January 2001
Loving Kindness
by the Rev. Meg A. Riley, Director, UUA Washington Office for Faith
in Action
The story is from Vivian Gussein Paley's book, "The Kindness of Children"
published by Harvard University Press. Ms. Paley is a kindergarten teacher,
but this story happens when she is visiting a high school and talking with
big kids, teenagers, about kindness.
"Tovah.raises her hand. 'Remember that lady gorilla, the one that saved the
little boy?'
Immediately everyone is nodding and grinning.
"We are all familiar with the female gorilla at the Brookfield Zoo that
rescued a toddler who toppled into her compound. She cradled and protected
him from the other gorillas, then handed him over to a zookeeper. The story
was on the front page of the local paper for a week. And now Tovah has only
to mention the event to put everyone in a good mood.
"'Listen to this,' she says, an urgent quality in her voice. 'I'm on a bus
going downtown to work. It's summer and it's hot and I'm in a mean mood.
Mean! I hate those buses, so crowded and people
being nasty and all, acting like you're a nobody. I don't ever want to give
my seat to anyone and have to stand up and get pushed on. Well, anyway, some
white guy yells out, 'Hey, guess what this gorilla did?' And he starts
reading from the paper in a really loud voice. It's a big headline and all.
A lot of people, like me, we're hearing it for the first time, you know?'
"She glances my way, then sweeps the room, as if to make sure she has
everyone's attention. 'All of a sudden, people are smiling and talking to
each other, almost like friends. I never once saw that on a bus, early in
the morning, everyone going to work-strangers to do that. Then someone asks
this guy to read it again and some other people they start reading it and
everybody is talking about the same thing and looking straight at each
other. Here's what I mean. We're so happy.'
"Suddenly Tovah is on her feet twirling about. 'Then guess what I did! I got
up and gave my seat to an old lady. I just up and did it. Without hardly
knowing I was going to.'
"Mr. Flambeau walks over to Tovah. 'Why did you decide to do that, Tovah?'
he asks gently. 'Tell us why you did that.'
"'Because, see, like everybody is loving that gorilla and I wanted to do
something good, too. I mean, I think that's why. I never even told anyone
about it till now.'"
Three and a half years ago, my partner Kendrick and I made the journey of
our lifetime-we went to China to adopt our daughter. My heart was in such
spasms of ecstasy and terror about it that, the week before we went, I
became convinced that I was having a heart attack. Since I was theme-speaker
at a UU conference at the time, I could not consult my MD, but made do
instead with the resident
masseuse/psychic healer.
"It's not a heart attack," she told me. "It's muscle spasms. Think of these
as labor pains." Just before we left for China, Kendrick and I spoke with a
meditation teacher about how we might handle the upcoming stress and
excitement together. "The trip will be a series of transitions, hurdles to
jump, right?" she asked. Right. "Practice envisioning each of those steps as
a doorway to more love. Each time you change planes, or visit yet another
bureaucrat, or wait in a line, envision another door opening and more love
coming in."
For the three weeks of our journey, this practice worked wonderfully. This
was because love was such a concrete, tangible thing, embodied by the new,
wonderful being coming into our lives, this precious daughter whose picture
we held and we might never know, and then whose body we held and whom we had
suddenly known forever. I remembered, then, a time years earlier, when I had
been present as a friend gave birth. "Push beyond the pain, Jane," the
midwife kept intoning. Later, when the baby was born and asleep, I asked
Jane eagerly, "What was beyond the pain?" I don't know what I expected her
to say-a tunnel of white light, perhaps. She looked at me as if I were an
imbecile. "Why, the baby, of course!" In China, I suddenly understood.
Beyond her pain, beyond my fear, there was pure love. Our babies.
Most of us who are not Zen masters, or in the delivery room, do not live our
lives so clearly and intently focused on a point beyond fear and pain.
