Sunday, January 16, 2005
“Free At Last” - January 16, 2005
Lord, who can be trusted with power,
and who may act in your place?
Those with a passion for justice,
who speak truth from their hearts;
who have let go of selfish interests
and grown beyond their own lives;
who see the wretched as their family
and the poor as their flesh and blood.
They alone are impartial
and worthy of the people’s trust.
Their compassion lights up the whole earth,
and their kindness endures forever.
There is a medley of confusion as to the meaning of personal freedom. For some it means to function without limitation at any point, to be able to do what one wants to do and without hindrance. This is the fantasy of many minds, particularly those that are young. For others, personal freedom is to be let alone, to be protected against any force that may move into the life with a swift and decisive imperative. For still others, it means to be limited in one’s power over others only by one’s own strength, energy, and perseverance.
The meaning of personal freedom is found in none of these. They lack the precious ingredient, the core of discipline and inner structure without which personal freedom is delusion. At the very center of personal freedom is a discipline of the mind and of the emotions. The mind must be centered upon a goal, a purpose, a plan. Of all possible goals, purposes, plans, a single one is lifted above the others and held as one’s chosen direction. Then the individual knows when he is lost, when he has missed the way. There emerges a principle of orderedness which becomes a guide for behavior and action. Under such circumstances, goals may be changed deliberately and the sense of random, pointless living is removed.
Such a principle of orderedness provides a channel for one’s emotions and drive. Energy is no longer dissipated but it is used to supply dynamic for the pursuit of the end. Here we come upon the most interesting aspect of personal freedom—the living of one’s life with confidence that transcends discouragement and despair. This means that one does not have to depend upon the favorable circumstance, the fortuitous “break,” the applause, approval, and felicitation of friends, important as these are. The secret is the quiet inner purpose and the release of vitality with which it inspires the act. Achieving the goal is not measured by some external standard, though such must not be completely ignored. Rather, it is measured in terms of loyalty to the purpose and the freedom which it inspires.
We hear a lot about freedom these days. It is featured in Government speeches and the press almost every day. Constantly we hear talk about freedom from terror, freedom for Iraq. But what is this freedom they are talking about? Is it something that one can impose on another? Who determines what freedom is? Today, I want to talk to you about this idea freedom and how we can make sense of it in our lives.
The dictionary defines freedom as the condition of being free of restraints and the capacity to exercise choice or free will. It is also the right or the power to engage in certain actions without control or interference. Freedom is both a state of being, and a privilege that is in response to an outside force. By creating a relationship based on privilege, freedom is linked to power. Those who have enough power can exert the right to be free.
This definition supports the oppressive power structures that plague our society. Freedom becomes a rung on the ladder of privilege. Freedom is something that we must attain through working “the system.” Yet this system, in order to be self-perpetuating, controls what you can say or do. So then you are not truly free. This definition, then, is based on maintaining the status quo. It is this definition of freedom that operated at the end of slavery; a freedom for slaves that left room for Jim Crow laws and Segregation.
We need a freedom that transcends systems of oppression. I would like to propose a different definition of freedom. One that is not bound by power structures. My definition is: Freedom is the opportunity and ability to discover our true potential. This potential goes beyond societal norms and power structures. This potential responds to our true self. That means we need to get to know our true self.
In the reading, Howard Thurman talks about a principle of orderedness that is the center of personal freedom. This is your true potential, which comes from your true self. Thurman writes that this principle of orderedness “becomes a guide for behavior and action. Under such circumstances, goals may be changed deliberately and the sense of random, pointless living is removed.”
Martin Luther King Jr. illustrates this principle. As a young man, King understood his potential to become a spiritual leader. He began in Ebenezer Baptist Church, leading a congregation. As the need arose, King became a leader in his city, then state, and finally on a national level. He never strayed from his true potential of being a spiritual leader, even though his constituencies changed. He understood his true self, and therefore was able to engage his freedom.
Engaging our freedom is also about transcending what is expected. Sometimes pursuing our true potential asks us to do things that no one, not even ourselves, would think possible. We may need help in achieving this goal, but that is part of the process. This is why I chose the story, the Eagle and the Wren, to tell the kids today. The Wren knew her true potential. She had the potential to fly higher then she could ever dream possible. The Wren understood her true self, and knew that although she lacked great strength, she had intellect. This helped her to develop a plan to achieve her goal. It required assistance from the Eagle, for the Wren recognized his potential to win the race. And so, with the Eagle’s help, she flew higher than any bird had ever flown. She exercised her freedom by using her intellect to achieve her potential.
I cannot help but think about the Special Olympics as I talk about freedom. This organization helps millions of people with special needs achieve their athletic potential. These children and adults are able to engage their freedom and discover their true selves. They gain confidence in themselves and a drive to be more than what others expect them to be.
With freedom comes responsibility. This is a responsibility to others. It is so easy to get caught up in our personal expression of freedom that we impinge on the freedom of people around us. In the story, the Wren got in the way of the Eagles journey to fly the highest of any bird. The Wren’s single mindedness could have cost the Eagle his dream. When engaging in our freedom, we must be aware of others.
I remember hearing stories from my Mother about substitute teaching in Special Ed classrooms. Many of these children did not belong there, but were removed from regular classrooms because they were disruptive. My mother said that these children either processed the information really quickly or processed in a different way. They were disruptive because they were not being taught in a way that worked for them, so they were bored. Their teachers were so focused on being teachers, that they forgot about supporting children’s learning. It was not about how much information the teacher can give out, but making sure that all of the children in the class are learning.
