Universalism and the White Crows (November 13, 2016)

Have you ever felt likeTacky the Penguin? Like the way you walk is different from the way the other people in your group walk? Like the songs you sing are different than the songs the others sing? Like everyone else is quiet and polite, and you are just too loud and tacky? Or maybe you feel the exact opposite, like everyone around you is exciting and interesting and you are the only quiet one? Do you ever feel like you are an odd bird?

When you are the outlier, like the only white crow in a world of black crows, you can get the impression that there’s something wrong with you. Whether you are the only poet in a group of scientists, or the only atheist in a congregation full of theists, there can be a lot of pressure from your family, or congregation, or neighborhood to be like everyone else.

When I was a little girl, I had no trouble fitting in to my family- I was a bookish introvert among bookish introverts, a UU among UUs, a liberal among liberals. But as soon as I went off to school I knew something was wrong with me. I was a bookworm among kids who loves sports, I was a UU among fundamentalist Christians, and a liberal among conservatives. My parents ran a music school instead of having a normal job like lawyer, or salesman or project manager. I felt like Tacky pretty much all the time. As much as my peers pressured me to change, I just couldn’t figure out how to change into the person they wanted me to be.

It wasn’t until I went off to seminary, and took the battery of tests they give all aspirants for UU ministry, including the Meyer’s Briggs personality Type index, I learned that my type is called “INFJ” which represents less than 1% of the population. I began to think of my differences not as character flaws to be fixed, but as unique gifts that I could use to serve the world in my own way.

Our diversity- biological diversity, psychological diversity- is important to the survival of the species. Each biological difference evolved to fill some niche in our eco-system. The more diverse we are, the more prepared we are for a changing future, and for the survival of life itself. That first living being to photosynthesize light into energy was undoubtedly an outlier, but that diversity was so useful, now plants fill our world.

The same is true of our personality differences. The world needs Introverts, who can spend large amounts of time alone doing that work best done in solitude, and the world needs extroverts, people who can spend all day engaged with other people. The world needs scientists and poets and farmers, the world needs people who notice the small details, and people who see the big picture. The world needs people who can follow a schedule and make plans, and the world needs people who can be spontaneous and improvise when the plan falls apart.

When he learned I was doing this sermon, my colleague Dan Harper sent me this poem by Edwin Markham, Universalist poet

They drew a circle that shut me out --
Heretic, a rebel, a thing to flout.
But Love and I had the wit to win:
We drew a circle that took them in.

Unitarian Universalism is a faith that draws a circle that includes all of us- even Tacky the Penguin

Now that’s easy to say in theory, but what does that mean in our day to day lives together? On a Podcast called “Personality Hacker” hosts Joel Mark Witt and Antonia Dodge talked about how challenging it is to be outlier, and offered some advice:

1. Permission. Give yourself permission to show up as yourself, to do what makes sense to you in the world. For example, I have learned to notice when I am getting run down by too much time socializing, and to find time alone to recharged. When I am visiting my dad’s family, who are mostly introverts, there is a natural time in the day when everyone disappears to read or nap or practice their instrument, and I use that time to meditate or do yoga. When I go visit extroverts, however, this behavior can be mystifying, and bordering on rude. Where did Darcey go and when will she be back? Which leads us to #2-

2. Protection. We odd birds need to be able to say “you can’t tell me who I am” We need protection from the message that we are wrong for being different and from attempts to make us like everyone else.

3. Communication. We are encouraged to proactively communicate why we are like this, where we are coming from. For example, now that I know I am an introvert, and that this is a perfectly okay thing to be, I was able to say to my colleagues at a recent conference “I’m going to go get 20 minutes of introvert time before we start up again” and no one batted an eye.

4. Healing. If your parents always made fun of you for reading a book instead of watching football with the family, or for being a vegetarian when the rest of the family ate the traditional American diet, you’ve probably got an Ouchy spot in your spirit around that. What could you do to honor that part of yourself, and to heal those old pains?

One of the best thing about growing up is that you get to find your people. A white crow among white crows is just one of the crowd. For example, after a lifetime of thinking I was literally the most liberal person on the planet, I moved to Berkeley California and began to feel pretty main stream. Being a white crow among white crows is a bit of a relief. This is the reason for Pride Days, for conferences, for affinity groups -- to have a place where you can be yourself and no one looks at you like you have lobsters crawling out of your ears. To talk the way you naturally talk and be met with understanding nods instead of blank stares. It feels comfortable to be an insider. It’s a form of privilege.

I wonder if you can think of any examples in your own life, where you have been part of the majority and noticed someone else who had trouble fitting in?

As a UU minister I have the privilege of getting to do things that I enjoy and feel comfortable with: Sitting quietly, thinking deeply, reading poetry, listening to music. And folks in our congregation will approach me, often with great trepidation, to admit that these things sometimes make them feel like Tacky the penguin. “I don’t get poetry” a number of members have mentioned to me over the years or “I think I am the only Christian” or “I think I’m the only politically conservative person” or “Can I come to this potluck even though I’m not a vegan?”