Usually, rather than seeing negative experiences as opportunities to find
more love, we experience them as incidents beyond our control. And yet, with
every new beginning-be it the start of a new year, a new child's life, a new
marriage, a new diet-we muster up the clarity to look beyond our daily
routines and obligations into our heart's longing. We hope that this time it
will be different. We won't get stuck. We will remember that there are paths
just beyond our peripheral vision that will lead us back to our real selves.
And so, for this blank slate of a new year, I suggest four tips for finding
such paths. To help remember the tips, I offer four words beginning with the
letter M. M stands for the intention: "May I find my way home."
The first word is models. To find paths out from cynicism, negativity, fear,
or rage, to love, we need to know of someone else who was able to walk a
similar route. If I asked you to describe a moment when you saw someone else
do something that shattered your expectations about the limits of what could
be done, I'll bet you could. Paley's story describes such an instance. In
that case, the courage and kindness of a gorilla caused a hostile high
schooler to offer her bus seat to a stranger. And why did she suddenly feel
inspired to share this story for the first time with her classmates?
Because the writer, Vivian Paley, had been sharing stories of her
own-stories from the kindergarten, stories about when young children were
extraordinarily kind to one another at vulnerable moments. So, when we're
looking for a path, the first guidepost is to find role models, be they
gorilla or human, be they known in flesh or in story.
The second possible way to open back up to love when we're lost in
negativity is learning that someone notices our being, and notices our actio
ns. When someone takes a moment to tell us that who we are matters to him or
her, we can discern an opening. Mirroring care to someone else can also help
us focus on solutions. Meditation teacher Sharon Salzberg writes, in her
book A Heart as Wide as the World:
"In Buddhist psychology, every wholesome quality of mind has what is called
a proximate cause. This is the condition that most readily gives rise to a
particular quality. For example, the proximate cause of metta, or
lovingkindness, is seeing the goodness in someone, so metta most easily
arises when we can see the good in someone."
The second guidepost, then, is mirroring. Seeing the goodness in others and
reflecting it back to them; having it seen in us.
The third M-word that can help us find our way is mitzvah, a good deed, an
act of service or kindness. The Jews, you may know, have categorized all the
kinds of mitzvoth, and say that the most holy of all are the acts that no
one knows that we do. So, when we're lost and can't see a door, simply to do
something kind or caring to a complete stranger might make us feel better.
As the bumper sticker says, "Practice random acts of kindness and senseless
beauty." I do this sometimes when someone is pushing all my buttons and
almost seems to be begging me not to like him or her-I force myself to be
extraordinarily, unusually kind. I seek this person out, ask questions, the
answers to which are likely to bore me silly, and listen attentively. I
know, it's sort of a weird passive/aggressive game, but it also, weirdly,
cheers me up. At times I've even come to truly enjoy someone whom I formerly
loathed! Anyway, this M is for mitzvah, not masochism, so perhaps that
particular technique is not for everyone!
This is also from Vivian Paley's book, The Kindness of Children. The author
is speaking with her elderly mother.
"'Mom, I have an odd question for you. Have you ever witnessed a spiritual
event?'
"'Something to do with God? A miracle, do you mean? I don't know. Nowadays
it's a miracle if people are nice to each other. I'm not sure about
spiritual. You're asking the wrong person. I grew up in an observant home,
but we didn't call things spiritual. Ma never told us God was watching us or
even that God wanted us to do something. No, what she talked about was
'mitzvoth,' good deeds. 'You earned a mitzvah,' she'd say, when I was
especially nice to your Aunt Becky. You were supposed to always be
trying to earn a mitzvah.'
"'Did you ever ask, Ma, why a person is said to earn a mitzvah?'
"'Well, don't forget we spoke Yiddish at home. So I was always translating
from one language to another. But I think you have to earn the right to be
called a good person. That was, to Ma, the whole idea, to be a good person.'"
So, the third way to open a door to compassion is to perform mitzvoth, good
deeds, random acts of
kindness.
