Stories that Ground Us

SACRED STORIES, SACRED WORLD, SACRED PEOPLE

by Paul Kent Oakley, Intern Minister

Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship

10:30AM, Sunday, February 5, 2012

PART I: MYTHIC STORIES OF ORIGINS

When my daughters were in school they liked to spend time at their Grandma and Grandpa Oakley’s house. My parents didn’t have a television or video games to keep my girls occupied, so, being inquisitive, they liked to look at the stacks of old National Geographics. This worried my mother, who knew that National Geographic assumed the scientific accuracy of the Big Bang and Evolution as the starting point for life on earth. So my mother taped a note for my girls on any issue where Evolution was assumed or the Big Bang mentioned. The note told my girls that the magazine had a lot of good stuff in it, but it was wrong about where the universe and life came from. For that information they needed to read the beginning chapters of Genesis. “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void…”

These great mythic stories are foundational to our culture. And they have consequences. The Genesis story tells humans to subdue the natural world. As traditionally read, this supported the destruction of forests, extinction of species, strip mining, and many other things that we now know hurt us in the long term. Genesis’s God created man first and created woman as an afterthought, as his helper. Patriarchy and male dominance and sexism all are grounded in traditional readings of this creation story. Of course, stories can be read more than one way. We have the right to interpret them. We have the responsibility to ground ourselves in narratives that give us good values. But stories of origin matter.

Among medieval Jews, a mystical way developed. We know it as Kabbalah. Kabbalists accepted the Genesis story of creation, but they told other stories around it. Midrash. Filling in details the earlier stories missed. Reaching into unknown corners where new insight might dwell. Beginning with the Beginning was too restrictive for them. Here is a condensed, inevitably fragmentary interpretation of how Kabbalists understand our origins:

Before the Beginning. Before time and space had been created. Before existence itself, there was Ayn Sof. The Infinite. Some people will want to call the Infinite God. But that puts us in a different way of thinking. God is too much a character in ancient narratives. But Ayn Sof? Ayn Sof is. Ayn Sof is Being. Ayn Sof is Infinite. Ayn Sof is represented as infinite, unbounded, undifferentiated light… And the Infinite was a paradox. Ayn Sof desired self-knowledge. But how was self-knowledge possible where there was neither space nor distance nor differentiation? The Infinite needed something different if there were to be any hope of knowing the self. The Infinite needed the Finite.

So Ayn Sof focused. Let’s imagine the focus as a point. But we have to imagine it because space did not yet exist. And the Infinite paradoxically withdrew, creating a void at the heart of infinity. The void was empty, but it consisted of the dimensions of finitude. For the first time, we imagine, using our own time-bound frame of reference, for the first time, space existed. And it was empty. And Ayn Sof fashioned vessels in space into which to pour a portion of the infinite light. But when the light was poured into the vessels in the void, a catastrophe happened. The light of infinity was too powerful and the vessels shattered, scattering the light of infinity in fragments through the void. And creation was begun. Within the void, all that was was shaped and formed from the finite portion of infinite light that had erupted into the void. When human consciousness arose, humanity was charged with the task of gathering the shards of the broken vessels, the sparks of infinite light. Our is the task of repairing the world.

And this story has consequences. All creation is formed of bits of Ayn Sof. God, to speak in narrative form, is not separate from us or the rest of creation. All that exists is part of the divine seeking to know itself. And our purpose here is to repair the world. Tikkun Olam. It is a story that recognizes brokenness. It is a story that sees that brokenness as an opportunity for humanity to participate in divine self knowledge through service. Every story has consequences.

Thomas King, a Native American story teller, tells a different creation story. Far above primordial earth, if you will, was another world. Let’s start, at least, with his own words:

“Back at the beginning of the imagination, the world we know was nothing but water, while above the earth, somewhere in space, was a larger, more ancient world. And on that world was a woman… A crazy woman… Well, she wasn’t exactly crazy. She was more nosy. Curious. The kind of curious that doesn’t give up…”

The birds tried to convince her to be less curious. …But, wait! What shall we call this woman? It is easier to tell the story if she has a name. Let’s call her Charm. Just because she just doesn’t seem very much like a Catherine or an Edith… It just wasn’t in Charm’s nature to curb her curiosity. She was curious about why she had five toes instead of three. And she was curious about the mud on the river bank squishing between her toes. And she was curious about why she was experiencing cravings. And Rabbit told her it was because she was pregnant. “Whenever I get pregnant, I have cravings,” said Rabbit. Fish and Rabbit told Charm that she needed to dig some Red Fern Root because that was perfect for pregnant humans. Badger told her to be careful not to dig too deep. But Charm ignored him and dug right through to the other side of the world. She fell through. Right out into space. And she tumbled and tumbled. And ahead of her a blue dot grew and grew. Until she splashed down in the waters of water world.

Now, everybody knows that if you splash down after falling so far you won’t survive impact, so all the sea birds, seeing her coming, flew up and formed a net to break her fall. But that wasn’t the end of the challenges because Charm wasn’t a very good swimmer, and there was no land. Charm asked if there was anything large and flat that she could rest on. And the sea birds and fish and other sea creatures convinced Turtle to let her rest on his back.

