Dealing with the Unexpected

Matt Alspaugh

INTRODUCTION
I remember the typical Christmas morning when I was a young boy, completely and unconsciously embedded in the American materialist culture. After days of being nearly sick at my stomach in anticipation, the morning finally arrived. After my siblings and I finally persuade our parents to get out of bed, they let us begin the festivities. Now there is a vast cultural divide in how we open presents on Christmas in America: on the one hand there are those families who go in a circle each person opening one gift at a time, on the other are those who just dive in, every person for themselves.

We are of the latter lineage, and can't fathom the one person at a time unwraps mindset. So it's all over in a flash of ripped paper and discarded ribbon. Immediately, and inevitably, disappointment sets in. I didn't get what I wanted. Damn Santa! Or I did get what I wanted, and I realize it wasn't as advertised. Smaller than I thought, or more cheaply made, or less functional than the TV commercials implied. In the coming weeks, as things broke or were lost, I began to understand that having all my desires met was impossible, even on Christmas, when dreams are supposed to come true.

BAD NEWS
Why is it that most news in the newspaper and on TV is bad news? It's true that "if it bleeds it leads", that we're more drawn to misfortune.  In a time when news organizations are pressed by free alternative sources for news, they will naturally give us what we want. In a short course on media and ministry at taught by Fred Garcia at Starr King school, I learned how news-writers look for conflict or contradiction or controversy, and even when there is none, they manufacture some.

So, in the global climate change story, for example, to talk with esteemed scientists about the climactic evidence would be boring. You need to mix in some opposition voices, however baseless or crackpot or fringy they may be. Even better if you can write about an email leak exposing a "vast warmist conspiracy" by environmentalists, a story now dubbed "Climategate" as some media pundits tried to do last month. 

I get it now. Since I gained this new understanding of the media, I've never looked at the news the same.

But we do have a sense that the bad stuff outweighs the good. Even as we review the year, and think about the people around us, the bad stuff often comes out on top. This one died, that one lost her job, that one was in the hospital, another one went to Iraq. Sure, there is the occasional wedding, or birth, or promotion, but the bad seems to prevail.

ENTROPY
Why do bad things always seem to dominate? I want to suggest an explanation from the world of science. There is this concept of entropy in physics. Entropy is a fundamental statistical quantity, every bit as foundational as temperature. Entropy describes the level of disorder in a system. If a system is highly organized, it has low entropy.

Imagine a well-kept library, with all the books organized by their call numbers. If you take a book off the shelf, there are thousands of wrong places to put it back and only one right place. That's why most large libraries have signs warning patrons: "do not re-shelve books". They actually lose books when patrons re-shelve in the wrong place. Re-shelving incorrectly increases the disorder, the entropy.

Now imagine a completely disorganized library, books all over the place. If you take a book from a spot, you might as well put it back in any random spot, for it doesn't matter.  The place already has high entropy.

It is possible to decrease entropy, but it takes work. You have to hire a bunch of librarians to organize the place, and shuffle books around. Even in the well kept library, work is required to keep it that way.

We can think of other systems in this way. This church has many rules, written and unwritten, about where things go, and how things are done. Where do the coffee pots go, how do we lock up the building, which trash is recycled. It takes work keeping those things in their right places, keeping things happening, against the natural tendency to disorder. It takes even more work to increase organization and implement new processes, to in effect, lower the entropy of the system. That's why things don't happen as fast as we'd like around here. We call that slow pace, 'church time'.

Or consider our physical bodies. Disorder can creep in, in the form of an error in DNA transcription, that causes a cell to become cancerous. If the body's cellular defenses against cancer fail to repair that error or eliminate that cell, the cancer can spread, and the increasing disorder can lead to death. Often the organizing defending aspects of our bodies can hold a cancer at bay, until a tipping point is reached, when they are overwhelmed. The end can be unexpected, quick, and tragic.

And there is the disorder that comes out of the barrel of a gun, or a bomb. Think of a pistol as a personal entropy increasing machine, a way to introduce mortal disorder in human bodies, and social disorder in systems of community, and we begin to see why many of us have an almost visceral discomfort with guns. Now, how we use a gun can raise questions of intent and evil, topics worthy of another longer discussion. We'll save them for another time.