We may also misunderstand what our true self is asking of us, and engage in harmful activities. Augusto Pinochet is a good example of this. Pinochet exercised his freedom through dictatorship. He took his call to leadership and used it condone torture and murder in order to maintain his status. This is the risk of freedom, to be misguided in engaging our potential and harm others.
A few months ago, Mark talked about developing a moral compass. This is important because it helps guide us when we are exploring our freedom. This is where a faith community comes in. A faith community can help us determine our values and encourage us to remain in right relationship with one another. As Unitarian Universalists, we can look towards the seven principles for assistance with our moral compass.
In a faith community, you can gain the tools to do the necessary work with your true self. Through sermons, classes and workshops, we can learn how to communicate with our true self and understand what our true potential is. Your faith community is a place where you can feel comfortable with revealing your true self and no that you will be supported. Also, when a faith community, you can talk about your quest for understanding your true self and your true potential and receive the clarification, affirmation and/or acknowledgement you need. And a faith community can hold you accountable for your relationships with others.
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day. This is an important holiday for me, not because of who we are celebrating but because of what it has come to mean to me. A few years after Martin Luther King Day became a National Holiday, I started attending Cranbrook Kingswood, a private High School in Michigan. Despite pleadings from the African American Student Association, the school refused to add the holiday to their calendar. As a group, we discussed what to do and decided that since Martin Luther King fought so that we would be able to attend a private high school, we should use this time for our own enrichment. So we proposed to the school that we organize a trip to the Black History Museum. They agreed. The next two years we decided to educate the entire school, and so we organized an all school assembly on Black History. This began for me a commitment to doing something personally enriching on Martin Luther King Day. I have gone to a museum, spent the day at the library, watched a performance, and worked on an art project. I realize that I have not been as intentional about this the last couple of years, and so I plan on revitalizing this part of my life again. It is a perfect time for me to engage my true self.
As we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday, think about how you exercise your own personal freedom. Where is your true self guiding you? What is your true potential? How will you engage that potential in the world?
We have freedom, every one of us. But it takes a lot of work to use that freedom. It has nothing to do with power or privilege. Freedom has everything to do with understanding our selves. Our freedom lies within. And to make things more complicated, it is not just all about us. It is also about how we relate to others. And so when we hear people talking about freedom in the world, know that we understand a freedom that is deeper than tyranny and oppression. One that can support our sixth principle of a world community with peace, liberty and justice for all. I return to our opening words which asks “who can be trusted with power?” Those who understand the meaning of freedom.
Blessed Be.
Engage your freedom
Learn about your true self and discover your true potential
Remember your moral compass
You do know how it feels to be free
So say it loud,
Say it clear
For the whole world to hear
We are free
Sunday, January 09, 2005
“An Atheist’s God” - January 9, 2005
I was six when I saw that everything was God, and my hair stood up . . . It was on a Sunday, I remember. My sister was only a tiny child then, and she was drinking her milk, and all of a sudden I saw that she was God and the milk was God. I mean , all she was doing was pouring God into God, if you know what I mean.
Faith
Faith is in you whenever you look
At a dewdrop or a floating leaf
And know that they are because they have to be.
Even if you close your eyes and dream up things
The world will remain as it always has been
And the leaf will be carried by the waters of the river.
You have faith also when you hurt your foot
Against a sharp rock and you know
That rocks are here to hurt our feet.
See the long shadow that is cast by the tree?
We and the flowers throw shadows on the earth.
What has no shadow has no strength to live.
I Apologize
I apologize, most reverend theologians, for a tone not befitting the purple of your robes.
I thrash in the bed of my style, searching for a comfortable position, not too sanctimonious and not too mundane.
There must be a middle place between abstraction and childishness where one can talk seriously about serious things.
Catholic dogma is a few inches too high; we stand on our toes and for a moment it seems to us that we see.
Yet the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the mystery of Original Sin, the mystery of the Redemption are well armored against reason.
Which tried in vain to get straight the story of God before His creation of the world, and when the separation into good and evil occurred in His Kingdom.
What in all this can be grasped by little girls dressed in white for First Communion!
If even gray-haired theologians concede that it is too much for them, close the book, and invoke the inadequacy of the human tongue.
But it will not do to prattle on about soft little Jesus in the hay of His manger.
I have led two worship service since Christmas, and participated in another with UU colleagues. In two of the three the words of Wallace Stevens have been used: ”For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.”
This morning, beyond the obvious winter time reference to snow, I want to use the words as a starting point for the idea that there can be such a notion as an atheist’s God. It is the nothing, of no god, that is not there, that is. Perhaps it is Wallace Stevens. He is also the one who wrote, ”Let be be finale of seem. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.” While the words and the humor of an emperor of ice cream always intrigued me, and surely seemed what a nightly ice cream addict like myself might be, I always thought Wallace Steven was beyond me. In freshman English, I simply said, I am too stupid to understand this. Yet today, Stevens words appeal greatly. He said do not speculate on what is real, on what things might seem to be, just be. What we know is the sensuous world. We should revel in the cold, creamy, taste enthralling experience of eating ice cream. Experiencing the all in what you live every day is in sharp contrast to distinguishing between evil and good, the sin of this world, and the salvation of the afterlife. I would go so far as to speculate that there is no God there, but that the experience of knowing the nothing that is, is worthy of being called God.