Then Muskrat says, “This isn’t going to work for long! She’s going to have a baby!” And Charm says if they could find dry land, that would solve the problem. The animals ask what dry land is. And as she tells them, she remembers the mud at the bottom of the river on her home world. So the animals have a contest to find mud at the bottom of their ocean. Animal after animal gives up the search for mud, but finally, after being gone for days, Otter surfaces carrying some mud. Otter makes several trips to the bottom and brings up lots of mud just in time for Charm to have a place to give birth. To twins. A boy and a girl. One light, one dark. One left-handed, the other right-handed. And the twins love the mud. The girl spends her days smoothing out the surface of the mud, while the boy stomps and plays and builds hills and valleys. Together with the animals, Charm and her children create the world…

Every story has its consequences – its lessons to teach. And Charm’s story teaches that joining together to meet necessities, humanity, all creatures, and the forces of nature shape a developing world. Only cooperation makes survival possible.

But we live in a scientific age. Mysticism and folk tales aren’t the compelling explanations they once were. We’re interested in measurements and theorems and light spectra and degrees Kelvin. With Robert Frost, we want to know what elements are blended in distant stars and with what degree of heat they burn. And so our official story touches on these, and we don’t narrate it so often around the campfire but in labs and professional journals and university classrooms:

About 13.7 billion years ago, the universe was in a very dense, intensely hot state. For reasons our brightest scientists can theorize and the rest of us nod along like we comprehend, the universe suddenly expanded, cooling and forming patterns that were to become galaxies and star systems, hurtling through space at vast speeds, growing farther and farther apart from each other and from that original Big Bang. After about a hundred million years the first stars began to shine. 4.6 billion years ago, our solar system formed. Eventually conditions on our cooling planet were ripe for the emergence of life, leading to a great chain of evolutionary changes. Something like 2.3 million years ago, humans of the genus Homo emerged from that evolutionary process. Homo sapiens about 200,000 years ago.

It is not the kind of story with characters and plots that gets told easily for our entertainment but is something we learn at school. It is a foundational story and has consequences. In it we ground our knowledge that the universe was not made for humanity to rule over but that we are part of it. We are deeply connected to all that exists. Part of the web of all existence. We know that we are responsible not just to ourselves but to the totality. It is science. And it is a story that changed the way we can and must see ourselves.

We can’t any longer look to the distant heavens in search of God or the Holy. We are surrounded by the Holy. Everything is holy now.


PART II: HISTORIC STORIES OF FELLOWSHIP

Ever since I came to Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship a year and a half ago, each month, on the last Tuesday of the month, you will find me at Bethel AME Church on the northeast side of town. I’m there with group of six to eight of you – occasionally fewer or more – cooking, serving, delivering for Feed My Sheep Community Kitchen. Feed My Sheep is a free hot meals program for people who walk in as well as 60-some home-bound people We have a lot of fun together, eat our own cooking (and we’re pretty good!), fill a real need for nutritious food for people who are in a tight spot, and we serve as a respite for the volunteers of Bethel AME. Only a one other church takes on the regular task of running the kitchen for a day. But the rest of the time, five days a week, 22 days a month, the people of Bethel feed the flock of people who depend on them. They are very appreciative of the respite we provide.

Feed My Sheep is a ministry that is almost 10 years old now. What took a while to sink into my feel for our place there is the fact that the relationship between the two congregations is not so new as that. In recent years, we may just hear their choir each year at Carbondale in Thanksgiving and we cook in their space once a month, but the tradition of healthy cooperation between out congregations goes back to the civil rights era. In late 1961 the fellowship’s Social Action Committee, reported plans to conduct a survey of the African American Community regarding job skills and housing. The survey itself was drawn up by the SIU Community Development Office, and someone suggested that Bethel AME’s cooperation be sought. This was thought of as a project for a whole year that would increase this fellowship’s involvement and visibility in the community.

On February 11, 1962, which was Brotherhood Sunday, teams of two, a white Unitarian recording the answers to the survey and a Black AME member asking the questions, canvassed the houses in the Northeast quadrant of the city. It did not turn into a year-long high-visibility project, but cooperative social action began to gel in the commitments of the fellowship, and a few months later the tabulated results pointed to an experience of discrimination and employment in menial jobs for African Americans here. The results of the survey were shared with the Carbondale Civil Rights Council. This was one of several ways this fellowship cooperated with Bethel AME during the Civil Rights Era. Children from the two congregations paired up to distribute cards to local merchants thanking them for desegregating. There were a series of interracial dinners involving fellowship members and members of Bethel. The early 1960s were something of a Golden Age for interracial and interdenominational cooperation for this congregation. The stories from that time ground us.

But the glory is not the whole story. Somehow we lost focus and in 1968 members admitted that, while once the congregation had acted in unity in significant social justice concerns, those days were in the past, the process stymied by the objections of individual members. Unity was invoked to do nothing as a congregation. And in 1972 the board was told that the social action committee was no longer needed as a standing committee because needs could be handled ad hoc as they arose. The board unanimously approved abolishing the standing committee.

Was the work of the Civil Rights Era done? I invite you to take a walk today through the northeast side of the city. With our own eyes, do we see equality and security there even now? What are the consequences of that part of our story? What lessons for the future?

A lot has happened since the 1960s, and I hope you will tell your stories of those years to people who are newer to the congregation. The stories of our successes can help define who we want to be going forward. And the stories of missteps help us keep our feet in reality and give us a program of things to do better in the future. This congregation is entering a time of more focused thinking about who we are and who we want to be. Our stories ground us. And every story has some consequence.

So let me close with one final story. A very recent one.

A couple of years ago this congregation was faced with a challenge unlike any it had faced before. Bill had approached the board and the board asked the congregation to vote whether you were willing to take a step into the unknown. You voted to accept the responsibility of becoming a teaching congregation. It was something that you didn’t have to do. But your doing so made it possible for me to do my ministerial internship while living at home, rather than having to move across the country for a year to do it.

