Resources for Challenging Times
Sermons and Worship Resources
Best Practices ~ Education ~ Links & Resources ~ Stewardship ~ Theological ~ Worship
- UUA Worship Resources for Tough Economic Times
- Be Not Afraid, by Susan Maginn, UUA Worship Web
- When Our Systems Fail: The Wall Street Melt-Down, by Kathleen McTigue, UUA Worship Web
- Hard Times, by James Kubal-Komot, Saltwater Unitarian Universalist Church, Des Moines, Washington
UUA Worship Resources for Tough Economic Times
www.uua.org/spirituallife/troubledeconomy/index.shtml
A growing collection of focused worship materials “that will help us to speak with and to one another as economic beings, inextricably bound with one another in this global economy.”
Be Not Afraid by Susan Maginn, UUA Worship Web
www.uua.org/spirituallife/worshipweb/sermons/submissions/125422.shtml
“Religious paths can help us cope when we are afraid. Some lead us toward making justice in the here and now while others help us cope by cultivating the inner life, believing that through contemplative practices the spirit is strengthened to face anything that happens in the material world. There is really only one human fear: the fear that we will be unable to cope.”
When Our Systems Fail: The Wall Street Melt-Down by Kathleen McTigue, UUA Worship Web
http://www.uua.org/spirituallife/worshipweb/sermons/submissions/124436.shtml
“The peril inherent in choosing to speak about the economic crisis today is that I have no idea what I’m talking about. I am in good company of course: no one knows what they’re talking about right now, including the most respected economists and the most responsible politicians. There is nothing even close to consensus on what should be done, how it should be done or how long it’s going to take to work. There is no clear understanding of when and how the worst of the impact will be felt by ordinary working people.”
Hard Times by James Kubal-Komoto, Saltwater Unitarian Universalist Church, Des Moines, Washington (download as a pdf file)
We have heard over and over and over again in recent weeks that our nation is now experiencing its worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. Over and over and over we’ve heard this. The worst crisis since the Great Depression. The worst crisis since the Great Depression. The worst crisis since the Great Depression.
Yet what does this mean? What does it mean particularly for the lives of us in this congregation?
During the past few weeks, I’ve been trying to take the pulse of the congregation, to find out how we as a congregation are doing, to find out how we’re being affected, to find out what we’re thinking, to find out how we’re feeling, and here’s what I’ve found out.
It seems most of us, so far, are doing okay. Not great, but okay. Maybe a little anxious, but okay. Most of us aren’t terribly worried about our own situations, about losing our jobs or our homes. Many of us have watched our retirement savings plummet, but have balanced our urges to hang members of our nation’s economic and political elite by fragile parts of their anatomy with varying degrees of equanimity about our ability to weather this particular storm.
But while most of us are okay, at least a few people in this congregation are more worried. At least a few people in this congregation have lost jobs or aren’t working as much as they’d like. At least a few people in this congregation who were already out of work are concerned about finding new jobs. At least a few people in this congregation are worried about losing a house. At least a few people in this congregation are wondering whether they’ll be able to retire when they planned. At least a few people in this congregation are worried about their pensions, despite reassuring letters from past employers. At least a few people in the congregation are worried whether their retirement savings will last.
At least a few people in this congregation are really struggling, and scared because they feel like their on the edge of something and are in danger of falling, and falling, perhaps, a long way down.
In talking about these hard economic times, I would be morally near-sighted if I talked only of people within this congregation since many, though certainly not all of us, live lives of relative affluence.
I’m certain that those who will suffer the most in this economic downturn - - and I do mean suffer - - will be the least fortunate among our neighbors in the communities where we live because, very sadly, in our society, it is always the least fortunate among us who suffer the most during hard times.
Yet whatever our particular individual situation is, how should we respond? What’s a religious response - - a liberal religious response - - to hard times, whether they be economic or otherwise?
Let me talk about the anxiety the some of us may be feeling.
