UUSMC - February 2006 Sermons

February 2006 Sermons

2/5 Sermon --
2/12 Sermon --
2/19 Sermon -- The Three Pillars of Good Relationships
2/26 Sermon -- Sermon on Post-it Notes

February 19, 2006 Sermon

Nancy D. Dean

February 19, 2006

The Three Pillars of Good Relationships

I am very happy to be back with you again after my six-weeks of sabbatical. I am always anxious to get back to my duties and feel very grateful that I find my work so fulfilling that I don’t dread the return to work that I often hear other folks talk about. And, as related to the subject of this morning’s sermon, I take my positive relationship to this pastoral work as a testament that our congregation-minister relationship is working well. (I don’t like to assume too much, so if there is anyone who does not think this is the case, I ask you to speak to our Board President or one of the Ministry Liaison Committee who are designated to hear your concerns.) But my general belief is that we do have a good relationship and I hope that it will always be so, but I try not to take for granted that it will. Certainly we who are in touch with the wider religious community know that the minister-congregation relationship can break down, just like other relationships in our lives can, and cease to be fulfilling to all parties involved. So, like in marriage, partnerships, and relationships of all kinds, it pays to keep in mind that there is always a need for the parties involved to pay attention to the other and not take too much for granted.

With that in mind, and on the heals of the love-fest we call Valentine’s Day, it seems a good time to talk about what makes good love relationships, which in general terms also are the things that make for all good relationships. For unless one is a hermit, life really is about our various kinds of relationships: parents-children, spouses/partners, friends, neighbors, co-workers, and so on.

One of the nicest and most poignant phrases ever written is in Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, when Sir Andrew Aguecheek states: I was once adored. I was once adored. This is poignant for it tells us that he is no longer adored, a thing to certainly regret. To be adored is clearly the desire of more couples. We want the other to care for us in a way that is a sign that we are above all others. I recall reading about a widow who was speaking of her husband dead for some years, and she said: We were in love for thirty six years--not that just that they had been married for thirty six years; and in so saying told all one needed to know about the condition of their relationship. They were in love for thirty- six years; not, we are given to understand, in some halcyon fairytale existence, for these were farming folk, but that through all the ups and downs, want and plenty, joys and sorrows, they still had a bed-rock of love.

The question is why do some marriages-unions have this quality of steadfastness and others do not? Why do some friendships, like that mentioned by Christopher Bamford in this morning’s reading, survive many hurts, yet remain strong? Why are some of our relationships with co-workers so positive while others are stressful or downright miserable? Why do some parents and children get on so well, have deep love and respect for each other, while others barely limp along?

All of these different relationships have many dynamics that can be examined minutely, but ultimately, in my experience, most relationships have three pillars as that support the relationship, three areas of importance that must be strong if the relationship is to not just survive, but thrive and blossom.

I can’t recall who said it first about marriage, but they got it right in saying that, all marriages are happy----it's the living together afterward that causes all the trouble.

Yesterday I performed a marriage ceremony for a gay couple, two women who seemed an unlikely couple in many ways, and despite the fact that it was a lovely traditional ceremony, and they had a great deal of support from their families, I have no crystal ball to tell me whether they will be able to maintain a lasting and happy relationship.

All the ministers I know will readily admit that of all the couples that come before them for weddings and unions, they cannot tell who will make a go of it and who will not. I also know from my own experience, and I would be surprised if this is not your experience as well, but I have seen couples that seemed polar opposites—at least on the surface of things--who have wonderful marriages. The fact is, no one can tell from what is presented to the world, what lies hidden beneath in any one person or in any particular relationship. Naturally, I always hope that the couples I perform ceremonies for will have long and happy unions, but neither would it be a surprise to hear that half of them are now divorced or contemplating it.

For all the couples I do weddings, I first meet with them and talk about what they want for their ceremony, how formal or informal, how many guests, location, go over possible elements they might include, give them some sample ceremonies, and so forth. And then I proceed to the pre-marital counseling; I do this regardless of whether it is a first marriage or the fourth, whether the couple is young, middle-aged, or old.