There has been a great deal of God talk in the newspapers the last week or so. Rather than being relegated to once a week on the religion page, the speculations have come fast and furious on the editorial pages, and even on the front page. How does one respond religiously to a 9.0 earthquake followed by waves of tsunami proportions killing 155,000 at last count, wiping the earth clear of entire villages, and leaving the world in a frenzy about how we can help the countless others who need some form of assistance? One editorial seemingly gave permission to people to be angry with God. The writer implied there was a valid Hebraic tradition running from Moses to Job, where those who had suffered some blameless tragedy were perfectly justified in giving God holy hell for making life unfair. While being angry at God allows for some safe venting, and does achieve the result among believers that they will not be struck dead for defying their deity, it continues the old fallacy that God is to blame for something that God clearly had no hand in, literally or figuratively. It reminds me of my own tendency to blame inanimate objects when they don’t function properly. It feels like wrath for wrath’s sake, and while a God who isn’t there can take it, it wrecks havoc on small appliances.
There are other ways to respond to this colossal natural disaster. We have also heard from those who believe God has chosen them to live. These respondents are like the lone, lucky ones who survive a plane crash or other disaster, and then inform us that God has picked them out to survive. This explanation fails to take into account the thousands of others who have died. If God protected the survivors, then why did God abandon the perfectly good people who were otherwise swept away or drowned? This God who picks some at the exclusion of others begins to point towards some of the fallacies in certain religious beliefs, and why some of us might begin to question whether belief in God is a good idea or not.
One of the editorials I saw proclaimed that we are mostly enlightened enough now to understand that science and faith exist in separate realms, and that the tsunami is not some kind of divine intervention that can be attributed to God’s wrath. While I have not heard any Christians saying those Muslims in Indonesia were on the receiving end of God’s vengeance, as some Christians did to gay men in the early days of the AIDS crisis, I thought this editorialists idea that most people in the world had separated the realms of faith and science was erroneous. While everyone in this room might say that this earthquake and tsunami were the results of natural scientific causes, there are many people in a wide cross section of faiths who not only believe God created the world, but plays an active role in its development. Liberals who believe in God would say that God does not cause terrible events to occur in the world, but rather is the spirit of comfort and strength to us when such events occur.
The problem is most people seem to want some kind of context that provides meaning. We of the scientific bent can say two tectonic plates crashed into each other, but it does not seem to help others who want answers to inexplicable tragedies that only have a scientific explanation. Where is God when such events occur? If we perceive God as an all powerful being or force, why does God let such things occur and not stop them?
The final response to the Tsunami falls into the realm of the search for meaning in the context of a bigger mystery. A survey showed that this was the most common response to the tragedy. The people don’t know why it happened, BUT it must be a part of a larger plan of God’s. In other words, God did let this occur and there is some meaning here, but we just can’t figure out what it is. Many Muslims died in this disaster. What does Islam teach us? Some Muslims speculate that God is testing the faithful. This event has occurred in order that might see if we will remain steadfast to God. Who among us would follow a God who would kill some in order to test the others? This is like the cruel joke that God played on Job. It reminds me of the ridiculous little quote you hear people say: God never gives us any more than we can handle. Do you suppose the tsunami victims are saying that? Obviously these explanations leave us feeling that if this God does exist, God is not worth worshiping or trusting in. Natural disasters do produce tragic deaths, but do we want to identify these incidents or any mass violence with the intentions of a moral deity?
It was these kinds of existential problems that led many to question the existence of God altogether. If God is not going to protect us . . . If God is not going to reward good people and judge the wicked . . . If God is going to allow my loved one to contract an incurable illness . . . then God does not exist. Atheism began to exist because concepts of God began to change and grow from the all powerful and controlling being of Biblical tradition to something that was less and less a reflection of human attributes, and more and more like universal processes seen in nature. God within our own Unitarian Universalist ranks became more scientific and less personal. This emphasis on the living soul emanating through me and in all of nature, as promulgated by the Transcendentalists upset traditional, scripturally based Unitarians, like Henry Ware, Jr., who in his sermon “The Personality of the Deity,” said that if God is not a person, then there is no God. Czeslaw Milosz reminds us in “I Apologize” that many traditional doctrines are well armored against reason. Theologians can always say, it is a mystery, or the human tongue does not have the words to describe. Then we are left without that middle ground that Milosz longs for. Much of this seems childish to us, or the abstractions avoid discussing serious matters with what in their view is seeming truth. It does not give us a straight story, and little Jesus asleep on the hay does not answer for the authorship of sin, good and evil and redemption that theologians want to assign to God.
Humans seem to long to create a divine design or larger purpose for life beyond our daily struggles, and we then try to discern that imposed purpose. Milosz asks can’t we go deeper than childish explanations, and yet not dwell in philosophical absurdities? I have just finished a biography of Abraham Lincoln. He was not much of a follower of traditional church dogmas, yet he believed that life was fated, and after he was elected president he became obsessed with finding a larger meaning in the Civil War. At first, this was terribly depressing for him as the North lost battle after battle, but in the wake of the emancipation proclamation and the improving military situation he came to believe that God’s great purpose in this conflict was the freeing of the slaves. God’s purpose was redeemed he believed, and many saw him as the Redeemer. I think we also tend to assign meaning to events in our own lives, after we have lived through them. We often hear that the time of agony or pain will teach us some great lesson, and we will use that lesson in a positive way. Joy will come from our sorrow. This is tricky because it is one thing to assign meaning if you actually do rebound from life’s sorrows, but what if you don’t? What if the South won the Civil War? When we are going through a trial we want to hear that things will get better. If you are in pain, then you want hope that it will end. If a relationship ends, then you want to know there are new possibilities. Things will get better. This is what Moses told the Israelites as they wandered. If you obey God, then God will show you compassion, and your fortune will be restored. But what if things don’t turn around, and it only seems like a life of misery and death before us?
