This morning I want to talk about two things. First community... specifically religious community ....and second about acceptance...a particular kind of acceptance. As I’ve read the newspaper accounts of the experiences of those evacuated from Hurricane Katrina, as I”ve looked at the photographs of life in the superdome or the convention center or other shelters...I’ve found myself thinking about what makes a community...how do people live together...how do we come to belong to one place or group of people? And what is special or unique about a religious community?
All our lives we struggle with the question where do we belong, where do we fit in, who will see us for who we really are, and still want to include us in their group.
There’s a wonderful book by Anne Lamott called “Traveling Mercies: some thoughts on Faith”. It’s a memoir of Lamott’s spiritual journey. There’s one part of her story that I remember vividly, During the period of her life when she was a heavy drinker...Anne Lamott would often find herself hung over on a Sunday morning and standing across the street from a store front church called St. Andrews Presbyterian. It was a homely and ramshackle building with a cross on top...and between 11 and 1 on Sundays...you could hear gospel music coming out the door. The music was so pretty that Anne would stop and listen.
She writes , “I knew a lot of the hymns from the time I had gone to church with my grandparents. I began stopping in at St. Andrews from time to time, standing in the doorway to listen to the songs. I couldn’t believe how run down it was, with terrible linoleum that was brown and overshined, and plastic stained glass windows.
But it had a choir of five black women and one rather Amish looking white man making all that glorious noise and a congregation of thirty people or so, radiating kindness and warmth.
During the time when people greeted each other, various people would come back to where I stood to shake my hand or try to hug me; but I was as frozen and stiff as Richard Nixon.
After this scripture was read, and then the minister, tall and handsome as Marvin Gaye would preach and it would be all about social injustice and Jesus, which would be enough to send me running back to the sanctuary of the street.
I went back to St. Andrews about once a month. No one tried to con me into sitting down or staying. I always left before the sermon. I loved the singing...and the church smelled wonderful like the air had nourishment in it...like it was composed of these people’s exhaultations of warmth and peace and faith. There were always children running around or being embraced.
I learned that every other week they brought huge tubs of food for the homeless families living at the shelter. I loved this. But it was the singing that pulled me in and split me open.
Eventually, after a few months, I took a seat in the folding chair by the door. Then the singing would envelope me...resonant music coming from everyone’s heart. No sense of performance or judgement, only that the music was breath and food.
Somehow the singing wore down all the boundaries and distinctions that kept me so isolated. Standing with them to sing, sometimes so shaky I felt I might tip over...I felt bigger than myself, like I was being taken care of, tricked into coming back to life. But still, I had to leave before the sermon.”
This small, unassuming congregation became Lamott’s church, the community which embraced her and a few months later, her baby son...it became the place where she was fully known, the place where she belonged.
As the stories come from the Hurricane aftermath, we hear of both chaos and cruelty, of kindness and co-operation. We humans are capable of both extremes.
I believe a primary purpose of religious community is to model what is possible when people gather with good intention, bringing their gifts and talents, bringing trust and faith, bringing a commitment to the greater good. No performance, no judging.
I hope for our church that, like St. Andrews, we would breathe out joy and compassion, hope and peace...that our collective breath would create nourishing air...air that enfolds and makes us feel we belong to something larger than ourselves.
I have great faith in religious community. Because it has changed my life...it has given me a place to belong, it has formed me.
I grew up in a small Methodist church in a Chicago neighborhood. The messages I heard were always affirming. I learned that it was possible to make a difference in the world. I learned that we are called to transform systems of oppression, I learned that saying “Yes” to life is a religious act. I learned that I could be more than I thought possible. I was a part of a small group ministry in that church, a member of a group of six who met monthly for seven years. I began as the youngest member of that group in my late teens...and they mentored me through many important life decisions. They encouraged me to go to college. They saw me in ways my working class family did not. They helped me see my elementary teaching as a ministry. They attended my wedding.
That congregation embraced me and affirmed me as a person, they also challenged me...through the love of that congregation I knew that I was accepted...and thus acceptable.
I believe religious communities are called to extend acceptance. I do not mean a casual or superficial ...you’re ok, I’m ok...kind of acceptance, I mean a thoughtful, challenging, loving kind of acceptance. It’s a radical acceptance, a acceptance that embraces the whole of a person, an acceptance that asks for as much as it gives.
