Goals of Our Meeting

1980 (Probably January 20)
Lakeland
Port Charlotte
Cocoa

Goals of Our Meeting

If I sat where you sit, what would I expect from me, up here? Musing on such a thought stimulated today's topic, "Goals of Our Meeting." Now, I am neither wise enough nor sensitive enough to know the depth or breadth of your expectations. But I can attempt to talk about my own. What do I hope will happen to me because of the experience of worship-spoken word, shared song, wisdom from ancient and modern prophets and poets. How do we deal with the raw stuff from a dangerous world? How do we handle a consciousness of human suffering with few tangible directions available to alleviate or correct the ills which are tearing the fabric of the world?

I do not mind confessing that, for me, the years have not made the task of "preaching" easier. Glib and flashy answers to the difficulties of the human situation are just that, glib and flashy. I resonate to the stage tradition of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. The role of the teen-age Juliet is so demanding, dramatically, that it is said that when an actress achieves the stagecraft and emotional depth to play Juliet, she is too old for the part. I relate to that, from my standpoint.

It is a commonplace among Unitarian Universalists that we are free from imposed ideas. Each of us can choose among the smorgasbord of ideas, principles, and issues presented to us or mix and cook our own. The hazard of such a free religion is that we shall have diversity without unity, freedom without fellowship, ethics without common efforts. I like what educator Robert Ulich wrote (EDUCATION AND THE IDEA OF MANKIND) "Freedom without common goals creates a state of alienation within each person and within the community."

[CJW note: positive thinking – power of negative ideas – but not enough]

However we do it, speech, song, dance, music, dialogue, drama, visual art and symbol, I desire that our meetings together will

(A) extend the horizons of the mind
(B) deepen conscience
(C) create or sustain courage

(A) We extend the horizons of the mind when we actively seek to understand persons, their perceptions and values, particularly when these perceptions and values are difficult to understand or strikingly opposed to our beliefs.

In our fellowship and association we interpret the universality of religion not to mean that there ever has been or ever will be one universal religion. We recognize and respect the beliefs of others even though we would not share their doctrines, rituals, or requirements.

Peoples have different interpretations of this experience of religion. They have come to convictions and ceremonies because of many known, some unknown factors – culture, language, economics, resources, climate, government, great events, heroes. Joys and sorrows, fears and hopes – their religious experiences have been pressed through the sieve of a heritage unique, wholly or partly.

We recognize that what is true for others is their truth – even though not true for us. We seek to appreciate without agreement or endorsement.

In a play of a few years ago, Christopher Frye's "The Dark is Light Enough", Belman comments (no attempt to degenderize):

"A man can't know
How to conduct himself towards another man,
Without the answer to certain basic questions,
What does the man choose to believe?
What good and evil has he invented for himself?
In short, how he has made himself exist?"

But when we shift from religion, as such, to other modes of culture – nationalism, tribalism, economics, freedom and repression, that extension of horizons become more difficult. Yet, the same recognitions apply.

We are still in the vortex [CJW note: 6 months today] of the Iranian crisis. Most Americans are quite certain of the rightness of our position. I saw an item in a newspaper (which I should have clipped) which in a paragraph outlined the issues from the point of view of an Iranian. To attempt such a paragraph would be an interesting exercise for any of us. Or, for that matter, try to set out that situation from the viewpoint of the Shah.

Robert Lewis Stevenson once wrote, "there is nothing so evident in life that there are two sides to a question." He was understating it – many issues are so complex that there are as many sides as there are facets on a cut diamond.

If you interviewed successively a soldier of Castro who fought in the Cuban revolution and then a refugee, e.g. a physician or lawyer in Miami – would you get an identical view of what happened? Of course not. Would you be able to say A is entirely wrong, B is completely correct? I strongly suspect you could not.

In one of his novels, G.K. Chesterton wrote, "The only real way to go home is to go out the front door, around the world and in the back door." Were one to do this and listen, question, as we do with each other, the reflection on the experiences would not only increase our devotion to truth, but also, we would bring home with us a reverence for all the possibilities of truth.

Yet, taken alone, this widening of horizons, this attitude toward universality, would result in a dilettante mulligan stew where every body is always right and nobody is ever wrong. That, of course, is absurd.

(B) Therefore a necessary companion to widened horizons is deepened conscience. Remember the last time you cut a fingernail to the quick or received a bad sunburn? The skin was so sensitive that you jumped six inches when touched. That is like unto the way conscience should twinge us often enough.

No one is more conscious than I am that no one can mount a charge against every issue or problem that twinges one's conscience. [CJW note: selective apathy] But one should not be content that because one cannot do everything, therefore one need do nothing. Consider an excerpt from "You Can't Go Home Again" by Thomas Wolfe: "Man was born to live, to suffer, and to die, and what befalls him is a tragic lot. There is no denying this in the final end. But we must deny it all along the way. Mankind was fashioned for eternity, but Man-Alive was fashioned for a day. New evils will come after him, but it is with the present evils that he is now concerned. And the essence of all faith, it seems to me, for such a man as I, the essence of religion for people of my belief, is that man's life can be, and will be, better; that man's greatest enemies, in the forms in which they now exist – the forms we see on every hand of fear, hatred, slavery, cruelty, poverty, and need – can be conquered and destroyed. But to conquer and destroy them will mean nothing less than the complete revision of the structure of society as we know it. They cannot be conquered by the sorrowful acquiescence of resigned fatality. They cannot be destroyed by the philosophy of acceptance – by the tragic hypothesis that things as they are, evil as they are, are as good and as bad as, under any form, they will ever be.

"It is for Now, and for us the living, that we must speak, and speak the truth, as much of it as we can see and know. With the courage of the truth within us, we shall meet the enemy as they come to us, and they shall be ours. And if, once having conquered them, new enemies approach, we shall meet them [from] that point, from there proceed. In the affirmation of that fact, the continuance of that unceasing war, is man's religion and his living faith."

Some one told me of a cartoon which sketched the Gothic front door of a church. Near the door was a sign, "servants entrance". One could interpret this doctrinally or theologically, but for me it is an ethical sign. Obedience to conscience is knitted into the fabric of any religion which provides meaning for living and strength for effort.

It is also true that the sensitive conscience can help clarify clouds on our widened horizons. The more distant the horizon, the more likely there will be haze at its far edges. From time to time when a person is thoroughly involved, others may dismiss his/her efforts "because "she/he is so caught up with fervor and intensity that issue is clouded by emotion." Not necessarily so. Rollo May, the psychologist, made the point "People can observe more accurately precisely when they are involved." (COURAGE TO CREATE)

But on any issue or question of importance and controversy, one's conscience doesn't provide any bargain answers. In ancient Greece, persons would consult the Oracle at Delphi. It is said that the answers the Delphic oracle provided were ambiguous.

Thus the seeker for answers from the Oracle had to think out anew for himself/herself what the answers meant and the kind of behavior that must follow.

In this world of unexpected consequences of actions, it is not unusual for persons obeying conscience to discover they were wrong for reasons which could not or were not anticipated. Better that then letting conscience be calloused over by the grinding overload of agonizing questions in our world. How much good has been lost to the human family because some of us were afraid to act now because we feared we would look foolish or naïve at some unknown time in the future?

(C) Lastly, our religious-meeting should create and sustain courage. Courage is required to live with personal loss, disaster, or defeat. Courage is needed to take unpopular stands. Courage is not the result of living a painless life; courage is the quality of embracing life and its demands when living is hard and tough.

A book published last year – ADAPTATIONS TO LIFE is the result of a study by Dr. George Valiant, a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. He studied lives of graduates beginning with the class of 1939. The author says it was unforgivable that only men were studied. Of these now past their 50th birthday most are still alive and physically healthy. They have achieved distinction in their occupation and professions. Yet, said Dr. Valiant, "Not one of these men has had only clear sailing." The author says a major thesis is that a man's adaptive devices are as important in determining the course of his life as are his heredity, his upbringing, his social position or his access to psychiatric help. That to me means courage sustains us.

Courage is not a gift from whatever Gods there be. Courage is acquired by acting courageously.

The temptation to play it safe is a difficult seduction to master for it has no requirement. Other temptation – to lie, to steal, to injure another, to be false to another, at least require we act. Playing it safe demands nothing.

This week marked Martin Luther King's birthday. He would have been 51 if he had not been shot down. His life is a model for the principles I have been trying to illuminate. His horizons for the human family were wider than perhaps any person of his time. His convictions, born of conscience, were known in every city and town and across the world. His courage was superb because he knew he was vulnerable; that the price of living his convictions was life itself.

Two of Rollo May's sentences about courage fit Martin Luther King –

"Courage is not absence of despair; it is rather, the capacity to move ahead in spite of despair."

"Perceptual courage equals one's courage to let one's self see the suffering of other people."

The late Paul Tillich, in a sermon of many years ago, summed up:

"He who risks and fails can be forgiven...he who never risks and never fails is a failure in his whole being. He is not forgiven because he does not feel that he needs forgiveness. Therefore we are called not to be conformed to this eon but to transform it; first in ourselves, then in our world, and then in the spirit and power of love."

[Editor’s note: a newspaper clipping, stapled to the first page of this sermon, has the words, “David Belasco, the great American theatrical producer once said, ‘If you can’t write your idea on the back of my calling card, you don’t have a clear idea.’”]

