Spiritually Speaking: Fail Our Expectations!

God give us rain when we expect sun.

Give us music when we expect trouble.

Give us tears when we expect breakfast.

Give us dreams when we expect a storm.

Give us a stray dog when we expect congratulations.

God play with us, turn us sideways and around.

— Michael Leunig

Like many people, I suppose, I find times of waiting and expectation to be terribly stressful.  I want to know what will be and what my life will look like, but so many of the factors are often (and frankly remain) out of my control. 

I remember returning from my ordination in Boston to hear a sermon about advent and the season of waiting.  I felt irritated by the message to live into the waiting season as I awaited to learn where my next ministry would be.  I had the same sense of irritation when I was told seven months pregnant with twins to enjoy being pregnant.  Clearly the well-intentioned person before me had lost their mind, I oft concluded.

And yet, all these months and years later, I know these expecting times to be the ones in which I grow, transform and edge closer to the clarity of purpose and place.  There is a reason, slightly more anthropological than theological, that many of the world’s traditions include rituals of waiting.  Certainly advent is the season of expectation as the story of a pregnant Mary and her husband-to-be await the birth of Jesus.  Yet, there is also solstice when through ritual and story we are invited to kindle lights and wait in the darkness for the return of the sun. Even in Islam, the Hajj, or pilgrimage, is not so much about arriving in Mecca but the intention to journey, that is the expectation of the destination.  The vision of Mecca in your heart is the true pillar, not the completion of the journey.

Expectation is not the absence of reality and dreams but the presence of our intentions and hope.  As arduous, anxiety-ridden and uncomfortable waiting is, the discomfort readies our spiritual muscles to stretch and respond in new ways.  The uncertainty prepares us to balance in the unimaginable.  And the difficulty of the journey is the preparation for the destination.

One of my mentors when I began the discernment process in ministry told me to pray that “my wildest expectations are failed.”  Who prays such a terrifying prayer?  I think most Unitarian Universalists do!  We hope for the surprise and unpredictability which is the evolution of all creation, the punctuated, painful and promising emergence of new life.  Yes, may our well-crafted reasonable expectations be failed by the flawed, fleeting and tenacious hold that love and life offer our very souls!

In faith and failed expectation yours,

Rev. Robin

Spiritually Speaking: Whose Are You?

Several years ago, the Unitarian Universalist Ministers Association led a program that asked of its members, “whose are you?”  Whose am I?  I am free and independent!  I am my own!  Of course that’s not the full truth.  For many of us the “whose are you” question is understood through the lens of relatives.  We answer in accord with legal or genetic ties.  The UU Ministers Association, however, was not interested in our family trees, rather they were asking us to dig deeper and explore to whom we belonged.

It is an ancestry question.

I began to consider those persons whom I admired or felt connect to throughout history.  And then I expanded to the long line of spiritual ancestors.  Some include relatives, but most are souls that lived to their potential by serving others.  I belong to them in a larger circle of kinship that extends across generations.

Imagine if we could each develop a robust sense of ancestry.  Our lives would be situated within the context of generations before us as well as a responsibility to those who follow.  This spiritual belonging holds us to a higher standard than a constituency or present people-pleasing tendency.  When we are called by a cloud of witnesses or shared mission that stretches back and forward, then our lives can take on new purpose.

This month I invite you to consider who you would name as your ancestors.  Go beyond familial identity into a sense of belonging and call.  When you consider those spiritual guides or forbearers, what might they expect of you or ask of you now? How does their legacy and life create a sense of belonging and promise?

Ancestors have always been important to the history and development of humanity.  Now as more and more of us live apart from relatives and dislocated from the places we once called home, ancestors offer us a grounding and reconnection with the web of life.  By identifying those who came before, we begin to better understand the path before us and how we wish to walk together.

Hope you will join us for the journey,

Rev. Robin

Spiritually Speaking: And You Shall Set You Free!

How did “holding it together” become the model of strength? 

I know in my body when I am holding on to something too strongly.  Sometimes it is an idea of how something could unfold, a plan, a resentment, a to-do, a sense of shame or defeat.  Often, it is a feeling of responsibility for something I can’t do, don’t really want to do, or shouldn’t do.  When I am holding on too tightly, I feel it in my body.  Shoulders tense.  I don’t breathe deeply.  Humor eludes me.  I am impatient with people I love (and don’t love!).

And I know the sense of release.  I can breathe again.  There is a tension released from my muscles.  I become more patient, receptive, and eager to listen. I sing along to the radio and dance in my car!  I slow down to listen to the people I love (and don’t love!).

I used to believe this idea of holding on was especially gendered for women, but I think it is woven throughout our culture for all genders and peoples—an emphasis on intense responsibility, holding on and even shame about releasing.  Consider the culture of over-working which is a veritable competition of fatigue when we see one another!  “How are you?”  “So busy!” one person replies and the other almost always answers, “me too. I am working XX number of hours or I am running around for the family…kids/grandkids are so busy!”  I can’t think of the last time when I asked someone how they were doing and they replied, “I am really taking it easy these days and cultivating space.  I am letting go of the things that aren’t helping me  grow and live with integrity.”

I have a friend who recently took up the practice of de-cluttering following the expert Marie Kondo.  The process is relatively simple.  Kondo recommends letting go of everything in your life that you either don’t absolutely need or doesn’t spark joy for you.  In The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up: The Japanese Art of Decluttering and Organizing, Kondo advises that if something doesn’t spark joy or is unnecessary, to thank the object and then release it. 

In some forms of Buddhism letting go is understood as a source of release and joy.  Sometimes the fear of missing something or someone, being incomplete without it, keeps us from seeing the joy and contentment on the other side of release.  In this space of release, we discover what we truly need and who we truly can become together.  Unlike cleaning out a closet, though, freeing the self is best done within community.  Buddhists gather in a sangha for this very reason- to create communities of courage and accountability.

And so we gather.  This month in our congregation we will be sharing practices of spiritual de-cluttering.  May we seek together and discover new paths of release and service to one another and the world.