So, in September 2010, I showed up, spoke to you first about how I became a Unitarian Universalist, and settled into getting to know you and how this congregation functions. At every step, you were there with me, encouraging me, affirming me. And as you got to know me, you learned that I commute from Mt. Vernon. And several of you commiserated with me over high gas prices.

An unpaid internship while a full-time seminary student, you realized, is something of a financial complication. Now I had entered this venture with you, accepting in advance the financial realities it entails. But you were concerned about the impact it would have on me. And so, quietly, without my knowing, a call went out to the members, giving you all the opportunity to show your love, your concern, your appreciation, and your generosity by contributing what you wished to help defray my fuel costs.

And so, a few days before the end of 2011, I received in the mail that freewill offering designated for that purpose by you: a check from the fellowship for a little more than $2,800! For that offering of faith, I thank you! Words do not sufficiently express what it means. The money is immensely helpful. But even more than the dollars themselves is what it represents concerning your generosity and your love.

The story of this fellowship is ever changing, but this story is part of it. Life goes on. Change is certain. But this story has consequences. This story tells part of the story of who this fellowship is. May it be taken on as a grounding narrative. A story that plays a part in shaping our sense of who we are becoming. Who we want to be.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

ORDER OF SERVICE
Paul Kent Oakley, Worship Leader
Candy Davis, Vocals and Guitar


Gathering Music: “Shawnee Song” by Candy Davis

Welcome

Kindling the Chalice – Katarena Moroz

Story: The Earth rests on the back of a turtle… – from Thomas King

Round: “Gathered Here”

Stories: How did it all start?
| The Infinite
| Charm – from Thomas King
| This Evolving Universe

Music: “Holy Now” by Peter Mayer

Stories: What do we carry with us?
| Joys and Sorrows
| Silence

Taizé Chant: “Kindle in us the fire of love”

Stories: Who do we say that we are?
| Feeding the Sheep
| A Cautionary Tale
| Generosity and Gratitude

Music: “Life Goes On” by Candy Davis

Unison Offering Reading: “From each according to the ability and commitment of each, we build this fellowship and repair the world together. We come together and refresh ourselves, sharing our talents, our perspectives, our love, our resources, and our stories. In this way may our work for hope and justice continue in Carbondale and in the world.” (Paul Kent Oakley)

Offering Music: “Blossom Where You’re Planted” by Candy Davis

Recognitions and Announcements

Story: It’s stories all the way down… – from Thomas King

Blessing

Return of the Light

HOLIDAY CANDLELIGHT AND TAIZÉ CHANT SERVICE

Mt. Vernon Unitarian Universalist Fellowship

7:00 PM, Friday, December 23, 2011

The service begins with the sanctuary in silence and darkness, the dim lights that helped people find their seats, extinguished, the congregation waiting in silent expectation. The service takes place with ample silence between segments. Those present are encouraged to discuss, comment, or question afterwards, but this service includes no explanations. It is intended to be experiential rather than cerebral.


Kislev Meditation
by Ellen Dannin

The seed, planted in the dark,
waiting in the dark of the year,
the seed drawn to the light,
the seed planted in the dark earth
by our own hands,
to be drawn from the earth by the light,
which will return.
Do the planted and the planter
wait in despair in the dark
for the return of the season of light?
What if, we think, the light did not return,
if we waited in the dark
and, at last, despaired of light?
We could almost forget, in our winter’s darkness,
that light will come again.
We light the lights in the dark of the year
to recall
that all is in readiness,
that we wait only for the warmth of light,
that even in the absence of light,
the work of creation is made ready.


Lighting the Shabbat Candles
Traditional

Baruch ata Adonai Eloheinu Melech ha-Olam
Asher kideshanu b’mitzvotav
Vitzivanu l’hadlik ner shel Shabbat


Reflection on Shabbat and Cosmos
by Paul Kent Oakley

Honoring the Sabbath rest is not the first commandment written but is the first commandment illustrated in the Hebrew scriptures. After the creative force of the Big Bang established the evolving Cosmos and its laws, the banging stopped. The universal processes were self-sustaining. In the mythic language of Genesis, God rested. On the model of countless generations of Jews, we have ushered in this Shabbat with the lighting of candles and blessing. We carve out of time a temple, a utopian dream, where all can rest and rejuvenate. Where all are equal and all needs are met. Shabbat is a weekly reminder of larger, natural cycles, of hope growing in the dark as the Winter Solstice comes. When we plan and prepare for the rebirth of the natural order and the arrival of something new.


Lighting the Advent Wreath
by Timothy Murphy, adapted, additional words by Paul Kent Oakley

Source of Life, great well of diversity on this planet, inspire us. As we prepare ourselves during this season, we look in hope to the possibilities diversity offers us. May our growing together more fully reflect the beauty of creation.

Divine Wisdom, manifest in prophets and thinkers who have urged humanity forward and also manifest in one another, we seek greater understanding. May we seek the wellbeing of our sisters and brothers, infusing divine love in all our paths, that what is hidden may be revealed.

Matrix of Becoming, in joyous expectation we prepare ourselves for those moments where we encounter the perfectibility of humanity and the world we have created. May we be ready to joyfully proclaim this good news, a revelation bursts through the mundane. May we listen for the surprising places and voices where truths are revealed, that we may receive in joy.

Empowering Spirit, breathing through us the desire for a transforming peace. As we seek to be faithful partners with all life and this whole Cosmos, may we discern the signs of peace where it is most needed. Affirming our worth, may we have the courage to lovingly resist all oppression in our lives and our communities.