Lincoln’s Wisest Advice – And The Most Difficult

Undated (filed under 1980)
Location Unspecified

Lincoln’s Wisest Advice – And The Most Difficult

[Editor’s note: as evidenced by many sentence fragments, this sermon was either unfinished or given with considerable latitude for extemporaneous speaking]

PBK – Wm & Mary 1944
Sandburg’s Poem:

When Sandburg read his poem, much of the world was exploding, bleeding, and dying in the eruptions of WW2. Sandburg was expressing both the pain and determination of that fractured time. But he went beyond that by going back to Abraham Lincoln. As a preface to his poem, he quoted these lines from President Lincoln’s message to Congress, December 1, 1862:

...

We must disenthrall ourselves. To me those four words embody Lincoln’s wisest advice and the most difficult – difficult to understand, painful to believe, agonizing to follow.

I would like to speak of the context of “we must disenthrall ourselves”, the choice of the word “disenthrall”, then attempt to discuss this advice in the context of our times.

The burdens President Lincoln carried were heavy beyond reckoning. The fratricidal war had exacted deaths and wounds unaccepted and unhealed in the ensuing century. Lincoln’s unwavering goal was the preservation of the Republic, to bring it unto union again. He had withheld the Emancipation Proclamation because he had to be sure in his own convictions that it would aid, not deter that.

In Lincoln’s message to Congress, December 1, 1862, he discussed union, slavery, the black slaves. He still sought compromise and time on the issue of slavery. He had on prior occasions accepted the idea of providing for the colonization of slaves in other continents, Africa, particularly. His “concrete proposal, the Constitution of the United States to be amended to provide that every state which abolished slavery at any time before January 1, 1900 should be paid for its freed slaves in U.S. bonds at a rate of interest and in sums to be agreed for each slave. Congress would be given express power to set aside money and otherwise provide for colonizing freed slaves,” making the succinct comment, “without slavery the rebellion could never have existed; without slavery it could not continue.”

“As to sending freed Negroes out of the country, he made his view clear again. ‘I cannot make it better known than it already is, that I strongly favor colonization. And yet I wish to say there is an objection urged against free colored persons remaining in the country, which is largely imaginary, if not sometimes malicious.’ Then he added gravely, ‘In times like the present, men should utter nothing for which they would not willingly be responsible through time and eternity.’”

Then his reminder “the dogmas of the quiet past are inadequate to the stormy present. The occasion is piled high with difficulty, and we must rise with the occasion. As our case is new, so we must think anew, and act anew. We must disenthrall ourselves.”

Then in the last paragraph of this message, he wrote, “Fellow-citizens, we cannot escape history. We of this Congress and this Administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance or insignificance can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation.” (Sandburg 225 ff)

[CJW note: little or no response – month late 1/1/1863 – Emancipation Proclamation]

One of the treasures we possess from the past is the wisdom and judgment of the great spiritual prophets – and Lincoln was one of these – is that [sic] although they spoke to their generation about their times and issues, the wisdom has such depth and universality that persons of any time can be inspired, improved, and guided.

Consider “disenthrall”. The word is from “thrall” which originally (OE) was a bondsman – virtually a slave, a serf – one held in bondage. “Enthrall” later meant to be captivated ... to be held spellbound.
Do we need to be disenthralled? Most of us [are] in bonds to certain ideas or habits. Most of us could write a book on habits and hangups to which we are enthralled. [I am] not considering that today. In these days of the gathering clouds of war, what enthralls us – the brief and capsulated news on the tube which may give us a measure of who, what, when, and how – but seldom, if ever, “why?”

Think of Sandburg’s lines:

“Make your wit a guard and cover ... sing low, sing high, sing wide. Let your laughter come free remembering looking toward peace: “we must disenthrall ourselves”

Wit and humor can help. I’m thinking of two cartoons. One from the Wall Street Journal shows a man and woman on their porch gazing at the starry evening. He says, “If life does exist out there, I hope it’s not life as we know it.”

The second cartoon from The New Yorker magazine shows a middle-aged couple sitting on the sofa, looking at the TV, where the screen is displaying a new automobile, “All new for 1980.” The man on the couch says, “You know something? I’m already sick of the 80s.”

This wit illustrates the unrest and dis-ease which troubles many of us and I hope will trouble many more. It is not a malaise, as President Carter indicated, but, I hope, the beginning of disenthralling ourselves.

James Taylor, using some computer studies (Context 2/1/80), “There may be no 1990s. If present arms trends continue, World War III will begin between 1988 and 1998.” He goes on, “At the moment, [the] USA could wipe out the USSR 50 times, and the USSR could take care of the U.S. 25 times. The stockpiles grow by 3 nuclear bombs a day. Around the world, there is one soldier for every 250 people, but only one physician for every 3700.”

Barbara Ward “expenditures of 2½ hours of military spending around the world would provide clean water supplies for the whole world.” Her negative critics say not so – 3 days of military spending would be needed.

We must disenthrall ourselves.

Sandburg - “There is dust alive - ”

Think – the old timetables are torn. Thinking is not encouraged by those who believe they know better than we do. Remember Julius Caesar:

“Let me have men about me that are fat;
Sleek-headed men and such as sleep o' nights:
Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look;
He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.”

“Dreams of the human family flung wide on a shrinking globe”

“A shrinking glove – between 1945 and 1960, 800 million people won their independence from white colonial powers.”

Sandburg “the earth laughs -

Looking toward peace!

Peace – when the sabers are rattling, when the blank checks for war are being signed, when the population is being whipped up. [CJW notes: War to end war? Issawi’s law of progress – a shortcut is the longest distance between two points. Save the world for democracy.]

I shall stand for peace. What could possibly be gained by nuclear war? Never a wise harvest. Many will be enthralled by the prospect of patriotic gore. Erich Fromm (PSYCHOANALYSIS AND RELIGION) wrote, “once a doctrine, however irrational, has gained power in a society, millions of people will believe it rather than feel ostracized and isolated.”

Nevertheless, we must disenthrall ourselves. [CJW notes: attitude change. US/USSR take similar stands. The UN – a handcuffed power (sovereignty). International law. Mediation serv. - would have been in Tehran – Philippines proposed, US opposed. International criminal ct – would have been investigated long ago. International CT of justice – except for Connally. Reservation – Iran’s dispute could have been ...]

Let me conclude with Robert Frost, “Riders” (p. 267)

Superman. Superstar. The Yearning For A Savior

Undated (Probably 1979)
Lakeland
Naples

Superman. Superstar. The Yearning For A Savior

As the Christian Easter season approaches, Christians will be reminded with song, sermon, scripture, pageant, and ancient rituals that humankind cannot save itself. Because God assumed the human form of Jesus, the believer is assured that Jesus, who is God, paid the penalty of Adam’s original sin, which all human creatures inherited and carry the inherited trait. Then, because of Jesus’ resurrection, there was triumph over the grave. According to Christian theology, these miracles are impossible for humans to accomplish. A supernatural savior was needed. Jesus is a superstar savior.

Do men and women need a supernatural savior? Is our human condition so corrupt that we cannot save ourselves? Not only would millions of Christian believers assure us that we do [need a savior], but Hollywood seems to be pushing the same message in bizarre forms.

A few weeks ago I saw the movie, Superman. Supposedly one of the two or three most expensive movies ever made, there are spectacular photographic effects, the story is episodic and choppy, the ending is a sure lead-in to a sequel, which will probably be titled Superman II – but without too much stretching, that sequel might be called “Jesus Christ Comes Again” or “The Second Coming of Christ.”

Viewing the movie, I was fascinated by the use of Christian salvation concepts only slightly disguised. (Quotes come from Sojourners, March 1979). In the beginning, the planet Krypton is nearing its end. Superman is a baby and his parents wrap him in swaddling clothes of red, white, and blue. His father Jar-El played by Marlon Brando is a distinguished [-looking] enough to look like a deity (El is one of the Hebrew words for God). [He] sends Superman to Earth in an amazing capsule (cradle) [CJW note: star-shaped manger] with the words, “all that I have, I bequeath to you, my son. You’ll carry me inside you all your life. You will see my life through yours and yours through mine. The son becomes the father, and the father, the son. [CJW note: not a bad paraphrase of the Council of Nicea]

Superman arrives on Earth, [and] is found and raised by a farm family. His super-powers unknown, [CJW note: except to his earthly father and mother] except on a couple occasions when he outraces a railroad train and kicks a football out of sight.

About the age of 18 he goes through experiences which combines a likeness to Jesus in the temple, the baptismal experience and the sojourn in the wilderness. He spends 12 years of study in a magic ice temple and then at the age of 30 [CJW note: corresponds to silent years of Jesus], his father Jar-El, who miraculously materializes, prepares his son for his mission on earth, saying “they only need the light to show them the way. For this reason, I have sent you, my only son.”

From there on, Superman becomes the comic-book character winning over despicable, powerful villains and thieves, Superman says he has come to earth to fight for truth, justice, and the American way. [CJW note: neat combination of Jewish prophecy and the American dream]

At the end of the picture, Superman changes the course of history. The Christian believer would testify that Jesus changed the course of history saving humanity from the hell from which [it] could not save itself. Superman raises Lois Lane from the dead by reversing time, thus enabling him to resurrect her from the dead, even as Jesus raised Lazarus and the daughter of Jairus from the dead, according to the Christian gospels.

And although Superman seems romantically attracted to Lois Lane, and she to him, he seems to lead a celibate life. This is his choice, not hers. Again, seemingly a pointed parallel with the life of Jesus.

Is Superman touching on a need that most people have for a Savior who has powers beyond the powers of this world? Do we yearn for a savior? There seem to be other examples in the world of entertainment – the T.V., the comics, as well as in the movies.

For example, the Bionic Woman, the 6 Million Dollar Man, the Hulk, the Phantom, all save people from themselves by powers not given to us ordinary humans. All these seem to resonate with ancient and continuing hungers within us that long for miracles to solve problems and heal ills which we cannot do for ourselves.