The final guidepost to love and compassion that has become increasingly
important to me over the years is meditation. I use the term very loosely to
mean a way of being that gives us more spaciousness or breathing room around
our tiny view of life. Sharon Salzberg writes:
"The essence of all meditation practices is the ability to begin again. By
beginning again, we become present. The Pali word bhavana, usually
translated as meditation, literally means 'causing something to become,'
'calling into existence,' or 'bringing forth.' It conveys a sense of giving
birth. . . . Simply by being with our breath, we are giving birth to our
wholeness."
So, the last guidepost, meditation, is the process of reflection or
re-creation that allows us to begin again, to remember to take a deep
breath, to allow ourselves to have another chance to be
compassionate and loving.
Now, some people have very disciplined, regular meditation practices. I wish
I did. I am just one small step up from a category of people known as
"bookstore Buddhists"-that is, people who read books about meditation but
never do it. I do it, but only when I am so desperate that I can't do
anything else. I don't have a regular practice, which might prevent me from
reaching such points of desperation!
However, given the bigger translation of the word bhavana, causing something
to become, calling into existence, meditation is not limited to sitting on a
zafu cushion breathing. With this understanding, we see how any act can
become an act of meditation. When I wash the dishes, I can do so from a
place of scarcity and negativity-why are there so many, why do they take so
long, why do I always have to do them-or I can do so from a place of calling
into existence. Calling the moment into existence, the warm water, the hard
dishes, the soft soapsuds, the view from the window, the good fortune my
family enjoys with each meal together. Meditation, in this broader sense of
the word, becomes simply life, loosening our grip and our urge to control
and expanding back into the mystery of the larger universe from whence we
came and to which we will return.
Mirrors, models, mitzvoth, meditation. Next time you're against one of those
dense walls of negativity, may one of these words appear in your mind and
help you light your way back through to love. May one of these guideposts
help you to turn from fear to faith and back to your own heart.
Now, and each moment of each day, is the time for turning from fear to
faith.
May we find the strength, together, to turn toward life. May we find the
power, together, to turn toward truth.
May we find the wisdom, together, to turn toward kindness.
So be it.
Quest January 2001 Contents
'Till We Turn 'Round Right
by Lisa Doege, minister,
First Unitarian Church,
South Bend, Indiana
Christmas is over but the tales of the season linger in my mind. Scrooge
promising to "honor Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year."
The Grinch's heart growing three sizes that day. The bitter, grieving father
in a nearly forgotten After School Special bringing a tree at long last into
The House Without a Christmas Tree. The sophisticated, illusion-less mother
and her mature-beyond-her-years daughter coming to believe that the
department store Santa Claus really is Kris Kringle. The Winter Warlock's
icy heart melting when he's given a toy train. One of the recurring themes
of Yuletide stories is the magic the season has to soften even the hardest
hearts. We surely must love the tale, for we write it and read it, tell it
and watch it, year after year, with only minor changes in character and
setting.
Over and over again, the ghosts of Christmas past, present, and future, or
the rejoicing voices of the Whos down in Whoville, or the generosity and
luminous goodness of strangers, offer us the promise of joyful hearts and
lives transformed by love-for ourselves or those bah-humbugging around us.
But despite our deep desire, we don't have much faith, it seems, in the
power of Christmas magic to change our hearts and our lives, so we follow
Christmas almost immediately with New Year's, a holiday given over to
willfully changing our lives, to taking stock and resolving to begin anew in
a better way.
The Year 2001 has already begun. Have you made your resolutions? My own
record of making New Year's resolutions is rather spotty, but I do enjoy
hearing what other people resolve. The most interesting resolution I've
heard this year is my brother's. A few days ago he announced his intention
to start drinking coffee this year. I've heard lots of people resolve to
give up coffee, or cut down on the amount they consume, but Chris is the
first person I've ever heard resolve to start drinking coffee.
