Unsung Americans

February 17, 1980 (probably)
Lakeland (probably)

Unsung Americans

Almost always in the days of February 12 to 22, we think of Washington and Lincoln. They are our greatest and most acclaimed presidents, and along with Thomas Jefferson the greatest Americans.

Seldom does one write anything about the best of our American ideals and values without finding that Abraham Lincoln wrote the most terse but also most comprehensive statement. Seldom does one seek to affirm a principle of American freedom without finding that Jefferson stated it already, concisely and grandly.

Henry Steele Commanger, a superior American historian asks, “Why was a country with a population less than half that of Los Angeles able to produce men like John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, George Mason, and John Marshall? “A galaxy of leaders we cannot for all our numbers, wealth, science, and universities begin to duplicate today.”

Endless praise is due these famous Americans; never-ending wonder at their gathering in the generations that needed most their talents, leadership, wisdom, and courage. Deservedly they will be acclaimed as long as the Republic endures.

But I am not going to talk about them today. I want to speak of the “millions who, humble and nameless, the straight hard pathway trod” - the unsung Americans. Although, I mention only a few, without the unsung Americans the nation could not have been established and endure to this hour – with all its fears, yet with all its hopes.

Unless you are an American Revolution history buff, or have spent time in Marblehead, Massachusetts, the name of John Glover may ring no bells in your memory. But for John Glover and his Marblehead fishermen, Lord Howe and his British army, together with the British fleet, would have captured or destroyed Washington’s army in the Battle of Long Island in August 1776. Such a disastrous defeat would have postponed a successful revolution for many years, perhaps decades.

John Glover, in pre-revolutionary days, had been a ship-owning merchant in Marblehead. He had been active in many of the agitations and grievances against England.

When the Revolutionary War broke out he recruited a regiment in Marblehead, the 14th Continental, for the most part comprised of rugged fishermen and sailors. They could handle sails and oars as well as fire muskets. Their uniforms were blue jackets, white caps and tarred trousers, the same clothes they wore when fishing off the Grand Banks. They marched to Cambridge to join Washington’s army.

Colonel (soon to be General) John Glover’s 14th Continental regiment acted bravely and skilfully in land battles, but the most valuable contributions were at the Battle of Long Island and the famous crossing of the Delaware.

After defeating Washington’s army badly in the Battle of Long Island (August 1776), Lord Howe had 9000 of the finest Revolutionary troops trapped on Long Island. Washington had 7000 on Manhattan Island. In addition, the British fleet, with complete control of the sea, was approaching the East River. Once there, the Revolutionary troops would be cut off completely.

Washington ordered all possible boats recruited. Keeping his plans secret, Washington entrusted the evacuation operation to Glover’s 14th and Hutchinson’s 27th, a unit also largely made up of fishermen and sailors from Salem, Lynn, and Danvers.

The operation had to be carried out in a single night, for if the British discovered what was happening, they would immediately attack and overwhelm the Revolutionary Army.

Navigating in total darkness, because no light could be used, the mariners crossed again and again with boatloads of troops. In less than 9 hours, nearly 9000 soldiers and their supplies and materiel, including horses, were ferried across to Manhattan. A disastrous defeat averted, General John Glover and his unsung fishermen and sailors, sometimes called the “first amphibious regiment” had saved the Colonial cause.

There are probably few more famous patriotic paintings than the oil by Emmanuel Leutze - “Washington crossing the Delaware” (inaccurate in many respects; quite improbable that Washington would have stood so close to the bow).

Washington and his army had retreated from New Jersey into Pennsylvania, with the Delaware River separating them from the British. The British could not get enough boats to cross the Delaware. British General Howe decided to close the campaign for the winter and marched most of his forces back to New York, leaving a chain of garrisons including Trenton, New Jersey.

Washington decided that the British garrisons were vulnerable and decided on a daring campaign. [Four] forces were to cross the Delaware separately on Christmas night, 1776.

Various difficulties caused 3 of the 4 forces to fail to cross. Washington’s own crossing depended on General Glover and his sailor-soldiers. 2400 Revolutionary soldiers marched 9 miles to the ferrying point, where Glover’s regiment was. There they boarded the waiting boats – Durham boats, quite unlike the ones created by the imaginative artist. In a howling storm the boats were boarded; the river was high and littered with ice. With little visibility, Glover’s men navigated the narrow crossing, again and again, until all 2400 troops were ferried across. [CJW note: no loss of life – not even a cannon]

At dawn, Trenton was attacked; it was victory for the Continentals! Trenton, though not a large battle, helped turn the tide; Washington’s hopes and American spirit were lifted from a low point. The British historian, Trevelyan, wrote, “It may be doubted whether so small a number of men were ever employed so short a period with greater and more lasting results upon the history of the world.” The fishermen, the sailors are unsung. There is a Glover Square in Marblehead. It seems fitting that the statue of private John Russell of the 14th Continental stands guard at the base of the Trenton battle monument.

Unsung Americans – yet without them, George Washington would have been a discredited general and the American colonies would have remained that, colonies; and who knows when nationhood would have or could have been achieved.

Among the most unsung are the women of the American Revolution. True, Molly Pitcher was one celebrated heroine; but almost the only one. Page Smith, in his finely detailed history of the American Revolution, A NEW AGE BEGINS, has a chapter on “Women in the Revolution.”

There was Esther Reed – she raised 300,000 pounds in Philadelphia for the Pennsylvania Continental soldiers. [CJW note: And Philadelphia was then occupied by the British.]

There was a country girl, name now unknown, who visited Philadelphia (when it was held by the British) ostensibly to sell eggs, but really collected information about British plans. She was almost captured by the British – not far from the city, Major Benjamin Tallmadge pulled her up behind him on his horse and galloped to the safety of American lines.

There was Lydia Darragh who wandered into an inn at Rising Sun, Maryland. There, Elias Boudinot, in charge of intelligence for the American army, was having dinner. He told the story, “A little poor insignificant old woman came in and solicited leave to go into the country to buy some flour. While we were asking some questions, she walked up to me and put into my hands a dirty old needlebook with various small packets in it.” When she left, he examined the needlebook. In the last pocket there was a piece of paper rolled up like a pipestem. On it was information that General Howe planned to march out of Philadelphia with a large force and attack Washington’s army. The information was passed to General Washington, who moved staff headquarters and changed the deployment of his ragged, overmatched army with the result that General Howe returned to Philadelphia after only inconclusive skirmishes.

Then there was Mary Philipse dramatized in the third act of Maxwell Anderson’s play, “Valley Forge.” Mary Philipse, who may have been the mistress of British commanding general, Lord Howe, brings Washington and Howe together because the latter believes Washington will surrender. But General Howe learns that Washington will not surrender, dreadful as the suffering is at Valley Forge. Secretly, Mary Philipse passes information to Washington that the French will help the Colonials, news that will make all the difference. He thanks her and says, “it will be remembered.” Mary then says,

“Why then I’m glad.
I know my destiny, little though I may like it
and it’s not as high as yours.
There are some men
who lift the age they inhabit
till all men walk
on higher ground in that lifetime.”

She was too modest. The unsung as well as the famous “lift the age they inhabit – till (all) walk on higher ground.”

Louisa May Alcott is not among the unsung. her novels were famous, particularly LITTLE WOMEN. Almost unknown, however, is her little book, HOSPITAL SKETCHES.

During the fratricidal agony of the Civil War, she served as a volunteer nurse in a mansion, converted to a hospital, near Washington. The sufferings of the wounded were intense. After the numerous amputations and dressing of jagged bullet wounds, the most the volunteers could do was to wash the wounded give human comfort. In its own way, HOSPITAL SKETCHES is a poignant and penetrating anti-war testimony.

Among many tragic and pathetic stories is that of John (last name not given). She had tended John on his arrival at the hospital, then she received word he was weakening. As he lay dying he asked her to write a letter for him.

She asks him if the letter should be to his mother, or his wife. He answers, “I’m not so very young, ma’am, thirty in May and have been what you call settled these ten years, for mother’s a widow. I’m the oldest child she has, and it wouldn’t do for me to marry until Lizzy has a home of her own and Laurie’s learned his trade; for we’re not rich, and I must be a father to the youngest children....

Louisa asks, “Yet, John, how come you went to war, if you felt so; wasn’t enlisting as bad as marrying?”

“No ma’am, not as I see it, for one is helping my neighbor, the other pleasing myself. I didn’t want the glory or the pay; I wanted the right thing done....”

Two days later, John died. Louisa May Alcott was with him, holding his hand with a long sigh as death came. She concludes, “Then I left him, glad to have known so genuine a man, and carrying with me an enduring memory of the brave Virginia blacksmith, as he lay serenely waiting for the dawn of that long day which knows no night.”

Louisa May Alcott had an enduring memory of this soldier. We do not even know his last name. He is one of the unsung; one of the hundreds of thousands who died in war believing the cause was just. Their crosses and Stars of David punctuate the landscape at Arlington, Chateau Thierry, and thousands of other burial grounds.

How many would say to us, if they could, “no more war; never again” ?

Thus, it seems to me that however distinguished our great names – and rightly praised and honored – in the shadows of their glory are the unsung. Some of them recognized by a few; none of them known by all. But without them, the famous would have been losers – dishonored and infamous.

It is not only in detailed histories or obscure biographies alone that we may respond occasionally to the unsung – who they were and what they did. The unsung have been in our own lives when we take the time to remember.

“Recognitions are clearings in the jungle of life, where space opens enough to let the mind run free.” Reflect now and then on those in your life who provided clearings and space enough for your mind to run free. Perhaps a parent, a grandparent, a school teacher, an early employer who may have been taught by discipline and example that a job was more that just time-serving in order to collect a weekly wage. I think of Matilda Clement, a teacher of English literature, who took a crude hunk of boy away from reading Tom Swift and his Air Glider, Zane Grey, Merriwell Brothers and the Rover Boys, and somehow taught him to seek the beauty and insight of the Shakespearean treasure; led him to try ever to feel with the great poets who knew much more about the meaning of life than he would ever have recognized otherwise.

