“We Are A Welcoming Congregation!”
2434 East Battlefield, Springfield, Missouri 65804-3980
phone: 417-883-3922 fax: 417-883-7680
e-mail: springfield@springfieldunitarians.org
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First Unitarian
Universalist Church “We Are A Welcoming Congregation!” 2434 East Battlefield, Springfield, Missouri 65804-3980 phone: 417-883-3922 fax: 417-883-7680 e-mail: springfield@springfieldunitarians.org |
A minister took her daughter to the Zoo, and they were amazed to see a cage, labeled “Coexistence,” containing a lion and some lambs.
The minister, thinking surely a miracle had happened as foretold by the Bible, sought out the zoo director, but was quite disappointed when the Zoo director explained there was really nothing miraculous about it: “We just have to add a few fresh lambs every now and then.”
Diplomacy sometimes seems to teach the art of saying, “Nice Doggie” ‘till you can find a rock, but it shouldn’t be so. An Eastern approach to politics from the Tao Te Ching, the main Taoist scripture, thought to have been written by the old sage, Lao-tzu (abt.551-479 BCE). See if it fits today:
When a country obtains great power,
it becomes like the sea:
all streams run downward into it.
The more powerful it grows,
the greater the need for humility.
Humility means trusting the Tao,
thus never needing to be defensive.
A great nation is like a great man:
When he makes a mistake, he realizes it.
Having realized it, he admits it.
Having admitted it, he corrects it.
He considers those who point out his faults
as his most benevolent teachers.
He thinks of his enemy
as the shadow that he himself casts.
If a nation is centered in the Tao,
if it nourishes its own people
and doesn't meddle in the affairs of others,
it will be a light to all nations in the world.
Among Protestant denominations, none has a better reputation for combining spiritual concern and social service as the Friends, the Quakers, who are famous for their silent meetings. There is the story of the religiously unsophisticated man who happened into a Quaker gathering on a Sunday morning. Seeing all the people sitting quietly, he took a seat and waited. When the people continued to sit there, saying and doing nothing, the visitor grew impatient and whispered to his nearest neighbor, “When does the service begin?” The neighbor replied, “As soon as the meeting is over.” Amen, amen.
Our primary service outreach to the world is the UU Service Committee. I hope everyone will want to be a supporting member. We support a different kind of “missionary activity,” because we don’t care about saving souls by making them be UU’s; no, we are out to save the world, but as two of our purposes and Principles say: “The goal of world community with peace, liberty and justice for all; and Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part.”
UUSC Mission Statement
“Grounded in Unitarian Universalist principles that affirm the worth, dignity and human rights of every person, and the interdependence of all life, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee is a voluntary, nonsectarian organization working to advance justice throughout the world.
UUSC works in partnership with grassroots organizations in the United States and overseas to confront many different forms of oppression. Our programs build the capacity of local organizations to create long-term solutions to human rights challenges in their communities and beyond. UUSC’s programs are deeply rooted in the Unitarian Universalist tradition of service and advocacy.
We empower women to speak for themselves, their families and communities.
We support the struggles of oppressed, racial, ethnic, and indigenous groups.
In each of our program areas, we focus on the needs of children.
We recruit, train and organize activists of all ages, with an emphasis on preparing tomorrow’s leaders.
We respond strategically to disasters, especially where human rights are threatened. We will coordinate our constituents’ response to disasters to more rapidly meet the humanitarian need.”
