Love and Redemption,

© C. Edward Green, 8-28-10

Service-Program-8-29-10

What is redemption? What does it mean to be redeemed; to be free; to be unbound from all that holds me back from being my true self? I have always struggled with and have been fascinated by the idea of redemption.  Personal struggles throughout my life have served to amplify and drive more intensely my passion to be free of all that holds me back from being the true person I intuit that I am destined to be; that I feel called to be.  And beyond pondering what it was, I found equally intriguing the notion that redemption seems to be so elusive for some, while it is so readily offered to others.

So, when Doug asked me what I would like to speak about, the topic was easy—I wanted to explore the relationship between love and redemption.  The first challenge, for me, though, was finding a poem that spoke to my sense of how love can, and does, hold the key to our redemption.  Ultimately, I turned to the type of poetry that has always held the most power over me—the poetry found in the lyrics of songs.

I have always had a fascination with artists who seem to sing about their own struggles to find meaning and redemption.  Few artists, in recent years, have had their personal struggles played out as powerfully through their music than Whitney Houston.  Her appeal for me has been her willingness to be seemingly genuine in her music, not choosing to sing about idyllic, romantic love when her personal life has been far from that.  Over the past few years, the theme of her music has evolved from a defiant—I am what I am—theme, to one in which she searches, pleads, and struggles for redemption from the personal demons that have taken hold so firmly in her life.  Listen as I share some of the lyrics from her most recent release…I Look to You, a song that simultaneously looks to God and her own daughter for strength and a way to find her own redemption.

As I lay me down
Heaven hear me now
I’m lost without a cause
After giving it my all

Winter storms have come
And darkened my sun
After all that I’ve been through
Who on earth can I turn to?

I look to you, I look to you
After all my strength is gone
In you I can be strong
I look to you, I look to you
And when melodies are gone In you I hear a song
I look to you

Have to lose my breath
There’s no more fighting left
Sinking to rise no more
Searching for that open door

And every road that I’ve taken
Led to my regret
And I don’t know if I’m gonna make it
Nothing to do but lift my head

My levees are broken
My walls are coming down on me
My rain is falling
Defeat is calling
I need you to set me free
Take me far away from the battle
I need you; shine on me!

As many of you know, Whitney Houston seeks redemption from her personal demons of drug and alcohol addiction.  In this song, she is in that place where she recognizes her own weakness and inability to redeem herself, having struggled on her own for so long, believing that somehow she could think or reason her way out of her problems.  As you might have noticed, there are strong elements of the serenity prayer woven throughout the song.  Because of this, she is looking outside of herself—to her daughter and to God, the two greatest symbols of love in her life—to find redemption in them.

In this analogy, I think we can sort out an understanding of the relationship between love and redemption.  There is a component of redemption that lies completely outside of logos; and to a certain extent, requires the abandonment of logos as it is classically defined.  For most of us, when we reach the point that “our levees are broken and walls are coming down on us,” it is our best thinking that actually got us into that very predicament.  I believe that giving up on our ego-driven way of thinking that tells us we can “figure things out on our own” is a critical step toward redemption.  I don’t necessarily agree that we have to recognize or accept weakness in ourselves, but we do have to realize that it is in others—and in their love for us—that we often find our own strength.  Our thinking mind tells us that it is a sign of weakness to seek help outside of ourselves; our feeling mind knows that the very opposite is true; this is an incredible sign of strength.  What we are really doing in that moment that we return to love is abandoning our wrong-minded thinking.

As much as each of us, at our core, know the mystical power of love and community, we all seem to rail against asking for, admitting we need, or accepting help or redemption.  I think what is happening in those moments is that our rational mind is telling us that love is just some warm and fuzzy concept that doesn’t actually have the power to redeem us.

I assert that the very opposite is true.

And there is yet another layer to this notion of redemption that makes it a little more complex, at least for me.  I believe there is a difference between seeking redemption and seeking the end to a troubling or distressing situation.  Personally, some of my greatest growth has occurred as a result of personal struggle, sacrifice, and suffering.  If I had been able to have those situations resolved earlier or more easily, I might have been denying myself critical opportunities for growth.  Therein lies the paradox for those in need and those of us around them; where and how do we distinguish between a challenge that a person must work through on their own, and the desire to offer redemption to those we love?  As much as I have sought to figure this out, the answer has always remained elusive, at least when I have watched those that I love suffer.

In my own family, my brother John suffered for years from drug and alcohol addiction.  Everyone in my family vacillated back and forth between trying to save John from his addiction—trying to provide what I might call nurturing love to rid him of the addiction, and then attempting to offer what we call tough love—challenging him to find his own inner strength to overcome the addiction.

We never found the solution.  One month before his fortieth birthday, he committed suicide, unable to find salvation during this life.  Having suffered for over twenty years from his addiction, a part of me feels confident that he could, at that point, only find redemption through the peace that death might offer.  When Bart Campolo spoke here more than a year ago, he told us that there are some people who cannot be fixed or saved; they are too broken.  Unfortunately, I knew what he meant; my brother was one of those people.

So what would redemption be for me?

Part of my struggle with the issue of redemption is the challenge of discerning exactly what redemption is for me. We are each such unique, complex individuals; a fascinating amalgam of our own life experiences, having grown up with different types of families, cultures, language, race, gender, life circumstances and so on. Given these vast differences, what I perceive to be redemption is most likely quite different from what redemption would mean to you.

Based on differing life journeys or experiences, some of you might even be troubled or offended by my belief that for my brother, redemption could only come through death.  For me, this is a large part of what makes redemption so difficult to define.

However, irrespective of our diverse backgrounds and our current life situations, I believe that we are held together by a common denominator. I would seriously doubt that there is one person here today who does not share the need to be loved and valued for who and what he or she is, eccentricities and all.

I am convinced that our individual and communal need for love and acceptance is one of the most fundamental reasons that bring us together as a community here at the Gathering. And it is in our community that we are given the opportunity to engage in the struggle of discerning what it means to be redeemed.

It is in community that we can risk exposing more and more of who and what we really are. And, it is in community that we can come together and ask the hard questions and live with the grey and murky ambiguity of life. Love is the common denominator that forms the basis of these relationships that makes a community what it is.

Life is relational, we are relational and God is relational. Very little in this world is governed solely by the rational.

I know that it is in the act of relating to you, taking the risk to drop my guard, peel away my personal persona, that I discern a glimpse, a vague image of a better and freer way of being myself. It is also in that miraculous moment that I see the truth in my brothers and sisters—and I am redeemed.

In countless ways that many of you likely do not even know about, each of you has brought about a part of my own personal redemption.  Through a willingness to give and receive love from each of you, you have offered me salvation and redemption from my wrong-minded way of viewing the world.

From providing me an opportunity to return to an organized faith after being shunned by traditional churches, to expanding how I view the treatment of animals, to challenging my political views, to showing me the beauty if our own diversity—each of you have given me moments of redemption.  Were I to cite them all, we would be here for hours; but rest assured that each of you, in some way, has been a part of my own salvation and redemption.  I hope to likewise offer that to each of you.

This hardly means that I no longer struggle, nor does it mean that I necessarily seek an end to any one specific struggle that I encounter.  It does mean that through your love, and the opportunity to give love back to you, that I find the strength to face my own personal struggles with dignity and an understanding that the joy my life lies somewhere outside of the circumstances in which I find myself, no matter what they might be.  You teach me that joy is a condition entirely independent of any particular circumstance.

Even though my struggle for redemption is very much my own, it is within the bounds of a loving community where I find the courage and boldness to move beyond my familiar comfort zones, seeking the freedom to be who I truly am within in this crazy and broken world. For it is these loving relationships I am held up when I am too weak or too tired to stand. I simply cannot do it by myself; I need this community.

One of my favorite stories from the Bible exemplifies the role of community in our redemption.  In Luke’s Gospel, after many failed attempts to bring in a catch, we hear Jesus tell Peter to drop down his fishing nets into deeper water. Thinking that he knew better—in his rational mind, Peter did not want to follow Jesus’ direction.

Reluctantly, Peter does what Jesus tells him to do. Shortly, as Peter hauls in straining nets heavy with fish, he is astounded with his abundant catch; it is more than he could have imagined, and more than he could lift on his own. His fellow disciples come running to help him hoist his nets from the deep waters as they marvel at the abundance that is before them.

Like Peter, we are each challenged to take the risk; to drop our nets into deeper water, exploring and experiencing the essence of our unique and complicated selves; who we are and what we can be. And like Peter, each of us has to singularly decide whether to move forward in faith and take the risk.  And, again like Peter, it is with the help of a loving and supportive community that we experience the freedom to delve into the deep waters of our souls in the transforming search for the meaning of redemption.  And like the disciples with Peter, it is our duty to offer our strength to each other during those moments when the rewards of those risks might bring about our own personal redemption.

So, that is where is seems to rest for me, perhaps it will for you as well.  Redemption does not necessarily mean an end to struggling or suffering.  Redemption, instead, means a glimpse into the divine idea that perfection resides somewhere deep in the soul of every one of us; it is the clearing of our wrong-minded thinking that keeps us separate.  It is the awakening to the truth that we somehow do come from one source of love.

For most of us redemption comes in fleeting moments with those we love—our community—when we are safe to reveal ourselves and choose only to see the beauty in each other, not the illusions of difference that our reasoning minds have created.

Message 31, Summer Reading, Langston Hughes: Love and Humanity, 8-22-10

© Doug Slagle, Pastor, The Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

Service-Program-8-22-10

If you have noticed the images located on the front of your programs, you may recognize them as particularly meaningful to African-Americans.  The Sankofa bird, symbolized in the first image and idealized in the second, is often used to represent black reconciliation with their past.  For them, injustices inflicted on their ancestors must never be forgotten and are a part of their history and their culture.   Nevertheless, the Sankofa symbols specifically promote forgiveness, love and healing.  African-Americans are urged to never forget their history but, in doing so, forgiveness is offered for past wrongs and love is extended to whites and to all humanity.  Old wounds and old resentments are healed, new relationships based on mutual understanding are forged and a brighter future for all humanity is envisioned.  The sankofa bird is a mythic one who flies forward while looking backward with an egg – thus symbolizing hope for the future.  The symbolic heart is bent inward and then poured outward as a way to encourage inner peace and open expressions of love towards all others.

If you recall, Nelson Mandela’s infant South African government initiated courts of truth in the 1990’s, led by Bishop Desmond Tutu, to examine in detail all of the past apartheid atrocities.  But these courts were designed not to punish or shame but to bring into the light a dark and sordid history.  Reconciliation and forgiveness were extended to the white minority for the pain that had been caused by apartheid – a policy much like our own Jim Crow laws.  South Africa was then better able to bury historic enmity and thereby move forward to the betterment of all.  This was a brilliant manifestation of Sankofa peace and these symbols on our programs are a fitting representation of what we will consider today – love and humanity.

In our journey through the topic of love and poetry, today we will look at another famous American poet and his understanding of love.  This broad topic has many dimensions but, for our purposes, we will consider Langston Hughes and his vision for a human race defined by the beauty of its oneness.  He speaks as an African-American male yearning for what he and others have for so long been denied – equal access, equal treatment, and a heaven on earth community of unity.  His was a vision not for retribution or black power but for a utopia of wonder, peace, beauty, generosity and love between all people.

Hughes was the famed originator of a black cultural awakening called the Harlem Renaissance of the 1920’s and 1930’s when black poets, artists, and musicians explicitly celebrated a unique and vibrant African-American culture.  Proud of his heritage, Hughes does not shy away from black vernacular and speech in his poetry.  He openly celebrates its evocative rhythms and cadences.  His poetry reminds one of musical lyrics all set to a beat of jazz, the blues and gospel.   Such expressions highlight African-American culture and its contributions to American arts.  He was the unofficial poet laureate of his culture and the leading force behind promoting a relevant African-American identity in artistic expression.

Poetry for blacks has long been their cultural mainstay.  Under slavery and in subsequent years of marginalization, poetic verse was a way for African-Americans to tell stories, share their history, and cry out for justice.  Hughes used his poetry to write of love, politics, dreams, music and numerous other subjects.  He wrote about ordinary people and ordinary themes but he did so in a way that honored humanity and beauty.  This oral tradition which he captured and immortalized in his poetry, pays tribute to the vibrant contribution of black artists to our culture.  From jazz to the blues to poetry and to gospel music, we are richer for them.  Langston Hughes, as the leader of a black renaissance, may well be the artistic father of many black and white artists today.  Indeed, black artistic expression – such as in jazz – represent a singularly American contribution to the world-wide universe of art.  Like the poetry of Hughes, jazz and other black art forms were born of our own national struggle for freedom and equality for each person.  In that regard, Hughes stands alongside other great American poets like Hawthorne, Whitman, Poe, Dickinson, Frost and Angelou in his chronicle of lives where humanity is at peace with each other, with nature and with the Divine One.  In his words, we find a spirituality that is uplifting, visionary and starkly beautiful.  From the anguished cries of a broken heart in the poetry we read from Emily Dickinson to the hesitant and fearful love of a newly married man described by Robert Frost, we will now read of a Langston Hughes vision of love, perfected in a paradise called Alabama.

Let’s now read together “Daybreak in Alabama”.  You can find it on the back of your programs.

When I get to be a composer
I’m gonna write me some music about
Daybreak in Alabama
And I’m gonna put the purtiest songs in it
Rising out of the ground like a swamp mist
And falling out of heaven like soft dew.
I’m gonna put some tall tall trees in it
And the scent of pine needles
And the smell of red clay after rain
And long red necks
And poppy colored faces
And big brown arms
And the field daisy eyes
Of black and white black white black people
And I’m gonna put white hands
And black hands and brown and yellow hands
And red clay earth hands in it
Touching everybody with kind fingers
And touching each other natural as dew
In that dawn of music when I
Get to be a composer
And write about daybreak
In Alabama.

Long before Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream” speech on the Washington mall, Langston Hughes gives voice to the hopes of millions of African-Americans – that in the red clay corners of the deep South, where Jim Crow still lived and where strange fruit, as Billie Holiday sang, would appear as lynched men and women hanging from trees, even in that place…human reconciliation might one day appear as soft dew sent from heaven.  This lyrical poem can almost be sung with its cadence of blues like rhythm.   As much as it envisions a perfect world in one Alabama daybreak, the poem is also a political protest against a culture of segregation and discrimination that, in keeping with Hughes’ poetic words, might more aptly be called nighttime in Alabama.  Hughes implicitly, but beautifully, condemns racism not just in Alabama but across the entire United States.

In my message two weeks ago discussing love and fear, I quoted from the Bible the verse that says, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” Just as this Biblical verse applied easily to Robert Frost’s evocation of how fear, doubt, jealousy and anger intrude into our relationships and prevent us from fully loving another, so too does it apply easily to the poem today.  When that daybreak in Alabama does occur and when all the hues of the human rainbow hold hands in true unity, there will be no more fear.

