To Dwell in the Land Safely

What words now? What could I possibly say, about safety and peace, here now for us all? We have filled this room with our pain and our hope, that is, we gave voice to it, for was it not really present in our hearts all along?

By way of bringing us into a fuller sense of the deep issues of security and vulnerability, those twin siblings that are so inextricably woven into the fabric of human consciousness and human life, I want to read to you the recent pastoral letter from Rev. William Sinkford, the current president of the UUA.

Bill Sinkford is a theist. It is his experience that there is a sustaining presence in the universe which we can encounter in the poise of beauty and in the power of love---and to which we can appeal in the depths of our hearts when we seek clarity and support for the difficult journey of justice-making and healing.

I want to read Bill¹s Pastoral letter, written to UU¹s and Non-UU¹s alike. Whether you are theist or not, I ask you to listen to his words sensitive to the possibility that when we allow our hearts to open radically . . . fully . . . completely . . . uninhibitedly . . . we open ourselves to a deeper sensibility, a wider vision, a more comprehending wisdom than we normally live from---no matter what the source may be.

We need, we desperately need, now more than ever, to get to that place: the place of deep, deep sensitivity; the place of wide and expansive vision; the place of strong, life tested wisdom. We need to get to that place where our thinking is deeply informed by a heart that is unrelentingly open. For Bill Sinkford, as for many people, the process of opening the heart, through the fierceness of love at once deep and expansive, lovely and disciplined, that process comes through prayer. Whether that is true for you or not, it seems to me axiomatic for all of us that when we allow ourselves to give voice to the deepest and most authentic cry of our human heart's, then energy is released, relief floods in, clarity is ignited, and our wills are strengthened to act on behalf of liberation and for the causes of healing and equality.

Listen to this letter, then. Listen with openness and respect. For here is an authentic human voice, rooted in Unitarian Universalist values and aspirations.

He begins:

Please enter the space of silence and honesty, which is known by many names.

Let us pray. Gracious spirit of creation, dear God.

A new church year begins. Life goes on. Babies are born and we dedicate ourselves to them. People die and we memorialize their lives, laughing and crying as we grieve our loss. Marriages and partnerships are formed and blessed. Triumphs and tragedies enter our sanctuaries with us as we gather. Life goes on. And our ministry together tries to hold it all: the joys and the sorrows, the pleasure and the pain, the fullness and the emptiness. All enter here with us. Our coming together bears witness to the power of love, and the possibility of community.

For what should we pray?

Twelve months ago, our illusions of security, our sense of safety were shattered. How many times have we heard and said: "Since September 11th," as if by saying those words, we could somehow control the reality of grief, loss, anger and fear; the reality that there are those in our increasingly divided world who see us differently from the way we see ourselves. We say those words, "since September 11th," as if we could gain dominion over their meaning. Yet as we have grieved and feared, raged and anguished through this last year, life has gone on.

For what should we pray, then, one year later? Should we pray for peace? Peace in our lives and peace in our world? Should we pray for an end to grief, freedom from fear, an end to violence? But is it not our own hands that must make it so? Yes; despite our failures to achieve peace in our own hearts, still we pray for peace. We pray for an end to grief for those who lost loved ones on September 11th and since September 11th, for those working in rescue and recovery efforts and for those members of our nation's armed services who stand in harm's way. And we pray for those, no less bereft, who have endured losses unrelated to September 11th that have been overshadowed by that communal tragedy.

Should we pray for safety? A sense of security, confidence, trust that the universe welcomes our presence and offers a home for our spirit? But at whose expense are we willing to seek safety for ourselves?

Yes, we pray for safety, but we also pray for those profiled, jailed and deported since September 11th, and ask forgiveness from those whose safety has been sacrificed in our attempt to guarantee our own.

Should we pray for wholeness? A world in which Muslim and Jew can live together, a world in which gay and straight, men and women, Black and white and brown and red and yellow encounter one another not in fear but in thanks? But can we ourselves, do we, live with such integrity?

Yes, we pray for wholeness, in our world and in our own lives.

Should we pray for our nation? Can we learn to define our national interest in a way that acknowledges we share a single destiny with all our neighbors on this small blue planet? Can our policies recognize at what cost in human suffering American privilege has been purchased? Yes, we pray for our nation.