We are such a diverse group of people; I bet every one of us has felt like Tacky the Penguin at some moment or other. And in most circumstances we expect Tacky to try to fall in line with the other penguins. But I believe that part of our mission as Unitarian Universalists is to make sure that the both the white crows and the black crows have a voice. It’s important that our congregations support people in being their authentic self. For Joel Mark Witt and Antonia Dodge there are 2 steps:

1. Support the outliers in your family, your church, your office, in getting to spend time every day in their “flow state”. Make sure the extroverts get time socializing with people. Make sure children who have trouble sitting still, get plenty of time to run around. [if possible use examples from the congregation]

2. Don’t thwart or frustrate diverse needs. Have you ever been at a congregational meeting and someone asks a question that seems like it comes from out of left field? When someone says something or does something you don’t understand, it probably comes from a radically different perspective than your own. If we say “what a thing to say!” or “that question is not important” we risk missing an important point of view. Instead we can strive to validate and be open one another instead of dismissing unique viewpoints and needs. Because not only do each of us need to feel heard and understood, each unique perspective is important to the health and wellbeing of our community. Remember Tacky the Penguin, whose unusual way of looking at the world saved the day.

When Antonia Dodge noticed that one of their sons was a different personality type than the rest of the family, she realized “I can’t just act as if he is like the rest of us. I have to acknowledge and hold space for his being different.” Antonia and Joel asked themselves “how do we accommodate him and honor him as a unique individual, while still making sure we don’t distance ourselves from who we are as a group?”

Some of you may remember a quote by UU theologian Rebecca Parker that I’ve shared with you before-

“Love seeks to know the other as "other." Not as an extension of oneself, not as a reflection or as utilitarian presence to be there for one's use but as an other of sacred worth in the other's own rights. From the other's own perspectives, the other's own practices and values. Love seeks to know the other as other and to preserve and protect the just-so-ness, the "otherness" of the other.”

Whether people are different from us in their personality type, their politics, race or sexual orientation, as Universalists we cast a circle that takes them in. Not just in theory, but in our daily life together. By encouraging everyone’s unique gifts, and supporting each person’s unique struggles, we embody Universalism. Probably we are all odd birds in some way- but I happen to know that each of us is a very nice bird to have around.

Every Being? (October 14, 2016)

Venus Fly Trap. Photo Credit Darcey Laine

Who does God love? This is the question at the heart of Universalism. When Universalism was born 250 years ago, that question was usually answered with a line drawn in the sand- dividing those who are in and those who are out. Instead Universalists imagine a world without such a line, proposing that every soul, every person is held in that love. As the song says “God’s love embraces the whole human race.”

A lot has changed since the 1700s. When Unitarianism and Universalism merged in the 1960s, we needed to find a way to express that belief at the core of our Universalist tradition in a way that was inclusive for humanists and atheists in our Unitarian tradition. So we now say that we covenant to affirm and promote “the inherent worth and dignity of every person”

For the past few years I’ve been concerned by the fact that our first principle, inclusive as it is, still contains a line in the sand. Do we who stand in the Universalist tradition believe that God’s love embraces ONLY the human race? Do we believe that only human beings have inherent worth and dignity? What would happen if we changed the wording of that principle to “the inherent worth and dignity of every being?”

It turns out other UUs are asking themselves the same questions. A group called the First Principle Project is challenging all UU congregations to do the hard theological work of deciding where to draw that circle of universal worth and dignity.

At our congregational meeting last June, my congregation in Athens, PA passed a motion to “bring a proposal to the General Assembly to change the wording of the First Principle from “the inherent worth and dignity of every person” to “the inherent worth and dignity of every being.”

The UUA rules require 15 congregations to pass such motions in order for the change to come before the General Assembly of UU congregations. I’m thrilled to report that as of today we are now up to 22 ! According to Lorakim Joyner, president of the First Principle Project, this “means that we will … bring this before the entire Unitarian Universalist Association [at] GA in New Orleans in June 2017. After that (if the vote is affirmative) it goes to a 1-2 year study process, then more votes.” She reminds us that “The more congregations that participate, the better educated and aware we are for the vote (and for the issues)” Suddenly the conversation has expanded to include the whole UU movement. You, as a congregation, will have an opportunity to be part of this process; your delegates to the 2017 General Assembly will be part of that critic al gatekeeping vote about whether we can begin the study process LoraKim mentioned, or whether the discussion will be stopped in its tracks.

This is not something we should decide lightly, or quickly. Our 7 UU principles guide our actions and guide our ethics. As a minister, I think this is an important conversation, an important way for us to discern how we as UUs relate to the interconnected web of life of which we are all a part. I hope that having this conversation, that reflecting and speaking and listening is at least as important as the possible change to the by-laws that might follow.