On the surface, my brother's coffee resolution is an unlikely one both
because he's never shown the slightest interest in drinking coffee before,
and because it is so much the antithesis of the self-improvement resolutions
that are the norm for New Year's. But really his resolution isn't so unusual
after all. He's 32 years old, a husband and father, a homeowner. Still the
baby of our family, he's realizing he's reached a new stage in his
life-full-blown, no doubt about it, adult. And what could be more grown-up
than drinking coffee? (Teenagers may drink coffee these days, but they didn'
t when my brother and sister and I were teens.)
My brother's doing what most of us do at certain transitional times in our
lives-like birthdays and anniversaries and graduations and new years. He's
looking at who he is and who he wants to be, and making some decisions about
how to get from one to the other. I don't know if he really will take up
coffee, or if it will make him feel any more grown-up if he does, but I love
the self-reflection and spirit of openness to change in which his and all
such resolutions are made.
One of the defining characteristics of our liberal religious forbears was
their rejection of the doctrine of predestination, their embrace of the
concept of free will. The marvelous possibility and challenge of free will,
it seems to me, is that if we are free to determine our own life's path,
then we are also free to change our mind, to set a new course for our self,
if the old one is taking us nowhere fast or leading to places and a person
we'd rather not be.
There is something to be said for steadfastness of purpose, for having goals
and a plan for achieving them, for commitment and sticking with the program,
for not letting the opinions of others or chance encounters or setbacks or
insignificant events distract one from keeping one's eyes on the prize.
There is also much to be said for dancing, for swaying in the breeze, for
bending so that you don't break, for turning, turning, till you come 'round
right.
I'm not suggesting that it's a good idea to go whichever way the wind might
blow, always moving on to something new before finishing what's already
begun, changing paths or directions whenever the road before us gets a bit
bumpy or steep. But I am suggesting that we don't want to end up like the
North-Going Zax and the South-Going Zax, frozen forever as the world changes
around us, and our dreams fade, and our goals go unmet because we are too
stubborn, or frightened, or oblivious, to move even half a yard to the East
or the West. Free will doesn't do us much good if we don't exercise it. If
we resolutely stick to the direction we first set out upon, without periodic
course corrections, then we might as well be set on a preordained path by
God or the fates.
I believe the key to avoiding a Zax-like impasse or a road to somewhere
undesirable is not just tempering stubbornness with flexibility, also
administering a healthy dose of self awareness, reflection, examination. If
we're going to change what dissatisfies us in life, if we're going to turn
till we come 'round, then we have to know when we need to start turning and
when to stop. We need to know when we are not quite right and when we are
right with
ourselves and the world.
We can look to guides to help us in our discernment: the counsel of wise men
and women, the insight of friends who know us differently but just as well
as we know ourselves, the simple and profound words and great and timeless
works of poets, philosophers, musicians, artists, men and women of science
and religion. But in the end they cannot tell us which resolution to make,
when to turn aside, and in which direction. The final knowing must come from
the voice of our own conscience, the whisper of our own soul, telling us,
"Turn now. . . .Now cease from turning. For a time at least, you've come '
round right."
Like me, you may find that New Year's resolutions aren't very useful to you.
That this not-quite-arbitrary date isn't the one that works for you, calling
you to self-reflection and new beginnings and fresh starts. But there must
come times in your life, as there have in mine, when opportunities for
turnarounds present themselves-in a crisis of health, or the birth of a
child, or the start of the new academic year, or words of literature that
shake us to the core, or a national or international event of profound
significance, or the silence of a winter day far from the city. It is then
we must engage in the stock-taking, the resolution-making, in the beginning
again, the turning, that others do naturally at this time of year.
Turning till we come 'round right might at times mean an actual change in
our behavior or circumstances-changing jobs, entering a 12-step program,
ending or beginning a relationship, taking up volunteer work, speaking out
when before, we'd been silent. Or the turning may be a shift in our attitude
toward, or assessment of, our present behavior and situation. Or it may be
symbolic, like my brother drinking coffee as a sign that he embraces his
adulthood. At times our lives may require lots of turning, wild and free in
many directions, before we come 'round right again, and at others, perhaps
just a gentle, slow twirl. The particular form our turning takes, the
pattern we trace on our way to becoming right with ourselves, is less
important than the simple act of doing it.