Supporting the Struggles of Indigenous People and Oppressed Racial and Ethnic Groups
The Service Committee has a long history of working with oppressed racial, ethnic and indigenous groups both in the United States and internationally through partnerships with human rights organizations. Historically, these groups have been discriminated against as a result of social, political, cultural and economic discrimination in their respective societies. Some recent service includes:
* India, Hindu-Muslim Violence in Gujarat, 2002
* Democratic Republic of Congo, Volcano, 2002
* Afghanistan, Humanitarian Relief, 2001
* Terrorist Attacks September 11, 2001
* India, Earthquake in Gujarat, 2001
* El Salvador, Earthquake, 2001
* Kosovo, Conflict, 1999-2000
UUSC encourages the active participation of oppressed racial, ethnic and indigenous groups in the formulation of policies that directly affect their communities. We have been involved in several human rights initiatives regarding such topics as the protection of individual and community civil and political rights, especially in areas of conflict; the right to community self-determination and sovereignty; and cultural survival issues. Through consultations with racial, ethnic, and indigenous groups inside and outside of the United States, we have formed effective partnerships with a number of grassroots organizations in the United States, Latin America, South/Southeast Asia and the Great Lakes region of Africa. We support these groups in their struggle for their basic human rights.
UUSC utilizes a three part approach–partner support (grants, technical assistance in capacity-building, facilitation of networking, building advocacy skills), constituent education and action, and policy advocacy in Washington.
Our religious beliefs must go beyond intellectual or even spiritual narcissism; they must become universal if we are to be truly one world. In universal religious terms this would be called compassion, serving others, reaching out, religiously called to save the world.
We have it so good here, even the least among us would be rich compared to much of the world. In one of the many “anonymous email forwards” I receive are these words of wisdom:
“If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of this world.
If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are more blessed than the million who will not survive this week.
If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish someplace, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy.
If you can attend a church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture, or death, you are more blessed than three billion people in the world.
If you have never experienced the danger of battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation, you are ahead of 500 million people in the world.
If your parents are still alive and still married, you are very rare, even in the United States.
If you can hold someone's hand, hug them, or even touch them on the shoulder, you are blessed because you can offer healing touch.
If you hold up your head with a smile on your face and are truly thankful, you are blessed because the majority can, but most do not.
If you can read this message, you have just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you, and furthermore, you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.
As you hear this and are reminded how life is in the rest of the world, remember just how blessed you really are!”
“The commandments of Torah are about social relations,” Michael Lerner, editor of TIKKUN Jewish magazine, and where we read the term, “Jewish”, think “UU:” says, “Jewish spirituality is not just about finding some private truth, but about creating a public world that reflects and embodies the spiritual truths we have learned. While individual healing on the psychological and spiritual is an indispensable part of the process, the real ‘care of the soul’ cannot be accomplished by the lone individual. The health of the soul requires involvement in a community that is itself deeply committed to healing and transforming the social and political world even as it provides ways for people to heal one another and develop a deeper inner life...A community that integrates this kind of deep self-exploration with an equally serious focus on communal or societal change generates a tremendous spiritual energy...”
“...A major premise is that human beings become more fully themselves through a process of mutual recognition, and when that process is stymied it provokes angry and sometimes oppressive behavior. God is the force in the universe that makes possible this process of recognition, and part of what is recognized is the God within each of us namely, the way we are created in the image of God and hence equally worthy of respect and love). The fears, accumulated angers and pains, the legacy of cruelty that combine to make it difficult for human beings to recognize one another have been a major source of evil throughout history. Much of the 20th century psychoanalytic thought has been dedicated to understanding the unconscious forces that sustain this tendency to pass on the cruelty from generation to generation. It is only recently that psychoanalytic theory is beginning to discover what Judaism has asserted all along: that there is also a tendency toward transcendence and health in the universe. The Power that makes this transcendence possible is what we Jews call God.”
I often translate that old gospel song “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands, meaning God the supernatural Father, of course, to my translation of God—“We’ve Got The Whole World In Our Hands.” God is us! Or God ARE us!
So many of us are so busy these days, that it’s not hard to rationalize why we aren’t out trying to save the world. Indeed, that very busy-ness as business as usual for us and for our country—“what’s good for General Motors is good for the country,” that we forget the sin of separateness, of selfish-ism, of narcissism. For many of us deep down are proud of our busyness, even brag about it, and I’m as guilty of it as the next person, because of course, I am really busy and that proves what a good person I am. I think of the Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh saying to a class that he meditates at least an hour every day. When asked how he finds the time and what he does when he is too busy to meditate, he replies, “oh when I am very busy, then I have to meditate for two hours every day.”
