Spiritually Speaking: Bless Your Heart

When I first arrived in North Carolina, I was already aware that “bless your heart” was not something you would really want to hear! I can honestly say that I’ve only had three folks in six years say “bless your heart” to me.  If I am really honest, I probably was deserving of receiving the phrase far more often! 

Before I moved here, I was warned about the Southern habit of being nice to your face, while saying something entirely different behind your back.  I am sure that has occurred.  As my Ukrainian grandmother would say, “you have no business knowing what other people say about you.”  Truth, Grandma.  Truth.

Yet, for me, the blessing in ministering in the South far outweighs the burden. Even at this moment, with a legislature that baffles and saddens me.  The blessing far outweighs the burden.

When I consider the blessings my heart received in the six years of ministering in North Carolina, it almost immobilizes me with gratitude.  I want to run around and gush to everyone I see.  Knowing that a weepy minister for eight months would likely not be a blessing to you, I offer this gratitude in the written word rather than in soppy Sunday messages. 

I did not always consider myself a blessed person.  When you grow up with a tumultuous childhood and struggle, survival can be the only possibility.  It takes a while to learn how to thrive, not just survive.  And thriving is built upon recognizing and receiving the blessings in our lives.  You each have been a blessing to me.

For some, you taught me a lesson I needed to better understand, caused me to look within my own soul.  Others, demonstrated a grace and forgiveness as things I tried did not work out quite right.  We tried experiments together.  You were kind when I was a new mom and painfully sleep-deprived.  You were understanding when I traveled to Raleigh or the corners of North Carolina to bear witness and stand in solidarity.

Key to surviving the fury of hurtful speech and harmful legislation, has been recognizing and receiving these blessings.  I do not believe the world is changed from our despair and rage with what has been done, but rather with our vision of what can be and our recognition of the first shoots of hope coming up from the concrete.

This month is all about blessing.  We could superficially consider those gifts we have in our life, but I believe the deeper spiritual work of blessing is understanding how gratitude fuels spiritual transformation, and in turn, social change.

To say I am blessed also means I am called to the ethic of blessing, a requirement from the recognition of blessing to give back.  One of my favorite spiritual teachings is taken from Micah 6:8, “what doth the Lord require of you but to do justice, to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God.”  Translated through a Unitarian Universalist theology, walking humbly means to offer blessings to the hearts of those all around us.  It is to be called to be humbled by all that we are given – even in the midst of despair- and to seek to give back what we can in this life.

So, yes, bless your heart.  May each of your hearts be a blessing to all whom you meet.  May you be blessed to offer the world an ounce more of compassion, and love, and in turn, the waters of justice for which our world thirsts.

With appreciation and love,

Rev. Robin

Spiritually Speaking: Accidentally Perfect

In one of the Judeo-Christian creation myths, God creates the world in seven days.  After each phase of creation, God looks at what is created and pronounces that it is “good.”  There are no mistake at all.  This led to the popular affirmation, “God don’t make mistakes.”  True, enough that no person is a mistake but the process of creating the world so smoothly does seem a little curious.  I mean, creation of the whole world moves along flawlessly!

Those who are project planners can attest to the fact that no plan ever goes exactly as planned.  The story of evolution includes many moments when something entirely unexpected or almost accidental becomes a positive thing that drastically alters the course of life.

The Judeo-Christian creation stories are only two of many creation myths in the world.  In the Cherokee creation story, mountains are a mistake crafted by the wing of a giant buzzard who flies too low to the new earth and gouges the mud, thereby making mountains.  At first, the new earth is raised up too high and crawfish gets sunburned.  So, the earth has to be lowered. Then, the first people had children every seven days!  Too many people were created so it was changed to be nine months.  In the whole of the Cherokee myth, creation is a constant story of adjustment, trial, error and learning. 

When I was a teenager, my best friend’s parents decided to build their dream home.  After finding the right land, they began building.  I remember helping to place nails in rafters and hold beams up.  I also remember lots of moments when the adults would stand in a huddle looking at plans and then looking at a new problem.  I marveled at the ways in which my friend’s parents worked together to create their home.  It could stressful for sure at times and many pieces did not go exactly as planned, but all these years later, the house is still there.  And my friend’s parents are too—still married and a team in life.

Creation is never easy nor flawless, but when done as a team where the risk is shared, the experience can change your life.  Creating together can create new worlds.  As Martin Luther King Jr. reminded us, in the face of injustice we are called to be “creatively maladjusted.” 

