wish to avoid is shellout falter.

Now my purpose in speaking of organized religion in general and Unitarian Universalism in particular as the “Constant Source of meaning in a shifting, confusing culture” is not to ring tedious changes on the alleged superiority of our religion. The death this week of Henry Luce, the publisher, reminded me of an anecdote told about Mrs. Claire Booth Luce and the late Pope John XXIII. Mrs. Luce is a well-publicized convert to Roman Catholicism. When she had an audience with Pope John, she was so talkative and enthusiastic about her conversion that the Pope interrupted her gently, saying, but Mrs. Luce, I am a Catholic.” (NR 10/16/65)

If you are a convinced Unitarian, you do not need a hard sell from me. If you are unconvinced, or partially convinced, persuasion must come as a result of your own insight, your own evaluation of what is true and lasting in religion.

Neither do I think thoughtful people need to be harangued about the proposed programs, services, and commitments. There has been the opportunity for information. Those who have questions may still seek answers. The alternatives to financial support are not numerous for the fulfillment of goals in this 1st Unitarian Society of Plainfield. I was amused by an item written by one Nathaniel Low, “a receipt to keep one’s self warm a whole winter with a single billet of wood”:

“A receipt to keep one’s self warm a whole winter with a single billet of wood: Take a billet of wood of a competent size. Fling it out of the garret window into the yard and then run down the stairs as hard as you ever can drive, and when you have got it, run up with the same measure for speed; and thus keep throwing down and fetching up, til the exercise shall have sufficiently heated you. This renew as often as Occasion shall require.” (from the “Village Other.”)

Most substitutes for financial support are no more persistently effective than Mr. Low’s “receipt.”

The Constant Source is not a flow of easy answers to tough questions. The Constant Source is the possession of attitudes that have served our tradition well. These are attitudes to be used, experienced and passed on to our successors in family life, church leadership, and community stance.

We are part of the totality of a universe energized by forces or a force, of such immeasurable creativity that always, religious language fails to measure up to the impact of the religious experience itself. This experience we seek to cultivate and try to understand. One way to be in touch with this Constant Source is to be open to the poetry, art, music, drama, theology and moral insistencies that men and women have created as expressions of this mystery of the origins, relatedness, and destiny of life. Such is the worship experiences we seek.

We know too that the Constant Source is never so near as when we are involved in the process of making the ideal real, of transforming the theoretical into the practical; of changing the actual circumstances of social life in order to test whether or not our goals have authentic identity with that which may be happening hourly, daily on the streets of the towns and cities of this strange space vehicle we call Earth.

Sometimes the Constant Source that inspires ethical living sends us alone to where the action is; sometimes it binds us together here as we seek to act in love and for truth and justice.

The Constant Source is at hand when gripped by inner anxieties, grasped by uncertainty and fear, grabbed by horrible threats to our personal stability, we reach out for the touch of strong, friendly hands, for the perceptive mind, and the affectionate response. When a religious society is at its best, it is a “ministering community,” a Constant Source of inquiry, reverence for personality, service where needed and understanding of the human dilemma.

Writing about the “Organization Man,” William H. Whyte, Jr., had words for the relationship of the person to society:

“What are the terms of the struggle? ....

“No one likes to be played checkers with, and the man The Organization needs most is precisely the man who is most sensitive on this point. To control one’s destiny and not to be controlled by it; to know which way the path will fork and to make the turning oneself; to have some index of achievement that no one can dispute – concrete and tangible for all to see, not dependent on the attitudes of others. It is an independence he will never have in full measure but he must forever see it.” (p. 166-67, NY, Simon and Shuster, 1956)

Thoreau:

“If a man does not keep pace with his companions,
Perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.
Let him step to the music he hears,
However measured or far away.”

In times such as these, where there is difficulty in maintaining independence of mind, when it is not easy to resist conformist pressures in every area of life from styles of clothing to the ethics of war and peace, we need the Constant Source of our heritage and present affirmation of the right and duty one has to march to the beat of a different drum, if it is a distant drum he hears.

There are many pious comforts in traditional assurances about God and heaven that are not found here. Here no one can instruct you in required creeds or unchanging codes of behavior. If such rigidities represent security, it is a security we disavow. There is an old European fable adopted by Chileans and Argentinians, told by Eduardo Frei (NYT Magazine, 2/19/67, in article, “A Revolution Without the Execution Wall.”)

“A skinny dog from Chile and a fat dog from Argentina met in a mountain pass on the border between the two countries and, both having climbed nearly 12,000 feet straight up, stopped to rest.

“‘You seem to have suffered a rough trip,’ said the beautiful sleek Argentine dog, noting that the Chilean dogs ribs were visible through his sad coat.

“‘Yes,’ snapped the Chilean dog. ‘I am not nearly so well nourished as you. But I am told that in Argentina there is more than enough for all, and therefore I am headed that way.’

