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February 2000 Sermons
February 6, 2000Rev. Nancy D. DeanFebruary 6, 2000Living the UU LifeJack Mendelsohn, wrote in his 1960 book, Why I Am a Unitarian: "Our present state is oppressive, but it is not the end of the road. The cosmos beckons. There is in us the stuff out of which new and glorious epochs may be fashioned. I am a Unitarian because I would feel silly being part of any religious movement which faces contemporary life and problems with a basic longing for the old theological mangers. I am a Unitarian because I want to ally myself with others who are consciously striving to explore and reveal man's creative heights and depths. I am a Unitarian because I share with Wordsworth this holy injunction: ‘So build we up the being that we are.’" I always say to people who are just coming into our free faith, and in our classes on "Building Your Own Theology," that it is harder to be a Unitarian Universalist than any other religion because no one gives us a recipe for guaranteed salvation. There are no three-easy-steps to having truth. There is no promise of everlasting life, or even any statement that this is even a good idea. What we have in this faith of ours is a sanctuary in the truest sense of the word; a safe haven in which to explore the ethical and moral questions that trouble our souls. We have an opportunity to come together to explore the larger and smaller matters of the spirit. A home for stating what at the time appears truth to each of us, knowing that truth is not the same for all of us. Being a Unitarian is saying that I, and I alone, am responsible for "the condition my condition is in." And in the words of that song of my hippy generation, we "drop by to see what condition" my condition is in, and what your condition is in. We live in an age of exploration and communication. Yet, when it come to matters religious or spiritual, most people are in a stalemate with the religion of their upbringing, or no religious upbringing, and what is true in their hearts and minds. Many people feel so confused about what is real religion and what they are told is real religion that they either drop out of the search for meaning, or hop from one spiritual fad to another until something fits. Even larger numbers follow like lemmings what their families and friends are doing just because that is at least familiar territory, even if it is not spiritually significant or challenging. I have a friend who says she is a "pick and choose" Catholic, meaning she does not buy into the church’s position on birth control, abortion, salvation, and any number of other things. What I wonder, is how does this support a person when they come to a true crisis of the spirit? And what position does that put one in ethically with the church and with oneself? This same friend is a devotee of much of the New Age literature, and regular haunts the Borders’ metaphysical section looking for spiritual guidance. I think this is a sign of the ultimate dissatisfaction that comes from sticking to the church or synagogue or temple, or whatever, just because its what your larger family accepts, and does not require making a serious statement of religious truth. No more a sign of modern times than any other, but a man went into a large bookstore on Fifth Avenue in New York, and asked a clerk for the section on religion. "I’m sorry," said the clerk, " we don’t have a Religion section . What you want is either Nonfiction or Self-Improvement." I believe that the stuff of the spirit, meaning, religion, is too important for human satisfaction and happiness to be done in a slap-dash manner. What, after all, is more important than how we feel about ourselves and our lives, which in turn is reflected in everything we do in life? What is more important than assuring ourselves that our lives have some value? What is more important to survival, beyond just surviving, than how we relate to our companions on this little round planet in an infinite universe? Yet, if you or I were to ask any given person, What is the force that drives your life, and how is that reflected in your daily life? Well. . . we might find most of our questionees in a state of confusion. An businessman with few principles, who liked to appear full of virtue, told Mark Twain, "Before I die, I’m going to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land. I shall climb to the top of Mount Sinai and read the Ten Commandments aloud." "I have a better idea," said Twain. "You do, do you?" said the businessman, "Well, then, I’d sure like to hear it." "About the Ten Commandment," Twain replied," why don’t you just stay right at home in Boston and keep them." Religion as an institution is less about living real life, and more about preserving the institution. Finding the truth of one’s heart, which is the spirituality of life, that is the act of preserving one’s soul. And I do not believe that there can be a pick and choose approach to that truth. How, my friends, are we to know that truth if we never bother exploring it? "I don’t know . . . ." is the reliable response from a child, especially a teenager." But if we come to adulthood and still find these questions require that same "I don’t know" response, then we may be missing the boat on a full life. What do you think the