What would it mean to change that one word- to change “all people” to “all beings.”? Why is this fine theological point even worth talking about? Ever since I was a little girl, something troubled me about the way humans hold themselves apart from the rest of the beings. I didn’t learn that there is a word for this until quite recently- anthropocentrism. We, the humans “antrhopos” (the Greek word for humans) put ourselves at the center of things. The first problem with anthropocentrism is its impact on the other species, and on the eco-systems of which we are part. If humans are the most important, if we are the heroes of this story, then all the other beings around us are just supporting characters, or even just props, or backdrops, for the story of our salvation, (if we want to tell the Judeo-Christian religious story), or of our progress (if we want to tell a more modern story). Mountains, and rivers, trees, and other animals are just “resources” in our human story, in the story Aldo Leopold was living out that day he watched the green fire go out in the wolf’s eyes. In fact it was Leopold’s job to hunt wolves and other predators in New Mexico, to help protect livestock. In that story humans were the heroes, and wolfs were the villains; the death of a wolf was considered a victory for the humans.

Now what happens if we tell a slightly different story? One where a wolf could be the hero, or a tree could be the hero? Or what if we told a story with an ensemble cast, where the person, the tree, the wolf, the mountain and the deer all had a part to play? In that moment on the mountain when the story changed for Leopold it changed how he saw himself in the story, and it changed how he spent the rest of his life. It was because of Leopold that European-Americans began to develop something called “wildlife management” and started a conversation about environmental ethics.

The thing about being the hero of a story, is that people pay attention to you. If we tell the story so that humans are the heroes, and we are only paying attention to people, we miss some of the other plot-lines that are happening all around us. When Leopold expanded his attention to include the wolves and the deer and the mountain herself, he noticed that the loss of the wolf from the mountain lead to an explosion in the deer population, which in turn lead a denuding of all the plants on the mountain, plants whose roots hold the soil in place and prevent erosion. Eventually this explosion of deer lead to great starvation and suffering and death among the deer population itself. Part of our covenant to affirm and promote the interconnected web of life of which we are all a part is simply to pay attention, to be mindful. The more we watch the amazing story of wolves, and deer, and trees and mountains, and yes humans too, the more the inherent worth of all those things becomes visible.

What difference does a word make? Robin Wall Kimmerer, a biologist here in upstate New York, began learning the Potawatomi language to help preserve that part of her Native American heritage. She noticed that in Potawatomi grammar, all living beings are treated as people instead of as objects. She writes “Our toddlers speak of plants and animals as if they were people, extending to them self and intention and compassion – until we teach them not to. We quickly retrain them and make them forget. When we tell them that the tree is not a who, but an it, we make that maple and object; we put a barrier between us, absolving ourselves of moral responsibility and opening the door to exploitation. Saying it makes a living land into “natural resources.” If a maple is an it, we can take up the chain saw. If a maple is a her, we think twice.” [Braiding Sweetgrass p. 57]

In the spirit of full disclosure, let me admit to you that I am a tree hugger from way back. I am the kind of person that helps spiders out of my shower, and rescues worms off the sidewalk after the rain. I get a lot of rolled eyes when people discover this side of me. They warn me about the dangers of “anthropomorphism” (Anthropos= human, morphe= "form") that is, thinking of other beings as if they are human. Examples of this are all over YouTube: cats playing pianos and asking “I can haz cheezburger?” As Kimmerer’s student Carla points out, anthropomorphism is “disrespectful to the animals. We shouldn’t project our perceptions onto them. They have their own ways--- they’re not just people in furry costumes.” We know, for example, that a dog’s sense of smell is about 1,000 to 10,000,000 times more sensitive than a human’s (depending on the breed). We know that dogs can hear about 4 times the distance of an average human, and can hear higher pitched sounds that humans cannot hear. So humans will never really understand what it is like to be a dog. Kimmerer’s student Andy responds “but just because we don’t think of them as humans doesn’t mean they aren’t beings. Isn’t it even more disrespectful to assume that we’re the only species that counts as ‘persons’?”
As the Theologian Rebecca Parker says:

“Love seeks to know the other as ‘other.’ Not as an extension of oneself, not as a reflection or as utilitarian presence to be there for one's use but as an other of sacred worth in the other's own rights.”

When the church board down in Athens started considering this issue we wondered "Does the AIDS virus have worth and dignity? Or what about the anopheles mosquito? If every being has worth and dignity is it OK to kill a tick that could be spreading Lyme disease? ” I think our wonderings could be distilled down into 2 questions. The first is philosophical- it is the same question that our first principle has always challenged us to ask - does God love even our enemies? Do people who harm us have inherent worth and dignity? This is a question we have to wrestle with whether we are talking about humans or other animals, or even bacteria. The second is a practical question; what is the ethical way to respond to a a being who threatens our health or livelihood, and do the ethics change if the threat comes from a being with inherent worth or dignity?