Hope. Peace. Joy. Love. These are promises and practices that have sustained us as we have waited for something new to emerge in this world, prepared for something old to be renewed.


Lighting the Yule Log
from “The Pagan Housewife,” adapted

From the darkness is born the light, from void, fulfillment emerges.
The darkest night of the year's at the threshold,
Open now the door, and honor the darkness.

Dark my surroundings, and cold be this night
But the labor of the blessed mother has reborn the sacred light,
The child divine, the most honored sun shall return with the sunrise.

Awaken, my lady, look upon your divine child,
Whose rebirth while you slumbered was subtle and silent.
The divine sun awaits your wakening, gentle and benevolent.

Hail the blessed sun, reborn to the mother,
For he retook his throne at the end of solstice night!


Lighting the Chanukiah
Traditional, variation preferred by Rabbi Randy Fleisher,
and The Society for Humanistic Judaism

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu ruach ha-olam,
asher kid'shanu b'mitzvotav
v'tzivanu l'hadlik neir shel chanukah.

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu ruach ha-olam,
she-asah nisim la-avoteinu,
bayamim haheim, baz'man hazeh.

Baruch atah Adonai, Eloheinu ruach ha-olam,
shehecheyanu, v'kiyemanu,
vehigi-anu laz'man hazeh.

Blessed is the light of the world.
Blessed is the light within humanity.
Blessed is the light of Chanukah.


Let My Voice be a Hammer, excerpt
by Rabbi Rachel G. Greengrass

Mattathias was just a man,
A man who saw that if he did not stand up, no one else would
Judith was just a woman,
Who saw that if she did nothing, her people would be destroyed.
Both refused to give up, both used what little they had, attacked by using cunning, guerrilla warfare.
And so it was that one woman was able to save her town,
and one family was able to save their people –
From loss of life –
From loss of spirit –

So let my voice be a hammer
Let it break down walls,
Build homes and community,
Strike out against injustice
Let it be a comforting tool for my sisters and brothers
and those who are weak
Let it smash indifference
Let it ring the eardrums of those who would silence us
Because I am Israel.
I struggle with the divine,
I will not be kept quiet
Let my voice be a hammer
Like Mattathias… and like Judith…


Lighting the Sanctuary Candles

La ténèbre n’est point ténèbre
(recording from the Taizé Community)

La ténèbre n’est point ténèbre devant toi
La nuit comme le jour est lumière.

Our darkness is never darkness in your sight;
the deepest night is clear as the daylight.


TAIZÉ CHANTS

Within Our Darkest Night
Within our darkest night, we kindle the fire that never dies away,
never dies away.

The Kingdom of God
The Kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the holy spirit.
Come, Hope, and open in me, the gates of your kingdom.

Bless the Lord
Bless the Lord, my soul, and bless God’s holy name.
Bless the Lord, my soul, who leads me into life.


LESSON

Choose Something Like A Star
by Robert Frost

O Star (the fairest one in sight),
We grant your loftiness the right
To some obscurity of cloud --
It will not do to say of night,
Since dark is what brings out your light.
Some mystery becomes the proud.
But to be wholly taciturn
In your reserve is not allowed.

Say something to us we can learn
By heart and when alone repeat.
Say something! And it says "I burn."
But say with what degree of heat.
Talk Fahrenheit, talk Centigrade.
Use language we can comprehend.
Tell us what elements you blend.

It gives us strangely little aid,
But does tell something in the end.
And steadfast as Keats' Eremite,
Not even stooping from its sphere,
It asks a little of us here.
It asks of us a certain height,
So when at times the mob is swayed
To carry praise or blame too far,
We may choose something like a star
To stay our minds on and be staid.


Passing the Flame
Silence
Placing the Candles in Community


TAIZÉ CHANTS

Ubi Caritas
Ubi caritas et amor, ubi caritas, Deus ibi est.

Where there is charity and love, God is to be found.

In Love Alone
In Love alone my soul can find rest and peace,
in Love my peace and joy.
Only in Love my soul can find its rest,
find its rest and peace.

Kindle in Us the Fire of Love
Spirit of Life, come to us. Kindle in us the fire of love.
Spirit of Life, come to us. Spirit of Life, come to us.


Words for the ending of Advent
by Paul Kent Oakley

The time of waiting has ended. Each day is longer than the day before. Light is returning. The formal time of introspection and self-evaluation is over, leaving each one prepared to act. The great metaphor of the Kingdom of God, that realm of justice and peace, calls to us – each one with a task to further the kingdom, to usher in a messianic age. In Advent it felt, at times, that what some would call salvation was private and personal, but the great myth of the Nativity teaches that heaven and nature and all humanity are implicated. We usher in justice and peace for all, or there is no salvation for any. Advent has ended.


Taizé reprise

The Kingdom of God
The Kingdom of God is justice and peace and joy in the holy spirit.
Come, Hope, and open in me, the gates of your kingdom.


Blessing
by Paul Kent Oakley, including words borrowed from Marcia Falk's "Blessing of the Children"

We dare to dream a utopian dream amidst a world of sometimes harsh realities that are mixed with beauty beyond imagining. We imagine a world without injustice and commit ourselves to doing our part to making that world reality. Something new can be born. Something new must be born. We are its midwives, its mother, and the baby. May we never forget our sacred role, and so, I charge you to be who you are, and may you be blessed in all that you are.