Did you know that the roots of the English word “worry” are in words that mean “to strangle” or “to choke.”? And this is what fear, worry, and anxiety do to us. They choke the life out of us.
President Franklin Roosevelt, who famously said, “We having nothing to fear but fear itself” in his first inaugural address during the Great Depression knew that fear was more crippling, more paralyzing, and more debilitating than the polio from which he suffered.
I once learned a convenient mnemonic for dealing with fear. When we find ourselves anxious, worried, or afraid, we should “F” - - face it; “E” - - evaluate it; “A” - - accept it; and “R” - - respond to it. We should face and name our fears because it is the fears that are within us but unrecognized by us that have the most affect on our lives. We should evaluate our fears and ask ourselves if they are rational or irrational. We should accept our fears, knowing that part of being human is sometimes feeling afraid. And we should respond, not react, to our fears, knowing that doing something, taking positive action, helps us to feel more in control of our lives and less afraid.
And in evaluating our anxieties, our worries, and our fears, it might do us good to reflect on the words of Mark Twain when he said, “I am an old man and have known a great many troubles, but most of them never happened.”
Or we might also reflect on the words of Jesus, who asked, “Can you add one hour to your life by worrying?”
Or we might also reflect on the words of that master of fear, Alfred Hitchcock, who once said insightfully, “There is no terror in the bang, only the anticipation of it,” which I take to mean that even when our fears are realized, they don’t turn out to be quite as bad as we anticipated.
I also wanted to suggest that we should respond to fear with faith. I believe that what cures us of fear is faith.
What do I mean?
Now the Bible tells us that faith is “the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen,” and I know many of us struggle with the word faith, thinking it means an irrational belief, or belief without evidence, but this is not the only possible understanding of the word “faith.”
For me, faith is synonymous with the word “trust,” and to ask ourselves, “What do we have faith in?” is to ask ourselves, “What do we trust?” - - which may be the most important question we can ask ourselves during times of uncertainty.
A story…I remember when Hiromi and I were dating. One of our first dates was at Tokyo Disneyland - - which, if you’re curious, is pretty much like every other Disneyland, overflowing with Japanese tourists with cameras.
One of the rides we rode that day was the Big Thunder Mountain ride, a roller coaster that goes through tunnels. This terrified me. Why? I’m not a big fan of roller coasters to begin with. I’m afraid of heights. But I had another reason of being scared. When I lived in Japan, I regularly knocked my head against door frames, light fixtures, and other objects because Japan just isn’t a country designed for somebody about 6’3” tall.
“What if this ride isn’t designed for Americans my size? It goes through a lot of low tunnels,” I thought to myself. “I could be decapitated,” I thought to myself, and began to lose my head over the possibility of losing my head.
But then I began to think. Certainly Disney engineers had thought this through. Certainly this world’s armies of greedy, ambulance-chasing trial lawyers hungry to bring wrongful death lawsuits had motivated the Walt Disney Company’s corporate minions to design a ride safe enough for even me.
And so by the time Hiromi and I got to the front of line and got on the ride, my faith - - a faith in greed of trial lawyers if not the meticulousness of engineers - - allowed me to relax enough to let go and enjoy the ride. It was a shallow faith, you might say, but it was enough faith, enough trust, in something beyond myself, to allow me to relax enough to let go and enjoy.
But what should we, or can we, have faith in, or trust, now?
Should our trust be in ourselves and our own potential to solve our problems? – which is not a bad kind of trust to have. Should our trust be in those who love and care about us and in our belief that no matter what happens, they will still love and care about us? Should our trust be in our nation’s leader’s ability to deal with this crisis? (I struggle with that leap of faith.) Should our trust be in the resilience of the human spirit, the resilience of our own spirits, a faith that no matter what happens, we will still be able to find a way not only to survive but to thrive? Should our faith be in that creative spirit within us and amidst us that works for the good in all things? Should our trust be in the ultimate goodness of life itself, a faith that while our lives are sometimes very painful and difficult, ultimately the good outweighs the bad, and that life is worth living despite its limitations?
