Many Paths…

Let us give thanks:
Thank you to the Gamelan Ensemble, thank you Victoria, Lynn, Catherine and Phyllis for sharing your arts. Thank you, Michael, Jonathan, Mary, Eldon and Richard for your ongoing support of worship in this community. Thank you to all the dozens who put joy, sweat and tears into running the myriad ministries of this congregation.
Let us give thanks for beauty of the earth and skies. Let us hold gratitude for Spirit of Life infused in our bones. Let us appreciate the small miracles of everyday life in this Great Mystery. May we embrace the mixed blessings of joy and pain that teach us what we need along our spiritual journey.

Thanksgiving is a time of mixed blessings for many. Not everyone has a happy time with their families. Often there is a family or family member that is, shall we say, tedious, or annoying, or obnoxious! (Aunt Joan who says, “Jef, do remember that embarrassing time when…)

Sometimes families can have destructive patterns of addiction or abuse. When we have to deal with these people in our lives we are sometimes thankful for just coming through unscathed. We can be grateful for our own recovery and others in the family who are also keeping to the road of recovery.

Whatever the difficulties of families, we tend to hope for the kind of gathering that brings us laughter, inspiration and joy. We have to learn to create what we want through our intent. Often it is our personal spiritual journey in which our intent can be most influential. We need to know our intent (and ethics) before it can shape our path. Are we clear about our spiritual paths?

Clarity!? Clarity?! How can I have spiritual or religious clarity of intent in a Religion of pluralism? Unitarian Universalism is kind of like a religious smorgasbord. Do we have to choose one? I think not. I do think we ought to embrace life, accept ourselves, love our neighbors, and have a clear spiritual intent (and ethics.)

What is intent? The clear purpose that comes from the my heart-mind. It is my core movement through life. My vision of action. It is desire understood.

A clear intent helps us guide our day. A clear intent helps us guide the broader path of life and interaction with the world. The clearer our intent the easier it is to live out our truth. A clear intent helps focus for our life energy. Without intent there can be a sense of being lost. How you gauge success of your life is judged by the measure of adherence to intent. Our ethics of actions emerge from this deep core value.

Hear this story:
climbers — I listened to a group of mountain climbers telling a tale.  They told of a group of intermediate level climbers at base camp who began arguing the best path to scale the mountain. Each path had its own merits. One was faster, one was a dead end, another had a spectacular view, another was rigorous — demanding skill and character. They spent so many days arguing the value of each path that their vacation time was over and they never got to climb at all. They got lost in the ethics of the path, and forgot  their intent to climb.

What is the intent of Unitarian Universalism? Unitarian Universalism supports many paths. We support a responsible search for truth and meaning. We support the inherent dignity of the individual in their search. We try to help individuals focus on a path that considers the interdependent web, personal experience and the wisdom of historic sources. Unitarian Universalism has the intent of supporting individual spiritual search within the context of community.

Humanism, Shamanism, Buddhism, Judaism, Christianity, Agnosticism, Paganism, environmentalism, capitalism, democratic socialism can all be seen as having an intent of creating a better life. Differing are the intent and the ethics. Differing is the world view. Differing is the world they intend to create.

Let me share a few examples from my life:
Yoga vs. Tai qi
When discussing with a friend the metaphysics of yoga and Tai qi we concluded that the spiritual goal of Yoga and Hinduism is to move the prana, spirit, up and out of the body escaping the wheel of life. Tai qi has the intent to circulate the life force within the body and cosmos to be centered here on earth. Both exercise forms are great for health, but the intent of the two are radically different.

perfectionism vs. search for truth and meaning (coming out)
On my path to ministry I struggle with letting go of being a perfect shinning human example. I am continually learning to accept myself as imperfect and seek my own truth despite social confines and pressures. This has recently led me to trying my bisexual identity in a more open manner. First trying it on for myself, then sharing it with others. Today is the first public statement of my queerness.

focus on afterlife vs. focus on this life and the relations to the web of life.
Some religious sects promise not only an afterlife, they promise one can attain attributes of the Gods. Many Christian, Old Norse Paganism, much in Islam claim one can attain immortality. Is this not the eating of the forbidden fruit? does this not ban us from the garden of Eden. A quest for immortality, Heaven, or Valhalla the striving for a future perfection deprives us of the inner garden of eden. The inner Garden of Eden of being satisfied with life on this planet, this moment. The quest for a personal immortality derails the demand for social justice in the here and now.

Now let me pose a few rhetorical questions for all of us:
What cosmology do we meditate on? Which qualities of God do you pray to. Who is your God? Is your God a disembodied spirit? Do you want to be like God? Which versions of God do you dismiss as myth? Is the goal of your spirituality to be present on this planet in this life time?