I begin by saying that everyone has heard and knows that good relationships depend upon good communication; the problem is that few people really know what good communication is. Most people think it is simply talking, but it is equally about listening, and all too often people are not very good at either talking or listening. The ability to let the other person know your feelings and to listen to his or hers is truly the foundation of all our good relationships. Communication that works is a bit like sonar or radar, the communication waves go out, as it were, make contact then bounce back. The object of radar and sonar is to locate where something is, and in our communications we too should be learning where the other person is in their thinking and/or emotions.

Take this story for an example of what does not constitute good communications:

Following an especially angry argument, Ted and his wife Ellen went to bed not speaking to each other. Needing to arise early the following morning, Ted left a note on Ellen’s bedside table that said "Wake me at six."

An exasperated Ted awoke after ten the following morning and throwing back the covers got out of bed to see a note on his bedside table: "It's six! Get out of bed!"

Clearly Ted and Ellen had experienced a failure to communicate. Of course, we all have some such failures of communication. When we expect to be heard but don’t listen or vice versa.

To follow through with this metaphor of building a temple in creating relationships, let me suggest that there are essentially three pillars resting upon this foundation

To have a good relationship you need three basic things, and when marriages/relationships fail, it is usually because one or more of these was neglected or non-existent.

The first pillar is related to the physical. We need to like being with the other person, like to be in their presence, and in closer relationships to touch them, hug and kiss them, etc. We are kinetic beings, touch is extremely important. This physical realm is usually what brings couples together in the first place. We like the look of the other person, we want to be with them, we are drawn to them, want to be physically closer than with others. This is usually the easy part, initially. We have a strong biological urge toward connection. But, even when consummation of these feelings is not possible for some reason, we still will want to connect in some way. Often, when we have an unconscious discomfort with another person with whom we work, or a neighbor or acquaintance, it may be that they remind us of someone we dislike, or have had a bad relationship with in the past. In this way the physical can affect some of our relationships without our being really aware of why or what it is we find so disagreeable. But, with a doubt, physical presence in an important part of our relationships, so it’s difficult to have a relationship with someone who, for instance, has bad breath or wears too much cologne. We all recognize these physical signs of friendship, or of closer relationships, for we give and receive physical cues.

The second pillar has to do with the realm of values, ethics, and morals; how one looks at right and wrong. Religious values can certainly be a key in this. Couples especially need to look at the world through similar moral lenses. This is not a good-bad issue so much as it is a similarity issue. If I find my partner is a crook and I am an ethical, law-abiding person, then there is conflict; however, if I am a crook too, then we share a common ethical bond. Or, one person may have a strong work-ethic, and the other a more laissez-faire approach to life which can cause serious problems. These issues around values and ethics are most obvious, are highlighted, when couples have children, or when one wants to have a religious life, and the other does not. What we want, or do not care about religiously will come sharply into focus when we have children. So it is important to think about, and discuss with our partners, what we value. How finances should be handled is also important; divorce attorneys, and many surveys, say that the main cause of divorce is related to finances, and the issues related to money problems. This is part of the values realm.

What we value may not always be as obvious to us, especially when we are young, and often it takes a crisis of some sort to clarify for us what we will or won’t do, believe in, or will fight to preserve. I never realized I cared that much about marshes until I learned that one near my home many years ago was being polluted and wild-life was dying. I learned some things about my neighbors that made it difficult to carry on the normal relationship as before.

We are reminded of Socrates’ great teaching to know thyself; for unless we know what we value, what matters to us, we are apt to find ourselves in conflict with not only people close to us, but our neighbors and others with whom we would want to have desirable relationships. This is the reason for the old admonition about not talking about religion or politics in social situations, for we often learn things about people’s ethical values that can make such social relationships a challenge.

The third pillar of good relationships is interests. If we plan to live a life-time with one person, it is important to want to do things with that person. A young relative in my family had dated a fellow all through college, and following their graduation got married in a very traditional June wedding. They had the big church ceremony, invited friends and family from far and wide, had a huge and lavish reception at the country club. After a marvelous honeymoon on a tropical island, they moved into their new home, and just about six months to the day, separated, and got divorced shortly thereafter. All the family was shocked, and questioning. What was reported was that she was devastated to find that her new husband did not want to spend time with her, and went out with his friends nearly every night and on weekends as if he were still single. I don’t pretend to believe this is the whole story, but I do know that it is an all too common story, that one or the other partner wants to live his or her life as if there was no other person to consider.