Racism, as we all know, is deeply rooted in fear of the other.  Such fears rise up subconsciously within us as past traditions and experiences tell us that the other, who appears different from us, is to be feared.  This stranger in the night, to borrow from Frost’s poem that we read two weeks ago, may well be the stereotypical black man who, in our racist fears, is determined to rape, and steal and take away jobs.  Racism may subtly be manifested in opposition to Cincinnati’s planned street cars as fears that trains from Over-the-Rhine to downtown will bring those of color and those of the underclass deep into the center of our city’s powerful and elite.  Racism may play some role in opposition to our President.  While many have honest disagreement with his policies, others may harbor visceral but subconscious fears of an intelligent and powerful black man.

Marianne Williamson, the noted contemporary spiritual writer, has said that while love is of god, fear is definitely of satan.  In her mind, fear is the motivating force behind all of history’s atrocities.  It has spawned war, holocaust, slavery, murders, suicides, hatred and general violence.  As she writes, “Fear is imagination predicting the worst possible outcome. When the imagination is engaged in repetition and emotion, it becomes a belief.” And it is an absence of such fears and deep rooted beliefs that Langston Hughes writes in his poem.  It is a vision born of centuries of oppression and black survival – of dreams of god’s eternal heaven where everlasting sunlight, goodwill, natural beauty and perfect love all co-exist.  When the possibility for change is not possible in the present, African-Americans have turned to faith, to saviors named Jesus and Moses, and to dreams of a true heaven.  As a white man having grown up in a privileged corner of our nation, I cannot possibly know the pain and the yearning of African-Americans who daily experience subtle and sometimes overt forms of racism.

To speak of the sins of racism in a progressive church is a simple task.  Indeed, Langston Hughes may well be a hero to most of us here and I could very easily preach to the choir, so to speak.  Yet in our careful reading of his poem, we find this composer of a new heaven on earth speaks to each of us as well.  As a white liberal, I can claim pride in the election of an African-American President and I can note that our nation has come a long way toward ending segregation, discrimination and prejudice.  Such open forms of racism are not within me nor are they within this congregation.

But like the dew that Hughes envisions blanketing his perfect Alabama, so do the fine droplets of subtle racism still exist and still pervade even some of us.  Indeed, for many African-Americans today, the hideous forms of racism are not of concern to them, for they have largely been addressed.  The inner fears, the subtle forms of racial attitudes and covert racism that still exist even among white liberals are what concern many blacks the most.  Those are the fears and prejudices that someone like myself may not even know I harbor or am unwilling to admit.

Experts say such forms of subtle racism exist in the small ways we think about others who are different.  This everyday racism can take the form of indifference, cautious body language, avoidance of others and even inappropriate words that we use.  In one such example offered by experts in the field of subtle racism, a young black male student living in a Boston apartment building was asked by the manager to stop walking around the complex listening to music on his headphones.  He was told this was distracting to other residents even thought he was perfectly quiet.  When the student observed other white students doing the same thing and never being reprimanded, he knew the real reason for his warning.  It was fear of the stereotypical black man up to no good.

In another example of subtle racism, a leading fashion magazine described the process Oprah Winfrey goes through each day before she appears on her TV show.  The magazine writer offered that Oprah is turned into a glamorous figure as make-up artists work to make the lines of her nose appear thinner and the contours of her lips less thick.  And her hair is regularly and laboriously straightened.  The message of the article is that black women are not glamorous in their own right but that thin noses, white appearing lips and hair straightening make them so.

And I must admit to my own covert forms of racism.  I commented recently to Ed that, after seeing a wonderful picture of President Obama swimming in the ocean with his daughter Malia, the image struck me for some reason with the full realization that an African-American family truly resides in the White House.  As proud and happy as my brain tells me that this is true, something deep inside me noted the texture of Malia’s hair – and its distinctive African-American look – as the reason for why the photo had an impact on me.  Such a trivial observation of her hair brought home my own racist demons for even noting such a difference.  What lurks inside of me that is rooted in my own fears of the other?

Experts indicate that people often refer to Hispanics, for instance, as Mexicans, even though Latinos come from all over Latin America.  Or some assume all Asians are good at math and science or that many Jews are involved in financial careers.  Even worse, some of us would never tell a racist joke, finding them offensive and troubling.  But how many of us will rebuke someone who uses such humor and tell them it is unacceptable?  Put another way, how many of us fear Over-the-Rhine, rationalizing that we are justified in our fear of crime?  Or, is our supposed fear of crime really a fear of those who are different, who walk the streets in the middle of the day with low slung blue jeans and no apparent job?  To be blunt, are such fears of Over-the-Rhine racist?

Well intentioned and kind members of this congregation implored me when I began my work as Pastor to be careful working here alone during the day.  In their concern for me, is there not a sense of fear rooted in stereotypes that poor people of color are all criminals or that I am less safe here than in an office in the suburbs?  How many workers and students have been killed by enraged co-workers in mostly white and suburban office places or schools?  Why aren’t those places, and those mostly white groups not viewed with fear?  Why do I myself sometimes harbor fearful thoughts when an African-American male walks towards me on the streets outside?  Stereotypes have an evil and pernicious influence within each of us when we hesitate to hug a black person who smells differently, or when I treat an African-American homeless man in a way that might be condescending or some of us look at a gay flamboyant man as outrageously odd.  What other inner demons must we confront – those we either won’t admit to or may not even know exist?

Activist Tom Wise says, “Since hardly anyone will admit to racial prejudice of any type, focusing on bigotry, hatred, and acts of intolerance only solidifies the belief that racism is something ‘out there,’ a problem for others, ‘but not me,’ or anyone I know.  Subtle racism becomes even more important to address and change.” Within my honest and true self, I must admit that I am not yet ready to participate in an Alabama daybreak.  I too must pray and hope for a perfect dawn in myself – where perfect love casts out even the smallest of my fears and where these white hands of mine might touch and feel and caress the hands of all persons without any vestige of fear or prejudice.

James Baldwin, a well-known African-American author and activist was told by Bobby Kennedy in 1961 that perhaps in only 30 years a black man would be elected President.  While Kennedy was only off by 17 years, Baldwin’s response to him reflects what we consider today.  He said that he did not care so much that an African-American would be elected President.  He cared more about what kind of country the first African-American President would lead.

And it is clear that while we have come a long way since 1961, the dream of Langston Hughes, even with the first African-American President, is not realized.  The Shirley Sherrod case, which many of you know about, is a perfect example of racism that is still alive and well in our nation.  Sherrod, an African-American Department of Agriculture official, was falsely accused of herself being a racist by using words from a speech of hers completely out of context.  Instead of being vilified and used as an indirect attack against President Obama as she was, Sherrod should instead have been elevated as a heroine of a Hughes like Daybreak in Alabama.  Her own father was murdered by a white man who was then later acquitted by an all-white jury.  In her speech, she spoke of her own struggles to overcome anger and bitterness towards all whites and how redemption came for her as she came to know and assist, as a government official, a small white farmer and his wife.  Her perspective is Jesus-like in its ability to overcome hatred and find, instead, love.  Far from now having a stereotypical viewpoint that all whites are racist haters of people like her, she now sees others through a Jesus prism of concern for all humanity and particularly the outcast, the poor and the marginalized.  It was in that sense that she came to see the plight of the small farmer as linked to the African-American struggle to find justice, equality and fairness in our nation.  As despicable as the columnist’s actions were in falsifying Shirley Sherrod’s own words, I am nevertheless grateful for what he did.  He made known to the world a Sankofa heroine – one who has herself replaced hatred for love.

It is interesting to note that most anthropologists around the world do not even classify separate races within the human species. The American Anthropological Association asserts, “The concept of race is a social and cultural construction formulated in the 18^th century.  Race simply cannot be tested or proven scientifically.  It is clear that human populations are not demarcated or biologically distinct by so-called racial subgroups.  The concept of race has no validity in the human species.” If this is so, then human prejudices against others are based solely on perceived differences based on mere appearance.  Beyond certain outwardly distinct characteristics, there is no biological difference in human kind.

Ultimately, Langston Hughes’ poem Daybreak in Alabama is a plea in behalf of all persons and not just African-Americans.  It is a vision of an Eden like re-creation where, as the Bible says in the Book of Revelation, the Divine One will wipe away every tear, every lament and every sense of pain.  The poem evokes a day when, as the Bible also symbolically says, lions will lie down with lambs.  Traditional enemies will find love for one another.  Bigotry, for Hughes, attacks the kind of spiritual peace that exists when kind fingers symbolically touch everybody and everything.  Indeed, Hughes seeks fulfillment not just of dreams for heaven on earth but also for the American dream yet to be a complete reality.  In this regard, Hughes is a champion for all persons marginalized by a predominant power structure.  He wrote in one of his poems,

Let America be America again.
Let it be the dream it used to be.

I am the poor white, – fooled and pushed apart,
I am the Negro bearing slavery’s scars.
I am the red man driven from the land,
I am the immigrant clutching the hope I seek—
And finding only the same old stupid plan
Of dog eat dog, of mighty crush the weak.

O, let America be America again—
The land that never has been yet—
And yet must be—the land where every man is free.

For each of us, the poetry of Langston Hughes still resonates today.  It is far too simple to claim prejudice exists out there – and not in here.  Human nature causes each one of us to view the world through personal prisms of either fear……. or understanding and love.  Even as we claim to be people who love one another, how often do we act instead with fear of the other – fear of our own shortcomings, fear based in stereotypes and misperceptions, fear rooted in false assumptions?  If I claim I lack fear, I lie to myself.  Our goal, as Hughes so evocatively wrote, is to seek perfection – to invoke the Sankofa bird of reconciliation and forgiveness.  For him, that goal is found in a utopia of red clay soil, pine trees, and a dew blessed Alabama where the Divine composer conducts a symphony of humanity in perfect love with itself.  May we each seek the same…within ourselves and in our world.

I wish you all, my dear friends, much love and much peace.

As always, I open up our time up today for your thoughts and comments.  Of particular interest to me is not so much a discussion of how terrible racism is.  I am interested, instead, on how subtle forms of racism might insidiously lie within us.  How do we conquer our own fears and our own prejudices?

Summer Reading: Love and Poetry

Message 29, Robert Frost: Love and Fear, August 8, 2010

© Doug Slagle, Pastor, The Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

Service-Program-8-08-10

In my research for today’s message on love and fear, I ran into a list of strange but real phobias.  Did you know that peladophobia is a fear of bald people?  Or that gymnophobia is a fear of nudity?  Cacophobia is a fear of ugliness.  Phobophobia is a fear of acquiring a phobia and, as many of you may have with regard to me, homilophobia is a fear of sermons!

In truth, it is often said that we all have a fear of something.  For our purposes today, as we consider our August theme of summer reading, love and poetry, one universal fear that many of us have, to some degree at least, is a fear of love and its many consequences.  As we discussed last Sunday when we looked at Emily Dickinson and her poetry on love and loss, our fears in regards to love are often due to the fact that we will each one day face its loss – either through death, relationship break up or the cessation of loving sentiments.  How we grieve, cope with and ultimately heal from such loss was our topic.

And just as we did last week, we’ll attempt today to gain some spiritual insights on the subject from a well-known American poet – Robert Frost.  Like Emily Dickinson, he was a New Englander and the height of his fame may have come when he recited one of his poems at John F. Kennedy’s inauguration.  Unlike Dickinson, Frost was well known as a poet during most of his lifetime, receiving five different Pulitzer Prizes for his work and, despite never having graduated from college, was given honorary degrees by over forty schools including Harvard, Princeton, Oxford and Cambridge.

Frost is a poet who is often cited as one who bridged the gap between nineteenth century and modern poetry.  He was a romantic in the classic sense, choosing themes of love and sentiment while regularly using nature as a backdrop.   And, like most poets, his personal life is said to have strongly influenced his poetry.  He suffered loss and tragedy in his life – his parents both died when he was still in his youth, his mother, his sister, his wife and a daughter all suffered from mental illness and he, himself, described long periods of personal depression.  The epitaph he chose to be put on his tombstone is a line from one of his poems “I had a lover’s quarrel with the world.” (from the poem “The Lesson for Today” in his book The Witness Tree)

For Frost, his poems often looked at life’s uncertainties and how humans choose the paths they follow.  Today, I want to examine how we manage those fears that often hold us back from experiencing life and love at their fullest.  What forms of fear like jealousy, indifference, possessiveness, failure to commit and insecurity hinder us?  How might we love freely and exuberantly – those who are significant others, those who are family members or even complete strangers?  With that, let us read Robert Frost’s poem “Love and Question”. You can find the words on the back of your programs.

A stranger came to the door at eve,
And he spoke the bridegroom fair.
He bore a green-white stick in his hand,
And, for all burden, care.
He asked with the eyes more than the lips
For a shelter for the night,
And he turned and looked at the road afar
Without a window light.

The bridegroom came forth into the porch
With, ‘Let us look at the sky,
And question what of the night to be,
Stranger, you and I.’
The woodbine leaves littered the yard,
The woodbine berries were blue,
Autumn, yes, winter was in the wind;
‘Stranger, I wish I knew.’

Within, the bride in the dusk alone
Bent over the open fire,
Her face rose-red with the glowing coal
And the thought of the heart’s desire.

The bridegroom looked at the weary road,
Yet saw but her within,
And wished her heart in a case of gold
And pinned with a silver pin.

The bridegroom thought it little to give
A dole of bread, a purse,
A heartfelt prayer for the poor of God,
Or for the rich a curse;

But whether or not a man was asked
To mar the love of two
By harboring woe in the bridal house,
The bridegroom wished he knew.

Frost leaves us hanging in terms of resolution to his poem.  What happens that resolves the question a nervous groom faces on his wedding night?  Does charity prevail and is a warm bed offered to the stranger or does the anticipation of wedded bliss win out?  Frost often introduces the character of a stranger into his poems not as a sinister force but as a symbol of the uncertainty we all face.  Indeed, on closer examination of the poem, we find that the apparent question of whether to help a stranger is not the central issue.  It is likely one the groom faces – which we all face – fear of the unknown, fear of a long and often weary marriage road ahead with no light at its end to guide one’s path, and fear of the love between he and his lover.  Will it last?  Will he be capable of such devotion?  Will his beloved remain faithful to him?  Why can’t he lock her love away within a golden heart?  Indeed, one can surmise he faces the universal fear of all newly committed lovers – will he be able to perform and consummate his new relationship?

It is likely not the stranger with the green stick – but it is he, the groom, who wields a green stick – if you understand the likely imagery.  This stranger who has come upon the honeymoon cottage in the woods may not even be a flesh and blood stranger at all but instead a lurking form of doubt, fear and uncertainty that we each face as we embark on our own journeys of love.