The Reverend Peter Morales spoke about social justice and service in his Birmingham lecture. It should also be mentioned that he was speaking to about 500 UU ministers, many of whom were in obvious agreement; indeed one heard a few “amens” and “Preach it brother!,” not the usual response of we UU clergy.
The title was Claiming Our Prophetic Voice: Evil, Spirituality, & Prophetic Voices. “...We must resist the separation of spirituality from working for justice. The great traditions from which we draw all refuse to separate the two. Think of the great figures of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Think of Abraham, Moses, David, Esther, Ruth, and Isaiah. Think of the ministry of Jesus. These were not people who spent their existence in contemplation. Their deep spirituality led them to take action and to take enormous risks for what they thought to be the will of God.
The same is true for Mohammed. Even the Buddha felt compelled to reject a life of blissful meditation in order to spread his message of compassion and enlightenment. Thich Nhat Hanh, the eminent Buddhist teacher, tells us that meditation is not an escape from the world, but rather a preparation for reentering the world. Deep spirituality in all these traditions leads us to experience compassion and deep interconnection. The great religious traditions teach us that if our spiritual practice does not lead us to yearn for justice and to work for justice, it is no spiritual practice at all. If our religion takes us permanently away from the world, our religion is false. It is an idolatry of narcissism, irresponsibility, and self-indulgence masquerading as spirituality.”
I was one of those saying, “Amen!” A religion that is only good for one day of the week is not much good for the rest of the days and the rest of the world. The Unitarian part of our heritage may also stand for the Unity of life and love, of one power, one world, one ecosystem, one Good which some call God, one interdependent web of which are all a part. The universal part of our name should stand for our common connection to the universe.
Listen to these words of wisdom from Dr. Frank Oliver Hall in 1920, at the 150th anniversary of Universalism in America: “The genius of Universalism is that it can never be partialism. Universal Love means universal justice, universal freedom, universal suffrage, universal truth...and we serve notice to our brothers and sisters of every household of faith that we propose to jump their claim to religious truth whenever we find gold in it.”
Just as the Golden Rule is universal and should apply to both secular and sacred thinking and acting, so service starts after church, synagogue, mosque, or meditation hall. Our UU Service Committee does not attempt to convert those we work with; indeed, we work with many other denominational agencies world wide reaching out to help those in need.
Martin Seligman, one of the psychologists who specializes in Depression writes about the result of a study on that: “If you were born in the last 50 years, you have 10 times as much chance of being seriously depressed as you would if you were born in the 50 years before that time.” He proposes: “A more hopeful possibility: a balance between individualism, with its perilous freedoms, and commitment to the common good, which should lower depressions as well as make life more meaningful.”
Are we not all searching for truth and meaning? Is not religion a vehicle to brings us along, together?
San Antonio Poet, Naomi Shihab Nye writes in a way about our connections with one another, worldwide, especially thinking of our current war/invasion.
“The Arabs used to say,/ When a stranger appears at your door,/ feed him for three days/ before asking who he is,/where he’s come from,/ where he’s headed./That way, he’ll have strength enough/ to answer./Or by then you’ll be such good friends/ you don’t care./Let’s go back to that./ Rice? Pine nuts?/Here, take the red brocade pillow./My child will serve water/ to your horse./ No, I was not busy when you came!/ I was not preparing to be busy./That’s the armor everyone put on/ at the end of the century/ to pretend they had a purpose/ in the world./I refuse to be claimed./ Your plate is waiting./ We will snip fresh mint/ into your tea.”
May we live out our lives in meaning and connection; may the world be a better place because of us. May we reach out our hands, heart, and pocketbook to save the world. May war cease and compassion increase; may we pray for our troops as well as theirs, realizing that it’s all “us.”
Shalom and Salaam Melikum
Last update:
22 October 2004
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