This I Believe – Spiritual Practices

Susan Halverson
When I read over the guidelines, my thoughts were captured by the phrase “personal philosophies and core values that guide their daily lives.” I quickly realized that recycling was that core value for me.

Tom Atwood
I believe … that meditation is very helpful. It gives me a break from the regular, run-of-the-mill stuff of life. I’ve been meditating for about ten years, I guess. I don’t pray, but meditating is sort of like praying.
Many practitioners recommend meditating twice a day for about 20 minutes each time. I meditate before breakfast and supper. I use a kitchen timer to tell me when the time is up. Sometimes it’s hard to concentrate and stay awake. I’m not sure why, but the time seems to go faster in the morning than in the evening.
I sit on cross-legged on a cushion on the floor; a chair or a stool will also work. It’s important to find a quiet place where I won’t be disturbed. I typically unplug the telephone to avoid distraction.
There are different ways to keep occupied when meditating. I count my breaths. Typically I count up to ten and then back down to one and repeat. Now the fun starts—I usually start thinking of other things and have to bring myself back to counting breaths again. I’ve also experimented with keeping my eyes shut, but find that keeping them slightly open keeps me from falling asleep.
Meditation is not difficult to learn. There are many books on the subject. The best way to start is to become familiar with the basic techniques and keep a set schedule.
I believe meditation helps me stick to my goals and gives me a chance to recharge. Meditating helps me overcome negative habits. Give it a try!

Misha Lentz
I believe that poetry is prayer.
I've written and recited love poems to both my broken heart and my tired liver, and they have both responded with healing and resoration.
I've sung the poetry of others, and my own, to my unsettled daughter, and felt her body relax against me and fall into peaceful sleep.
I've flung angry yet creatively-strung-together blogs into the ephemeral world of the web, addressed to the diety of my choice, about the gripe of the moment, and I've gotten back, from sympathetic readers, understanding, love, suggestions, affirmation, support, a job offer, a few dates, and even a little cash (no corrolation between those last two).
I've walked on nervous, shaking, round little legs to a stage in a room where I know nearly no one, held my paper with sweaty, fumbling hands, and opened my mouth to let forth my truth in poems, and felt my own body go from terror to the boundless peace of knowing I'm where I'm meant to be, saying what I'm meant to say, in the very moment it is meant to be said.
As a fifteen year old girl, it was mentally reciting the poetry of scripture that helped me survive an attack that forever changed the landscape of my soul, and to this day, my most vivid memory of those moments of terror is the poetry of King David the Psalmist, "God is my refuge and strength,a very present help in trouble. Therefore will I not fear, though the earth be removed, and though the mountains be carried into the midst of the sea; though the waters thereof roar and be troubled, though the mountains shake with the swelling thereof.' In those words were the strength and calm that my survival may well have depended upon.
A hastily-written haiku I taped to the door of my apartment before it was mine convinced my landlord to choose me, and similar tactics have worked with other men, as well. Shameless, maybe, but we all work with what we have...
Writing poetry has taught me how I really feel when, until I saw it on the page in front of me, I wasn't even sure. It's how I knew when it was time to leave the faith-community of my youth, how I've knew for sure to say yes to a new job, how to be present in the labor and delivery of my precious baby, how to deal with fears about my health, how to stop being a slave to food addiction, how to be a single mom without screwing up everybody involved, how to love my body exactly the way it is today, not thirty pounds from now, how to proceed in relationships, and even how to forgive all my exes in Texas.
Somewhere in my journals, there is a poem about every one of those things, and hundreds more. And frankly, most of them aren't that good. But, that's never been the point of prayer anyway. And so, whether my own, or words from the soul of another poet, eloquent or not, worthy or not of uttering out loud when someone else is listening, deeply in my soul, I believe that poetry is prayer.

Offertory – “Contemplation” from Four Lyrical Pieces/Callahan

This I Believe - Theology

Pat Harker
NOTE: Pat condensed her belief statement for the service – but since I had it all, and didn’t know exactly what she cut out or left in, I left it all in for your enjoyment. GLL

“Do Unitarians believe in God?” asked my friend. We were sitting on the locker room bench getting ready to play tennis.