To be a creative people means to be a risk-taking people who will dare to try for things not yet done or imagined. 

So what are you called to create in this life?  And who are the people with whom you are called to create?

With faith and gratitude,

Rev. Robin

Join in the group spiritual practice.

Your Resume of Failures

This exercise invites you to explore the relationship between creation and failure.

Yup, failure. Nothing gets created without it. The well-known examples of this come from the scientific world; think penicillin, Velcro or Teflon. But some of the most interesting creative failures today are occurring in the world of business and entrepreneurial endeavors. Numerous business schools actively preach one simple message: Fail faster and fail better!

In fact, a Stanford Business School professor recently reported a new trend: young entrepreneurial job seekers are listing their failures on their resumes! Instead of boasting about their successes and awards, they proudly promote their marketing missteps and start-up disasters, and what they learned from them. By sharing what they learned and how they used that learning, they display their ability to look at their failures with creative eyes, not as dead ends and bungled attempts but as lessons and brave test runs.

So why not try it? Here’s your assignment:

Sit down with a piece of paper and spend a day or two listing all your life failures. Then take another day or two and consider them in a new light. Jot down a few bullet points under each “failure” explaining how those dead ends actually became a new road, how what seemed a moment of coming up empty really turned out to be a time of discovering something new, something you would have never looked for otherwise.

Then come to your chalice circle or to church ready to share what you learned about creation and blessed failures.

Spiritually Speaking: Let Go and Liberate

Edwin Friedman was a rabbi and family therapist who became one of the foundational leadership consultants in the 20^th century.  His primary work, Generation to Generation, detailed how communities behave according to generational patterns.  Much of his theory about communities was based on the family system.  Friedman believed that unhealthy or toxic systems could be transformed, in part, by self-differentiated leaders.  For Friedman, self-differentiation meant the ability to separate yourself from your environment, to have clarity in that separation that allowed you to reflect and see patterns, and to be able to engage conflict and risk while maintaining emotional regulation.  In some ways, Friedman’s work is so integrated into our understandings of communities that we use his theory without noticing it.  Leaders now might talk about the diagnosed patient in a system (the person who is essentially healthy and functions as a scapegoat) or how communities can be conflict-avoidant and enabling of toxic patterns.

Anyone who has ever gone through therapy after growing up in a family with toxic patterns of behavior can testify to the challenging work of becoming self-differentiated.  It certainly does not happen overnight, and often, requires on-going therapy and check-ins.  The human mind, especially under stress, reverts to old patterns of behavior easily.  Even when these patterns hurt ourselves and others, familiarity will often win in the face of stress and chaos. 

Friedman utilized a lot of parables in his work to help illustrate how to better self-differentiate.  One of my favorite parables is the rope story:

There once was a woman standing at the opening of a bridge.  She had a rope tied around her waist.  She held one end of the rope in her hand.  As a man approached her she shouted to him, “here, here, hold this.”  The man took the rope.  Suddenly the woman jumped off the bridge.  The man strained against the edge of the bridge holding onto the rope with great effort.  He started to shout for help.  The woman shouted from                  below the bridge, “Don’t let go of the rope!  I’ll die if you let go of the rope!  You are saving my life.” 

Friedman asks, “so what should the man do?”

Often, people will answer that the man should absolutely hold on to the rope.  Friedman asks further questions.  For how long?  Under what conditions?  Why did the woman hand him the road?  Can he really save her?  What if he can’t hold on?

The moral of the story emerges with each follow up question.  Don’t hold a rope that isn’t yours to hold. 

It sounds almost harsh to some ears, but Friedman would claim that it is self-differentiation. 

Certainly liberation is about fighting against forces far beyond our control.  Liberation is also about struggling against the mirror of those forces within ourselves.  Sometimes we are the one passing the rope and sometimes we are the one holding the rope.   Part of liberation, a powerful part, comes when we move beyond shame for our particular actions and begin to see the rope and what it tethers.  Seeing the rope is the first step of a self account that at least allows us to consciously choose to take the rope, to throw it or to put it down.  When we put it down, we get to decide what to do with that new rush of energy and opportunity.

As we join in deepening our spiritual understandings of liberation in our lives together this month, I encourage each of us to look for the ties that bind.

What would it be to let go? 

With faith and love,

Rev. Robin

Spiritually Speaking: Only Fools Rush In

fall in love with
the agony of love
not the ecstasy
then the beloved
will fall in love with you
— Rumi


Does the wanting, the longing, the infatuation always fade away?