response should be to racism in your town? What is the way to bring up your children? What do we do about pollution? Is it okay to steal from your workplace, neighbor, the cable company, your family? Does the death penalty seem a good idea to you? How will I vote? Should I bail my son or daughter out of jail for drug possession? How should I deal with a difficult person in my workplace? There is a host of questions, frightening large, that confront our real lives and require us to respond out of our knowing of ourselves. They require us to ask the ultimate questions, which are, What kind of person am I? and, What kind of person do I want to be? If we do not give serious thought to these last two question, how can we possibly address any of the other important questions, sometimes vital questions, of our lives? To come at life with an I don’t know and I don’t care approach is to abdicate one’s responsibility. Further, we always care when it comes to the self, what we personally have to gain or lose. You do not have to know the answers to all the questions, but to fail to acknowledge the need to is to leave ourselves hanging to scrap of wood in the sea of life. Living the UU life is about learning who I am and what values I bring to bear on my actions--it is the same for you. Living the UU life is about taking responsibility for what you and I believe in our heart of hearts is the core response to all of life. Will I be in it only for myself? Or will I be in for others as well? We ought to be very much aware that there are two persons in every body. The person, or persona, that we present to the world at large. Then there is the inner man and woman and child. The person with all the experiences, hurts, joys, hopes that give us the individual fingerprint of self. To me the greatest sadness in the world is that so many people do not have the courage to say even to themselves what is truest in their hearts. This comes from fear of exposing ourselves too much and perhaps then being rejected by the people we most care about, and the truth is that might happen. Some of us have had that happen. Yet, what a terrible human condition we perpetuate in living a set of lies, or even a set of truths, that belong to someone else, or to the society. In about three weeks I will speak more to this issue of fears that drive our lives. So each one of us has these two parts, and that is as it should be, we would not have it any other way. Most of us are a little bit or even very uncomfortable with those people who do not seem to have a stop gap between their thoughts and their mouths. "That’s more than I wanted to know," is often our response to these "out there" people. Comics are the people who usually do the most truth telling, the ones we want to do it; we like our truth disguised as humor. The wisecracking comedian, Groucho Marx is said to have been introduced to a priest who held out his hand and said, ‘"I want to thank you for all the joy you’ve put in the world." Groucho shook hands and replied, " Thank you, Father. And I want to thank you for all the joy you’ve taken out of it." The issue at hand is how much we examine and know what is on the inside, in the true part of us. How much we know about that inner condition we are in. How much we are willing to do this examining of the soul when we are confronted by those horribly difficult issues of life. It helps to have done some of this self-examination before we meet crisi. W.C. Fields, that great actor comedian whose wisdom and wit were droned out in his famous raspy voice, his true-to-his-life characters always speaking under the influence of alcohol, giving the impression that it took booze to lower the inhibitions toward truth telling, was said to have been on his deathbed reading the Bible, a friend who reportedly witnessed this, knowing Fields to be at the very least an agnostic, asked: "Bill, what in the world are you doing reading the Bible?" Fields’s reply was," Looking for loopholes." That is all too often how we meet crisis. We begin looking for loopholes. Jack Mendelsohn, wrote: "I am a Unitarian because Unitarians zestfully celebrate human reason, and it is reason's task to point our way, to seek out the right direction of travel. It is by reason that we know what ought to be. It is by reason that we find meaning in moral decision. It is by reason that we grow responsible. It is by reason that we come to care . . . [for all the things that matter]." and, "By reason we understand the meaning of self-giving, and the importance of having a self to give. By reason we see that the struggle for the life of others is as fundamental as struggle for the life of self; that interest in the life of others is deeply woven into the fabric of the life-process; that we are not born to be little incarnate centers of selfishness. The self is private, personal, and precious, but it is not isolated from other selves. It is wholly unique, but it is never the exclusive center of the universe." Clearly, there is no one UU life, there are a multitude of UU lives, but the things that we hold in common are our beliefs in the power of reason, and believing and accepting the truth of our own hearts. It is the combination, the confluence of these, that give us our Principles and Purposes. Our guide to the process of this examining of