The Radiant Center

Good morning.

I am happy to be with you all this morning. I get the
chance to follow up on my brief two minute “sharing
our stories” blip.

For those of you with us for the first time or new to
the community, know that I too have been here only a
month and a half. Please come and introduce yourself
to me after the service as a kindred newbie.

Today I will try to answer a few questions I keep
getting from some of you, my new community: Where do I
come from? What experience do I bring to this
community? Why am I here?

A quick cap on where I come from:
I lived the first two decades in small cities of
mid-Michigan, then a decade in the mountains and green
valleys of Oregon with several strong experiences of
intentional community, and this fall I celebrate my
11th year in the East Bay. I have lived in Berkeley,
Oakland, and Walnut Creek.

What experience do I bring? Growing up in Michigan I
played ice hockey, was involved with theater and
music, and attained the rank of Eagle Scout. I am now
a member of Scouting for All.

With an undergraduate degree in Mathematics and a
student teaching experience in Southern England, I
spent a decade as a teacher working primarily with at
risk populations. After moving to California I became
a certified massage therapist able to teach infant
massage as well as work with adults. I have had a Tai
chi practice since 1984 and 19 years of deep
involvement with Unitarian Universalism in both the
Pacific Northwest District and our local Pacific
Central District.

While trying to make a living as a massage therapist
in the saturated Bay area market I also worked a few
years as an eldercare community activities
coordinator, and a year as onsite building manager of
the former Bechtel family home, 244 Lakeside Drive on
sparkling Lake Merrit. I am now in my third year of
seminary, involved with anti-racism training and
exploring the personal and social growth that
parenting brings.

So, why am I here?: Simply, to practice my role as a
minister under the guidance of Revs. Bill and Barbara;
to further my skills in building intergenerational,
multicultural community in this teaching church; to
participate in creating community that supports
spiritual engagement with the self and the world with
its beauty and a need for social justice.

One question I am bringing to the table: What
spiritual principles and practices help us engage with
our full being, our radiant center and wholeness?

I looking to answer this I have been contemplating the
joining of two UUA principles the first and the last:
1) promoting the inherent worth and dignity of every
person and 2) a respect for the interdependent web of
all existence of which we are a part.

In my anti-racism studies I have come into contact
with a meditation practice that has as its basic
premise something so close to the joining of the first
and last principles that I can hold two in
simultaneous philosophical dialogue. Rev. Barbara H.H.
referred to its basic principle a few weeks ago:

We can get in touch with our deep basic goodness and
know this is ours just for being human, Knowing this
core as self prior to social conditioning and wounds
we may have acquired in the world, We can hold this
basic goodness, and engage more fully in the healing
work of the world. We heal ourselves in the
engagement.

This philosophy of inherent basic goodness is in
alignment with core historic Universalist beliefs
about human nature and the nature of
God/Goddess/Nature/Universe.

And what does practicing these principles look like?
I would like to share a couple of examples form my
life experience that illustrates staying centered in
this belief while engaging with the world:

When I was teaching in Oregon at the Phoenix School of
Roseburg for talented, gifted and risk teens I got to
see that creating a supportive growth community was
effective and life saving many times over.

One young man of about sixteen, Tom, in my GED/High
School completion program was a slick mover. He was
doing what he needed to get by in school, dressed to
the T’s, got a nice little allowance from his Mother
and spent weekends up in Portland. We didn’t know he
was hanging around with gang types up in the Big Town.
At that time Roseburg was having its own Cripes and
Bloods problems newly come into town as the two gangs
tried to claim this little logging town. Roseburg is
the midpoint of I-5 between LA and Seattle. So school
went on and I offered guitar lessons, Tai Chi, Spanish
and Mandarin Chinese alongside the standard GED
curriculum, but this slick young man was only mildly
interested. Then one Monday he comes to school in a
funny mood. He asks me to teach him guitar and Tai
Chi. He began to really dig into his school work. This
goes on for about a week or so. Then one day after
school he hangs back and tells me the reason for his
turn around. I have learned as a teacher to listen to
gruesome and troubling stories without judgment, but I
was not expecting to hear what I am about to tell you.

Tom had been in a movie theater in Portland with his
gang friends, and when the movie was over one of the
kids he was with was dead. The kid down the row from
Tom was slumped dead in his seat, his throat silently
slashed open from behind by a rival gang member.

I listened to his story and held my basic goodness
and his close in my heart; our fear and pain held open
and accepted. Neither of us running or hiding
ourselves from the intimate sharing. Engaging basic
goodness with the pain of the world.

Tom made a commitment to turn his life around. He
ended his ties to the Portland crowd. He studied tai
chi and guitar with me. Practicing guitar as study
breaks at school, he stayed the course. He got his GED
and went to community college.

How much did my having a grounded center of
acceptance play a part in his recovery?

Once a fellow teacher came to me asking, “How do you
work with these kids in the way that makes it work for
them?” I hadn’t really been asked that question so I
had to think a bit. “I see in them the essence of
goodness that I know exists in all people and speak to
that part of them as often as I can.”

A young woman in my program came in after school with
a friend asking to talk, Serena, 18 years-old,
already a life rich in street smarts, looked haggard.
The three of us went into my office and Serena started
telling me about her methamphatamine addiction. Her
friend yelled in a horrified anxiety of exposure,
“Don’t tell him!”. Serena just turned to her friend
and said, “ I can tell him.” Her friend sat
dumbfounded as we got the yellow pages and looked up
the phone number for the local ala-teen, narc-a-teen
and drug hotline so she could follow through with her
need for sobriety. She eventually got her GED even as
she struggled with her addiction and sobriety.

Most of us are not put in such extreme situations
every day, yet each of us can practice creating space
for teens and adults to search for growth in a way
that affirms our basic goodness and human dignity
while also courageously grappling with the hard
realities.

[Rev. Chris Crethennen speaks:]

Jeffrey:
We can create communities for growth for our kids,
for ourselves, and for our neighbors. We are doing a
darn good job of it right here in this church
community. You have something to be very proud of here
at UUCB. We have something meaningful in Unitarian
Universalism. We can draw upon our first and last
principles: 1) promoting the inherent worth and
dignity of every person and 2) a respect for the
interdependent web of all existence of which we are a
part. Connecting them together as if making a circle
instead of a list. A circle that holds our basic human
dignity inside the interdependent web of all
existence. A circle that holds the glorious beauty and
the grief of life. You may be asking “How can I do
more to create space for healing and growth when I am
already so busy?” I answer in this way. “Just engage
where you already are.” If you go to the grocery store
you engage with the world. The question is: How do we
stay engaged in the world and we stay centered in our
wholeness during interactions that challenge us? In a
few moments I will share a meditation tool that has
helped me bind the world together. It is from this
place of wholeness we need to do our work

Centering Meditation for Engagement

Eyes open or closed
Be aware of your body, your breathing
Notice what emotions are around. Give the complete
permission to be there.

Now, focus on your basic human goodness.
Do what you need to connect with your basic human
decency and the awesomeness of the Universe.

You might remember being in a special place in nature
or how it feels when people make you feel good about
yourself.

You might remember a meditation experience or a
feeling of connection with the goddess or god(s).

From this place of awesomeness, give yourself
permission to feel the totality of who you are.

Know that any reaction, emotion, or feeling that comes
up arises from within the basic goodness. Hold
whatever comes up simultaneously with awesomeness.
If that is not possible, then go back and forth
between the two.  ♦