Peace to you and yours,

Rev. Robin

Nurturing the Spirit…

At a recent seminar for ministers, we were led in various spiritual practices over the course of a few days.  Many of those practices involved contemplative experiences—and, namely, silence.  Silence.  Quietude.  Not speaking.  No conversation.  Not reading.  Not doing.  Just sitting in silence.  I soaked up the silence with much gratitude.  Excitement even.  “Oh, good.  I get to be still.  And quiet.  No phone.  No computer.  Nothing.”  I need silence.  I need time alone to recharge, to pray, to meditate—with the only sounds being the hum of a fan or the sacred purr of a cat or the ritual call of a choir of cicadas.
Being alone and being quiet provides me the opportunity to stay in touch with my core—It helps keep me grounded, and I need that time to connect with my source.  It’s part of my spiritual practice.  Thus I coveted the time of silent contemplation at the recent seminar, but not everyone felt that way.   In one of our check-ins, a self-identified extrovert asked, with some obvious frustration:  “Why aren’t we talking?!  I need to be TALKING!”  Meanwhile, the introverts among us were basking in the glow of the nothing, enjoying the private moments, soaking up the solitude, and coveting the chance to process as introverts do—inside our heads.
What a beautiful thing—that we are all so different.  We left the seminar recognizing that the choices along our spiritual paths are just that---choices. And based on our personalities and histories, our preferences varied wildly.  But it was clear that with intention, we could ground ourselves more fully through some steady practice or spiritual ritual. 
Some took time at the beginning of the day for meditation; others finished their days with song or prayer.  Some went for walks to the water while others formed groups for sharing and reflection.  We discussed the varied nature of our spiritual paths and noted how a single act of intention could shift a focus—from concern over the most recent e-mail to an inward journey of self-discovery. From staring at a screen to looking at the faces of others in whose eyes, if we really look, we may see our own reflection—and perhaps even a spark of divinity.
What brings you into focus?  What takes you to the core of your being, and what sustains you along your spiritual path?  It could be practicing yoga or painting a prayer or making a mandala.  It might mean deep sharing with a spiritual companion or scribbling in a journal.  What grounds you?  Is it spending time alone or sitting beneath the shelter and magnificence of a tree whose roots dig deep and whose limbs reach to the sky?  Perhaps your spiritual path involves a number of these practices.  Whatever the case may be, take time to ground yourself. A steady practice not only helps keep us on track, it also helps us light the way for others.  If you need silence, find silence.  If you need a creative outlet, mold clay or paint or create a collage!  May we honor and encourage one another along the way.
~Rev. Mary Frances Comer

Receiving the Invite

Do not try to save the whole world

or do anything grandiose.

Instead, create a clearing

in the dense forest of your life

and wait there patiently,

until the song that is your life falls

into your own cupped hands

and you recognize and greet it.

Only then will you know

how to give yourself to this world

so worthy of rescue.

-Clearing by Martha Postlewaite

Do you ever long for the clearings in your life?

When I was a student minister, a supervisor asked me about my spiritual practices which cultivated quiet and renewal.  I explained that I found renewal in being engaged with the world (a strong extrovert).  He nodded and then inquired, “but where did you find the quiet?”  I explained—to my credit—in an intricate way that life was too busy for quiet.

I know what it is to run circles around my own life.  When I don’t make the quiet spaces, the clearings, in my own life I often ask what is it that I am afraid of?  Often for me, I run circles in my life when I am running away from something or when I have lost my trust in the world.  A deep part of spiritual growth is developing trust.  For some, this trust is in God and for others this trust is in an abiding love throughout creation.

It can be tempting to think of the clearing as a physical space or time. 

Christine Valters Painter, a Benedictine oblate, describes the self in two parts.

The monk in me feels the call of moving inward.  My inner monk knows the deep wisdom to be found in rest, in slowness and spaciousness, in not letting the productivity of the world keep me running ever faster, that the only person who can say "no" and stop and open up to the eternity of this moment, is me.  Like the bear, I know the power to be gained from following my natural rhythms, rather than those the world around me demands.

The pilgrim in me feels the call of moving outward.  My inner pilgrim feels a longing to travel, to walk across new landscapes, to find myself the stranger so that everything I think I know can be gently released in favor of the deeper truth only revealed in the wandering.[1]

The clearings are all about the inner monk.  It is a balance of cultivating the monk and the pilgrim.  To hear the invitation from the world to be a source of healing and change, we need the clearing spaces.  In the clearing of our own lives, we meet our call and see plainly- beyond ego or self- the ways in which our life can be part of the healing force already flowing about us if we would stop to see its direction and know its quiet, nearly invisible force.

May you find time and space to hear the invitation of the world.  She waits in a beauty beyond brokenness and with an infinite hope as ancient as the stars.

I’ll see you there,

Rev. Robin

---

[1] Abbey of the Hearts

Spiritually Speaking: The Edge of Covenant

I love a good horror movie, but I must admit to a particular affinity for zombie movies.  I am drawn into the subplot about human behavior, the existential questions (what constitutes life?) and the dystopian critiques of our cultural trends.  The ridiculous and absurd extreme situations put into question basic beliefs.

Zombie movies are the perfect spiritual magnifying lens.  So, you believe human life is only about neural activity?  Well, what if the nervous system continued to function in limited form without the personality and unique set of traits that make an individual human being?  So you believe interconnectedness is a good thing?  Well, what if our highly connected networks facilitate faster viral transmission?  So you believe we each have worth and dignity?  Well, what would you do for survival at the cost of other human beings?

In the movie World War Z with Brad Pitt, the world is taken over by a zombie plague.  In approximately twelve seconds after exposure from a zombie bite, a human undergoes a radical change because of a viral infection.  In the film, Brad Pitt is bitten as he dashes to the rooftop of a building where a helicopter awaits to take him and his family to safety.  Knowing he could change within the twelve-second window, he runs away from the helicopter where his family waits to the ledge of the building.  He stands on the ledge teetering over the edge of a New Jersey apartment building as he counts slowly to twelve.  He then looks around and makes a dash for the helicopter.  He and his family are flown to safety.