Let’s go back to the wolves. At the time when Leopold came to his radical change of perspective, wolves had long been enemies of humans, something out of nightmare and fairytale. Suddenly Leopold realized that our enemy the wolf had a place in the wholeness of things and decided he would no longer participate in the systematic killing of wolves. He realized that the life of a wolf is precious, and should not be taken lightly. For him the inherent worth and dignity of the wolf meant that we needed to stop the extermination of wolves from our mountains, even to protect our cattle. But Leopold was a hunter his whole life, and I’m sure would have defended his own life or his family if threatened.

So let’s look at cattle- do they have inherent worth and dignity? Do they have worth aside from their value as a commodity? Beyond the profit they can bring to the ranchers and meat packers and grocery stories? Beyond the nourishment they bring to humans? Many people believe that promoting the inherent worth and dignity of all beings means becoming vegan, and so they change their lives to support that ethical principle. Other folks follow that line of argument to suggest that if we change our first principle to “all beings” we would all have to become vegan to live within our principles, and so they would vote against the change.

Because I am the kind of person that helps spiders out of my shower, and rescues worms from the sidewalk after the rain, it surprises many people that I eat meat, and that I support my friends and neighbors who hunt or fish sustainably for food. When I look around at the natural world, I see that every being eats and is eaten. I also know that most species of cows and chickens, for example, have been bread so far away from their wild form that we couldn’t just release them into the world and let them live free- these are species that have grown up alongside us in relationship with is. So even though I know that being vegan is a highly ethical stance, one I admire very much, the calling I feel in my own heart is not to renounce eating other beings, but to support the dignity of the lives of the animals who feed me- to support farmers who raise their chickens, for example, in a way that promotes dignity and is as free from suffering as any life can be. I am also try to stay aware of the issues of over-fishing of our oceans, and to avoid eating species whose eco-systems are threatened by human fishing practices. For me the “inherent worth and dignity of all beings” puts me on the hot seat every time I look at a menu- it calls me to accountability as a consumer, and as a voter. It doesn’t feel good to fall short of my own ideals and aspirations, but I believe we set the ethical mark not by what is achievable, but by who our earth needs us to become.

So what about the Aids virus, the mosquito, the e-coli bacteria? Do they have inherent worth? To answer this question I think we need great humility. From our human point of view and limited scientific knowledge, it seems like if all 3 of these bad boys were wiped out the world would be a much better place. But humans have a history of causing permanent damage to eco-systems because we did not understand the impact of our actions. It wasn’t until the wolf was removed from the mountains that we began to notice his true worth. An organization called “Mission Wolf” who is working to restore wolves to their ecosystems noticed that:

“Since wild wolves have returned to Yellowstone, the elk and deer are stronger, the aspens and willows are healthier and the grasses taller. For example, when wolves chase elk during the hunt, the elk are forced to run faster and farther. As the elk run, their hooves aerate the soil, allowing more grasses to grow. Since the elk cannot remain stationary for too long, aspens and willows in one area are not heavily grazed, and therefore can fully recover between migrations. As with the rest of the country, coyote populations were nearly out of control in Yellowstone before the wolves returned. Now, the coyotes have been out-competed and essentially reduced by 80 percent in areas occupied by wolves. The coyotes that do remain are more skittish and wary. With fewer coyotes hunting small rodents, raptors like the eagle and osprey have more prey and are making a comeback. The endangered grizzly bears successfully steal wolf kills more often than not, thus having more food to feed their cubs. … A wild wolf population actually makes for a stronger, healthier and more balanced ecosystem. From plant, to insect, to people... we all stand to benefit from wolves.”

Scientists theorize that we could eliminate mosquitoes without any harm to our ecosystems, but affirming the inherent worth and dignity of every being, even one as seemingly useless as the mosquito, teaches the humility to admit that we don’t fully understand this web of life, that connections and balances may exist we can’t even fathom.

I’m not saying I would stop slapping at the mosquitoes who come after me on a summer evening if UUs vote to change this principle, but it might make me pause. Instead of killing the mosquito mindlessly, because it is an object and has no worth, I would have to weigh the loss of life against my own discomfort. Even if I don’t change my actions- slapping the mosquito on my arm just as I would before, taking antibiotics for e-coli as usual, the change is one of perspective, and of respect. It is no longer an ethically neutral action to kill mosquitoes, to kill even the deadly aids virus, because nothing we do in this world is ethically neutral. Nothing we do is disconnected from the web of life.

You as a congregation have a chance to be part this historic conversation as all the UUs in the country to consider: how big is the circle Universalism casts? Does it include not only all people, but the deer, the wolf, the tree and the mountain? How might your answer to that question inform our life together?

I believe that universalism reflects a profound oneness. It draws a circle that leaves no being outside. And though this one-ness can be challenging, ethically and spiritually, our Universalist faith calls us to embrace that challenge.

Vision & Mission (March 13, 2016)

Sermon Part 1: Vision
Consider the North star, also called the Pole Star or “ Polaris.” Our friends at “earthsky” point out that it appears to hold “nearly still in our sky while the entire northern sky moves around it. That’s because it’s located [near] the north celestial pole, the point around which the entire northern sky turns.”[i] A clear vision is like a pole star, holding steady and guiding us no matter where we may travel, no matter how the seas may change.