So we can see that while much effort and often much time is needed to organize a system, little work or time is needed to disorganize a situation. Bad news doesn't just travel fast, it happens quickly. Good news takes time. When we break open the fortune cookie and find the message, 'Your Luck is About to Change', we can be justified in seeing this as an ominous sign.

TANHA
In Buddhism, there is a concept called tanha, which variously means clinging or attachment and aversion. We cling to what we enjoy, and try to escape what is uncomfortable. We might use food, of drink or tv or video games to escape having to think about unpleasant things. We get wrapped up in fear about what bad can happen, or in selfish desire about what good could happen. We try to control everything, every aspect of life, so that we can engage every pleasure and avoid all pain.

LEARNING TO WELCOME THEM ALL
Part of learning to control tanha is to come to experience all that life offers us, good and bad. The Persian poet Rumi expresses this most clearly in this poem. Now, I note that this is a Coleman Barks translation from his book, Essential Rumi. Barks is rather free with his translations, which makes them more accessible to us. Here is the poem, "This Human Being is a Guest House":

This Human Being is a Guest House.
Every morning is a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness
comes as an unexpected visitor.

Welcome and entertain them all!
even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.

The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.

Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond. [1]

MEDITATION
In Buddhism and other eastern religions, meditation is used as one tool to become aware of this clinging or desire. Through meditation we to learn to welcome who or whatever comes to our guesthouse. We learn to cut through the chatter of story that obscures our true selves or true nature.

We experimented with a bit of very focused meditation this morning, on pain. When we're in pain, much of what increases our suffering is not the pain itself, but other thoughts. We are fearful about what the pain means, and whether it will get worse. We hope we can control our pain, and make it go away. Other strong emotions may come up too, connected with past pain experiences. Meditating on pain invites us to set these thoughts and emotions aside, and just focus on the pain. It may not get any better, but at least we feel it clearly.

NAVEL GAZING
There is a danger in becoming too attached to meditation itself. Samsara can trick us, and we can find ourselves using meditation or other spiritual practices as ways to avoid pain, to isolate and wall off from the world. We can become omphaloskeptic, that is, focused on navel gazing, self interested.

Even if we have no spiritual practice, we can become self-focused, protective, closed off, isolated. To return to the analogy of the library, if you were a lazy library manager and you wanted to prevent or at least minimize the increase of entropy, you could -- just by ushering everyone out and locking the doors. Nothing would disorganize the books, no work would be required to maintain things, but the library would be of no use to anyone.

It's as if we build up a gated community of our own lives, seeking security and permanence. We are fearful, and we isolate ourselves. We become to self absorbed, too focused on our own physical survival, our bodies. Jack Kornfeld warns us about this self-absorption with our physical bodies. He tells us, "It’s a rental. "We’re all just renting. Would you put a new kitchen into a rental house?" [2]

IMPERMANENCE AND RISK
Our lease will run out -- we are impermanent. Our efforts at trying to stay young or to avoid all health risks, are ultimately futile. That's one of the other great teachings of Buddhism. Life is impermanent. In order to live fully, we have to accept that reality, and be willing to take risks. Your luck is about to change, and it is not about good or bad luck, but simply different luck. Things cannot remain the same. We cannot cling to what we want or what we already have, but risk that change. As Diane Ackerman tells us, in her book A Natural History of the Senses:

The great affair, the love affair with life, is to live as variously as possible, to groom one's curiosity like a high-spirited thoroughbred, climb aboard, and gallop over the thick, sun-struck hills every day. Where there is no risk, the emotional terrain is flat and unyielding, and, despite all its dimensions, valleys, pinnacles, and detours, life will seem to have none of its magnificent geography, only a length. It began in mystery, and it will end in mystery, but what a savage and beautiful country lies in between. [3]

May we learn to expect the unexpected, up and down, high and low. May we claim it, embrace it. And at the same time, may we let go of that we cannot hold on to, what is not permanent, what is transient. That was the gift of Christmas to me, so many years ago. The learning that we don't ever get everything we want, and what we do get we can't hold on to forever. But one thing we know for sure-- our luck is about to change!

Notes:
[1] Coleman Barks, Essential Rumi 1995 p 73
[2] Jack Kornfield quote, http://ericmiraglia.com/blog/?p=155
[3] Diane Ackerman, A Natural History of the Senses, 1991, p. 309.

