Saturday, April 7, 2012

Engagement


My sister called to remind me April is Autism Awareness Month, which got me thinking about the whole notion of Awareness Months. There’s a long list of them for April, indeed for every month, as if awareness were in short supply and each month has to see to it we stock up. But for all the good intentions of these monthly designations, awareness is not where it’s at. Engagement is.

People can be aware of our church building at the top of the common. From the sidewalk they can read the signboard and know our services begin at 10:30, and the forum commences at 9:30, but that isn’t enough to compel them to attend. We talk a lot about how to make others aware of the church via ads and business cards, pasta suppers and concerts, our blog and website; but to truly engage people in the life of our church we have to be engaged ourselves and share the significance of that with others. If we cannot, as our evangelical brothers and sisters can, share the power of spiritual transformation, awareness alone will never be enough.

Yesterday the board, staff and a few other folks spent the morning with the Rev. Jane Dwinell, who consults with small congregations. We read Jane’s book to prepare but she also emailed another suggestion to me called, Kicking Habits: Welcome Relief for Addicted Churches. The author Thomas Bandy details the difference between declining and thriving churches, of which I’ll say more at the end of the month when I preach on “A New Paradigm.” I mention Bandy’s book today however because all through it he speaks of the deep spiritual yearning people have. Not a yearning to belong to an institution nor a yearning to adhere to doctrine, but a yearning to discern one’s calling and experience as fully as possible a deep connection with all being. He refers to this as God, specifically Jesus Christ. As I read the book I kept thinking the challenge of applying his model to a Unitarian Universalist context involves more than just translating metaphors. It has to do with our understanding of spiritual engagement—the millions of moments shaped by choices tiny and big that either draw us into fuller connection or propel us further from it.

Take for instance this meditation. All week as I ruminated on Bandy’s advice to ministers to quit preaching from the head and speak only from the heart, I still thought out what I might say. I made all sorts of interesting intellectual connections and spent Wednesday morning crafting a sermon worthy of your time. Midway through, I got an email from Tricia asking if I had decided whether to give up dairy after the provocative service we had here on March 18 about ethical eating. So I emailed back: “I can’t decide whether it is more eco-friendly and ethical to drink milk from a herd of eleven cows who wander about freely on a local farm or drink a highly processed almond beverage substitute.”

On my walk in the woods a short while later I realized my dilemma is a false one. I don’t need to drink milk or almond beverage. I do it because I can, because I grew up in a part of the world and a time during history where I am accustomed to having what I want. Every day I enjoy a mocha made with milk, coffee, cocoa and sugar. It’s yummy; I love the ritual of it. I buy milk bottled in reusable glass by the two farmers who tend the herd of eleven heritage breed cows. I buy fairly traded coffee and keep on file the statement of fair labor and environmental sustainability practices from the cocoa manufacturer. The source of the company’s sugar is not one I have tracked down. But in short, I am aware of what goes into my mocha.

I am also aware that most of the world’s people do not have ready access to what they want to eat or drink. One out of six has no access to clean water much less any other yummy beverage. The same number or more lack adequate food. Most folks on the planet don’t have electricity or internet 24/7/365. The majority of humanity lacks affordable access to fruits of every region in every season. Most folks lack adequate protein and can’t afford a car or gas to go in it. Billions can’t afford to educate their children. Most folks can’t just get in the car and go to the doctor or hospital and get treated. We can. So we do. And we are raised to believe this is as it should be and we aspire to provide the same measure of access to our children if not more. While I’m sure we all appreciate and enjoy the privilege and plenty to which we are accustomed, it doesn’t promote engagement with all being. It separates us, because we are so used to what we have, it becomes unthinkable not to have it.

The question becomes almond beverage or cow milk in my mocha? Not why drink the mocha at all? We all know how dependent we are on what we have because now we rely on it.  I rely on the internet to research sermons and conduct church business via email. I rely on electricity; on a car and paved roadways to take me anywhere I want to go whenever I wish to go there.