There is another unsung person I remember from my earliest years. He was Harry the Junkman. His plodding old horse pulled a dilapidated wagon through the streets of our city, calling in his thick accent, “any bottles and rags.” Harry ... was an immigrant from Eastern Europe. He bought rags, bottles, scrap metals, almost anything he could sort and re-sell. His clothes were almost as junky as the scrap he bought. His task was dirty, unpleasant, and I’m sure his labor unending except for Friday night Sabbath. With the peculiar cruelty of city children, we would run alongside Harry’s wagon, imitating his calls and hooting at him. But Harry’s two sons graduated from college and Harvard Law School. Only in later years did I recognize that Harry had been a fine American whose worth was unsung, except for his immediate family.

Think on your life – have there not been the Miss Clements and Harry the Junkmans?

Carl Sandburg, in THE PRAIRIE YEARS, tells (p. 56) of a small town in Illinois where a court trial was being held. Bill Greene was on the witness stand when a lawyer asked him who were the principal citizens of New-Salem. Bill Greene answered, “There are no principal citizens; everyone in New-Salem neighborhood is a principal citizen.”

Of course, seldom is it ever recognized that everyone is a principal citizen – there are too many disinherited for whom the heritage of discrimination and lack of power is obvious. But as we increasingly know that the greatest persons would be unknown if were not for the unsung, then perhaps we can embrace the reality that “recognitions are clearings in the jungle of life where space opens enough to let the mind run free.”

Religion With Reservations

February 3, 1980
Lakeland

Religion With Reservations

If you wish to travel by air, this is the season in Florida when one will not get far or fast unless one has reservations. Religion has aspects of the opposite. The more reservations one holds, the shorter distance one will travel. One may not get off the ground.

Members of this Fellowship have engaged in a small group process wherein each person was encouraged to share with others priorities, hopes, dreams. These were differences of choice and emphasis. Strong emphasis expressed for one area of the life of the Fellowship necessarily means reservations about other parts of the program. We all hold our religion with reservations. That is why following this part of the service, our fund drive committee will share with you the priorities which emerged from the small group meetings for your additional feed-back and comment.

Our Unitarian Universalist religious tradition and principles carry into practice religion with reservations. But I believe we express openly that which is characteristic of the major stream of modern society.

This feeling was reinforced by reading Peter Berger’s latest book, THE HERETICAL IMPERATIVE. Berger is a sociologist at Rutgers University who has written lucidly on Christian theology. He is a Christian. Yet the characteristics of modern society he describes mesh with what I have called religion with reservations.

You may recall that “heresy” is choice. In THE HERETICAL IMPERATIVE, Berger demonstrates rather convincingly that not only may we choose, but in modern society, one must choose; there is no other option.

He bases the heretical imperative on developments in modern society which did not prevail in former ages:

a proliferation of institutional choice
unreliable plausibility structures
built-in uncertainty

First of all, he observes that modern consciousness “entails a movement from fate to choice.” In prior ages humans lived in a world of fate. Society was maintained by clear-cut behavior – prescribed behavior. “What is, must be, and it could be no other.”

But as modern society developed with science, technology, division of labor, religious reformation movements, economic and political situations, there can be a plurality of choices. As Berger observes (p. 17), “Thus the institutional pluralization that marks modernity affects not only human action but human consciousness: modern man finds himself confronted not only by multiple options of possible courses of action, but also by multiple options of possible ways of thinking about the world.”

This leads in sequence to what Berger calls “unreliable plausibility structures” because modern civilization has weakened almost every belief and value held because of tradition and authority. This has the accompanying characteristic of built-in uncertainty about almost everything.

I wondered about the validity of this when I recalled that the fundamentalist churches are where people are flocking in far greater numbers than to other religious institutions.

I wondered about the truth of Berger’s analysis when I read the Time Magazine article about the “Electronic Church” in the current issue.

The latest available figures on six of the star TV performers (religious) – Jim Bakker 51 million, Pat Robertson 47 million, Jerry Falwell 46, Rex Humbard 25, Jimmy Swaggart 20, Robert Schuller, 16. These are annual revenues – have been increasing and probably will continue to increase. There are millions who testify they have received help, well-being, spiritual renewal. But the critics are numerous, too, not the least of these critics being the established churches.

But in spite of such imposing financial statistics and undoubted crowd appeal, I am curious if it is not a combination of nostalgic, show-business well done and stirring but irrelevant speaking, more than a return to an unchanging fundamentalist gospel. I looked up a survey done a few years ago (I doubt if there would be a substantive change):

Four-fifths of Americans questioned believed the Bible to be the revealed word of God, but only 35% could name the four gospels and 53% could not even name one. 80% believed Christ is God, but when asked to rate the 100 most significant events in history, the birth of Christ came in 14th, tied with the discovery of the X-ray and the flight of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk, NC. “Probably the most significant was a poll in which Americans were asked first, whether they felt religion was ‘very important.’ A vast majority said it was. Then they were asked, ‘Would you say that your religious beliefs have any effect on your ideas on politics and business?’ 54% said ‘no.’”

One more illustration: Rudolf Bultmann, esteemed Christian scholar and theologian wrote (quoted by Berger, p. 105), “One cannot use electric light and radio, call upon modern medicine in case of illness, and at the same time believe in the world of spirit and miracles of the New Testament.” (Unreliable plausibility structures)

All persons, or most all, hold religion with reservations.

Yet I can’t leave it there because I believe neutrality in religion is dis-membering. One of Carl Sandburg’s Lincoln stories seems illustrative. Lincoln told about the pioneer wife who, seeing her husband wrestling with a bear, shouted “Go to it, husband. Go to it, bear.”

Her impartiality indicated unacceptable neutrality and heedless reservations.

We all have reservations but we gather to share them. Then we seek, assign priorities based on our most commonly shared goals and efforts. We are together in this Fellowship because we have all the potential to grow in wisdom, understanding in this religious community. I like what church historian Martin Marty wrote, “It’s extremely easy to be an individualized Christian (or Unitarian Universalist) where no one can judge you or put you to work. It’s very hard to be in a congregation where the message isn’t always designed to appeal just to you.”

The combined spirit and sharing of truth-seeking; the common effort to mutually enhance and sustain our courage in a fearsome world and the limited effort to keep, share, and ... our fellowship of freedom and human dignity can embrace both our agreements and reservations.

The Authentic Interests of the Church

September 20, 1964
Rochester

September 27, 1964
Williamsville

Belair, 72

Filed under 1980

The Authentic Interests of the Church

You will understand that I am dealing with our variety of Church. Others can speak for the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, a Jewish Congregation, the Christian Science Church, a Moslem Mosque or a Quaker meeting. My concern is for the Unitarian Universalist Church. What emphases should dominate its congregational affairs, religious education, worship, discussion and social groups? Although I make little reference this morning to it, most of you know that I am aware of our heritage, Unitarian Universalist and Judeo-Christian. The past has guided us, influenced our minds and fastened a strong hold on the emotions of some of us. But the past should not dominate, The authentic interests of the Church can not be derived from what the Church was, but what it has become. Persons interested in this Church as a religious institution will stay with us or depart from us on their appraisal of its worth and character today.

The authentic interests of the Church today are to serve persons in their needs. It is hardly necessary to say that the Church is not a disembodied power that automatically generates spiritual light. The Church is always the persons who make it up at any given time. But the symbol and organization of this constitutional, cooperative community is "The Church." There is an old sermonic chestnut about the minister who preached on the subject, "Recognition of Friends in Heaven." A note was passed to him which read, "Rev. Sir, could you preach a sermon on 'Recognition of friends on earth? I've been coming to Church for six months and no one has spoken to me yet. " A reasonable task you might set for yourself is to take a pad and list the ways the Church does serve persons; and the way the Church should serve persons. How should we recognize "friends on earth?" The question is much wider than friendly hospitality on Sundays, much as we should prize such welcoming.

I would like to speak of three ways we can serve friends on earth; ways I believe to be the authentic interests of the Church:

First, the Church must serve persons in their fears and hopes. Among the most remarkable natural wonders of Yellowstone Park are the hundreds of hot springs and geysers, of which Old Faithful is the best-known. Some of the geysers erupt spectacularly on regular or irregular schedule. Many others do not make this spectacular burst of steam, gas and hot spray, but observation discloses a constant hot bubbling, as water is heated to the boiling point deep in the Earth's twisting crevasses.

The dispositions of persons are somewhat of an analogy to the Yellowstone geysers. Some of us erupt on some regular or erratic schedule; others are not inclined to furious outburst, but bubble constantly inside. We may be effective in our jobs and considered stable in our reactions, but nevertheless the anxieties steam away inside.

We fear for our jobs and status; we worry about our children's activities and future; we fret about a world whose problems seem completely estranged from any actions we might take to alleviate the tense issues. Calendar commitments are forever knocking holes in the dykes of our reserves for rest and re-creative opportunities. The point of excess strain seems hazardously close too frequently.

Increasingly, some of us note that the Church can serve persons in these small and large crises of anxieties. Now, this is not to indicate that the Church can or should be a do-it-yourself psycho-analytic production line. It cannot and should not.

But we are coming to recognize more fully that the experience of Church is not a one-way street beginning at the pulpit and ending at the pew, with other activities committed to supporting this process of sound from preacher and choir, and silence from the pew. Communication is multi-circuit.

The Church serves by providing the setting for dialogue, self-disclosure and the empathetic sharing of the concerns and anxieties of others. I hope that we ministers are beginning to recognize and embrace the value of this sharing of experience. If I may speak personally, nothing appalls me more than that I should be considered the giver of formulas or equations which swiftly solve problems of importance. Nothing attracts me more than to be among the explorers of knowledge; to be a part of spirited search for concensus; and to be among those who have shared the deep things of life wherein we heat the forge which makes malleable the iron of tough decisions.