Much of religious lore, myth, ritual in many cultures reflect this: the location for miracles at Lourdes and St. Anne Beaupre, the powers of voodoo possessed by African and Haitian doctors, the hand of God in Egypt enabling the Children of Israel to escape from Pharaoh and his soldiers, the many cultures which have Gods siring human children – one could go on.

Much of this yearning for a savior is born in the nature of human experience. Always there have been tragedies and ills which defy explanation, personal and in society. So many have known the numbing impact of personal failure (e.g., disillusion with behavior of persons who had been trusted), discouraging events, frustration, death of hope, devastation of war, social conflict, ... physical world – tidal waves, volcanic eruptions, earthquakes, killing thousands somewhere in the world almost every year.

So many persons in all times have not received a fair share of liberty, rights, justice, food, shelter, care on this earth. Look anywhere – this has always been true. One can understand the dream of a heaven where there is reward, compensation, bliss. There are millions, living and dead, who like the Psalmist have prayed in their agony, “out of the depths have I cried out to Thee, O God.”

But for good or ill, there are those of us who see “salvation” or better, wholeness, improvement, justice, as a task for us in this world, in spite of limits on our power, knowledge, and strength. Think of the concluding verses in the collection of sayings attributed to Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount (Matt. 7 – 24/26):

“Therefore whosoever heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them, I will liken him unto a wise man, which built his house upon a rock: And the rain descended, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and beat upon that house; and it fell not: for it was founded upon a rock. And every one that heareth these sayings of mine, and doeth them not, shall be likened unto a foolish man, which built his house upon the sand....”

[CJW notes: each built his house. God did not build – nor prevent rains and floods. The ... & resp was human... it would be true no matter who said it]

This has truth not because Jesus said it but because it is true in human experience. The way we build, the way we live, has more to do with the qualities and gratifications of this mystery of life than Superman or Jesus Christ Superstar.

One of the historic statements of Unitarians is “salvation by character.” Character is what we are and what we do. John Murray Atwood used to tell the story (from a Quaker source) about the little boy who was smeared with dirt as he happily made mud-pies. A lady said to him, “come with me and we will wash you up and tell you how to get to be an angel in heaven.” The little boy answered, “I don’t want to be an angel in heaven, I want to be an angel here in the mud.”

Regardless of what may await us in worlds beyond our experience, character involves what we are and what we do in this world. The English educator L.P. Jacks once asked, “What should we know of goodness if we only heard it talked about and never seen a good man or a good woman?”

One thing more about Hollywood and comic book saviors. With all their super-powers, they do not seem to address or suggest solutions to the big problems. They do well with devilishly clever thieves, con-men, and perpetrators of individual crimes. But if I lived near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, I might be tempted to shout, “Superman, where are you, now that we need you!”

A supernatural savior won’t save us from nuclear power failures. The remedy resides in our acquiring the consciousness that with radiation technology we may be like unto the Sorcerer’s Apprentice. We turned something on that we can’t turn off. There could well be more such failures and the cure is not going to come from outer space and the planet Krypton. If we are willing to trade-off such danger, and possibly, devastation, in order to satisfy our needs for energy fuel, then let’s say so. But if not, let’s not listen only to the nuclear industry but concerned scientists. [CJW notes: Pres – “stable + improv.” Today – possibility of “explosion – wider ... actuation....]

This is one of many issues where it will be difficult to target an individual sinner for key social problems. I wonder how many of the 22,000 employees of the Department of Energy with its $10-$12 billion budget know whether the citizenry just want energy or whether we want safe energy. [CJW note: We probably don’t know ourselves. But high time we asked, “what are the tradeoffs?”]

That is of course just one issue – possibility of war will be stronger if we fail to reach an arms limitation with the Soviet Union. On and on.

Do we need a Savior? Yes, but the only one I see or understand combines us all in a saving process, an effort to be informed, to focus on human values, and to never permit our decision-makers to forget what we want for this family of humankind to be and to become. William James once wrote, “habit is the great flywheel of our social life.”

I cherish the hope that I and others will make a habit of advocacy of human values wherever and whenever we can.

Finding Your Theological Way

1980 [dates unspecified]
Lakeland
Port Charlotte

Finding Your Theological Way

The difficulty is in the pronoun: “your” or “my.” It is not easy to attempt systematic thinking of one’s own about the perennial questions that can be listed under “religion.” To endorse someone else’s thinking about God – Good and Evil – our origins – our proper behavior – our destiny – is not difficult, it seems to me. A holy church with saving sacraments, an authoritative creed, an unerring scripture, a personal savior [all] provide assurance for most persons. Singer Pearl Bailey told an audience why she switched from the study of French syntax to theology: “I switched from French to theology because I discovered God was easier to understand than French.”

My experience has been the opposite. Not that my high school French was easy; it was difficult, and soon forgotten. But God, or the variety of ideas of God, are immeasurably more difficult for me either to fathom or express. In my more skeptical moments I am amused by the definition Ambrose Bierce gave to faith in THE DEVIL’S DICTIONARY: “Belief without evidence in what is told by one who speaks without knowledge of things without parallel.”

When in that mood I don’t care very much about finding my theological way. When I have friends, shelter, food, literature, art, music, work to do, conviviality, love, memories and hopes, what need have I for theology? But when I reflect on these living experiences, I become quite aware that each of the values I hold has a theological base or a theological reference.

Theology is a thoughtful interpretation of one’s experience. The reality that my theology does not have the assurance of positive an unchanging answers does not make it less my own. Those of you who are regularly here know that no religious creed is required. The certainties each of us have are our own. More often, I believe we have learned to live with uncertainty about the theological questions. [CJW note: Woody Allen]

Living in our questions rather than relaxing in someone else’s answers, while not expecting final answers, is the spirit of a religion of critical inquiry. Search is a form of prayer – a reaching out to the mystery of origin and destiny.

Here is a paraphrase of a definition of religion I noted down some years ago: “Religion is a dimension of our human consciousness which is concerned with our ultimate relation to our world, with the meaning we find in, or attribute to, life’s activities and experiences and with the direction we give effort and aspiration.”

There are words in that definition that are indicators of finding our theological way:

our human consciousness
our relation to our wold
the meanings we find or attribute our efforts and aspiration

All theologies are human whether fixed creed or open search. The Gods and their symbols, creed, hymn, icon, structure, prophecy, poetry, myth, art, are human expressions of human fear, hope, good, evil, mystery. Thus, it is in human events and experiences we find our theological way.

How? Not by abstractions pronounced from a pulpit. The better way is sharing our stories. Some of us know the value of this and recommend it to others.

What can you remember from your experience that caught you up, absorbed you with the feeling that life is good? When I think back, I recall many such experiences. For example, when I was a T.S. student, with a family, struggling to get through, money ran out and there seemed no alternative but give up the goal. Then I was given an anonymous gift of $100 (it was equivalent to what $600-$700 would be today). It simply made the difference both in my circumstance and my spirit. I’ve never known or had any hint who was my benefactor.

Who were some of the unforgettable persons in your life, and why? A teacher, perhaps who instilled in you a love of poetry or drama or science?

Share the story.

How and when have you encountered “evil” or “sin?” I remember how angry and cynical I was when one I believed a friend deliberately cheated me out of some money.

Share the story.

Then think of deeper mysteries – the pain and suffering perhaps when your spouse or child or parent died.

What would you say to the parents and friends of the young American boxers who died a few weeks ago in that airplane crash in Poland?

Share the stories. If there are no others with whom you feel to share some of the high and low experiences of your living, write them down for yourself alone, and read them over.

There is another step on finding your theological way. Reflect with others, or alone, on these stories of your living.

Good warm living experiences
The love of a parent, mate, friend
The disillusion of a wrong doing – done by you, or to you
The tragedies for which no one is to blame – a Mt. Pelee in Martinique erupted and 20M lives lost; or earthquake, flood...

There is a theological rogue word – contextualization. (That’s almost as repellent as finalize) but its meaning has a point that theology must be anchored in the realities of time, place, and circumstances.

For each of us, finding our theological way, our reflection is in the reality of our time, our place, our circumstance.

What do your experiences of good and bad, the moments of great joy, the times of keen sorrow, lead you to believe about human nature? That is theology.

What does the self you may hide tell you about your nature? That is theology.

What does the frequency of unmerited suffering – fire, flood, earthquake – suggest to you about the nature of the universe and the force or forces that created it? That is theology.

What does the fact of planet Earth with its provision of air and soil for crops of grain and vegetable, trees for fruit, shade, shelter, and warmth; oil and metals beneath the earth, water for our thirst, the sun for our warmth – what does planet Earth suggest to you about the nature of the force that created it? That is theology.

Henry D. Thoreau writes of a time he visited a Catholic Church. He was not turned off. Rather, he found it an excellent place for contemplation. He wrote that if a town can have a meeting room (Town Hall) and a reading room (the Library), why should there not be a thinking room?

Bob Tapp, “We seldom contemplate and perhaps we never discover, that contemplation is a form of inquiry.”

It has been suggested, also, that in theology, “the answers you get depend a bit on the questions you put.” The questions I have suggested are not about ancient Palestine, Galilee, Rome, but about our time, our place, our circumstance. The past may illuminate the page but it cannot write for us. We must wrestle with the blessings, the cruelties and the enigmas of our individual and social experience. The world of our experience is not a world of dying-rising savior gods, but w world of astonishing technology and irresistible political change amid a continuing struggle of nationalistic and economic ideologies. [CJW note: and calls for theological reflection and sharing God – good (evil) salvation]

Beyond that – reflection on the astounding mystery of the universe.

