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September 7, 2003 Sermon

Rev. Nancy Dean

September 7, 2003

Here We Have Gathered

"You and I and all of us blew about with the winds of summer..." wrote Patricia Shuttee in our opening reading in our hymnal. This strange habit of Unitarians, to take a leave from regular services, to do something so outrageous as vacation, or just do nothing on Sunday morning (which may be the greatest heresy of modern times). I certainly recall from my growing up days as a Methodist that summers were quieter, people gone on vacations, but there was no understanding of a summer break from church.

Those of you with New England roots, which happen to be the roots of American Unitarianism, know that this habit evolved, not because people were taking a break from tending to their souls; rather, it was because people in New England left the heat of summer in the city and towns for the cool breezes of Cape Cod or the mountains of Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont. Church slowed down because most of the women and children of families were gone for the duration of the hot weather, and the men folk would travel down on weekends. The churches on the seashore had good attendance, so they tended to have the reverse trend.

It just goes to show you that we Unitarians do have some traditions that die hard.

Of course, here at UUSMC we have had our more casual summer services conducted by a faithful core of lay leaders, but this is a gradually changing practice in many of our congregations with a desire shown for more complete path, and developing our own traditions, we still are keeping up with the latest trends.

In some ways I think we get a great benefit from the practice of taking a couple of months for our more relaxed, quieter services, and for personal quiet time. Time when we mark the passage of life in a special way by acknowledging that we need our own summer growing space, as do all the other things in nature. The benefit from this is that when we gather as we do today we are refreshed by the difference of our summer activities, but come together this Ingathering Sunday ready once more to feel the familiar routines that give so much meaning to our lives. This is the Yin Yang phenomenon.

Though few kids ever to admit to it, most of them are glad to be back in school, for they have this same need for purpose in their lives. "Vegging out" is fine for a few weeks, but that is not where we usually find our greatest joy or meaning or growth in our lives. We need the regularity of time for the spirit; otherwise, we would be just blowing "about with the winds of summer," and not to any greater good.

Perhaps you have noticed that there are no federal holidays in August, and really only the Fourth of July and Labor Day (both relatively recent historically) mark anything special for the summer season.

When you think of how many holidays multiply in autumn, winter, and spring, it is quite remarkable that summer should be so barren of ritual times.

While I have absolutely no hard data for my hypothesis--and indeed didn't bother to look for any since it is still summer--I believe that we human beings have always found summer a lazier time when early mornings are best for any activity, and afternoons are meant for napping. Even for those who make their living by agriculture, as did my family, less is happening in the heart of summer than the times on either side of summer. Or as Patricia Shuttee wrote, we are "moving to the slow heatstruck rhythms which turned the long hours of summer light."

Perhaps our ancestors simply did not have the energy, after all the work of spring and expected work of late summer and fall, to come up with any festivals, much less do all the cooking and legwork it takes to make them come off as nicely as a harvest festival, a winter solstice, or Christmas.

So we have had our quieter time, our lazy time, or at least our different time, and we "meet with eagerness and delight, needing one another for sharing." This, poetic line from Shuttee captures for me the essence of our need to gather, to share the good things, the sad things, the needs, and wishes, to get feedback on our questions, hear who is well and who is declining. And, this year especially, to anticipate and look forward to the great move to our own home. All we do in our gathering relates to, is about, connecting, that holy impulse that has kept humanity gathering in places made sacred by their intention since the dawn of time. We cannot easily define this need, but for all but a very few, the need is so strong that we go to great lengths to have it met. We long for connection.

I often preach about we Unitarian Universalists as a people who do not have a mandate to gather on a given religious day, as do many other religions. We gather as the Rev. John Crane says because we recognize the truth of our deeper impulses, and, in spite of being on the whole "extreme individualists" we look for others who share our beliefs, values, ideals, and goals.

There is no shame in needing others. It is truly the glory of human nature that we can exist in the great numbers we do in relative harmony, because we understand this need for others. And remember this: Where the appreciation for difference and the need for others is lowest, is where we see war and violence erupt.

We here are always searching to understand what motivates our human needs, and how we can learn to do a better job of meeting them, while at the same time respecting others. We value diversity, and--hard though it may be—-we also value change, and we value telling the story that every civilization has contributed as its portion to human history.

We here are adding an important and much needed piece to that story. We raise the questions others may be afraid to ask; we raise our voices when sometimes the culture is not ready to hear them, but needs to be; we push for change where inequities are clear and injustice rampant. All this is part of our heritage and our mission, but we recognize that most important are the truths we tell ourselves and our children. So, there is no mistake about where our priorities lie.