Christmas Eve Reflections

Christmas Eve Service 2009
Part 1: Changing the Words

INTRODUCTION
I was introduced to Garrison Keillor in grad school back in Indiana and have listened to his show, Prairie Home Companion, off and on for several decades. I enjoy his storytelling, but like many of you, find his assaults on Unitarian Universalism extend beyond humor to snarkiness. Just last week, Keillor wrote a syndicated column called “Don’t mess with Christmas”, in which he ranted for a good bit about Unitarian Universalism:

“Unitarians listen to the Inner Voice and so they have no creed that they all stand up and recite in unison, and that's their perfect right, but it is wrong, wrong, wrong to rewrite "Silent Night." If you don't believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn "Silent Night" and leave ours alone.”[1]

Then he goes on to complain about “all those lousy holiday songs written by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of the dreck.”

And I thought I had issues with Christmas!

OUR PART IN CHRISTMAS
I don’t want to take time tonite to respond to the “Christmas is for Christians” crowd. Let me just note that our Unitarian and Universalist forebears had significant influence in making Christmas the popular holiday it is today.[2] Christmas had been in fact outlawed in Puritan Massachusetts in 1659.[3] First the Universalists, and then the Unitarians pushed for the celebration of Christmas as a public holiday around 1800.[4] Maybe we should be careful what we wish for! In any event, we have a long history with the Christmas holiday, and I do not think we should cede that to others.

CHANGING HYMNS
I do want to address Garrison’s rant about changing the words in hymns. As UUs we have been changing the words of hymns for a very long time. Jason Shelton, a UU minister and choir director, notes, “almost from the beginning, Unitarians and Universalists were disparaged for changing the words of hymns to suit their particular needs.”[5] But we loved to write and rewrite hymns. Sheldon continues, “In the nineteenth century, Unitarians and Universalists produced more than fifty hymnbooks – far more than any other single denomination.”

Our changing the words sometime catches people by surprise, especially with Christmas Carols. Some of us wish the words were changed even more, others want to hold onto traditional words. I noticed, for example, that some previous Christmas Eve services had the quote-traditional-unquote words for the Carols printed in the Order of Service. We have a gut reaction to the words. I suspect it reaches back to what we experienced as children: if we learned those hymns and carols one way, then, by God, that’s the proper way they should be sung!

Maybe we shouldn’t focus so much on the fact that we change the words, but that we carefully consider what the words mean; the message behind them. Old words or new words: can we make meaning from them?

Part 2: Changing the Message

Traditionally these Christmas Eve services are organized around lessons, readings about the birth of Jesus, drawn from the books of Matthew and Luke, and some perhaps commentary that connects those readings to the world today. This is combined with a few carols and it’s all wrapped up with a candlelighting ritual.

THE MYSTERY PLAY
Today, lets do something different: let’s take a step back and look at another story in the book of Luke. This is the story of the Annunciation, which is a pretty significant story for Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians. Moreover, this story is significant for Muslims, too. The Quran has a version of the Annunciation: Sura 3, verses 45 to 47 reads:

45Behold! the angels said: "O Mary! Allah gives you glad tidings of a Word from him: his name will be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter and [among] those nearest to Allah: 46"He shall speak to the people in childhood and in maturity. And he shall be [among] the righteous."

47She said: "O my Lord! How shall I have a son when no man has touched me?" He said: "Even so: Allah creates what he wills: When he has decreed a plan, he but says to it, 'Be,' and it is! [6]

We heard a version of the Annunciation as part of the Mystery Play a few moments ago. In medieval Europe, these plays were one of the primary ways of educating the peasant folk, who were largely illiterate. The plays depicted key stories from the Bible, and were presented outdoors, on a certain feast day in late spring. The whole cycle of plays would start before dawn and run until dusk. The plays would be presented on large wagons used as stages.

The play we excerpted today was likely written by monks in York sometime in the 14th or 15th century. [7] It was performed outdoors by the Spicers, one the various guilds of craftsmen assigned the plays. So the Plasterers performed the Creation, the Fishers were assigned the story of Noah’s Ark and the Flood, the Tile Thatchers did the Nativity, and the Pinner’s got the Crucifixion. I like the assignment of particular crafts to the stories: Fishers and Pinners?