How does the groom deal with this stranger who might really be his own fears and doubts?  Does he admit the stranger into the house in confidence and security that nothing can mar his marriage road ahead?  Or, instead, does he give in to his own insecurities and admit the stranger who will possibly bring woe and heartache?  As we interpret the poem, it may not matter how the groom resolves the question before him – whether to admit the stranger or send him on his way.  What will matter the most is the motivation behind his answer to the question.

A well-known line from the Bible states that, and I quote from the New International Version, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear… The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” And thus we can relate to the poem and question Robert Frost has posed.  Love and fear cannot coexist.  In a perfect world where the bride and groom’s love is secure and certain, it would not matter how the poem’s question is answered.  Whether the stranger is allowed to enter or not, a secure and strong love will prevail.  But a love based in fear and insecurity is certainly not perfect.    As much as the groom might wish to lock away this bride’s love for all time, such is neither possible nor prudent.  Enforced love and captured love is not love at all.  If we are compelled to love someone or something, is it really love?

Just as we briefly discussed last Sunday when we examined love and loss, we undertake risk when we choose to love.  It is neither certain to last, to be returned or to not suffer a tragic end.  And so on this most exciting of all nights two people can face, the beginning of a loving relationship, the groom is called to face his fears.  What will he do?  Such is his question and such is ours – and not just at the beginning of our loving relationships but a question that should be asked over and over again.  Fear or love.  Which one do we choose?

As most of you know, I do not believe in the literal divinity of Jesus.  To call him Christ is to call him the messiah or the divine one chosen by god to save sinners from the depths of hell.  Instead, I follow the historic Jesus – the man who likely did live, die and teach many profound truths about humanity and our world – like concern for the outcast, for the poor, for women, for the humble, and for those who truly seek greater understanding of the Divine.

In that regard, there are many aspects of the Bible’s Jesus story which are likely true.  The man Jesus probably was executed by the Romans.  His many followers were then left in a state of shock, disbelief and fear because of his death.  And it is at this point of the story that facts likely shine through the myth of some parts of the Bible.  Many of Jesus’ male disciples, those who would become the first leaders of Christianity, denied even knowing Jesus after his arrest.  They fled and went into hiding as they mourned the death of their teacher and pondered their own uncertain futures.  A man whom they had said they loved and whom they proclaimed their undying devotion, was arrested, put on trial and condemned to execution.   Peter, the first leader of Christianity, refused to acknowledge Jesus under questioning by the Romans.  He and many of the other followers reacted not with love for Jesus but with fear.  Why would the Bible recount such a tale of cowardice by the early leaders if it were not based in fact?

Juxtaposed against the fear of the disciples are the actions of Jesus’ female followers who did not flee, but remained by his side throughout the trial and execution.  Whether the account of fearful male followers and courageous female followers is true or not, the lesson of the story is instructive.  Who reacted in fear and who reacted in love?  Whose love might we call perfect and true?

As I speak to you of imperfect love, I remember my own fears to love.  As a father to two daughters whom I cherish more than my own life, I know I have failed in showing them perfect love.  In some ways I have acted in the past like many dads who are insecure in showing real affection, who hesitate to hug, hesitate to express emotion and who rarely say “I love you.”  When I spoke several weeks ago on Father’s Day about the importance of play in our lives and how men often are too serious and do not play enough, especially with their children, I confessed to my own failure to play enough with my daughters when they were young.  And I confess the same now in terms of how I expressed love to them when they were younger.  Our culture too often tells men to be tough, to not show emotion or sensitivity and to show love only through being a good provider.  Indeed, it is often a male fear of being too close or too feminine or too “touchy – feely” that we neglect to show perfect love.  But that can leave children emotionally empty and insecure in their own feelings of self-worth and identity.  About ten years ago I knew I had to change.  What was I doing to my girls and to myself?  As I came to love and accept myself, I gained the added security to better love them – to hug, to touch, to stifle as much as possible my petty nagging and to regularly affirm them, at the end of each phone call and at the end of every visit, with a simple “I love you.”  How many times have we feared to say those words to those close to us, and how many times have those close to us yearned to hear such words?  What is it that we are afraid of?

I believe this choice between love and fear is a choice we must consciously make.  I don’t claim that it is an easy choice to make nor are our fears so simple that they can be immediately overcome.  So often our fears are based on what we have learned in our past.  What wounds, insecurities and troubles do we carry with us that prevent our choice to love?

Experts tell us that in moving beyond our fears, we must first identify and name our fear.  What was it that the groom, in Frost’s poem, really feared?  If I had to guess, it might be fears of his own inadequacy and insecurity at holding onto the love of his bride.  Why did I once fear to simply tell and show my daughters that I loved them?  I think it was fear of myself and fear of truly loving – fear that I would be too sensitive or not in control.  Indeed, instead of a macho man strutting around, outwardly oblivious to the needs of others, real men are nurturing, caring and able to express love.

Second, experts tell us that after we identify our fear, we must find its cause.  If we do not love another perfectly and are instead jealous or angry or indifferent, what caused us to be that way?  Was it a failed past love – someone who betrayed us?  Was it our upbringing and lack of love received or was it some other event in our lives like our failure in a past relationship?

Once we identify the cause, we can ask ourselves what we learned from that past experience.  If it was a love that betrayed us, perhaps we can learn to look for persons in whom we place greater trust or who have different personalities.  If we were once denied love by someone, we can learn to act in the opposite manner – to love fully and freely.  If we failed in a past relationship, we can learn why we failed.  Did we communicate poorly with the other, did we take the other for granted or were we not expressive in our sentiments?

Finally, if we know what our fears are and what caused them, we are better able to face them.  If we failed with past love because of our own insecurities and feelings of inadequacy, we know how we must act differently.  One reason for my failure to perfectly love my daughters when they were younger was because I could not perfectly love myself.  As I learned to see the good in me, I could also confront my flaws.  I could then consciously choose to face my real fears and act in a way that denied them.  I would express my love more freely.  I would hug and touch and say “I love you”.  As I said earlier, many therapists say that our ability to overcome fear and instead to more perfectly love – without jealousy, anger, or insecurity – this involves a cognitive and conscious decision to confront the fear we have identified and then to change.

Some of you may recall that I spoke about a close friend of mine in a message back in March.  It was about finding joy and adventure in life no matter our age and I used this friend as an example.  He is 89 years old and a frequent work-out partner of mine.  I came to know him during my work in Pastoral Care at my previous church as his wife had just been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s and he was in need of support and friendship.  My friend often talked to me about his over sixty year marriage and the many years he spent as a globe travelling businessman who faithfully worked hard to support his family.  His one regret was his years of relative indifference to the sacrifices of his wife and how aloof he had often been in expressing love to her.  With her Alzheimer’s diagnosis, however, he chose to become a new man.  He became a devoted husband, holding her, cherishing her, attending to her every need and acting as her caregiver long after she should have moved to a nursing home.  Once she did, he was still with her all of the time – doing most of the work of the nurses, feeding, clothing and bathing her.  He has ruefully admitted to me that the seven years of her slow decline due to that horrible disease were his way of finally and fully expressing his love for her.  He had been too afraid and too caught up in the American male ideal of stoic and strong provider to ever truly care for his wife.  As he told his story to me, about how at the end as he held her in his arms and she silently passed away, he repeated to her over and over again how much he loved her.  He said that so often during the years of her Alzheimer’s, he would say “I love you”, knowing that she likely was not hearing or understanding him.  And then he would ask himself why he had not shared his feelings more when she was healthy?  It is a question we often must ask of ourselves.  Whenever we choose to either say “I love you” or choose, instead, to not utter those words, will that be our last opportunity?  A follow-up to the silly bumper sticker I mentioned last week, “Love like you will never be hurt”, might be “Love like there is no tomorrow.”

Fear, for each of us, is simply a desire to avoid pain.  When we react in fear and flee from it, we are working to avoid pain.  In our relationships, when we fear to love – when we fear to show it, we are avoiding potential pain.  We act to avoid the pain of rejection, or being identified as inadequate or being betrayed.  It is certainly not irrational to avoid pain, however, and an important understanding for us is that we must learn to identify irrational fear from that which is prudent and wise.

As we must certainly admit, however, most of our fears to better love others are based on past hurts, irrational thinking and unresolved issues within us.  And yet, as we also know, perfect love is the antidote to those feelings.  When we show love and when we are not afraid to express it, in words and in deeds, we live within the divine heart.  Love is god.  Love is the spiritual force that creates joy, freedom, creativity, security and peace.  If our efforts here each Sunday are to understand more about ourselves and our world, what better answer for humanity and for all creation is there than acting in love?  This love must include kindness, charity, loving speech, generous actions, forgiveness, understanding of differences, celebrating diversity, holding others gently accountable and working to alleviate social injustice.  We cannot say we are perfectly loving if we speak unkindly to another, if we ignore the pain of other people and other creatures or if we are simply indifferent.  Nobody is perfect and we will all fail at one time or another at the game of love.  We will all give in to our fears.  But we must face them.  We must seek to conquer them.  For the sake of our well-being and for the sake of those we love – and this starts with me – we must acknowledge our fears and then work to banish them.

As Robert Frost implicitly asks in his poem, “Love and a Question”, do we choose fear or do we choose love?  I ask you, I ask myself, what is our answer?

Summer Reading: Love and Poetry

Message 28, “Emily Dickinson: Love and Loss”, 8-01-10

© Doug Slagle, Pastor, The Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

Service-Program-8-01-10

(At end of message, please see a related pictorial video link.)

Thornton Wilder, the famous playwright, when he was asked who it is that understands the nature of death and eternity, responded that only saints and poets have such insight.  This month, and in preparation for our September book club, I’ve chosen to look at three poets and their understanding of that greatest of human emotions, love.  It is in the various dimensions of love that we find so many of our most significant emotional responses.  In deeply caring for another person or another creature, we emote anger, joy, hate, fear, grief, compassion or altruism.  For our purposes this month, what knowledge might we gain of ourselves and our world by exploring the topic of love as it relates to loss, to fear and to social justice?  I’ve taken three well-known American poets – Emily Dickinson, Robert Frost and Langston Hughes and chosen to examine one of their lesser known poems to speak to us and offer a springboard for our thoughts and discussion.  In doing so, perhaps the relevant poems can offer breath and life to the Sunday topics.  Poetry, music and visual images are all windows into our thinking.  These forms of communication take ideas and then express them with artful nuance and emotion.  I hope we will find such expression with the poems we consider.  I also hope our words, our music and some visual cues will inspire our thoughts.  These right brain ways of thinking call into work our intuitions and feelings which allows us to internalize and remember the concepts.   And so, let us today look at love and how each of us must deal with its eventual loss.

My interest in our topic focusing on loss has much to do with Emily Dickinson and her own life.  As a poet, she was unsung and virtually unknown prior to her death.  Never married, living an isolated life, likely a lifelong virgin and almost always dressed in white, Emily still experienced the heights of love and the dashed dreams of its loss.  To read one particular portion of her poems is to feel her deep love for a sister-in-law, Susan Gilbert Dickinson.  This was a passionate love which may never have been fulfilled and was apparently later rejected by Susan.  Emily’s love poetry is candid, open and while not luridly specific, leaves many readers wondering if this was a chaste 19^th century expression of friendship between two women or a deeper and more profound romantic love.  Most modern interpreters classify them as Dickinson’s lesbian poems.  Even so, they capture universal sentiments of love and its dimensions of attraction, desire, hope, joy, pain and loss.  Let’s now read one of her final poems about Susan entitled “Now I Knew I Lost Her”.  You can find the words to the poem on the back of your programs…

Now I knew I lost her–
Not that she was gone–
But Remoteness travelled
On her Face and Tongue.

Alien, though adjoining
As a Foreign Race–
Traversed she though pausing
Latitudeless Place

Elements Unaltered–
Universe the same
But Love’s transmigration–
Somehow this had come–

Henceforth to remember
Nature took the Day
I had paid so much for–
His is Penury
Not who toils for Freedom
Or for Family
But the Restitution
Of Idolatry.

The loss of love is an event shared by everyone.  Whether it be from a relationship break-up or a death, the loss of someone we have loved will be experienced by virtually every person at some point in their lives.  And this pain is both sharp and memorable.  For Emily, the object of her attention and her love might has well have died.  Even though she and Susan continued to live next door to one another, after their break-up Emily never again set foot in Susan’s home nor did she write any further love poems – after having written over 300.  Whatever the cause, the one person in Emily’s life with whom she apparently had deep romantic feelings, no longer reciprocated those feelings and became, as Emily writes in the poem, an alien or unknown person.  And we feel her pain as we can all likely remember someone who no longer brightens at seeing us and whose attitude, demeanor and interest in us becomes remote, alien, foreign and latitudeless, as Dickinson’s poem so eloquently expresses.  Our investment of love, time and passion is not just lost, but we are left with an ache that is difficult to describe.  Our love for another cannot be fulfilled.  We are, to use a possible comparison, starving for nourishment as we stand next to a table loaded with food that we are forbidden to touch.  The object of our desire is so near and yet so very far.  We are hungry but we cannot eat.

Emily’s shock and hurt are compounded by her self-recriminations – something we often do as well.  In the face of loss, we rebuke ourselves for allowing the situation to have ever happened.  The goddess of love exacts her toll – in Emily’s words – as penury and poverty come not to the noble freedom fighter or devoted parent, but to the love sick one who has created an idol in the image of his or her beloved.  And it is this form of sometimes irrational love, that Emily calls idolatry, which she stoically self-condemns.  Buddhists see this as harmful attachment to an object or person which hinders self-enlightenment and progress to nirvana.  To the Christian, idolatry is the love of anything more than one’s love for god – and it is completely condemned.  For most people, it is a common way we fall in love.  And the Bible memorably evoked such anguish in the story of Abraham when he is called by god to sacrifice his only son Isaac.

As you may know from reading the Bible, Abraham and his wife Sarah were well into advanced age, many, many years past the years of fertility, when they realized they would never have a son.  In such a patriarchal and chauvinist culture, sons were worth far more than a daughter.  After a series of mishaps and painful episodes as they struggled to fulfill their fervent desire for a son, Sarah miraculously finds herself pregnant.  And a boy is born who is named Isaac and all is well with Abraham and Sarah who now see their legacy living onward.  A cherished son – the object of countless hours of prayer and hope and disappointment – is finally theirs.  But soon god decides to test Abraham’s love and trust in him.  This is a cruel test to be sure and one that was very likely contrived to instruct instead of being actual history.  God, as the story goes, tells Abraham he must take Isaac to the top of Mount Moriah, the hilltop on which Jerusalem was later built, and there kill and sacrifice him as a sign of love for god.  And Abraham agrees, despite anguish and pain and much crying on his and Sarah’s part.  Just as he is about to plunge a dagger into the heart of his only son – a boy loved by Abraham virtually as an idol – god stays his hand and all is made well.  This is a cruel, jealous and petty god who is not one I choose to accept, but the story is nevertheless instructive.