our individual lives. Note that I said guide, for we must remind ourselves regularly that Unitarian Universalism is not a doctrine-based faith; rather, we are an ethics-based religion. What we trust is that all peoples since we have had a record of their thoughts have accepted these basic principles as the way for their communities to live and thrive. They have not always been so generous with their neighboring cultures. There are some basic ethical principles that are above, or better stated, below--for they are foundational--to human existence. They are not dependent on religion. It is religion that springs from them. Be they the Ten Commandments or the Principles and Purposes, or the moral teachings of Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism--all religions have them in some form. And you and I know that there are good and decent people, living good and decent lives, who are guided by these principles even if they do not accept the teachings of any religious tradition. Living the UU life is recognizing what principles operate in your life. What forces drive us each day, and especially in crisis. It is our responsibility to know these things, and to keep searching for the answers to the larger questions that rise up in our hearts and minds. Within Unitarian Universalism there is the safety for that search. We all will not agree as we go through this process. We will not always be comfortable with this process. But if we are to ever come close to some meaning for our lives, we will need to trust that the process of truth telling for ourselves first, is at the heart of knowing real relationships of love and understanding. We are also called to live our lives respecting the need for others to live theirs as they must. All so long as their living does not impede our freedom to live as we feel called. My colleague at the Lancaster Unitarian Church told our ministry gathering a couple of months ago about the junior high class who were doing the "Neighboring Faiths" (used to be called "Church Across the Street") religious education curriculum, where they go out to visit other churches, synagogues, temples, and so forth. The youth were visiting with the priest and asking him questions. He was telling them about the tenents of his faith, and one of the youth said, more or less, that in our UU faith we believe each person has to learn to understand what God is in their own way. The priest stuck his finger in the boy’s face and said something like, "That is wrong, and unless you change your thinking and convert you will spend eternity in Hell." Needless to say, the group were shocked by the force of this. I wonder what the RE teacher who had taken the RE youth to meet this priest had to respond. My comment to the ministry group was that that was probably one group of kids who would remain faithful UUs to the end. I believe my comment to that priest would have been that our religion teaches us to respect all religions, and to respect all religious people, and to expect all people to respect to us. This is also part of the UU life. For if we do not respect ourselves nobody will do it for us. I love being a UU, even while I still think it is the hardest religion to be. I love the honesty, the truth in sharing, the love and respect that brings that sharing into our services and into our interactions with one another. Whatever life you are living, let it be a life that you live purposefully, truthfully, hopefully--and your Unitarian Universalist fellow seekers will be there with support, guidance, and love.
February 20, 2000Rev. Nancy D. DeanFebruary 20, 2000Saving Face: Respecting Others as We Respect OurselvesI have been lucky to have wise mentors in the two ministers I worked with in the first three years of my ministry in Massachusetts. They advised that all ministers would do well to get away for a week in the middle of the church year, in the winter, for a period of rejuvenation, for re-creation. I have learned the deep wisdom in their advice, for I am one of those people who feel the depressing effects of the shortened daylight hours, the dark of winter. While it is not the true depression of SAD, seasonal affective disorder, I simply find that I get more easily frustrated, feel gloomier in the winter months of January and February. So the week of self-care is especially important. I encourage you in the practice as well. Self care is also an important aspect of my sermon today, saving face. Have you ever been embarrassed? Humiliated by another person? Have you had you credit card declined at a check out line? Found yourself at the opera on the wrong night? Held up a long line at the grocery store because something had to have a price check? Set off the alarm as you left the department store? Been made to come before the class in grammar school to confess some wrong-doing? Had your veracity or intelligence questioned in a business meeting. Been called a liar or a cheat in front of others? You know about Murphy’s Law: If something can go wrong, it will. I guarantee if there is an object that is not properly tagged, has been mis-shelved, or is the only one of its kind in the store priced incorrectly, yours truly will pick it up and proceed to the check out line, only to have to stand there while the clerks run around trying to find out how much