THE ANNUNCIATION
Of course, these stories were told ‘straight up,’, they stayed close to the Scriptural text. Any embellishment supported the dominant theology of the Church. As we heard in this excerpt, Mary is hailed for accepting her place in things, bearing the Savior, creating a way for the world to be saved from the damnation brought to it by Eve. The dominant theological story is the same, both for individual humans or for all of humanity: we are sinful, we are damned, unless and until we are redeemed by the Savior. Stay with me on this.

THE MEANING OF THE ANNUNCIATION – NOT
The story of the Annunciation offered earlier would have us believe that Mary bore Jesus as a virgin, that there was no human father involved. This virginal birth became important as later Christian theology developed. This theology suggested that all humanity was fallen, damned because of the actions of Eve consuming the fruit, and this damnation was passed through the generations. The virginal birth, along with the idea of Immaculate Conception, provided a way for Christianity to unlink a pure Jesus with his pure mother, from this stain of sin. We hear this theology clearly in the carol, "Nova Nova, Ave fit ex Eva", which suggests that the world is saved from the sin of Eve by the fruit of Mary.

Now this is a most unsatisfying theology to most of us, including UU Christians! It’s enough to make us want to discard the Christmas stories entirely, and some of us do. But these stories are deeply embedded in our culture. We hear them every year. They have archetypal elements. And discarding these stories would rob us of the opportunity to offer alternative interpretations; to stand against those who would offer narrow, divisive and damning theology.

We need to find a way to reinterpret the story, to change the message. We need a way to see health and wholeness and hope in Christmas.

A NOTE ON HISTORICITY
Now, I need to take a brief diversion and talk about the historical evidence and not the theology. We know that there is only thin historical evidence for the life of Jesus. None of the events around his birth, such as a large-scale census by Caesar Augustus or Herod’s slaughter of male babies, is mentioned in any Roman or Jewish historical text. Careful study of the three synoptic Gospels -- Matt, Mark, and Luke -- the books that attempt to portray Jesus life, show that these too have many historically suspect passages. Especially suspect are the birth stories. In fact, the birth stories are totally absent in Mark, the oldest and most historically trustworthy of these three books.

So we face the strong probability that the birth stories are mythical -- that the stories are older, and the words are changed. Can we still find meaning in any of these mythical stories? Can we distill some fundamental wisdom from these ancient stories?

THE MEANING OF THE ANNUNCIATION – REINTERPRETED
How might we reinterpret the Annunciation? Could this be a story of questionable fatherhood. Stephen Mitchell, in his lovely book, The Gospel According to Jesus, tells us ‘the first thing we ought to realize about Jesus’ life is that he grew up as an illegitimate child’.[8] In that ancient culture, for a woman to have an illegitimate child was scandalous, and such a child would live a life of shame and rejection. The visit from Gabriel didn’t help. Remember, the angel appeared only to Mary, not to the others in the village, and appeared to Joseph almost as an afterthought, when Joseph was prepared to reject Mary.

So we begin to piece together the true story of Jesus birth. He was most likely illegitimate, born to a teenage mother, a woman maybe 12 or 14 years old. She was almost certainly illiterate; a peasant; at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale; in an occupied country.

This is the miracle of the Christmas story. The miracle of the story is not about angels, or wisemen, or a star. The miracle story is that a person coming from such a hopeless, lowly, miserable situation could become a wisdom teacher, a spiritual leader, an agitator for change and a founder of a religious movement.

A friend in ministry, Ruth MacKenzie, tells me there is a term, Theotokos, which means ‘God bearer’.[9] It was used to describe Mary by the early church. Theotokos represents the other part of the Christmas story. Mary bears the infant; she gives birth to new life, and to new hope. In a time of darkness and cold, this hope is what we crave.

When we bear hope, we too become Theotokos – god bearers. We ignite that spark of divine possibility that is in each of us. We create possibility for change, for a new world, for an era where the light of peace, and the warmth of human connection return again.

In the words of Richard Gilbert, “may hope find its way into our hearts even when our minds tell us there is no hope; may charity speak to us even when we have nothing to give: may loving kindness be with us when our store of love is exhausted.