There never may be a fixed way of finding God or a creative force which explains it all. But mystery deserves contemplation, too. I respond to the whimsical but profound way Robert Frost revered the mystery:

The Secret Sits:

“We dance round in a ring and suppose
But the secret sits in the middle and knows,

Forgive O Lord my little jokes on Thee
And I’ll forgive thy great big one on me.”

And finally 425
Accidentally on Purpose

[CJW note: poets, artists, musicians – study, reflect on their creation in the light of the experience you’ve had ... study ....]

Belief In An Open World

1980
Lakeland

Belief In An Open World

If you read our newsletter, you will have noted that on third Sundays I will discuss and present some important aspect of our Unitarian Universalist tradition or principles. This is in response to requests. For some of you, this will be a walking of roads you know well. The landmarks will be familiar and, perhaps, not very exciting. But share in the journey. In the [question and Talkback] period, fill in gaps I have overlooked, correct me in particulars, add your reminisce to illuminate some part of our Unitarian Universalist religion.

One additional comment: it is my intention that everything I say on any Sunday has something to do with our tradition or principles. Sometimes this relationship may be obscure and implicit rather than obvious and explicit. But the connection is always there, I hope.

I have called the initial presentation in this series, “Belief In an Open World.” By an open world, I mean freedom from dogma. Or, to cite the first purpose of our Unitarian Universalist Association, “To strengthen one another in a free and disciplined search for the truth as the foundation of our religious fellowship.”

The Unitarian Universalist Association has just released a survey (1979). One of the questions asked of those persons who were surveyed was: If you were asked to explain Unitarian Universalism to a person who possibly was interested in becoming a member of this denomination, which three aspects of Unitarian Universalism do you believe would have the greatest appeal to him/her?

“Freedom from dogma” was the most chosen aspect, by a wide percentage. The survey distinguished between Unitarian Universalists who had been members two years or less and those who had been members for longer periods. 59% of all those surveyed said that “freedom from dogma” had the greatest appeal, and 72% of those who had been members two years or less made the same choice.

What is dogma? In religious institutions, dogma represents imposed beliefs which must be acknowledged. For Roman Catholics, who must recognize the authority of the Pope to speak without error, that is a dogma. For many Protestant groups, a creed is a dogma, or the proclamation of the inerrancy of scripture thought to be diving. [CJW note: Clipping about Bailey Smith, President of the Southern Baptist Convention – “Pastor Claims Jewish Prayers Aren’t Heard”]

Dogmas are not limited to the area of religious organizations. There can be political dogma, scientific dogma – every area of human activity. Dogmas are characterized by expecting belief without questioning rather than testing by experience and reason.

What is it to be free from dogma? It is what has been described as the scientific attitude. There is no intention to substitute science for religion. Science is not an idol to be worshiped but a method to be used. A scientific attitude includes:

Natural curiosity: every inventor has this quality.
Impartiality and breadth of view.
Persistence and industry in exploring new truth.
Accuracy in observation and notation.
A constructive skepticism.
Fearlessness at what may be discovered.
Loyalty to new truth as it emerges from testing and experience.
An open mind – for these new truths may either support existing theories or overthrow existing theories.

One of my teachers once wrote (Phenix – INTELLIGIBLE RELIGION), “The most elementary factor of all human experience is that every moment brings to birth a new world. The state of things in one moment of time is never exactly the same as that which prevailed at the previous moment. This only to say that we live in a world of ceaseless change. The fact of change is perhaps the most fundamental human experience. There is no form of existence where change does not rule, even the ‘eternal’ hills do not stand forever, as any geologist can testify.”

The scientific method of curiosity, search for truth, testing the findings, has many parallels with the Unitarian Universalist response to freedom from dogma.

We have no hierarchy to tell our persons what they must or must not believe. Our ministers are elected by their congregations, not appointed. The President of our Association is elected by the churches and fellowship. Our people choose to trust themselves. The legendary labor leader Joe Hill is quoted as saying, “Anyone who can lead you to Paradise can lead you out of it.” (HUMAN SCALE, p. 69) Thus our leadership is accountable to you, the members, not the other way around.

The prevailing freedom from dogma requires that everyone be accountable to himself/herself for what one can and will believe. Unitarian Universalists who look for an authority to hand them a creed will not be content (to remain). When one has the freedom to search and discover what is true for him/her then one has the responsibility to do just that (to search and discover).

Many persons find this task of truth-seeking too formidable or too threatening. That is certainly one of the causes of our small numbers. In some recent research, social scientist Margaret Fiske came to the conclusion that “there seem to be fewer autonomous, self-generating people in recent studies than previously.”

I respond to what philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote (quoted, Thomas, p. 465). He was writing of economic systems, [but] I would apply the wisdom much more widely: “If a more just economic system is attainable by closing men’s minds against free inquiry, the price is too high.”

Left at this point, [the] Unitarian Universalist freedom from dogma in an open world could and sometimes has resulted in a rather insufferable arrogance, putting down anything anyone else believes. There have been those who have assumed, too proudly, that liberal religion is for the enlightened and everyone else’s religion for the benighted and ignorant.

If we are loyal to an attitude of inquiry, truth-seeking, then one must hold the possibility that the other fellow could be right. Therefore we are free from dogma only when we respect differing beliefs, seek to understand. Whenever possible (and I know – it’s not always possible) to share ideas and belief, compare in good-will.

In that schoolboy discipline of linguistic philosophy, Ludwig Wittgenstein stands out. What do words mean? What do religious words mean? To greatly oversimplify, he believed religious words describe central features in the landscape of human experience. Because our perceptions differ, a landscape may register differently to an artist, a geologist, an archaeologist, a policeman, or a farmer. But unless these different perceptions are shared, with respect, there can be no authentic communication.

Basic then to freedom from dogma is an openness to beliefs of others – to respect even when one must disbelieve – and seek to understand.

A historian (Thomas, p. 445) tells the story of two men who quarreled and then fought as to whether Ariosto or Tasso were the better poet. They mortally wounded each other and with their dying gasps confessed that the two of them had never read either poet.

One thing more, I believe, is a strong card in our freedom from dogma. Good persons can be found in our experience who do not conform to usual beliefs. It is painful to observe political candidates seeking desperately to be conformists, particularly religious conformists.

To summarize briefly – this is an open world – it is changing – it is dynamic. New truths have always emerged and will continue to do so. We cherish the privilege of seeking the truth, respecting other persons’ beliefs even when we do not hold them and judging persons not by their confessed beliefs but by their behavior.

Maxwell Anderson (Joan of Lorraine), Masters, Stage Director, when asked, “What’s your religion, Mr. Masters?” answers, “I guess democracy. I believe in democracy and I believe the theater is the temple of democracy. A democratic society needs a church without a creed – where anybody is allowed to talk as long as he can hold an audience – and that’s what the theatre is – thought, it’s sort of dwindling down to a side chapel lately....”

What the playwright envisioned for the theatre – a temple of democracy – I have cherished all my life in the Unitarian Universalist religious society.

[CJW note: But the open world is one of mystery and expectancy – poem ...]

The Creative Institution

Undated (File under 1980)
Unspecified Location (Probably Lakeland or Port Charlotte)

The Creative Institution

There are many who would assert that the creative institution is a contradiction in terms. Institutions suggest all the jokes we have heard about committees and bureaucracies. Others, more seriously, believe that the Christian religious doctrine of original sin is an appraisal of institutions. What persons would not do as individuals they readily share or acquiesce in if an institution is involved. Furthermore, many institutions begin to decay soon after the need or cause that led to organization. Institutional perpetuation become[s] the priority rather than the goals and ideals that prompted organization in the first place. Simon’s Law is that “everything put together falls apart sooner or later.”

We have celebrated the renovating and refurbishing of this chapel. We have noted those who did much in the planning and work to achieve the result we all admire and appreciate. Individuals have labored for an institution. An institution is the gathering of people and resources for the accomplishing of shared goals. [CJW note: An institution can be fellowship, family, corporation, government]

When I spoke of the creative person, I mentioned certain qualities – encounter with a vision, intensity, hard work, challenging fixed assumptions, discerning new patterns. Thus, when preparing these remarks, I had to face up to the reality that institutions as such do not have these qualities. The courageous, creative, motivated persons in an institution represent the inspiration and perspiration. The crucial matter is whether or not the institutional framework, rules, and prevailing attitudes encourages or discourages the innovators, the creators.

So, the creative institution may not exist. But an institution is the dimension in which the creative persons function. To remember some of the creative persons named a couple weeks ago – Michelangelo created the paintings in the Sistine Chapel because of the institution of the Church. Beethoven was subsidized by the institutional, wealthy aristocracy. Shakespeare created his masterpieces for the institution of the Elizabethan theatre.

What keeps the fiddler on the roof? Tradition! The institution carries the tradition. It is through the institution we remember. Because of the institutions of education, religion, government, family, we are taught the follies and glories of the human adventure.

Institutions can be rigid and confining. Institutions are also the memory and provide the rules which stimulate and support creative effort.

Our institutional memory of the traditions and rules of Unitarian Universalism are certainly not the only example but the one I wish to single out today. Conrad Wright in a study paper done for Unitarian Universalist Advance - “Individualism in Historical Perspective” points out some of the inconsistencies with which he perceives our institutional tradition.

“If we had saints, we would, without doubt, include Jefferson and Emerson. Yet these two didn’t believe in religious institutions. “If there ever was a person who insisted that religion is a private matter, it was Jefferson. He did so, not simply because his views were unorthodox and so would have exposed him to political attack, of which there was enough anyway, but because he held to a view of religion that was individualistic in the extreme. ‘I inquire after no man’s religious opinions, and trouble none with mine.’” [CJW note: Isn’t that the very process we cherish? The speaker – Talkback – we value dialogue highly.]