The more embedded we are in a degree of plenty and a doctrine of prosperity globally unsustainable, the more we risk conflict over limited resources, and the quicker we view and commodify our fellow creatures as resources. We remove swaths of earth blocking access to oil, gas, and minerals. The oceans become another horizon to drill. Forests supply toilet paper and we like ours triple-ply. Twenty-four horses die each week at U.S. racetracks because we think they are ours to race so we dope them to mask injuries and enhance performance then shoot them when they snap their legs. We manage people as “human resources”—as in “a stock or supply of money, materials, staff, and other assets that can be drawn on by a person or organization in order to function effectively.” 

What happens to us spiritually when we perceive everything first and foremost as a resource, an asset instead of an interwoven thread in the fabric of creation? What happens when we forget that how we live is neither representative nor sustainable?

As enamored as we are with benefits of the free market economy we enthusiastically export, the greater the number of people who also want unfettered access to electricity, superior healthcare, not only adequate nutrition but whatever appeals to the palate be it shark fin soup or beef raised on land deforested to satisfy the appetites of more and more affluent carnivores. What do we think will happen in China as the factory workers who make our smart phones and iPads save their overtime pay and want a piece of the free market prosperity pie?

It’s a bit like organic bananas, fair trade chocolate, or electric cars but on a larger scale. There are not enough organic banana growers to meet the demand were everyone to suddenly care about pesticide-laden bananas. There are not enough fair trade cocoa plantations to service the global desire for high quality chocolate. And if every potential driver in China, not to mention India, were to want an electric car to lower carbon emissions and dependence on foreign fuel, there is not enough electricity to power that number of cars. We can have what we want when we want it because others can’t.

But there’s a cost we don’t calculate because it is spiritual—which we mistake as invisible. We don’t need a designated month to alert us to the abysmal working conditions in many a Chinese factory ranging from harsh to potentially lethal. We are already aware that most of our consumer goods are made by people laboring in conditions none of us would accept. So what is the spiritual toll of awareness that doesn’t compel us to demand otherwise? To change our habits of acquisition and consumption? If we examine our lives we can see how the costs add up. Our exhaustion is not just physical; our stress not simply emotional. To live in a state of disconnection wearies us even if we attribute it to something else.

As a vegetarian who doesn’t like beans I get ample protein by eating fake meat; but the other night as I microwaved a Boca burger, I read the ingredients listed on the box. Many I did not recognize and nowhere on the box did it mention the source of the soy. Did it come from Paraguay where Mennonite ranchers are buying and burning forests to raise cattle and soybeans, forcing indigenous people off the land that sustains them so that the only work they can get is to burn down forests that used to be their home? Or did the soy come from factory-farmed lots in the American Midwest supported by massive federal subsidies that drive small farmers out of business? I stock up on overly processed veggie burgers but at what cost? Do I really want a patty born of burned out forests or drummed-out farmers? How does that deepen my connection to all being? It doesn’t. Why nourish the body to starve the spirit?

Each of our days and nights are filled with countless choices so routine we barely notice them but they accrue. And before we know it, disconnect us.

If we consider our unlimited access, what it would mean to opt out? When I asked myself this question strolling in the woods, for the first time in my life I understand the words attributed to Jesus in the Gospel of Matthew strange as they sound: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me: and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me; and whoever does not take up the cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.” (10:37-39)

I hazard a guess that we all think being able to provide as much as possible is a gift to our parents and children. A nicer house. A better vacation. A fancier meal. A higher quality education. But what if the best gift is less not more? If we were to acclimatize ourselves and our children to a life rich with pleasure and joy without the presumption that the planet and its inhabitants are resources exclusively available for our use, we would enhance the possibility of engagement.

In my sixth grade social studies class we studied in the parlance of the era, “Eskimos.” Inuit people. They lived self-sustaining physically demanding lives. They hunted and wore clothes sewn from the hides of caribou using needles of bone and thread of gut. They ate fish eyes as delicacies and spent evening hours amusing themselves with physical games. They laughed but had no apparent need for, or awareness of, psychotherapy. At eleven, I recognized they lived right-sized. I also realized it was the only reality they knew. Children born into that life automatically engaged in it; but it would be nearly impossible to adapt to such an arduous existence if one were raised elsewhere. It would be as unimaginable for me, an American babyboomer raised in postwar prosperity to give up my comfortable convenient life to live among the Inuit people. And yet that is what I have come to understand as parallel to what Jesus means.