Could it be that in my bias and love for you I have I painted too rosy a picture of you who sit in these chairs this morning? Not at all. We are seekers, we do not make claims to perfection, but it is the seeker in each one of us gathered here this morning that makes this the special community that it has become and I pray will continue to be. "A community of all ages that sings its songs, tells its thoughts, asks its questions, and searches together with courage and with love."

So it is, that here we have gathered once more, gathered to make our mark on the troubled and longing spirit of the world, and may it be that we feel that in our presence we bless each and every life in this congregation, and that each is in turn a blessing to us.

So be it.

 

September 14, 2003 Sermon

Rev. Nancy D. Dean

September 14, 2003

Honoring Joys and Sorrows

As you have already witnessed this morning, those who attend this congregation are offered the opportunity to light candles to honor the joys and sorrows that are a reality in all our lives. Now, it won’t surprise most longtime Unitarians that there are a good many people in the various UU congregations who celebrate this ritual who do not like this sharing of joys and sorrows. There are some basic reasons why, such as: many people get frustrated about having to hear what is sometimes painful or painfully spoken; others feel like only a few people get up to light candles, so we just hear from the same people all the time; others find any exhibition of human emotion stressful; and others simply do not like any kind of ritual for any kind of reason.

I have heard all these explanations for why people do not like this ritual of sharing joys and sorrows, and lighting candles to honor them. That is what is beautiful about our UU congregations; people can disagree and still get along. In point of fact, I can understand and respect most of these reasons, for when I first became a Unitarian, I had never experienced any service that was not solely in the hands of the minister, so I was surprised and occasionally uncomfortable myself. And, over the years of hearing hundreds of joys and sorrows, I have also had negative reactions. I have heard some pretty long-winded sharers, who forget they we have limited time for this sharing. I have strained to be tolerant when I heard things that defied good judgment, good taste, or good sense. However, I have been unexpectedly moved to tears by the suffering I’ve heard in the voices of those sharing a deep hurt. So, believe me, I am not without sympathy for those of you who would rather not have this particular ritual of sharing.

I am not in sympathy, though, with those who do not want any kind of ritual, for having grown up within a Puritanical kind of family, in a rather Puritanical kind of Christian fundamentalism--those who reject nearly all forms of ritual--I see that a dearth of ritual leaves a huge void in our lives when we do not have an opportunity to lift up what is special to us. I read one Professor Driver’s work at Harvard who said of ritual that it is “a showing of doing.” A lifting up of what could be mundane. For example, anyone can go down to the county Justice of the Peace and get married, but most do not, precisely because they want to show how important this thing is we do of getting married. That phrase, “a showing of a doing” has had a great impact on my thinking about why we do many kinds of rituals, like, lifting up a glass in a ritual toast, or why we cling to customs like Christmas or Hanukkah that have little to do with our beliefs now, but have deeper meaning for us. Why we do dozens of rituals that we do not necessarily think of as religious, but probably had their origins in some pagan or Christian practice.

I could go on and on with examples of why I think we need rituals, but just let me say that I think it is so important that I encourage, to the point of insisting, that all the couples I marry have some ritual element that they can carry forward in their married lives so that the day when they make this commitment to love and care for one another, through good times and bad, stays fresh in their minds down through the years.

As to this sharing of joys and sorrows that has become a part of so many of our UU churches and congregations, I wanted to have this sharing uplifted with candle-lighting precisely because I have come to understand that this sharing of the reality of our lies has a great value, not just for the one who tells us what is troubling or heartening in his or her life, but it has a great value beyond any one person’s sharing.

This value I am talking about boils down to what Scott Peck wrote that I read in this morning’s reading, about community: “A genuine community . . . is a group whose members have made a commitment to communicate with one another on an ever more deep and authentic level.”

I believe that goodness grows out of our reaching out to others, our commitment to life beyond our own. I believe as well that evil or badness, grows out of egotism, however we term it, as selfishness or self-serving, it means devotion to oneself at the exclusion or expense of others.

Most people are always struggling to some degree between the desire to serve the self and the desire to serve others.

While it is true that coming to a Sunday morning service should be about getting something for oneself, one’s spirit, it should also be about the giving of oneself to strengthen and encourage this community of faith. When we are willing to share and when we are willing to listen, we do both, for we both give and receive.