Wright observes about Jefferson, “for him religion remains a private possession, because there is nothing in his understanding of it that suggests that religious fellowship has any value, or that there is anything in human nature that needs religious community.”

Ralph W. Emerson, too, had a privatized religion. He left the organized church early in his career. [CJW note: Religion necessary – church superfluous 30-35% in country today]

It is an odd quirk in our religious movement that we name churches and fellowships for Jefferson and Emerson, who did not believe in religious institutions. We hardly know the names of those who believed in the institution and worked to institute and enlarge churches and fellowships, to maintain an institutional framework for the free market in ideas, for free persons’ worship, for free persons to make voices (and social problems) heard.

In studying the early history of the European settlement of this continent, Conrad Wright points out the possibility that individualism was connected with the unlimited resources and opportunity of the rich lands and almost unlimited frontier. But that is a disappearing phase. [CJW note: read p. 12 – 14]

Wright asks what is required of us if we are to play an important role in the shaping of a new age. [CJW note: p. 17; not sure totally agree – but the argument is formidable.]

I would add that if we are to be an institution that supports and encourages creativity, we must take risks. That is, take a critical stance. Every act of creation is an act of destruction.

An Episcopal bishop, John S. Spong, illustrates the risk in writing of the probable new shape of the church, wrote “The Episcopal Church gave a $40,000 grant to a Mexican-American group – one diocese immediately cut off its $80,000 contribution.”

That resonates with those of us who remember our Black caucus and appropriations. [CJW note: lost many friends – not too many years and migrant ministry]

Miller’s Law - “You can’t tell how deep a puddle is until you step in it.”

We have a covenant. It is not a doctrinal [covenant] but a governmental covenant. But whenever we vote in the minority, we have given up some portion of our individuality. [CJW note: can we accept that for the sake of the religious community?]

George Wald – Harvard biologist – the bees lecture “source of human nature” supporting his belief that human behavior has evolved from those of animals – described the social behavior of bees – “By certain dance routines, [a] bee can tell other bees where it has found a rich store of nectar... dances are also used in searching for a new hive. Worker bees fan out in the hunt. When they find a likely place they return and dance before the swarm. The better the spot, the more prolonged and intense the dance.”

Human social behavior has the advantage of speech – this parallel more important and controversial. The issue – more prolonged and intense the discussion. Essential is persistent communication. There is risk – persons in an institution make their gathering effective when the risk of differing communication plainly told is accepted/embraced.

I do not know how many, of if any here ever attended Summer Experience – Star Is. off Isles of Shoals. If you have, you probably have the same enduring memory that I have. The evening service in the old, granite Fishermen’s Chapel is a profoundly moving occasion and an authentic symbol of how our movement functions at its institutional best.

At 10 pm, each person, carrying a lighted candle lantern, climbs the stone steps single file toward the chapel on the hill. The chapel is dark; it has no lights. As each worshiper enters with his/her light, the interior becomes progressively lighter. When everyone is present for evening worship, the chapel is lighted warmly and brightly. When the service ends, each departs, carrying his own light. When the last worshiper has left, the chapel is dark again.

This symbolizes our societies. The dispelling of darkness depends upon the light each brings to worship and work. But it takes all the lights to fully brighten the chapel. The individual alone would hold but a tiny flame flickering in a great dark. But when all bring their lighted tapers, the gathered common, shared light dispels the darkness.

The Prospect for Liberalism: Reveille or Taps?

December, 1980
Lakeland

The Prospect for Liberalism: Reveille or Taps?

The answer may hinge on what liberalism is for you and how you perceive the future trend of political and economic principles and issues.

The reason for choosing this topic at the end of 1980 is soon coming – the end of the Carter administration and the beginning of the Reagan years. Governor Reagan was decisively elected to office. Was this voter sentiment a rejection of liberalism and a demand that conservative values have priority? There has been shock in some so-called “liberal” circles at both the results and implications of the elections. Particularly the defeat of such liberals as McGovern, Culver, Magnuson, Church, has many worried that the time of emphasis on civil liberties and people-helping may be over. Taps for liberalism! Some fear the return of a tide of oppression.

Well, as Mark Twain advised, “get your facts first and then you can distort them as you please.”

One must deal with the continuing difficulty and ambiguity in using the words “liberal” and “conservative.” Because of unlike understandings of their meanings, many believe the words are no longer useful tools of understanding. For example, in the unabridged [dictionary] one will discover that “conservative” means preserving and conserving, tending to maintain existing institutions or views. Then is a conservative one who wishes to preserve the welfare bureaucracy or busing to achieve integration? That’s doubtful. If a conservative is one who is opposed to change, how come Governor Reagan was elected president?

A similar difficulty exists with the word “liberal.” The dictionary defines “liberal” as free, broad-minded, not bound by authority, orthodox tenets, or established forms. Yet the so-called “liberals” are identified in current and recent past times as urging limitations – higher income taxes, so that human assistance programs can be financed by a centralized government....

With such confusions of meanings, I must try to state with attempt at clarity what I mean by the word liberal – in the religious and philosophic sense. To me, liberal means:

- an openness to new truths and insights which can change old ways of believing and valuing
- the right to dissent from traditional doctrines, ideas, habits, moralism, institutions and their ways.
- recognizing the primary value of persons, their worth, their dignity, their right to freedom.

[CJW insert: John Dewey, replying to one of his critics: It is less important that we all believe alike than that we all alike inquire freely, and put at the disposal of one another such glimpses as we may obtain of the truth of which we are in search.]

I raise this subject among us because here we have a forum for sharing. Martin Buber said it well, “In a truly living community of opinion, the common opinion must ever again be tested and renewed in genuine meetings; the men (and women) who hold the same views must ever again loosen up one another’s views as they threaten to become encrusted, must ever again help one another to confront the changing reality in a new, unprejudiced looking.” (A Believing Humanism, p. 211)

First of all, in spite of undisguised elation on the part of Moral Majority and similar groups, the response to their causes may not have been the prevailing tide in the recent election. Polls are not a precise measure but exit polls did show that inflation and unemployment were decisive factors as well as a wide-spread feeling that change was necessary.

Second, I, for one, will make no advance judgment on the economic policies of President-Elect Reagan. This administration will have the support of a Republican majority in the Senate and probably considerably backing from conservative Democrats in the House. The electorate endorsed Reagan and even those who opposed him should give him a fair chance. His task is formidable. Probably we expect far too much of any President, for presidential powers have limitations – that we sometimes forget.

But in being quite willing to give a new administration a chance to announce and implement its economic agenda, I am not willing to give any kind of endorsement to such groups as Moral Majority with their intentions to secure passage of a number of constitutional amendments to achieve their moralistic demands. These efforts include for the most part attempts to indict and prevent individual behavior choices:

prevent the right of a woman to choose an abortion
compel the institution of prayers in public school
opposition to E.R.A.

Those, who like I do, defend on religious, philosophical, and social grounds the right of a woman to choose an abortion, cannot be complacent. The effort will be made to make such free choice illegal.

Those of us who continue to stand for the wall of separation of church and state will see organized efforts to break down that wall, not only in such matters as prayers in the public schools, but also, I fear, tapping public funds for private schools.

I get irritated at the moral arrogance and spiritual self-righteousness of Moral Majority and similar right-wing groups. However, irritation and anger will butter no parsnips, as it used to be said in New England. There is another saying that applies: “It’s a wise dog that scratches its own fleas.” That, I believe, can take place at least in two ways – first, a recognition to be shared, and second, a determination to be made known.

We are a pluralistic nation. That is a recognition to be shared and emphasized. We Americans are of many differing religions as well as millions who have no commitment or allegiance to any religion. There is a distinction between private morality and public good – a distinction that can be maintained with thoughtfulness, acceptance, and understanding.

Our nation is pluralistic in political parties, although two dominate.

The pluralism of our nation will be maintained by participation. Here it appears is a great failure of the part of eligible Americans to vote. (Context, 12/15/80): 1 out of 4 (26.5%) adult Americans voted for the President-Elect. 52.3% voted, the lowest in 32 years.

One is reminded of the comment columnist Mike Royko [made] when L.B.J. announced he would not run again. “Good-bye. You weren’t the best president the people ever had. But then, we aren’t the best people a president ever had.” The same might be a consolation to President Carter.

Now I surmise I am speaking to the already convinced. I’m sure most of you vote. But you, as I, do meet people who do not vote. There are many, 47.7% of the adult population. Make the effort to persuade. in the long run, I believe pluralism requires participation.

Then, there is a determination which many more could share. That is not to concede conscience to the loud shouters and professed majority. Our legislators should hear from us regularly – they will be hearing from the zealots. Of course informing the Senators and Representatives (National and Florida) is a task, tedious and requiring persistence. Cardinal Newman (famous English priest - 19th century) once wrote, “Men will die for a dogma who will not stir for a conclusion.” (Quoted by Nisbet)

Most of us respond in terms of conclusions rather than dogmas. The tendency is not to stir. But Newman reminds us that dogmatists with enthusiasm will be communicating ideas and supporting legislation repugnant to us. We need to stir unless we are content to concede conscience to those whose views we abhor.

Do you know the Sausage Principle? (Reader’s Digest, May 1980) “People who love sausage and respect the law should never watch either one being made.” Better advice is to watch the law being made, even if it’s not always a pretty sight. Watch. As Jean D’Arc said to Dunot - “We must make the bargainers behave.”

One more thing about not conceding conscience to loud shouters and dogmatists....