Jesus is not preaching a gospel of prosperity: success in material terms. He doesn’t exhort: do well, do really well. What I understood in the woods was not a call to deprivation, but discernment. As in “perception in the absence of judgment with a view to obtaining spiritual direction and understanding.”

Buying glass-bottled milk from a tiny local dairy is nice but it’s not akin to moving to Nunavut. For years, I waited for my friends, especially clergy, to call me to task for the accumulations and indulgences that exceed my gut sense of right-size. But no one ever did. Or does. Among peers I live relatively simply as a vegetarian heating with wood, reluctant to use a clothes drier or turn on the furnace. But if I were to decide to truly keep Sabbath one day a week by skipping the mocha, not turning on lights or checking email; if I were to delight in my senses by praying and singing with others, making music, sharing stories, breaking bread, to engage the spirit instead of substituting almond beverage for milk—I would need a faith community. It’s a lot easier to keep kosher in a kosher neighborhood. Now admittedly, driving forty-five minutes to be with you presents a carbon compromise but I’m not seeking or suggesting absolutism. What I yearn for is transformation.

When Tricia gave a testimonial in March about giving up sugar she spoke of the impulse to simply replace it. To eat a handful of almonds or watch TV instead. But then she decided to sit with the craving and see what it revealed.

I long to have the internal courage and strength to do that. To reframe my day so that the big decision isn’t what kind of product I use to make my morning drink of choice, but how will I engage my senses in a way that requires no consumption. How might I reframe my day in a way that manifests solidarity with—not just awareness of—the billions of beings who can’t just mosey downstairs and whip up whatever suits them? I could begin my day strumming my banjo or singing along to a favorite song. I could delight in balancing on my right leg, with its formerly shattered tibia. I could gaze at the glass polar bears in my prayer space that bring the peace of wild things inside.

To reframe my life, to discern what constitutes the spiritual equivalent of moving to Nunavut, I need you because that kind of transformation happens in community. It’s why Jesus didn’t have one disciple; he had twelve. 

At the leadership session yesterday, Jane Dwinell asked why this congregation exists. Why does it matter and to whom? What attracts people to this spiritual community? What attracts me is the literal embodiment of spirit, not a building, not a history—but a continually evident manifestation of connection and transformation visible in our lives.

Engagement, like the filament of a web, connects us in inescapable ways. We hoodwink ourselves into believing the web does not exist or that we can somehow exist without it. Not because we are bad but because we are entrenched in ways of being so ingrained change seems impossible. But still it beckons.
Beyond the daily comforts and conveniences, the expectations and routines, we yearn to inhabit the gift and tremendous burden of human consciousness. To experience the immobilization inevitable amidst the complexities of our world and yet still make music together. To take the jeweled botanical offerings of this sweet earth into our hands and mouths and say with every action of our day thank you. Dayenu. It is abundantly enough. To recognize our bounty does not come with a spirit-backed guarantee.

We transform our lives by choosing with intention. By welcoming a pathway of less as a connection to more. We engage not by depending not on substances but on the substance of who we are. Amen.

Ethical Eating as Spirtual Practice, Pt. I

This is a two part sermon offered by Lisa Nuttal and Nina Vecchi:


Friends we gather here today to reflect upon our human-ness... Our predicament as a species in which we struggle with what is coyly called the "human condition." 

To quote one of my favorite spiritual guides, wikipedia-- second only to a Google search--

The human condition can be described as the irreducible part of humanity that is inherent and not connected to gender, race, class, — a search for purpose, sense of curiosity, the inevitability of isolation, and fear of death . . . . 

In other words  we are here to reflect upon our disconnectedness with an inner purpose and the world we live in.  Our inward search for a "peace of mind." 
In the vibrance of this beautiful morning -  let us celebrate that we are not alone in this journey... we all suffer in a similar manner -  with this challenge of humanness... Yet we each carry a unique gift to help one another along the path towards feeling at home with ourselves and living in harmony with each other and nature.
***
We gather here to reflect upon ethical eating as a spiritual practice.