Candles remain burning, as the congregation, when each is ready, moves to the fellowship area where refreshments are set up. The party commences.


Readers:
Walter Lazenby
Donna Beaumont
Mike DeVilbiss
Paul Kent Oakley

Room Preparation and Candle Lighting:
Gail DeVilbiss
Mike DeVilbiss
Donna Beaumont
Paul Kent Oakley

Thanksgiving for Diversity

In a piece for Huffington Post last year, Rajiv Malhotra wrote on the need for replacing the frequent use of the word “tolerance” with “mutual respect” in interreligious settings. Malhotra is the founder of the Infinity Foundation, which seeks to foster better understanding of Buddhism and Hinduism, traditions that he says are generally more comfortable with the “mutual respect” language than are the Abrahamic Religions.

From my perspective as a gay man, I have long felt the barbed loathing of tolerance. I know that the person who tolerates me has arrogated to him or herself the right to decide the relative worth of others and, too, whether or not to afford us essential human dignity. The person who tolerates me hates me, wishes I didn’t exist but has decided it is better not to risk prison time by wiping me off the face of the earth. The tolerant person is not my friend and will feel no constraints on political action aimed at restricting, eliminating, or preventing my exercise of the same rights s/he takes for granted.

So I find it easy to like Malhotra’s argument for mutual respect between the religious traditions. He described an occasion in the late 1990s when he made the call for the language of mutual respect at Claremont Graduate University and was told that his doing so ruffled a lot of feathers. He told of the current Roman Catholic pope, before becoming pope, strongly objecting to the use of the language of respect at the United Nation's Millennium Religion Summit in 2000. As Malhotra explained, if the Vatican accepted the language of mutual respect it would have no grounds for efforts to proselytize the "heathen." But eventually the Vatican caved on the document from this summit but covered itself by quickly issuing its own statement to the effect that other religions are “in a gravely deficient situation.” In other words, the Vatican signed onto the language of mutual respect for one document only and then violated that “respect” at the earliest possible opportunity.

Perhaps we should not be surprised. The traditions of Christians destroying the sacred groves in Europe and then the indigenous holy sites in the worldwide colonies of European nations in order to destroy the spiritual underpinnings of psychosocial life of the established populations, rendering them more susceptible to proselytizing efforts – these traditions are still celebrated in global European Christianity. This demand for religious uniformity, though never fully realized, is at the core of Western national and denominational identities. It is not going to be relinquished easily by traditions that still revere the legends around that history.

The more distant from the Christian majorities’ sense of history a group finds itself, the more difficult it is for various Christian positions to accommodate a group as worthy of respect. The non-Abrahamic, non-monotheistic, and non-Western religions might sometimes find “tolerance” is all they can hope for. But even farther than any of those traditions is from normative Christian bases for respect or even tolerance is atheism, which has been described, with a lot of evidence to support the phrase, as the most despised minority in America. It is true that books by the so-called “New Atheists” have been best sellers, and a lot more people are openly declaring themselves to be atheists than at any previous time in our history. But when George W. Bush was still governor of the little state of Texas and campaigning for the White House, he said in published interviews that he did not consider atheists to be citizens of the United States. And while that did not dominate his campaign, he did not renounce it and was elected to two terms.

The need for mutual respect expands broadly to include non-Western religions and philosophies, certainly, but only when “we” include among those worthy of respect those who are farthest from “us” can we be worthy of a tradition that sees humanity as bearer of something special. Christianity may lose sight of it in doctrines of Original Sin and in the Nicene Creed, but, from Judaism, it still holds humanity to be made in the likeness and image of God. My tradition, Unitarian Universalism holds as its first-stated principle the inherent worth and dignity of every individual. If we take these foundational claims seriously, we are enjoined to see every individual as reflecting and shaped on the pattern of the divine. The despised atheist is divine if God is. The Buddhist, Hindu, Pagan, pantheist too. If any person’s tradition is worthy of respect, all are. For God to be divine we all must be. For Christianity to be a holy tradition, so too must atheism be. For the churches and traditions of the West to be worthy of respect, the institutions and traditions of the rest of the world must be afforded mutual respect.

If humanity is made in the image and likeness of God, or every human individual has inherent worth and dignity, then “mutual respect” is the only approach to the Other that can be afforded our respect.

Notes of a Worship Visitor in Naperville

Having finished an Our Whole Lives facilitator training workshop at 9PM Saturday evening, I decided not to drive the 5+ hours home that night, staying instead to worship with the DuPage Unitarian Universalist Church, which had hosted the workshop. My friend and seminary colleague Charlotte Lehmann is the Ministerial Intern there, and I hoped to see her too.

I arrived at 9:20 for a 9:30 service, hung my jacket, went to the restroom, and made my way into the sanctuary with a few minutes to spare. It was a rainy morning out, with clearing skies forecast for later, so I wasn't surprised to find a very spare congregation with a large portion of the seats empty.

Despite the use of the "C-word" in the name of the congregation, the sanctuary appears to have been designed to deemphasize the churchiness of it. It is a modest rectangular room with a high flat ceiling with exposed beams. Individual chairs in rows facing the front with a center aisle serve instead of pews, as is true at many of UU congregations. At the front is a low stage with a wide pulpit in the central position. It appears designed to simultaneously stress the central importance of the spoken message, which is called a sermon here, without drawing a vivid visual connection to the pulpits used in many Christian denominations. Directly below the pulpit is a low table with a wooden chalice on it that holds a white tower candle. To the left, in a rather cramped corner, is a keyboard, a baby grand piano, the place from which the 6-person choir sings and the place for a drummer and guitarist to sit and perform. To the right is a bronze sculpture incorporating a ring of 25 candle sockets large enough to hold full-sized dinner candles, to be used during Joys and Concerns.