This struggle in life between getting and giving never really stops; usually we call it conflict. For, unless we live alone in an isolated spot, we must be part of some form of community. Living in community requires communication and cooperation. Rituals have been the primary way we have recognized the highest levels of cooperation and communication down through the ages. Witness the events just this past week that commemorated the tragedies of Sept. 11. 2001.

American philosopher Harry Overstreet wrote: “I have my own particular sorrows, loves, delights; and you have yours. But sorrow, gladness, yearning, hope, love, belong to all of us, in all times and in all places.”

Another way of saying, “No man (no person) is an island.”

In my young adult years, my twenties and thirties, I was part of large main-stream Protestant churches, where I attended every Sunday with few exceptions, taught Sunday School, listened to sermons, sang in choirs, worked in myriad ways, yet there were few people I knew anything more about than surface details. We had no sharing time that did not emerge in social gatherings, but social gatherings are not generally a place we will learn about anything but perhaps about our companions’ joys.

James Forrestal once wrote, “The only reason that some people have a secret sorrow is that the rest of us won't listen to them.” Not just won’t listen to them, but don’t even have a chance to listen to them.

Not all of us are blessed with close friends and family members who can be there to hear our joys and sorrows, to rejoice and/or sympathize with us. In fact, it is more and more common in western culture to be without these resources of family and friends with whom we can do the kind of sharing that both cleanses the soul, and allows us an opportunity for learning and growth. Psychologists are the people who now know more about us than either family or friends. This is really a major shift in our culture. For it takes a long time of close association to develop the kinds of friendships, or adult family relationships, that encourage such sharing.

We have all heard of the phenomenon of a people telling things to complete strangers on a plane or train that they would never tell their friends. I usually avoid telling a seatmate on a long plane trip that I am a minister, for I tend get confessions. As a somewhat nervous flyer who prefers to read and pretend I am at home and not in a metal cylinder 30,000 feet in the air, I need a minister when I fly, and don’t want to be one. (For those who know I fly with my husband who flies everything from gliders to jets, I find I do not get nervous when he is the pilot in command because I have so much trust and faith in him.)

Most people want someone to share their joys, but they need someone to share their sorrows. You and I want to have people who will rejoice with us in our best moments, to help us lift them up above the ordinary. You and I need to have people who care enough about us to feel real sympathy for our pain when sorrows come to us.

Now we are not always able to appreciate our bothers’ and sisters’ sorrows or joys in life, not even ministers, which this story illustrates:

A very dignified pastor was visiting a lady in a nursing home who had been confined to a wheelchair for many years. As he stood to leave, the lady asked him to pray with her. He gently took her hand and prayed that God would be with her to bring her comfort, strength and healing.

When he finished praying, her face began to glow. She said softly, "Pastor, would you help me to my feet?"

Surprised, and not knowing what else to do, he helped her up.

At first, she took a few uncertain steps. Then she began to jump up and down, then to dance and shout and cry with happiness until the whole nursing home was aroused.

After some time she was quieted, and the solemn pastor hurried out to his car, closed the door, grabbed hold of the steering wheel and prayed this little prayer: "Lord, don't you ever do that to me again!"

Perhaps some of us are too dignified to share joys or sorrows, or perhaps too shy, or perhaps to self-focused. I would like to think that we could overcome all those barriers in order to find the blessing that comes with this communal sharing.

Too much of life is superficial. Too many of our relationships are superficial. We, who evolved in clans, are not designed for so much loneliness, so much superficiality.

Life is not about material acquisitions, life is about the spirit. The spiritual life, is our life, enhanced or depleted by the material world, but still it is the spirit that you get up and take to bed every day. The spirit or mind--for me they are the same thing--this essence of who you are did not evolve to be lonely, afraid, or selfish (except in survival). We are creatures of the family, the clan, the community.

When we gather in our faith communities, we are either expanding or creating what we long for, and what we yearn to have as a source of nurture and support.

Like the parent who really cares whether you have a good day or a bad one, we here, in having a place to share our joys and sorrows, act out of that kind of love for our members who gather together to find meaning for this journey of life. We do not want to walk alone, and here we do not have to.

As your minister, I often hear from our members and friends how important it is to be able to share your joys and sorrows and know that many will care deeply. We do not expect that everyone will. No doubt many of you are tired of hearing about my little granddaughters. You heard when my concerns as my daughter went through miscarriage, being told she would not be able to have any children, then through the miracles of science, that she would have the procedure that eventually led to the birth of the twins two years ago July. And I continue to share the great joy I have in watching these precious little ones grow and change. I know some of you are not interested, but I share because I know that many of you are interested, and will give me the opportunity to be a proud Nana. It makes me happy, and I feel blessed that you want me to be happy.

