Reflecting on a weekly basis

There is a vibration of urgency that is permeating our world. Coupled with an underlying uncertainty and discontent, this urgency is compelling us to break down the walls that keep us separate from each other, to learn new language skills to communicate, and to awaken to the concept that our world is being run amok with a Western-influenced capitalistic imperialistic agenda. This new awareness is urging us to live our lives in the knowledge of our truth and embrace a course of action that will destroy the system and save the people.

I heard these messages this week from Meganwind Eoyang at the Center for Nonviolent Communication, the Dr. Rev. Dorsey Blake at the Pacific School of Religion, the Rev. Dwight Webster at the Starr King School for the Ministry and the Rev. Donald Guest at Glide Memorial Church. It was basically a secular message, set, for the most part, in a religious environment.

Howard Thurman elucidates this commingling of secular and religious thought in “The Luminous Darkness” when he writes that “in times of disaster, when the only thing that is relevant is that a man is stripped of all superficial categories that separate and divide, one gets some notion of what it means just to be a human being in the world among other human beings who are all structurally bound together by a total environment.” In those times, he says,“ everybody is counted in as an essential human being, possessed of certain resources that are needful for the survival of a common life. The new experience, he continues, does not know anything about what brought it to life; it knows nothing about the crisis situation.

And this bonding as human beings, with inherent worth and dignity, is the ethical insight brought into the stream of contemporary life by religious traditions.

This experience, “to feel life moving through one and claiming one as a part of it,” is total, unified and unifying. According to Thurman, “It is not the experience of oneself as male or female, as black or white, as American, European or African. It is rather the experience of oneself as being. … One man’s response to the sound of the genuine in another man is to ascribe to the other man the same sense of infinite worth that one holds for oneself. ”

While there are some that question whether Unitarian-Universalism has the theological grounding to count itself worthy in the world of great religions, it is interesting to note that Thurman elevates the concept of inherent worth of an individual, the first of the seven principles that guide UU religious thought, as a primary and essential religious concept.

The place,” he says,” where the imagination shows its greatest power as the agent of God is in the miracle which it creates when one man, standing where he is, is able, while remaining there, to put himself in another man’s place.”

But the commonality between the secular and religious is challenged with Thurman’s thought that in order for human beings to have the experience of recognizing the inherent worth and dignity of each person, human experience of inherent worth, must be set in the light of ultimate values and ultimate meanings and is what religion undertakes to guarantee.

But what I hear in the urgency to become involved is that the literal salvation of the earth brings us that unity of purpose that is larger than our individual lives. These curious times bring into focus the undeniable reality that the existence of our globe depends on our individual and collective strengths, gifts, and unique abilities to get beyond our own self-interest and long-held limiting perceptions. In our current predicament, there is an ultimate meaning and ultimate value that is beyond individual selves, our national identities, and our religious and political affiliations. This concept of impending doom offers a profound reality of a larger and more pressing truth of collective worth beyond theoretical or socially imposed divides.

There is a vibration of urgency that is permeating our world. It is a vibration that will tumble the foundations of the many walls that keep us separated. It is a vibration that has the capacity to shake us into a sustainable way of relating to each other and to our world. From this urgency, this quickening, a new way will be born and not know of the crisis from which it came.

It is, indeed, the commingling of the secular and the religious. It is, indeed, a function of the mysterious energy that encourages our transformation and the very idea that we are one.

Off and running

The key to happiness and increased brain function is developing a contemplative spiritual practice. What that entails is sitting in silence for 20 minutes, ideally twice a day and developing a practice of detachment to our false selves that construct all sorts of images of what is essentially not necessary in our lives.

Such was the message from the Father Thomas Keating, neuroscientist Tobin Hart, and the Venerable Tenzin LS Priyadarshi. Not only does the quality of our attention in non-contemplative situations improve, we are able to handle stress and emotional situation and return to equilibrium faster.

It’s definitely a skill I need as I rush off to class and return to fly to San Diego for a two-day workshop on Contemporary Worship given by the Unitarian Universalist Association.