the blasted thing costs, the line getting longer and more rebellious at my inconsideration in holding up their lives. And for what? Half the time, the thing is way more expensive than I thought--or I would not have chosen it in the first place--so I say I don’t want it. Or worse, I go ahead and buy it (for, sometimes I am just a big coward), knowing full well that I will be back to return it later. Those of us who are middle-aged and older can remember classrooms where teachers ruled. Not only could they administer discipline as they saw fit, corporal or otherwise, but you likely got it again from your parents when you got home. Ruled, as in some teachers, those with a more authoritarian bent, would call you up in front of class for a full dose of shame and misery for various infractions from throwing spit wads to not knowing the answer to Where is Upper Volta? during the geography lesson. My greatest shame came in seventh grade from an aged English teacher, one who had minimal control over her class even on the best of days. One day she was frustrated with a couple of bright, but sometimes rowdy boys during a lesson on medieval literature (we have excellent recall for the details of these experiences), when she turned to them and said, Why can’t you be as good as Nancy?--pointing at me. As I slunk as low in my seat as possible, everyone turned and looked at me. My forehead must have been the only thing showing of my bright red face. You can imagine the taunting I took on the bus ride home. This was a small town. If I would have had it in me, I would have acted out in class the rest of the year just to regain my reputation as normal. A man I know and love, who went to Catholic schools, told me about being given a pocket dictionary when he was in second grade. He was tremendously proud of this dictionary and carried it around with him for weeks and weeks learning as many new words as he could. One day the Sister who taught his class gave a writing assignment and encouraged the children to use more varied language, some of their new spelling words no doubt. So this young fellow whipped out his trusty pocket dictionary and set to work. It was winter, and he wrote about the snow and cold. He had written the uninspired phrase, "piles of snow," and decided there were better words in his "PD," which of course there were. When his mother arrived to pick him up the next day, the Sister showed her the paper, and they laughed all too heartily for the boy’s satisfaction. When the two of them got over their bout of laughter, he learned that "hemorrhoids of snow" was not the best turn of phrases. Needless to say, this remains a favorite family story. Every one in this room has experienced the discomfort of embarrassment, shame, humiliation to some degree or another. No one gets through life without experiencing this most profound thing that the Orientals call losing face. We find that we will go to all kinds of lengths to keep from experiencing this pain, which has become so important in the Asian cultural behavior known as "saving face." American and European executive-types have often had a hard time conducting their business for not understanding the deep significance of this to Asian business men and women. We all would do well in the west to have a greater sense of how important it is for each person to save face; that is, to be respected. We all would do well to remember to treat others with the respect that we also need ourselves. This is a most profound spirituality. Saving face means to protect the worth and dignity of the other person in any given situation. When human beings are embarrassed, humiliated, made to feel shame, most of us blush, turn red with blood that rushes to our faces. I would not doubt that this emotional reaction is unique to humans. From earliest literature we read that hiding the face, hiding our emotion, is how human beings react to feeling such shame. We are told in Hebrew scripture, in Genesis, that Adam and Eve hid themselves in shame before God. Indeed, much of what operates in the cultures in the areas we call the west and the middle east, is shame based. The object is for people feel their sinful nature. I feel strongly that this is one of the most destructive aspects of our western system of beliefs. At root, we have been taught through religion and the wider society that operates predominately from the Judeo-Christian-Islamic systems that humanity is flawed and must be forced to behave in good ways. So not only do we have rules and regulations for the masses we call communities, cities, nations, but we also have both stated and unstated rules for human conduct. In other words, we tend to start from the premise that unless people are forced to behave in good and healthy ways, they won’t. Rather than assuming that most people will behave in good and healthy ways if they are taught that these are the best ways to live happy and productive lives. It is certainly true that children need to be "brought up in the way they should go." We want to teach our children the principles of just and decent human conduct, that is what the parents are for, to do the teaching. Even so, even without direct teaching, the vast majority of people learn to live in relative harmony with others. The main thing that is a problem for me is this authoritarian approach stems from self-centeredness as well as from the cultural model, and that encourages us toward one-upsmanship, toward lifting up ourselves at the expense of others. There is a great deal of subtlety in how this works, in how it all gets started. Some of us grew up in homes were the main mode of teaching was shame based. Accusatory. Why didn’t you do this or that? Did you hear what happened to your brother?