[CJW note: Silence]

The Realities of One World

October 26, 1980
Port Charlotte

The Realities of One World

If I said all I wanted to say about the realities of one world, use all the sources I have reviewed, we’d be here all day. When starting to construct an outline for a 25-30 minute presentation, I had two pages covered with points I wanted to make. So I have pared my emphasis to three:

1)The United Nations
2)The importance of greater knowledge in the world and they who dwell therein
3)The critical matter of what we permit to register on our social, political, and ethical consciousness as we form, maintain, or change our attitudes.

1. It is 35 years and two days since the United Nations Charter came into effect, October 24, 1945. The dream of peace was taking form after the unutterable havoc, death, and misery of WWII. The charter members expressed a determination to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war which has brought untold suffering to mankind and pledged themselves to live as good neighbors.

Woody Allen, the comedian whose humor can be serious and penetrating as well as funny, is quoted (by Sidney Harris), “More than any other time in history, mankind faces a crossroads. One path leads to despair and utter hopelessness. The other to total extinction. Let us pray we have the wisdom to choose correctly.”

The U.N. offered and still offers another choice.

Whether enthusiasts or skeptics of the U.N., most of you know as much or more about the U.N. than I do. Therefore, I will mention in outline form, some, but not all, of the accomplishments of the U.N.

Peacekeeping – in Cyprus, and several times in the Middle East.

UNICEF – Care for the well-being of children all over the world.

WHO – In a 10-year campaign has almost eradicated smallpox, eliminating the need for vaccination at an expected worldwide saving of 2 billion per (U.S. share of saving about 200 million annually)

World Meteorological Organization provides information on long-range climate changes – Health Watch has doubled the weather prediction data available. [CJW note: just a glimpse]

Pauline Frederick, dean of U.N. correspondents, in a radio report Friday evening, asked where else but the U.N. do friends and enemies gather in a peaceful forum so regularly, so peacefully? She cited a recent Roper poll that 3/4ths of Americans favor the U.N., and by 2 to 1 favor increased participation by the U.S. in the U.N.

Of course the U.N. has not lived up to the bright hopes of many. But as Pauline Frederick pointed out, it cannot do what the powerful nations will not let it do.

Peace has not prevailed in the world. Wars between the various nations since 1945 have cost 22 million lives even though the nuclear weapon has not been used since August 6, 1945, when the atom bomb our nation dropped on Hiroshima instantly killed 78,000.

Many believe that there is present need for reform of the U.N. Charter. [CJW note: Sec Couric – funding; Charter Review Comm] There will be decades of complexities to unravel for perceptions to coincide. It would be self-defeating to expect too much, too soon. There is no textbook of easy answers. But as H.L. Mencken once wrote, a simple answer to a complex question is neat, plausible, and wrong.

But the U.N. is the window on the world where all may look out and all may look in. There is nothing like unto it.

2. However, more important than structural reforms in the U.N. is a wider, deeper knowledge of what our world is.

In usual discussion, most persons refer to the Free World and the Communist World and the Third World (sometimes a 4th World). Such may describe present political and economic divisions. But this is one world. Was it Adlai Stevenson who first used the term “Spaceship Earth?” [CJW note: as in, we are all aboard Spaceship Earth] That’s what it is – 2/3rds water, not separate oceans but one great sea that laps the shores of all continents and islands n which live 4 billion persons.

Robert McNamara, President of the World Bank (and soon to retire) in an address at the University of Chicago in 1979 said, “Global defense procedures now exceed 400 billion dollars a year.” He analyzed what that vast sum meant:

36 million persons under arms in the world’s active and paramilitary forces and 25 million in the reserves.

30 million civilians in military-related occupations.

“Public expenditures on weapons research and development now approach $30 billion a year, and mobilize the talents of half a million scientists and engineers throughout the world.

“On an average around the world, one tax dollar in six is devoted to military expenditure, and that means that at the present levels of spending the average taxpayer can expect over his lifetime to give up to 3 to 4 years of his income to the arms race.”

McNamara also pointed out that the [CJW note: the most advanced technology is the machinery of death] 30 billion a year is a greater research effort than is devoted to any other activity on earth and it consumes more public research money than is spent on the problems of energy, health, education, and food, combined.

Those are the very areas [energy, health, education, food] where this world most needs to apply its brains and treasure.

One of the best contributions to a necessary knowledge of the world today and the people living in it is the NORTH-SOUTH, a report of the Independent Commission on International Issues. Willy Brandt, former President of West Germany, headed a team of scholars and experts in compiling a report devastating in its findings and challenging to every one who has a concern not only for the poor, hungry, and sick persons on the planet but also for the very continuation of human life.

The premise of the book is that if the planet is divided into two parts, North and South, the Northern Hemisphere contains the affluent industrial nations and the Southern, the poor and deprived. Acknowledging there are exceptions (two industrialized countries, Australian and New Zealand are south of the equator, Brazil is booming and the oil-rich countries are “south”, broadly speaking), the north countries are rich and developed, the south countries are poor and developing.

We assert as a principle of the Unitarian Universalist Association that we believe in the supreme worth and dignity of every human being. if we believe that, then information such as contained in this report should jangle our awareness. [CJW note: can only highlight]

Consider poverty: Estimates of the number of destitute people range from 700 million to 800 million. For them there is no work, or when it is, the pay is very low. Their flimsy homes have neither piped water nor sanitation. Health services are seldom available. There is little or no education for the children. No social security. Hunger is never far away. Disease is widespread.

Lack of safe water is a major cause of poor health. 20 to 25 million children below the age of five die each year and 1/3rd of those deaths are from diarrhea caught from bad water. The WHO estimates that $3 per child would be sufficient to immunize every newborn child in the developing world against the 6 most common childhood diseases.

Consider overpopulation (p. 105): “Over one million people are added to the population every five days, and it will increase in the 1908s and 1990s close to 2 billion, which is more than the total number of people in the world during the first decade of this century.”

Education for family planning and birth control (p. 107) must continue and expand. There is a basis for hope. China during the 1970s reduced its rate of growth from 2.3 to 1% and aims at zero growth by 2000. Other countries – Chile, Columbia, Costa Rica, the first countries to adopt systematic family planning, have reduced their birth rates by close to 1/3rd in 20 years. There are other examples.

In addition, “Many countries have shown that economic and social development itself helps to limit population growth....” (p. 106)

If a few of the billions now sunk in the world’s war machines could be invested in the poor, developing countries, these could be a few of the consequences:

p. 14: The military expenditure of one half-day would suffice to finance the whole malaria program of the WHO.

A modern tank costs about one million dollars; that amount could improve storage facilities for 100,000 tons of rice from rot & rats, and thus save 4000 tons or more annually; one person can live on just over one pound of rice per day.

½ of 1% of one year’s world military expenditure would pay for all the farm equipment needed to increase food production and approach self-sufficiency in food-deficit low-income countries by 1990.

The justification for advocating such transfer of dollars, rubles, francs, pounds, is not alone based on the worth and dignity of all persons. There is a secondary reason – self-interest. It is very difficult to think of a problem that is not global. We are interdependent.

The North depends on the South for resources: coffee, cocoa, tea, bananas, jute, tropical hardwood. The U.S. gets increasing amounts of raw materials from this poor, developing South – 50% of its tin, rubber, and manganese, substantial amounts of tungsten and cobalt, not to mention oil.

One out of every 8 jobs in the U.S. now depends on exports; one out of every 20 jobs in the U.S. depends on exports to the “South.” [CJW note: one out of three acres of crop is for export]

In T.S. Eliot’s MURDER IN THE CATHEDRAL, Thomas says, “I know that history at all times draws the strangest consequences from the remotest cause.”

3. I said at the beginning that it is a critical matter what we permit to be registered on our consciousness. The English Actor Robert Morley, commenting on a play that folded, said, “there was trouble casting an audience.” I guess we do not often enough permit ourselves to attend the play of the world’s drama. [CJW note: There is trouble casting an audience. If the drama were in our living rooms, we would be involved deeply. The whole planet is the living room.]

The world is more than self and family and friends. We belong to a human community and that includes the whole planet. “Everything that has anything to do with anybody else has something to do with me.” [CJW note: NS ... p. 29]

In choruses from the Rock, T.S. Eliot has lines,

“What life have you if you have not
life together?
There is no live that is not in
community....
And now you live dispersed
on ribbon roads,
And no man knows or cares who
is his neighbor
Unless his neighbor makes too much disturbance,
But all dash to and fro in motor cars,
Familiar with the roads and settled nowhere.
...
Much to cast down, much to build,
much to restore;
Let the work not delay, time and
the arm not waste;
Let the clay be dug from the pit,
let the saw cut the stone,
Let the fire not be quenched
in the forge.”

UU Social Action – Social Justice

October 19, 1980
Lakeland

UU Social Action – Social Justice

In this series discussing our heritage and principles, the area of social action has presented more difficulties, and more opportunities, than other parts of our religious history and institutions.

The attempt today will sketch certain attitudes created by our theology, to remind ourselves of the principle in our common purpose which place responsibility for social justice on our shoulders and conscience, to discuss the two main ways the principle is applied, and lastly, to state where I stand and have maintained a position.

First, our theological heritage inevitably created particular attitudes toward issues and problems in the human condition.

Both Unitarians and Universalists rejected any idea of a God who would send persons to Hell because they either disbelieved creeds or behaved in ways contrary to the ways that ministers, bishops, or kings decreed they should believe. We dismissed the theological nonsense (nonsense to me) that all persons were born in sin and could be purified/saved only by the supernatural sacrifice of God in the person of Christ.