This is perhaps one of the keys differences between so called Western and Eastern religions. Christianity had traditionally posited that what was good and what was real was in another world, and that this world with its natural desires and passions was evil and unreal. Meaning came through abstract concepts like God and soul, but not through the struggles of daily living. The philosopher Nietzsche observed this about Europe in the mid-19th century. He said people had lived under delusions about what was true, and had exalted an imaginary world. With scientific advances and industrialization, God was being replaced, and an ultimate moral purpose to the universe was being eroded, because rather than seeking meaning in the world, people simply tried to take advantage of the world. Nietzsche though there were some parallels to his life in Europe, and that of the Buddha in India centuries before.
The story of the Buddha is often simply retold as that of a wealthy prince who is sheltered from the miseries of illness, pain and death by his father until he discovers that all of life is suffering, and he embarks on a journey toward enlightenment. He achieves this enlightenment by living a selfless life. In her biography of Buddha, Karen Armstrong says the Buddha found the idea of a personal God very limiting because it placed ultimate truth in another being. If truth were a being or a place like heaven, then it was simply another thing to be attached to. One could never achieve the freedom of enlightenment because there will always be projections out from the self to make you better, or more knowledgeable than the next person. This massaging of the self was always what Buddha feared the most about imaging God, and so the Buddhist faith is sometimes called non-theistic. In worship, the Buddha said God could simply become ourselves writ large, and our trust in God would be our own personal notion of what was good and true and right. When God becomes a projection of the self and what we deem as truth, then the person would become totally immersed in themselves, and not the true suffering of existence. Furthermore, the idea of religion had been perverted so that people developed a faith in order to get something out of it - the reward of an afterlife. This also ignored the first noble truth of Buddhism, empathizing with the sorrows of others. One does not delineate who is worthy or whether you are a good person or not, saved or unsaved. The goal is not to save us with the truth, but to have compassion for others.
The Process theologian John Cobb says that two central aspects of what it means to believe in God are to worship and to trust in a very fundamental way. One may experience atheism by changing these dramatically. For example, if you are worshiping a Father God who you are told will take care of you, and your life experience makes you feel excluded and ignored then this God becomes false. God is no longer mine. I felt this about the fundamentalist God of my youth that denied my mind, and later the Christian God of liberal Christianity that seemed to be about cultural acceptance and forms and fitting in, more than about the lived truths of my life. Neither belief in God was about reverence for life and gratitude which I identify with true worship, or about trusting other people, which I identify with trust for all of life. It seems to me that much of the discussion of God becomes either an abstract, or a projection of what the self desires. The God of atheism must be based in the lived world of experience and be neither a childish idol, abstract thought, a personal being or projection of self.
Buddhism is based on liberating yourself from the desires of the world. This seems like a daunting task, but to me the desires of the world are more akin to selfishness, competitiveness or greed in the world, than they are to reverencing what is and having compassion for others. While Christianity set up dichotomies of good and evil, Buddhism teaches that the ultimate is beyond these projections. And that ultimate is nothingness. One might say that Stevens’ nothing that is not, but is, is the ultimate reality or God beyond God - the mystery at the heart of creation. One finds God not in the words or complex abstract systems, but in the taking away of all the projections, all the judgments of the world until there is only what is in this moment.
After the tsunami disaster, a member of the church asked me how I felt about it in the context of my own encounter with the wave at Pemaquid Point in Maine that nearly obliterated my life. I had not even thought about it, but it gave me a sudden personal context for the suffering of the world, compassion for others, and a vision of the ultimate even as I do not believe in a God as we have traditionally understood the term. One thing I remember about that day is the reverse good Samaritans. These were people who saw me smashed by the wave, who then jumped in their car and drove away. And there were also people who Andrea eventually convinced to be with me even as they wanted to remind us how stupid we were. Many times belief in God has only facilitated our own vision for ourselves - who we are, what we can get. This is why speculating on God’s role in the tsunami is meaningless. The human, compassionate response must be how this disaster effected people who are poor and have no resources to begin with. Sometimes it takes convincing to realize that the world needs our compassion for others. Sometimes it takes a giant wave.
Before those people came to my side, I was floating in the water. As I rode the wave there was a calm acceptance of emptiness, and a trust of the water. I think I came to see that the world was beautiful in that moment, and even if I did not last, it was still beautiful without me. Each moment is all that it is. Each day is everything. The poet Milosz says in “Faith,” that the world is as it should be, even as we try to dream up meaning or truth. Faith also means we will suffer, but as long as we have our shadow, our life, there is strength and health in us to carry on with hope. Everything is complete. Even though we suffer we have the strength to live, to offer our compassion to one another. Here is where the vision of enlightenment begins, in feeling the sorrow of another. I think the Buddhist faith has much to teach us, as we have grappled with eroding concepts of how to define God, or continually redefined God to fit science. It is nothing that is everything, the mystery of all.
Coming back from the near death in the wave in the months afterward was a difficult thing. It is when fear of death and emptiness filled my mind, and I lost trust because my old faith was eroding. Buddha taught that the end of emptiness is wisdom and compassion. I expect Jesus taught the same thing. I think of this as I approach worship and trust as an atheist. To reverence the world every moment of every day is to worship. None of it is mine, yet all of it is. To have true compassion for others and give ourselves over to easing its suffering every day is to trust the world. Buddhism does not seem to have the social ethic I need in my own living faith, but the compassion it begins with, the humility, can help us find it. Living a little more empty of my world each day, may help me find a vision of the emptiness that is the fullness of the world’s wisdom, an atheist’s God.
Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time. I worship each god. I praise each day splintered down, colors spreading, at dawn fast over the mountains split. I wake in a god.
“Free At Last” - January 16, 2005
Derrick Jackson
Opening Words Psalm 15 (Stephen Mitchell trans.)
Lord, who can be trusted with power,
and who may act in your place?