--and brother is sitting there head hanging down while his shame is recounted for the siblings. You never do anything right! You are a disgrace! All those finger-pointing statements meant to effectively diminish our self-worth. And children do learn these things very well, and transmit them on to their friends. My years as an elementary school teacher showed me very well that children will live out the things they are taught both in the classroom and at home and on the playground. In later years, when we get into the work place the patterns often tend to be repeated where the people in charge sometimes can take the same stances they learned from there upbringing and treat employees and co-workers with disdain and disrespect. The young people in the hip-hop culture talk about "dis-ing" someone. "Dis-ing" comes from the word "disrespecting." To show disrespect is the worst act before violence that we commit on another person. For we cause the people we "dis" to feel shame. There is a West African adage that says: "For news of the heart, ask the face." We only have to move outside our self-interest for a moment and look at the person we are talking to see the truth of this. We can readily see if people are feeling good about the way we treat them. Remember, though, that shame and humiliation is often masked by anger and defiance, especially in the young. The goal of most of our human interactions is to get people to cooperate with us. To get them on our side. To get people to do what we want them to do. I have a book with the title, How to Get People to Do Things. It was written for the business world back in the late 60s or early 70s. I found it in a pile at a Concord, MA., library book sale years ago. The title obviously caught my eye. Who wouldn’t want to know how to get people to do what they want. We all like having things our way. Sad to say, the book contained no magic formulas, no special potions one could tilt into an unsuspecting person’s drink and thereby gain control over his or her mind. There were no Svenghali hypnotism tricks to be found. The essence of the writer’s message came down to relate better with others so that they will be more amenable to doing what you want. To do this one must: "Be a good listener. Show understanding. Make people feel important [feel good about themselves]. Be tolerant. Handle resistance with patience, harmony, and reason. [This one I always have to remember when dealing with my teenager.] Let others be themselves. Give of yourself." When we are interacting with our children, our spouses or partners, our colleagues, or any other persons, we are usually trying to transmit information or achieve some objective, but we are never likely to get others to do what we want for the long haul if we use destructive means to gain our objective. In other words, accomplishing one’s goal is never done when we lower another person. If we expect to get the best action or reaction from another, assuming it can be done at all, it must be done with respect. And here is the reason why. Nobody, no man, no woman, no child, nobody likes criticism. You may not remember all the good things people have said to you or about you, but I am certain that we all remember with great vividity the humiliating situations we have been in, and certainly the harsh words people have said to us, especially if they were heard by others at the time. Franklin P. Jones once said: "Honest criticism is hard to take, particularly from a friend, an acquaintance, or a stranger." That is, anyone! No one likes criticism. No one likes to be shown they are in the wrong. No one feels good about being put on the defensive. So-called "constructive" criticism may be meant to help the person learn a better way, but in the moment, that person will not appreciate it. Maybe later they can see the merit in the criticism, but rarely in the moment. And never will they accept it willingly if it is delivered disrespectfully. That is not how you get people to do what you want; unless there is fear motive to push it along. Which is why all of us who have had or have small children resort to, "You will do it because I said so--or else!" The threat of job loss, or loss of status operates the same way for adults. We all have learned some valuable lessons in life the "hard" way. We all have taken those moments of humiliation and put them to good use. We all have found wisdom beneath the criticism. But could we have gotten to the same place without the loss of face? I think most of the time we would. Clearly, too, while some people are much more sensitive to criticism than others, but we are all capable of feeling the distress of shame and embarrassment. And it is not the way to accomplish what we want to have happen with the people we interact. Even we ministers get our fair share: One Sunday morning, coming to the pulpit, the minister apologized for the Band-Aid on his