Speaking with a friend recently my friend shared that he had begun to wonder about his daughter dating.  He acknowledged how different his parenting for her felt in contrast to his parenting of his son.  “It’s funny the things you think about,” he mused.  His daughter is still a toddler.  I could have laughed, but that would have betrayed the honesty of his story and the resonance in my own experience. 

In the midst of all of the cultural projections about sexuality and gender that are placed upon our children from their earliest years, there is also the reality that raising children in any capacity- from parent to mentor, to teacher to coach, requires that you be willing to look into your own life.  It is pretty challenging to work, for example, with teenagers to not ever recall your own teenage years.  

My own teenage years are filled with a host of memories, mostly safe for public consumption but there are, of course, a few I’d rather not share.  I know someday as a parent, all too soon, I will be compelled to face who I was and who I am in some rather uncomfortable ways! At the top of my list that I’d rather not look into, are the memories where I was infatuated with someone, head over heels in love.  I feel embarrassed by how swept away I was in those years, the sense of foolishness rushes over me just recalling the moments.

And yet, why should any of us be embarrassed?  And moreover, why should we ever outgrow being in love?

We need more fools rushing in, more hope-makers, more lovers lost in the vision of the beloved world!  I say three cheers for being foolish and heartsick, for being in love and sometimes heartbroken!  Yes, being vulnerable can lead to heartbreak.  No doubt.  In my own life, I’ve discovered that heartbreak is the site of spiritual growth.  In the midst of lament, there emerges new compassion, wisdom, and love.

So it is I welcome you to this month of exploring desire.  Come with your longing and wishes, come with what brings you alive.  A little poem to get us all started…

"Praise for the Fools Rushing In"

What if you were lovesick with life?
Longing, rushing, running,
Waiting by the phone …
Tweeting unabashed about your infatuation..
Heart racing as your skin grows hot for this life?
What if the knots in your stomach signaled that this matters, this was worth wanting, this was the world of a desire pulsing across the ages?
What if you were the fool that rushed in?

What then…

If your heartbreak became the site of strength
If your skin didn’t grow tough but
Stayed electric?

What if you didn’t outgrow being alive?
Offer deep sighs for what yet could be.
Pray for soft silhouettes, holy incarnate, carrying us all in their rapture toward daybreak.
Burn with the fire of what matters most.
Fall into Eden.

With faith in the journey,

Rev. Robin

Spiritually Speaking: Just Keep Swimming!

Near the end of the film Finding Nemo, just as Nemo has been rescued, Dori and a large school of silver fish are caught by a fishermen’s net.  The large net is attached to a crank, which begins to draw the fish out of the water.  The fish scramble in different directions in the net.  They fight against one another.  Nemo, small enough to swim in and out of the net, swims into the net as his frantic father looks on.  Nemo starts instructing all of the fish to swim together and swim down!  Dori begin singing “just keep swimming.” They resist the force of the net with their own power and eventually the crank starts to shudder and then, break.  The fish are freed into the ocean. 

This is the time of year when many of us will set an intention or resolution for the year.  Studies tell us that many of our resolutions will be a distant memory by March.  I’ve made my share of resolutions and can testify to the ephemeral nature of nearly each one.  I begin with the sincerest of intentions, but the truth is, it is hard doing it alone.  No matter how I try, if my resolution plan includes me working at it solo, I can guarantee it will not happen. I will not eat that cookie.  I will not eat that cookie.  Well, maybe, just one cookie.  Oh, I ate too many cookies!

The truth is, resistance alone is extraordinarily difficult.  It is not impossible, but nearly so.  Most of the great figures we know in history were not stand-alones even though we have often heard their stories just as solo-heroes.  Their resistance came from a large community that supported them.  Consider Rosa Parks who famously sat down on that bus on December 1^st, 1955.  She resisted the injustices of segregation, but she did not do so alone.  Parks was not the first to resist, but her action was chosen with care to create a legal case for desegregation. For years prior to December 1^st, she organized and worked with the NAACP. 

Resistance together is a spiritual force.  Resistance alone can be bold and beautiful, but also isolating and deflating.  When we resist in community, we participate in building a vision for the world that exceeds our particular desires toward a common hunger and hope.  Like the fish swimming to break the net, resistance in community allows us to do things that were impossible alone.

This month we will consider the light and shadow sides of resistance.  What does it mean to be a people ready to resist?  How do we know when we swim for the common good and when we are just swimming against the current?

With resolution, resistance, and reflection,

Rev. Robin

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

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