Those with a passion for justice,
who speak truth from their hearts;
who have let go of selfish interests
and grown beyond their own lives;
who see the wretched as their family
and the poor as their flesh and blood.
They alone are impartial
and worthy of the people’s trust.
Their compassion lights up the whole earth,
and their kindness endures forever.
Reading - "Freedom is a Discipline" by Howard Thurman
There is a medley of confusion as to the meaning of personal freedom. For some it means to function without limitation at any point, to be able to do what one wants to do and without hindrance. This is the fantasy of many minds, particularly those that are young. For others, personal freedom is to be let alone, to be protected against any force that may move into the life with a swift and decisive imperative. For still others, it means to be limited in one’s power over others only by one’s own strength, energy, and perseverance.
The meaning of personal freedom is found in none of these. They lack the precious ingredient, the core of discipline and inner structure without which personal freedom is delusion. At the very center of personal freedom is a discipline of the mind and of the emotions. The mind must be centered upon a goal, a purpose, a plan. Of all possible goals, purposes, plans, a single one is lifted above the others and held as one’s chosen direction. Then the individual knows when he is lost, when he has missed the way. There emerges a principle of orderedness which becomes a guide for behavior and action. Under such circumstances, goals may be changed deliberately and the sense of random, pointless living is removed.
Such a principle of orderedness provides a channel for one’s emotions and drive. Energy is no longer dissipated but it is used to supply dynamic for the pursuit of the end. Here we come upon the most interesting aspect of personal freedom—the living of one’s life with confidence that transcends discouragement and despair. This means that one does not have to depend upon the favorable circumstance, the fortuitous “break,” the applause, approval, and felicitation of friends, important as these are. The secret is the quiet inner purpose and the release of vitality with which it inspires the act. Achieving the goal is not measured by some external standard, though such must not be completely ignored. Rather, it is measured in terms of loyalty to the purpose and the freedom which it inspires.
Sermon
We hear a lot about freedom these days. It is featured in Government speeches and the press almost every day. Constantly we hear talk about freedom from terror, freedom for Iraq. But what is this freedom they are talking about? Is it something that one can impose on another? Who determines what freedom is? Today, I want to talk to you about this idea freedom and how we can make sense of it in our lives.
The dictionary defines freedom as the condition of being free of restraints and the capacity to exercise choice or free will. It is also the right or the power to engage in certain actions without control or interference. Freedom is both a state of being, and a privilege that is in response to an outside force. By creating a relationship based on privilege, freedom is linked to power. Those who have enough power can exert the right to be free.
This definition supports the oppressive power structures that plague our society. Freedom becomes a rung on the ladder of privilege. Freedom is something that we must attain through working “the system.” Yet this system, in order to be self-perpetuating, controls what you can say or do. So then you are not truly free. This definition, then, is based on maintaining the status quo. It is this definition of freedom that operated at the end of slavery; a freedom for slaves that left room for Jim Crow laws and Segregation.
We need a freedom that transcends systems of oppression. I would like to propose a different definition of freedom. One that is not bound by power structures. My definition is: Freedom is the opportunity and ability to discover our true potential. This potential goes beyond societal norms and power structures. This potential responds to our true self. That means we need to get to know our true self.
In the reading, Howard Thurman talks about a principle of orderedness that is the center of personal freedom. This is your true potential, which comes from your true self. Thurman writes that this principle of orderedness “becomes a guide for behavior and action. Under such circumstances, goals may be changed deliberately and the sense of random, pointless living is removed.”
Martin Luther King Jr. illustrates this principle. As a young man, King understood his potential to become a spiritual leader. He began in Ebenezer Baptist Church, leading a congregation. As the need arose, King became a leader in his city, then state, and finally on a national level. He never strayed from his true potential of being a spiritual leader, even though his constituencies changed. He understood his true self, and therefore was able to engage his freedom.
Engaging our freedom is also about transcending what is expected. Sometimes pursuing our true potential asks us to do things that no one, not even ourselves, would think possible. We may need help in achieving this goal, but that is part of the process. This is why I chose the story, the Eagle and the Wren, to tell the kids today. The Wren knew her true potential. She had the potential to fly higher then she could ever dream possible. The Wren understood her true self, and knew that although she lacked great strength, she had intellect. This helped her to develop a plan to achieve her goal. It required assistance from the Eagle, for the Wren recognized his potential to win the race. And so, with the Eagle’s help, she flew higher than any bird had ever flown. She exercised her freedom by using her intellect to achieve her potential.
I cannot help but think about the Special Olympics as I talk about freedom. This organization helps millions of people with special needs achieve their athletic potential. These children and adults are able to engage their freedom and discover their true selves. They gain confidence in themselves and a drive to be more than what others expect them to be.
With freedom comes responsibility. This is a responsibility to others. It is so easy to get caught up in our personal expression of freedom that we impinge on the freedom of people around us. In the story, the Wren got in the way of the Eagles journey to fly the highest of any bird. The Wren’s single mindedness could have cost the Eagle his dream. When engaging in our freedom, we must be aware of others.
I remember hearing stories from my Mother about substitute teaching in Special Ed classrooms. Many of these children did not belong there, but were removed from regular classrooms because they were disruptive. My mother said that these children either processed the information really quickly or processed in a different way. They were disruptive because they were not being taught in a way that worked for them, so they were bored. Their teachers were so focused on being teachers, that they forgot about supporting children’s learning. It was not about how much information the teacher can give out, but making sure that all of the children in the class are learning.
We may also misunderstand what our true self is asking of us, and engage in harmful activities. Augusto Pinochet is a good example of this. Pinochet exercised his freedom through dictatorship. He took his call to leadership and used it condone torture and murder in order to maintain his status. This is the risk of freedom, to be misguided in engaging our potential and harm others.