For those who choose to make any thing or any person into an object of absolute worship, the hand of fate and pain will eventually take it away.  We are called to love with devotion and passion but a loss of clear eyed respect for the soul of the person we love is dangerous for our own well-being.  As hideous as this story is – of a jealous god who petulantly forces Abraham to show his love for him in a sadistic stunt, the lesson we might take from the story is important.  In our love for someone, do we objectify the other?  Is he or she simply an object to which we can attach affection out of some unresolved need or insecurity within us?  Or, to the contrary, is our love a kind that does not idealize or idolize the other?  Is it a liberating love that, as Abraham was willing to ultimately prove, is capable of loving the other so much that we are willing to let go – both emotionally and physically?   If not, then nature will, as Emily Dickinson so wisely observed, have its Day of vengeance, our idol will be taken from us and we will be left in a form of loveless penury.  Contrary to all of our love impulses, the more we seek to hold on to our lover, the more we objectify and idolize him or her, the more likely we will be to lose it all.

I recall the day I learned my ex-wife and I would divorce.  We remain good friends today and she has been graciously and wonderfully supportive of me.  Even so, even as I sought to come to terms with my own identity, the impending separation and divorce was like a death.  I was heartbroken, depressed and cried for days with the coming end of my first loving relationship – one that lasted 18 years.  In its aftermath, I could not eat for many weeks and I lost a lot of weight.  My head knew what was best for my wife, for our daughters and for me.  But my heart had witnessed a gentle romance, the birth of two cherished children, the long years of education, growth and struggle as we sought to find our individual life purposes and the everyday give and take of a marriage.  We were the first lovers for one another, we married very young – ages 22 and 23, we both knew and discussed my sexuality confusion and we were each other’s best friends.  We knew each other as well as two people can understand another.  At the end, despite her hopes for me and my concern for her well-being, we parted ways still the deepest of friends but I had an ache and an empty hole in my heart where she had once lived.  My circumstances are obviously unique but I know, and I understand, the great pain of love and loss.

As many of you know who heard him speak here in February, my partner Ed experienced the loss of his first love in a different way.  His first partner died from the ravages of AIDS and Ed was left to mourn alone without the support of family or many friends.  Ed fell in love when Michael had already been diagnosed with AIDS, so he never contracted HIV himself but he was forced to watch the person he loved – and still deeply loves – slowly slip away.

And from private conversations with some of you, I have been honored to share a bit of your private pain – the gnawing, heart-wrenching ache of lost love.  It is as if we are each taunted by the gods and goddesses of Eros to climb the summit of attraction, passion and soul pleasing love.  And then, once at that summit, too many of us find ourselves tossed into the abyss.  Mountain top euphoria gives way to the valley of tears.

But, of course, we rarely stay in the valley of tears.  We all have heard of the several stages of grief – time periods within the process of emotional healing which vary in duration and severity from person to person.  These were first proposed by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and have often been used by therapists to assist persons in dealing with personal tragedy.  As we first learn of lost love, we often move into a period of shock, denial and numbness.  Our senses cannot comprehend the tragedy and so we find ways to cope – we shut down, we ignore reality and we cease to feel.  Emotional and physical shock are ways we cope with pain – the natural instinct is to deny our loss so that the pain cannot be felt.  When this emotional shock wears off – which it always does, we are confronted with what is true – the end of a romance, a partnership, or a marriage.  Our common instinct then is to react with fear which manifests in anger, depression or both.  It is often here that the dark pit seems to envelope us.  We are still close enough to the past feeling of love that its loss is so acute and so powerful, we are in deep and sharp pain.  Often, we have difficulty emerging from this place where hurt cannot be avoided, reality has set in and we are in mourning.

Experts all suggest that this phase of grief is not only common but ultimately healthy.  In order to heal, we must allow ourselves to feel, to cry and to mourn.  This is a part of a normal healing process.  Life is all about loss – we along with all of nature are continually in a state of creation and re-creation where, in order for new life to occur, some loss must happen.

To deny our loss or to sublimate the feeling is to remain in the first stage of denial.  Too often our cultures tells us that grief must be stoic, silent and unmentioned.  It is not proper or mature to cry, to mourn and to deeply feel a loss.  Many experts disagree.  And I do too.  We all know that crying or venting our anger in safe places is cathartic, that it releases pent-up emotions and thus gives them free expression.

In one often quoted teaching from Jesus – “the truth will set you free” – I believe it is in acknowledging the truth of our feelings and their open expression that our hearts and minds are liberated.  In this regard, we are not alone and we should seek friends, family and communities like the Gathering to share our grief.  In doing so, we accept our loss of love and the pain that results.  In our state of grief, we must also give ourselves time and space to experience it fully.  Some might cry once and that is enough.  For others, the pain is more acute and it must be continually acknowledged and brought into the open with gentle friends or with professional counselors.  As Jesus taught in his Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

Some days will be good ones as we seem to move beyond the hurt of loss.  On other days, we will regress and mourn or feel anger all the more.  This too is normal according to many therapists.  The trajectory of healing is individual and it is often marked by many ups and downs and many mistakes.  And that is not only ok, it is good.

Eventually, we arrive at a place where we realize that despite the loss of love, a new life is possible.  We will survive.  We are not destined to live forever in the valley of tears.  The process of re-creation and renewal has begun.  Our love is not forgotten or forsaken.  It has just been moved into an appropriate place in our memories – one where we might cherish the love we experienced and give thanks for it, or one where we might appreciate all that we learned from the painful loss.  With every death there is new life and with every loss there is something new to be found.  The Bible’s Book of Psalms poetically says, “Weeping may remain for a night, but rejoicing comes in the morning.”

And it is at that perfect emotional place where I believe true healing has taken place.  For us to love, we must undertake risk – risk that the other will not respond the same way, risk that the other will hurt us or leave us, risk that the other will die or even risk that our own love will wane and not remain.  But for each person who experiences the summit of passion, this feeling is worth the risk.  For most, the summit does not last and they move on to a more constant and tranquil form of love.  While all of our loves are eventually lost, we are never the worse for it.  Indeed, I believe that love is actually never really lost – it is just transformed to a newer reality.  If we understand that the love we had still remains but in a different form, we can celebrate the fact that we once were on the mountain top, we did experience the exhilaration of attraction and the realm of pleasure given and pleasure received.  Even if the object of our love has hurt us, that does not negate the beauty of our original love.  We can give thanks for it and for the many ways we learned and grew into more enlightened individuals.  In this regard, I am reminded of a silly but nevertheless profound bumper sticker I once saw.  It read, “Love like you will never be hurt.”

For Emily Dickinson, she refused to accept such a truth.  For her, to have loved once and then lost it meant a lifetime of relative isolation and stoic acceptance of fate.  Until her death, she regularly dressed herself all in white as if she were some young virgin on the threshold of a great romance.  She poured her heart out in poems and letters – many of which were never sent or shown to others.  And it would not be until after she died that her relatives discovered many volumes of poems and letters she had written offering insight and beauty into her lonely pain.  Apparently, Emily never consummated a loving relationship and the pain from the love she lost with Susan appears to have sadly never healed.  And yet, in so many ways, the love she had did not die as it lives on forever in her poetry.  Emily may not have emerged from her loss, but she has likely helped countless others understand such pain.

Love is the nectar of life.  It is what moves and motivates the world.  We form relationships, we create life, we work and we play – all for love.  We might love things or money or other people, but we are driven by its force.  Ultimately, I believe all human relationships either succeed or fail due to how skillfully we love.  And while the method of our love is a topic for another day, the loss of love is one we consider today.  How do we understand, grieve, and heal from love’s loss?  Be it from death or mistake or hate or a natural separation of ways, we will all lose at the game of love.  But it is a game – if it were only that – which we cannot and must not refuse to play.   To love and be loved.  Such is life.  We all want to know what love is.  We all want to feel its life enriching power.  We want to see it, feel it and live within it.  But, despite the risk of loss, despite pain, anger and denial, we must always – we must always – love freely and love extravagantly…

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Message 27, “Is God American?”, July 18, 2010

download program: Service-Program-8-01-10

© Doug Slagle, Pastor, The Gathering UCC, all rights reserved

In our series this month entitled “America the Beautiful”, I am reminded of the words from that song which states “America, America.  God shed his grace on thee.”  In another popular anthem made famous by the late singer Kate Smith, the Divine One is actually asked to bless our nation.  The song “God Bless America” is both a statement and a plea.  These songs assert that the United States is special.  Please bestow favor upon this land and this nation of people.

My appeal this month, however, is in direct contrast to those sentiments.  I hope that these July messages will cause us to think about how we honor our nation, engage in political discourse and assert a spiritual viewpoint.   The overarching ideal throughout each of the three messages is one of humility – how we apply it for our nation as a culture and how we might apply it individually.  Two weeks ago, we considered the fourth of July holiday in the light of national humility – celebrating our heritage and the great ideals upon which we were founded while also acknowledging how far we have to go before we fully practice what we say we believe.  And last week, I urged us to consider humility in our political discussions with others.  We are entitled to our political beliefs but we are not entitled to abuse or disparage others.  In all of our conduct, we are to live the Golden Rule treating others the same way we too wish to be treated.

And today, I ask us to consider another form of humility which applies not only to our nation but to each of us as well.  Religious humility is a rare commodity these days and, as much as we say we support it, we often do not practice it – at least in this nation.  Too many people speak as if god truly is American.   He or she is one of us.  Americans are special and we are the ones who truly understand the Divine.  Unfortunately, this phenomenon is not unique to the United States.  The Bible says that the Jewish people used to consider themselves the chosen people.  Other nations and cultures today claim unique status with the Divine One.  The implication is that if you do not belong to a particular belief system or religion, you are not in god’s favor.

An Baptist old joke, speaking of religious arrogance, goes something like this: A Pastor was walking across a bridge one day, and he saw someone standing on the edge, about to jump off. So he ran over and said “Stop! Don’t do it!” “Why shouldn’t I?” the suicidal person asked. “Well, there’s so much to live for!” “Like what?” “Well… are you religious?” The person said” yes”.  “Me too!” the Pastor said.  “Are you Christian or Buddhist?” “Christian.”  “Me too!  Are you Catholic or Protestant ?”  “Protestant.”  “Me too!  Are you Episcopalian or Baptist?”  “Baptist”  “Wow! I’m a Baptist Pastor!  Are you Baptist Church of God or Baptist Church of the Lord?”  “Baptist Church of God!”  “Me too!  Are you original Baptist Church of God, or are you reformed Baptist Church of God?”  “Reformed Baptist Church of God!”  “Me too!  Are you Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1879, or Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915?” The suicidal person replied, “Reformed Baptist Church of God, reformation of 1915!”  The pastor said “Die, heretic scum!”, and pushed him off.

My humor is not intended to make fun of Baptists.  But it IS intended to make a subtle point and perhaps make fun of all of us who profess to fully understand what is true in religion.  People often assume only their way of belief is correct and all others are not just wrong but, as the Pastor in our story says, heretical.

And while the title of this message asks if god is American, my intent is to provide more than a simple answer of “no she or he is not”.  Most of here us would agree that the Mother and Father of all creation, is not a mere American.  The moral force at work all around us is universal and is not defined or owned by anyone.  Ironically, this understanding of god first found explicit expression by a nation in our own U.S. constitution.

Indeed, far from endorsing any particular religion or belief, the founding fathers pointedly allowed the freedom of belief – or even no belief.   It further forbade government from ever supporting any specific religion.  The First Amendment states very simply, and I believe very humbly about religion, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” It was Thomas Jefferson who later coined the term “wall of separation between church and state” to describe the intent of the writers.  This came after James Madison wrote, a man closely involved in the framing of the constitution and who co-authored the Federalist Papers – a book about the constitutional convention –  “Strongly guarded. . . is the separation between religion and government in the Constitution of the United States.”

Our constitution nowhere mentions any deity much less the Judeo-Christian god.  Our government, it plainly asserts, derives its powers from the consent of the governed.  This contrasts with the apostle Paul’s claim in the Bible that rulers of nations derive their right to rule solely from God.  Our constitution explicitly refutes that premise.

While Jefferson and Madison spoke to the ideal of a nation and government independent from religious endorsement, the idea that we are a Christian nation founded on Christian principles was also rejected by numerous founding fathers.  In one of our first agreements with another nation, in the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli, which was ratified by the US Senate, we assert – “the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” Even further, John Adams, our second President and one of the more personally religious of the founders, said in 1788, “Although the detail of the formation of the American governments is at present little known in Europe or in America, it may hereafter become an object of curiosity. It will never be pretended that any persons employed in that service had interviews with the gods, or were in any degree under the influence of Heaven…it will forever be acknowledged that these governments were contrived merely by the use of reason and the senses.”

As much as some contemporary commentators seek to portray our founders as pious Christians in the modern evangelical mode, this was not the case.  Most of the founders were men of faith but a majority believed in a religious expression that was often Unitarian in approach.  Such was the faith of Adams and Jefferson.  George Washington attended an Episcopal church but refused to take Holy Communion there and is also generally considered to have been Unitarian in his outlook.  Such a belief system acknowledges the existence of god and the Divine work of providence.  Most historians agree our founders believed in a more generic god, the god of creation and the god of nature.  For most of the founders, this was not the god of Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Alone among the founders, only John Jay, the first chief justice of the Supreme Court, is acknowledged as someone who would fit our modern version of an evangelical, conservative Christian.

I believe most contemporary claims that our nation was founded on Christian values are motivated by religious arrogance.  We as a nation, as a congregation and as individuals must never assume that one specific brand of thinking is absolutely correct and all others are invalid.  Our constitution refused to enter that debate and it forbids any future Congress or President from doing the same.

Just as I advocated last week, however,  – that we hold onto our sincere political beliefs – I encourage the same for our religious views.  We have a right to our personal beliefs about the great questions of the universe – what is the meaning of life, what purpose do we serve and how can we better love and serve others?  More importantly, we must respect the beliefs of people with whom we disagree.  Even further, I believe our work here at the Gathering is not to accept or reject any particular faith but to search among them, to learn from the many great prophets of history and to explore the realms of where we can find universal truths.

In my message back in April when I posed the question “What is Truth?”, we concluded that a conclusive answer is difficult to find.  What force, what god or what spiritual being holds within itself the source of all wisdom, perfection and power?  As much as we might seek to find truth solely through reason, when we do so, we neglect the mysterious and transcendent.  And, as much as we might try to find universal applications in how we should morally act, the call to us by all world religions is to love others as we too wish to be loved.  This is one truth we agreed is universal.  Even so, the point of that message was that we must remain on a journey of continually seeking who and what is Truth.