When I was in seminary all my teachers made sure we understood that it was important to create a vision statement with your congregation. I’ve been through this a few times now, and it always seems to involve butcher paper, and colorful magic markers, and possibly sticky dots. And when, a couple of months later, I couldn’t even remember the vision we had described that day, I always assumed that a better, more sophisticated process would be more successful if we tried again. We read books and expert opinions and started anew with a fresh pad of easel paper.

I think the misunderstanding I had, we had, was that vision was something that that we could create in a couple of hours on a Saturday afternoon if we just had the right process. What I now believe is that a true vision is already there, and needs only to be uncovered, given language, shared.

When Dr. Martin Luther King gave his famous “I have a dream” speech at the Lincoln Memorial in 1963, he was proceeding along with his prepared remarks when Gospel singer Mahalia Jackson shouted, “Tell them about the dream, Martin.” At that moment, he put his notes down and could describe, just out of his heart, to the dream that was already guiding him. He put into words the vision that had guided him to that point. When he said “I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character”[ii] he gave voice to a longing that was already in the hearts and minds of the people listening to them that day. It is still in our hearts and minds this Sunday morning, still guiding us forward when we hear about the racial bias people of color experience in this world today. We hear those news stories about the way children of color are treated, and hold those stories up to Dr. King’s vision, and we can see we still have a long way to go.

Being able to imagine the future, to dream the future, is important to who we are as humans. Our dreams, large and small, provide a guiding star for our travels so we can know where we are headed, even when we don’t know exactly how to get there. Creating a vision is something we are already doing every day. Here is the most mundane example I can think of: you are sitting in the living room and it comes to you “I want cheesy fries.” That’s it. That’s your vision. Sometimes the vision is easily implementable- you already have some frozen French fries in the freezer, and some cheese in the fridge, all you have to do is go into the kitchen and start cooking. Other times, the vision seems impossible- it’s already late at night, and you don’t have any of the ingredients. But if you can hang onto that vision, say, the next time you are at the grocery store, or the next time you are out to eat, that vision can still someday become reality. See- visioning is easy.

The first time each of us came to this fellowship we had a vision that drew us here. Maybe the picture in our mind was of a place where we could meet new people, where we could find community. Maybe the vision was of yourself speaking what was in your heart, and other people truly listening. Or maybe you were frustrated and saddened by the state of the world, and imagined here at this fellowship you could meet other people who were concerned, and together we could do something. I know you had a vision because you would never have come that first time without some hope for what you would find here.

Visioning is not about “how.” Even the congregational leadership manuals are clear about this. “How” is the sphere of plans and strategies. Some strategies fail, some succeed. When we confuse strategy for vision, when we confused the path for the guiding star, we sometimes end up losing our way. One of the hardest parts of visioning is daring to have a dream when you can’t see a path that takes you there. If we only allow ourselves to imagine what seems practical and possible, we might not even be able to imagine what we really need and want. Consider Marriage Equality. How many of you thought 10 years ago, 20 years ago, that same-gender couples would be able to be legally married in the state of Pennsylvania? But we dreamed that dream anyway, and it came true. It’s hard to dream something that seems impossible; it’s scary because we know we might be disappointed. But what is possible changes as the times change.

And times are changing so fast right now, it’s easy to be buffeted about by the swiftly changing waters of our times. Organized religion itself is changing radically. Whereas in the 1950s just about everyone went to church or synagogue, we are told, today more and more folks have never even been. 30-40% of young people today don’t consider themselves part of any organized religion. [iii] Rev. Karen Bellavance-Grace, in a presentation to UU Ministers and religious educators, impressed on us the importance of “dreaming UU into the future.” If, she said, we want our beloved tradition to have a future, we must dream it now, together.

So I want to share with you a vision I have had for our movement; it has been growing in me for some time. I see our family size churches and fellowships as the beating heart of Universalism. We in this beloved community embody Universalist love, a love that holds each and every person, that holds each and every living being, as the early Universalists believed that God’s love embraces each and every one of us. We are the heart of Unitarian Universalism, right here in this sanctuary. Our love is like a hearth-fire where we come to warm ourselves, a fire that we tend and feed, a fire have kept burning for over 200 years. This world needs the luminous fire of our love. And we are not alone, this world is dotted with fires like ours.

But when I imagine that life-giving, restoring, inspiring, renewing warmth, it breaks my heart to imagine folks just out of site, wandering in the cold and dark. So part of my vision is that we are constantly reaching out for people who need the warmth our fire, whether they just need to be warmed for a moment during a cold, lonely time, or whether they choose to stay and become fire tenders themselves. This vision is simple enough that no matter what change the future holds, we can remember to keep the fire burning, to keep that fire at the heart of everything we do.