A few months ago, Mark talked about developing a moral compass. This is important because it helps guide us when we are exploring our freedom. This is where a faith community comes in. A faith community can help us determine our values and encourage us to remain in right relationship with one another. As Unitarian Universalists, we can look towards the seven principles for assistance with our moral compass.
In a faith community, you can gain the tools to do the necessary work with your true self. Through sermons, classes and workshops, we can learn how to communicate with our true self and understand what our true potential is. Your faith community is a place where you can feel comfortable with revealing your true self and no that you will be supported. Also, when a faith community, you can talk about your quest for understanding your true self and your true potential and receive the clarification, affirmation and/or acknowledgement you need. And a faith community can hold you accountable for your relationships with others.
Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day. This is an important holiday for me, not because of who we are celebrating but because of what it has come to mean to me. A few years after Martin Luther King Day became a National Holiday, I started attending Cranbrook Kingswood, a private High School in Michigan. Despite pleadings from the African American Student Association, the school refused to add the holiday to their calendar. As a group, we discussed what to do and decided that since Martin Luther King fought so that we would be able to attend a private high school, we should use this time for our own enrichment. So we proposed to the school that we organize a trip to the Black History Museum. They agreed. The next two years we decided to educate the entire school, and so we organized an all school assembly on Black History. This began for me a commitment to doing something personally enriching on Martin Luther King Day. I have gone to a museum, spent the day at the library, watched a performance, and worked on an art project. I realize that I have not been as intentional about this the last couple of years, and so I plan on revitalizing this part of my life again. It is a perfect time for me to engage my true self.
As we celebrate Martin Luther King’s birthday, think about how you exercise your own personal freedom. Where is your true self guiding you? What is your true potential? How will you engage that potential in the world?
We have freedom, every one of us. But it takes a lot of work to use that freedom. It has nothing to do with power or privilege. Freedom has everything to do with understanding our selves. Our freedom lies within. And to make things more complicated, it is not just all about us. It is also about how we relate to others. And so when we hear people talking about freedom in the world, know that we understand a freedom that is deeper than tyranny and oppression. One that can support our sixth principle of a world community with peace, liberty and justice for all. I return to our opening words which asks “who can be trusted with power?” Those who understand the meaning of freedom.
Blessed Be.
Closing Words
Engage your freedom
Learn about your true self and discover your true potential
Remember your moral compass
You do know how it feels to be free
So say it loud,
Say it clear
For the whole world to hear
We are free
“An Atheist’s God” - January 9, 2005
Rev. Mark Harris
Opening Words - from J. D. Salinger
I was six when I saw that everything was God, and my hair stood up . . . It was on a Sunday, I remember. My sister was only a tiny child then, and she was drinking her milk, and all of a sudden I saw that she was God and the milk was God. I mean , all she was doing was pouring God into God, if you know what I mean.
Readings - "Faith" and "I Apologize" by Czeslaw Milosz
Faith
Faith is in you whenever you look
At a dewdrop or a floating leaf
And know that they are because they have to be.
Even if you close your eyes and dream up things
The world will remain as it always has been
And the leaf will be carried by the waters of the river.
You have faith also when you hurt your foot
Against a sharp rock and you know
That rocks are here to hurt our feet.
See the long shadow that is cast by the tree?
We and the flowers throw shadows on the earth.
What has no shadow has no strength to live.
I Apologize
I apologize, most reverend theologians, for a tone not befitting the purple of your robes.
I thrash in the bed of my style, searching for a comfortable position, not too sanctimonious and not too mundane.
There must be a middle place between abstraction and childishness where one can talk seriously about serious things.
Catholic dogma is a few inches too high; we stand on our toes and for a moment it seems to us that we see.
Yet the mystery of the Holy Trinity, the mystery of Original Sin, the mystery of the Redemption are well armored against reason.
Which tried in vain to get straight the story of God before His creation of the world, and when the separation into good and evil occurred in His Kingdom.
What in all this can be grasped by little girls dressed in white for First Communion!
If even gray-haired theologians concede that it is too much for them, close the book, and invoke the inadequacy of the human tongue.
But it will not do to prattle on about soft little Jesus in the hay of His manger.
Sermon
I have led two worship service since Christmas, and participated in another with UU colleagues. In two of the three the words of Wallace Stevens have been used: ”For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.”
This morning, beyond the obvious winter time reference to snow, I want to use the words as a starting point for the idea that there can be such a notion as an atheist’s God. It is the nothing, of no god, that is not there, that is. Perhaps it is Wallace Stevens. He is also the one who wrote, ”Let be be finale of seem. The only emperor is the emperor of ice-cream.” While the words and the humor of an emperor of ice cream always intrigued me, and surely seemed what a nightly ice cream addict like myself might be, I always thought Wallace Steven was beyond me. In freshman English, I simply said, I am too stupid to understand this. Yet today, Stevens words appeal greatly. He said do not speculate on what is real, on what things might seem to be, just be. What we know is the sensuous world. We should revel in the cold, creamy, taste enthralling experience of eating ice cream. Experiencing the all in what you live every day is in sharp contrast to distinguishing between evil and good, the sin of this world, and the salvation of the afterlife. I would go so far as to speculate that there is no God there, but that the experience of knowing the nothing that is, is worthy of being called God.