Again we can turn to the Great Wikipedia definition of spirituality:

As an ultimate or an alleged immaterial reality;[1] an inner path enabling a person to discover the essence of his/her being; or the “deepest values and meanings by which people live.”  Spiritual experience includes that of connectedness with a larger reality, yielding a more comprehensive self; with other individuals or community; with nature or the cosmos . . . 

We have come here today to CONNECT and to make CONNECTIONS.

Many  UUs  are avid book readers. We read books and then relish in their discussion. Our viewpoints need not be tethered to one creed or religion. I'd like to think our reflections come from our own insights and intuitions.
UUs are explorers in a most classical sense. We "Leave Home" and make the hero's journey. 

This is one of the topics that is discussed in "The World Peace Diet" - by Dr. Will Tuttle: 

In consciously contemplating and questioning the worldview and practices of our parents, family, and culture, we make leaving home a vital foundation for our spiritual growth A spiritual quest in which we leave the confines of home and culture, undertake an inner and sometimes outer journey to attain higher understanding . . . We then return to our culture with new powers to reform, vitalize, and uplift our community through the insight attained on our journey.

Tuttle is a native of Concord Massachusetts, and left his home with his brother in an exploration for the truth. He became a Zen monk and spent several years reflecting in meditation upon the messages in his book.  I am here today to share some of the observations I experienced with others in a 12 week study with Tuttle and then as a facilitator of an eight week study we offered at the Gardner UU church.

The World Peace Diet asks the reader to step outside of our culture's most fundamental defining practice... for what can be more primal or basic as the choice of our nourishment?  What we eat as a species defines our place in the web of life. This is an essential determining factor when we classify other species. Humans should not be excluded from this consideration.

The most crucial skill a parent passes to its young for survival is choosing what to eat, and how to obtain the nourishment that is necessary to live.  Therefore these choices are deeply rooted in our psyche. They lay underneath our personas as part of the building blocks of our identity.  And that is why questioning our culture’s most fundamental and defining practice, of imprisoning and butchering animals for food is often a taboo and emotionally heated topic.

The UUA was courageous and progressive in putting forth a statement of concern for the significance of our food choices. Bravo!

To paraphrase Tuttle:

We UUs have practiced leaving home and embarking on a spiritual journey that at times put us fundamentally at odds with our culture’s values, but that at the same time makes it possible for us to be heroes who can help uplift and transform our ailing culture.

How many of us have left a previous religious or cultural tradition to discover our own truths? Is it not the UU way to question the status quo? To look for avenues to uplift our communities, with justice, fairness, and compassion as our barometers, to show tolerance and acceptance of those who may be different, to offer concern for the struggles of those who are less fortunate. To be thoughtful of our presence on this planet.

This planet we call the earth is our true mother. She provides for us in every way and is our only home. Climate change, pollution, devastation to natural resources are no longer something that are concerns for the future. They are happening here and now. How we face these dilemmas and where we gain strength and insight to rise above stems from our connection to our innate wisdom which is the source of some of our greatest talents as humans... our  intuition and creativity.

In the United Nation's - 2006 report "Livestock’s Long Shadow," the Food And Agriculture Organization found animal agriculture was a major contributor to the most severe ecological stresses the earth endures. The report estimated that over 18% of man-made greenhouse gas is generated by this industry. This is more emissions then all of the transportation on the planet.  Additionally the land occupied by animal industries demands nearly 60% of our agricultural resources worldwide.

How does this level of consumption impact those brothers and sisters that are less fortunate economically and socially? What of those who are forced to work in an industry that requires they disconnect. How does it feel to perform the task of repeatedly shooting a steel rod through the head of cow, pig , goat or sheep, or to slit the throat of screaming chickens  as they struggle in shackles?
There is another book I'd like to mention; like a tasty bag of potato chips there can never be just ONE book on any topic covered by a UU.

Dr. Melanie Joy -  psychologist and professor at Umass authored a book titled Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows. In this book she shares the information of a study that concludes that the human brain is essentially wired for empathy. We have emitters in our brains that stimulate our physical body to echo a mirror of sensations when we view the suffering of others. How many times have you winced to see another beings injury? This phenomena is not exclusive to the perception of our fellow human's suffering.  I do need a text book study to exemplify this. For I have experienced it myself. None of us enjoys to watch the pain of another being ... regardless if it is a human, a pig, cow, duck, puppy, or fish. Our knee jerk reaction is to cringe. We feel a deep empathy whose source is authentic - from our inner most center. Yet our culture grooms us to ignore such feedback.