In all my years in the Unitarian Universalist movement rarely have I heard anyone speculate about the bliss of Heaven (except for jokes) or the torments of Hell in some life beyond this life. Such theoretical distinctions are just not punched on our tickets.

When exposed to human misery, hunger, war, there is no comfort in saying they suffered here but will be rewarded in Heaven. Or, when observing the doers of injustice, the exploiters, the cruel slavers in the human enterprise, “they’ll be punished in Hell.” The multitude of Unitarian Universalists, historically and currently, would affirm that such attitudes are at best wishful thinking; at worst, escapist thinking and evasion of that which sorely troubles so many of the human family.

On the editorial page of today’s Ledger, there is a column by one Gary Potter, who heads Catholics for Christian Political Action. He castigates those he mistakenly labels “secularist” because “the secularist has no vision of anything beyond the here and now. He (sic) does not believe in eternal life, or at least he acts as if he does not. The here and now are all he has. So his compulsion is to make an imperfect world perfect.” He ends his column with the phrase, “liberalism is a sin.”

The distortions in this article would take an hour to disclose. The question is not perfection – there can be no perfection. But improvement of life on this earth – yes indeed – liberals believe in that.

Furthermore such a goal is thoroughly consistent with the Christian tradition to which the columnist professes allegiance. Just read the Sermon on the Mount.

Ethical behavior in this world is intrinsic and inseparable to all the world’s great religions.

Think of the Hebrew prophet Amos:
5/15 – Hate evil and love the good and establish justice in the gate
5/24 – But let justice roll down like water, and righteousness as an ever-flowing stream.

Or Micah:
6/8 – “What does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God”

Then too the Golden Rule, or its equivalent, is found in all the world’s great religions. Injunction to ethical behavior is the here and now.

When Unitarian Universalists use the terms “heaven” and “hell” we speak of the here and now in a world to be taken seriously. Heaven is human dignity, human freedom, human love, human fellowship. Hell is human hate, human exploitation, human despair, human misery, human loneliness, human heartbreak.

There is an old story of an unfeeling man who said to a small boy, “If God loves you, why doesn’t he tell somebody to give you a pair of shoes?” The boy replied, “God did tell somebody, but somebody forgot.”

Or, as one of my colleagues put it, “Faith is the ability to act as an agent of reconciliation. Men (and women) of faith work to heal the separation and estrangement of persons from persons and the separation of men and women from the dignity that is essentially theirs as members of the human family. This faith is concerned for the social and political events in the secular world, because it sees every individual as a child of history. Persons of this faith take the world seriously because it is the place where persons are made or lost, where our lives are reduced or damned, and where our identity as humans is sealed.”

This theological base has been incorporated through the years in the stated purposes of Unitarians and Universalists. When Unitarian Universalists consolidated in 1960, the principles were stated:

a) support the free and disciplined search for truth as the foundation of religious fellowship;
b) cherish and spread the universal truths taught by the great prophets and teachers of humanity in every age and tradition, immemorially summarized in the Judeo-Christian heritage as love to God and love to humanity;
c) affirm, defend, and promote the supreme worth and dignity of every human personality and to use the democratic method in human relationships;
d) implement the vision of one world by striving for a world community founded on ideals of brotherhood, justice, and peace.

Through the days of our American Republic (and Canada), Unitarians and Universalists have made substantial contributions to such ideals.

John Murray of Gloucester, minister of the first organized Universalist church in this country, when he came back from Revolutionary War chaplaincy, organized relief efforts for the hungry of Gloucester, a city which was sorely deprived of food by the British naval blockade.

William Ellery Channing – leader, it was said, of half the reform movements of the 1st half of the 19th century

Theodore Parker – risking his ministry and his life for runaway slaves.

In 1844, nearly 350 Universalist ministers signed a petition to abolish slavery in a time when abolitionists were a minority even in the North.

Clara Barton, a clerk in [the] patent office in Washington, DC, went to the battlefields in the Civil War to nurse the wounded. Later, she was founder of the American Red Cross.

Dorothea Dix, with Channing’s support, made notable strides in improving the conditions of persons in mental institutions where their lot was hardly better than cattle in a stock-yard pen.

John Haynes Holmes, a leader and one of the founders of both the NAACP and the ACLU.

Susan B. Anthony worked more than a half-century for women’s suffrage against formidable opposition and persisting prejudice.

There have been many more. There are many church groups who have made fine contributions to social concerns and social justice, and there is no intention to slight them. But I’m speaking today of our heritage and principles. Many historians comment that Universalists and Unitarians have had an influence in the social order far out of proportion to our small numbers.

The methods of influence have been, and I surmise will continue to be, a matter of contention among Unitarian Universalists. There are two main points of view, each of which is strongly held by differing parts of our constituency.

One is the belief that individuals should act and speak, not the church as a corporate body. Those who affirm this position assert that freedom from dogma should apply to political, economic, and social issues too. They do not wish others, even a majority, to speak for them.

The advocates of this position would also point out that many of those we remember with pride worked as individuals or in connection with other organizations, not the church as such.

Advocates of this position would also contend that political action and dispute by the church divides a congregation. Unitarian Universalists do not think alike, nor do all belong to the same political party. Where acrimony occurs, open dialogue and truth-seeking become difficult. Let there be discussion and education, say those of this point of view. Then the individual pursues a cause or not as he/she may choose.

No theological creed; no social creed either, they assert.

The other view that exists in the by-laws and attitude of the Unitarian Universalist Association is that as a denomination we have an obligation to act together on the issues of the day, even the most controversial. [CJW note: a religious community should act as a community, not as a collection of individuals].

The process by which denominational actions are taken is democratic. There is an established method for individuals, churches, and fellowships to place items on the agenda of the annual General Assembly. In the General Assembly the delegates from the [churches and fellowships] debate and vote on the various resolutions.

When passed, these resolutions become guidelines for our Washington Office of Social Concern, the Social Action Clearing House, the Office for Gay Concerns, the Task Force on Women and Religion.

In addition, we have social concern / social justice organizations which are individual membership groups but which are also centered in Unitarian Universalist efforts on social concern [erg.,] the UUA – UN, UUSC (Unitarian Universalist Service Concern).

There are parallel efforts – consciousness-raising on issues, attempts at consensus.

It is fair to note that our ways on social justice/action are not the prevailing reasons persons join the Unitarian Universalist movement. As pointed out a couple weeks ago, the prime reason is our freedom from dogma. Next is people to people – friendship, equality, congeniality, the stimulation of diverse backgrounds. After that, our theology – liberal, accepting, open to examining claims, curiosity, social action – outreach [follows?] that in motivating persons to become part of our religious community.

I said at the beginning that I would state where I stand on the question of individual action vis-a-vis group attitudes and action on thorny issues and touchy subjects.

Both. I have no dispute whatever with the person who believes only in individual action, and does not want the group to speak for him/her. Actually the group does not speak for the individual. It speaks for the majority who may decide. I wish there were more individuals active as individuals on issues in the social order. There are fewer than such individualistic claims might lead one to believe.

But I believe in the group decision, too. There is attention given that is not achieved otherwise. [CJW note: Harrison Williams – point out to him – GA resol.... I cannot spend time in Washington to pursue office our Social Concern office is there – transmitting our GA position. Follow-up – coalitions w/ other...]

Religion is a binding [of] a community together. United effort counts. We are individuals, but the well-being or misery of people happen in society. This is an age where cooperative, or organized effort, seems necessary to effect social change. There are two sides, at least, on controversial issues. On most issues where many of us take a stand, the opposing side almost always has heavy financing and skilled lobbyists to get the letters written and the phone calls made, and access to the powerful varieties of mass communication – TV, radio, print. To contend with such formidable but legitimate powers requires joint effort and support. In the world that we live that is a way social change is achieved and precious liberties and rights maintained and extended.

In summary, social concern, social action, has always been basic to what we believe our religion is and does. Deeds, not creeds. Service, not sacraments. Save lives on earth, not save souls for Heaven.

We fall short of our aspirations, our goals; we have been weak when we could have been strong; quiet when we should have been heard. We do fail to live up to our best visions. But even in our shortcomings, when the visions of freedom, fellowship, and human dignity beckons us on, our failures can be learning experiences for the next step.

I don’t know how one can apply or live one’s religion, no matter what that religion is, unless there is encounter in the social order, meeting persons where they are and understanding what they value; sharing with them our ideals and ideas; expending our human love and support in this world for that which makes life and persons so precious.

Gerontophobia and The New Minority

October 1980 (probably October 12)
Lakeland, Port Charlotte

Gerontophobia and The New Minority

The old know what it is to be young. The young do not know what it is to be old.

If you came prepared to listen with polite inattention because you are not an older person, I have news for you – you are aging. No matter whether you are 15 or 50, you are older than you were yesterday, older than when you arrived at the Fellowship, older than you were 60 seconds ago.

Gerontophobia is a two-dollar word, which for me has two meanings: the more common meaning is that we have a fear of aging. The other and more psychologically complex nuance is a fear that many younger persons have of older persons. It is not socially acceptable or polite to exhibit this fear of older persons, but I surmise it is there.

This latter fear is not universal, for many have reached it through experience and understanding. But many still shrink back, inwardly at us older persons. There may be a fear of having to assume heavy obligation in immediate family or in the social order. There is certain dread of growing old. Some younger persons see our wrinkles and lines, notice our impaired hearing, our gimpy knees, arthritic joints, or trembling hands, hear of coronaries, cancer, and stroke.... There is a sort of emotional shudder - “As he is, so I will be.” We are closer to death. [CJW note: Berenson – fear, basis of all great art. Fear of death, fear of aging, until come to terms , some day, don’t know when I shall die – no]

I noted the story of a younger woman who complained to a peer, “I’m getting older and I’m worried about it.” Her friend responded, “I haven’t noticed it.” Then the reply, “Oh, yes, I am. When I put on my dress this morning, I saw my mother’s hand coming out of the sleeve!”