Let it be so, for a time, for a season. And perhaps that season will linger and linger and take hold of us, never to let us go.” [10]

Notes:
[1] http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/garrison_keillor/2009/12/15/cambridge/index.html
[2] See Steven Nissbaum, The Battle for Christmas, 1997.
[3] Ibid. p. 14.
[4] Ibid. p. 45.
[5] Jason Shelton, "Changing the Words: An Historical Introduction to Unitarian Universalist Hymnody", http://meadville.edu/journal/2003_shelton_4_1.pdf p. 2
[6] Abdullah Yusufali, The Meanings Of The Holy Qur'an, http://www.islam101.com/quran/yusufAli/QURAN/3.htm (archaic grammar updated)
[7] “York Mystery Plays”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Mystery_Plays
[8] Stephen Mitchell, The Gospel According to Jesus, 1991, p. 19.
[9] Ruth Mackenzie, "Theotokos", http://www.stjoan.com/homilies/mackenzie11.30.08.htm
[10] Richard S. Gilbert, in Celebrating Christmas, Carl Seaburg ed., p. 107

Paths to the Top

Matt Alspaugh

Today I’m the stand-in, the ringer, the last minute replacement.  On of the lay presenters for today had a medical emergency this week -- she’s better now -- but in the midst of her situation, we agreed to switch speaking dates.

We in ministry are encouraged to always have an unused backup sermon at the ready in case something happens to us.  Maybe locked away in a file somewhere, or in a wall cabinet, like a fire extinguisher. “In Case of Worship Emergency, Break Glass. Pull pin on sermon, and aim directly at base of congregation. Sweep from side to side until sermon is empty.” Unfortunately, most of us have used up those sermons already. I was able to repurpose one I’d used before with another congregation.  But first, a few other observations:

I just read in the newsletter of one of the churches I know well, that they have remodeled their chapel, with funding from a single anonymous donor. However well-intentioned this remodel was, I worry that the congregation doesn’t feel invested in this remodeled room, and that they won’t care for it, because they weren’t included the decision.

At the opposite extreme, a few years ago, I visited a congregation that was preparing to paint its sanctuary. They had hung large poster-boards, painted with numerous shades and colors for the wall and trim paint. They were going to take a vote on the color choices at a congregational meeting. Now I’m mildly colorblind … do you think I should be asked to choose among several subtle shades of paint?

So I’m pleased to see the Channing Hall remodel project here following a process that navigates between these two extremes. It’s hard work, but it shows a level of maturity in the congregation.This will serve us well as we consider other projects, whether they relate to the building, to congregational priorities, or church social justice projects. I applaud the process that has been used.

Now you might not consider the work of having the meetings, talking with stakeholders, planning, dealing with disagreement is spiritual practice, but, I hope to show you, it is, because this morning I am talking about different spiritual paths.

For some of us, great emotional and even spiritual satisfaction, a sense of purpose, comes from this kind of consistent, devoted effort, week after week, year after year. For others, spiritual experience comes in a flash, some momentary event that truly reached down deep inside us, and turned something, changed something. Maybe it was a walk in great natural beauty, or wonderful music, or reading profound poetry.

Whatever the source of such inspirational experiences, I suspect most of us seek to repeat them, to find what it is that opens us to them, to find ways to deepen and better understand them; and thus better understand the world we inhabit. This is the essence of spiritual practice. However we define spirit, the things we do -- be that working, hiking, singing, or meditating -- carry us into place of inspiration are spiritual practices.

There's a well-known religious metaphor that suggests we are each on a spiritual journey, traveling up a great mountain. There are numerous paths on that mountain, paths that wind and cross, that lead mostly up, but occasionally down and sometimes sideways. Some paths are gentle and protected, while others are exposed and treacherous. But the point is that all these paths ultimately lead to the top, to whatever it is that we consider ultimate in religious experience.

Most often we think of these distinct paths as representing different beliefs, the various theologies that co-exist in the religious landscape. Here's the Catholic path, there's the Lutheran one, over there’s a Buddhist path.

And how we bristle when a person or group claims that their path is the 'one true path' and all the others fail to reach the top! For many of us, this brings up anger at such dogmatic exclusiveness. For some, such dogmatism brings up sadness as we recall our own, exclusivist religious upbringing, and the effort it took us to shed those beliefs.