It can be quite unsettling to reflect upon matters at this level. I know and have experienced the voyage first hand... and at times  ... it was not easy.
The Word Peace Diet asks us to look past the veil of cultural ideology and into the inner most center of our essence.

We often use animals in our society to engage children, to teach life lessons. Stories involving animals help children to grasp concepts of morality and ethics because like humans animals have families and bonds to others. Animals exhibit feelings of care and joy towards each other and humans. Many times animals are fundamental in therapy for those who have experienced trauma or serious physical injuries or limitations. The recipient senses that animals are authenticate and joyful. The animals bring healing.

We tell our children to be kind to the animals, not to pull their hair, tails or ears. We show them how to gently offer the animals food and affection.
And then We kill them.

This is the hidden system of violence that creates a disconnect between our hearts, our minds and our souls. 

In the Spring, we gather our children and them to plant seeds and till the soil. In the Fall we rejoice in the harvest, strolling through fields of pumpkins and apples.

I have never heard of a Sunday drive for a picnic at a slaughter house. Why is it that our culture hides from sight the most basic information on a crucial survival skill?

For the most part its source is covered up and never discussed. At least this was my experience as a child. As an adult I never questioned it. I never thought of it.
***
Have you ever walked into a room and immediately sensed a tension or negativity that was present?

Often times we pick up on  vibrations without any indication. Sometimes ... we just know in our gut something is going on. We seem to have an internal barometer that detects these energies and feeds our intuition.

What might we encounter if we could view the energetic atmosphere of our planet?

What would the slaughter of 60 BILLION sentient beings a year,  look like on a vibrational level?

Tuttle depicts the following vision:

If we could look over the world we live in with the eyes of an angel we see centers (hidden in the country side)  rise gigantic, towering over the landscape.  The intensity and thunderous volume of the suffering within their walls billowing up as roiling vibrational fields of grief, terror, panic, and despair. This massive and unremitting negative energy, ripples out through the vast and intricate webs of thought, energy, and consciousness that form our human relationships with each other, with animals and nature, and with our children, our dreams, and our aspirations.

In speculation... Could it be that the vibration mentioned in this vision is so intense and widespread that our human barometers have no baseline of a world without it?

Tuttle offers us great hope an inspiration:

By recognizing and understanding the violence inherent in our culture’s meal rituals and consciously adopting a plant-based diet, becoming a voice for those who have no voice, we can attain greater compassion and happiness and live more fully the truth of our interconnectedness with ALL life.

We will naturally increase our ability to heal our divisions, nurture our creativity and joy, restore beauty and gentleness, and be role models of sensitivity and compassion for our children. As we look more deeply at our food, the healing of our children can begin, and our work can be resurrected as an instrument for blessing and bringing joy and caring to our world. We can all return home, in our hearts, our spirits and in peace to heal our beautiful planet.


The planet is calling us to evolve and to step in to harmony with her and the other beings we share it with, the other earthlings whom she also claims as her children and sustains. How we answer this call depends on our ability to adapt and change and create sustainable, harmonious means for our survival. She calls us to reach beyond the status quo, to break out of behaviors and ideologies that not no longer serve our presence here.

I have great hope and faith in the intrinsic compassion of human heart. I see this every time a duck tries to cross the road and cars line up to wait, every time a child caresses a beloved animal friend and in the friendly stranger reaching out to help those in need. 

Blessed be.

Ethical eating as Spiritual Practice, Pt.II


I wanted to first acknowledge that I am deeply moved by the gift of this time with you.
In this life's journey I believe that we will always be in a state of discovery.

Perpetual students.

When Nina asked me to speak about my experiences after studying the WPD, I was honored.
Then the task became apparent, “How do you put all this into words?”

The things that you know to be your own “truth,”
that presence inside that is undeniable, and what we often define as our “calling” to somehow define what is my relationship to God. 

Being unfamiliar with Unitarian Universalism
I was really impressed to learn that many of your principles are in alignment with aspects of my own like the Vedantic teachings of ancient India, and being a Joyful Vegan.