The question took me by surprise. I could only answer, “I cannot speak for all Unitarians, Marie, because we are a non-credal church. Each member makes his or her own search for meaning in life; we don’t have to state our beliefs in particular theological principles before joining.”

“I suppose you can say then that some do believe in God and some don’t. Is that right?”

“Yes -- and some people just don’t know. They don’t think it is possible to know.”

But I sensed that my friend really wanted to hear what I believed in.

It is a profound question, one that I cannot answer in a few sentences in a locker room. Now that I am home and have time to gather my thoughts, however, I would like to try.

Before we start, there is the problem of definitions. What do we mean by “God”? Christian religions usually refer to God as “lord” and address the deity as “He.” The image comes to mind of a wise, elderly king, perhaps sitting on a throne up in the sky in a place called “Heaven.”

For me, the divine principle is within each one of us; it is much like the Quaker’s “Inner Light”. The “godly” part of ourselves directs our actions when we are able to “listen” to it, to allow ourselves to be guided by it.

The closest I can come to explaining it is to call it “Love” and stand in awe of its manifestations all around us. The “divine” is the force for good in the world, but it is also expressed in acts of simple kindness each day in our lives: when we make a cup of tea for a friend who is going through a difficult time; when we talk to someone who is lonely or visit a person who is ill; when we send a box of cookies to someone we miss.

Whenever we show compassion to others, whenever we reach out to those who are worried or suffering, we are expressing our religious beliefs. Whenever we show admiration or offer words of encouragement to another human being, we are acting upon our convictions. When we make difficult decisions after consulting our “conscience,” that “god within us” is directing our actions.

But the “divine” is all around us as well. We have a deep need for beauty and order, and we can find spiritual inspiration in music, in painting and sculpture – in all the arts. I have been moved by a stirring Mozart sonata and brought to tears by a powerful choral work in Orchestra Hall. The composers and performers, I think, were expressing the spiritual longing and moments of joy that are common to many of us. We struggle to find meaning in the mystery of birth and suffering and death; when great artists and writers express the “divine” in their own souls, they show us we are not alone – they too have felt the high waves and the troughs of this life journey.

Another source of inspiration for me is the natural world. It is spring now, and I feel the joyous expectation of the birds retruning, the green shoots poking up, and the flowers blooming. What a miracle! The awakening of the earth in April or May, after the long winter “death,” is a beautiful symbol of life’s unending renewal.

The Easter festival, for me, is not only a time to honor Jesus of Nazareth, but an opportunity to celebrate the resurrection of the human spirit. Certainly the teachings of this great man and his powerful influences have lived on. In a smaller way, our own lives triumph over death in the works we leave behind and in the effects we have on other people.

Now, how about prayer? Do Unitarians pray, you may wonder? This one does, but my prayers are closer to meditations – attempts to escape from the clamor of everyday life into an inner calm – a silence – in order to “hear” the inner voice and ready myself for possible enlightenment. (The Quakers, again!)

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, “I see prayer in all action.” Certainly my prayers might lead to some good act, but at other times I just try to focus on my “blessings,” a word my Methodist mother used to use. She often said, “I count my blessings.” In her last months, when I would visit her in the nursing home, I’d say “How are you today, Mom?” And she’d say, with a smile, “Oh, I count my blessings, and one of them is you.”

But along with celebrating the good things, my prayers may concentrate on people I care about. I might try to put myself in another’s consciousness and look at experience from his or her perspective. I try to “empathize,” to imagine how the frustration or fear or sorrow or elation feels to that person. At other times, my prayers may take the form of serious thinking about my values or wrestling with a problem.

Perhaps one of the main differences between the Unitarian churches and orthodox Christian churches is that we find inspiration not only in the Bible but in other great religious teachings, and even in the contemporary world. A reading may be taken from the Bhagavad-Gita or a poem by Robert Frost. A hymn may be a Negro spiritual or a musical version of lines from Thoreau or Emerson.

I like the concept that religion is not the exclusive property of one sect. The religious spirit is everywhere if only we are aware. It is a living,. Breathing force swirling around us, and our job is to become sensitive to it – to allow ourselves to be swept into it.

I am glad you asked me this question, Marie. It made me think some good thoughts – do some serious “praying.” But I realize I’ll be searching for answers all my life.