We pray for all these things. And, gracious spirit, we pray for ourselves. It is so hard to trust. Everywhere we look, reality contradicts our yearning to hope. It seems that we must walk alone, even through the valley of the shadow of death. We pray for the willingness to walk with one another, for we know we will need to walk together if we are ever to make justice and peace real. For there are no hands on earth but ours. And our hands seem so few and our abilities so small in the face of such great need for healing.There are no hands on earth but ours. So we pray for the strength to try. We know how real the brokenness of this world is, but we will not give brokenness the last word.

So we pray for an end to grief, for peace, and safety. We pray for our nation. And we pray for ourselves, that we might feel the spirit of life and the stirrings of compassion.

Help us resist both fear and complacency. Help us give life the shape of justice. Help us know that we can collude with love. Help us live as if wholeness can happen, and by our living, help us to make it so.

Amen.

In the power of that openness, it is possible to feel beyond, to reach beyond despair. On the solid beam of that balanced and mature appeal, whether to God or to the source of human aspiration, it is possible to know hope.

And how we need hope right now. President select George W. Bush and his cabinet and administration are hell bent on carrying war beyond what they were initially granted by a numbed and obedient congress. Gangster regimes across the globe have used the so-called war on terrorism to suppress and tyrannize those who dissent from their brutal policies.

We need hope and a new vision. A vision wrought from a new confidence in our humanity; a confidence that can lead us to step through the fires and the toxic smoke that blossomed forth like dark flowers of unmitigated evil from the Pentagon and the World Trade buildings. A new and healing vision deeply authenticated by its stance against the unrelenting genocide, oppression and violence that has woven itself throughout the history of the world, and the history of our nation; a stance against that weave of hateful poisons, flowing through fissures that divide our true human unity.

But we must be wary here. As Bill Sinkford warns us, if we seek safety, a sense of security, confidence, trust that the universe welcomes our presence and offers a home for our spirits: At whose expense are we willing to seek that safety for ourselves? Can our policies recognize at what cost in human suffering American privilege has been purchased? Can we refuse to give brokenness the last word?

And is it not our own hands, the hands of each of us here in this room right now, is not our own hands that must make any new vision so? And is it not our own sense of helplessness and insignificance that bind our hands, numb our hearts, and inhibit our imaginations?

We need to live out the power that is present in this room right now, the power that filled this room with honesty and simple humanness during our ritual. The power that is the legacy of our liberal religious heritage, that has ever spoken truth to abusive power, and has ever lent a caring and tender hand to those who are suffering, marginalized and oppressed.

I heard a talk by Paul Hawken, progressive entrepreneur, peace and ecological visionary and co-founder of the highly successful gardening equipment company, Smith & Hawken. He said: We are going to win. . . . We are going to win. We are going to over come greed and inequity, we are going to stop ecological exploitation, we are going to end world hunger and the violence of war. We are going to win.

And, after a pause, he then asked, How does that feel? How does it feel to deeply believe that we WILL change the world? Let yourselves feel it. Let yourselves get to know what it feels like in your body and your heart to believe that. Hold on to it. Because this is what you need to do the work that is necessary, to do the work that each of you is called to do. You are needed. You have much to offer. The time is now.

I want to end with the words of Michael Lerner, Rabbi, co-founder of the Jewish Renewal movement, and Tikkun magazine---the title of which is taken from the term Tikkun Olam, which means to Heal the World. These are Rabbi Lerner's words:

This year's commemoration of September 11 offers Americans a perfect time to rethink our society's priorities, to stop and think before engaging in another war, and to change our country's policies so that it becomes the force for ecological sanity, generosity and sharing the wealth with everyone on the planet---a force for building a world of peace and justice. Please invite people to your home, synagogue, church, mosque, or community center---and have this discussion be the focus of September 11. We approach this moment with deep compassion for the pain that leads so many people into denial, but also with a strong intention . . . to end the cycles of pain and violence . . . [which] . . . requires fundamental changes to which we must give our energies in the coming year. May we all be inscribed for a New Year . . . in which the whole planet experiences a rebirth of generosity and kindness, social justice, peace, love and compassion, and ecological sensitivity. May each of us here, in this sanctuary, in this blessed place of peace, find the strength and the will to offer our services to the building of a new vision for our nation and our world. May that building begin here with this congregation, as it pursues is own destiny of being a light for liberal religious values here on the peninsula. May each of you feel empowered to listen to your own hearts, to act with integrity, and to use the support of this community to strengthen your journeys toward meaning, justice and love.

May it be so.

Ashé. Amien. Shalom. Blessed Be.
Gracias y Namastè.

What is your reaction to this sermon? Please send comments to Reverend Kurt Kuhwald