So when it comes to this “communion” our act of sharing thoughts and ideas,
sometimes these ideas are often heavy subjects to be reflected upon deeply
and digested slowly.

I thank you for this feast!

Together, in community, As we try to strengthen our own understanding,
of healthy, sustainable, and compassionate living, we can become instruments for the spread of this knowledge, happiness, and peace.

Mindful Eating is an essential foundation for healing within and deepening our spiritual practice
Food and Community are often intertwined. Food can be a metaphor:

What is it that feeds your soul?

Every thought we have,
every action we carry out,
every word we speak.
All leave a wake behind us as we sail through our daily lives.

Everything is connected:

What began this leg of my journey, to get me here,
standing in this very space,
in this very moment with you all
was attending my first Kirtan a little over a year ago.

Kirtan is a form of meditation,
And taps into the vibrational energy within us all.

Everything posses this energy.

Some may debate that rocks and sky are not living things but indeed the earth is ALIVE!

From the very core to the ionosphere. And all things in between.

During this meditation, I felt my heart “open.”

The only way I can describe this to you would be the sensation you have right here in your chest
like pressure or presence when you are just about to cry.

I began to connect with the world around me in a completely new way.
I began to listen, I began to follow my heart, and in a very short time, this brought me to a six week study course of: The WPD.

Dr. Tuttle prefaces that we are in the midst of a profound spiritual transformationand cultural revolution. In chapter 11 “Living the Revolution” we are posed with the question:
“When is a caterpillar ready to transform?”

The most obvious sign is the passing of its voracious appetite because an inner urge turns its attention to new directions. Food is our primary connection with the earth and her mysteries, and with our culture. It is the foundation of economy and is the inner spiritual metaphor of our daily lives. There is no way to overstate the magnitude of the collective spiritual transformation that occurs when we shift from food of violence and oppression to food of gentleness and compassion. The key to adopting a plant based diet is to truly live it.

Be the change.

This practice is an essential pre-requisite for evolving our culture to a state of consciousness where universal peace and freedom are possible. Beyond the common spiritual experiences of internal and theoretical teachings, being vegan offers a concrete and visible way of living that flows from and reinforces a sense of caring and connectedness. Choosing to love.
And for me there was no question. I needed to not commodify animals, decrease the impact of environmental destruction, and take responsibly for the unnecessary violence my choices cause others. 

All of these choices create a ripple,
a vibration,
a resonance.
Including pain,
fear,
and suffering.

To consume animal products is to incorporate them and accept those resonances.
To further open my heart. I felt it was no longer a choice, but an imperative to adopt a different way of living. In another chapter, Dr. Tuttle also describes:

To practice eating for spiritual health and social harmony we impart making certain essential connections to increase our awareness that our culturally induced food rituals normally require us to block.

To go deeper, to connect, imparts the core ethics of universal compassion, mindfulness,
awareness, and silent receptivity. 

It is like peeling back layers of an onion-- often there are tears,
but the beauty of embracing that can be so sweet.

Just think of what happens to an onion when it gets simmered!
Opaque becomes translucent, things soften, they caramelize.
And before you know it there is room in the pan for more. There is nothing in the world quite like it.

Eating with awareness can be a sacred feast, yet it is usually done casually while we are preoccupied with something else.

In doing the ”homework” for this sharing, I also discovered your wonderful peace pledge:

We must begin at the source.

Focus on Inward Peace making. Inner peace empowers us to build outer peace.

Building our own harmony, self acceptance, and compassionate understanding
of our deeds and feelings then we increase our capacity to provide that to others

Choosing a plant-based diet is not a panacea but effectively removes the basic hindrances to our happiness, freedom and unfoldment.

“Seek first the kingdom of god for then all else shall be added unto you.”

Though I am only in the infancy of this life's journey, I have experienced on occasions too numerous to quantify, the minor miracles unfolding in my life  practically every day in the form of fortuitous coincidences and auspicious occurrences.

Some define this as manifestation. In my truth, I cannot take credit for “making“ any of this happen.

The divine moves though us as us
Can you hear it?
Can you feel it?
Can you be it?

I don't know all of you by name yet, but I know your voices.
We are all instruments of peace