The Church is serving and can serve better when there is recognition of the positive gains we can make as persons, who in smaller groups or larger gatherings can trust each other with our feelings.

The Church will not erase your anxieties, balance your checking account or tell you what to do about that crucial issue you must decide next week on your job. But the Church can directly and indirectly bring the scatterings of your life and strength into focus, to the end that you will be able to marshall all the resources which are yours.

The Church exists to remind you that the human spirit counts. I'm told that anybody who is anybody talks computers today. The coded tapes become the sources of great expectations for productive abundance beyond our wildest dreams; and also the triggers for nagging fears that the human family may not possess the political and economic dynamism to assimilate such amazing devices, Both the hopes and fears need to be disciplined by the religious truth that the human spirit counts. David Sarnoff stirred a reminder of this significance of the human spirit when he discussed the marvels of computers and what they could do for man. But he spoke a word of caution about the decision-making values of the computers. Then he cited an example! If a modern computer had been fed all the data about the practicality of defending England during World War 2 from the Nazis, the machine would have advised, "give up, the weapons, planes, personnel arid resources just do not exist." But there was no computer, and Winston Churchill scorned the odds and said, "fight; we shall never surrender." And a whole world is different because of that human spirit and the courageous, stubborn response of the English people. The human spirit counts. It is an authentic interest of the Church never to forget that; and to serve as a catalyst for the increasing strength of the human spirit.

A second authentic interest of the Church is a consequence of the first, in that the Church encourages, stimulates, even provokes persons to grapple with the forces that determine destiny. The Church says to you, "come to terms with your nature and your destiny." Here in a free church, it does not matter to the Church as an institution whether you are an agnostic, or Christian believer, or you-name-it. But it matters to you. THE HISTORY OF SYNANON is a fascinating book which deals with cooperative effort to help persons who have become addicted to narcotics. One penetrating observation dealing with this grievous addiction is that many of the addicts with the most fixed habit ("primary") are those who have never developed any type of constructive life pattern. This is an indication pointing to the universal need of a way of thinking. So this Church serves by urging each person discover his pattern for himself. It should no longer be any area of soreness that some of us are Humanists and some are Theists. (Parenthetically, I would say, that for me, more and more life appears to be "humanism within a mystery" of Time and Space, Creation and Destruction. My conviction grows that it is as naïve to ignore the humanistic spirit as it is parochial to reject the overwhelming reality that we have been created by a wondrous force that is not ourselves. (I intend to elaborate in a few weeks when I shall speak of the "God beyond God.")

The Church has a genuine stake in providing expression for these tides of freedom as their differentiated waves tumble on each other as persons reach for the shore of meaning. A poet and theologian have each surmised this truth. Although each speaks of art, the expression is just as true of the authentic interests of the Church. The poet, Willis Eberman wrote,

"No community altogether knows its own heart.
The artist must tell it, must reveal what the average surmise;
must make music or murals from the mass of inarticulate life.
The secrets that he must utter are their own, not his...."

The theologian, Paul Tillich, (SYSTEMATIC THEOLOGY, VOL. III, p. 64), wrote, "A work of art is authentic if it expresses the encounter of mind and world in which an otherwise hidden quality of a piece of the universe (and implicitly of the universe itself) is united with an otherwise hidden receptive power of the mind (and implicitly of the person as a whole.)"

A transposition of these two insights about art tells us of the genuine interests of the Church. The Church as a gathered community of seekers must "reveal what the average surmise; must make (words) music, murals from the mass of inarticulate life." The Church as a fellowship of persons covets the "encounter of mind and world" so that both these qualities of the Universe are disclosed and the receptivities of whole persons fulfilled.

Third, in my outline, but carrying the highest priority, the authentic interest of the Church is to serve persons in their need to make ethics count. "Why do you call me Lord, Lord and not do the things I ask?" That ancient challenge confronts us today. In the old Jewish scripture of 2nd Chronicles, the King of Israel called in the seers and sages to seek advice for a war campaign. Their advice was that it was God's will that the king should do as he wanted to do. This is always easy advice to give; comfortable advice to receive. But Micaiah, a prophet, did not repeat what the King wanted to hear. Quite the contrary. Micaiah told the King that if he wanted his action approved by God, the King would have to change his ways. (See reference, Nels Ferre, GOD'S NEW AGE.)

Recall Savonarola (1452-98) whose stern preaching about corruption and vanity enraged Lorenzo Di Medici. Lorenzo sent word to the eloquent monk demanding that he change his preaching style, Savonarola retorted, "You change your ways!" (See Kyle Haselden, THE PULPIT, June, 1964).

There is a profusion of examples from our heritage of the central relationship between religion and ethics. What a man believes is tested by what he does. But of most relevance to us is the perennial question, which always calls for decision, "What should I do?" Morality may have its guidance counsels deep in the culture, but moral realities are always contemporaneous.

What does it mean to act ethically today? It's not enough to know that ethical decisions comprise a large part of a religious heritage. Can I separate being "good" from what I do or do not do in the major crises of contemporary life – national elections, full equality of opportunity, war and peace, nations increasingly united? In order to act ethically one must know what the human needs are in the year, month, day, hour. What does it mean to be "good" today? Anecdotes from 2nd Chronicles and the life of Savonarola may be illustrative, but what is decisive comes back to you and to me with the pressing question, ''What is the good I ought to do? What is the right attitude I must maintain?" To walk away from decision is an answer too.

There was a news item a few months ago (Christian Century, 5/20/64, p. 662) reporting that the Swiss Government had announced that when national television launches its commercial advertising next January 1, five categories will be barred – those involving alcohol, tobacco, medicine, politics and religion.

These may be taboo on Swiss televion, but there are no issues involving the genuine interests of man which can be barred from the Church. Tc do so is to deprive the religious person of the opportunity to make his ethics count.

Robert Payne in his biography of LENIN, commented, p. 632 ''human misery is rooted not in the laws of nature but in those institutions man must learn to change."

There are several ways that persons answer the call of ethical insistence. Some maintain that out of the inspiration of the Church they, individually, act ethically and decisively in politics, education, industry, trade, fraternal organizations and neighborhood. One can not criticize this kind of commitnent. One wishes devoutly that it were much more wide-spread.

Others among us see that the relevant Church is the issue-conscious Church, and believe that the ethical force of the Church as an institution should be brought to bear on other institutions and upon issues. Yet, who can deny that it is far easier to get a complex church budget passed rather than action en a social issue, even where human values dictate rather clearly the nature of decision.

Because of this, small numbers of persons form Unitarian Universalist Fellowships for Social Justice, as with the Rochester Area Chapter UUFSJ. An auxiliary organization, not subject to the will of an entire congregation, it can speak and act with far greater speed and facility. But also, the views of a great many are not brought to bear in the considerations. And this is no longer enough. With the advent of the New UUA Department of Social Responsibility, at the Continental level, we are in a new age, wherein congregations can find new incentives and ways to confront issues in novel approaches that not only will give every interested member a chance to be heard, affirmatively or dissenting, but also will provide adequate machinery for decision and communication to the entire church constituency and the public.

The role of the Church in pronouncing upon issues and laboring as a society in achieving social goals is the most central issue of our decade. Yet if as Unitarian Universalists organized in religious society, we cannot find ways to work more unitedly on ethical jobs to be dnne and identified by congregational procedures with ethical causes, then the individualism we so justly boast will have had consequences to be deplored. David McClellan, a social psychologist, studying relationships in achievement observed, '"what people are concerned about determines what they do, and what they do determines the outcome of history." (ROOTS OF CONSCIOUSNESS, p. 32).

To summarize, the authentic interests of the Church are the needs of people
to recognize who they are on earth—the person-to-person need;
to come to terms with the great questions of origin and destiny—what can we believe?
to make ethics count—what can and should we do; and how should we work together in the doing?

In his significant biography of the crucial years of Woodrow Wilson's life, WHEN THE CHEERING STOPPED, Gene Smith tells of the triumphal tour of President Woodrow Wilson prior to the deliberations of the Peace Conference at Versailles. In the course of the tour, Wilson visited a Church near the Scottish border where his grandfather, Thomas Woodrow Wilson had been the minister. With his great dream of peace possessing his soul, President Wilson, standing in front of the Communion rail said, "We shall be drawn together in a combination of moral forces that will be irresistible.... it is from quiet places like this all over the world that the forces accumulate which will presently overbear any attempt to establish evil."

Wilson's dream was shattered as his physical health was shattered in his lifetime, but the dream of a world free and fair always revives. It is from "quiet places like this that (moral) force accumulates." I believe that it is the authentic interests of the Church to help make substance of the dream:

to recognize friends on earth;
to know what we believe;
and to make our ethical convictions count.

Difficult—excruciatingly difficult—yet can we make a lesser commitment than found in those grand lines from Tennyson's "Ulysses?"

"We are not now that strength which in old days
Moved earth and heaven: that which we are, we are,
One equal temper of heroic hearts,
Made weak by Time and Fate, but strong in will
To strive, to seek, to find and not to yield."

Carl Sandburg: People, Yes; Religion, Maybe

January 6, 1980
Lakeland

January 13, 1980
Port Charlotte

Carl Sandburg: People, Yes; Religion, Maybe

On this day (January 6) 102 years ago, Carl Sandburg was born. He died, July 23, 1967 at the age of 89.

Son of Swedish immigrants, he began work at 13 in his native city, Galesburg, Illinois, working on a milk wagon. During the next few years, he rode the rails as a hobo, dropping off the freight trains at numerous places in this land to work as a porter in a hotel; he shifted scenery in theatre; truck driver, worked on a railroad construction gang; pitched hay in Kansas wheat fields; soldiered in the Spanish-American War.