Sunday night at the Cal library

I rushed over to the University of California at Berkeley library with dorm mate Elizabeth following a quick departure from our Sunday night women's prayer circle. She had to be at the Reference Desk by 8:45 p.m. to take out a couple of books that she could use over the President's Day holiday. She did not want to walk across the campus at night alone, so I accompanied her. I had often passed by the huge columned building, but had never been inside.

Awe-inspiring with marble staircases and high vaulted ceilings, just a peek into one of the reading rooms made me aware of how much knowledge and the pursuit of knowledge were once, and maybe still are, revered in our society.

My "Photography as Meditative Practice" class is compelling me to think of visual images as prayer.

Taking down the walls that separate

February is "Black Liberation Month" according to Glide Memorial Church minister Donald Guest. And that means that you have to do something during the month to repent for your own participation in oppression.

For those who are white, he suggested recognizing white privilege. For the people of color, he suggested giving up the mindset and ethnicity that keeps one behind the “ghetto wall” of oppression. He further commanded every black person to go home and tell his or her mother, father, aunt and uncle that they had to give up their hate for homosexual people.

And to the dismay and the delight of the day’s congregation, he suggested that we are all responsible for the Iraqi War because of our insistence and allegiance to our material goods that keep us comfortable. "George Bush is not the problem," he said, "we are the problem." He said we had to be willing to cross the lines that keep our lives safe and unmoving. We had to destroy the system and save the people.

Going to Glide is always a unique and wonderful experience. There are layers of meaning and connection going on, filtered spiritually through word, music and slide shows that flash pictures of the human condition, both positive and negative, on the front church wall. A song about going home, amazingly sung by a woman of multi-cultural origin, backed by a multi-racial, multi-gendered 40-voice ensemble and six-piece band, had the audience on its feet in joyful tears, and delivered its own mini sermon that we all have the ability to redeem ourselves and are deserving of love.

When the service was interrupted with an announcement that a Black Land Rover and a white BMW needed to be moved because they would be towed, the whole audience seemed to laugh at itself when an ordinary black man got up. I think we all expected that the expensive cars belonged to one of the well-to-do white folks in the congregation.

Such is the ability and atmosphere of Glide. Together, people get to explore and inhabit expectations and limited perspectives in an atmosphere of unconditional love combined with the fervent desire for connection and common ground.

Everywhere I go there is intense talk about the need to break down the walls that separate us. I hope that this trembling shakes and weakens those foundations.

Friday afternoon musings

Another week has flown by in this seminary experience. I’m happy to report that I have come to a cheerful acceptance that while my life of being a seminary student is amazingly exhilarating, my work, my passion and my call remains in the Upper Delaware.

I have to admit, though, that the weather in Berkeley in February is springlike, gorgeous, and without mud.

Highlights of the week include the preaching of Starr King’s Dean of Faculty, the Dr. Rev. Dorsey A. Blake, at a Pacific School of Religion service entitled “We are Our Ancestors’ Dream.” In a traditional black-minister preaching style, with booming voice and extra syllables added to the end of certain words, we were all encouraged to consider the question “How have you lived your life in the knowledge of your truth?”

The Rev. Dwight Webster followed that up with a great sermon at Starr King two hours later, which encouraged us to be a firefighter who puts out the flames of our burning home. A minister from New Orleans who is married to one of the administration staff at the school, he harkened our attention back to a question that was asked of Martin Luther King Jr. of whether the house on fire was worth saving. According to Webster, King responded that if the house was built on justice, truth and liberty, then it was indeed worth saving. Using the burning house as a metaphor for the state of the earth, in that same black preacher style, he explained that the Mississippi is mighty because of all of the tributaries that join it on its way to the Gulf of Mexico. He enjoined us to “get wet” and get involved in what would be the salvation of the world.

Being a lifelong Unitarian, I have never really related to salvation, or redemption and sin for that matter. For me, it has always been enough to be an involved, aware, tolerant, and loving individual.

But I have to agree, the house is burning; the earth is crying out for its salvation, and we need to get involved. We need to show up. We need to know that our actions are geared to making a difference. Like those tributaries, those actions are revelant whether it be making a difference in the life of a child, a family, an organization or a world movement.

We are participating in a revolution of consciousness, and I think it begins with getting to Friday afternoon and feeling satisfied with “how you lived your life in the knowledge of your truth.”