Ted Haley
The Very Best Life

Some say this world is governed by
A mighty god above the sky.
But, I live life with joyous doubt
Not caring what that god’s about.

But, if a god does mind our fate
And offer us a heavenly state,
Would he not favor others than
The likes of planet-trashing man?
Like soaring birds, or loyal dogs,
Or gentle whales, or singing frogs?

To live brings hurt to most mankind
From lack of love, or tortured mind,
Or tragic want, or awful strain,
Or chronic ills, or searing pain.

From all of those have I been free
And thank no god but luck and me.
Nor utter words of grateful prayer
Like others do to vacant air.

Some day I’ll die, I care not when.
Nor after that to live again.
For how could life beyond begin
To be as great as this has been?
For my long life has been most blest
As I have known the very best.

This I Believe – Consider This

Elizanne Lewis
Long ago, I discarded the definition of God as having human characteristics. Lately, I have been toying around with defining God as being a process. A process described as the increasingly complex organization of mass/energy.

This is an ongoing process that we all have been introduced to in our studies of evolution. Astronomers, paleontologists, archeologists, and lately, neurophysiologists have all enriched our understanding of this process. Neurophysiologists have observed the different organs of the brain communicating with each other. One aspect of this communication is the evidence of imagination. So imagination is not only a noun, it is also a process.

Long ago, before humans made Gods into the image of man, humans must have wondered at the invisible energy that transferred ideas from one human soul to another human soul. Did they call this energy spirit? Did they also wonder at this human ability – imagination – that created invention, stories, pictures, music, answers to problems, and insights? Today, many think that early human wonderment at the disappearance of aliveness or thinking when a human died may have been the onset of religious thought.

Humans of every life style may and can develop insights, product of our imaginations. (Some might even say that God told them.)

No matter what the station of life of the conceiver of a new idea, we should listen respectfully to all these new ideas. That doesn’t mean that we might not burnish that idea to fit with our undersstanding of the world. But without examining these new ideas, we will never learn anything new.

We humans on this planet have developed a huge cauldron of thoughts and knowledge. Everybody adds to that cauldron of thought. We should not be afraid to introduce new ideas or insights to that cauldron of thought. It will be examined.

Now, have you ever considered what an intricately complex organization of energy an idea is?

Have you ever considered the complex organization of energy that communicates these ideas from one mind to all the others?

Well, I have. And I do yet. That is what I believe.

Wendy Larson Bennett
I first read the sci-fi novel, Dune about 35 years ago. I frankly don't recall all that much about the story. What I do recall, over and over again, is a particular line; 'fear is the mind-killer.' For some reason that wise observation has come back to me in a million different ways over the years.

When my young husband died 8 years ago, that phrase kept me grounded even in my grief. It helped me stay present for our 2 daughters when they needed my full attention and love.

Most recently, Howell read the poem First Lessons by Phillip Booth during a sermon. Booth urge his young daughter, 'when fear cramps your heart...lie gently and wise to the light-year stars, lie back, and the sea will hold you.'

I keep that poem taped to my computer at work. I read it daily to remind myself to never allow fear to drown out 'that still small voice within.' Stay open to the mystery of every day. What I have learned is that fear and faith are different sides of the same coin. Yes, I, a devoted UU, used the F-word. I use it without embarassment because I have had an epiphany of sorts. Fear of the unknown makes me deaf and blind. It is only trust in the Universe, Faith, if you will, that gets me through the most difficult challenges life can present.

In my job as a criminal prosecutor I regularly see the worst of what one person can do to another. Everyday I work directly with victims of violent crime. They are survivors, and like all victims of tragedy, they go through the classic stages of grief in response to their victimization.

Rage, sorrow, feelings of powerlessness, and eventually, resignation and acceptance are legitimate emotional responses to the fear which rises up when we are harmed. In fact, this is a survival mechanism we humans need. This is how we react to situations which are beyond our ability to control, things we fear.

But, occasionally, I meet a person who somehow manages to transmute their fear, their personal tragedy into something of value and meaning. These individuals reach out through the fog of loss and make something good out of something terrible. They are able to reach beyond their small personal fear--beyond the cramping of their heart--into wisdom.