There has been a great deal of God talk in the newspapers the last week or so. Rather than being relegated to once a week on the religion page, the speculations have come fast and furious on the editorial pages, and even on the front page. How does one respond religiously to a 9.0 earthquake followed by waves of tsunami proportions killing 155,000 at last count, wiping the earth clear of entire villages, and leaving the world in a frenzy about how we can help the countless others who need some form of assistance? One editorial seemingly gave permission to people to be angry with God. The writer implied there was a valid Hebraic tradition running from Moses to Job, where those who had suffered some blameless tragedy were perfectly justified in giving God holy hell for making life unfair. While being angry at God allows for some safe venting, and does achieve the result among believers that they will not be struck dead for defying their deity, it continues the old fallacy that God is to blame for something that God clearly had no hand in, literally or figuratively. It reminds me of my own tendency to blame inanimate objects when they don’t function properly. It feels like wrath for wrath’s sake, and while a God who isn’t there can take it, it wrecks havoc on small appliances.
There are other ways to respond to this colossal natural disaster. We have also heard from those who believe God has chosen them to live. These respondents are like the lone, lucky ones who survive a plane crash or other disaster, and then inform us that God has picked them out to survive. This explanation fails to take into account the thousands of others who have died. If God protected the survivors, then why did God abandon the perfectly good people who were otherwise swept away or drowned? This God who picks some at the exclusion of others begins to point towards some of the fallacies in certain religious beliefs, and why some of us might begin to question whether belief in God is a good idea or not.
One of the editorials I saw proclaimed that we are mostly enlightened enough now to understand that science and faith exist in separate realms, and that the tsunami is not some kind of divine intervention that can be attributed to God’s wrath. While I have not heard any Christians saying those Muslims in Indonesia were on the receiving end of God’s vengeance, as some Christians did to gay men in the early days of the AIDS crisis, I thought this editorialists idea that most people in the world had separated the realms of faith and science was erroneous. While everyone in this room might say that this earthquake and tsunami were the results of natural scientific causes, there are many people in a wide cross section of faiths who not only believe God created the world, but plays an active role in its development. Liberals who believe in God would say that God does not cause terrible events to occur in the world, but rather is the spirit of comfort and strength to us when such events occur.
The problem is most people seem to want some kind of context that provides meaning. We of the scientific bent can say two tectonic plates crashed into each other, but it does not seem to help others who want answers to inexplicable tragedies that only have a scientific explanation. Where is God when such events occur? If we perceive God as an all powerful being or force, why does God let such things occur and not stop them?
The final response to the Tsunami falls into the realm of the search for meaning in the context of a bigger mystery. A survey showed that this was the most common response to the tragedy. The people don’t know why it happened, BUT it must be a part of a larger plan of God’s. In other words, God did let this occur and there is some meaning here, but we just can’t figure out what it is. Many Muslims died in this disaster. What does Islam teach us? Some Muslims speculate that God is testing the faithful. This event has occurred in order that might see if we will remain steadfast to God. Who among us would follow a God who would kill some in order to test the others? This is like the cruel joke that God played on Job. It reminds me of the ridiculous little quote you hear people say: God never gives us any more than we can handle. Do you suppose the tsunami victims are saying that? Obviously these explanations leave us feeling that if this God does exist, God is not worth worshiping or trusting in. Natural disasters do produce tragic deaths, but do we want to identify these incidents or any mass violence with the intentions of a moral deity?
It was these kinds of existential problems that led many to question the existence of God altogether. If God is not going to protect us . . . If God is not going to reward good people and judge the wicked . . . If God is going to allow my loved one to contract an incurable illness . . . then God does not exist. Atheism began to exist because concepts of God began to change and grow from the all powerful and controlling being of Biblical tradition to something that was less and less a reflection of human attributes, and more and more like universal processes seen in nature. God within our own Unitarian Universalist ranks became more scientific and less personal. This emphasis on the living soul emanating through me and in all of nature, as promulgated by the Transcendentalists upset traditional, scripturally based Unitarians, like Henry Ware, Jr., who in his sermon “The Personality of the Deity,” said that if God is not a person, then there is no God. Czeslaw Milosz reminds us in “I Apologize” that many traditional doctrines are well armored against reason. Theologians can always say, it is a mystery, or the human tongue does not have the words to describe. Then we are left without that middle ground that Milosz longs for. Much of this seems childish to us, or the abstractions avoid discussing serious matters with what in their view is seeming truth. It does not give us a straight story, and little Jesus asleep on the hay does not answer for the authorship of sin, good and evil and redemption that theologians want to assign to God.
Humans seem to long to create a divine design or larger purpose for life beyond our daily struggles, and we then try to discern that imposed purpose. Milosz asks can’t we go deeper than childish explanations, and yet not dwell in philosophical absurdities? I have just finished a biography of Abraham Lincoln. He was not much of a follower of traditional church dogmas, yet he believed that life was fated, and after he was elected president he became obsessed with finding a larger meaning in the Civil War. At first, this was terribly depressing for him as the North lost battle after battle, but in the wake of the emancipation proclamation and the improving military situation he came to believe that God’s great purpose in this conflict was the freeing of the slaves. God’s purpose was redeemed he believed, and many saw him as the Redeemer. I think we also tend to assign meaning to events in our own lives, after we have lived through them. We often hear that the time of agony or pain will teach us some great lesson, and we will use that lesson in a positive way. Joy will come from our sorrow. This is tricky because it is one thing to assign meaning if you actually do rebound from life’s sorrows, but what if you don’t? What if the South won the Civil War? When we are going through a trial we want to hear that things will get better. If you are in pain, then you want hope that it will end. If a relationship ends, then you want to know there are new possibilities. Things will get better. This is what Moses told the Israelites as they wandered. If you obey God, then God will show you compassion, and your fortune will be restored. But what if things don’t turn around, and it only seems like a life of misery and death before us?