Dreaming the future is important. Casting a vision you truly care about, then just having the courage to hold it in your mind, and to share it with others creates a bigger possible future for everyone. It’s hard to hold onto a vision when we don’t know how we can get there, but remember there was a time when no one could have imagined a female preacher. Remember there was a time when we thought marriage equality would never come to America. So hold on to your vision like a north star, guiding us into that future.

Sermon part 2- Mission
Do any of you remember a movie from 1991 called “City Slickers?” It’s kind of a screw-ball comedy with Billy Crystal in which a trio of suburban middle aged men busy with family and work go on vacation for 2 weeks driving cattle from Colorado to New Mexico with real live cowboys. Towards the end of the movie one of them, Curly, played by Jack Palance (curly) turns to Billy Crystal and says

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?
[holds up one finger]
Curly: This.
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don't mean [anything].

Every religion tries to answer the question burning in our souls “what is the meaning of life?” I believe that the answer, in this Unitarian Universalist tradition, is highly individual, but there are some common themes. The great UU religions educator Sofia Lyon Fahs said “the religious way is the deep way” So living life deeply is one secret your faith offers. Our tradition also teaches us that serving the common good is essential to a well lived life, As Rev. Rebecca Parker wrote:

“You must answer this question:
What will you do with your gifts?
Choose to bless the world.

So our tradition invites us to live our life deeply, and to serve the common good with our gifts. But do either of those things really gives us a “to do” list for when we wake up in the morning? That depends on our one thing. One can live deeply and serve the common good if you are an elementary school teacher, or a machinist, or a chiropractor. So it’s up to us to ask “what is the meaning of MY life.” Our faith tradition calls us to make sure our own mission, our own reason for being, is guided by certain principles, like respect for the inherent dignity of every person, and the interdependent web of life of which we are all a part. It encourages us to live out a mission different from that of the culture at large which I believe is “the one who dies with the most toys wins” or “you can never be too rich or too thin”

When I was getting ready to go on maternity leave I knew that returning to work with a baby would be challenging. So I signed up for a seminar called “First Things First” from the folks at Franklin Covey. The primary message was that when we get up in the morning, we do the most important things first. Look, today we have already gathered in beloved community making our spiritual life and our relationships a priority. Then, when that unexpected call comes in the afternoon, or when your child comes home from school early with a fever, you have already done the most important thing, and you can end the day saying “well, I didn’t get it all done, but I got the most important thing (singular!) done.” By keeping your mission constantly before you, it increases the odds that you can live your life by that mission instead of getting sucked into a life of racking up the most toys.

Take a moment of reflection now to think about those moments in the life of this community when you have said to yourself “I’m really glad I made it to the fellowship that day” If you like to write things down, take an index card and list or draw some of those memories.
...now look for any patterns you notice among those memories. What do they have in common, like the string that holds the beads together? That, I submit, is your de facto mission. Now notice any qualities that come to mind as you review your string of memories and dreams. Compassion? Courage? Beauty? I’ll give you an example of what I mean from the most well know mission statement in the western world today:

“To explore strange new worlds
To seek out new life and new civilizations
To boldly go where no man has gone before”

Boldness is the quality with which the crew of the Star Ship Enterprise wants to seek new worlds. It would have been quite a different show if they had “prudently” gone, wouldn’t it?

Are you starting to get a picture of the mission of this fellowship? What string links together those precious gems of our life as a community, a string that reaches all the way back into our first days in [the 1860s] [the 1950s], and will lead us into our future. Take a moment to write down any words, phrases, images, pictures, symbols that remind you of our reason for being, our reason for coming together. [pause for writing] Now check out how that feels in your heart and body when you project it into your future. Does it make you excited or inspired, or maybe even a little afraid? Or do they make you feel heavy and tired: “I really AUGHT to…” [pause] Because as Rev. Howard Thurman wrote, “Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.”

If Vision is a picture of how you want to be, Mission is the verb in the sentence. Mission is what you are doing in that picture. If you resonated with that vision of us tending and warming ourselves by the warmth of universal love, then perhaps our mission is to “boldly embody God’s universal love”. But that’s still too broad to really tell us what to do first when we wake up in the morning. Let me suggest some things we are already doing- “tending our own spiritual lives and caring for one another.” A mission issues the challenge - “how do we best use the resources of our community, the gifts each person brings, and the legacy handed down from our founders over 200 years, to serve our mission?” Would a mission like that -- “To boldly embody God’s universal love by tending our own spiritual lives and caring for one another” – would that help steer us in the right direction? When the board, or the worship team roll up their sleeves for the good of our fellowship, what things would that mission call us to put first? It’s not up to me to choose a mission for this fellowship, only to encourage us to name and strengthen the thread that ties our work together, that gives it strength and purpose.

Curly: Do you know what the secret of life is?
[holds up one finger]
Curly: This.
Mitch: Your finger?
Curly: One thing. Just one thing. You stick to that and the rest don't mean [anything].
Mitch: But, what is the "one thing?"
Curly: [smiles] That's what *you* have to find out.