A weekly reflection paper

I am struck this week by the themes explored in Howard Thurman’s discussion of segregation in “The Luminous Darkness” and the Network of Spiritual Progressives’ (NSP) recent proposal on how to end the war in Iraq. The NSP is appealing to citizens to help fund publication of a full-page ad in daily newspapers and on television that puts forth an ethical and moral plan to end the war.

Framing the argument in spiritual terms, NSP advocates that President Bush go to the United Nations and repent. They ask him to explain that U.S. intelligence was flawed and to seek forgiveness on behalf of himself and the American people for the suffering and deaths of innocent people and for the destruction in Iraq. It asks that he acknowledge that the entire society has mistakenly adhered to the view that safety and security can be achieved through domination or control of others, and that a better plan for safety and security is to treat others with generosity, care, and genuine concern for their well being.

When I read the ad, I shook my head and thought, “there is no way that President Bush is going to do that.” While the premise that the remedy for wrongdoing begins with repentance has integrity, and according to Thurman, “there is real spiritual growth in admitting that one’s life is not blameless...” I did not for a moment believe that the plan was realistic.

But as I struggled over the idea that the plan was flawed because those in power would not willingly change their “evil” ways, I was struck by how my lack of hope was contributing to maintaining the institution of violence in our country. I realized that by dismissing any hope or change in relation to power, I was providing “the stability of the order [which] rests on its total acceptance.” By believing that change is not possible, I was rendering myself “within a framework which accepted and did not challenge the pattern.” And even while I was not agreeing with the rightness of this preemptive and immoral war, my refusal to see moral and ethical steps to correct the wrong mirrored much of Thurman’s writing about the “good white people” who supported segregation through their inaction or inability to see beyond the institution.

For me, the “evil” of segregation and the “evil” of perpetuating a violent society, while not equal, seem interrelated and originating at the same root. Power and the maintenance of that absolute power is guaranteeing behavior that is “inhumane and throws wide the door for a complete range of socially irresponsible behavior.”

Not only do we bear witness to this socially irresponsible behavior, we pay for it. By our silence and lack of action we acknowledge that it is conducted in our names, under the guise of a society to which we pledge our allegiance to. Through this action and inaction, I am left with the inexcusable thought that we are all culpable in perpetuating life-destructive activities. We are far from “the image of the citizen who is acting as one who maintains in himself a sense of responsibility for the fate of his country,” that Thurman paints as “making one capable of large and imperative demands.” And it seems intuitively obvious that this deep conflict is sapping our collective energy so that we are less able to effect change.

Thurman writes, “In order to overcome the ravages of segregation, the overt sufferers must carry on an energy-consuming inner struggle which undermines their effectiveness in practically every aspect of their lives…. It is impossible even to hazard the loss to American life that has resulted from the waste in energy and creativity in the desperate necessity to find a way to survive against such overwhelming odds.”

The NSP ad goes on to say that if President Bush is not able or willing to go to the U.N., then Congress should pass a resolution rejecting the strategy of domination and embracing one of generosity and asking the world’s people to forgive our society for its destructive path. It concludes with asking that the Arab states replace the British and American forces with Arab forces, and it calls for a global Marshall Plan, which will facilitate rebuilding and healing. (The ad can be viewed at http://www.tikkun.org/iraqpeace)

Perhaps giving money for the publication and the putting forth of this plan is unproductive because the powers that be may not have the moral compass to lead our country in a different direction. But it is equally important to recognize that as individuals we cannot allow our own moral and ethical compass to be limited by the political and religious agenda of another.

Thurman writes “any person who questions the grounds of the society, who raises a primary question of human values, is in truth a disturber of the peace and a troublemaker.”

Our times call on us to be those troublemakers.

The Great Turning

As I pushed down the lever to begin brewing my cup of coffee this morning, I watched for a moment to make sure that the coffee was indeed going into the mug. Yesterday, after returning from my toiletries, there was a river of coffee snaking under my valentines, neatly stacked next to the one-cup coffeepot.

Somehow, and I have yet to figure it out, some of the coffee was going around the mug and falling to the side. That was extremely curious as most of the coffee was indeed in the mug, and the drip hole for the coffee was still centered over the cup.