Following 8 months’ service in Puerto Rico, he went back to college – Lombard, a Universalist college in Galesburg. he worked his way through as a janitor, ringing the college bell, and tutoring. He left before getting a degree (but in later years at least a dozen universities awarded him honorary degrees).

Then he roamed the Midwest [as a] newspaperman, salesman, organizer for the social democrat party of Wisconsin, labor editor [of] the Milwaukee Journal.

There he met Paula Steichen, sister of Edward Steichen, who was to become one of America’s most famous photographers. Their marriage endured.

All the while he was reading. He was influenced by Whitman, although Sandburg’s free verse is quite different. Most of all he listened, talked, sang folk and labor songs, and played his guitar.

His ABRAHAM LINCOLN: THE PRAIRIE YEARS – THE WAR YEARS is one of the remarkable American biographies. He wrote not as a political scientist or historian but as one who loved Lincoln both for Lincoln’s explainable greatness and Lincoln’s mystic and spiritual qualities. He was awarded the Pulitzer Prize for History in 1940.

Sandburg’s autobiography, written of his first 21 years (ALWAYS THE YOUNG STRANGERS) has an inimitable quality of describing the America of that period. When reading it, although quite different in style, one is reminded of Dylan Thomas’ “Child’s Christmas in Wales” or the poetry of Robert Burns. Just as one meets, unforgettably, the working people of Wales in Dylan Thomas or the Scottish crofters in Burns, so one meets the American People in ALWAYS THE YOUNG STRANGERS.

But it is his poetry that many of us read, again and again, frequently aloud. Sandburg was not a poet – his lines do not rhyme or scan. Therefore how can he be classed with other great American poets – Longfellow, Emerson, Whitman, Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost? I like what one literary editor wrote: “No one can read Carl Sandburg’s poetry with any degree of open-mindedness and car and not find in them a spontaneous overflowing of powerful feeling, passion, magic rhythm and glorious imagination.”

His “Fog” is probably the best known short poem in our land:

“The fog comes
On little cat feet.
It sits looking
over the harbor and city
on silent haunches
and then moves on.”

Carl Sandburg came through to many of his generation as coarse, rude, [and] defamatory of religion. He shocked many. He used slang and his jargon is now outdated. But always he was concerned for people, lonely people, children. But he was untraditional in religion. People, yes; religion, maybe.

He was skeptical of traditional gods and their representations:

Manufactured Gods

They put up big wooden gods.
Then they burned the big wooden gods
And put up brass gods and
Changing their minds suddenly
Knocked down the brass gods and put up
A dough-faced god with gold ear-rings.
The poor mutts, the pathetic slant heads,
They didn’t know a little tin god
Is as good as anything in the line of gods,
Nor how a little tin god answers prayer
And makes rain and brings luck
The same as a big wooden god or a brass
Or dough-faced god with golden ear-rings.

He hated hypocrisy. In his lines “To a Contemporary Bunkshooter” he was vulgarly frank. Many persons were shocked. But there were many of his day who thought [it] was an accurate picture of Billy Sunday, then the most famous and popular evangelist.

[CJW indicates a passage to be read here]

There is no reliance or faith in doctrine or dogma – but there’s no maybe about his religion – it is, it is.

Carl Sandburg didn’t think much of future heavens or hell.

[CJW indicates a passage to be read here]

And again:

[CJW indicates a passage to be read here]

It is doubtful whether the poet of the people had any belief in immortality in any traditional sense. His questioning was reflected beautifully in “Cool Tombs”

[CJW indicates a passage to be read here]

Yet interlacing that questioning is a testimony to the immortality of love:

[CJW indicates a passage to be read here]

For him religion was a feeling, a seeking, a quest:

[CJW indicates a passage to be read here]

He held no conventional idea of God – sometimes he was whimsical:

[CJW indicates a passage to be read here]

Sometimes he touched the human questioning at depth:

[CJW indicates a passage to be read here]

Then too he would remind the pretenders of much knowledge of the deep mystery of life:

[CJW indicates a passage to be read here]

The religion of Carl Sandburg? You might say “maybe” - I say, “yes, yes, yes.”

But there is no doubt that “People, Yes” was woven into all his life as well as his writings: hard-working people, exploited people, lonely people, patient people, rebellious people, loving people -

Upstream:
[CJW indicates a passage to be read here]

Fireborn:
[CJW indicates a passage to be read here]

He was a prophet of freedom, and the arrival one day, of the human family:
[CJW indicates a passage to be read here]

In any paperback display at the airport newsstand, you will see paperbacks telling us how to be happy. I suggest there is a deeper clue in the following lines than in a hundred paperbacks:

[CJW indicates a passage to be read here]

He knew how weak and fallible we people are. Sandburg knew the human condition on the prairies, in the wheat-fields, the steel mills, the slaughter-houses, the army in war. He had sympathy, insight, love. He uttered a strong and frank condemnation of injustice and let hope speak to the difficult, wonderful, agonizing, sorrowful, hopeful human condition.

[CJW indicates a passage to be read here]

People, Yes. Religion, Yes. Happy Birthday, Carl Sandburg, wherever you are.

[Editor’s Note: The specific quotes marked by Rev. Westman are not attached to the sermon notes. Some poems are clearly named, but it is not clear whether he read aloud all or just part of these poems. The interested reader can look them up.]

The Land Was Ours, Before We Were The Land’s

November 25, 1976 – Orl
November 22, 1979 – Lakeland
Thanksgiving

The Land Was Ours, Before We Were The Land’s

In the land of the Senecas, which was roughly bounded by the Genesee River on the East and the Niagara joining of two lakeheads on the West, there still stand some of the longhouses of the Senecas, part of the Iroquois family of nations. The longhouse was a community residence of matrilineal families, but it was also a community council house.

For hundreds of years before the Pilgrims came, the American Indians celebrated the gathering-in of harvest. The Senecas were an agricultural tribe which had evolved an intricate Thanksgiving ritual. Thanksgiving was Ganon:yonk, celebrated with poems and the Feather and Drum Dance. Skilled orators would recite the age-old poems. Tribal chiefs Cornplanter and Red Jacket were among the most famous when the Europeans invaded the peaceful land of the six nations. At harvest time, there was a belief from the most ancient of times that when the thanksgiving ritual began, even the wind stopped and all spirit forces listened.

To the cadence of the drum, the rhythmic stomp of dance and the measured chant of the poem, the Longhouse people gave thanks for the structure of the world and for the grain, corn, squashes, beans, venison, and wild turkey provided there so that the people of the six nations might survive and mate and endure.

We know more of the psalms of thanksgiving created by the Hebrews, but the peace loving tribes of the Iroquois had their songs of thanks. Part of their thanksgiving chant went:

“We give thanks for the corn and beans and squashes that give us life;
We give thanks for the Great Spirit who is all goodness and
who directs all things for the good of his children.”

We are a long way from Cornplanter and his people. We buy turkey and squash, not grow it – but we are alive; we know love and pain an anxiety – and at times, assurance that life is good. And we give thanks.

The Senecas’ and Pilgrims’ survival depended on the favorable allotment of sun, rain, heat, frost, and cold. Our survival is dependent on complexities of culture, needing generosity and understanding that can break through much more difficult boundaries than the Genesee and the Niagara. Our breakthrough has to be through thick walls of international fear and, within our own country, through walls of racial mistrust and the wall of ignorance and hostility between groups.

Perhaps Sam Bradley puts our thanks and fears in words:

Pilgrims, Pilgrims Yet

“They came as strangers, pilgrims of the earth,
to a wilderness of untried strengths, a West
for bolder covenants. And their unrest
is still in us. Each humbled line of birth,
rebel or not, yet far-ventures worth
of everyman. And our God-speeds attest
a perpetuity of trust, a quest
not halted by a dowsing at the hearth.

“A stranger’s hand? A promised world at hand?
Draconian rules to pass? If we undo
old mistimed power, tradition misapplied,
ours, fasces of new power! But to command
our sheaf of stars, we must somehow subdue
Our waylost fear and our waylaying pride.”

Thick and Thin Theology

November 1979
Lakeland

Thick and Thin Theology

The Unitarian Universalist denomination has “such a thin theology and such a thick ethic.” These are the words of William Sloane Coffin, noted minister of Riverside Church, N.Y.C., and for many years a courageous social activist. He did not make this statement with any intent to disparage Unitarian Universalists; rather, he was complimenting the long record of Unitarian Universalists in taking stands in the social order and attempting to meet human needs with no intention that such acts would create converts to Unitarian Universalist beliefs.

Now I shall not dwell today on our ethical virtues and activities. If we deserve applause, we do not have to seek it; when we pride ourselves overmuch, that is a sure signal that we are substituting self-satisfaction for awareness of the continuous urgency to grapple with old and new demands to meet human needs. Our task is not to seek praise but to strengthen our witness to injustice and make ever more effective methods of helping.

But is our theology “thin”?

First of all, many religious liberals are frequently trapped in the conceit that theology is nothing but an antiquarian eccentricity occupying musty minds living in the past. Some of us, particularly in the last half of the 20th century, have no room in our intellectual house for theology. One book reviewer commented on a History of Iceland (1758), [noting] that Chapter 12 was entitled “Owls in Iceland.” The chapter consisted in total, of this: “There are no owls of any kind in the whole island.” (American Scholar, Summer 1979, editor’s footnotes). Some persons would similarly describe theology among Unitarian Universalists as having no theologies. There are outdated irrelevancies in theology in my opinion, but there can be deep meanings and broad understandings, too.

Therefore I would like to speak to you about theology from my point of view. It is a principle among us that no one imposes a theology on any one of us. We have the freedom to believe, disbelieve, or ignore. The attempt will be to neither overlook the deficiencies nor the rewards of theology, trying to be candid about its limitations, urgent about its rewards.