To encourage such awareness is my purpose today. To raise our consciousness of aging is a promising and healthy beginning which can lead to more understanding.

Do you remember the opening lines of Robert Browning’s “Rabbi Ben Ezra” ?

“Grow old along with me!
The best is yet to be,
The last of life, for which the first was made:
Our times are in his hand
Who saith, ‘A whole I planned,
Youth shows but half; trust God: see all, nor be afraid!’”

Now, such poetic hope can evoke the kind of ungrammatical scoffing response I heard once, “He ain’t kidding nobody but hisself.” Or if one is more cultured one may say, “Browning – a romantic idealist & impossible to be ....” Either case, not so.

My idea of God is not the same as Robert Browning’s. But I am part of all I have met and all that is – and is to be. The ancient Greeks deified the earth – Gaia – Earth Mother. Gaia is a given – and we must accept and make peace with her on her terms. Which is how I would re-interpret Browning’s “trust God: see all nor be afraid.”

I referred to the New Minority in the title. Of course, older persons (those of us over 65) have always been a minority. Now we are not only a minority growing in numbers but also in assertion and political and social consciousness. [CJW note: Persons 65 and older vote in far greater % than any other age group.]

The projections are that by 1985, 12% of U.S. society will be 65 and older and 12% will be in the 18-24 age group. By 2030, 18% of our society will be 65 and older, and only 9% in the 18-24 age group. [CJW note: Florida figures are / will be substantially higher in the # of persons over 65.] This shift in age in the American scene will have substantial consequences and probably make for sweeping changes in politics, economics, and in the structures of our governmental and social order.

As members of this minority growing in numbers, growing in self-consciousness, growing in political clout, [we] do well to recognize and face up to our gripes, needs, and opportunities. Those of you not yet numbered among us will be someday if all goes well with you. Therefore all parts of the age spectrum need to deal with the realities.

What are the gripes of we older ones? (See 50+, Nov. 1980, p. 14)

Public television’s show “Over Easy” has released a reader response report compiled from 90,000 letter-writers. From those letters these findings emerged:

“The most mentioned complaint is a feeling of social isolation – an acute sense of not being wanted by society and of not having access to social amenities.

“Secondly, many elders also feel frustrated at having an agile mind trapped inside of a fragile body.

“Thirdly, they find it particularly difficult to deal with physical and mental changes that accompany a long life.

“Finally, the letters claim that the warmth and comfort that prevails in most peer groups may be lacking among older people.”

It occurred to me as I reflected on these [four] complaints that they could have been just as accurate if made by persons within any age group of the population – the physically handicapped with a good mind – physical and mental change – lack of person-to-person warmth and comfort. These are human needs – not limited to those of us over 65 – and deserve caring attention. A sense of personal worth is basic to health of body-mind.

I saw a t-shirt message not long ago (I am more attentive to t-shirt messages than those on bumper stickers). The message was ungrammatical and the theology vague, but I liked the spirit - “I’m somebody – God don’t make no junk.”

At least part of the cause of Gerontophobia is a series of generalizations about the aging which, like unfounded rumors, gain credence quite apart from accuracy and truth.

Generalization #1 – All elderly are the same. Nonsense. Just look around or think on the older ones you have seen just yesterday and today. We are different from one another, perhaps with more differences than those in other age groups.

Generalization #2 – The elderly no longer can learn. Not true. [CJW note: colleges – all over counts – Elder hostel]

Generalization #3 – The elderly are devoid of sexual interest. If you believe that, let me try to sell you the Brooklyn Bridge. [CJW note: naïve, uninformed, unexposed]

Generalization #4 – Old age is a disease. There is nothing more natural and in tune with the universe than growing old. It is universal that all organic life, and for that matter, the inorganic, grows old.

Generalization #5 – That it is unwholesome to reminisce. Quite the contrary. When we reminisce – it is good and purposeful. We are confirming our identities, by victories and defeats, our dreams and hopes, pains and joys, telling our stories, not just garrulously gabbing. Furthermore the oral traditions and moral values handed down by the elders have occupied in the human ... a far greater span of the histories of families, clans, tribes, nations, than the come-lately writing/printed accounts, radio waves, and taped documentaries.

Generalization #6 – The elderly are too old to change. Not so. Change is one of the inevitable and basic conditions not only of the human experience but of the universe itself. [CJW note: ‘set in their ways”]

Of course one can single out some elders to whom one or more of these erroneous myths would apply. But again, they could be applied to some individuals in every age group.

Therefore as I move into the concluding part of this presentation where I suggest some attitudes that will aid us in achieving wholeness, wholesomeness, and creative growth, it should now be obvious that I am not just speaking to myself and others who are past 65 but to everyone who is aging – and to that there are no exceptions. The Fountain of Youth is a false fantasy and a deviant one at that.

There are dozens of ways to deepen the art of aging gracefully so there will be reference only to cultivating one’s sense of humor, and the healthy force in a strong will to live.

Cultivate the sense of humor – tell jokes and listen to them. Does that sound trivial? In Norman Cousins’ remarkable story, ANATOMY OF AN ILLNESS, he became infected with a disease of the connective tissue: ankylosing spondylitis. Cousins’ physician told him that his chances for recovery were 1 in 500. Some specialists had never witnessed even one person recovering from this disease. But Cousins did.

For reasons well-described in the book, Cousins determined not to take any pain-killing drugs because of the side effects. How [could he] endure the pain without the drugs? Cousins writes (p. 39), “We began the part of the program calling for the full exercise of the affirmative emotions. It was easy enough to hope and love and have faith, but what about laughter?” So he viewed old Candid Camera movies, several old Marx Brothers movies, and the nurses would read to him from humor and joke anthologies.

Writes Cousins, “It worked. I made the joyous discovery that ten minutes of genuine belly laughter had an anesthetic effect and would give me at least two hours of pain free sleep.” There seemed to be actual physical change, too; the belly laugh is therapeutic.

So you tell me your jokes, and I’ll tell you mine. Earl Wilson, the columnist, wrote “If you think nobody cares if you’re alive, try missing a couple car payments.”

In the magazine “50 Plus” there is an article on the same theme by Dr. Allen Fromme, a psychologist. Appropriately enough he starts with a joke: “A man, listening to his friend’s agonizing recital of all the bad things that happened to [him] comments repeatedly, ‘It could be worse.” “How?” finally asks his sadden companion. “It could happen to me.”

The article concludes, “the benefits for us are enormous. For one thing, we can more easily enjoy the lighter side of life. Not everything is so serious. This is especially valuable in today’s world, where so many have abandoned the restraints of good manners for self-assertiveness. We’re better off being amused more than annoyed. We keep our blood pressure down when theirs goes up.”

Next, the will to live – again, the Cousins book provides inspirational guidelines. In the introduction, scientist Rene Dubos tells of persons who reached great age – the late 90s even more than 100 years ago. Even at that age, many of them died, not so much of direct specific cause, they just got tired of living so they died. [CJW note: The will to live is not just a theoretical abstraction but a physiological reality with therapeutic characteristics.]

The stories of Pablo Casals and Albert Schweitzer are told. Each had a strong will to live – Casals persisting in his music – a great, skilled artist to the very end at 95. Schweitzer once told his staff, “I have no intention of dying so long as I can do things. And if I do things there is no need to die. So, I will live a long, long time.” And he did, until he was 95.

Cousins summarizes (p. 48),

“I have learned never to underestimate the capacity of the human mind and body to regenerate – even when the prospects seem most wretched. The life force may be the least understood force on earth. William James said that human beings tend to live [too] far within self-imposed limits.

Gerontophobia – a fear of aging – a fear of the elderly – is neither justified by human experience nor need be a terrible burden to be borne – unless we make that self-defeating choice.

Martin Buber, the great Israeli teacher/philosopher drew it all together in a sentence:

“To be old is a wonderful thing when one has not forgotten how to begin again.”

Addendum

Prayer for Growing Older
(Adapted from an anonymous source)

Mysterious cosmic source of all that was, and is to be, I am thankful that I am growing old: it is a privilege many have been denied. Awareness of this gives fresh wonder to every day I have breath.

I am grateful for the joys I now grasp because age has pried my fingers loose from trivial things – for simpler things; for swallows skimming over sunlit meadows, for unhurried moments to nourish faith on thought of past joys and mercies; for social instants when all things that once seem disjointed fall into place and the sad things of earth are swallowed up in thrilling joy.

I am thankful for the faith of others which strengthens my own. Thankful, too, for those who have gone before me, marching with dignity through advanced age. Grant to all of us awareness of life’s autumn, a time of fulfillment and harvest. May age be seen as part of the design of the world and our own so that the years may not rest like a burden but more like a benediction.

Let reluctance to leave this world be not a dread of death but a tribute to life.

Spare us from the self-pity that shrivels the soul. Though our wrinkles multiply and bodies tire, may there be no withering of our spirits. May every day witness some rebirth of beauty, some eager expectation of finding treasure there. Grant us grace to stand the pain of encountering a new idea without flinching.

If appetite for food should fade, may our lives still savor tenderness in others, consume the dawn, feast on starlight and nourish our souls with the wonders of the world. Like Job, may we see that the order of the planets is more significant than our sores.

Though our money be limited, let us be spendthrifts with love and squanderers of kindness in the healthy exercise of bending down to help someone up.

And may we be granted daily some moments of living on tiptoes, lured by the eternal city just beyond the hills of time.