As I watched the film, it took a moment to sink in what Pitt’s character did.  He teetered at the edge of a building so that if he changed into a ravenous, murdering zombie he would quickly fall to his death and save his family.  Aware of his love for them and without more than the thought of their safety, he went right to the edge to protect them.

I know zombies aren’t real.  I know these movies are far-fetched.

But how many times in your life have you teetered on the edge in order to protect the ones you love?  How many times have you gone to the place that terrifies you, looked over the abyss as you waited to see what was next?  And moreover, have you known the self-less act to do anything to protect the ones you love?

A good many of us do not live in the extremes.  Yet, we have lights, moments of clarity, which focus what we value the most.

There are surely limits of love, but I do not know a human I have met with a limit for love.  That is, our capacity to hold love, to be love and to transit love seems to me to be infinite.  What keeps us back is the analysis.  What keeps us from the spaces of zero gravity is not the fear, in my opinion, but the analysis of the fear as immobilizing.

Put another way, as one mentor once advised me, your feelings need not dictate how you act.  They are good informants but they are not in charge.

As Pitt teetered on the ledge, he surely felt fear.  Yet, in the midst of this fear he slowly counted to twelve. 

I used to believe you chose love or fear.  I was wrong.  I used to believe you were courageous or anxious.  I was wrong.  We are both.  We are all of it.  And living in both takes us to the edge and brings us back to what we love most and fight for with all of our beings.

We can count to twelve in the direst circumstances.  We can feel it all and hold steady.  We can teeter on the edge deeply connected to what we love.

August is a time for many of us to ready a return to routine.  From vacation and the chaos of unorganized life, we return to the scheduled.  In the transition, I invite you to count to twelve.  Remember what and whom you live for.  Who calls you back from the ledge?  Count to twelve.  Are you ready to return? 

Count to twelve. 

Come back.  Come together.  Return again.

In faith and love,
Rev. Robin

Spiritually Speaking: Building a New Way?

I’ve just returned from a week in Portland, Oregon.  Roughly 5,000 Unitarian Universalists gathered for our annual General Assembly.  Some traveled only by foot to arrive and some live-streamed it all from their living room, others boarded planes from the corners of the United States and some Unitarian Universalist leaders traveled from far outside the boarders of the U.S. to be with us.  While in Portland, I attended workshops, meetings, and presented on our multi-site ministry.  The theme for the conference was “Building a New Way.”

From the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the new healthcare structure to marriage equality and reproductive rights, it was indeed a new way across the country.  Euphoria captured the hearts of many Unitarian Universalists in Portland,.  Yet, in the midst of our joy and rainbow flag flying, there were other flags flown as well.  As President Obama offered Reverend Pinckney’s eulogy, the Confederate flag flew over the state capitol.  Just three days later, Bree Newsome climbed the flagpole in Columbia and removed the flag.  It was promptly replaced.  Here in Charlotte, a church, Briar Creek Baptist was set ablaze.  We do not yet know why it was set on fire, but we know it was intentional and a community is aching from the loss and knowledge that someone harmed them.  Here in Salisbury, protestors gathered around the statue of a Confederate soldier with confederate flags and “Don’t Tread on Me” flags. 

Are we building a new way?  Or are we walking in circles?

Yes, I’ve begun to answer to these questions.  Yes.

This past week was euphoric and heartbreaking.  Both are true. We can live into the paradox of allowing love to make and break our hearts.  This is the paradox of being alive.  We do not have to choose between celebrating the victories in the LGBTQ community and the sweet relief of marriage equality and mourning the assault on African Americans and the continued presence of the virus of racism.   We can hold joy and pain.  In fact, by holding both, we live in the solidarity that is the call of our faith.

We have progressed and we have regressed.  Both are true.  The spiritual evolution of a people is not linear but punctuated, unpredictable and complex.  The new way is still emerging and may yet be impossible for us to fully comprehend.  As Louis Amstrong sings in one of my favorites,

I’ve heard babies cryin’.  I watch them grow.  They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know.  And I think to myself, what a wonderful world.

We do not yet understand the spirit of justice emerging in our midst.  This is the nature of faithful organizing and spiritual response: we step out into new territories.  We move beyond the old narratives of liberals and conservatives.  We move past the shame of the South and identifying it as a diagnosed patient in the disease of racism.  Instead, we see that the virus of racism has mutated to infect vast systems across this country.  We move beyond the old narratives of polarized public debate and into the nuance of real humans.  We step into actual relationship with one another.  One of my colleagues, Rev. Anthony Smith, who preached at our congregation, went down to the statue of the Confederate soldier.  He engaged the protestors in conversation.  He tried to understand why they would wave a symbol that to him is the epitome of the narrative of white superiority. 

As I try to make space for the spirit of justice in my heart, I seek the courage of Rev. Anthony Smith.  The courage to respond and humbly ask why and what now is indeed building the new way.

See you in the emerging lands where the winds of justice howl and soothe, wake and warn…

With faith and love and a good deal of hope,

Rev. Robin

Partnering with a CMS Middle School – A new path for Piedmont

 

Piedmont UU Church is looking forward to a new partnership and social justice project.  Our congregation will partner with a Charlotte-Mecklenburg middle school, J.M. Alexander, for the next school year, carrying out quarterly projects with the congregation. J.M. Alexander is part of the North Learning Community and is located on Hambright Road, off Old Statesville. The leadership team for this project is co-led by Jolena James-Szanton and Amanda Howard.  Other members of the team include Rev. Robin Tanner, Elaine Deck, Karen Haag and Mimi Davis, all of whom have many years of experience in education.  Planning has included meetings with CMS Community Partners staff, attendance at a Faith Summit in April for churches involved in partnerships with CMS schools and a meeting with JM Alexander Principal, Ms. Angela Richardson.

Piedmont UU Church will collect personal items in August for use by the students, including shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, mouth wash, deodorant, feminine hygiene products and other similar items. These will be prepared for giving on the fifth Sunday of August for our Service Sunday project.