To grow together couples have to spend time together and have some common interests—not everything of course. It is important for each person to cultivate his/her own interests as well, but there must be common threads that continually pull a couple together, or they will soon grow apart. This is often the innocuous part of a marriage, that couples progressively do less and less with each other, give less and less time to one another (especially when children come along), and find less and less to talk about. We need connection in order to know how the other person is doing, what they are thinking, happy or worried about, etc. Over time, if partners don’t attend to each other, they grow apart, and often forget even what brought them together in the first place. This can also be at issue with friendships that fizzle, or when parents and children grow distant, or when coworkers do a poor job in connecting.

If this temple is to stand, all the pillars need to be in place. Otherwise the whole edifice is apt to crumble, especially if any stresses come along.

What I have seen in relationship troubles of my own and others is that often we have neglected one or another of these important areas of human interaction within marriages or other relationships. Remove the sexual elements, and there is little difference in the common elements for most all other relationships.

All of us want to have happy relationships. We want fulfilling marriages, growth in our unions that keeps on making us feel happy and glad to have the other people in our lives. Good connections with the other important people in our lives with whom we live and work are vital to our happiness. When I was young, the received wisdom was that a good marriage is a 50-50 proposition. I have long ceased to believe that. Somewhere I read a few years ago that a really good marriage is 75-75, that is each person sometimes gives more than 50% to the relationship, and occasionally may get less, but that does not mean you always only get 25% in return, it means that you sometimes have to make extra effort, and sometimes your partner must do the same. And, all without resentment for expending that extra effort, if you accept that this is the give and take of healthy relationships.

When I examine relationships I see go bad, and as I look back on my own life, my relationships with my family of origin, my first marriage, my children, I now can see clearly where the problems that arose were in one or the other of these three areas. I also know that sometimes we cannot fix the problems, and sometimes we have to move away from them.

If we are to have the fullest lives we can; that is, lives that are spiritually rich and rewarding, we need to be active in trying to understand the dynamics of our personal relationships. The old maxim that you reap what you sow is all too true in relationships. We are in fact cultivators of our human interactions, and we can only have wonderful and productive relationships when we are interested in other people, especially if we want them to be interested in us.

Religions of all stripes, and certainly this Unitarian Universalist faith of ours, is built on this understanding of respecting one another, caring enough to listen to others and to share our thoughts, to be engaged in a process that is creative and energized by our attention. This is the stuff of all community, and it always starts where two or more are gathered, whether in the home, the religious community, the neighborhood, and on out to the wider world that none of us can any longer forget is there. We need one another. We need to understand one another. Ultimately, we do best when we find those spirits most closely aligned with ours with whom to live, and then work valiantly to respect those with whom we find difficulty in being aligned. We are never passive when it comes to our relationships, but it takes recognizing that truth in order to live it.

So be it.

February 26, 2006 Sermon

Rev. Nancy D. Dean

February 26, 2006

Sermon on Post-it Notes

I regret that Bill Reichle cannot be with us this morning while he is in Manor Care for some therapy. It was Bill who gave me the idea for this morning’s sermon. Bill worked for many years for the 3M company which makes all those wonderful Post-it Notes, tapes of all kinds (especially my new favorite, clear duct tape!), and he sent me some literature about the company. That conversation reminded me of all the wonderful inventions that I love, like Post-it Notes, which is great help to those like myself who are challenged to remember all the things we need to. I plaster Post-its all over my desk, in books, on my computer, throughout my house to help me remember all kinds of things, like to change the furnace filters, get milk, call the vet, and hundreds of other small details of life that can so easily get forgotten amidst all the business. With that in mind, I sat down and made a list of my favorite inventions, most of them coming into public use within my lifetime. I suppose I should not have been surprised, considering the great influence the company has had on this area (and the fact that my husband and many in this congregation have been/are in their employee), but at least half of them came from DuPont. It is truly astonishing how much DuPont products touch our daily lives in ways many of us never know. The old DuPont slogan, Better Things Through Science, was not just rhetoric, it was/is fact. If someone waved a magic wand and all the “miracles” of DuPont science evaporated from our lives, we would find ourselves in quite a pickle. Add to that little magic trick the miracles of 3M, Dow, Astra-Zeneca, and all the other companies locally, and elsewhere, that have been so prominent in making modern world what it is, we would instantly find ourselves in a fairly primitive state.