And, religious humility, I believe, encourages us to search many pathways to truth.  While the Bible quotes Jesus Christ as saying that he is the way, the truth and the life and the only way to god, the historic Jesus would not have made such a statement.  The historic Jesus taught, I believe, about an accommodating god, open and loving to everyone.  She or he was not and is not an exclusive god.   The ethic of this god, as Jesus taught, is to love our neighbors AND to love our enemies.   God has a concern for the weak and is infinitely loving to all creation.  Jesus taught that god is the unconditionally loving parent in the parable of the Prodigal Son, the woman who anoints others with her oil soaked hair, the host at a banquet to which everyone is invited and the Samaritan – a religious and political outcast – who offers mercy and respect to enemies.  Jesus taught about a god of grace and mercy to all.  This god, as ironic as it seems, is a humble god.

And, if this is so, then we must also check our religious and spiritual egos at the door.  We must abandon them.  This does not mean to let go of an honest claim to who we are and what we believe.  It implies, instead, that our spiritual beliefs are formed in the intimate connection between whatever we perceive god to be and our innermost conscience.  When we lie awake at night and ponder the great mysteries of existence, we are invited into a uniquely personal relationship with the Divine.  And what we personally come to believe about universal Truth is ours alone.  It is not American or Christian or Islamic or Atheist or even the uniquely open variant we practice here at the Gathering.  It is your spirituality.  It is of you and by you.  And, if it is genuine in its humility, this personal spirituality will continue to search and remain open to new insights and new ways to understand our universe.  It will be open to the ways of Jesus and the teachings of Mohammad.  It will understand letting go of self through Buddhism and it will respect the ways of Hinduism and our continuing quest for perfect rebirth.

The mystic rabbi named Maimonides – the father of Kabalah Judaism, argued that humans cannot and should not try and define the Divine.  She or he or whatever force we call it must remain mysterious, ineffable and without definition.  To describe the Divine is to reduce it to our terms and our finite understanding.  This negative theology of Maimonides says that we must remain silent when it comes to defining who or what god is.  As much as I have tried to speak in my messages about a Divine moral force at work in the universe, my words fall short.  This power that lies in the common heart and soul of every creature compels them to seek cooperation, love and justice.  To repeat once again the words of Martin Luther King, Jr. – another great prophet – the arc of history is very long but it bends toward equality, justice and universal cooperation.  And, as I have said, this is the moral imagination I choose to call the Divine.  Maimonides taught that this mystical force has no boundaries and defies understanding, logic or description.  A god force like this cannot help but be open and humble.

Is god American?  Of course not.  Is god Jewish?  Is god Islamic?  Is god Christian?  Is god dead?  Is god black or white, male or female?  Dear friends, my message to you is to join me in a search for those answers.  And it is in the process of exploration that I believe we truly honor and respect the Divine.  This is a humble religion just like I appealed for a humble nationalism and a humble approach to political discourse in my last two messages.  It is not falsely modest, denying its beauties and strengths.  Instead, it is free and open – as our American constitution promotes.  It does not claim absolute answers but instead asserts its mystery and Divine transcendence.  We see glimpses of it in our fellow creatures, in the beauty of a sunset, in the love we share, in compassion, in sacrifice and in forgiveness.  We see and feel this moral imagination we might call god but she is elusive and infinite and calling us to never give up our quest for her…

Message 26, “And Crown Our Good with Sisterhood and Brotherhood?”, 7-11-10

download program: Service Program, 7-11-10

© Doug Slagle, Pastor, The Gathering UCC, all rights reserved

Recently, a liberal was walking down Main Street early one evening when he was soon robbed of his wallet and his watch, he was beaten severely and then abandoned in the gutter, a bloody and unconscious heap.  Shortly thereafter, a Pastor from a Progressive church walked down Main Street, spotted the unconscious man and very quickly moved across the street and hurried on by.  The Pastor said to himself, in justifying his actions, that the apparent victim could be a drunken homeless person or even someone faking illness in order to rob others.  Several minutes later, a local Democratic Party official was rushing down the street talking on her cell phone, when she saw the victim she continued on her way saying she had important political business to address.  Finally, a full half-hour after the victim had been attacked, a local Tea Party member also walked down Main Street.  He saw the victim, recognized him as a well-known liberal, but was horrified at his condition.  The Tea Party member stooped down, lifted up the victim, wiped his bloody face with his shirt, escorted him to his car and then took him to the downtown Hyatt Hotel where he paid for a room and all meals for as long as it would take the victim to recover.

I ask you, dear friends, which one of these persons was a compassionate human and a brother or a sister to the beaten and bloody liberal?

In my very obvious adaptation of Jesus’ Good Samaritan parable, I have not intended to elevate members of the Tea Party or to indict Progressives or Democrats.  Far from it.  Indeed, I could have easily reversed the characters in the story and had the victim be a Tea Party member with an evangelical minister and Republican Party official ignoring the situation.  The rescuer might then have been a Progressive member of MoveOn.org.

My point is to echo the lesson of Jesus.  When asked how someone could go to heaven and thus lead a righteous life, Jesus responded that people are to first love god and then love others – one’s neighbors- as much as one loves himself or herself.  Expanding on his version of the Golden Rule, Jesus then offers his Good Samaritan parable intending to shock and provoke his audience into seeing that their neighbors – their brothers and sisters – are not just those whom they personally like or associate.  To the Jewish ruling elites of the time, Samaritans were a despised group since they refused to worship at the true Temple and follow the majority opinions on how to honor god.  But here was Jesus pointedly telling his audience of Jewish priests and officials that a Samaritan – the worst of all political and religious enemies – could be their brother, their sister and their neighbor.

My message today is entitled “And Crown Our Good with Brotherhood” – a line taken from the famous anthem America the Beautiful.  As you may know, that song title is our message series theme for this month of July.  As we discussed last week how to have a balanced national pride that recognizes what is good AND what is wrong in our nation, and as we will consider whether God is an American Deity next Sunday, today we look at the topic of sisterhood and brotherhood and how we might truly seek to live up to those high ideals.  That ethic of common love is one which we often say in our nation that we believe in.  To love our neighbor as we too wish to be loved is also a spiritual value found in virtually every known faith tradition throughout history – from that of the ancient Egyptians to Native-Americans to Hindus, Christians and Muslims of today.

And yet in so many ways each of us – with me at the front of that line – we often fail to practice the Golden Rule particularly in our national political, religious and civic discussions.  We can turn on our TV’s tonight and watch any number of commentators not only advance their own beliefs but also personally attack, diminish and shout down persons with opposing views.  President Obama is called a liar, un-American, a communist, the Anti-Christ and an enemy of our constitution.  Just a few short years ago, President Bush was called a baby killer, a liar, a village idiot, a bigot and an enemy of the common man.  Liberals are regularly denounced by conservatives as bleeding heart, tax and spend socialists who want to impose a Stalinist type government that will control the lives of all citizens.  Conservatives are similarly bashed by liberals as ignorant, money grubbing, and heartless prudes who care nothing for working people and the poor.

And, please, don’t get me wrong.  I am a gay man who is likely more agnostic than most, who considers it an honor to have voted for Barack Obama, who believes in Progressive causes and who would like greater government oversight of our economy in order to prevent grave excesses and to assist those who need a hand up in life.   I am happy to speak, at another time, about my beliefs.  I do not apologize for them and I am very proud to be a member of a Progressive congregation where many also hold similar viewpoints.

When I read many of Jesus’ teachings and when I study all of the other faith expressions of the Golden Rule, I am struck by the power and higher call of our human hearts.  In each of us beats the compassion and love expressed by charity, goodwill and love.  We yearn to be people of the Golden Rule.  We yearn to be people who daily live out the ethic of sisterhood and brotherhood.  And yet, when I hear about some position of a conservative politician, I will mutter to myself or to Ed about how evil that person must be.  I will harbor a feeling of personal dislike – even hatred – for a conservative who bashes me as a gay man or who denounces universal health care – things I care deeply about.  And in my heart, in that place where I want to truly love others, a dark spot will be created and I will have lessened myself.  Indeed, as I harbor hatred for another, I hate myself.  As one with all humans, as one with all forms of creation, I must either elevate each or else diminish all.

Interestingly, two-hundred and six years ago this very day, on July 11^th 1804, a duel took place on the banks of the Hudson River that culminated years of vehement partisan discord engaged in by many of our seemingly virtuous founding fathers.  Vice-President Aaron Burr fatally shot Alexander Hamilton in a duel whose origins were based in the debate between Hamiltonian Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans.  Present day discord between Democrats and Republicans, or between liberals and conservatives, appears quite tame when compared to the debate between Federalists and Jeffersonian Republicans.  Salacious gossip, vicious personal attacks and outright physical violence were common.  Added to the mix was, of course, the press which also divided itself into opposing camps.  One newspaper published accounts of Hamilton’s affair with his sister-in-law in order to discredit Federalism.  Soon thereafter, a Federalist paper printed innuendo suggesting Thomas Jefferson’s liaison with his slave Sally Cummings.

The father of our country, George Washington, tried valiantly to stay above the fray but when he seemed to side with his Treasury secretary Alexander Hamilton against his Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson, he too was branded a Federalist and a Royalist.  Federalists – even though they advocated for a strong central government – were seen as representing the wealthy propertied class against the aspirations of the common man.  Tom Paine, the famous pamphleteer who assisted mightily in the American Revolution, later became a Jeffersonian Republican.  He wrote publically to Washington, a man whom he had previously championed, “I wonder whether you are an apostate or an imposter; whether you have abandoned good principles, or whether you ever had any.” He also loudly questioned Washington’s contribution to the Revolution and even said that he had cowardly spent his time in camp while others won the war for him.  A famous political cartoon of the time showed Washington being decapitated by a guillotine in a scene made to appear like the execution of King Louis the Fifteenth of France during the French Revolution.  As Americans, just as was taking place in France, we too engaged in vicious and hateful political warfare.  All of this was done in the name of politics.  From our very beginning, we have not engaged in civil and honorable debate.  From the Revolution to the Civil War to debate during the New Deal to the recent years under Clinton, Bush and now Obama, we have engaged in mutual personal political destruction.

In his farewell address as President, George Washington saw the perils of political factions and parties and forcefully appealed for a higher form of civic debate.  He said, “Political parties serve to organize faction, to give it an artificial and extraordinary force; to put, in the place of the delegated will of the nation, the will of a party, often a small but artful and enterprising minority of the community. The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism.” The father of our nation, certainly no saint, nevertheless appealed instead for civil discussion, cooperation and work for the good of the nation by ALL citizens.

Last spring, in his commencement address to the University of Notre Dame, President Obama seemed to echo Washington’s words when he appealed for our nation to find common ground regarding the contentious debate over abortion.  As much as I deeply cherish the lives of children and stand in awe at the miracle of birth, I also deeply respect the right of women to control the most personal property we must all hold dear – the right to determine the fate of our own bodies.  Obama instead asked us to find a way around this polarized debate where people of good intention seek to protect the right to life or the right to control our own bodies.  He asked us to work together to reduce the need for any abortion – to educate, to provide contraception, to do whatever is necessary so that very, very few pregnancies are ever unwanted.  In this debate that seemingly only has two very opposite sides, Obama urged us to cooperate, to understand the passions of the other side and to find that area where both sides might agree – that no child should be born unwanted.

As I discuss this issue, I imagine I am stirring up in many of you strong passions and stronger opinions.  I have them myself.  And I do not ask anyone to let go of their convictions.  As thinking and feeling people who each come from different backgrounds and circumstances, we are bound to disagree on many things.  Indeed, I believe that it is in honest and vigorous debate between opposing viewpoints that we might find the elements of what is true and right.  As I have said before, I believe that truth is rarely found on the extremes.  We do not live in a black or white world where answers are absolute.  Instead, we live in a complex world where issues are not easily solved and there is merit on many sides of a debate.  Truth, in my opinion, is most likely found in that murky and mushy grey area.

Three Sundays ago I did something here at church which I don’t like to do.  It was something I did secretly and perhaps nobody knows what I did.  I found on our table in the other room, where we all like to put out flyers for various causes or organizations, copies of a cartoon depicting members of the Tea Party as buffoons and ignorant hillbillies.  I quickly scooped them up, placed them in my pocket, and later disposed of them.  I apologize to whoever put those out for display.  But I don’t regret what I did.

Someone displayed a cartoon that did not promote their own progressive beliefs but instead personally made fun of the opposition.   Unintentionally, the message sent to other members and to visitors is that those who are not like us, are not welcome.  And we all strongly know that is not true.  I know this was not the intent of whoever placed the cartoon.  He or she was simply passionate about their own beliefs and is, I am absolutely sure, a loving person.

I am not an advocate of the Tea Party or what it seems to stand for.  I believe in the exact opposite of many of its beliefs.  What I do believe in, however, is what I know each of you believe in too.  I believe in this unique place called the Gathering.  I believe in that name and what it stands for – a place to feel welcome, accepted, loved and celebrated no matter who you are or what you believe.  When I walked into this church three years ago, a man who thought that no church could possibly love and accept a gay man, I was blown away by how accepted I felt.  Immediately, I was greeted by our resident ambassador of welcome, Patti Wiers, and I was surrounded by others – straight and gay – who asked about me, who cared nothing about my sexuality and who warmly embraced me into their midst.  And I know this is true for anyone who comes through those doors.  We have loved and accepted Andre – a very vocal religious fundamentalist – and many of you have prayed for him and given thanks for him.

This is a progressive church – many of you are progressives as I am too – but we are also a church that radically seeks to live out the ways of the Golden Rule.  I know as sure as I know that the sun will shine again that we truly do wish to practice – to everyone we meet – the command of loving our neighbor as we love ourselves.  And we do that by embracing all people and showing each other – and visitors – the dignity and respect we all wish to receive.

We have within ourselves the ability to imagine cooperation with our opponents.  That is the stuff of moral imagination.  Cooperation.  Empathy.  Understanding.  Genuine sisterhood and brotherhood should not be a dream of ours, but a reality.  And we can create that reality.  These are ideals that we can practice here and that we can promote in our families and circles of influence.  We need not forsake our sincere progressive beliefs, but progressivism itself calls us to a higher standard of conduct.  The words of Jesus and of millions of other people of faith call out across the span of history to treat our neighbors as we too wish to be treated.  This must begin with us.  This must begin with me.  We cannot wait for others to respect us first.