Members interested in serving as literacy tutors will be recruited to assist students with reading in the second quarter. Principal Richardson states on the school’s website that, “Literacy continues to be the North Star for us as it is in our district. If we can improve reading scores, other scores will naturally improve as well.”  This emphasis on literacy is system wide, led by Superintendent Ann Blakeney Clark. Members interested in helping with this will receive an orientation and visit the school to work with two to three students on a weekly basis.

We hope you can join us and give your feedback on our project proposal on either July 26th at 11:15 am or August 20th from 6:00-6:30 pm.  More information will be forthcoming.  Questions?  Please contact Jolena and Amanda at jolena_james_szanton@mac.com and amandacharle@aol.com, respectively.

Spiritually Speaking: Pure Soul

In the 1820s a new religious movement arose in the United States.  This new movement was, in part, a reaction to the emphasis of rationalism within Unitarianism (then a stronghold in the Northeastern U.S.) as well as the hierarchy of intellectualism in Boston.  The names of this movement we read in history books or have heard on Sundays: Thoreau, Fuller, Emerson, and Longfellow.

The movement became known as transcendentalism, albeit a strange name for a philosophy, which emphasized the immanence of truth, goodness and divinity. Transcendentalists were, however, trying to transcend the things they believed had corrupted the inherent goodness of the souls: systems, societal expectations, and power structures.  If one could transcend these, they believed that a pure soul would be capable of creating real community with other pure souls.  This led some Transcendentalists to create Utopian communities.  Thoreau wrote civil disobedience, a guidebook to attempting to break down corrupting systems.  And Emerson left the system and structure of the church to preach to the congregation universal about a soul awakening.

While it is unlikely any one of us will ever be fully free from the created world and the structures of that world, it is true that the Transcendentalists gifted us insights we still claim as Unitarian Universalists. 

Many UUs affirm the idea that there is an “Over-soul,” something that resides in each of us and connects us.  Even more would lift up the Transcendentalist view that people are born good with great potential within them.  We also still hold that wisdom and truth reside within us; that we may use our minds above and beyond external documents or structures to discern truth.   Finally, we value time and space to take leave from the structures and schedule of the created world to be in touch with the wisdom within.

The Transcendentalists remind us of the importance to quiet ourselves and listen to the still small voice within.  They remind us to explore the caverns of our heart and mind, to mine for the wisdom kept within us.  Like untapped resources, we can find ourselves burning out, never tending to the light within.

This is why we’ve brought back our weekly meditation time on Tuesdays.  Each week on Tuesday from 6:30-7:30 we open the doors of our sanctuary for a time of meditation.  We sit, stand, or lay down quietly before the windows overlooking the trees.  This time of year a flood of green fills the eyes and the soft sound of the birds settling down for the night is a fitting chorus.   Just this past week, I sat in our sanctuary.  The peace was palpable.  I saw a bird dart before the windows and the flame of a single candle flicker as the rains fell on the roof. 

What do we discover in these meditative times?

As Wendell Berry writes in The Peace of Wild Things, “I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.”

In a brief twenty minutes I remembered who I was.

As the refulgence of summer brims before us across North Carolina, I wish you the peace of wild things.  As schools release and children run into the unfettered days of no schedule or structure, in the chaos I hope you will hear the wisdom of our Transcendentalist ancestors calling. 

May you find a place of peace friends, until we meet again.

With a faith in one another and the future before us,

Rev. Robin

Spiritually Speaking: Two Words That Really Bother Me

It can be dangerous to share with a large number of people something that irritates you.  I never had siblings, but even in my house I knew caution around sharing pet peeves.  Yet, we are a trusting, compassionate community.  So, here goes. 

“Have faith.”

I do not have enough hands to count the number of times that I have heard this short phrase.  In hospital rooms, family gatherings, at the grocery store or even at the nail salon you can hear someone share “just have faith.”

As a chaplain, I would often hear it said from the lips of someone who was very anxious about being present to another person in pain. In a way, albeit unintentional, “have faith” is a way to distance from the pain of another human being.  By offering advice or trying to fix the situation, you move farther from the despair or the suffering. Again, it’s usually not at all intentional.

And, if I am honest, at different times in my life I surely have offered versions of “have faith.” Is it not those things that irritate us most which are a reflection of some part of ourselves?

It is difficult to sit with someone in the spaces of despair when the world falls apart.  Far from a question of atheism or theism, the spaces where one loses faith aren’t really about the crumpling of belief.  I think more often the spaces when faith is lost or destroyed are about the radical change of the elemental bonds between one being and another.  It is about the shifting of something beyond belief.   It is the shifting of the world, as you knew it.

This is real.

You do not have to believe in a god to go through a shift in your faith.   
It can be a personal event, or even a series of local, national events that begin to call within you this bubbling doubt.

In our faith, we believe the doubts are holy spaces too.  In our trust of the world, in our faith, we try to open ourselves to the experience of doubt.  We hold doubt to be a process that enables creative, cataclysmic and transformative energies to emerge.  If you never doubt, then do you have anything but a theoretical faith?

So come this month, and consider a faith beyond belief.  Consider a lived faith that articulates the connective bonds of our lives, and is constantly in change, doubt, transformation through the connective bonds with all life.

In faith and doubt,

Rev. Robin

Spiritually Speaking: Liberation Through Vulnerability

It is counter-intuitive.  In some of the most vulnerable spaces, humans are liberated.  There is something freeing about chosen vulnerability.  Not a forced insecurity, but choosing to reveal who you are fully to the world.

Brené Brown believes vulnerability is the salve to shame.  When shame is exposed, when we are honest about our fears or beliefs of inadequacies or failings, the power of shame dissolves.  Brian McLaren in his book, Naked Spirituality, claims that St. Francis of Assisi found his calling through vulnerability as he took of his clothes in a church to demonstrate he would be not clothed in the culture of the day.  His father, a wealthy fabric merchant, was horrified at his son’s behavior.  And yet St. Francis was simply saying, “this is fully who I am.  I can be no other.”   His naked-demonstration is regarded by many to mark the beginning of his ministry.  Many mystics emphasized the role of vulnerability in a spiritual journey toward enlightenment.