But there is another way to see these paths we follow to the top of the mountain. Perhaps these journeys are more about practice than belief, about what we do, rather than what we think or say. But hard as it is to articulate our theological beliefs, we often find it harder to find the words to describe what spiritual practices touch us and inspire us. We need a topographic map that points out these paths, these Journeys, and gives them names. How might we do this mapping? How might we understand the varieties of spiritual experience?

Since we UUs tend to be rational scientific people, it might make sense to systematize and classify these experiences in some way. Peter Tufts Richardson, a Unitarian Universalist minister, does just this in his book, Four Spiritualities: Expressions of Self, Expressions of Spirit.[1] He develops a model that suggests there are four broad types of spirituality, although they are interrelated. He suggests that our personality or worldview influences which of these spiritual practices we will find most appealing.

Now Richardson does not pretend this is a new idea. He melds an understanding of spiritual practices from many of the great world religions to frame his unifying model of four spiritual paths. Richardson's model also combines these religious ideas with two specific dimensions of Jungian psychology.[2]

The first dimension is how we perceive the world, how we gather information. Do we primarily perceive through our senses or through our intuition? In other words, do we observe things with common sense, or do we know through hunches?[3] Do we trust the data or the theory?

The second dimension is how we make decisions. Do we make choices primarily by thinking things through or by tapping into our feelings? That is to say, do we lead with our head or our heart?4

The two options in each of these two dimensions generate the four spiritual Journeys that we’ll examine shortly. But before we do, let me note that these four quadrants are closely related to the Myers Briggs Type Indicator [5], which many of you may be familiar with. Myers Briggs is personality tool often used to study how people might work together. We don’t have time to explore it more deeply today, but I will mention it as we explore these spiritual types. If you’re not familiar with Myers Briggs, I'd suggest a little Internet research; you can evaluate your 'type' on-line, and it can be quite revealing.

So, Richardson’s model outlines four pathways through which we experience the realm of the spirit. I'm going to spend a little time exploring each of the four Journeys, and touching on how they relate to each other. I think as we explore these pathways, some of you may recognize yourselves or maybe your friends or family.

(Move to first location, equipped with a large book - open it to reading.)
The first path is called the Journey of Unity. The Journey of Unity focuses on the great organizing principles of the universe. What are the great questions, and what might the answers be? The focus here tends to be an intellectual one, with deep theological or philosophical explorations as part of the conversation.

People on this path perceive the world through their Intuition, these are the folks who try to read between the lines, and consider future possibility. They base their decision-making on Thinking; that is on the head, depending on rationality, rather than the heart.

Followers of this particular path are a minority in the general population, but they are significant in Unitarian Universalist communities. Our worship experiences reflect this. We love discussion groups. In most UU churches, the sermon is the center-point of the worship, with academic quality talks, carefully prepared, even down to the footnotes. Does this sound familiar?

(Move to next location, with Equal Exchange coffee: “Regular or Decaf?”)
The second path is the Journey of Works. The people in the Journey of Works are focused on getting things done. This is where the folks planning the Channing Hall remodel come in. These are responsible people with a job to do. People here are head oriented, reasoning things out, and they see the world as it is now, through their senses. They see what is missing, or what is not working, and move to fix it.

Often they prefer to have rules, they love tradition, and they want people to follow the rules and respect the tradition. Tradition and rules are important here, but that doesn't mean that people on the journey of works are necessarily conservative. In fact, I'd suspect that in our congregations, many of the folks on the front lines of social justice work would say they are on the Journey of Works.

(Move to the next location, equipped with a votive candle - light it.)
The third path is the Journey of Devotion. This path is about ritual: lighting candles, reciting the words, singing familiar hymns, joyful celebrations, these are all important. Repetition, symbolism and stories are important, especially stories about heroic people from our past.

This is one of the two heart-centered Journeys, and we see a subtle shift, to the realm of emotional response in spirituality and worship. Like the Journey of Works, those on this journey are focused on the here and now, but the focus is on the ritual or the experience itself.

The Journey of Devotion is well represented in larger society, but I think it is less represented in Unitarian Universalist communities. I think our history in the radical side of the Protestant dissenting traditions caused us to be leery of ritual for a long time.