In a few minutes I will ask all of us to sing that most cliché of unity songs – “Kum Ba Yah”.  People often laugh and make fun of the seemingly naïve optimism of the song that speaks of empathy and common feeling.  Someone out there is singing and celebrating.  Someone out there is crying and in pain.  Someone out there is praying and hopeful.  The title words to the song are in French and loosely mean “come by my God”.   If all humanity is one with the Divine, if we are all its children, then the joy that one of us feels is joy that we all feel.  If one is in pain, we all hurt too.  To meet the needs of a hurting world, we must work together with both our friends and our opponents – treating each with love and respect.  Kum Ba Yah, my lord – come by my god, we are listening……….

I am interested in a couple of questions for our discussion…

1. What are some ways that we can improve civil discussion about politics, economics or religion in our nation today?
2. Do you think, in general, people tend to stay in groups and organizations comprised of like-minded people – those who agree with them?  Can a diverse group include people with significantly different belief systems?  How?

Message 25,”American Pride?”, 7-4-10

Download program: Service Program, 7-4-10

© Pastor Doug Slagle, The Gathering UCC, All Rights Reserved

If some of you recall my message to us on the Sunday just before Christmas last year, I focused on the unique aspects of the Jesus birth story which make it so compelling.  Here was delivered into the world, according to the Bible, the savior of all mankind.  He was to be the King of Kings, Son of God, Redeemer, God in flesh.  And yet he was born in such lowly circumstances – in an unknown barn, surrounded by farm animals, to a mother of doubtful purity and celebrated by local sheep herders.  The King of all the universe came into this world next to an ass and a few pigs.  The humble circumstances of such a birth cry out from the very beginning that Jesus was to be a very different kind of prophet.  Humility, simplicity, lack of pretension and modest means are hallmarks of his life and, even without all other stories about him, the Christmas story stands out as a radical proclamation that we are called to a similar mindset – humility in all that we do, say and live.

And now, six months later, we celebrate a different kind of holiday – a secular one that recognizes the founding of our nation.  In Cincinnati today, we also celebrate the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community as persons of dignity and worth.  This July 4^th stands for us as a day to mark dual forms of pride – pride in who and what we are as a nation and pride in the many persons of the GLBT community.  We recognize and applaud the many principles upon which this nation was founded, how it has tried to live out many of those ideals and how, two-hundred and thirty-four years later, we remain a nation of laws protecting minorities like the GLBT community.  This is a day to be proud.  It is a day to engage in a just a bit of chest thumping – that we as a nation AND as a community of straight and gay people – we can claim and celebrate our unique identity.

But that pride impulse, so natural in all of us, is what I want to explore with you today.  And it is also the beginning of the theme for this month which I have entitled, as a question, “America the Beautiful?”  This will not be a political series or even a bash America series.  It will be, I hope, a time to re-focus our thinking and our search for what is true and good about this nation and, more importantly, about us.  As a spiritual value, we hold dear the notion of humility.  But how does humility intersect with national pride and our July 4^th celebration?  The same can be asked of gay pride – how can we have pride and yet also be humble?  Next week, we’ll explore the spiritual value of sisterhood and brotherhood.  We all believe it and we all proclaim it but how does it really get carried out in our daily lives especially in this time of polarized politics and deep divisions in how so many see our government and our world?  Do people act as if they are one humanity or do many often assume they are right, they are superior in thinking and all others are not only wrong but they cannot be sisters and brothers?  How do we, therefore, truly live out the ideal of one humanity, no matter politics, religion or other differences?  Finally, on the third Sunday, we’ll examine the notion that God is somehow also a nationalist and she or he has uniquely chosen and blessed America.  Is the Divine force for good in this universe American or simply a champion of ALL people and ALL creation?

Pride is Biblically seen as the original sin.  In the Biblical myth, as an angel, Satan was certain that he was at least equal with God if not superior.  He was banished from the heavenly realm for his pride and he then sought revenge on God by encouraging his own flaw in human beings.  And so, as the Bible says, man has struggled against unwarranted pride ever since Adam and Eve succumbed to the temptations of Satan.  And this flaw has found unique expression in nationalism.  Likely originating with the earliest tribes or clans, humans have expressed arrogance and pride in not only their individual identity but also in their identity as a group and nation.  We find it in the ancient rivalries between the Greek city states of Sparta and Athens, in the Roman empire, in the British colonial empire and, currently in our own nation.

American nationalism was given force and a beginning, many believe, by a foreigner – Alexis de Toqueville, a French writer and aristocrat who toured the U.S. during the early years of the nineteenth century.  In his famous work, Democracy in America, de Toqueville claimed that America’s unique place in history, as the first true representative democracy, makes it great and a force with which to be reckoned.  His book, along with Frederick Jackson Turner’s monumental work The Significance of the Frontier in American History, put forth the notion that combined with America’s ideals, its geographic location in the new world and its predominant European ancestry, the United States is destined to be a great power and a world leader.  These views – as they became embedded in our national psyche – gave rise to principles in this country of manifest destiny, the Monroe Doctrine and American exceptionalism.   The U.S. is destined –because of our innate goodness – to dominate not just our continent but the entire Western Hemisphere.  Because of our innate values promoting freedom and the dignity of the individual, the U.S. also need not obey universal standards and laws.  We are excepted from the means to being good because our ends – our goals – are good.

Please watch a brief video which vividly portrays run-away nationalism of the pre-war German people.  I am not showing this to in any way compare such hyper nationalism – such championing of Nazi ideology – to our own form of American pride or even American exceptionalism.  We must all be very, very careful in calling anyone a fascist or Nazi.  This clip, however, shows the degree to which national pride can become dangerous to the nation itself and to the world at large.   View Clip.

My goal today is not to attack or diminish our nation – especially on this day of all days, July 4^th.  Nor is it my goal to diminish pride in our country.  I believe, however, that just as humility was a spiritual value for Jesus and many of the other great prophets, so too should it be an ethic for us and for this nation.  Reconciling pride in one’s country and national humility are not competing ideals.  Indeed, Jesus did not run away from his calling as a skilled teacher and as one who discouraged hypocrisy and injustice.  He has gone down in history as the perhaps the greatest moral thinker of all time – he was not god but he was a truly historic man.  He was aware of his great abilities and, I think, he was also aware of his several flaws.  He experienced fear and doubt.  He attacked the judgment of god.  He got angry and he was not above calling others – particularly his enemies – names that were not gentle or kind.

And it is in his holistic recognition of his strengths AND his weaknesses that lies a lesson for our nation and for us.  As Americans, we have much to celebrate in our ideas and our ethics.  We believe freedom and personal choice are human rights and we have codified such beliefs in our constitution.  We allow individuals the rights that billions of people in other nations do not have – the right of free speech, of freedom to worship, of property rights, of free assembly, of due process, of fair trials, of habeas corpus and many others.  Our system allows those who wish to work hard and dream big, to succeed in life.  The Horatio Alger story of one who rises from rags to riches is not a myth and we see it lived out daily.  My own partner – not to embarrass him, was the first of his farming and blue collar family to attend and graduate from college, let alone achieve a master’s and law degree.  He has lived on his own and supported himself since the age of 16 and his hard work has paid off in the modest material success he has achieved.  Others in this room and in this church can tell similar stories about their lives – like one who was orphaned at an early age, raised by struggling grandparents, nurtured by the larger community, joined the army and later succeeded in the business world.  There are few places in the world where one can rise out of one’s station of birth and yet achieve great things.  We have never been a rigid class based culture in which the circumstances of one’s heritage determines one’s place in life.  The American ideals of individual liberty and hard work are still alive and we are right to celebrate and encourage them.

My appeal is for a balanced and reasoned national pride. As much as we can justly be proud, an ethical form of nationalism is willing to acknowledge past mistakes and remaining flaws.  And, balanced nationalism understands that one’s nation is not the only one in the world to practice great ideals.  Indeed, American national pride can celebrate our own achievements without believing that we are unique or better.  Just as the rags to riches ability to rise in the U.S. still remains, many parts of Europe currently have rates of upward mobility greater than that of the U.S.  Statistics show that men and women born within the lowest quintile economic class in our nation are presently more likely to remain in that status into adulthood then similar people in the Nordic countries and Great Britain.  As much as we celebrate individual rights, there are still some to whom we do not grant such rights of due process and habeas corpus.  As a matter of principle and not politics, I believe that holding men and women in detention at Guantanamo Bay for nearly ten years without a trial and without legal representation is against the ideals of our constitution.  Yes, these persons are not U.S. citizens nor are they recognized soldiers for another army – and thus subject to prisoner of war protections.  They hide in civilian clothing and they cowardly kill innocent people.  And they could turn their criminal trials into a public relations platform for their murderous and fundamentalist ideology.  But American ideals mean nothing if they only apply to us.  If we champion the rights of all persons, we must champion and protect their rights too.  Even as they try to use our ethics and ideals against us, we must not shrink, I believe, from our civic moral beliefs.  Indeed, I believe our constitution and Bill of Rights were motivated by a Divine moral imagination to extend individual liberties and rights to ALL persons.  If that is so, such ideals do not stop at our nation’s borders.  They are universal in their intent.

Our history is littered with national mistakes that, I believe can enhance our national pride if we openly confess them and work to not repeat them.   Indeed, it was Jesus who called people to confess their sins, to go and do them no longer and, as a result, have truth set them free.  Native Americans were killed on a whole-scale manner while land on which they had lived for centuries was taken from them, African-Americans were held in slavery even as Thomas Jefferson wrote that all people have the right to life and liberty, Abraham Lincoln suspended habeas corpus during the Civil War even as he fought to uphold our national ideals, Woodrow Wilson signed into law the alien and sedition act which caused widespread discrimination against foreign born, Franklin Roosevelt authorized the detention of Japanese Americans during World War Two while we fought against just such racist ideologies, the McCarthy hysteria of the 1950’s ruined thousands of reputations solely through innuendo and rumor – without due process – and, most recently, the Patriot Act and the anti-immigrant law in Arizona have come to pass even while we have just elected the first man of color as our President.

Balanced pride in America compels us to be proud of our constitution, our traditions, the ideals of Washington, Jefferson, Adams and Lincoln and the Bill of Rights which protects each American.  Those are great hallmarks in the history of humanity.  There IS greatness in the American experience, culture and form of government.  But we also have deep flaws and deep divisions and deep wounds both in our past and in our present.  And, we do not possess all of the answers in terms of how to best address the problems of the world.  Many other nations have greatness in them too and have worked to elevate the rights of humanity to standards in some cases that are greater than in the U.S.

We argue here at the Gathering that we do not profess to know absolute answers to spiritual questions.  Is there a God and does she or he offer us a divine afterlife?  What is the source of universal truth and how do we find it?  We have our ideas on these questions – some of us believe things in different ways – but we adamantly refuse to assert that our way is the right way and the only way.  We profess a form of religious and spiritual humility that asserts that we have beliefs but we continue to explore them and we are open to new ideas and new ways of thinking.  A religious fundamentalist of any stripe will, as long as I am Pastor, be welcome here, he or she will be listened to and treated with respect and some of their beliefs may even sound valid to us.  Even as I say that, we will also not run away from pride in our own beliefs and our right to equally profess them.

The same standard of ethical pride or humble confidence in who we are, also extends to other areas of our lives and our culture.  Gays and lesbians must rightfully be proud of who we are.  We are, quite simply, gifts from the Divine One just as any other person is too.  But pride in ourselves as a community must also recognize our own limitations, our own frailties and our own similarities to all people.  We are prone to division, arrogance, and prejudices.  There are some gay men who devalue lesbians and the same is often true in reverse.  Many homosexuals cannot understand and thus discriminate against those who are transgender.  We frequently stereotype ourselves and belittle gays who are too feminine, too flamboyant, too masculine or simply too gay.  Many of us prize the idea of being “straight acting”, thus diminishing the very pride we say we have.  Can we simply just celebrate the unique portion of humanity that we represent – without diminishing others?

My appeal in this matter, as in our national pride, is that we check our egos and our motivations in all things we do and say.  This is not false humility or meek self-denigration.  It is confidence in who we are combined with a healthy recognition of our flaws and needs for personal or national growth.

And that is exactly how we must, I believe, begin to celebrate national or gay pride.  Yes, as the song goes, we can be proud to be Americans – where at least we know we are free – but, more importantly, we must be proud to be caring, generous, compassionate and just human beings.

Let us have within ourselves – and then let us promote it to others – the balanced pride in our nation and ourselves that is humble, that recognizes our mistakes and that acknowledges we alone do not have all the answers to human government and ways of life.  May we, later today, joyfully sing “America the Beautiful”, may we thrill to the fireworks and the celebrations that mark our national birthday and may we – straight and gay alike – walk proudly and in unity through the streets of this town asserting our rights and our identity as people of God.  May we also do so with full awareness that we are not perfect and that we have many, many miles to go before we live up to all of our ideals.  I wish you all

Message 24, Let’s Play, 6-18-10  

download program: Service Program, 6-20-10

© Pastor Doug Slagle, the Gathering UCC, All rights reserved

A famous quote in the Bible, from the Book of Ecclesisastes, speaks of a time or a season for every purpose in life.  There is a time to be born and a time to die, a time to plant and a time to harvest, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.  The ultimate purpose for humans, according to the book, states that “there is nothing better than to rejoice, and to do good in their lives and that every person should eat and drink and enjoy the good of all his or her labor…”

On this cusp of summer solstice and on a day when we acknowledge and celebrate men and fathers, I want to encourage us to embrace the theme from this month – summer fun.  As much as we have examined over the last two weeks getting out into nature’s church and basking in its wildness or participating in the sacred ritual of baseball – as a player or a participant, my message today is a fitting conclusion to this series.  We spend so many of our Sundays here deep in reflection and serious thought.  The point of this series is intended to not only be light and fun – to coincide with the beginning of summer – but to also speak to the spiritual truth that fun, play, laughter and recreation are spiritual values and they are important for our well-being.  As much as life can be a struggle for many people, we know that is not how it should be.  We are to build and help create heaven here on earth for all people and all creation.  It is a purpose to which Jesus set as his goal – to remind us that “the Kingdom of God is at hand”.  We are each little gods who not only work for the good of family, friends, and the world at large, but we are to seize this time, as the Bible says, to eat, drink and rejoice in the glories of life.  We are to have fun.  We are to laugh.  We are to play.  These are spiritual truths for all of us and, I think, particularly so for men and dads who too often see life as serious, agenda driven and time constrained.

And those are attitudes I too often exhibit myself.  With my two girls here, whom I love more than my life itself, I must admit that one of my shortcomings as a dad was to not play enough with them.  Looking back, I wish I had not taken the responsibilities of being a dad so seriously – to work, save money, plan, and structure their lives in order to prepare them for the hard realities of life.  Those are important to be sure and I don’t want to diminish the idea of responsibility.  Into that mix of roles that a dad can serve, however, is one of playmate, laugh leader and fun creator.  Indeed, for all men and for all people, the enjoyment of life is an essential principle to embrace.  The Divine creator has given us life not to dwell on how difficult it is, but to use the fruits of our labor to help others and, importantly, to play.