face. "This morning while I was shaving, I was thinking about my sermon and cut my face," he explained. After church, he found a little note tucked under his windshield wiper. "Next week while you’re shaving," it suggested, "why don’t you think about your face and cut your sermon?" At least that cowardly wit had the grace to not say it out loud in the congregation. I am not talking about there being no boundaries, about there being no rules; we need both for harmony in our lives with others. What I am talking about is the Golden Rule. If a person is unhappy with me, wants me to do something differently, the way to get Nancy to see your way--if I am ever to see your way--is not to call me on the carpet in front of a group. While I might do what that person wants me to do, it will not leave me feeling good about it; further, I will be much less likely to want to work with that person in the future. My level of trust will be seriously diminished. And that is not what we want. The title of the book I would write would be, How to Get People to Do What you Want, and Be Glad About it. Like Mark Twain said: "I like criticism, but it must be my way." What we want is to have interactions that leave all parties feeling at the very least respected and heard, even if we all do not get what we want. There is in most of us the desire to please. The desire to achieve a goal. But, the way to get there is to show the merits of the thing. None of which means giving up our boundaries or values. Some one once said to treat every person as if they were your new neighbor’s child. That is politely, with care, with concern for future interactions with the neighbors and their child. Another West African adage that also has Asian corollaries states: "The best way to save face is not to lose your head." The personal side of this business of saving face is that we must first respect ourselves if we are to have the respect of others. And parents, please teach this to your children. When others begin to cross the line from discussion to disrespect, it is our job to call a halt. To say that we feel that tone of the conversation has gone from helpful to hurtful. I always tell the couples I counsel before weddings that they should never speak in a tone of voice to their spouse or children that they would not use with their boss, friends, or strangers. After all, who deserves the best treatment we have to give if not the people we say we love and who love us? The idea that it is okay to hurt the one you love is stupid. The only thing true about that statement is that the people we love who love us are the only ones likely to forgive us for such disrespect. My belief is that there is no subject that we cannot discuss if we approach it first with respect and the people involved with consideration; that is the form of love the Greeks called "Agape." This is the heart of our Unitarian Universalist religion. Respect is the form of love that we most need. Studies have shown that the loss of respect for another is the greatest predictor that a break in a relationship is on the horizon. This is true in marriages and just as true in the relationships we have at every level of our lives. May we always strive to remember that our First Principle is about promoting and honoring the worth and dignity of the people with whom we are living and working and sharing all aspects of our lives. And may we strive to always "save face"; to respect others as we respect ourselves, or as the Native American Indians say it in this prayer: Great Spirit, grant that I may not criticize my neighbor until I have walked a mile in his moccasins. so be it February 27, 2000Rev. Nancy D. DeanFebruary 27, 2000Are We There Yet?: When will the World Population be too Much?Thomas Malthus wrote in 1798, An Essay on the Principle of Population : "Population, when unchecked, increases in geometrical ratio. Subsistence increases only in arithmetical ratio. A slight acquaintance with numbers will show the immensity of the first power in comparison of the second." The truth of Malthus’ statement certainly came home to us this past October which the world population hit, and immediately exceeded, the incredible number of six billion. Even with that rather frightening news, at least to some of us, though, had no where near the carrying power or the newsworthiness of the Y2K concerns for the world. Besides his common sense and good mathematical reasoning, what you might not know about Malthus relates to ethics, for Malthus was an English clergyman who lived from 1766 to 1834, a time of great poverty for the working classes in Great Britain, especially the Irish who where in the midst of the potato famine that decimated nearly a million people and sent as many abroad to the colonies in search of a better life. Malthus’ famous essay, that seems so sagacious to us today, at the time had unfortunate results. In the essay Malthus argues that any given population in any given area would always grow until checked by famine, pestilence, or war. Even if enough agricultural output for needs could be met, the population would only continue to increase, and the situation would remain effectively the same and the people no better off in the long run. This viewpoint was adopted by the powers that be, and held down any efforts at poor relief for well