Radical acceptance is about seeing the basic goodness in all people. For the evacuee communities to work, it was necessary for people to trust strangers...to see in the people around them...the essential goodness that is part of all of us.
Trusting strangers, especially people who seem different from us, is very hard. Anne Lamott stood at the door of that church for weeks, knowing her own limitations, her own flaws, knowing that she had a serious drinking problem...she doubted that she would be accepted.
In the past few weeks, many of us have given thought to taking hurricane survivors into our homes...as much as we want to extend help to a stranger, I, for one, am relieved that my desire to help hasn’t been tested.
Seeing basic goodness in people isn’t easy. Many of us have been hurt, betrayed, let down by others...we have learned to be suspicious. We are filled with stereotypes of race and class - we have boundaries and distinctions that keep us isolated and separate. Those of us who are privileged have learned to protect our privacy, our comfort.
When I try to imagine myself as one of the evacuees from New Orleans, when I wonder what it would be like to lose everything. It seems to me that the loss of privacy and comfort would be the hardest.
I was looking at the Saturday religion section to see what other ministers’ were preaching this Sunday....I was grabbed by the title of one sermon...which was “Complain, Complain, Complain”. My guess is that he would be speaking about how grateful we all should be, that we have been spared the loss and dislocation of the hurricane victims...my guess is that he planned to tell his flock to stop complaining...to stop feeling victimized, for whatever reasons...and to simply be grateful for the roof over their heads, a hot meal on the table, loved ones safe beside them, and a favorite pair of nikes to wear on a morning walk in a familiar neighborhood.
Tragedy and loss does serve to hone our values...loss teaches us to appreciate what really matters.
Tragedy and loss sometimes clear a path toward love and acceptance.
Radical acceptance is possible only when we stop judging, when we stop focusing on boundaries and distinctions..in others. The congregation in Anne Lamotts story did not ask her any questions, they did not probe, or ask her to fill out a form...they merely accepted her where she was, for who she was...they merely saw her basic goodness.
Religious wars have been fought over this fundamental question of the goodness of human nature. For centuries upon centuries it was believed, (and still is by many) that human beings were born in sin...and the only question was could goodness be earned ....and if so, could it be earned by faith or by works.
We Unitarian Universalists have rejected a theology which focuses on original sin...and have instead embraced the idea of original blessing...most Uus believe that human nature is essentially good...and that even in the most hardened criminal there is a seed of basic goodness to be found.
Radical acceptance doesn’t mean seeing only the good in a person, it is seeing the whole person, warts and all, and still offering the blessing of acceptance.
So how do we build a community, a religious community that trusts in the basic goodness of others?
First, we must look to ourselves. First, each of us, must know thyself. Anne Lamott was helped to see herself more fully because of the loving embrace of that congregation...but still she had before her the difficult task of accepting herself.
I have a friend, Tara Brach, she is a Buddhist teacher...she often gives the dharma talk at the River Road Meditation on Wednesday nights...Beacon press published her book, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life with the Heart of a Buddha.
Talking about radical acceptance, she touches the core struggle that we all have in confronting our deep sense of unworthiness. Don’t we all feel, deep down, unworthy, undeserving, inadequate? Don’t we wonder if we’re good enough, smart enough, caring enough, attractive enough, successful enough, loving enough? The paradox of the human dilemma ...is captured by philosophers and poets...who say we are made of dust and ashes....and of the wonder of starlight. Psychologist Carl Rogers captured the human dilemma of self-acceptance with these words; “The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”
So not only do we need to see the basic goodness in others, but we need to believe it about ourselves. When I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.
When UU’s talk about spiritual journeys they are usually talking about this challenge of radical acceptance....the facing of our fears of inadequacy, the journey of acceptance of our whole selves...
How do we overcome our sense of unworthiness? The is the purpose of spiritual practice. Spiritual practice comes in many forms- prayer, meditation, journaling, study and reflection. Radical acceptance is the willingness to experience ourselves and our life as it is, in this moment. Being present is the most spiritual of acts.