This is perhaps one of the keys differences between so called Western and Eastern religions. Christianity had traditionally posited that what was good and what was real was in another world, and that this world with its natural desires and passions was evil and unreal. Meaning came through abstract concepts like God and soul, but not through the struggles of daily living. The philosopher Nietzsche observed this about Europe in the mid-19th century. He said people had lived under delusions about what was true, and had exalted an imaginary world. With scientific advances and industrialization, God was being replaced, and an ultimate moral purpose to the universe was being eroded, because rather than seeking meaning in the world, people simply tried to take advantage of the world. Nietzsche though there were some parallels to his life in Europe, and that of the Buddha in India centuries before.
The story of the Buddha is often simply retold as that of a wealthy prince who is sheltered from the miseries of illness, pain and death by his father until he discovers that all of life is suffering, and he embarks on a journey toward enlightenment. He achieves this enlightenment by living a selfless life. In her biography of Buddha, Karen Armstrong says the Buddha found the idea of a personal God very limiting because it placed ultimate truth in another being. If truth were a being or a place like heaven, then it was simply another thing to be attached to. One could never achieve the freedom of enlightenment because there will always be projections out from the self to make you better, or more knowledgeable than the next person. This massaging of the self was always what Buddha feared the most about imaging God, and so the Buddhist faith is sometimes called non-theistic. In worship, the Buddha said God could simply become ourselves writ large, and our trust in God would be our own personal notion of what was good and true and right. When God becomes a projection of the self and what we deem as truth, then the person would become totally immersed in themselves, and not the true suffering of existence. Furthermore, the idea of religion had been perverted so that people developed a faith in order to get something out of it - the reward of an afterlife. This also ignored the first noble truth of Buddhism, empathizing with the sorrows of others. One does not delineate who is worthy or whether you are a good person or not, saved or unsaved. The goal is not to save us with the truth, but to have compassion for others.
The Process theologian John Cobb says that two central aspects of what it means to believe in God are to worship and to trust in a very fundamental way. One may experience atheism by changing these dramatically. For example, if you are worshiping a Father God who you are told will take care of you, and your life experience makes you feel excluded and ignored then this God becomes false. God is no longer mine. I felt this about the fundamentalist God of my youth that denied my mind, and later the Christian God of liberal Christianity that seemed to be about cultural acceptance and forms and fitting in, more than about the lived truths of my life. Neither belief in God was about reverence for life and gratitude which I identify with true worship, or about trusting other people, which I identify with trust for all of life. It seems to me that much of the discussion of God becomes either an abstract, or a projection of what the self desires. The God of atheism must be based in the lived world of experience and be neither a childish idol, abstract thought, a personal being or projection of self.
Buddhism is based on liberating yourself from the desires of the world. This seems like a daunting task, but to me the desires of the world are more akin to selfishness, competitiveness or greed in the world, than they are to reverencing what is and having compassion for others. While Christianity set up dichotomies of good and evil, Buddhism teaches that the ultimate is beyond these projections. And that ultimate is nothingness. One might say that Stevens’ nothing that is not, but is, is the ultimate reality or God beyond God - the mystery at the heart of creation. One finds God not in the words or complex abstract systems, but in the taking away of all the projections, all the judgments of the world until there is only what is in this moment.
After the tsunami disaster, a member of the church asked me how I felt about it in the context of my own encounter with the wave at Pemaquid Point in Maine that nearly obliterated my life. I had not even thought about it, but it gave me a sudden personal context for the suffering of the world, compassion for others, and a vision of the ultimate even as I do not believe in a God as we have traditionally understood the term. One thing I remember about that day is the reverse good Samaritans. These were people who saw me smashed by the wave, who then jumped in their car and drove away. And there were also people who Andrea eventually convinced to be with me even as they wanted to remind us how stupid we were. Many times belief in God has only facilitated our own vision for ourselves - who we are, what we can get. This is why speculating on God’s role in the tsunami is meaningless. The human, compassionate response must be how this disaster effected people who are poor and have no resources to begin with. Sometimes it takes convincing to realize that the world needs our compassion for others. Sometimes it takes a giant wave.
Before those people came to my side, I was floating in the water. As I rode the wave there was a calm acceptance of emptiness, and a trust of the water. I think I came to see that the world was beautiful in that moment, and even if I did not last, it was still beautiful without me. Each moment is all that it is. Each day is everything. The poet Milosz says in “Faith,” that the world is as it should be, even as we try to dream up meaning or truth. Faith also means we will suffer, but as long as we have our shadow, our life, there is strength and health in us to carry on with hope. Everything is complete. Even though we suffer we have the strength to live, to offer our compassion to one another. Here is where the vision of enlightenment begins, in feeling the sorrow of another. I think the Buddhist faith has much to teach us, as we have grappled with eroding concepts of how to define God, or continually redefined God to fit science. It is nothing that is everything, the mystery of all.
Coming back from the near death in the wave in the months afterward was a difficult thing. It is when fear of death and emptiness filled my mind, and I lost trust because my old faith was eroding. Buddha taught that the end of emptiness is wisdom and compassion. I expect Jesus taught the same thing. I think of this as I approach worship and trust as an atheist. To reverence the world every moment of every day is to worship. None of it is mine, yet all of it is. To have true compassion for others and give ourselves over to easing its suffering every day is to trust the world. Buddhism does not seem to have the social ethic I need in my own living faith, but the compassion it begins with, the humility, can help us find it. Living a little more empty of my world each day, may help me find a vision of the emptiness that is the fullness of the world’s wisdom, an atheist’s God.
Closing Words - from Annie Dillard
Every day is a god, each day is a god, and holiness holds forth in time. I worship each god. I praise each day splintered down, colors spreading, at dawn fast over the mountains split. I wake in a god.