into the Victorian period; but, on the up side, it also gave the clue that led Darwin to the formulation of his theory of natural selection. While Malthus may have stated the truth of the numbers, what he did not state was the ethical response of a moral people to such numbers. Later, of course, the British made reforms which helped to ease the poverty of its population, and true to Malthus, the population continues to increase. The problems of how to sustain the planet, how to have clean air and water, and plenty of food, shelter, warmth for all of the people is increasing with every passing day, yet there seems little is being done to curtail the problem. If anything, many of the measures that countries like China and India have instituted to help get their numbers in hand, have come under fire in recent years, even by our own government. After twenty-five years of actively pursuing concerns around these issues, I find that I am more than anything discouraged. I feel like the child stuck in the car on a long trip that seems never-ending who asks repeatedly, "Are we there yet?" Are we there yet? When will the population be too much? When will there come a world consensus that this is enough already? What are the moral challenges that we face as the numbers of people continue to increase geometrically? I will say right up front that my level of optimism is not very high around this issue, further, I believe wholeheartedly that every single environmental problem stems from the fundamental problem of over-population. I heard an Australian scientist say back in the 1970s that humanity is a cancer on the planet. It was a shocking statement, yet I could see the truth in it. Without human beings the natural course of events would keep populations in check, without moral concerns or ethical questions. Too many deer, they strip the food sources, they begin to develop diseases, they die off until the necessary equilibrium is reached. Those that cannot adapt die off entirely, as the record of extinctions shows. As you and I listen to the national news we hear about the serious concerns of our nation. They are: crime, poverty, crime, illegal immigration, crime, rising fuel costs, crime, warring groups, crime, famine, crime, global warming, crime, water pollution, crime, education needs, crime and so on. Yes, I have a depressing feeling--and you all know that I am an optimistic person--that this problem of over-population is one that will not get any better until there are no options left to pursue. More out of our own sense of self-preservation and the economics that govern the world, I have come to believe that this kind of problem does not get fixed until it is at crisis proportions. The trouble with that way of addressing issues, though, is that we may go so far that there is no going back. Like being a "little bit" pregnant. I remember my astonishment when I learned in my Bible studies at Harvard Divinity School that at one time the desert of the middle east, the Sahara, all that area was in the time of the early scriptures a green and lush land, with many forests. The Temple in Jerusalem was built of Cedars of Lebanon, of which many great forests existed. We look at that arid region now and have no memory of it as it once was. Why did that fertile crescent, those lush valleys, become as they are now? There is one answer my friends: over population, which led to over grazing, and over use of agricultural methods that create soil erosion. An ancient oriental bit of wisdom states: "If you don’t change course, you’ll end up where you’re headed." What we know is needed is planning, conservation, thoughtful discussions of the moral direction we are headed. Unless we do begin to consider the need for planning, we will live out Malthus’ conclusions with much pain and suffering for the most innocent and least protected among us. As you have undoubtedly heard, the number of people in the world under fifteen is growing the fastest. Two kids where sitting on the front stoop talking about various things when one asked, "Do you believe in Planned Parenthood?" "I sure do," was the reply, " I wish I could have planned mine." As I collected the various bits and pieces of my research for this sermon, I was troubled by the number of articles I found, mostly published by religious groups, that try to downplay the problem of population. One set of articles tries to create a frightening scenario that says because of AIDS, increasingly high mortality rates in infants worldwide, and shortages of food, materials, etc., that the real problem is that the world population will go into a serious decline by the end of this 21st century. Therefore, we should not try to limit in any way the number of children who could potentially be born. I was agog. This is truly putting the cart before the horse. I agree that all these things are happening, but they happen because of crowded conditions, over population, and yes, they will eventually lead to a decrease in population, but not in any desirable way. That is like saying to an adventurous type: "Well, you are going to die some day anyway, so you might as well see if you can jump off a high building and still survive." A failure to address the problems of over-population that we can see quite readily now all around the world is just as