Theology is traditionally defined as exposition about the nature of God, the creator, and the nature and destiny of human persons, the created. In Christian thought, theology came to mean the systematic statements which explained and defended the ancient creeds of Christendom. The intent of systematic theology was both to help believers understand their faith and to combat the counter-claims of those labeled, “heretics.”

Now one would suppose the opposite of a thin theology is a “thick” theology. If that means that theology is the sole possession of one or more particularly Christian movements, then, if not “thick,” it seems opaque to me. [marginal note: Harnack: “What is Christianity? Whatever finds expression in doctrines, regulations, ordinances, and forms of public worship comes to be treated as the thing itself.” ] When I think of theology I include the sweep of religions world-wide and to the depths of history, with emphasis on religious thought and its expression in words. Words expressing one’s honest thinking are effective and are still one of the better ways of religious expression.

In our western culture we are surrounded by the ancient faith symbols in art, architecture and literature. There are crosses on the churches, plastic Jesuses on the dashboard, exhortations on bumper stickers, Gideon bibles in the motel rooms, public prayers in the name of Jesus, Lord and Savior. Whether these signs help or hinder one’s religious response, they are ancient faith symbols.

The Christian creeds were formed in the early centuries of this era when the Roman Empire was disintegrating. There was a corrupt, crumbling bureaucracy within; the invading Vandals, Huns, Goths, were at the gates. It was a time of hopelessness. One need not wonder that dogma prescribed a supernatural scheme of salvation.

However, there is little wide-spread recognition that these doctrines and symbols relate to ages that are strikingly different in ways of thinking than in our modern world.

There is the process of evolution, not dreamed of when the creeds were hammered out 1500 to 1700 years ago. By stretching, for example, some think Genesis is poetic or symbolic [form] of expression, but the effort is laborious and unconvincing.

Modern physics and astronomy postulate a system entirely different from the ancient religious stories of the cosmos, no matter how poetic and lovely the latter may be.

Whether one calls it a “thin” theology or not, some of us attempt to comprehend religious truth in the light of modern thought. Not that modern thought is ultimate, for it is not exempt from decay and change in the same way as all that has gone by, been discarded, or modified.

One perennial theological deficiency is the temptation to confuse the beliefs of one’s own group with eternal truth. In our culture, I suppose the most obvious example of this is the Roman Catholic assertion and dogma that God does not permit the Church (the Pope) to teach error in matters of faith and morals. But there are many other instances of the deification of the power of a person or group, one teacher (theologian) - “Maybe that is what theologians are for – to tell us how we can be religious by doing what we would do anyway and believing what we would believe anyway.” (Paul Holmer, THEOLOGY TODAY). [marginal note: ask – does this make any substantive difference?]

Perhaps that has something to do with the proliferation of religious groups in this country. Someone gave me a clipping which stated that of the 1203 known religions discovered in research for “The Encyclopedia of American Religions,” 700 to 800 have been started since 1965.

These include such peculiar brands as “The Discordian Society,” worshiping the goddess of chaos and dedicated to anarchy, the Psychedelic Venus Church idolizing drugs and sex, and many others of varying notions, preachers, and theologies.

St. Paul (2nd Corinthians 4-7) made a penetrating observation, or rather, metaphor, when he wrote about faith: “But we have this treasure in earthen vessels.” That is, the most devoutly held faith is limited by our experience in our time in our world. Theology is contained in an earthen vessel.

One of the noted Puritan preachers of Colonial times provided an apt illustration. In 1689, Cotton Mather, in a sermonic discourse on witchcraft, offered two kinds of proof that witches existed and practiced their malevolent ways. First, he cited the authority of scripture: Saul had sought out the witch of Endor who had supernatural powers to bring Samuel back from Sheol. Then Cotton Mather buttressed the witness of scripture with his own experience and cited testimony then current about witches. Cotton Mather’s voice was a strong influence in forming the social sanction which permitted the execution of alleged witches. In 1692 alone, 20 were executed, most of them by hanging. Today we would say that the theology which created acceptance for this hysteria and outrageous persecution was deficient indeed. It was enclosed in the earthen vessel of its times. Professor Georgia Harkness once wrote that the “differences between Calvinism and Lutheranism can be accounted for in no small measure by the fact that Calvin began his career as a lawyer and Luther as a monk.”

That our theology is carried in earthen vessels, subject to decay and change, conditioned by our background and needs are a limitation to any supposed absolutes of which Unitarians should be singularly aware. Here you need not agree with the pronouncements from a pulpit. Individual judgment is your privilege. Co-ercion of thought and imposition of ideas are intolerable among us. It goes for every one of us that no matter how persuasive the faith one cherishes individually, it is in an earthen vessel, a container shaped by one’s own inheritance, traditions, and experience; [it is] fire-glazed by one’s social conditioning.

Our theology (or philosophy) may be thin to those who cherish an unquestioning structure.

when the fact of pluralism is recognized, not only that one has the right and privilege of choosing among some 1,200 religious groups in this nation, but also, and more important, that there are great world religions whose origins, faith structures, and symbols began and grew quite independent of Judeo Christian Western religions. To assert only one way of salvation in this pluralistic world may be “thick” theology but seems a bit thick-headed to me.

From this it follows that we cherish, and ought to cherish, tolerance. A better attitude is acceptance even when most persons will not agree with our freedom principle for individual choice in religion.

We are heretics. Most persons do not recognize that it is a superior religious word because heresy comes from the Greek root, “to choose”. The reality is that many persons cannot endure the uncertainties of choice, and choose an over-dependence on authority.

I believe too that uncertainty grows. The more we discover about the macrocosm through the telescope and the microcosm through the microscope, the more mysterious the universe becomes and the more fragile seems our place in it. The more we ponder the process from Big Bang to single cell to creatures like ourselves, the more the mystery deepens. The ancient answers do not speak to my condition. But that should not dismiss the ultimate mystery of “why?” Nor shall I cease pondering. The most formidable question in philosophy is “Why is there something rather than nothing?”

If a theology of search is thin, so be it. John Milton is often quoted: “The light which we have gained was given us, not to be ever staring on, but by it to discover onward things more remote from our knowledge... to be still searching what we know not by what we know, still closing up truth as we find it, this is the golden rule in theology as in arithmetic.”

Let me close with two contrasting views:

[First]
As has been pointed out, “The theologian is not simply giving a straight account of the history of ideas: he is at the same time judging those ideas from the standpoint of the religion from which he starts....”

“The theological historians have decided in advance what the end of history is, and then they show how all the events in history have necessarily led up to this end.” (Adcock, “Hibbert Journal,” Aut. 65).

[Second]

Australian pastor Arthur Preston interviewed the great Scandinavian film actress Liv Ullman. The first cleric to do so before a microphone, he pressed her for some lay theology. Ullman: “I feel that there must be a meaning in our life. I feel if you thought of it you come into life with sealed orders and that God gave you those sealed orders. Your life in a way should be a striving, not so much to find out what those orders are, but to live as if it is important to live. Whatever you have inside, it is worthwhile trying to get out. [clipping from CONTEXT, Nov. 1, 1979, p. 4]

That too, I suppose, is a “thin” theology – but it suits my condition.

Theology is important. There is zest in the search – but it is an interpretation of life, not life itself. Live as if it were important to live. The real test of theology is conduct.

Time and Season

1979 (month and day not given)
Lakeland
Port Charlotte

Time and Season

Omar:

What eye can pierce the veil of God’s decrees,
or read the riddle of earth’s destinies?
Pondered have I for years threescore and ten
But still am baffled by these mysteries

Ecclesiastes 1:13/16

And I gave my heart to seek and search out by wisdom concerning all things that are done under heaven: this sore travail hath God given to the sons of man to be exercised therewith.
I have seen all the works that are done under the sun; and, behold, all is vanity and vexation of spirit.
That which is crooked cannot be made straight: and that which is wanting cannot be numbered.
I communed with mine own heart, saying, Lo, I am come to great estate, and have gotten more wisdom than all they that have been before me in Jerusalem: yea, my heart had great experience of wisdom and knowledge.

The first lines were from Omar Khayyam. The second reading from the Jewish scripture named Ecclesiastes. Each of these writers have contributed enduring lines to our literature. Although Omar nominally was a Moslem and Ecclesiastes a Jew, they were agnostic. They use the word “God” but Ecclesiastes’ God was not the Yahveh of Israel and Omar’s was not the Allah of Islam. Ecclesiastes and Omar thought, studies, observed, wrote, because they searched for the meaning of life, but could not find it in the religion of their heritages. Both were learned philosophers who had the rare gift of expressing their wisdom in poetic images.

There are many in our age, too, who see no supernatural divine plan for human beings, no plan of God for human life. There is little comfort in their writings for those who hope for happiness in a future heaven; there is nothing in their writing to cause fear of punishment in a future hell. They look at this life realistically and candidly, sometimes with a strain of despair, sometimes with a melody of pleasure. Many of us resonate to such alternatives.

Ecclesiastes is the Greek for the Hebrew word, Koheleth, the preacher, more accurately, one who speaks to the assembly or congregation. Although some think this was King Solomon, this is not true. Ecclesiastes was an unknown writer who lived hundreds of years after King Solomon in a period when some Hellenistic influence had been absorbed in the land of Israel, possibly around 200 B.C.E.

Many scholars believed there have been ... later editorial changes. The probability is that later editors felt the need to add certain pious phrases to make Ecclesiastes more acceptable in the prevailing religion.

Omar, a Persian, lived more than 1200 years after the time of Ecclesiastes, probably in the latter part of the 11th century and the early part of the 12th. He was a remarkable scholar learned in philosophy, Islamic law, and Arabic history, famous for his knowledge of the Koran. Like Ecclesiastes he wrestled with the questions of existence and sometimes his conclusions tortured him.