I believe we are all blessed in this honoring of our joys and sorrows, because you are willing to be factors of significance in the lives of others who stand up to share what matters most in their lives. You are a blessing to them when you listen; they are a blessing to you because you learn more about them.

Because of this sharing time, we can walk through life with the knowledge and assurance that we are in a caring community of people who want to lessen our pain and enhance our joy. That is what I would hope for every person on this earth, that they would know that kind of “blessed assurance,” as it says in the old hymn of the same title.

In a faith community like ours, where we share our joys and sorrows, we become what Scott Peck described, a group whose members, “transcend their narcissism, coming not only to respect but to appreciate their differences.” That is what religion should be about.

If we keep sharing, I believe we will keep caring, and what can be more valuable to us than to grow in the love of others, which has been principle message of the Spirit down through the ages, and the message we want to pass on to the generations who follow.

So be it.

 

September 21, 2003 Sermon

Rev. Nancy D. Dean

September 21, 2003

What’s Bugging You?

This year is the 200th anniversary of the birth of Ralph Waldo Emerson. Emerson’s influence ultimately led Unitarians from a liberal Christian movement to the far greater more inclusive religious movement we know today, and Emerson was the theme/focus for our June UUA General Assembly.

Emerson is widely accepted as this country’s greatest philosopher, and as a Unitarian minister and founder of the movement called Transcendentalism, he is very dear to us UUs, since the heart of his writings speak directly to us today. Throughout this year I will be referencing the writings of Emerson and the theme of transcendence in my sermons, for I draw regularly on the wisdom of this great thinker, even as I turn to Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as the earliest of thinkers focused on human reason and the intellect. It is through reason and the intellect-gifts of the spirit--that we achieve transcendence.

Emerson offers this from his essay entitled, Experience: “Life itself is a mixture of power and form, and will not bear the least excess of either. To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.”

We all deal with people and situations that create tension, frustration, and irritation for us-that’s normal. We have so much going on that we can become more and more caught up in what often seems less and less meaningful. Yet, so much of the time, what we think is the problem is in fact only a symptom. How can we learn to recognize what is really bugging us so that we can find some way to come to terms with those issues?

So, what’s bugging you? What is persistently bugging you? And, what do you think it would take for this problem to go away? These are the emotional or spiritual questions at hand.

Let me share a story, or more accurately, a fable. Fables are meant to impart a lesson:

This fable is about a little orphan who was feeling terribly lonely and blue when she happened across a gorgeous butterfly trapped in the thorns of a blackberry bush. Taking great care not to tear its fragile wings, the girl’s nimble fingers finally worked the insect free, whereupon, instead of fluttering away, it turned into a golden fairy who offered to grant any wish.

The orphan cried out, “I want to be happy!”

The fairy smiled, leaned forward, whispered something in her ear, and vanished. And from that day forward there was a no more happy spirit in the land than that child, who grew into a merry woman and a contented old lady. On her deathbed, her neighbors crowded around, desperate that the secret of happiness not die with her.

“Tell us, please tell us, what the fairy said to you,” they pleaded.

The old woman smiled benevolently, and whispered, “She told me that everyone--no matter how rich or secure or self-contained or successful they might appear -everyone had need of me, as had she.”

You know, until fairly recently in our history, being an orphan was often a sentence of death, nearly always a sentence of misery. If no relatives were around to take in the child, they were most likely to wind up in foundling homes or orphanages that had a well-deserved reputation for treating children poorly, working them like slaves, and not attending to their health and well-being. Dickens wrote about the plight of such children in the Victorian era. Not until well into the 20th Century was much attention given to orphans, the homeless, mentally or physically disabled children. In light of this, we can see that this story takes on a much more serious meaning. We can understand why the child is unhappy and blue, why she tells the fairy she wants to be happy.

I was always fond of fairy stories and fables when I was a child, and read them to my children, too. Fairy stories usually involve some magic, when someone is offered a special opportunity, or given a wish, or several wishes. I would occasionally think about what I would wish for, and as a child it was usually something like skates or musical instrument, my wishes were pretty superficial. Ironically, most fairy stories do not really work out all that well. Mainly the wishes go sour because people ask for material things, and get more than they bargained for; or, they do not think about what they are asking for and wind up blowing the wish, or some other mess up.

