Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Reflection: How Do you Motivate & Energize Compassion?

Rev. John Beverly Butcher
Sunday, May 6, 2007
Palo Alto, CA

I think we would all agree that Compassion is a good thing. Then comes the question, “How do we motivate and energize compassion?”

Check all the religions of the world and I think you will find that there is a connection between meditation and prayer and being compassionate. Go deep into your spiritual practice and out of those depths we can discover wells of compassion.

Last November my brother, Geoffrey Butcher, sent me a birthday present of a book of photography entitled, Talking to God, Portrait of a World at Prayer.

Those photographs inspired me to produce a Unitarian Universalist Guide on How to Pray which I offer to you now. I hope you find it helpful.

This is how to pray, if you are so inclined:

• Your eyes need to be closed or open
  or closed to go within and open to see with fresh perspective.
• Your hands need to be held together or raised high and spread apart,
  or simply raise one hand.
• In your hands hold prayer beads, a rosary, someone else’s hands,
  or let your hands be empty.
• Be connected
  or detached.
• Be sure you are standing, kneeling, squatting, touching your head to the floor, or fully prostrate.
• Follow a sequence of postures
  or do not move at all.
• Make sure you pray aloud
  or in deep Silence.
• Use a language you know or an unknown tongue
  or no language at all.
• Stay very still
  or move in rhythmic dancing.
• Make sure you wear a veil or a cap,
  or make sure your head is uncovered.
• Be sure to wear shoes or sandals
  or go barefoot.
• Wear ordinary clothing, your Sunday best, special clothing, sacred vestments,
  or nothing at all.
• Pray when you are alone or with one or two other people,
  or in a small group, or a large congregation.
• Pray in one place or while you are walking, signifying your sacred Journey.
  or be part of a pilgrimage with thousands of pilgrims.
• Take holy food, share a symbolic meal,
  or go fasting for awhile.
• Pray when you are working, when you are making love,
  and when you are doing Nothing at all.
• Be filled with curiosity, thankfulness, and joy
  or doubts, questions, pain and sorrow, or go beyond all feeling.
• Let your praying open up all your senses
  or shut them down completely.
• Use strict celibacy to concentrate your energies
  or release your full sexuality to express your soul.
• Pray inside a building rich with symbolism
  or one that is starkly plain.
• Pray somewhere out in nature
  or in the midst of heavy traffic.
• Go up to the top of a mountain
  or down into a deep canyon.
• Be out in the open where you can see for a long distance
  or enter a cave.
• Pray at a river bank or in the water
  or into a desert place where there is no water for as far as you can see.
• Make sure your body is very clean or covered with ashes.
  Immerse yourself in water or in mud.
• Follow the prayers in a book,
  or let your prayers be on flags waving in the wind.
• Pray in an orderly manner
  or spontaneously in your own words.
• Pray whenever you have the impulse.
  and when praying is the last thing you want to do.
• Meditate on a story, a symbol, a mantra,
  or empty your mind of all thought.
• Make sure you believe there is a God
  or that there is no God.
• Be a theist, atheist, pantheist, panentheist, agnostic,
  or that the question of God makes no sense to you.
• Allow yourself to say that you are uncertain
  or resist all definitions of who you are and what you believe.

• The point is pray to Something
  or to Nothing at all.
• Pray during war or during peace.
• Pray in sickness and in health.
• Pray when you have money or are deeply in debt
  or are barely breaking even.
• Pray when you are very certain of your convictions.
• Pray when you think the whole thing is just a bad joke.

• Follow any or all of these practices with great care
  or come to the conclusion that it is a total sham.
• Do whatever it takes for you to know
  
  • that the natural state of human beings is Ecstatic Wonder
    And let compassion flow …

 

Sermon: Compassion by Reverend Alicia McNary Forsey