As with Ecclesiastes there are no authoritative manuscripts; existing copies differ and translators do not always agree. Omar may have cast off his scholarly pursuits and become a poet and tentmaker, for “Khayyam” means tentmaker.

Both Omar and Ecclesiastes were skeptical of any future world. Omar wrote:

“I sent my soul through the invisible,
Some letter of that after-life to spell
And by and by my soul returned to me,
and answered, ‘I myself am heaven and hell.’”

“I know not whether he who fashioned me
appointed me to dwell in heaven or dreadful hell,
(But) some food and an adored one,
and wine upon the green bank of a field -
All these are present cash to me:
Thine be the promised heaven.”

“Oh, threats of Hell and Hopes of
Paradise
One thing at least is certain and
the rest is lies;
The flower that once has blown
forever dies.”

Ecclesiastes wrote: 2:18/23

Yea, I hated all my labour which I had taken under the sun: because I should leave it unto the man that shall be after me.
And who knoweth whether he shall be a wise man or a fool? yet shall he have rule over all my labour wherein I have laboured, and wherein I have shewed myself wise under the sun. This is also vanity.
Therefore I went about to cause my heart to despair of all the labour which I took under the sun.
For there is a man whose labour is in wisdom, and in knowledge, and in equity; yet to a man that hath not laboured therein shall he leave it for his portion. This also is vanity and a great evil.
For what hath man of all his labour, and of the vexation of his heart, wherein he hath laboured under the sun?
For all his days are sorrows, and his travail grief; yea, his heart taketh not rest in the night. This is also vanity.

Omar wrote:

“Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust descend;
Dust unto dust, and under dust to lie,
Sans wine, sans song, sans singer, and sans end.”

Today has outlasted many tomorrows. Both Omar and Ecclesiastes put their hope and gratification in this life. Omar, more than Ecclesiastes, savors wine and pleasure. In a great many of the Rubaiyat (or quatrains) Omar emphasizes the pleasure of wine:

“So many cups of wine will I consume
Its bouquet shall exhale from out of my tomb
And every one that passes by shall halt
And reel and stagger with that mighty fume.”

“How long this talk about eternity to come, and the eternity past?
Now is the time of joy, there is no substitute for wine!
Both theory and practice have passed beyond my ken
But (wine) unties the knot of every difficulty.”

and a famous one, and more romantic:

“A book of verses underneath the bough
A jug of wine, a loaf of bread, and Thou
Beside me singing in the Wilderness –
Oh, Wilderness were Paradise enow!”

“Ah, my beloved, fill the cup that clears
Today of past regrets and future fears –

“Some for the glories of this world; and some
Sign for the Prophet’s Paradise to come;
Ah, take the cash and let the credit go
Nor heed the rumble of a distant drum.”

Ecclesiastes is more austere, but sounds the same note. 2/24:

“There is nothing for a man than that he should eat and drink and make his soul enjoy his labor.”

And again 9:1/6

For all this I considered in my heart even to declare all this, that the righteous, and the wise, and their works, are in the hand of God: no man knoweth either love or hatred by all that is before them.
All things come alike to all: there is one event to the righteous, and to the wicked; to the good and to the clean, and to the unclean; to him that sacrificeth, and to him that sacrificeth not: as is the good, so is the sinner; and he that sweareth, as he that feareth an oath.
This is an evil among all things that are done under the sun, that there is one event unto all: yea, also the heart of the sons of men is full of evil, and madness is in their heart while they live, and after that they go to the dead.
For to him that is joined to all the living there is hope: for a living dog is better than a dead lion.
For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten.
Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.

But Ecclesiastes may be at his least hopeful 3:19/end of chapter:

For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.
All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.
Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?
Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?

Omar and Ecclesiastes in famous passages tell us of the uselessness of vain and foolish regrets. Omar writes,

“The moving finger writes; and having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy pity nor wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a line,
Nor all thy tears wash out a
word of it.”

Ecclesiastes more famous passages in religious literature 3:1/ff 9 Times and Seasons:

To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:
A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;
A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;
A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;
A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;
A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;
A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;
A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

Ecclesiastes has many maxims that have insight into the human condition

4/13 Better is a poor and wise youth than an old and foolish king.

... there is no discharge in war....

7/1 A good name is better than precious ointment.

7/5 It is better to hear the rebuke of the wise than hear the praises of fools.

11/1 Cast thy bread upon the waters
For thou shalt find it after many days.

7/11 Wisdom is as good as an inheritance.

The reflections of these humanistic seers have become part of our language. The emphasis on the now – not the past – not the future – is no comfort to those who consider life justified by individual immortality (supernatural salvation). Neither Omar nor Ecclesiastes look to Allah or Yahveh to save the human family from follies and error. We humans have today. Not yesterday except in memory; not tomorrow except in hope. Ecclesiastes is more stoic; Omar more epicurean.

(Stoics – ethics were chief concern, practical guide to life)

Both teach us how to seek wisdom but not to deny pleasure.

One thing more, we are aware of the superior value and joy of fellowship, of community, of material support.

(10/3)
Yea also, when he that is a fool walketh by the way, his wisdom faileth him, and he saith to every one that he is a fool.

4-9ff:
“Two are better than one: because they have a good reward for their labor. For if they fall, the one will lift up his fellow – but woe to him that is alone when he falleth and hath not another to lift him up. Again, if two be together, then they have warmth: but how can one be warm alone? And if a man prevail against him that is alone, two shall withstand him; and a threefold cord is not quickly broken.”

The Creative Person

September 16, 1979
Lakeland?

The Creative Person

This is not a talk about people, playwrights, artists, sculptors, or composers, although many of these have been immortally creative. Creative persons can be inconspicuous as well as famous. [note in margin: I’m not talking about ingenuity or skill, artistic ability, or decorative inspiration; a deeper level – admirable qualities I wish I possessed.]

First of all, I want to share with you how this talk came about. Patty called me for a title to put in the Beacon. I told her I did not have one yet. But as I don’t like the phrase “to be announced,” I called her back in an hour or so and said my title would be “The Creative Person” with very little notion of how I would handle the subject.

Then, 2 hours later someone gave me the house organ of an old oil company which had a feature article, “Creativity – the human resource.” Great! Then looking over a book shelf, Rollo May’s The Courage to Create popped out at me. Last Sunday Al Esk. gave me a copy of the Emory University alumni magazine which carried an article “Art and Faith” by Robert Detweiler. Although I do not normally read the Miami Herald, I did later that day, and lo, there was an article “Creativity – It Boils Down to Hard Work.” Add some of the insights of Abraham Maslow, a couple of poets, and Genesis – Voila! This is a patchwork quilt sewn with my own thread. Maybe that’s creative – maybe not.

What is creativity? Webster’s indicates that it is bringing into being – to cause to exist.

In the superb myth of Genesis (2/7), the old scripture says “and Yahveh formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” That is not history. It is mythic poetry as an ancient people tried to explain the marvel of creation – how the world and all that is therein came to being.

Rollo May (p. 40) in his treatment of creativity points out that we must get below the surface. He says we are thus not dealing with hobbies, do-it-yourself movements, Sunday painting or other forms of filling up leisure time. Nowhere has the meaning of creativity been more disastrously lost than in the idea that it is something you do on week-ends. This is not to discount the gratification the hobbyist experience nor the usefulness of what is made.

May says the first thing in a creative act is that it is an encounter. The artist studies a landscape, the sculptor a block of marble; Shakespeare encountered old legends in ancient history. Sometimes, as with abstract artists it is an encounter with some inner vision.

This encounter is not just looking. The creative act calls for intensity. The 19th century English Jesuit and poet, General Manley Hopkins, spoke of the “inscape” as opposed to the “landscape.” To Hopkins the inscape was a “coming together, moved by encounter and intensity into a unity of source.” (of vision)

There are many psychological theories about why there should be creative persons. Some would believe that it is an engaging of our subconscious with the creative vision erupting out of unresolved and submerged conflicts or needs.

Others, Maslow, for example, think of the creative act as occurring when there is a transcendence of self, a loss of ego or ego needs, or as he calls it, “total fascination with the matter at hand”, and is a characteristic of what he calls peak experience. Rollo May thinks of the latent powers of the self being realized in the creative act.

Still others believe the creative person tries to deal with his/her own inevitable death by creating that which will survive death, to reach beyond one’s death. Robert Detweiler, in the article I referred to, was struck by the exhibit in the Jewish Museum and Memorial in Prague, Czechoslovakia. It told of the story of tens of thousands imprisoned at Theresienstadt, there waiting to be shipped to the extermination places, or in some cases, the work camps. A place of transient confinement, hopelessness, and despair.

Yet “under the literal shadow of death, maintained an artistic existence.” Inside the concentration camp, they produced plays, held musical recitals, composed poetry, sketched and painted when they could find the materials.” Art against death.

Now I can’t choose among the theories, and single one out. There is probably some truth in all of them.

But the encounter with the inner vision or the source, and the integrity with which one is engaged, can never be shared unless the creative person works to produce it. Someone wrote, “Inspirations are a dime a dozen.” But the creative act is realized through skill, stubbornness, patience, and hard work. Maslow wrote, “People who create are good workers.”

Consider Michelangelo’s arduous labors when doing the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. Or Beethoven whose creative vision, talent, and capacity for hard work were face up against a most cruel turn of the screw for a composer or musician – deafness. Inspiration without perspiration is not creative.

Are there certain characteristics creative persons share? Or is the creative nature beyond description?

I said at the beginning that one of the patches in this patchwork quilt was a publication of one of the large oil companies. Celebrating the 100th anniversary of the founding of the corporation they put together a traveling exhibit, “Creativity – the Human Resource.” The company had difficulty putting the exhibit together because the museum they contacted seemed to have difficulty with the conception of creativity. The museum told them that museums traditionally deal with the product of creativity – artistic, scientific, historic – not with the engendering process.