All these big companies get a lot of criticism, much of it well-deserved, and they need to be scrutinized for environmental and health policies, for there is no such thing as a totally humanitarian business; but along with this criticism needs to come some truth-telling on the part of the public, especially we who are the critics, that most of the products these companies make are in production because of the demand by us, the public, for them. Remember the old business adage: Find a need and fill it. This is why we have Post-it Notes, and Teflon coated pots and pans, and the carpet on this platform, and on and on. If we did not want these products, use these products, value these products, they would not exist.

Yet again I am reminded of Lao Tzu, the founder of Taoism who said: Every front has a back. We have all these wonderful inventions and products because they fill needs in our lives, but they do not come without a cost. That cost reflects far beyond our purchase and use, back to mining and extraction, manufacture, distribution, and ultimately disposal; and in all of it there is a human labor factor. We keep hearing about outsourcing of American jobs, these days, which is really just a euphemism for losing jobs. There is a circle of events that always comes back to human-beings and the circumstances which allow for good jobs, good benefits, good environment and all play into whether one country or another is in the ascendancy. None of which I want to debate in this sermon, only to say, we are both part of the source of human problems, and the creative solutions to them as well.

I found this bit which illustrates the point: As stated, modern conveniences can be seen from the Zen mind for their ying-yang duality, for instance, these modern electric toothbrushes that have had such a positive effect on modern dental hygiene; in fact dental caries is at an all-time low, causing one British dentist to quip that the greatest cause of cavities these days is low batteries.

All of life is spiritual; this is my overarching statement of belief and faith. All that we do or don’t do reflects this truth. So, I stand here this morning to talk about some of the ways our needs, material and spiritual, have been filled by modern science and industry. Filled in ways that we value highly, and would feel deprived of if we were to no longer have these aids to modern living. Clearly, there are hundreds, but I will share just a few that I really like, and I hope some of you will share your favorites in our time for discussion.

Post-it Notes is a very big favorite. They mark my hymnal on Sundays; they get stuck in my reference materials, on my computer and desk, on my bathroom mirror. Just recently I realized I was out of them and immediately felt frustrated that I had to use a regular old piece of paper and a strip of tape. How quickly we acclimate to conveniences.

Last night I cooked my annual gourmet dinner offered for the Service Auction. I made paella, the traditional dish of Spain, and other courses of favorite Spanish delicacies. After my guests left, I had to put away the leftovers, and turned to some more of my favorite inventions: aluminum foil, Baggies, and Tupperware.

Tupperware (plastic container with airtight lid) was invented by Earl Silas Tupper (1908-1983). Tupper was a New Hampshire tree surgeon and plastics innovator, who began experimenting with polyethylene, a new material used primarily for insulation, radar, and radio equipment. He patented the Tupperware seal in 1947. Tupper used "Tupperware Parties" to market the product, a unique way of marketing directly to homemakers.

Tupper’s first contact with plastic grew from his job at the DuPont Chemical Company which had been developing plastic before World War II. Eager to work with the new material, yet too poor to buy refined plastic, Tupper asked if he could purchase any left-over substance. His supervisor at DuPont gave him a black, inflexible piece of polyethylene slag, a waste product of the oil refining process. Tupper purified the slag and molded it to create light-weight, non-breakable containers, cups, bowls, and plates. He later designed liquid-proof, air-tight lids by duplicating the lid of a paint can, except in reverse. Tupper founded the Tupperware Plastics Company in 1938, and in 1946, he introduced Tupper Plastics to hardware and department stores.

Tupperware did not sell in the stores, though, so Tupper had another great idea, not a new idea for door-to-door sales has been around for generations, but with Brownie Wise, the woman who designed the look of Tupperware, they created the Tupperware party, which was a big hit in middle-American in the 50s-60s especially. I recall attending manyTupperware parties when I was a girl. Virtually all the women in our small community got around to giving a Tupperware party at some point. My mother still has many of those products in her cupboards, and some are now in mine.