The shape of the service was somewhat different than I usually encounter, with the sermon coming immediately after the opening song, the offering and joys and concerns coming after the sermon, and no announcements being spoken, instead being printed on an insert to the order of service.

WELCOME
CHALICE LIGHTING
PRELUDE
OPENING WORDS
OPENING SONG
SERMON
OFFERING/ OFFERTORY
JOYS and CONCERNS
CLOSING THOUGHTS
CLOSING SONG
POSTLUDE
BENEDICTION

It is an order that, while not so specified, is closely derivative of the liturgical churches' structure of liturgy of the word followed by the liturgy of the eucharist, except for the sermon's length, which was more related to the "low" liturgical form of much of Protestant Christianity.

The Welcome was spoken by a member of the congregation's board. In it, the invitation was made to newcomers to stand and introduce themselves. I was surprised that there were several newcomers. All the more surprising given the low overall attendance at the service. But as each of us introduced ourselves, the congregation spoke words of welcome to us. When I sat down after introducing myself, the woman behind me rubbed my back, which was a bit of a surprise. And then we settled into the service with a child kindling the chalice and the performance of the prelude.

The service did not make use of the gray hymnal Singing the Living Tradition. Instead, along with a sung prelude from Garth Brooks ("Standing Outside the Fire," 1993), a sung offertory from James Taylor ("Shower the People," 1976), and a sung postlude from John Legend ("If You're Out There," 2008), the congregation sang two songs from the teal hymnal Singing the Journey, which is a 2005 supplement. The two songs from it: "When I am Frightened" and "Love Knocks and Waits For Us to Hear," copyrighted 1999 and 1996, respectively. Love or hate the gray hymnal, one advantage it has over the teal hymnal is that more of its selections can be sung by a congregation with minimal stumbling. It seems to me that the selections, while nice for a choir, were a bit complex for a congregation trying to sight read. But we made it through...

The Rev. Emmy Lou Belcher's sermon was titled Follow the Fireweed. She had great pulpit presence. And her sermon pulled together many different global, social justice, and political issues, stories, and anecdotes, together with several references to Christian existentialist theologian Paul Tillich and a couple to Unitarian theologian James Luther Adams. At various times, the poignancy of the stories she cited moved me, even to the point of tears. But I admit that, perhaps because I was tired from the intensive workshop and did not get enough sleep the night before, I could not discern what her theme was, let alone the structure of the sermon.

Joys and Concerns, often considered something to be tightly managed in our congregations, was open and comfortable here. Persons with a joy or concern came to the front, were handed a candle by the minister that they then lighted, inserted into the sculpture intended for that purpose, and then spoke what they wanted to share, without the minister appearing antsy or trying to control the time used. It felt like a very comfortable time of sacred sharing within this congregation. After the last candles were lighted, the minister, eyes closed, spoke words of pastoral prayer, lifting up the spoken and unspoken joys and concerns without resort to God-language or language of request. Very nicely handled. It so clearly was prayer yet of a sort whose words and intent could not make the most ardent anti-theist uncomfortable yet whose frame was open to theistic interpretation by those for whom that makes prayer meaningful.

I had a cup of coffee during the coffee hour that comes between the 9:30 service and the 11:15 service, thinking I might see my friend Charlotte. Somehow our paths did not cross. Given the warm words of welcome at the beginning of the service, I expected to be approached and drawn into conversations while I had my coffee, but no one spoke to me. And since I was thinking about hitting the road and getting home, I didn't take on the responsibility of starting a conversation myself, as I ordinarily would do.

When I had finished my coffee and made a pitstop, I headed for my car. Just outside the front door, I was greeted by a woman who told me that growing up conservative Christian, she had gone to a church-run camp on Little Grassy Lake, near Carbondale IL. She wished me safe driving, and I was on my way home.

I didn't have my camera along, so I can't share a picture of the building or sanctuary, but here is a link to a copyrighted image of the church: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jimfrazier/1486821723/

CPE - Sermon 2

TO BE OF SERVICE

A Sermon by Paul Kent Oakley

Carbondale (IL) Unitarian Fellowship

10:30 AM, October 2, 2011

WHAT IS A CHAPLAIN?
How many of you have ever received a chaplain visit in the hospital? Either when you were a patient or a family member of a patient? For how many of you was that a positive, helpful experience? How many of you had an unsatisfying or negative experience?

What does the phrase “hospital chaplain” suggest to you? What is a chaplain supposed to do?

Before I started seminary at Meadville Lombard I really didn’t have any idea what a chaplain did. I knew Father Francis Mulcahy from a decade of watching M*A*S*H. Father Mulcahy was a usually good-natured priest who could be called on to do a Methodist service or even officiate at a bris in the absence of both rabbi and mohel. But aside from television, I thought more about the US Air Force Academy, where Evangelical Christian fervor has been known to browbeat non-Christians and the uninterested into attending Christian services and being subjected to proselytization offensives. In hospitals, though, I think I just thought of an ingratiating Evangelical minister going around from room to room trying to save souls before they slipped on to the next world. The only time I had been a patient in a hospital, almost a quarter century ago, it was in Germany. In my month-long hospital stay, no chaplain visited me. It wasn’t part of how things were done there. So I was totally in the dark until I had a class in pastoral ministry in my first year of seminary.