Fairy tales came to mind when I considered this sermon, because that is how we often approach our problems. Indeed when I counsel, I often ask, What would you do if you had a magic wand? Fables also came to mind because they are meant to get us to think at a deeper level about what really matters most.

What are the problems you and I face that make life difficult? And, what does it take to make things better? But a question we also need to consider is this: How much are these troubles really related to what we think is making us unhappy?

How happy or unhappy we are depends in large measure on how we look at life, or what we think life is all about. Or, to use a term I prefer to happiness, how contented we are or will be. How we look at life also will have a lot to do with how resilient we are, that is, how well we bounce back from life’s troubles. And, no matter how well off another person looks to you, we all have troubles.

Dr. Richard Carlson says in his little book, Don’t’ Sweat the Small Stuff …And its All Small Stuff, that “rather than being content and grateful for what we have, we are focused on what’s wrong with something and our need to fix it.” While I believe a modicum of discontent leads to motivation, too much can lead to great misery.

I heard from a psychologist friend recently that many people who come looking for help have unrealistic expectations about life; how good, easy, happy life is supposed to be. They never question the “supposed to be” part. What makes us think we are supposed to be born to ease and happiness when clearly so many are not? Well, being born in an affluent culture, to successful families certainly is a set up for that kind of thinking; but, ironically, often the success of one generation comes out of their early knowledge of real hardship. But that is only one part of our modern western notion of life. And, of course, it is not always easy to tell what is bothering a person, much less why.

I had to go into the home building store this last week to get an estimate on replacing my sliding patio door that has failed and water is coming in over the top and under the bottom when it rains. I had several errands to get done between two meetings, so I was feeling a bit tired and irritated. It was most certainly bugging me that I had to replace this wooden patio door. The man at the counter was calmness itself, and after I got out my hurried request, he said, “Calm down, take your time. You must be having a hard day.” Frankly, at first, I was irritated by this “over familiarity,” as the Victorians would call it. His job was not to comment on my state of being, but I took a couple breaths and tried to relax a little. As he was showing me these doors that cost at least twice what I expected, I tried to analyze what he had seen in me when I came up to the counter. In my mind’s eye, I saw an efficient woman, prepared with correct information in hand, problem clearly defined, ready to get an estimate. I did not see myself as frantic, but in fact I was becoming frantic as I realized how much this was going to cost, and how little time I had to devote to getting some answers. Besides, I had been to another store already for an estimate, which is a time consuming process, so was becoming even more irritated at yet another thing having to be replaced on my house. And, I don’t have a lot of time, and time is money, and doors are money, and I don’t have a lot of money either . . . good grief, Charlie Brown!

What was bugging me about this door replacement was not so much that the door was bad, and a new one was needed, it was the totality of my year’s experience with replacing practically every mechanical thing in the house, which means no vacation next year, and that I grew up in an old house that seemed to need far less work done on it in over a hundred years that this twenty year old house does that I live in now (undoubtedly a skewed memory). But, at bottom, I was mostly irritated that my husband and I had not considered more fully that the house we bought five years ago would soon be approaching a big replacement phase.

My husband was very philosophical and pointed out that we now had an almost new house from the mechanical side, and that we would not have to worry about these things for another fifteen or twenty years, so it was nothing to be upset about.

He might have quoted Ralph Marston, who wrote: “Find joy in the challenges, in the efforts, in the living and in the giving. The moments when much is asked of you, are the moments when much is given to you.”

Ah, but there’s the rub, it is so hard to find joy in the challenges. After all, we all just want to be happy. “All I want to do is have some fun,” as the Cheryl Crow song says.

Makes me think of a sign I once read that said: “Motherhood is full of frustrations and challenges. Eventually, though, they move out.”

On for another view, Timothy Ferris, noted: Computers have proved adept at handling abstract challenges like flying spaceships, playing chess, and solving quadratic equations, but housework is too hard.

At root of most of our concerns, those things that bug us, usually is fear of some sort. And fear is notorious for causing us to make wrong-headed decisions and take unnecessary detours in life.

Most of what bugs us starts out with: “If only . . . .” If only my children would do what I ask them. If only my husband would not spend so much money. If only my wife would pick up after herself. If only I had more money. If only he/she hadn’t done XYZ. If only I had known . . . -this one is the real time waster.

If only I had more money, is pretty common; yet, I often think of a widely publicized study done some years back, where a university professor set up a long-term study to learn what happened to lottery winners who won a million or more dollars. It turned out that within ten years over 90% of those people had no more than they started out with. The conclusion was that people who do not know how to manage small amounts of money, do not do well with large amounts. You only have to look at the number of celebrities in sports or the arts who seem to wind up with little to show for all that they have made.