Believe it or not, there is a National Institute for Play whose director asserts that for adults, play is an essential ingredient to a successful and happy life.   Participating in regular play inspires resilience, patience, flexibility, creativity and intelligence.  Far more than mere rest or recreation, active and fun filled play – for the child or adult – is an emotional re-set button for how we think and act.  As Erna Olafson recounted in her message to the congregation about a year ago, there is a lot more involved in playful activities than just fun.  Adults and children consciously and unconsciously learn about the ways of life in the midst of play.  We learn in playing how to cooperate and how to negotiate with others.  We also learn how to be persistent in our tasks and to discover activities that make us happy and satisfied.  As noted earlier, we are creatively inspired from play.  Sigmund Freud asserted that humans require “Spielraum” – a German phrase for room or space to be creative and curious.  This involves the freedom to be creative by acting out fun-filled daydreams, fantasies and make-believe play.

Fathers and men can be particularly helpful to themselves and to children by encouraging such behavior.  With children, men and, indeed all adults, must not simply promote play but we should be willing to actively engage in it – amongst ourselves and with our children.  Too often adults say they are too busy or too mature to engage in simple games of tag, make-believe or hide and seek.  Children, as a result, get the message that their activities are not important or that they are simply immature and must instead try and act like an adult – serious and business like.

But the exact opposite is true.  In a day and age when I believe far too many children are being robbed of their childhoods by over-regulated and scheduled lives – ballet lessons, math tutoring, second language classes, soccer leagues, etc. etc. – we have devalued the importance of and the spiritual ethic of joy, happiness and pure, un-regulated play.  Even in pre-schools and kindergarten classrooms, children are pushed to learn academic skills at earlier and earlier ages.  They are denied, in the process, the essential activity of play during which they learn life skills necessary to be fulfilled and happy.

Men and women should engage in play with children and not try and direct it through rules or suggestions.  Dads should be willing to play doll with their daughters and their sons.  Indeed, it is seen as extremely important that boys be allowed to play with dolls as this does not necessarily indicate feminine or gay tendencies.  Playing with dolls is a part of make believe and such activities promote creative thinking and the cognitive skill of “executive function” which enables one to self-regulate regarding rules, discipline, anger and behavior.  In make believe, children talk to themselves about what is appropriate speech and attitude.  Indeed, one psychologist suggests that adult self-talk is directly the result of childhood make-believe play.  When we internally think about certain situations and how to handle them, we are acting out what we hopefully enjoyed as children – how to employ reason and common sense in everyday life.

But play for fathers, men and women need not be all about what we learned from it as children.  Playful activity needs to be a part of adult lives.  I am far too serious for my own good.  I need to let go sometimes and be willing to make a fool of myself.  Play for adults reduces stress, encourages empathy, allows for the creation of community, fosters a better sense of humor, generates optimism and improves our immune systems.  Being playful and fun spirited enables intimacy between friends and partners and it is a vital ingredient in healthy romantic relationships.  We’re encouraged by many therapists not to be so serious about love and sex and to instead add elements of playfulness and role-playing into those areas of our lives.  All of this is to promote play – especially for men and dads – not just as a command or as something that is good for us.  Finding joy, fun and celebration in life is perhaps more importantly a spiritual ethic.

We so often read in the Bible about Jesus the man who comes across as dour, serious and a major kill-joy.  Adults often see spirituality in any form as involving deep introspection, prayer, sacrifice and acting respectable.  We come to church, we dress appropriately, we sit quietly and we do as we are told.  And we often listen to a minister who tells us how awful we are and how much we need to try and act better.  How many of us have listened to a minister wag his finger at us as we literally squirmed in our seats and were filled with guilt and shame?  You are welcome to boo and hiss if I ever come across to you as a so-called Preacher or self-righteous moralizer.  Believe me, I am as in need of growth in life as anyone else…

I believe, however, that Jesus was often a wild and crazy guy!  The Bible says that many people of his time commented that he was a glutton and a drunkard because he enjoyed parties so much.  Many of his parables included great parties or lavish feasts.   In performing his first public miracle, he turned six, twenty-gallon pots of water into the finest wine – all to be drunk at just one wedding celebration.  He hung out with prostitutes.  He allowed one to use her hair to wash him with oil.  He told little jokes and spoke in puns as when he told Peter – a name that literally means pebble – that upon this rock – upon Peter –  he will build his church.  Or when he told many of his disciples who had worked as fishermen, that he would turn them into fishers of men.  He used funny put-downs of hypocrites when he compared them to whitewashed tombs – clean and fancy on the outside but dirty and full of death on the inside and when he humorously told the wealthy that it would be easier for a camel to pass through the eye of needle than it would be for them to enter heaven.  Imagine picturing that scenario in your minds!

Alone among history’s prophets, Jesus celebrated children and proclaimed that anybody who wants to be a part of God’s Kingdom – heaven on earth – he or she must approach God like a child.  As is so often the case, man-made religions and creeds have turned Jesus into a stern but often sad taskmaster.  He was, instead, a champion of life, of joy and of a playful spirit.  Kids were his models for how we should act and that says everything about what Jesus valued.

But Jesus is not the only spiritual figure to promote joy and playful celebration.  The Buddha frequently spoke of the value of a happy heart.  He proclaimed that being joyful was not only a balance against negative attitudes and experiences but that acting in a joyful manner actually transforms our minds.  The Buddha said we are to actively cultivate happiness, compassion, love and generosity towards others.  When we do, we also become joyful.  And this is most exhibited by the Dalai Lama who has suffered greatly in his life yet who is playful and seemingly always happy.  Indeed, he states that, “The purpose of life is to be happy.”

We also see that a playful spirit was encouraged by great spiritual thinkers.  St. Augustine and St. Aquinas each promoted play and joke telling as important for spiritual relaxation.  The Bible describes, in one of the Psalms, God as playfully using clouds as his chariot and sunlight as his shiny clothing.  God brings forth grain for nourishment and wine for our pleasure.  And, in a remarkable scene that is endorsed by the Divine One, King David is described as one day joyfully stripping down to his undergarments and then dancing through the streets of Jerusalem – all in praise for the gifts of the God.  I cannot imagine a leader of any nation doing such a thing without large numbers of the population immediately declaring him or her insane!

I chose this topic on play for this Sunday – Father’s day – because I believe it is particularly important for men and dads in our culture to be more involved in the lives of children.  The arc of progress is moving ever forward in that direction – men of my dad’s generation would rarely involve themselves in regular and daily child-care.  The mere idea of a house-husband who stays home to raise his kids while his wife works was virtually unheard of, whereas today it is more common.  Men are getting more involved in the lives of their children – from diaper changing to feeding to being quite active in their lives.  Even more, however, I call on myself and other men to get involved in play with kids – to encourage it, engage in it and value its importance.  And, as much I say this to men – and to myself, I say it is so for all people.  Play is important!

We see, therefore, that play and playfulness in people

• Is a Divine ethic because it helps us be more sensitive to others, to focus on issues outside of ourselves, and….
• It is a Divine ethic because it leads us to enjoy the here and now and to be thankful and to rejoice.

When my two girls were younger, I one day decided that our family needed to build unity and spirit and laughter.  And, in some silly inspiration – a time when I took to heart the need to be playful – I invented with my girls what I called the “Slagle family cheer.”  It is totally ridiculous, non-choreographed and literally a stupid thing – hopping on one leg, flapping my arms, barking like a seal and shouting “Go Slagle”!!  I sometimes did the cheer in front of my girls because they would at first laugh and then would become mortified that their dad could do something so totally lame and “un-cool”.   I even threatened to force them to do the cheer with me in public settings or even at the worst of all places – someplace where their friends or peers would be watching!  Of course I would never have done such a thing but, at a few places like the mall or a restaurant, I would begin the cheer and my girls would look at me in horror and then quickly run away as if this idiot of man could not possibly be related to them.  Secretly, I hope, they thought it was funny, totally silly and, while dorky, also endearing.

I hope on this Father’s Day, on this day we celebrate all men, that we can fully embrace this June theme of summer fun.  Whether that involves heading out into nature to witness the Divine hand of creation or venturing to a ballpark and enjoying the slow rhythm of baseball, I hope the motivating factor in those endeavors is to have fun, to rejoice, to play and to find in ourselves a place of peace and total contentment.  Life is not without its trials and our moral imagination encourages us to serve the needs and cure the hurts of others.  In doing so, however, we find that play and merriment and celebration are spiritual practices.  Let us find our inner child, let us dream of fantastic worlds and let us play silly and funny games.    May we each – fathers, men, women and children – enjoy this great big playground called life.

Talkback questions to ponder… As we often do here, I open things up for your comments, thoughts or opinions.  As a part of that, you might consider some of these questions: 1) What importance does playfulness have in your life? 2) What is it about children that allows them to be playful and creati

Message 23, Baseball Spirituality, 6-13-10

download program: Service Program, 6-13-10

© Pastor Doug Slagle, The Gathering UCC, All rights reserved

Ernie Harwell, the author of the book on baseball entitled The Game for all America said, “Baseball?  It’s just a game – as simple as a ball and a bat.  Yet, it is as complex as the American spirit it symbolizes.  It’s a sport, a business – and sometimes even a religion.” And another baseball commentator once said, “A baseball park is the one place where a man’s wife doesn’t mind him getting excited over somebody else’s curves!”

Such quotes capture what it is about baseball that is so enduring and why it is that we love the game.  Continuing this month’s theme of Summer Fun, our look today at the game of baseball is a way to remind ourselves that ballparks are also symbolic churches in that they showcase many spiritual qualities we all profess and admire.  Baseball might begin in the spring and end in the fall but it is most identified with summer.  Indeed, I don’t believe we can fully experience summer if we have not, at least once during the season, spent a hot summer afternoon or evening playing softball or sitting at the ballpark.  We might watch it on TV, but that is not what I have in mind.  I hope we can each experience – either as a participant or as a spectator – a sweltering summer day at a baseball diamond, the flies buzzing, the dusty heat all around, a pitcher winding up to throw a fastball and hear the quick thump as the ball smacks the catcher’s glove or, perhaps, a solid thwack as the batter connects and launches a ball over the shortstop’s head.  This is summer fun in all its glory – the heat, the fans pressed close, beer, peanuts, a rundown field with a chain link backstop or a gleaming ballpark with red, white and blue pennants – all spent on a long, lazy afternoon.

Just as we considered last week our goal to spend time in the great outdoors and worship in nature’s church this summer, we can also worship the great institution of baseball.  It is not a perfect game nor is it necessarily the best.  But it symbolizes summer.  It evokes qualities and ideals that have universal and spiritual significance.  By examining something that has meaning for us as a culture, I believe we learn things about ourselves and what truths are important to us.  Baseball is an enduring cultural summer pastime for us because of its basic simplicity, its relative non-violence, its slow pace and its continuing message of hope and getting another chance.

To start us off, I want to invite up front with me – and I hope I don’t put him on the spot – one of our congregation’s experts on baseball – Elijah Miller-Cox. To all of you who don’t know this, Elijah is our church youth group!               INTERVIEW ELIJAH…..

Baseball, in my mind, has spirituality and the Divine written all over it.  For me it is the most optimistic of sports and pastimes.   There seems to be, in the game, always one more pitch, one more out, one more inning, one more game and one more season.  Even in losing, with baseball there is always the next day or “wait until next year!” We can see that this is a spiritual ideal that resonates in our lives.  There is always a second chance for redemption, for correction and for turning over a new leaf.  This is a value we embrace here at the Gathering – we continue to seek each Sunday greater insight and a better understanding of what is Truth.  We do not claim to have certain knowledge of the Divine or of life itself.  We are ever growing, ever learning, ever being resurrected and ever going up to bat and seeking the elusive keys to life that will teach us how to throw the perfect curveball, hit the slider or avoid an error.  We may often strike out but there is always the next Book Club or the next Sunday to come together and reflect and grow anew.  In us – as in baseball – is the stuff of forgiveness and redemption.

Baseball also tells us that there is a rhythm and a dance to our lives.  Seasons begin in hope and end in hope.  Games begin and end without any set time frame.  An inning may be over quickly or one may drag out indefinitely.  As much as we are a culture that is fast paced and frenetic, baseball calls us to slow down, to think and pursue a goal no matter the clock.  Our lives have no set time limit – just like baseball – but we ever stride up to bat, ever seek a hit and ever seek that elusive way home.  It is interesting that in baseball, a batter begins his quest at home while seeking to end it there too.  How much of life is about a cycle of running the bases, getting hits, often striking out but always learning new strategies and new ways to hit the ball?  And all of that is done while pursuing the goal of returning home again.  As T.S. Elliot once wrote, “In my beginning is my end…home is where one starts from…In my end is my beginning.” I don’t believe it is stretch to assert that in the rhythm of baseball are the elements of why we love it and why it has meaning for us.  We see in it the game of our lives – a journey for meaning and purpose and value so that when we do make it home we realize we are just beginning – one more pitch to throw, one more time at bat, one more season to play – one more chance to get it right.

And a baseball game is also one of the great celebrations we can experience.  From the opening singing of the National Anthem, to cheers at every hit, to the seventh inning stretch, to the final out and the fireworks that often follow, a game is not so much a contest or a battle as it is a time to celebrate.  As fans, we celebrate the unifying aspects of being in a cheering crowd.  As players, we celebrate the possibilities of the game – of testing one’s skills and one’s wits against another.  As an event, baseball celebrates fun – relaxing and talking with others in the crowd, being outdoors on a sunny day or balmy night, drinking a beer – or several beers, enjoying a picnic like meal – hot dogs, mustard, popcorn.  As a game, we celebrate players earning what they achieve – hits, strike outs, double plays, runs batted in.  All of these echo the magic moments of life – the expectation, the striving, the coming together as one to share food, to play, to be outside, to yell, to gaze at fireworks and to cheer great effort or achievement.

Baseball thus calls its players to do their best.  Runs are earned and are rarely given.  Even with a bad pitch, the batter must still hit the ball to the right place and successfully run the bases.  David Ogilvy, a retired player, said once in advice to young players – “Don’t bunt.  Aim out of the ballpark!” And that is an ethos we all try to follow in life – to do our best, to work, to strive and to succeed not for the sake of the prize but for the satisfaction of great effort.  The love of the game motivates players to strive for success.  Leo Durocher, a famous team manager, once said, “What do we play ball for except to win?  If I were to play against my mother, I’d trip her.  I’d help her up, brush her off, and tell her I’m sorry.  But, darn it mom, you aren’t going to make it to third base!” Such an attitude is said in jest and it evokes a certain streak of unwholesome competiveness.  But, I believe Durocher spoke to the fun streak inherent in baseball and in life.  We seek, we strive, we work.  In the process, we are thrilled to be in the game, thrilled to be playing, thrilled at our efforts and our work – and all of that combines fun, personal satisfaction and a strong work ethic.  Playing baseball – just like living life – is fun work.