I am not sure how grateful my family has always been for Tupperware, Saran wrap, aluminum foil since it makes left-overs a regular feature of meals. But think of all the savings in foods that at one time would spoil and get thrown away.

Saran wrap (or various versions of cling-film plastic) as mentioned, is another of my favorites, used with regularity.

In 1933, Ralph Wiley, a Dow Chemical lab worker, accidentally discovered polyvinylidene chloride or Saran. Ralph, a college student who cleaned glassware in a Dow Chemical lab, came across a vial he couldn't scrub clean. He called the substance "eonite", after an indestructible material in the comic strip "Little Orphan Annie." Dow researchers made Ralph's "eonite" into a greasy, dark green film, which Dow called "Saran". The military sprayed it on fighter planes to guard against salty sea spray and carmakers used it for upholstery. Dow later got rid the of Saran's green color and unpleasant odor. After World War 2, [in 1956] it was approved for food packaging . . . .

Too bad they dropped the eonite name; I rather like the idea of wrapping up left over food in eonite.

Another handy-dandy invention, the one that I most remember from my young life, and thanks to DuPont, is pantyhose. Now those of you under the age of about 45, probably don’t remember when we had to use garters, suspender-belts, and girdles to hold up stockings. Those of us who do appreciate the several virtues of pantyhose.

In 1959, Allen Gant Sr., invented pantyhose at the Gant Glen Raven Mills company in North Carolina. They were put on the market in 1965, after Glen Raven Mills developed a seamless pantyhose version that coincided with the introduction of the miniskirt.

The generation before mine had experienced the wonder of nylon stockings which replaced expensive silk stockings and made them affordable to many more people. I still remember mid-60s the great wonder of these new stockings that were so lightweight, and yet strong. Nowadays, young women and even some men (they make a support stockings pant-hose in tights form especially for men) enjoy the virtues of these sheer tights.

Nylon has many uses from fishing-line to carpets, and many around Delaware know its well-documented history.

In 1930, Wallace Hume Carothers, Julian Hill, and other researchers for the DuPont Company studied chains of molecules called polymers, in an attempt to find a substitute for silk. Pulling a heated rod from a beaker containing carbon-and alcohol-based molecules, they found the mixture stretched and, at room temperature, had a silky texture. This work culminated in the production of nylon marking the beginning of a new era in synthetic fibers.

Nylon was first used for fishing line, surgical sutures, and toothbrush bristles. DuPont touted its new fiber as being "as strong as steel, as fine as a spider’s web," and first announced and demonstrated nylon and nylon stockings to the American public at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. To be exact, on October 27, 1938, Charles Stine, vice president of E. I. du Pont de Nemours, Inc., announced that nylon had been invented. According to The Nylon Drama by authors David A. Hounshell and John Kenly Smith, Jr., "He unveiled the world's first synthetic fiber not to a scientific society but to three thousand women's club members gathered at the site of the 1939 New York World's Fair for the New York Herald Tribune's Eighth Annual Forum on Current Problems. He spoke in a session entitled 'We Enter the World of Tomorrow' which was keyed to the theme of the forthcoming fair, the World of Tomorrow."

Again, here were people finding a need and filling it, using creative intelligence to enhance life in some way. There are always critics of these processes; probably nothing new ever entered common use without such criticism. No doubt the ancient ancestor who first invented the wheel had to hear a litany of complaints about the ruts they made in the unblemished ground. We need always to balance a healthy critical viewpoint with what is basically pessimism. And you know what a pessimist is: A pessimist is someone who burns all the bridges in front of him. Or I like this one: A pessimist is a someone who feels bad when she feels good for fear she’ll feel worse when she feels better.

Paper-toweling is another favorite of mine. My mother did not have paper-towels when I was growing up. We always had a long line of dish cloths after the Monday washing, generally called dish-rags in our house, that served the purpose. At school, we had roller-towels, cotton toweling that wound back upon itself, and had to be replaced regularly with clean rolls. We all now use these paper products so regularly we give them no thought.

Paper-towels were invented by Irvin and Clarence Scott in Philadelphia, after they formed their Scott Paper Products company.

In 1907, Scott Paper introduced the Sani-Towels paper towel, the first paper towels. They were invented for use in Philadelphia classrooms to help prevent the spread of the common cold from child to child.