The new year has really begun. It's time for us to recognize that to
everything turn, turn, turn, there is a season, turn, turn, turn, and a time
for every purpose under heaven. That one good turn deserves another. That
today and any day we can turn over a new leaf. And turn aside from foolish
ways. And turn the corner toward recovery. That turning, turning, till we
come 'round right, is one of the ways we can ensure that the hopes and
prayers of so many at this new year, and every new year, for peace and
justice and a better tomorrow, have a chance of coming to pass. May it be
so, for each of us in this far flung congregation, and for our nation, and
world.
Quest January 2001 Contents
Letters from Members
The letters below were sent by members to the CLF e-mail list.
To: CLF-L@uua.org
Subject: Vichyssoise
Hey, everybody, did you like reading "Vichyssoise" in the latest Quest
[October] as much as I did? There isn't any UU congregation here, so I've
been attending the local United Church. Which is pretty liberal, but still
hands us a printed prayer of confession and has us recite various creeds,
etc.
I find it amazingly helpful to whisper to myself, while conforming, "It's
just vichyssoise." Somehow, that allows me to maintain my
integrity.
The concept, if not the word, has entered our family vocabulary. I'd
explained it to my husband, and later-on a different subject-he remarked,
"That's just
Bouillabaisse."!
Jane Heald
Pleasant Hill, TN
To: CLF-L@uua.org
Subject: Vichyssoise
I thought it was the best article I have ever read in the magazine. I want
to share it with as many people as I can.
Ben Larson
Hereford, TX
To: CLF-L@uua.org
Subject: Vichyssoise
I just read it last night and I thought it excellent. I certainly intend to
add the word to my vocabulary as well as the thought, of course.
Ellyn Kern
Bennington, IN
Quest January 2001 Contents
New Year Cleaning
by James Ishmael Ford, minister, First Unitarian Society in Newton,
Massachusetts
Well, I'd put it off for a couple of years, and really, really wanted to put
it off for a couple of years more. But, eventually, even the most unpleasant
task must be done. And it is the new year. And it really needs doing. And
so, last night, I finally sat down and did it. I culled my
address book.
This may seem a lightweight task to some among us. I imagine the more
efficient do it every year. Or, perhaps, they even have one of those
new-fangled electronic widgets that add and eliminate names with the
slightest of digital flourishes. Here, in my most judgmental imagination, I
picture them doing it for the most part with barely a pang of thought or
regret.
For me, however, this is big-time stuff. It can be very difficult. For one
thing, it really was time for me to drop those names of people who'd died,
relatives and friends. This is the most obviously difficult part of this
task. And, I did find myself lingering over several of those names, really,
really not wanting to lose them.
But, there are many smaller deaths, less obvious, less painful, but still
nagging at the heart. Friends who really aren't friends anymore. Names that
once loomed large in my life, but in truth, we haven't even exchanged
Christmas cards in years. Names and addresses and phone numbers that at one
time I almost didn't need written down, but now are fast-fading images,
numbers with barely any significance.
All are now gone from my new address book sitting at the back of my new
calendar. New for new. And, there is something good about having done it. I
am ready for the new year. And, so is my calendar. But. Still. Those little
incessant tugs at the back of my mind.
Words are magic. In ancient China if someone found a scrap of paper and it
had writing on it, he or she would preserve it as some precious
artifact. Truthfully, words are the most precious of our artifacts, our
human creations. And, names written in a book are very important in our
psychic lives. Perhaps we do need to dread the marking out of names. It is a
casting into an outer darkness. It is dreadful and
frightening.