So over the years I haved paid particular attention to these special people and tried to learn from them. They are not particularly religious. They have no corner on intelligence or morality. What they have in common is their ability to 'lie gently and wise to the light-year stars.' In the face of fear and terrible loss, they are able to move beyond their tiny, dark, contracted self into the light of faith and trust.

Is this something that is inborn? Is this something learned? I believe it is learned. Fear is our biology. Infants know to cry in response to pain or discomfort. Our first response to strangers, to the unknown, is to cry out for Mother. It is only through conscious attention that we move away from our biology, unlearn that cramping of the heart, that drawing into ourselves that automatically comes when we are uncertain, fearful, hurt.

But why allow yourself to open to the unknown, the painful, the 'light-year stars'? In the unknown world there be dragons! Why bother to cultivate trust or faith?

I believe that it is only when we put aside that primal contraction we call fear that our minds fully function. If 'fear is the mind-killer', then I believe the converse is true. It is only when I 'lie back' and trust that 'the sea will hold' me, that the light of reason can guide me. Only then can I truly see and hear.

I have learned that the only thing I really have control over is how I respond to the challenges life throws into my path. I think that this deep understanding guides these special crime victims to make lemonade out of lemons.

I believe that Faith and Trust guided by Reason are truly the opposite of Fear. It is best said in the words of our familiar closing hymn: May Love shine forth through us today. May light of Reason guide our way. May Beauty, Truth and Joy become, the flame that burns for everyone

Tom Hunter
I believe that with life comes an obligation to discriminate. I understand that the word “discriminate” has been saddled with a lot of baggage from the last century or so, but there is no better word to define my belief. You might call it closed mindedness. I would disagree. You might think it is a divisive trait. I would agree. I would say it divides the world, for me, into one pile of the valuable, worthwhile, life enhancing things of this world, and another pile of the useless, annoying, toxic things, with a whole bunch of things waiting for me to decide which pile they wind up in. I find the sorting process gleeful.

It suits my Unitarian Universalist adherence to a free and responsible search for truth and meaning to say occasionally that, OK, I found some. In fact, I think that principle should be amended to read, “We promote and affirm a free and responsible search for truth and meaning, and when we find some, we will defend it.”

Defend it.

Not every kernel of truth is worth fighting over—my sense that the Chicago Cubs are the only baseball team worthy of emotional attachment would never lead me to take up arms against a Mets fan.

But defense of a nugget of discovered truth may serve to mitigate what can otherwise be a suffocating fog of civility, a bulimic societal norm of political correctness that pretends to value every opinion as equally worthy. They are not equally worthy.

I defend your right to hold and promote any lamebrain idea you choose. I also defend my right to laugh out loud and disparage your opinion if I think you are full of bull...headedness. And I will defend your right to call me a horse’s ass if I am being a horse’s ass.

Gravity exists. We do not become a creedal church if we demand that people acknowledge its existence. Putting out a bounty on a writer who insults your god is wrong. We are not required to tolerate that act as a cultural difference.

I believe that we as a congregation have worked very hard at forming consensual policies but at the same time, have become reluctant to engage in energetic, lively, spirited (yes, spirited) disagreements for fear that they may prove divisive or hurt someone’s feelings. I believe we are too polite. In fact, I believe that a church is the place where the most important ideas and concepts are to be confronted and wrestled to the ground, and wrestling might cause a bruise or two.

Racial discrimination is wrong. Gender discrimination is wrong. Religious discrimination is wrong, sometimes. But being able to tell the difference between individuals is not only right, it is essential. Being able to discriminate between ideas is the point of living. Aristotle believed that learning a truth about what it means to be human is the most pleasurable thing a human can experience.

I believe this church should be on guard against too much civility, too much homogenization, too much political correctness. I rise to champion those of you who are willing to risk honest, passionate and occasionally uncomfortable proclamations of your truths, the discriminations you have made. And the risk is that some of us may laugh at you.

Now I believe I’ll go over to my truthful and meaningful pile of things and have another drink.

Hymn #51 Lady of the Season’s Laughter Gibbons/Hurd

Extinguishing the Chalice - Becky Wyant

Words to Carry Us – Gary Lawrence

We thank all of today’s service participants for sharing so freely and openly with us. As you contemplate all you’ve heard today, consider these words from Ralph Hodgson:

Sometimes you have to believe something to be able to see it.