Endnote
[i] http://earthsky.org/brightest-stars/polaris-the-present-day-north-star
[ii] http://www.usconstitution.net/dream.html
[iii] http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=7513343&page=1

Altruism and Evoltution (April, 24, 2016)

Every year on the weekend of Darwin’s birthday, congregations around the world join in talking about the Theory of Evolution. We take time to talk about evolution because, despite the fact that it is backed up with centuries of verifiable scientific research, evolution is under increasing attack in our schools and in our public discourse. We also celebrate evolution Sunday because the science of our physical reality is not just for “experts” with advanced degrees -- the story of your body, your eco-system is a story every one of us should know in order to understand ourselves and the world in which we live. This is particularly important for Unitarian Universalists who list as one of our sources: “Humanist teachings which counsel us to heed the guidance of reason and the results of science.”

I’ve preached about evolution here each year, and this year I want to tell you a love story. Not a story of romantic love, but the love of other living beings that binds us to one another. I know Vampire bats don’t seem that romantic on the surface, but the precious gift they give one another is eminently more practical, and more precious than a heart shaped box of chocolates. These creatures out of our nightmares, who suck the blood of large mammals, such as cattle, are actually one of the most selfless animals we know of. Researcher Jerry Wilkinson, chair of biology at the University of Maryland-College Park, noticed back in 1977 that if a bat is not able to find food, say because of illness, or lack of large mammals or because a researcher has put her in a cage, that other bats in her group will share their dinner with her by regurgitating into her mouth. [i] So, just like humans, bats can choose to give their own food to help another hungry being.

Bats are not alone in their altruism. Vervet monkeys cry out to warn their neighbors of a predator, even though they increase their own personal risk by letting predators know exactly where they are with that cry. [ii] There are even stories of altruism in Bacteria, like our nemesis e coli. Scientists have found examples of special drug-resistant bacteria sharing something called “indole” (\ˈin-ˌdōl\ ) with neighboring bacteria who aren’t drug resistant and so can’t produce Indole on their own. (Indole is the compound that helps bacteria fight off antibiotics). These altruistic super-bacteria share, even though it weakens their own capacity to reproduce when they give away this precious resource. [iii]

The Vampire Bat, the Vervet Monkey, the e coli bacteria are all engaged in Altruism. When we talk about human altruism we use the term pretty loosely, to mean anything from pulling a fellow subway rider off the track in front of an oncoming train, to bringing a put of soup to a neighbor who has the flu. But in evolutionary biology, there is a very precise definition:

“An organism is said to behave altruistically when its behavior benefits other organisms, at a cost to itself. The costs and benefits are measured in terms of reproductive fitness, or expected number of offspring. So by behaving altruistically, an organism reduces the number of offspring it is likely to produce itself, but boosts the number that other organisms are likely to produce.”[iv]

Since the earliest days of Evolutionary Theory, altruism has stumped scientists. If what propels evolution is the competition for limited resources, altruism seems to throw a monkey wrench into the theory. Even Darwin was troubled by this. About 13 years after he published his seminal book on Evolution called “On the Origin of Species” Darwin wrote in his book The Descent of Man: “he who was ready to sacrifice his life, as many a savage has been, rather than betray his comrades, would often leave no offspring to inherit his noble nature” (p.163). Darwin wondered if sometimes a behavior that was risky for the individual (like a Vervet Monkey) could provide an advantage to the larger group of which he was a part: “a tribe including many members who...were always ready to give aid to each other and sacrifice themselves for the common good, would be victorious over most other tribes; and this would be natural selection” (p.166). [v]

Later scientists, dissatisfied with this explanation, began to realize that the individuals who were the beneficiaries of altruism tended to be the relatives of the altruist. So even though I might end my own life before reproducing, if my close kin survived to reproduce, like sisters and brothers who share 50% of our genes, I would still be genetically successful. A fellow called George Price even worked out an equation to show the mathematical relationship between genetic benefit and closeness of relationship (because cousins, for example, are not as beneficial to preserving your gene pool as your siblings)[vi]

Then in 1984 Wilkinson challenged the link between kinship and altruism with his research about Vampire Bats. Over the course of the study he tracked which bats helped one another, and found that if you were a hungry bat, the neighbor bat who was most likely to help you was a bat you had helped in the past. It’s a remarkable, though relatively unique, example of altruism among unrelated neighbors. In a really wonderful “Radiolab” program on the topic, Wilkinson extrapolated that maybe 40,000 years or so ago something happened to all the large mammals in the area where the bats lived. There was a crisis in the bat food supply, and bats evolved this altruistic behavior so that they could survive as a species.

Scientists and philosophers argue that if there is any potential benefit to you, such as the survival of your gene line, that results from your helping act- then your helping act is not true altruism. They argue that maybe “true” altruism doesn’t really exist. But I disagree. The fact that altruism is a tool we have evolved to help us survive is a hopeful thing. We’ve so often wondered if human nature isn’t, at its core, “red in tooth and claw.” We worry that the true nature of life is a fight to the death. But the fact that we are hard-wired to help one another, and that in helping one another we help ourselves, shows that altruism is part of our nature. Altruism is a part of our survival story and part of our biology.