I know as I came to finish the task, and had this good and clean and
somewhat smaller list to carry around for ready reference, I really did feel
good. But, I also had trouble just chucking the old address book. The power
of the old book lingered in my hands. And that hesitation about marking out
names bubbled so near the surface of my consciousness. And so, I told
myself, well, some of those old names and
addresses I might need even if not
right off the bat. Others, hey, I didn't copy out all the e-mail
addresses-this was supposed to be phone numbers and regular old fashioned
street addresses-and, I haven't quite gotten to believe the ethereal
addresses are also real.
So, after the purging, the old address book isn't going into the trash. It
is now a precious artifact. Probably an artifact I'll never again consult.
But for now it sits near my bedside table with the previous two years'
calendars. Eventually, I suspect it will go into the box in the garage with
the other old calendars. And, eventually, well eventually all things do pass
away.
So on to my point in this rumination. We're at the new year. As we look
forward to this new year, I hope we will take a moment or two to linger over
those old memories, those old years, those old names. Names are precious.
They tell us of what we have been, what we are, and what we might yet
become.
We do need to move forward. We really do. But, there is also time to
remember. And that is important, as well.
So, as you go forward in making your new year, may the memories of pain and
joy rest easily in your heart. And, may all that comes be not a turning away
from, but a
fulfillment of what has been.
Happy New Year!
Quest January 2001 Contents
CLF Members Plan Ahead for Cleveland
If you'd like to represent the Church of the Larger Fellowship at General
Assembly this year-it's not too soon to start planning. CLF is entitled to
have 22 delegates at the General Assembly in Cleveland, Ohio on June 21 to
25 and if you are interested in serving as a delegate, please contact the
CLF office before March 31 to apply. As a delegate you will be able to vote
on Statements of Conscience, UUA bylaw changes, resolutions, and Actions of
Immediate Witness.
In addition, you will be able to attend the CLF annual meeting of the Board
of Directors and CLF members, meet our minister, the Rev. Jane Rzepka, meet
the CLF staff, visit-or even volunteer at-the CLF booth, and attend the CLF
worship service. This has become a very well-attended event at General
Assembly. Watch this space for more news about Jane's sermon and the music
CLF will be presenting.
If you think you'd like to participate in GA2000 by representing CLF as a
delegate, your costs, in addition to your travel, include adult full-time
registration (last year, this amount was $230), hotel rooms for about $125 a
night (this figure may increase), and meals. Call CLF at
617-742-2100, ext. 166 and speak to Lorraine or e-mail us at clf@uua.org
before March 31 to indicate your
interest.
 From Your Minister
by Rev. Jane Ranney Rzepka, minister, CLF
We couldn't communicate, because I didn't speak Polish. But they led me
through the village to the outskirts, and there, sheltered in a half-built
house, sat a big, padlocked, wooden box. Long wires stretched from the box
all the way to a pole on the street. Everyone seemed proud.
I was young (It was the mid-70s), and not too savvy, but I knew enough to
act impressed. The truth was though, I had absolutely no idea what was in
the box. Finally, somebody produced a key and opened it up. It was a
telephone.
Who would answer this phone if it rang? Nobody in town had a phone, so who
was going to call? And who would they call? No one.
I'm having such fun reading The Tipping Point, by Malcolm Gladwell. What
turns a fashion into a fad? What makes a few cases of measles suddenly run
through a whole grade-school classroom? How does an unknown book suddenly
become a bestseller?
Gladwell says there's a pattern to it: these phenomena build steadily and
slowly to a certain point, and then. . . then they take off in a hurry. The
name given to that one dramatic moment, the moment when everything changes,
is the
tipping point.
For example, the first low-cost fax machine was introduced in 1984, and
about 80,000 were sold. For the next couple of years, sales grew slowly. But
in 1987 enough people owned faxes that it made good sense to buy one. We had
reached the tipping point. That year a million machines were sold-that's a
rise of about 800,000 sales in one year-and by 1989 two million fax machines
hummed along. The tipping point for cell phones, they say, was reached in
1998.
Naturally, I wonder what these kinds of technological patterns might mean
for us, and the way we'll go about reaching and talking to each other.
