Life Out of Death

The historical Christian celebration of Easter
is about the death of Jesus Christ on the cross,
as an atonement for human sin,
and as a way of salvation through resurrection of the body.

My guess is that not many of you are here for that purpose. We Unitarian Universalists require no such belief.

It's perplexing to many of our Christian sisters and brothers that we celebrate Easter. Do we just not get it?

It's a personal question - so, I guess I'll ask it: Why are you here? Don't you have better things to do this morning?

Part of what it means to be human is to know that you will die, and, in that knowing, to decide how to live. Life Out of Death.

Jalal al-Din Rumi, the 13th Century Muslim Sufi mystic and poet, wrote many letters, that "contain lines of poetry composed while writing the letters.

[Here is] A Poem in a Letter

Before death takes away what you are given,
give away what is there to give.

No dead person grieves for his death.
He mourns only what he didn't do.
Why did I wait? Why did I not...?
Why did I neglect to...?

I cannot think of better advice to send.
I hope you like it.
May you stay in your infinity.

Peace." ¹

Why are you here?
I think it has to do with this question
of how to live knowing we are going to die.

We come here to learn about,
to be reminded of,
and to be supported in
being people who live from core values.

I look around this room.
I see your faces and I believe that
every one of you wants to make a difference with your life.
I suspect you come here
to be reminded of your deepest convictions,
to hone your skills and to practice them,
that the differences you make in your living
express and encourage love and justice
in your families, with your friends, and in the world.

You come here knowing this is more than an exercise of the mind,
it is a transforming of the essence of who you are,
your ground of being.
You come here wanting to be more than what you "do" in the world.
You know that the way we choose to be in the world
is a deeper, more important practice.

Jill Bolte Taylor is a neuroanatomist.
All her life she has been interested in how our brains work.
She was teaching at Harvard when,
in December of 1996, she had a stroke.
The amazing thing about her having a stroke
is that she understood, in detail, what was happening,
Through her eight-year recovery, and the years since,
she has given us great insights into who we are.

She explains what Julian Jaynes discussed
years ago in his ground-breaking book,
"The Origins of Consciousness in the Breakdown of the Bicameral Mind."

Dr. Taylor's stroke was in the left cortex,
the center for linear thinking, and methodology.
Our left cortex analyzes and categorizes,
it focuses on the past and the future.

As her stroke increasingly inhibited the actions
of the left cortex,
she was aware of the intensification of her
sense of the present moment,
and of her connection with all that is.
This is a gift of the right cortex.

And then her experience changed.
The left cortex would "kick-in" again,
and she would be analyzing what was happening.

Over four hours
she experienced her brain alternating between
the functioning of the left cortex and the right cortex.

Increasingly the stroke silenced that part of our brains
that have us perceive ourselves as separate,
as apart from the world around us.

She was less and less able to sense where she ended,
and more and more aware of being a part of all that is.
She was aware of a "magnificence of energy all around me,"
It was expansive, light, peaceful, beautiful.
She experienced a silent euphoria,
what she calls Nirvana,
or "her stroke of insight."

The gift she offers us is the reminder
to not let our left brains do all the talking,
and defining who we are.
Through practice,
giving our right brains a chance,
through meditation, and creative expression,
we can accentuate our knowledge and valuing
of being at-one with all that exists.

I experience myself alternating between
the to-do lists of life, the scheduling of time,
tasks that must be accomplished,
and glorying in the golden sunset over the bay,
the eternity of beauty in one calla lily,
time that must be experienced.

I alternate between choosing the right word,
and knowing the wonder the words cannot describe.

The Western World of the last several centuries
increasingly has called for, and rewarded,
use of our left brains.

We come to church wanting,
in some way,
to transform the essence of who we are.
We want to know what unites us.
We want this world to be a better place,
to be rid of violence, hunger, and neglect.
We want to believe it can happen,
life out of death,
and we want to be part of the transformation.

Of course we want to use our critical thinking.
We want to apply all the methodologies of science
to discover the truths of the world.
We Unitarian Universalists have been good at that.

But we come here wanting to be more than what we "do" in the world.
Choosing how to "be" in the world is a deeper practice.

Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor almost died.
Out of her experience has come new life, new energy, new understanding.
Life out of Death.

Isn't that the resurrection we all are wanting?

Aren't we wanting to be moved, transformed, out of our isolation,
raised from our depression and despair,
lifted out of our left-brained ego-dominated perspectives
to know and to cherish what we have in common?

Don't we want to be appreciative of one another,
to listen with a sense of connection,
for shared perceptions?

Don't we want to exercise our right brain sensitivity,
to see colors blur, distinctions melt away,
to honor the sacred in one another?

Don't we want to come into being,
Life Out of Death,
a new day when mutual dreams and commitments
overcome our barriers?
Do you know that the earliest use of the idea of resurrection
came from an Old Testament prophet,
speaking to a people who had lost their homeland,
and were in captivity, promising life out of death.

Isaiah says:
Thy dead shall live, their bodies shall rise.
O dwellers in the dust, awake and sing for joy!
For thy dew is a dew of light,
and on the land of the shades thou wilt let it fall.

Isaiah tells the people to "enter your chambers,
shut your doors... hide yourselves for a little while
until the wrath is past."

For the Lord will resurrect the nation:
"Israel shall blossom and put forth shoots,
and fill the whole world with fruit."

It was not individual resurrection at the time of personal death,
but, a communal resurrection,
a people in exile, being re-established,
rising out of the ashes of their existence, to new life.

They were called to be a people transforming,
liberated into a new opportunity
to live true to their deepest convictions.

On this Easter morning,
when some of us may prefer to avoid
discussion of resurrection,
what can we say of this oldest of meanings?

What can we say about our continual opening to new life
and the possibilities for how we can better live our
convictions and our commitments in the world?

There is much to praise in this greening time of the year.
Our right brain glories in the fragrances and the beauty.
Blossoms bless us.

And, together, we are greening.
This congregation is a people in unanimous agreement
about reducing our carbon footprint on the Earth.

In a matter of weeks we will be installing over 300
solar panels on this roof.
Now I could, with my left brain,
tell you details of this project.
We could talk kilowatts, and dollar savings, and
try to analyze and categorize the
process through which photovoltaic cells
transform energy from the sun into electricity
to power our lights and our coffee pots.

But, with my right brain, I am more interested
in the metaphor of "the grid."
We have decided to contribute to the grid.
We are stepping up to the opportunity
to feed into the electronic web that unites us
with those far beyond these walls.

Can you imagine this web?

Where do we stop, and the other begin?
The lines are blurring as we give and take.
We are transforming energy, giving, receiving,
and becoming something new in the process.

Old forms are dying; and out of death springs new life.
It's the age-old story, written in a new verse.
And there are chapters still to be written.

This human grid we inhabit embraces many colors
and genders and orientations and identities.
The wealthy and the homeless are equally human.
Ethnicity merges, blurring distinctions
a new reality emerging from this creativity.
In this grid we are one,
and increasingly we know it.

That's why we come here.
We are ready to become something more.
Alleluia!
Alleluia!
Alleluia!

 ♦