It is common in our world today to expend a lot of energy in avoiding being vulnerable.  There are many clothes to cover our spiritual nakedness with and many ways to try to hide ourselves- even from those closest to us.  We hide with our physical stuff.  We hide with our work.  We hide with money.  We hide with clothing and titles.  None of these things are inherently bad, but they can easily become the tools of obscuring who we truly are.

As Unitarian Universalists, we believe soul authenticity is one of the principal steps in the path to wholeness and beloved community.  When we are trying to hide who we are, we ultimately deprive the world of our best selves.  We cannot be in authentic relationship with one another while trying to appear as someone else. 

The kind of love that changes the world needs all of who you are.

This includes the scars and the corners where you never shine a light.  This includes the mistakes and the past that was always promising.  This includes the struggle you are in now and what is most active for you.  It is in those places of challenge and incongruity that transformation is seeded.

The organizer and labor activist, Cesar Chavez, said, “you cannot oppress the people who are not afraid anymore.”    There is a profound, real liberation if a person is able to release oneself from the fear of judgment, inadequacy and unworthiness. 

For this day, how might you live more authentically?   How might you help someone else be vulnerable? 
May we each find liberation in this season of renewal and Passover,

Rev. Robin

Spiritually Speaking: What in the World Is Good?

Many good things are happening in our congregation!

I want to extend my deep gratitude to the members of the ADORE (A Dialogue On Race and Ethnicity) Team for their creativity, passion, and vision that helped to make this year’s Black History Month celebration a success.  For the first time in our congregation’s history, we took the entire month of February and set aside business as usual.  We moved beyond the annual sermon on Dr. Martin Luther King Sunday into a deeper commitment to cherish diversity. 

This past month, we heard from members of our congregation about their vision for multiculturalism alongside the struggle within our community to sustain multiculturalism.  We listened to the words of Rev. Anthony Smith and the insistence to know subaltern histories.  We bore witness to Dot Counts Scoggins in her walk of faith and honored her as a living legacy. And just this past Sunday we listened to the brilliance of Angela Renée Simpson and Dr. Carl DuPont as they shared the poetry, philosophy and pain which created African American spirituals.  If you missed these Sundays, I encourage you to visit our past sermons section of our website, www.puuc.org, to hear some of the services.  Thank you to Michelle Boesch, Eva Dew Danner, Anne Laukaitis, Ilene McFarland, Lauren Neal, Arvind Patil, and Christine Robinson for making this incredible month possible.  And thank you to Lisa Dickinson for putting the finishing touches on our congregational mosaic.  Look for it in the sanctuary this coming Sunday! 

When we dream together amazing worlds can be born into being.

In this time of appreciation, I also want to lift up my gratitude for the incredible music ministry of Dr. Carl DuPont and the soul-nourishing music being offered by the members of our Piedmont UU Choir.  In just six weeks of rehearsals, our choir has sung on three Sundays and helped to participate in last week’s music Sunday.  Their voices fill the sanctuary with robust, responsive and refulgent sound.  I do believe our choir may soon sing Spring into our midst from this extended North Carolina winter.

Good things are happening. I am so grateful to the many in our community who give of what they can to nurture the spirit and heal our world.

This coming month, we are focusing our time on the monthly theme of gratitude. 
When I was in seminary, one of my advisors implored me to share my spiritual practices.  She instructed us all that spiritual practices were central to one’s ministry. She quoted Harry Scholefield, minister emeritus of San Francisco’s First Unitarian Church. “If you do not maintain a spiritual practice you shall dry up and blow away.”  For a long time I searched for a practice that I could maintain daily.  I have many, many spiritual practices from yoga to prayer and textual studies, but I tend to jump from one practice to the next.  I wanted to feel that sense of depth born from commitment.  It took me years to realize that I did have an intuitive spiritual practice.   I had a spiritual practice I engaged every day.

This practice is so simple and yet powerful, I’ve maintained it without even realizing it.  This spiritual discipline companions me in marches, protests and rallies for justice.  It is what has helped me through some of the most desperate and despairing times in my life.

Gratitude.

Seeking meaningful ways to give thanks and appreciate the world around me has sustained me and called me to give back to this earth and her people.  From journaling to notes of appreciation and even to taking the time to pause and see the world around me, I offer thanks at least a dozen times a day.  The writer Anne Lamott reminds us that there are really only three central prayers, “help, thanks, wow.”  I’d been praying “thanks” my whole life.

This is not to say that my life is perfect.  Nor is it to say that my gratitude becomes a numbing medicine from the world’s pain and my own pain. Indeed it is a balance of saving and savoring the world.  But in that balance, I believe we discover the spark at the core of our mission statement and ultimately the light within Unitarian Universalism.
I hope you will join us this month as we explore the spiritual practices of gratitude and the ways in which gratitude are essential to our faith as Unitarian Universalists and our commitment to heal the world.

With appreciation for the ministry and vision we share,

Rev. Robin

From Your Community Minister: An Invitation to participate in small group Spiritual Direction.

The term “spiritual direction” is a bit of a misnomer.  Spiritual Direction, at its best, is not really directive at all.  It is not about one person guiding another towards anything other than their own deepest truths, in the most gentle of ways, in what is often referred to as “holy listening.”  The Unitarian Universalist Spiritual Director’s Network describes the relationship of director and directee this way:  “…We work with others, companioning and witnessing to their sacred stories and grace-filled moments.”

I was first introduced to the practice of Spiritual Direction as a seminarian in Cambridge where I experienced both individual and small group direction.   There, in the basement of a hundred year old chapel, we honored one another’s journeys and helped each other along the path to a deepening sense of spiritual growth.   The direction relationship is not about offering advice or counsel (for that is not a part of the practice); rather, it is about offering a safe space where deep listening can occur.  We offer the presence of open minds and open hearts and respond with reflective questions that encourage the processes of self-awareness, contemplation, and exploration of that which you might name as sacred.