(Move to the final location, equipped with a singing bowl - sound the bowl.)
The fourth path is the Journey of Harmony. This is the realm of the mystics, of those who have a sense that the world is not fully revealed to us, but who get glimpses of the ultimate reality that they struggle to put into words. Meditation and silence are key elements of spiritual practice for those on this path. This particular path merges the Intuitive ways of knowing the world with decision-making based on Feeling, on the heart.

In our Unitarian history, the Journey of Harmony flowered most profusely in the Transcendentalist movement. When you read the works of the Transcendentalists like Emerson or Parker, you struggle to understand what they are saying, because they struggled to find words for their newly felt experiences of the divine. Everything is connected, god inside us and all around us, knowing oneself, these were all difficult concepts that to some degree have to be lived to be understood. And we live them through turning inward.

(Move to center of space)
So I want to ask you to choose: which of these paths best fits your own personal spiritual nature? If you feel comfortable doing so, I’d like to ask you to stand and remain standing, as I call out these paths. (Hold up the objects as the types are named)
Let’s start with Journey of Unity, seeking the answers? 
Journey of Works, getting things done? 
How about Journey of Devotion, who love ritual?
Journey of Harmony, lovers of mystery?
Look around!

If some of you struggled to choose just one path, that's good! I think a well-developed spiritual life should draw practice from each of these paths. I know that for me, the Journey of Harmony is most natural path. I find daily meditation an easy practice. But I try to engage the other paths, through reading, walks in nature, and my work here at the church. Perhaps you might want to explore what spiritual practices might broaden your horizons.

Now that we understand a little more about our individual spiritual journeys, how can we apply them to our communal worship life? Corianne Ware, in her book, Discover Your Spiritual Type[6], develops a quadrant model similar to Richardson’s.

It’s a little more Judeo-Christian in focus, but she extends her model in an interesting way. She suggests religious communities also have preferred styles. A congregation develops a spiritual “style” just as surely as individuals do. Our worship may emphasize great preaching, or maybe well executed drama or ritual, or silence and meditative music.  But we should also ask, is there enough balance for everyone?

She described a man who finally understood his discontent with his long-time family church -- he was of one spiritual type and the church was strongly opposite that type.  His longtime family ties kept him at that church, but he understood that he needed to fill some of his spiritual needs in other ways.[7]

Once a congregation understands its own worship style, it can make changes in its style to better provide for people on the other paths. Changes to the typical order of the Sunday morning worship, or to the music program, might be called for. Or, maybe separate worship groups, like meditation groups or small group ministries, or discussion forums are needed.

This little exercise we did today -- when you stood up as I named the four Journeys --brings up deeper issues around identity and belonging. I'm sure you were curious when your friends stood up!  By more or less artificially segmenting ourselves into these four categories, we create new identities and labels for ourselves.

Such labeling can be helpful if it serves to deepen our understanding of one another and ourselves. Such identities are valuable if they urge us to greater wholeness and balance, and if they instill a greater compassion for those who are different from us. Ultimately, if we do that compassionate work, we find we can put the labels aside, and see that our identities are less important than realizing that we are all on the same journey.

In that ancient Hindu text, the Bhagavad-Gita, written two to five centuries BCE, the human protagonist Arjuna questions the god Krishna about achieving enlightenment and eternal life, and asks, 'which way is swift and sure, love or knowledge?'.  Krishna answers in much detail, finally noting in chapter 13:

Some by the path of meditation,
and by the grace of the spirit,
see the spirit in themselves;

some by the path of the vision of truth,
and others by the path of work.

And yet there are others who do not know,
but hear from others and adore.

They also cross beyond death,
because of their devotion to words of the truth.[8]

And we see that all of these spiritual journeys lead to the same unknowable and mysterious end.  May we be cognizant of this truth both in our individual spiritual lives and as we live together in this gathered community.

Notes:
1 Peter Tufts Richardson, Four Spiritualities: Expressions of Self, Expressions of Spirit : A Psychology of Contemporary Spiritual Choice, 1996.
2 ibid. p. 21
3 ibid. p. 6
4 ibid. p. 8
5 ibid. p. 3
6 Connie Ware, Discover Your Spiritual Type, 1995.
7 ibid. p. 85
8 Eknath Easwaran, The Bhagavad Gita (Classics of Indian Spirituality), 2007.