foolish. Yet, we all know that much of what concerns us comes from a lack of education, a lack of understanding. We often misconstrue what we do not understand, as this story illustrates: A young girl was very interested in the development of her mother’s pregnancy, asking lots of questions. Finally, the day of the birth drew near the girl overheard arrangements being made for her mother to go to the hospital. She looked at her mother with great puzzlement and said, "Mom, I don’t understand. If they’re going to deliver the baby, why do you have to go to the hospital?" And the babies keep coming and especially in those populations that are least able to provide for them. The dynamics of this problem are certainly complicated. In under developed countries where children die in large numbers, where there is no security for old age other than a person’s children, the incentive to keep producing is great. There are also religious mandates against birth control to contend with, and the lack of affordable, available, contraception for those who would use them--even in this country. I heard an anti-abortion--more correctly in my judgment anti-choice--group decrying the four-thousand abortions that happen daily. I do not know if that number is even accurate, but if it is, why do they not decry with equal attention and fervor the fact that many thousands more are being born for whom there will be only poverty and struggle, with probably an early and terrible death? With increasing populations, we will see more of the famine, the ethnic cleansing (which is more about protecting land and resources, than nationality if we see that these people often lived quite harmoniously until recently), diseases that crosses from animal world to humans, and more that we have not even considered. Remember the old Parkay commercials: "It’s not nice to fool mother nature." The fact is, we cannot fool mother nature, for nature has a way of correcting itself. If we accept that over-population is a serious problem, then how do you and I find ways to address it? Education is at the top of my list. We will want to learn all we can; learn what our representatives are thinking about it, too. Strive to support organizations that are working to address the concerns of family planning, abortion rights, and sexuality education for young people. Unitarian Universalism has long been at the forefront of developing good sex education in this country. Our "About Your Sexuality" course developed in the 1970s was an award-winning effort at honest dialogue and education for teens. After several years in development, the latest effort is a birth-to-adult set of curricula called "Our Whole Lives (OWL)" that addresses all stages of human sexuality. The first one available is for junior high, 7th-9th grades. All these courses require extensive training for the leaders, and the permission and involvement of parents. Doris Roth and I are hoping to get this new UU sexuality education program started in the fall for our junior high youth. We have had three incredible people volunteer to be trained. We will be open to all your questions and concerns as we take this step forward for UUSMC. A unit in sex ed was about to begin, and each student had to bring in a permission slip in order to take it. A boy handed in his slop and explained to the teacher, "My mother says I can take the course as long as there’s no homework." I wish there were a quick fix, an easy solution to the problem of world population, but in that Malthus is probably right. Whatever we do has consequences, but some of what we do can be a product of our moral grounding as a people of faith. We have the responsibility to educate ourselves, our children, and challenge our elected officials to keep these concerns in the fore. When we can find ways to build sports stadiums in impoverished city centers, find solutions to all the Y2K concerns that might have affected our physical and financial well-being, we could also find a way to address population concerns. How that happens will either come out of our true feeling for our brothers and sisters on the globe, those here now and those yet to be born, or it will happen in the cruel corrective path that nature, which is less a mother and more as Kipling wrote, "red in tooth and claw." When a hurricane hits what was once the remote beaches of modern Florida or Bangladesh there is no sympathy given or lost for the thousands of people who lose their homes and the many who often lose their lives. When the diseases that lay dormant in the world begin to enter the human realm and spread rapidly, there is no weeping in nature. The evil that resides in this problem is pretending that it does not exist, or shifting it to being part of "God’s plan". If that is the best we can do, then we have lost our moral center, and without a moral center how can anyone claim to be part of any plan, God’s or otherwise. The Prophet Mohammed says in the Quran: "The worst problem is to possess plenty of children with inadequate means." Even if you and I are part of the zero-population group, we still owe it to our children and the children to come whose lives will impact each others to keep looking at and thinking about over population--and, continue trying to encourage a better way.
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