My training as a spiritual director began with a semester in seminary from a monk who was part of the community of The Society of Saint John the Evangelist, a monastery located on the beautiful Charles River in Cambridge, Massachusetts.  I then completed a two-year training at the Charlotte Spirituality Center where I now serve, offering direction and contemplative mini-retreats.

If you’d like to experience the practice of spiritual direction in an individual or a small group setting (a maximum of four per group), please contact Rev. Mary Frances at maryfrances@puuc.org.  We’ll set up a time to meet once per month.

Wishing you peace for the journey,
Rev. Mary Frances

Piedmont UU hosts Latino Immigration Forum on Tuesday, March 24

All of us are immigrants unless we are Native Americans. Our ancestors came to this country from across the globe, from many dozens of countries and all of the continents. Many came under extremely trying circumstances, although very, very few under the circumstances endured by the millions brought here illegally for many generations from Africa. Immigrants have come during the 17th, 18th, 19th, 20th and 21st centuries, hoping for freedom and better lives for themselves and their families. The plight of immigrants from Mexico and Central American countries, who have come to this country in recent years escaping violence, poverty and war, is a very important current issue. 

We are members of a religious denomination, Unitarian Universalism, that has advocated since its inception for civil rights and human rights, activism we can be proud of and be part of. The plight of Latino immigrants is an important UU issue. An entire General Assembly in 2011 was held in Phoenix, Arizona, close to the border with Mexico, to focus denominational attention on these issues.

Piedmont UU has been active in this area, with several members, Darla Davis and Anne Laukaitis, serving for some years on the Immigration Solidarity Council that meets monthly at the Friends Meeting House close to UNCC. Rev. Robin Tanner has engaged in rallies and vigils and been a speaker. Several dozen of our members have supported these activities at times.

The Piedmont UU Social Justice Council, in conjunction with the Immigration Solidarity Council, will hold a Latino Immigration Forum on Tuesday, March 24, 2015, from 7 to 8:30 p.m. in the sanctuary of our church. We offer this forum to raise the awareness of the issues and provide accurate, current information for our members and our guests.

Ben Snyder, an immigration lawyer, will provide an overview of the current status of President Obama’s recent administrative actions regarding Latino immigration. Hector Vaca, Director of ACTION NC, will talk about immigrant rights, the issue of in-state tuition in North Carolina for young students who accompanied their parents to their country as children and the municipal ID card for undocumented immigrants. A young Latino student, affected by the in-state tuition issue, will be present as well. There will be time for questions and the evening will conclude with member Mark Sanders leading us in a discussion of what Piedmont UU’s role might be in these important issues.

The Social Justice Council hopes many members will be interested to learn more about these issues, and the council has extended the invitation to other nearby churches and the community as well. There is no admission fee and refreshments will be served.

Latino Immigration Forum       
Tuesday, March 24, 2015, 7 to 8:30p.m.
Piedmont Unitarian Universalist Church      
9704 Mallard Creek Road
For more information contact Anne: laukaitis@windstream.net

Why We Must Fight For Medcaid Expansion

North Carolina’s continued rejection of Medicaid Expansion perpetuates systemic racism1. Even as we may work passionately to rid our own souls of every vestige of racism or classism, our failure to address systemic discrimination still sits on our shoulders. To that end, it is important that we call upon NC’s leaders to get off their duffs and pass Medicaid Expansion.

Medicaid Expansion is a critical component of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and is intended to provide health insurance and improve health care access to millions of Americans who can neither afford to buy private insurance nor access coverage through their employer. Those millions of people make too much money to qualify for traditional Medicaid coverage but not enough to qualify for subsidized insurance. They fall into the insurance gap. That gap includes 357,000 North Carolinians: a number equivalent to filling every seat at the Charlotte gathering every Sunday for more than 33 years. That many people are being denied health insurance coverage in North Carolina. And, those people are disproportionately people of color.

One needs only to quickly peruse the 2010 report card on North Carolina’s racial and ethnic health disparities produced by the Department of Health and Human Services (Yes: the very government denying Medicaid Expansion has an office that studies and advocates overcoming major differences in health between whites and people of color!) to find statistical evidence that people of color have significantly poorer health outcomes than whites in North Carolina.2 Rejecting Medicaid Expansion results in preventing 357,000 people who are mostly people of color from accessing health coverage. That’s the same population of people who already experience worse health outcomes than most. See where this is going?

But it gets worse! Failure to expand Medicaid, has already cost North Carolina billions of dollars and thousands of jobs. A recent study examined the potential impact of this failure county by county in North Carolina on tax revenue, job creation, business activity and health insurance coverage. According to this study, if NC expands Medicaid in 2016, it will help create 43,000 new jobs and save the state budget $300 million by 2020.3

North Carolina has one of the largest wealth gaps in the nation, with only 17% of whites, compared to nearly ½ of all people of color, experiencing asset poverty (including things like home equity and pensions). Wealth of this kind can be used to generate more income and passes from generation to generation. So, this disparity is self-perpetuating. And, yet, as one of the poorest states in the nation and with almost ½ of our people of color living in asset poverty, we reject 43,000 new jobs and $300 million in state budget savings?

The ACA was passed by the U.S. Senate in December 2009 and the U.S. House of Representatives in March 2010, signed into law by President Obama March 23, 2010, and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court June 28, 2012. In its ruling, the Supreme Court allowed states to individually choose to participate or reject Medicaid Expansion, the part of the ACA critical to providing health insurance to millions of low-income Americans. North Carolina, like many other Republican led Southern states, rejected it.

As of January 27, 2015, 28 states and the District of Columbia are expanding their Medicaid programs and embracing millions of people. Three states are considering expansion and 19 – including North Carolina – are still on record as neither expanding nor considering expansion. Earlier this month, NC Governor McCrory emerged from a White House meeting “breathlessly declaring”4 his surprise that the White House is willing to work with states on compromise plans to help these millions of people.  And yet, several states that originally rejected Medicaid Expansion have already negotiated waivers with the White House allowing those states to charge premiums or include co-pays to people newly covered by the expansion. Our Governor apparently didn’t know that.