“‘Ah, yes,’ said the Argentine dog proudly. ‘In Argentina we have filet mignon three times a day if we like. We have great wines from Mendoza. And one can satisfy almost any craving in Buenos Aires. It is the Paris of South America. Lord, the girls in their Dior frocks and Dior shoes, their perfect coiffures, their delicious ... I’m sorry, I get carried away.’

“‘Well, I must be off,’ said the Chilean dog. ‘Adios.’

“‘Adios,’ said the Argentinian dog, as he trotted off toward Santiago.

“‘Wait a minute,’ shouted the Chilean dog after he had gone a few strides. ‘Why on earth after all you’ve told me about your country are you going to Chile? Tell me, hombre?’

“The Argentinian dog turned around, ‘I’m going to Chile to bark.’”

Here you may bark.

I am aware of varieties of critical analysis being applied to the form, value, and programs of local congregations, here and everywhere else. Who of us does not seek to improve our personal and group religion? All of us yearn for these moments when some creative, perceptive person will create from the ecclesiastical and sociological imagination a newly reformed religious structure which will be relevant and inspire reverence.

Consider Mr. Urban/Suburban America, flying the continent five days a week, carrying the inevitable briefcase – as much his authority of office and justification of salary as the mitre represents authority and justification of the bishop. Mr. Urban/Suburban America whose major living problems are postponed, not resolved, by his peripatetic journeyings.

Consider Mrs. Urban/Suburban America, his wife, that chauffeur par excellence, who may not be trapped in the split-level, but may be anxiously unstrung because of self-doubt or weary to the bone with the task of trying to instill high standards of behavior in her children and attempting to motivate them strongly to study harder for marks that will ensure acceptance at high status universities.

But Mr. and Mrs. Urban/Suburban American live with nagging fears that the children’s destiny may be little more than dazzling combinations of the kind of living about which mother and father have largely lost hope for contentment, let alone a fullness of gratitude for the gift of life.

Mr. and Mrs. Urban/Suburban America, living in a balance of financial affluence and emotional misery – stereotypes of lives which could be more productive and happy. Then there are millions in our land, ground down by poverty, prejudice and the light of hope flickers weakly for them.

Many are the critics who assert that in a world where most people are disheartened and timidly resigned to the genocidal domination of military-industrial overlordship, the Church is impossibly antiquated; antiquated because its effective role is largely limited to the basic ceremonies of the human nature cycle – matching, hatching, dispatching, rather than exerting leverage in solving the dirty, difficult problems of the world today.

I suppose if I wanted to concentrate, I could come up with a much more merciless critique of the religious society than any of you.

But as I look back on the sources of new visions and the emergence of new forms, the frequency is imposing with which inspiration began within the religious organization or structures.

The Old Testament prophets were both faithful and radical, beginning within the tradition. Jesus represented this continuity. If you read, you will note that he taught in the synagogues and made his most dramatic appeal for reform within the Temple grounds.

Savonarola, Hus, Luther, Calvin, Knox, Francis David, founder of Unitarianism in Transylvania, William Ellery Channing, Hosea Ballou, John Murray, Theodore Parker – the changes these men inaugurated were historically pivotal and the chances begin within the religious institutions. [CJW note: Most stayed within the institution of religion.]

In spite of all that could be said and is said about the inertia of church people in the face of dynamically changing society (and I have my private moments of cynical misery, believe me), nevertheless there is power in the conscience of many people in the churches when needs are clear and constructive passions abound. I have few formed notions about the shape of the future effectiveness of this Unitarian society. I do know that the religious society, whatever its faults, its disputes, its confusion about goals, its disagreements about methods, the free religious society is the place where if you have the courage, you can be a person and not just a manager, a scientist, a bureaucrat, an office-boy, a salesman, a carpenter, a teacher, artist, schoolchild, housewife, teeny-bopper, stubborn-traditionalist or passionate rebel. You can be a person.

Gabriel Fackre of Lancaster Theological School, writing in the essay, “The Crisis of the Congregation,” (VOLUNTARY ASSOCIATIONS, p. 296), comments, “Of potentially great significance to the public sector itself is the new style of life to be found in many local congregations. At worst the clubbiness of the likeminded, but at best a genuine life together where burdens are borne and joys are shared ... something of a sign that says, ‘Here John Doe gets back his face and his name. In a world that manipulates and thingifies him, here is a community where personhood is affirmed. Let this world learn something of what it is like to make men human.’”

At our best we confront our fellow members as persons, not as stylized images; as fellow seekers not as crusaders. When we forget that may our words be as ashes, our proud convictions as the chaff which the wind drives away.

I make no assurance to you whatever that all programs you are asked to support will be equally fruitful – some seed always falls on stony ground. This I know. But I also know that where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.