Professor Abigail Marsh has spent her career studying altruism in humans. What makes someone help another person at a cost or risk to themselves? In a recent study at Georgetown Marsh tested 19 altruistic people, the kind of person who would, for example, give a kidney to a stranger, and found everything she tested looked pretty normal except for the amygdala- the part of the brain that helps process emotional reactions. She found this part was “significantly larger” in the altruists she studied than in the regular population.[vii] She concluded that “The results of brain scans and behavioral testing suggest that these donors have some structural and functional brain differences that may make them more sensitive, on average, to other people's distress,”[viii] So Marsh’s research suggests that we help one another because we empathetically feel their pain, their distress, and we act to alleviate that distress as we would our own.

In his Ted Talk Buddhist Monk Matthieu Ricard extends this idea further[ix]. He reminds us that empathy is a normal part of being a mammal, an extension of the instinctive mammalian drive to care for our young. (Mammals are, by definition, those animals that nurse their young after birth instead of, say, laying eggs in the mud and leaving our young to fend for themselves once they hatch). Richard suggests that the problems facing us now- such as economic inequality and global climate change, will require altruism- will require people working for the good of future generations sometimes at the expense of our own present gain. Let’s take a moment to acknowledge some of these problems in our world that you think would altruism would be part of the solution. Go ahead and call our from your seat. ….. Richard wonders if our natural mammalian empathy could be expanded wider and wider to call forth such altruism.

I was amazed to learn recently that Lichen (you know those crusty flowery plants that grow on the bark of trees or rocks?) are a mutualistic symbiosis. That means lichen are actually two totally different life forms, algae and fungus, living together as one organism. Both the algae and fungus can live alone, and in fact it stumped scientists for a long time what might make them come together as lichen. As Biologist Robin Wall Kimmerer writes in her beautiful book Braiding Sweetgrass:

“when researchers put the two together in the laboratory and provide them with ideal conditions for both alga and fungus, they gave each other the cold shoulder and proceeded to live separate lives, in the same culture dish, like the most platonic of roommates. The scientists were puzzled and began to tinker with the habitat, altering one factor and then another, but still no lichen. It was only when they severely curtailed the resources, when they created harsh and stressful conditions, that the two would turn toward each other and begin to cooperate… When times are easy and there's plenty to go around, individual species can go it alone. But when conditions are harsh and life is tenuous, it takes a team sworn to reciprocity to keep life going forward. In a world of scarcity, interconnection and mutual aid become critical for survival. So say the lichens.”

I thought back to those bats, 40,000 years ago, when some hypothetical catastrophe caused a crisis for their species, and in response they evolved the altruistic behavior that allowed them to survive. Life-saving changes are possible when we need them most. And I argue that this is one of those critical moments in the history of life on this planet. Richard notes that while it may take 50,000 years to make an evolutionary biological change, personal change and societal evolution can happen much faster. He reminds us that there is hard scientific data showing that structural changes[x] happen in our brains when we practice altruistic love, or loving kindness. Richard has thousands of hours of meditation practice in his life as a monk, but such structural changes are possible with as little as 4 weeks practicing loving kindness meditation just 20 minutes a day.

Mammals evolved empathy so that we would be hard-wired to care deeply about our offspring and others in our family group. And we know that for some extraordinary altruists that same empathy and compassion can extend all the way across the continent to a stranger who needs a kidney, or a refugee from a war far away. Could we extend that altruism to the next 7 generations of children yet to be born? Could we take Richard’s challenge to cultivate our own loving kindness as individuals and as a society? Could we extend our circle of loving kindness beyond our own kin, our own friends, to hold all of life itself?

When you are discouraged about human nature, remember that altruism is just as natural as competition. It is an important adaptation that has evolved in us, and helped us survive. It is not only part of our nature, but part of the nature of Vampire bats, Vervet monkeys, and even e coli. Giving selflessly is not only the sappy stuff of love stories; it is part of the scientific story of how we survive together.

Endnotes
[i] http://www.radiolab.org/story/105440-blood-buddies/
[ii] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/
[iii] http://www.usnews.com/science/articles/2010/09/02/hints-of-altruism-among-bacteria
[iv] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/
[v] http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/altruism-biological/#AltLevSel
[vi] http://www.radiolab.org/story/103983-equation-good/
[vii] http://www.npr.org/2014/11/23/366052779/why-people-take-risks-to-help-others-altruisms-roots-in-the-brain
[viii] http://www.georgetown.edu/news/abigail-marsh-brain-altruism-study.html
[ix] http://www.ted.com/talks/matthieu_ricard_how_to_let_altruism_be_your_guide#t-895224
[x] http://phys.org/news/2008-03-compassion-meditation-brain.html