But in putting the exhibit together “certain actions and attitudes of mind became too apparent.” Just one or two points are listed, the comments I have added:

Creative people challenge fixed assumptions.

Maslow writes (p. 93), “Common sense means living in the world as it is today, but creative people are people who don’t want the world as it is today, but want to make another world. And in order to be able to do that, they have to sail right off the surface of the earth to imagine, to fantas[ize], and even to be crazy or nutty and so on.”

There can be many illustrations, but I’m thinking of that delightful wall poster showing two caterpillars on a twig gazing at a beautiful butterfly. One caterpillar remarks, “they’ll never get me up in one of those things.”

“Creative persons discern previously unseen patterns and then see in new ways.”

Rollo May writes of a study made of creative persons (recognized by their peers). A control group of “normal” persons was included. The researcher showed both groups a series of Rorschach cards, some of which had orderly, systematic designs on them, and others disorderly, [a]symmetrical, and chaotic. The “normal” people selected the orderly, systematic designs as the ones they liked most. They liked their universe to be “in shape.” But the creative persons selected the chaotic, disorderly cards – they found these more challenging and interesting. They could be like God in the Genesis myth, creating order out of chaos. They chose the broken universe to encounter it and form it into new order. [marginal note: Chesterton: “the function of the imagination is not to make strange things settled, but settled things strange.”]

“Creative persons take risks. They struggle against that which limits them. They do not live in the past, or apart from the past. They live out of the past. [marginal note: myth of Prometheus – stealing fire from the gods – for benefit of humans, for this creative gift he was tortured eternally]

But what about so many of us who are not the creative persons, who may lack the vision, intensity, skill, and persistence to deserve the name “creative person.” I was thinking of myself and others, who at best may have or had creative aspects to some of our experiences. We share the heritage of creative persons.

Robert Detweiler in his article gave a clue that the process of art is to create “a special kind of focus through which we see ourselves revealed in a new way.”

Shakespeare does this for many of us. We see ourselves revealed. Our national Declaration of Independence, a great creation then and through the years, has been a lens through which again and again we have seen ourselves revealed. [marginal notes: in the powerful and sensitive and accurate verse and dialogue, indecision of Hamlet, cruel/ethical dilemma of Brutus; the gap between our professed ideals and the way we behave]

Interestingly enough both Detweiler and Rollo May use Picasso’s Guernica as an example of this focus. Like them, I have gazed for long periods at Guernica in the Museum of Modern Art. Picasso’s creation was an expression of outrage at the bombing by Fascist planes of the undefended town of Guernica, during the Spanish Civil War. Many of you have seen it and felt the horror of splintered/fragmented human beings, distortion, horror, despair - “a warning that men and women can lose their humanity.” [marginal note: 1937 – prophetic of the terrible years on the horizon]

The creative person nudges our complacency, portrays us as we are in comparison with what we could be. This happens, not with didactic teaching or a set of commandments but only by confronting our senses and our minds. There’s not a word in Beethoven’s Appassionata, but there is (to me) strength over pain and an heroic rebuff to those who are either faint-hearted or malicious.

James Joyce in Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man has the hero write in his diary,

“Welcome, o Life! I go to encounter for the millionth time the reality of experience and to forge in the smithy of my soul the uncreated conscience of my race.”

The creative person creates the conscience we may not have or are not aware we have.

Willis Eberman, in his poem THE ARTIST, expresses for me what I owe the creative person:

No community altogether knows its own heart. The artist must tell it, must reveal what the average surmise; must make music or murals from the mass of inarticulate life. The secrets that she must utter are their own, not the hero. She gives no remedy, only the song, the poem, the soft articulate wind of art against the strings of the communal heart. Only then will she fulfill her reason for being born:

To administer
love, though it may bring their
displeasure
is her lone business and their revelation.

Can The Human Venture Prevail?

September 9, 1979
Lakeland

Can The Human Venture Prevail?

If you read New Yorker magazine perhaps you saw the cartoon in the August 13 issue. Two saurian monsters, perhaps a dinosaur and brontosaurus [sic] are lifting their massive reptile heads above some rocks looking at two stereotypical cavemen with their fur coverings and their clubs. These two prehistoric men are in panic and running for daylight along a canyon. One of the saurian beasts comments, “Evolution sure goofed there. Those guys aren’t particularly good at anything.”

Can the human venture prevail? One can glibly respond, “of course. The dinosaurs are gone and we’re still here.” One can also respond, “Maybe” or “prevail, how, in what social, physical, political, and economic context?” Now it may well be that my own inner curiosity has been exposed to a negative overload. In recent months the input of news, attitudes, feelings seems foreboding and discouraging. I would not be comfortable with myself if I could not face up to what’s happening. I would not presume on your time and patience just to indulge in unrelieved, glum, pessimism. There’s bad news and good news.

Even a partial list of formidable problems and dilemmas would take hours, so the following is abbreviated and incomplete:

Energy – it seems unarguable that there are still no accepted plans, planning, or national consensus. There are several plans, but the House, Senate, and President cannot seem to come to agreement. The lines at gasoline stations have diminished. But they may and probably will re-occur.

Furthermore, it seems that any measures taken to provide more energy inevitably weaken the gains made by those organizations and individuals who have struggled to preserve and maintain standards for clean air, water, and the natural environment.

Nuclear power will continue to be developed in spite of the scare at Three Mile Island and other occurrences. Few, if any persons in a position of national political leadership have objected to its development. We are told that any substantial development of solar energy, wind energy, or varieties of biological energy are too many years in the future.

Yet it seems widely known that accidents [and] leakage at nuclear plans present only part of the danger. The disposal of nuclear waste seems only lightly touched although the coming generation must confront a huge problem. A technical research group (MHB Technical Associates) suggests that radioactive waste disposal from nuclear plants could increase utility bills 10-20%. They also estimate that by 1995 there will be 60 metric tons of nuclear waste to dispose of at a cost of 40 billion.” (Washington Spectator, 8/15/79). And you know who will pay that billion. The alternative is reprocessing – produce fuel for nuclear bombs.

Consider inflation, taxes – the economics of our system. I’m not an economist but it is quite clear that the interest on my modest savings account is less than half the rate of inflation. Millions are in more distressed circumstances than they ever .... A friend of mine, a retired banker, was talking about the proposed windfall tax on ... company profits. He chuckled cynically at those who advocated this tax. Then he said, “When will you understand that corporations are not tax-payers, they are tax-collectors. They are remittance exchanges between you and the government – federal, state, local. Taxes are part of the cost of doing business and just add to the price of the product or service that you buy. So soak the corporations in the tax structure if you want but recognize that you are the one who will get wet.”

More and more I perceive the wisdom in Mark Twain’s words, “Man is the only animal that blushes, or needs to.”

Another contribution to the negative overload in my circuitry is the limited focus of the vision of what extermination wars would be. [note in margin: US Dept. of Interior tells ... “In case of enemy attack, to to nearest P.O. and ask for a Fed Employm. Emerg. Reg Card CSC 600. Fill out and mail.”] I have listened to much testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearings on the SALT II treaty. There is much technical discussion about throw-weights, multiple war heads, B1 bombers, our Triad system, the Soviet system, and on and on. [note in margin: In last couple weeks Soviet brigade Cuba (17) years ... get tough. 20 million Soviets died in WW2. ] Only rarely is the reality alluded to that a nuclear war equals we are all dead. Maybe there will be remnant bands wandering with their radiation-mutated offspring scavenging the poisoned fields and ruined waters.

But the threat of Communism is apparently so appalling that generally speaking, or national opinion-makers seem afraid and threatened if we fail to possess a 5 or 10 to 1 overkill. Here's a statement that would receive applause in many or most gatherings, even today:

“The streets of our country are in turmoil. The universities are filled with students rebelling and rioting. Communists are seeking to destroy our country; Russia is threatening us with her might and the republic is in danger. Yes, danger from without and within. We need law and order.”

If you do not know the source, would you guess the author? Robert Welch of the John Birch Society? Spiro Agnew in his speech-making days? Richard Nixon? The late Senator Joe McCarthy? Those were Adolf Hitler’s words, October, 1932.

I could go on with jolts that add to the negative overload.

The increasing cynicism that our government – legislative, executive, judicial – has the will to grapple authentically with the problems.

The pressure of single-issue advocates who seem to have no incentive to deal with the general good for all. We seem to have a government of lobbyists and unfathomable bureaucracies. A political reporter asked the White House press after the traumatic cabinet reorganization what new approach was planned. “Part of it is to get at the larger social attitudes and issues. I’d be the first to confess I’m not sure how you go about doing it.”

In the minds of some of you, there may be creeping some notion like this: If the negative overload is going so low on the dial, what’s Carl doing here? Why isn't’ he up on top of a mountain in Tibet contemplating his navel? Or staying in bed and refusing to get up? [Who wants to spend an hour Sunday morning (with) glum Jeremiah?] Well, there’s good news too.

In my collection of Murphy’s and other laws, there is Miksch’s law: “If a string has one end, then it has another end.”

A book that has enriched my reading in recent months is Barbara Tuchman’s A DISTANT MIRROR. The author, a distinguished historian, tells the story of the 14th century in Europe, a time of disaster for most people. In her foreword she cautions about negative overload – XVIII –

She names her book A DISTANT MIRROR because it suggests a reflection of our own 20th century of wars and woes. But, not identical, a far away image. In that period there were insane wars of conquest, pillage, and suffering. The so-called 100 years war between England and France ravaged Europe. The villages and towns were sacked and looted again and again as the armies shifted back and forth.

There were roving bands of soldiers, sometimes fighting for one side, sometimes fighting for another, and sometimes just fighting for loot on their own, living by the sword.

The governments were corrupt. Taxes were cruel. There was insurrection and schism in the Roman Catholic church which had been the bastion of authority, and to some extent, at least, the monitor of conduct individual, social, and political.