Clearly Church of the Larger Fellowship members will either stick with, or
move to, modes that they most favor and can afford: some like to receive
faxed information, others like to check their mailboxes. Some prefer the
phone or a pager. Others love the website, or our three e-mail lists, where
members talk with one another. Many CLFers find e-mail most convenient. As
various tipping points tip, our staff scurries around and builds each new
medium into the CLF's world, even as we continue with the old ones. I read
somewhere that right now there is no decisive medium, and in the CLF office,
we find that to be true.
Of course the Church of the Larger Fellowship is not about technology, it's
about religion. About people. That's what drives us. So when I read The
Tipping Point, I see tipping points not particularly in the land of
technology, but in the world of applied religion. Although I'm not sure
Malcolm Gladwell would agree, it seems to me that the 19th Century poet,
Percy Bysshe Shelley, in Prometheus Unbound, alluded to the tipping point
when he described:
the sun-awakened avalanche!" whose mass,
Thrice sifted by the storm, had gathered . . .
Flake after flake, in Heaven-defying minds
As thought by thought is piled, till some great truth
Is loosened, and the nations echo 'round
Shaken to their roots: as do the mountains now.
Shelley was talking about ideas-and the notion that as thought upon thought
accumulated, all at once an avalanche of insight-some great truth-is
triggered.
He has me imagining that you live in a small, conservative town. You are a
Unitarian Universalist-a CLF member, let's say. Another UU moves into town
from Boise, or Paris, who has experience in starting a small congregation.
Each of you talks it up with your neighbors and discovers two or three
like-minded souls. Before you know it you're holding worship services with a
small group of people that slowly and steadily grows. And boom-the group
sky-rockets and soon the whole town's Unitarian Universalist. OK, I got
carried away, but I'm
enjoying the thought!
Imagine that you aren't feeling so good about yourself. An overheard comment
sneaks into your awareness, though, about how much folks enjoy the tacos you
prepare and your milder jokes, and your software programs. You read a sermon
about being "accepted by the universe." Walking down the street, you see a
pretty nice reflection of your face in a window and the clouds lift-you're
at a spiritual tipping point, the avalanche is triggered-and hey! You're OK.
Better than OK. A feeling of well-being wraps you up and takes you home.
Tipping points are everywhere, in the world and in the spirit-in technology,
in religion, within our own souls-starting, perhaps, with a telephone in a
plywood box. Tipping points. Transformation.
Jane Rzepka
Minister
Quest January 2001 Contents
REsources for Living: "Treasure Hunting,"
by Laura Cavicchio, interim director of religious education, Church of the
Larger Fellowship
Have you ever gone on a treasure hunt? If you could go on one, what would
your treasure be? Enough money to be a millionaire? All the Pokemon cards in
the world? The fountain of youth or the wisdom of the ages? Surely, a
treasure hunt captures our imaginations and takes us to that place of 'what
if's' and 'dreams come true.'
When I was a child, my friends and I liked to take turns making up our own
treasure hunts, using whatever stuff we had on hand. A comic book, the prize
leftover from our box of Cracker Jack, maybe some baseball cards, and the
lollipop from yesterday's visit to the dentist. Most important of all, the
treasure box would have to have something mysterious in it. Like a message
made up in secret code or invisible writing, or a map we would draw to lead
to yet another treasure.
After hiding the box, we would spend the afternoon making up and hiding
clues, like "go to the tallest tree and climb up three branches," or "walk
12 paces from the swing set." But, which way? Half the fun was in the
guessing, and you might go around in circles a little before finding the
next clue that would lead you on. Sometimes the clue might tell you to go
into the woods behind your street, and you would have to go, even if the
bigger kids said there were gigantic spiders there. Or you'd have to stick
your hand in the prickerbush-OUCH!-to get the next clue. And on and on,
until the treasure was found at last.