Money can help some problems, but it will not solve problems that are based on false premises. Nor will marriage or children solve the problems of a troubled relationship. Nor will trying to change other people make people with strong control issues any happier. And, so it goes. What can be fixed, if it can be, is whatever it is that is really broken. Fixing my wet carpet won’t fix the leaking door. Nor will shouting or being rude to the hardware salesmen.

Like Chicken Licken in the story for the Children’s Message this morning, we cry out without knowledge and/or act from false knowledge, and can easily get ourselves into a bigger pickle without ever seeing the truth. The Chicken Licken story has been sanitized a great deal over the last hundred years, so that he and his friends escape the real ending, where all the animals are led astray and get eaten by the fox-all because of Chicken Licken’s alarmist behavior. Maybe there is a clue to our modern dilemma in the sanitizing of the story, for the fact is, our thoughts and behavior can sometimes lead us into trouble and even to disaster if they are not questioned.

So, when something is bugging us, whether it is about our own lives, or the broader life of the community or nation, we ought to set about asking ourselves some basic questions. For instance: Is this the real issue? Why am I thinking this way? What are the possible consequences? What are the alternatives?

One thing that is bugging me a lot these days is hearing on the news virtually every day that more of our service-men/women are dying in Iraq. Is it the death of any given soldier that makes me angry? Only in part, but it is much more complicated, and I cannot possibly touch on all the reasons, but when I dig as deep as I can, it comes down to fear. Fear that perhaps we have not been told the truth by our leaders. Fear that many more will die. Fear that terrorism will continue to escalate. Fear that the billions of dollars that are being spent will be a debt so far into the future that my great grand children will still be paying the bills. Fear for my own life perhaps, or the quality of my life and yours.

What bugs you and me may be minor or major, but the quality of our lives, our spiritual center, the soul/mind of life, is bruised by living in a regular state of stress, irritability, or anger. If too much of consequence begins to bug us, we are truly in danger of having our physical/mental health compromised.

It is no accident that we use the term “bug.” Bugs can be incredibly irritating; bugs such as termites can destroy houses (carpenter ants worked on the outside of my patio door which is one reason the door failed). Bugs seem to be able to get into such tight places, do so much damage, and multiply with such speed. So we say we have a bug in our computers (I read this came from a moth found in an early computer), we have bug when we get a virus, someone who is goofy is called bugey.

To be bugged is to be bothered, peeved, put out, perturbed, irritated to the point of anger. In other words, many of us live in a low-level state of anger, just below the reaction point that can often be violent. Being bugged or irritated is one level of a stress reaction; clearly the more something is bugging us, the longer we are peeved about something, the more it does to us mentally and physically, and the less it does for us spiritually. We all have times when we are irritated, but it was never meant to be a constant state of being.

You and I can be bugged about our local and national government, we can feel the injustice or incompetence around any given issue, but anger can take some people to a dangerous place. Living and working from that place of anger over enough time, can take people to the brink of sanity, and has led to such horrible acts like the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah Federal Building, or the D.C. area sniper attacks, or putting anthrax in the mail-the 9/11 terrorist acts. And that just names the most extreme. On any given day people are acting out of entrenched anger that comes initially from a sense of fear and helplessness.

But we are not helpless unless we believe ourselves to be so.

Our Unitarian faith teaches us to be responsible for our spiritual well being, and our spiritual development. Those things that are bugging you and me are clues to places of character that need shoring up, need strengthening, or even need a complete replacement. It is right there in the Fourth Principle: A responsible search for truth and meaning. It has always been the individual, who joins with other like-minded people who share the same ideas, ideals, needs, beliefs, and irritations and anger, that have made any worthwhile change. We, here, gather because we have made a decision to be agents for a positive use of our emotional energy, our mental, spiritual energy, which can be fueled by what bugs us just about as often as what exhilarates us.

Hear Emerson once again: “Life itself is a mixture of power and form, and will not bear the least excess of either. To finish the moment, to find the journey's end in every step of the road, to live the greatest number of good hours, is wisdom.”

A responsible search for truth is not always, if ever, easy, but meaning comes only through such seeking. Seeking throughout the journey of life. That is the message of this question: What’s bugging you? For whatever is bugging you needs and wants just this response, that you and I should seek for the deeper truths that we may not like to see revealed, but know that we can never find any real peace or contentment without them.

So be it.

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