Then there was the Plague, 1348-50, with some re-occurrences. The people called it the Black Death. We know it was the bubonic plague, transmitted by fleas or by rats who were infested by fleas. The author calls the Black Death the most lethal disaster in recorded history (4,000 years). The Plague killed an estimated 1/3 of the population between India and Iceland. Perhaps 20 million died, although the exact number can never be known. Villages and towns were depopulated, some abandoned, never [re-]occupied.

“It was a period of anguish when thee was no sense of an assured future ... people felt subject to events beyond their control, swept like flotsam at sea, hither and thither in a universe without purpose.”

Despite malaise it was not a static time. For the loss of confidence in the kings, trust in the lords, faith in the Church, let to demands for change.

During the worst of these times, and hardly noticed, there were the beginnings of the recovery of learning, the flowering of art, architecture, learnings which as it developed during the ensuing century or so, we know now as the Renaissance.

In about the same period, the Age of Exploration and Discovery opened up new worlds: the Americas, Africa, India.

In 1453-54, Gutenberg produced the first printings from movable type – and the rapid spread of the printing press radically changed communication, learning, religion, economics, and politics.

In 1517, Luther’s 95 theses marked the beginning of the Protestant Reformation – inaugurating sweeping change in religion that affected all areas of living, then and since.

Interlocked with all these was the rising middle class which turned around the nature of both economic and political power.

An age of utter anguish and despair was succeeded by the beginnings of an age of confidence and hope. New worlds opened up! [Inserted note: On July 4, 1776, King George III - “Nothing of importance happened today.”]

Can there be such a turn-around? Can the human venture prevail? [Inserted note: The only thing we learn from the last – one does not learn from the past.]

The human venture does prevail in what may be called the meanings of the moment. The joy and warmth of being with friends and loved ones. The satisfaction of a good meal. The relaxed tiredness of having done well the day’s work. The stimulation of physical activity. Watching the young grow in wisdom and strength. The crash of the ocean waves. The wind in the pines. These never lose their charm and when we reflect on these experiences life is so fine.

But the human venture will continue to prevail as we look to the future too. Make our voices heard for change. None of us can struggle on all fronts with all issues. But some of us can be heard and known for some issues, even one. For if we do not we are giving up our faith in the future.

Around us there have been trees and shrubs planted. They will not attain full growth in the lifetime of many of us. But does that make the planting useless? Where I live, I think of that every month or so when I cultivate and fertilize some trees I’ve planted.

Maybe the orange and grapefruit trees will have a good harvest in my lifetime. Maybe, maybe not. For sure, the Norfolk Island pine will never be anything but small while I live, but some day, someone will look up to a 100 foot tall straight trunk with good feeling. That good feeling cuts down on the negative overload. I’d rather not that these trees and those who who might one day enjoy them be incinerated in nuclear war or sickness and die in biological war.

Such are meanings for the future. That is why we must put an end to war.

Do you remember the old story from the pre-ERA days: a five-year-old Betty who “unwittingly tried to promote her older sister’s chances one evening when her boyfriend called unexpectedly. ‘My sister isn’t home,’ Betty told him, ‘She wants to get married so she’s going to night school to study domestic silence.’”

Can the human venture prevail? Not with domestic silence.

Can the human venture prevail? The late Reinhold Niebuhr, eminent Christian theologian minister and social activist, stated the conditions:

Nothing worth doing is completed in a lifetime; therefore, we must be saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful makes sense in any immediate context of history; therefore, we must be saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. – Reinhold Niebuhr

Truth is one; the wise describe it in many ways – Rig Veda

The Sermon on the Amount

February 4, 1979
Lakeland
(re-write: Port Charlotte, 1980)

The Sermon on the Amount

I tried, but my deepest thought and limited imagination did not give me with the wit, humor or wisdom to string out the pun, “The Sermon on the Amount.” But it is a fact that this Fellowship will continue as a place of our gathering if we members pledge and pay our financial support. The amount counts. Our Financial Committee, with many helpers, have put in long hours, planned a series of meetings where you have had an opportunity to say what this Fellowship means to you and could mean to you. Later in this meeting you will have the opportunity to state your priorities or refine the priorities the Finance Committee has sensed from your comments.

There was a cartoon in a church magazine which depicted two glum-looking clergymen, probably the senior and associate ministers, gazing at a rather sparse sum of money. One says to the other, "Inflation seems to have hit everything but the collection plate."

What is of value to you? A few years ago, when I was in the NYC area, there was a news story about a saloon which had to move because the building in which it was located was taken for some urban renewal project. There was argument by city and federal housing authorities as to whether or not the historic tavern was a "social institution worth saving." Then after a period, the decision was made, the saloon was valued as a social institution and would be permitted to rent space in the new project when the building was completed. Meanwhile temporary quarters across the street would be rented. The happy, regular customers helped move bar stools and tables across the street. One of them was quoted in a most interesting comment, "If it wasn't for this place, God knows, I'd have to go to church to find any of the boys."

What do you see in this Fellowship? An out-distanced runner-up to a convivial pub, or something more?

The members of the Fellowship provide the only substantial flow of funds. The Fellowship is the body of persons, members and friends held together, voluntarily, by a common rule. We assemble to share convictions, to attempt mutual persuasion, to set directions for actions. We see a fellow Unitarian Universalist not only as another person whose beliefs are not limited by an imposed creed, but also see him/her as a person whose convictions represent interdependency as well as independence. The Fellowship knows itself not only in the lateral profiles and the back-of-the-neck views of our chairs arranged in rows. More vitally, we know each other in face-to-face mutual involvement.

The persons in our Fellowship who consider, decide, commit and act represent no permanent line of portraits in an unchanging gallery. Thornton Wilder's play, OUR TOWN, superbly presented the temporary nature of individual lives and the permanence of the human family. Wilder captured the glory and pathos in the lives of average persons in Grovers Corners, not much different from you and me.

The persons in our Fellowship are like the people in OUR TOWN. A child is born; with gladness he/she is welcomed and the group counts one more. Man and woman choose to walk together henceforth and we are glad for their union. A man or woman dies in bed, or far from home. We count one less and know the tug of sorrow. Our minds are anxious with unanswerable questions when tragedy strikes; our roster is lessened by an aching omission. A family moves – this is an age of mobility – we are glad when theirs is a more rewarding assignment, but sorry that a needed family has gone beyond the immediate circle of our Fellowship life. A new family or individual arrives. We are glad because we need talent, interest, influence, support. We need the bracing, yeasty ferment of new ideas and fresh strength. We need the added happiness created by new friends.

The persons in our Fellowship are a moving, changing pageant, never the same today as yesterday; and no tomorrow will be just like today. We journey together on the road to an unknown future. Sooner or later, every one of us will drop out along the route of the human march. But if we have walked together with good-will, understanding and mutual help, we will have been stronger individually and a happier company in our journey together.

But to keep that quality, we must keep organization and support effective. In the fine series of books, RIVERS OF AMERICA, Henry Beston described the geography and culture of the areas bordering the great St. Lawrence River. Beston wrote of a unique quality of life in rural, devout French Canada, "like an old room warmed by an open fire, the little society was warmed by that sense of human oneness and ultimate equality which the religious temper alone can give."

The campaign organization and plans for our Annual Fund Drive are put together because business-like procedures are required. Now there are always those who feel some sensitivity when money matters explicitly intrude on their life in the Fellowship. But there is nothing awry or gauche in an orderly, informed campaign to raise money for the Fellowship. I still remember a scene from a musical on Broadway, ON A CLEAR DAY YOU CAN SEE FOREVER, one of the more amusing characters is a Greek-multi-millionaire shipping magnate, who in the unfolding of the plot, visits the clinic operated by the hero and his brother, both psychologists. The millionaire keeps referring to “who runs the business here? Who manages the business?” and so on. The psychologist, sensitive to his professional qualifications, keeps assuring the rich man, “this is not a business, this is a psychological clinic.” The shipping magnate stares and asks, “You take in Money?” “Yes.” “Well, it's a business.”

In that frame of reference, this Fellowship is a business, too. Money is taken in because when a button is switched, you expect the bulb to light. You expect to be warm or cool depending on the weather, to be untouched by falling plaster or rain from a leaky roof. You decided that you wish to retain me on a part-time basis because I have been trained for the profession of ministry. A good religious education program requires supplies and curricula. The government requires postage on mail. For this and much more, you commitment of money is asked.

Support of our Unitarian Universalist Association
Florida District
Cluster

It's a business.

Don’t give until it hurts, within your means, give until it feels good.

But remember that in this "business", you, the members, are the management. In the Annual meeting, members make the binding choices for the allocation of money from the pledges of the members. You pick and choose.

Because we believe that the person is more than a molecular sequence, or a biochemical conglomeration, we covenant together to maintain the value of the person, to seek the ways, individually and together, to support the issues which will create increasing recognition of the surpassing need to labor for freedom, fellowship and human dignity. This is our purpose as a Fellowship. We differ among us as to how we shall worship together, how we shall describe God, or whether we shall even attach any meaning to the idea of God. We interpret the experience of religion variously. We seek to deepen our faith by openness to the conviction of others, whose witness for religion may be based on differing intensities of experience and unlike interpretations.

Yes – raising money is a business – but if we respond well to the efforts our Finance Committee has made, we will find that we have enhanced the depth, joy, fun, and feeling of being together:

The joy of an old story or a new child

The vibrating sensitivity of human empathy when we embrace the grief stricken or the joyful

The zest of fine conversations
The delight of a shared meal

The remembrance of things past
The chance to stand on an issue – help

The hope (and expectation) of new and good experiences to come

This I believe is our total worship – our worthship.

Addendum

Quote from Charles Morris, The Open Self, p. 23:

“It is not the wind which is lacking, but the hoisting of our sails.”