Funny, though, what was in the box didn't seem to matter half so much as the
way you felt searching for it, and finally finding it. Your friends always
made sure you found it even if they giggled and smirked when you got off
track. And you'd go to their house for a band-aid if the prickerbush got
you. You didn't leave the neighborhood. You were always home for dinner, but
somehow you felt as if you'd been somewhere new and different. Most of
all, your friends loved seeing you find the treasure, and when you found it,
it was as if you all had.
As we grow up, something different begins to happen. We start to make our
own treasure hunts and it can get a little lonely. The hard part is deciding
which clues to follow and which to leave behind. Getting help from trusted
others, like our friends, parents, partners, teachers, and mentors can make
all the difference, especially when we find ourselves venturing into unknown
woods, or getting stuck in the prickerbushes. Creating and keeping connection with the web of our fellow
Unitarian Universalists, however we may find them, helps to keep us steady
in the journey. I like to think we are a tireless crew of treasure seekers,
carrying our proud Unitarian Universalist tradition forward-a tradition
founded on the right of conscience and free inquiry. Young, older, and in
between, we go on making our liberal religious maps and helping each other
to read the clues. It is a good thing that we have one another, because
along the way, treasure hunting can get tricky. We may come upon a sudden
turn, or a clue we did not expect. We may sometimes realize that we must
learn to see with new eyes so as not to miss hidden treasure. Harder still,
we may need to look at each other or even ourselves with new eyes. We know
there are prickerbushes ahead. We will need
band-aids, lots of band-aids.
The glorious part is that we share in both the joy and the mystery of
treasure hunting. The mystery is not written in secret code or with
invisible ink, as the playful messages of my childhood were. The Mystery is
what truly makes the treasure. In our religion, and in how we live it, we
can discover life's greatest
treasures.
We can also have fun finding ways to share our treasures in concrete ways.
Here are some things to try on outings, at home, on rainy days, or as
'creativity' starters for writing poems or telling stories, or for just
having fun.
Make a "treasure viewer" by taking a piece of colored paper of about
index-card size and cutting a one-inch square in the middle of it. See what
happens when you walk around, using your 'viewer' to focus your attention up
or down. See how different the world looks; what colors and shapes capture
your attention. Try close-up looks at ordinary or familiar objects and
patterns.
Envision inward treasure. Sitting opposite another person or an object, such
as a flower, an animal, a stream, or a tree, pretend that you are using an
imaginary 'treasure viewer' to see inside the other. Zen Buddhists call this
seeing the "suchness" of the other. What colors, feelings, or images come to
your mind, or to your heart? Try 'looking' inside yourself to imagine your
own "suchness." How would you describe this treasure?
Go on treasure hunts-on trips, picnics, at camp-anywhere. An easy way to
create a 'hunt' on the spot is to devise simple challenges that are both fun
and affirming, using what you see around you. For instance, you might
suggest to children, "Find a stone shaped like an animal and tell me a story
about it." Make up your own, anytime.
In this New Year, may we embrace the "suchness" of life. Our treasures are
so close at hand. Let us nurture them in ourselves, in our families, and in
our relationships. Happy New Year to all.
Quest January 2001 Contents
A Blessing for the Coming Time
by Roy D. Phillips, interim minister, UU Church of
Pensacola, Florida and Emerald Coast UU Fellowship
of Valparaiso/Fort Walton Beach, Florida
Happy New Year.
As happy, as merry as can be,
as circumstances permit,
as your psyche allows,
as your mastery of events can achieve.
However:
Be wary of thinking you require happiness.
The fabric of life is woven of strands both
dark and bright. This loom seems inexorably
to require both. A pattern is emerging.
Whenever you can choose,
do whatever makes you happy;
do not do what draws you down.
The moment is pregnant. Be a chooser.
Through, not stopped. Up instead of down.
Then
A Blessed New Year!
Let the light be your blessing;
let it shine within,
shine it out.
Let the darkness be your blessing;
take it when it comes;
let it work a transformation;
watch to see who you are becoming.
There is no stopping you now.
A Blessed New Year!
Quest January 2001 Contents
Last updated June 12, 2005
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