Velcro is another great invention which came by the accident of George de Mestral going for a walk with his dog, both returning covered with cockleburrs. He examined a burr under a microscope and saw the tiny hooks that allowed the seedpods to cling to fabric and hair. According to the company’s history:

George de Mestral raised his head from the microscope and smiled thinking, "I will design a unique, two-sided fastener, one side with stiff hooks like the burrs and the other side with soft loops like the fabric of my pants. I will call my invention 'velcro' a combination of the word velour and crochet. It will rival the zipper in its ability to fasten."

[and]

Mestral's idea met with resistance and even laughter, but the inventor 'stuck' by his invention. [and] This finished the design, patented in 1955. The inventor formed Velcro Industries to manufacture his invention. Mestral was selling over sixty million yards of Velcro per year. Today it is a multi-million dollar industry.

Nowadays, polyester does not have the same reputation with the public as a wonder-material, but when it first came out for clothing, those of us who grew up having to iron everything thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. We could hardly wait to get our polyester clothes. My mother sewed most of my clothes, and I was excited to have that first wrinkle-free dress made with pale green polyester fabric. As it’s written in the history:

The polymer that became polyester has roots in the 1929 writings of Wallace Carothers. However, DuPont chose to concentrate on the more promising nylon research. When DuPont resumed its polyester research, ICI had patented Terylene polyester, to which DuPont purchased the U.S. rights in 1945 for further development. In 1950, a pilot plant at the Seaford, Delaware, facility produced Dacron [polyester] fiber with modified nylon technology."

Even today, many of our fabrics and clothing contain substantial amounts of polyester, and we would miss it greatly if it disappeared.

Some other general favorites of mine are:

The paint roller that was invented by one Norman Breakey of Toronto in 1940. The paperclip, which was first patented by Johann Vaaler in 1902, a previous similar invention called the konaclip was patented in 1901 by American inventor Cornelius Brosnan. I also love photocopying which has been enhancing my work-life since the late 1970s.

It was in 1937, that the process called Xerography was invented by American law student Chester Carlson. Carlson had invented a copying process based on electrostatic energy. Xerography became commercially available in 1950 by the Xerox Corporation. Xerography comes from the Greek for "dry writing".

Then there are all the media-related inventions from cassette recording, modern video tape, digital video recording, to the ubiquitous IPod that now has become part of the wardrobe of students across the land. When I started teaching a course in religion for the University of Delaware this past fall, the most striking thing I noticed about students since I was last teaching on a college campus in the late 1980s, was the cellphone and Ipod to which it seemed virtually every student was attached.

Charles Ginsburg led the research team at Ampex Corporation in developing the first practical videotape recorder (VTR) in 1951. With the first video tape recorder (VTR) players appearing in Japan in 1996, followed by U.S. players in the spring of 1997.

In 1990, Photo CD system was developed by Kodak, and in 1991, Kodak released the first digital camera system (DCS) (a Nikon F-3 camera equipped by Kodak with a 1.3 megapixel sensor), which were aimed at photojournalists.

I could go on and on, but from thermos flasks, to birth control pills, to aerosol spray cans, the flip-top beverage can, Marion Donovan’s disposable diapers, DuPont Teflon which has saved millions of people hours of pot scrubbing, Nike’s first running shoes, and the beloved personal computer (thank you Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, along with many others!), and Palmpilot; all these things have made my life better in more ways than not.

We can expect that the future will bring ever more practical inventions that make life more convenient, but we can also hope that many of these inventions will also make life in general better as they help us to find alternative energy sources, cleaner air and water, healthier foods, while preserving our precious natural resources and environmental health.

We create because we think. We are creatures of the mind, ever ready to find a new and better way to work and live, but we also want to find a balance in the spirit that means we are not so dependent upon convenience that we become in various was disabled by them.

Yes, all of life is spiritual, including the impulse to create. Our creativity has that ever-present duality of having both positive and negative results and outcomes. We are challenged by the fact of the front and back realities of our existence. That we live at all impacts the world either for good or bad; and because of this our faith teaches us to try and have more of a positive effect than not. That is a goal of a lifetime of spiritual seeking: to do more good than we do harm. You might just want to make note of that on a Post-it.