As I said earlier, our failure to address systemic discrimination still sits on our shoulders. Join Reverend Robin and fellow PUUC congregants at the NAACP’s Mass Moral March on Raleigh February 14, 2015. Write your legislators. Do something. We cannot sit this one out.


January 31, 2015
A. Elaine Slaton

____________________________________________________________________
1 (government, institution, or system policies and practices that disadvantage people of color)

2  Office of Minority Health and Health Disparities and State Center for Health Statistics, NC DHHS. Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities in North Carolina: Report Card 2010. Retrieved from www.schs.state.nc.us

3  Linker, Adam. New study shows that state lost billions of dollars and thousands of jobs by refusing Medicaid expansion; Legislators can still change the course. December 19, 2014. Retrieved from http://pulse.ncpolicywatch.org.

4 http://www.ccharlotteobserver.com/2015/01/06/5429467/mccrory-obama-open-to-medicaid.html#.VK1MzSvF9qV

Spiritually Speaking: What Are You Sowing?

“Each night, when I go to sleep, I die. And the next morning, when I wake up, I am reborn.”
― Mahatma Gandhi   

I must admit that there are times when considering the state of the world I long for a cosmology that includes karma.  Not exactly that I want rewards or retributions, but a sense that there is an order in the midst of chaos.  Watching an unfair verdict come in from a trial, innocent citizens caught in a war; you may have wondered about theodicy.  Theodicy is the concept of divine justice.  It’s an ordering to the world.  Our Universalist ancestors were often criticized for their belief that a loving God wouldn’t punish anyone eternally in hell. Some wondered how that was fair?  Others criticized the Universalists for ignoring evil.  God loves everyone, but really?  Everyone?

There are other religious answers to the question of divine justice.

Hinduism is an expansive religion, truly a collection of diverse religious practices with a shared cosmology. Hinduism received its name from the British who had difficulty in accurately pronouncing the name of the river Sindhuo.  Thus those who lived in the region of the Sindhuo became known as Hindus and their religion (which seemed monolithic to the British) became known as Hinduism.

To make any statement about karma and rebirth would be a serious simplification of the practices, worldviews, and cultural diversity within Hinduism.  There is a wide range of understanding of karma, coming from the word denoting religious action/sacrifice.  Generally, however, karma is understood to be in three forms: karma experienced in this life, one’s store of karma in this life, and karma sown for the next life.  While it’s a popular American idiom to accuse someone of accruing “bad karma” of course the theological understanding in Hinduism is much more complicated. 

Karma is just one answer to the question of what order there might in the universe.  When the Universalists were criticized for their loving God, what was missing is that they did believe in little states of heaven and hell on earth.  Here on earth there was much of hell or heaven to be experienced.   It’s difficult for me to embrace a cosmological order where beings are reincarnated into life situations that compel them to confront past mistakes.  I find it to be pure luck (or lack there of) to be born where and when we are born.  Of course, I’ve seen the power of generational poverty or wealth.  I’ve known the karma of one person’s decision in a family and the ripple effect it had upon that family.  Jesus even offers the parable of the sower and the seed to illustrate the power of what we sow and where we sow it.  This kind of here and now karma I can understand.  Even in my life so far I’ve known little deaths and rebirths.  None of us remains the same person forever. 

In Hinduism, karma is referred to as being sown, like a seed.  As the new year unfolds already marked with violence in Paris, I invite you to consider what you are sowing?  Have you accrued some good karma or bad karma?  And are your intentions sown in soil that can receive it? 

In faith,
Rev. Robin

PUUC ARTS COMMITTEE HISTORY – PART 1

The Arts Committee was born in 2011 with the coming together of five artists, Stanley Burford, Merna Hesse, Michelle Murphy, Claudia Perkinson, and Carol Slavick, who recognized the need for a sanctuary facelift. Prior to the formation of this group, M.J. and Larry Lieberman provided window drapery and items from the outdoors, sometimes branches blooming with dogwood blossoms and at others the plain sculptural beauty of winter trees.

At the first planning meeting of the newly formed Arts Committee, it was decided to present a few ideas to the Religious Services Committee for a plan to create a series of window hangings that would represent each of the four seasons. Approval was granted and the committee went to work designing the first behind the pulpit see-through drape that would depict leaves.  The group drove to Gastonia to select and purchase a white semi-sheer polyester fabric. The main criteria for the fabric choice was that it be sheer enough to allow an unobstructed view and yet to prevent sun from coming into the sanctuary. Carol Slavick suggested a creative technique using the insulating building material, Tyvek. A work day was scheduled and the five artists spent the day cutting leaf shapes from the Tyvek, and distorting them with hot irons.  This provided a lacy effect indicating newly budded spring leaves.  A few of the leaves were painted a light yellow green to add variety to the otherwise all white appearance. Another work day was scheduled where each leaf was carefully placed on the fabric in a free-flowing dance motion. Once everyone was satisfied, the leaves were glued in place and given time to dry prior to installation behind the pulpit.  This drapery was in place in time for Rev. Robin Tanner’s installation as our minister on Sunday, April 10th, 2011.

The window hanging brought the group together to begin the design process for a Summer window hanging. The ultimate design depicting blues and aqua of flowing water was chosen. The artists once again drove to Gastonia for the perfect fabric that would be semi-sheer and hold acrylic paint. This drapery creation was a lengthy process with many applications of acrylic paints to create texture and depth of color, primarily done by Stanley Burford. The end result was in place behind the pulpit for the Ordination of Rev. Hugh Hammond in June, 2011.

The Fall and Winter hangings were created afterwards. The Fall hanging depicted falling Gingko leaves. A light gold fabric was chosen for this; the leaves were cut from two different fabrics, including a gold metallic net-type fabric.