What I learned before heading to St. Louis was that one of the biggest no-no’s for a real chaplain is attempting to provide answers to a patient from the chaplain’s own philosophy or theology. The essential job of the chaplain is to assess the spiritual needs and spiritual resources that the patient (or the patient’s family) has come with and help them access their own source of strength. No preaching allowed. Praying, however is frequently requested by patients and families, though that, too can be problematic. Petitionary prayer is not part of my spiritual practice, but patients often expect it.

HOW A CHAPLAIN IS TRAINED
I was enrolled this summer in a two-and-one-half-month unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (or CPE), a chaplaincy training, at Barnes-Jewish Hospital. CPE is a clinical training method. That means that the biggest text book is the doing of chaplaincy work. The intern chaplain is thrown in the deep end and told to swim. At least that is what it felt like at first. Through practice and reflection, a group of five of us chaplain interns of different faiths and different ages, with different life experiences, came together to learn from the patients and staff, our mentors and supervisor, and from each other how we can address the spiritual needs of patients and families who often do not share our faith identity or other demographic factors. In addition to me, the middle-aged gay white male Unitarian Univeralist, my colleagues were a middle-aged married conservative non-denominational Christian African American woman, a middle-aged married white male liberal Catholic, a young-adult single white female United Methodist, and a young-adult single white female Reform Jew.

To do this work we had to start from a place of authenticity, each being true to our own faith. We five chaplain interns supported each other, helping each other see the meaning or not become overwhelmed in what could be emotionally difficult encounters. Many were the times when as chaplain I sat with a couple as they face pain and uncertainty and even death, and my job was to help them grieve or reconnect with some sense of meaning, some sense of the Holy? And some patients had no one. The chaplain sits with them in their room, together seeking to find hope and comfort. Sometimes, hope and comfort are so far away, that the chaplain has to bear the burden of hope and faith alone until the patient is able to take it up again.

We each took the sense of the divine or what gives meaning from within our traditions as our grounding. But then we had to communicate coherently with patients and families whose cultural language was significantly different from our own. And we heard from them in their many cultural languages, messages that we needed to translate into our own idioms so that we could show back to them the resources and commitments that they had lost touch with in their pain, fear, and uncertainty.

To prepare to do that, we five interns and our supervisor spent eight hours of each week together for class, sacred text, sharing a patient encounter for reflection and feedback, and interpersonal group, where we supported each other and learned from each other. Each of us interns had an hour in individual session with our supervisor each week, during which he helped us to focus on what we are doing and to see ourselves and our chaplaincy with greater accuracy. We interns saw each other at the beginning and end of every day. And many days we also managed to eat lunch together. Supported in this way, I believe, we saw ourselves as facilitators, helping our patients and their families touch the spiritual resources they had within themselves.

But part of that learning process required each intern to arrive at a set of learning goals. Three of us in the group had goals that directly related to how we would relate to patients whose theology was significant different from our own. I cannot share the specific goals of my colleagues, but think about what it might mean to the faith and conscience of a conservative non-denominational Christian or a liberal Jew or a flaming Unitarian Universalist to be asked to pray with a patient whose belief structure and language of prayer were totally foreign – perhaps even offensive to the personal sensibilities of the chaplain. Each one of us had to negotiate a tenable position over the course of the summer, each deciding where the individual’s boundaries were. What will I do for a patient as their chaplain? And what goes too far for me to do in good conscience? What would the patient accept as help from the chaplain? What were the possibilities to navigate between?

I’m going to share a few experiences with you. I’ve made a few alterations that remove all identifying features because each patient has the right to privacy. Here is some of what I learned from this summer:

EMERGENCY DEPARTMENT EXPERIENCE
Now remember I said that clinical education tosses you off the deep end? Imagine this experience. The very first time I was called to the Emergency Department, I entered a room where the body of a young man killed in a motorcycle accident was laid out for his family to spend some time with before they signed papers and went out into what was now a cruel world, alone. I stepped into the room and found family members there, as I had been told. But I was totally unprepared for what I found beyond their presence. While the women comforted each other, the men stood on either side of the broken body of the son who had been pronounced dead on arrival. And as they stood there, they prayed in vigorous Pentecostal manner for a miracle. They proclaimed their faith in a God who raised the dead. The asked for, they claimed, they demanded the miracle that they believed God was capable of and performs. I sat with the women. Held their hands. Got them tissues. Fetched them glasses of ice water. Listened to their groans of horrible pain. I sat with them in their pain. And then, allowing the family some privacy, I left the room to come back later.

When I returned in 15 minutes, the prayers still continued. For two full hours the men prayed for the miracle. And then, as if they had reached their limit, passed beyond denial through exhaustion into acceptance. The tone of their prayers changed. The demands for the miracle were done, and in their place a softer, pained, resigned acceptance of God’s will, a prayer for the young’ man’s soul and thanksgiving for his life. One man told the women to do their crying in that room because when they walked out they were going out victorious in the grace of God.

It wasn’t until later in my time at Barnes-Jewish that I found viable techniques for being authentic yet still of service to patients or families who specifically asked me to pray for a miracle. But that day, I learned that even when I could not in good conscience join in the prayers for the young man to be raised from the dead, I could still be there for the family. Sitting in silence, holding a hand, listening to the mother express her grief, seeing to physical needs… Even when I was completely theologically incompatible with a patient or family, I still had something to offer that no one else in the Emergency Department had the time to offer.