I pushed the mug back and quickly moved the stack of cards out of the coffee’s way. I rushed into the bathroom, thankfully across the hall, and grabbed paper towels to sop up the mess. While annoyed, I was aware that it was simply a small mess that was easily fixed. Only two cards were damaged, and I peeled the felt pieces off the front and will affix them to another piece of card stock.

I found it ironic in a way. I have been very deliberate this semester in straightening my sparsely furnished and decorated room every night. There is a certain sense of peace, and undoubtedly an illusion of control, that I get when I am able to enter my room, or open my eyes and see order, the absence of clutter. Perhaps I am trying to order my room and my habits in an attempt to tame some of the disorder that I carry within my being.

So when the coffee was unexplainably streaming under the neatness, I took it as a sign that life and messes happen and we have a choice to either find ourselves blessed or cursed.

At a workshop last Sunday at the Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley, spiritual environmentalist Johanna Macy said that our society is in the midst of a third great revolution that will involve turning away from the industrial growth model to a more peaceful and sustainable way of living. She says there are no guarantees that we will be successful and the smallest movement begins to alter the world’s consciousness. She calls it The Great Turning.

I believe we all can be a part of that revolution by turning beyond our anger and frustration when unexplained or explained things happen despite our best efforts.

Rumi writes:
“Today, like every other day, we wake up empty
and frightened. Don’t open the door to the study
and begin reading. Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.
There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.”

Be.

Winter has finally arrived in the “bay area.” The days are mid gray, cold, and the rain pours down. People have donned sweaters and rainbows of colored-umbrellas make their way down the street.

The second week of classes are over and I am feeling more comfortable about my course selection. Starr King maintains a pedagogy (theory of education) that advocates that students choose their own course of study within a certain framework. It puts an enormous amount of responsibility on the student, and my classmates and I have spent much of this first year stressing that we have chosen our classes wisely. We commiserate about our frustration of being thrust into this world without overt guidance or instruction. Within the uncertainty lies fertile ground for growth and transformation, and, undoubtedly, preparation for the future.

The other evening while at a Taize chanting service, a French tradition of singing spiritual phrases over and over again, I was struck with the notion that rather than trying to figure out how something would be, the point was simply “to be.”

The way through the journey is the way through the journey. Many paths lead to the same place.

The rain falls and soon the trees will leaf out with growth.

The beginning of week two

There is no rhythm to my schedule yet, and I find myself a bit anxious that I will be able to keep up with all there is to do. I bought an 11x17-inch white board at Long’s Pharmacy, a mega-drug store that has everything including wine and food. I have dutifully logged in my assignments, the days that they are due and have been checking them off since creating the list on Friday afternoon.

For as much as the week begins on Monday, in terms of class assignments and class schedules, time is always resetting itself on whatever day it is. This being Tuesday, the reading and reflection paper about Howard Thurman’s book, “Deep River,” on the power and the theology of the Negro Spirituals will be discussed and handed in today. And in that moment, the reading and reflection paper assignment about “The Luminous Darkness” will be looming.

I suppose that is the way life goes. When we reach one moment, we are transported into the next. We move from one breath to another, carrying with us our perception of our experience.

“There is a bottomless resourcefulness in man that ultimately enables him to transform the spear of frustration into a shaft of light,” Howard Thurman writes.

For today, being prepared for a Tuesday will have to be "the shaft of light” that transcends the “spear of frustration” of all that I have to prepare for Thursday.

In this seminary existence, it’s called “experiential theology,” otherwise known as handling stress or keeping ahead of the curve.

Is it really winter?

The sound of a lawn mower has slowly made its way into my consciousness. I look out and see a maintenance worker mowing the green roof across the courtyard. Lawn mowing in January is a novelty for this northeasterner and I realize that I did not recognize the noise for some time. The winter weather here, mild with spring flowers and trees blooming, has been a treat.

My aunt told me last Sunday that she had to water her garden plants, a phenomenon not usual for northern California winters. I understand that it “should” be raining and people are concerned about drought.

Awareness seeps through even the densest web of innocence and self-absorption. Thankfully, personal preference -- sun over rain, no snow over snow, cheap goods over expensive ones -- often gives way to recognition of the greater reality and sensitivity when we open ourselves up to listen.