 The Winter hanging consists of a center panel made from silk that was dyed using the sun printing process, and two silver side panels. Real holly leaves were hand picked and flattened as much as possible for the leaf images. Marbles were used to suggest berries. After painting the silk with blue and magenta Setacolor dye, the leaves and marbles were placed randomly on it. The sun did the rest. It was hot work, but fun work since the process requires a high noon summer sun.

 All of the fabrics were purchased from Mary Jo’s Fabrics in Gastonia.  Carol Slavick did the hemming for all the window hangings. In addition, she designed and sewed new coverings for the, Chalice, Candles, and Emma tables using linen she donated. Table cloths for the Membership  and Adult Religious Education tables in the hall were made by Carol and Michelle Murphy  using a drapery weight fabric. A table runner was also made to enhance the Membership table.

ART EXHIBITS
Once the four seasonal window hangings were finished, it seemed logical to continue the creative process by inviting people to exhibit their own artistic creations in exhibit form on the back wall of the sanctuary.  A call was issued to PUUC artists, and Debbie Lehman and Babo Janssen were recruited to lend their gallery experience to help create a professional look.  Exhibit themes have been Landscapes, Black and White, Texture and Patterns, Pets and Animals, Fire, Still Life, New shows in 2015 are themed Color, Wings, Mystery, Artist’s Choice, Seasons, Water, Found Objects as Art, and Portraits. A children and youth exhibit will be installed in May. Pierre Fraser, Stanley Burford, and Michelle Murphy are the chairs of the Exhibits Committee.

Contributing artists have been Linda Blum, Regina Burchette, Stanley Burford, Connie  Byrne, Maura Cooper, Trisha Cunningham, Judy Dancing, Darla Davis, Karen Dutton, Lisa Dickinson, Margaret Edwards, Pierre Fraser, Gail Haley, Merna Hesse, Anne Laukaitis, M.J. Lieberman, Deb Lung, Ilene McFarland, Mary Ann McGannon, Meredith Merritt, Cheryl Midkiff, Michelle Murphy, Krissa Palmer, Stephanie Nelson, Barasha Ratz, Carol Slavick, Angela Stephens-Owens, Bill Sutton, Deedi Sutton, Resa Treadaway, Holly Whisman,

TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERSARY
The Arts Committee created a twenty-five year time line that stretched across the back wall. All of the photographs and dates were supplied by Anne Laukaitis, while the calligraphy banner was designed and created by Maura Cooper. The exhibit remained up for three months so that everyone could explore the history of PUUC.
Part I of this PUUC Art History has dealt with the early years of the Arts Committee.
Part II will illustrate the process of designing and creating the banner for General Assembly, and the Hands with Chalice project.

Michelle Murphy
Carol Slavick
January, 2015

Spiritually Speaking: When Humanity Does Not Progress

It’s a common armchair philosophy question.   Perhaps you’ve heard it at some party or gathering.  “Is the world getting better?” someone will ask.   There are countless variations of this question.  What about women’s rights?  Are women really better off?  Do you think racial equality is better than twenty years ago? 

Countless statistics may be offered (many of which will be fabricated) and then often the conversation, if you are in my family, will end with a shoulder shrug.

Our Unitarian ancestors were made famous and infamous for their insistence on the progress of the world.   In the 19th Century, urged on by the industrial age, rapid progress in scientific advancement and popular debate on evolution, Unitarians even enshrined progress into one of their central documents.  An early precursor to the Principles and Purposes found in Unitarian Universalism today, the Unitarians developed a document entitled the “Five Points of Unitarian Belief.”  Authored largely by James Freeman Clarke the 5th point was “the continuity of human development in all worlds or the progress of mankind onward and upward forever.”

In seminary, my colleagues and I would often jokingly say “onward and upward” in response to some seemingly stupid behavior or decision.  We had, as the children of the 20th century, realized that human development was anything but continuous.  The chorus of “onward and upward” was viewed as a silly relic of our Unitarian past. 

You can imagine the crushing blow that the events of the 20th century had to the Unitarian sense of hope.  Believing progress had a direct relationship with time, they welcomed the inventions of the late 19th century and the new discoveries of science.   Yet soon after the onward and upward motto became pervasive belief in Unitarianism, the United States had been drawn into two world wars.  Scientific advancement had been used to create the atomic bomb.  The holocaust became the most devastating and incomprehensible evil in the history of the world.  And from the relative tranquility and prosperity of the 1940s and 1950s, came the culture-changing, world transforming 1960s. 

To say the least, onward and upward became a joke.  Behind the raucous humor was a deep theological void.  The emphasis on rationalism and empiricism added to a sort of depressed Unitarian body in the late 20th century- one that had no theological understanding of hope.  I once preached to a historically Unitarian congregation in 2003 about hope in the new century.  After I was done delivering a hopeful and somewhat overly optimistic sermon, a lifelong Unitarian approached me and simply said, “Hope is not rational.  Unitarianism does not rely on hope.  I can hope all day long, but it won’t change anything.”

Reticence to rely upon a sort of immobilizing hope is understandable- say one that says suffering in this life is to be endured and embraced for the hope of a reward in heaven.  An inability to hold to the “onward and upward” style of hope in the 21st century is rational and reasonable.  And yet, if we do not have some trust in the world, in other words some reason or cause to believe that things will yet be better, what would ever motivate us to progress when we do?

Put plainly, religion- particularly a religion with a strong social conscience must have hope within its theology. 

2014 was a year chock full of evidence that things are not getting better.  And it was full of beauty and promise. 

As we take our first few breaths in the air of 2015, the decision to hope may be more important than any resolution we could make.  Not a hope for a next life, not a hope that is head-in-the-sand, but a gritty, real hope that takes the to streets.  This is a hope that of the long arc.  It is a hope kindled in community by the people who push us beyond ourselves and pull us out of isolation and despair. 

Come walk with us into this new year with the absurdity, the wonder and the beauty of the hope that can be.  Yes onward and upward, well most definitely onward!

In faith,

Rev. Robin