Hear this story of a life I encountered this week. The story of someone who asked these questions of himself:
I facilitated a life celebration ritual for a man named Caleb last Sunday. Caleb was described to me by his wife as not particularly religious. She was interested in a non-christian home service. She had seen the UUBA ad campaign and chose to call UUCB.

I offered her an informal ritual based lifting up the interconnected web and death as a cycle of nature. This she embraced.

Arriving at their house I was shown his bedroom. Here I was reeducated on the words “particular religious”. I entered a zone of multiple religious iconography. everywhere to be seen! Hindu paintings, Buddhist alters, Christian icons, Zen books, and nature artifacts. Caleb did not have a particular religious practice. He was an active spiritual seeker. Many people spoke of his focused spiritual journey. It wove him through many religious teachings. He created his own path. His intent guided him in his search for meaning.

Caleb had lived with AIDS complications for fifteen years. His Ryder’s syndrome became more severe and he lived in pain daily for three years. His spirituality supported him living in daily joy and reverence for life. He believed in having fun and making others happy.

Caleb, like many people, had a habit of heavy alcohol consumption. I think shortened his life.

He had made peace with himself and his place in the universe. He never intended to live forever. I believe he embraced his unique situation and followed his spiritual intent. His path is not my path. I respect him. I honor his intent to find a unique path to truth and meaning.

Ethics as tools for clarifying intent.
–ethics models help clarify intent,
I have recently been thinking about the relationship between boundaries, intent and ethics. As a minister I will be in a professional setting where boundaries are expected to be clear. Even as I prepare for departure from UUCB at the end of Dec., I must have a clear intent about my relationship with this congregation. There are ethical considerations to our actions.

I am expected to make separation from this congregation as an intern as if I was departing from a settled ministry. The bounds of the internship and the UUMA  denote a clear ending with little to no contact with the community for a period of time long enough to let the incoming minister get settled. Further contact with the congregation is by permission of the settled minister. This includes no contact with individuals. This does not apply to district events, bumping into each other at GA, or UU committees outside the congregational setting. I am asked to put aside my personal rights for the good of the community that I have been serving. There are valid ethical issues around ministerial relationships. I am asked to follow a communitarian ethic and give the greater community priority over my desire.

As I think about the difference between the models of rights based ethics and communitarian ethics I see that the conflict is far beyond my situation.

A rights based ethical model holds individual rights above the constraints of a group norm. It has been the model for political and religious liberals around issues of reproduction rights, identity politics, minority rights, civil rights, human rights. It has also been used by big business to secure the rights of a corporation as if it was a human being, yet with little accountability. Oppressors have successfully invoked their right to maintain power over others. A specific model does not guarantee a just outcome. – An ethical model can be used for many different intentions!

Communitarian rights is a model whereby the needs of the whole are prioritized. One example here is the global environmental movement, where the holistic vision asks individuals and economic powers to give up  economic privilege and use less, share the resources to make the world as a whole a better place to live, the world as a whole survive. A second example of communitarian might be how the religious conservatives ask individuals to give up their personal rights to reproductive rights or “sexual preference”.  – An ethical model can be used for many different intentions!

I clearly maintain that we who are LGBT have the right to be our true selves in any ethical model. Being our true selves is not contrary to either of these ethical models. I also understand that the religious and political conservatives are using these same models of ethics for their analysis. I  do not agree with their intent.

I say:
We can not have the free without the thinking.
We can nothave the search for truth without the responsible.
We can not have freedom without ethical boundaries to guide us.
Unitarian Universalism has high expectations
for responsible ethical thinking to guide our way.

Ethical models often bring cherished values into conflict:
We can not lift the personal rights without diminishing communitarian ethics.
We can not lift the communitarian ethic without diminishing personal rights.

Let me share another little story about my three-year-old daughter as we stood waiting to deplane yesterday, home from our family Thanksgiving. In her sweet excited voice as she looks under the plane seat, “Momma, I can fit under here!” My wife replies, “Yes, but don’t go in there.” Several other passengers smile at the interchange and I insert and ethical value, “Just because we can, does not mean we ought to.”

We need to understand these and other ethical models We need to look at other ethical models. We can embrace the complication of our ethical lives in creative tension valuing personal rights and the common good. We need to engage ourselves and religious conservatives on important issues, to meet each other in conversation; to hold the creative ethical tension; to say yes to life; To say yes to love.

The intent of our spirituality makes the difference in how we live our lives. As I continue to clarify my spiritual intent, I try to include gratitude, joy, and contentment on my journey; I try to accept the challenge of pain and sorrow as tools for learning. I lift up the right to not to have the answers. I embrace my inherent worth and dignity within the interconnected web of life. I pray for the courage to continue the journey step by step.

May all being be happy.
Namaste. Shalom. Amen.
May it be so.  ♦