THE PATIENT’S SONS
As well as encounters with true believers, there were probably as many encounters where religious belief and practice were not what a patient wanted. I remember one patient, a middle aged man who’d had spinal surgery. When I introduced myself as a chaplain, he sort of tensed up, but he didn’t tell me to leave, so I stayed and just talked with him for a while, seeing whether something might come up that he needed my ears or shoulder for. And sure enough, as soon as he saw I wasn’t peddling anything, he started talking about what was on his mind. He wasn’t worried about his surgery and recovery. He had faith in his surgeon and the hospital concerning that. But he had a heavy, heavy weight on his heart.

He started talking about his sons for whom he gave up advances in his career in order to raise them alone. In tears he told me how they had not been at the hospital for his surgery. He detailed several ways in which they hadn’t shown they cared about him when he needed them the most. Just for moral support. This was a strong man who had the appearance of someone who didn’t usually cry. Indeed, he told me he hadn’t cried once in the several years since their mother had left. But he cried in my presence as I allowed him to talk about what was important to him rather than coming with an agenda.

His problems could not be fixed in our encounter, but the simple fact of my being present to him, without any agenda, not trying to fix him, allowed this patient the space he needed to unburden his soul of his great disappointment in his sons. I learned again from this patient that it is more important to listen than to think it is possible to fix another’s problems.

EVERYTHING ALL AT ONCE
And then there was the patient who, in the middle of a longish encounter, suddenly reminded me of my ex-wife at her most vulnerable. So there I was, forced to separate out in the moment my personal stuff that I had to deal with later and the needs of the patient. What surprised me as I was putting that personal stuff to the side is that this difficult encounter showed me what I least of all expected: that buried deep there was within me still a well of tenderness toward my ex. Even after decades having only the most minimal contact after some emotional extremes after our divorce. In just a few minutes, this patient forced me to think about things long buried. Talk about a shock! But I put it aside in the moment in order to be present for the patient.

She had a degenerative disease, could barely move in her hospital bed, and you would think that that would be enough. Right? But the universe doesn’t work on the fairness principle but on some other complex calculus of cause and effect. So this woman, a mother of several children, was divorced by her husband when she got the diagnosis of this disease. And because she was debilitated with her disease, he got custody of her children and then remarried. And one of her children committed suicide. And another blamed herself for her sibling’s suicide and couldn’t bring herself to do anything positive and constructive with her life because of the guilt. And that would certainly be enough, no? But there is more. Her house and all her belongings were destroyed in a tornado. If she had lived a few millennia earlier, they might have written a book of the Bible about her story.

Every sentence was physically difficult for her to express. And I was fighting back tears as she was telling it. And finally she asks a wrenching question: does God forgive her? Now here was the big chaplain’s no-no, right? I’m not supposed to tell her what I think. I’m supposed to draw out and help her strengthen her own belief. I tried. Believe me I tried. But she kept coming back to the question. She wanted an answer not a process, and I didn't know how to move forward. So I reassured her that certainly God forgave her. We  cried together. She asked for a prayer.

I left her room knowing two things: I had technically broken the rules of engagement, and I had done the right thing - a right thing for my patient, at least given my level of skill at that moment. From her I learned that rules, though important, have to be weighed against an individual’s carefully discerned need.

FINAL ENCOUNTER
And finally I must tell you that the very last patient I visited this summer threw me out of her room. It is good to laugh now when I word it that way. But there was nothing funny at the time. The nurses had asked me to see her because she had just received a new and devastating diagnosis. So in I went. Somewhat confident in my abilities by that time. I introduced myself as the chaplain. The patient glared at me then turned and stared out the window. I attempted to engage her, using techniques that I’d learned over the summer. And she spoke to me briefly. She told me that all she wanted to do was look out the window and not think about her diagnosis. I tried again because you never know. Sometimes people need someone to let them know that they’re not going away. But she was not ready. She told me loudly that she didn’t want to think about it and used a few colorful phrases to tell me to leave. And I left, telling her that if she would like to see a chaplain later she could ask her nurse to page me.

The final reinforcement of a lesson that I got from her was a crucial lesson. From her I learned again that it’s not about me. My function of trying to help her find a way to deal with what she is going through is supremely unimportant compared to her confirmed judgment that she wants none of it and wants to stare out the window. Looking back on the summer, I am so happy she was my last patient because that is such an important yet difficult lesson to assimilate. It’s not about me.

SEGUE TO CHOIR
I could burden you further with my summer experiences, but I’ve already run past the limits of your patience. So I ask that you pause for a deep breath. …In… Out… In… Out… In… Out…

…Silence is important. Only when we stop our own voices can we hear the voice of those who need our presence…

Before the finest symphony can swell with notes profound

The silence must resound, the silence must resound.

And so we listen in moments clear and calm

To hear, with wonder the quiet strains prolong.

~~~~~

ORDER OF SERVICE
Sunday, October 2, 2011

Mr. Paul Kent Oakley, Presiding and Speaking
Ms. Shaina Graff, Violinist
Mr. Alan Christensen, Pianist
The Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship Choir
       directed by Ms. Geri McKee

Welcome and Introduction
Kindling the Chalice Flame: Nicholas Therrell
Announcements
Prelude: Shaina Graff
Opening Hymn #359 “When We Are Gathered”
Opening Reading #567 “To Be of Use”
Sharing of Joys and Sorrows
A Moment of Silence
Metta Prayer
Unison Offering Reading
Offering Music: Shaina Graff
Message: “To Be of Service”
Musical Interlude: “The Silence and the Song” by Mark Patterson - Carbondale Unitarian Fellowship Choir
Closing Words
Closing Hymn #18 “What Wondrous Love”
Benediction