Finally, I believe baseball historically has reflected much of what is good in the human spirit.  As I have said many times – almost like a broken record – humanity is influenced by the supernatural force of moral imagination.  The story of human culture is marked by tragedy, warfare, brutality and injustice.  But history’s clear and consistent pattern is one of slow but steady progress towards justice and towards mutual respect and cooperation.  This is for our own survival as a species.  We see that conflict and inequality are zero sum games.  Nobody wins.  If the story of life is the survival of the fittest, then at the end, only one species or one person still stands.  And what kind of victory is that?  The winner finds that, instead, he or she has lost.  This unconscious ethic is a supernatural force at work deep within us and it is perfectly reflected in the game of baseball as individual players act out the moral imagination of cooperation instead of personal interest.

Players understand that what might be good for themselves individually may not necessarily be good for the team.  It takes a joint effort to win – nine persons all working in tandem to score runs and prevent the other team from scoring.  As with many team sports, collective efforts win the game.  Even more so with baseball, however, players often sacrifice themselves and their individual interests for the sake of the team.  Bunts and suicide squeezes are executed in order to move a base runner into scoring position.  Sacrifice flies are hit to allow a runner to score from third.  Pitchers and base runners allow themselves to be replaced by another – in the interest of the team.  And, players will often sacrifice their bodies by sliding into second base in order to prevent a double play throw to first or a successful throw to home plate.  I don’t want to stretch this analogy too far but such acts are common in baseball.  They reflect the ideal that we must cooperate and, indeed, even sacrifice our self interest for the sake of the whole.  Without an inherent moral imagination to work for the common good, a baseball team will rarely be successful.

And this ethic to work for what is best competitively has also historically been at work in the game.  Despite the stain of segregation in baseball that gave rise to the Negro league of the early twentieth century, baseball soon moved to the cultural forefront through integration.  At a time when African-Americans still rode at the back of buses, ate at separate lunch counters and went to separate and unequal schools, Jackie Robinson in 1947 became a hero to many by showing quiet grace and skill as he integrated major league baseball.  He was better than most white players – winning rookie of the year, most valuable player and joining the All-Star team numerous times – all while maintaining a quiet dignity and basic spirit of humility.

By signing Robinson, the Dodgers and baseball showed the nation that decency, equality and full celebration of all people based on the content of their character and not the color of their skin, can move humanity forward.  Twenty years before Martin Luther King’s “I Have a Dream speech”, baseball and Jackie Robinson lived out the dream by making America and baseball better in the process.

While the African-American comedian Dick Gregory can still say, only half in jest, that “Baseball has been very good to my people.  It figures.  It’s the only way we can shake a big stick at a white man without starting a riot”, the words of Lou Gehrig ring just as true when he said, “There is no room in baseball for discrimination.  It is our national pastime and a game for all.”

And Gehrig himself, like Jackie Robinson, stands still today as a hero for the ages.  Suffering from a terminal illness which today bears his name, Lou Gehrig upon his retirement spoke with the grace and moral imagination that is so often a hallmark of baseball.   On June 21, 1939, Gehrig poignantly retired from baseball instead of dragging down his beloved Yankees as he progressively became paralyzed.  Having played in over 2100 consecutive games and having a .341 career batting average – higher than his teammate Babe Ruth – Gehrig tearfully called himself “the luckiest man on the face of the earth” as he retired and replaced himself midseason – a sacrifice for the game and for the fans.

I spoke last week of finding the time this season – as a part of fun experiences this summer – to venture into the great outdoors to worship in nature’s church.  In those places of supernatural beauty with mountains, forests, lakes and animals, we can see the Divine creative hand at work.

Echoing my appeal from last week, I commend us to the game of baseball this summer.   I can think of only a few other pastimes that so fully represent this season to us.  And, in so many ways, ballparks across the country are churches too.  They evoke the timeless aspects of life – of finding meaning in the hope, patience and perseverance of the game.  Of sacrifice and fun, of earning your success in life to the quiet dignity of cooperation, baseball is, as Walt Whitman said, the people’s game.  In this vision of mine, at a ballpark later this afternoon when Elijah Miller will take to the field to play another of his games or when the Reds continue their winning season today, we are reminded of words from the Bible describing a great cloud of witnesses.  In this summer fun pastime of baseball, there is a cloud of witnesses finding companionship, sharing a meal, drinking a beer, cheering and watching a game that knows no time limits, champions cooperation, exalts the best of humanity and daily calls each of us – whether we are players or spectators – to live according to its Divine traditions and to simply, “Play Ball!”

Message 22, Nature’s Church, Part One of Summer Fun Series, June 6, 2010  

download program: Service Program, 6-6-10

View a pictorial video of Gathering nature photos (click here then on the fourth video – green page)

© Pastor Doug Slagle, The Gathering UCC, All rights reserved

I love summer and all of the ways that we enjoy it.  For me, summer has always meant vitality, warmth and fun.  I remember as a young boy counting the days and weeks until summer came – not just for the release from school but also for what it meant to me and the things I loved best.  During the summers of my youth, I enjoyed tramping through the woods behind our home, following the Reds and their great players like Pete Rose, Johnny Bench and Joe Morgan, going to the pool to swim, summer camp spent sailing on a lake or long journeys in the family car to National Parks out west.  There was work to be done as a teenager when I delivered newspapers or ran the rifle game at King’s Island or served as a lifeguard and swimming instructor.  But summer still remained a time of fun and expectation for me and that still influences how I think about it even today.

And that theme of summer fun will be the focus of our June message series – to find glimpses of meaning and inspiration in our upcoming summer.  I want to explore what we might learn about ourselves and our world in the process and I want to use this theme as a way to further our search for meaning and spiritual truth.  Today, I want to consider how what I call “the great outdoors”, not only frames one of the things we might love best about summer experiences, but also how we can see and worship the Divine in it.  Next week, we’ll look at the summer pastime of baseball and explore through its rules and traditions ways that can explain how we approach life and spirituality.  And finally, two weeks from today, we’ll think about play and how it is a way we can both honor and appreciate fathers and men.

Experiencing nature and the great outdoors is something that we can enjoy at any time of the year but which, I think, we celebrate most during the summer.  It is a time when vacations mostly center around visiting someplace where experience the outdoors, when we spend weekend afternoons in our yards or at a local park or when we play and are active in an outside game or sport.  I love being outdoors.  I love experiencing nature in some form – on a bike, at a beach or on a trail.  Such times invigorate me and allow me to return to times and places where I must be indoors or at work.  Most of us thrill at opportunities to be outdoors in whatever form and I believe it is deep within our human DNA to seek a return to our home, our cradle and the very source of creation – the natural world.  Indeed, I believe that nature and the outdoors constitute not only the largest and greatest of all churches but that in it and amongst it we find the Divine, the Mother or Father God we yearn to understand and feel.  On this day in early June with three months of summer yet before us, I hope we might dedicate ourselves and some of our available time to venture outside, to bask in the sun, to listen to the wind and crickets and bird chirps and then let go of all that binds us to our artificial and human-made world.  We will continue to ponder and explore spiritual truths here each and every Sunday but I challenge us this summer to seek such truths in the mystery, transcendence and holiness of nature.  I challenge us to turn away from human made worlds and return to places that no human hand has built.  In those places, I believe, we can find the Divine One – that infinite power of goodness, peace and renewal which is expressed through all creation.

John Muir, the great nineteenth century naturalist who inspired Teddy Roosevelt to create many of our National Parks, once wrote that “Every particle of rock or water or air has God by its side leading it the way it should go; The clearest way into the Universe is through a forest wilderness; In God’s wildness is the hope of the world.” For Muir, experiencing nature was the surest and easiest way to experience the true attributes of the Divine.  To venture into the wilds of nature was to undertake a serious and dedicated effort to worship and celebrate the supernatural realm.  For Muir, the natural world expresses and conducts the Divine to humans.  For him, it was and is living and breathing Scripture in which we can find perfect and unchangeable truth.  Echoing Muir, Ralph Waldo Emerson, the famous transcendentalist philosopher – whose writings inspired Muir, he said, “The happiest man is he who learns from nature the lesson of worship.  The noblest ministry of nature is to stand as the apparition of God. It is the organ through which the universal spirit speaks to the individual, and strives to lead back the individual to it.” Indeed, even the Bible declares in many of its Psalms that the heavens and the earth each proclaim the power and majesty of the Divine.  The beauty of nature, its great complexity, its abundance and its many mysteries each speak of a supernatural power at work.  In nature’s midst, we can marvel at such a truth and thus visually see with our own eyes universal goodness and virtue.

Much like we can often sense God or the mysterious Divine presence around us, returning to nature encourages us to listen, feel and rely on intuition.  As we move away from technology and manmade distractions and enter the great outdoors, we learn to heed the warning calls of birds as storms approach, the shape and color of clouds to forecast weather or the subtle variations of plant life in a particular area that indicates proximity to water or even directional compass points.   Indeed, human science is often no better than nature’s clear and loud voice and it is in that voice when we might hear God if we should only stop and listen.

And, as much as we learn to hear holiness in nature, we can also learn what it means to find true inner peace and a sense of trust .  The power of the natural world is immense and so we must learn trust and acceptance within it.  All of the best minds and billions of dollars cannot stop the flow of oil as it leaks in the Gulf of Mexico.  When we rely too much on our own flawed human capabilities, we are quickly humbled by nature.  I learned this lesson myself just last week when Ed and I travelled for a day to the Florida Everglades and ventured deep into them in a small motor boat.  As we hurried back to the marina in our boat, a speck in the vast and open waterways of the Everglades, we saw dark, grumbling and ominous clouds hurrying towards us.  We’d been warned before we left about being in the open during such storms but on a bright, sunny afternoon we were not concerned.  Very quickly, though, near the end of our adventure, we were engulfed in a hard and driving rain, visibility was difficult and the purple clouds above threatened to strike us with flashes of lightning.  I was concerned and indeed scared.  The open water is not a place to be during a thunder storm.  But, as I reflect on that moment and others like it when I have been in the wilderness, I realize how small, insignificant and powerless I am before the mighty god of nature.  We are humbled in the wilderness as we witness forces that we cannot begin to comprehend – the power to lift up mountains, to sculpt deep canyons, to build thousand mile long ocean reefs teeming with diverse life and,       to quickly and mercilessly alter the prevailing environment through storm, hurricane, flood and earthquake.  Humans are mere ants in the immensity of nature – ceaselessly toiling to mold the environment to our liking only to see nature inevitably and inexorably defeat our efforts.

The Bible talks about being still and humble before the power of God.  With my heart racing as I sped our boat through miles of driving rain and crashing thunder, I too was kneeling before the Divine.  I can look back now and thrill at that moment – drenched and frightened as I was – but alive and in the embrace of a greater power.  A return to nature reminds us of mysteries all around that, despite our arrogance, we cannot control but must simply and quietly accept as a part of this universe into which we are privileged to be a part.  And in that acceptance, we learn that we can trust in the goodness and the purpose of the great outdoors.

In our recognition of this power, we also find that as we submit to it, we do not become spectators or observers or tourists.  We come to understand that we are an intrinsic part of its large fabric and diversity.  We are one species, tiny specks of creation, that are ourselves puzzle pieces in the greatness of the outdoors.  We are nature and nature is us.  We are no different from the wild shrubs growing on some prairie or a slumbering antelope on the plains of Africa.  In that respect, we realize that as we are a part of nature itself we are also part of God.  In us is the Truth of all creation and in the mysterious realm of holiness and supernatural power, we find each of us.  Walt Whitman, the noted American poet, wrote in his famous compilation of poems Leaves of Grass, “I celebrate myself, and sing myself, and what I assume you shall assume, for every atom belonging to me as good belongs to you.  I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love. If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.” As one who searched for meaning in his loves and in his existence, Whitman chronicled for us the stirrings of our own hearts – how we too want to know where we came from and what purpose we serve.

As a part of nature, we exist to create and populate but also to live in unison with and not apart from rocks and plants and stars and animals.  The dust of galaxies a million miles away courses through our veins at this very moment and one day – in some far off distant time – the very atoms in us will swim as a whale through deep oceans or will stand high and mighty as towering mountains.  As Whitman understood, we are but leaves of grass – persistent and ever growing, ever dying, ever being reborn and forever a part of the great outdoors.

Nature, according to John Muir, is our true home.  As he wrote, “Thousands of tired, nerve-shaken, over-civilized people are beginning to find out that going to the mountains is going home; that wilderness is a necessity; and that mountain parks and reservations are useful not only as fountains of timber and irrigating rivers, but as fountains of life.”

If nature is our real home, and all that we build for ourselves in the shape of houses or huts or skyscrapers are artificial and plastic, I believe we must both return to and celebrate the natural world.  So often I hear from various people that they do not attend church even though they may believe in a higher power.  For them, walking through a tree-lined park or even hitting a small white golf ball over acres of manicured grass is church indeed.  And, I agree with them.  What great cathedrals with golden altars, stained glass, vaulted roofs and painted ceilings can match nature’s church with an inky night sky speckled with starry lights and great canopies of forest and jungle underneath populated by striped zebra, bald eagle or shiny beetle?  The pretensions of man assume we can create churches to our liking when, I will submit to you, the universe is a far greater place of worship and our fellowship with creatures and plants – great and small – is a very friendly congregation.  If you wish to surrender yourself to occasional Sunday times in the great outdoors, I celebrate that decision.  My only appeal to you is that no building is a church and, as Jesus himself claimed, he had no home.  Perhaps humans should remember such humility when they construct elaborate churches or when they choose where to worship.  Our church, our home, I believe, is where we meet together and wherever we honor both one another but also those who hurt and are marginalized.  There is value not in any man made place but in our community and when we find the time, as we do when we experience nature, to ponder and meditate on the mysteries of the Divine, that is where god exists and where we will find her or him.

To each of you, my friends whom I truly love, let us think about our summer fun that lies ahead.  In doing so today and over the coming few weeks, let us venture back to the wild and uncontrolled realm of the outdoors.  Let us search for its mysteries and its power.  Let us experience its beauty, its wonderful complexity and its awe inspiring power.  May we humble ourselves before this divine throne, worship its gift of life and submit ourselves to its power.  Our souls hunger for a return to that home of ours.  As Whitman wrote, our souls and our bodies sing with the joy at being one with all creation.  Nature defines us – we are born, raised, loved and die all as a part of its great mystery.  In it, we find peace and order and goodness.  Nature does not kill or steal or harm for nothing.  Its song is us, we are its verses and our lives are a part of its melody.  And so I encourage us to go home this summer – go home to the forests and meadows and oceans of all creation and meet, in those places, the Divine One.