This morning I took an early walk, and I saw an Asian gentleman, I often see him in the morning. I was walking briskly along....he was standing still, looking up. I went a bit further into the trees, where he couldn’t see me, I decided to try what he was doing...I stood still, I looked up...and amazingly I saw the clouds moving. Big white clouds were moving over my head. But I had to stop in order to really see them. I remembered throwing myself down on the grass as a child and spending long hours watching clouds.
Being aware and present to what is happening in the moment....connecting to what is right in front of us...
It is so hard to quiet the critical voice, the judging voice in our own heads. Sometimes we need to pause, we need silence, we need to simply let go...let go into life as it is this moment.
As we move toward radical acceptance of ourselves as individuals, we gain in our ability to become a community of acceptance.
Together we breathe, together we create air that is nourishing.
It is our intention to be a religious community that is accepting of all who enter here.
It is our intention to see the basic goodness in each friend and stranger.
It is our intention to see the basic goodness in ourselves.
Tara says the path is simply arriving over and over again in the moment with a kind awareness. All that matters is taking one step at a time, being willing to show up for just this much, being present just this moment.
We can trust the goodness and love that are our true home. WE can invite others to join us here. When we get lost we need only pause, look at what is true, relax our heart, look at the clouds, and arrive again.
This is the essence of radical acceptance.
Amen.
On a spiritual path, we try to put aside our strategies of avoidance....strategies of self-improvement, of playing it safe, of withdrawal from feelings and experiences, of keeping busy, of self-criticism, of focusing on other peoples’ faults. Radical acceptance means being aware and acknowledging whatever it is that is real in the moment. It means being present to one’s mind and body...to the environment, to the wider consciousness, to one’s place in the universe.
It means connecting to what is right in front of us...sometimes to do this we need to pause, we need to allow for silence, we need to name our present awareness. Sometimes we need to simply let go....let go into life as it is in this moment.
It is so hard to quiet the critical voice, the judging voice in our own heads...
That’s why I need you and religious community....that’s why we need to come together again and again, to pause, to enter the silence, to become more aware, to be reminded of our goodness. All people share the longing to be more loving. Our sense of isolation, our fear and mistrust, our sense of inadequacy,...none of it is personal...we, all people, belong together...all people share in human suffering.
In this time of Hurricane aftermath, there has flowered a deep awareness of fundamental connection...we all feel a part of the suffering, we all want to help...we all feel united in our compassion.
Knowing that we are connected in pain and suffering...allows us to also be connected in blessing and hope. As we move toward radical acceptance of ourselves as individuals, we gain in our ability to become a community of acceptance.
Together we breathe, together we create air that is nourishing.
It is our intention to be a religious community that is accepting of all who enter here.
It is our intention to see the basic goodness in each friend and stranger.
It is our intention to see the basic goodness in our selves.
Tara says the path is simply arriving over and over again in the moment with a kind awareness. All that matters is taking one step at a time, being willing to show up for just this much, being present just this moment.
We can trust the goodness and love that are our true home. We can invite others to join us here. When we get lost we need only pause, look at what is true, relax our heart and arrive again. This is the essence of Radical Acceptance.
It is a Blessing to be.
It is a Blessing to be Here.
It is a blessing to be here now.
It is a blessing to be here now together.
We can trust the goodness and love that are our true home.Amen.
Closing Words
One world is aware and by far the largest to me, and that is myself,
and whether I come to my own today or in ten thousand or ten million years,
I can cheerfully take it now, or with equal cheerfulness,
I can wait. Walt Whitman, Leaves of Grass
Let us go forward to awake and to see the goodness is ourselves and in all others.
Amen.
MEDITATION
Spirit of Life and Love
We hold so much in our hearts this day.
We long to be more grateful, more kind, more loving,
We regret the times this week, when we have been ungenerous, when we have been critical of others, when we have withheld forgiveness
May we work toward reconciliation with those we have hurt or neglected
We are grateful for ordinary blessings
for our homes, for the food on our tables, for the beauty of nature and the joy of music and the arts
We are grateful for our families and our friends
We are grateful for our church, for this building where we worship
and for the generosity that makes our new building possible...
for the workmen who are building our dream with care
May we use the blessings of this community
to contribute to the good in the world
May we increase the joy and hope in the world
May we increase the peace and justice.
We give thanks for our free faith
and with awareness of all these gifts
may we take up the responsibilities of our principles and purposes.
So May It Be/Amen