Here’s where I stand.
I have no idea how bad this economic crisis is going to get. I have no idea what is going to happen, but I do know this: Most of what I have feared most in my life has not happened. Many of the bad things that have happened to me in life haven’t been as bad as I thought they were going to be. A few of the bad things that have happened to me in life were worse than I imagined anything could be, but I managed to survive them anyway and even find meaning within them. A few of the bad things that have happened to me in life have even turned out to be blessings in disguise.
There is an old Taoist tale about a poor farmer:
A poor farmer's prize horse disappeared one day, last seen heading for the country of the barbarians. The other farmers, poor like him, knew how much the horse meant to the family and expressed their sympathy. The poor farmer said only, "How do you know this isn't good fortune?" A few months passed. Lo and behold, the farmer's horse came back, bringing with it another horse, strong and of new stock. The neighbors congratulated the farmer for his good luck. The old farmer was terse. "How do you know this doesn't forebode disaster?" The peasants merely shook their heads and went back to their work. The two horses mated, and soon the family had many fine horses and the family became very rich. The farmer's son, with leisure time now on his hands, took a fancy to riding his beautiful horse, and one day he fell off and broke his hip. Once again came the other farmers to offer condolences and to wish him a quick recovery for his son. The father told them, "How do you know this is not a good thing?" Well, the hip did not heal well, and the son became lame as a result. Some time went by, and the barbarians crossed the frontier. War had begun, and all able-bodied young men were required to fight. Nine out of ten of them died. The young farmer, limp and all, stayed home and alive.
When I reflect on my own life, some of the things I now am most thankful for are jobs I didn’t get.
One of the most difficult periods of my life was when Hiromi and I were unsuccessful in having a child biologically, but last week was the one year anniversary of our return home from Colombia with Kai, and I wouldn’t trade this last year for anything.
I don’t mean to be so facile as to suggest that everything always turns out for the best. Some things don’t. There are some tragedies in our lives in which should never look for a silver lining. But I have faith that at least some things sometimes do turn out for the best, and in my own life, this has helped sustain me.
If one of the things that sustains us during hard times is faith, then something else that sustains us is community, yet for us to experience authentic community, real community - - and not the warm fuzzy feelings of pseudo-community we sometimes experience when the person at Starbucks remembers what kind of coffee we like - - we need to trust each other enough to risk being vulnerable with each other.
In his book Lifelines, the Unitarian Universalist minister Forrest Church tells the story of a woman whom everyone, especially the members of her family, consider a complete success. “A perfect mother, wife, and daughter; a powerful, remarkably successful lawyer - - she had it all,” Church says. “What they didn’t know she one day confessed to me. Her life was torture. She lived in daily pain, fearful that her self-destructive secret life might be discovered - - her multiple affairs, her loneliness, her profound sense of unworthiness. Until then she had maintained perfect pretense. In truth, brilliant and successful as it appeared, her life was a shambles.”
“She earnestly wished to break the pattern, end her empty marriage, and ‘come out’ as a flawed and broken person,” Church says, “but remained terrified that, if she did, her friends and family would reject her. Finally, she couldn’t endure the pretense any longer. In full detail, she confessed to her parents and sisters the wreck her life had become, praying for their support and understanding. She received more than she prayed for. For the first time in all their years together, her family felt able to share their own pain and insecurities with her. They could finally risk this, because they knew that she would empathize. She wouldn’t judge them severely for being less than perfect themselves...True bonds of sympathy replaced the yoke of pretense that before had held the family together while keeping its members apart.”
Let me say this about the community we share at this church. I am very proud of all of you who are members of this community. I am often extremely touched by the way you care for one another. I believe, that for the most part, all of you do well taking risks in being vulnerable with one another and then responding appropriately to one another with love, concern, support, and encouragement.
Yet I also know that the one place we still struggle most in taking risk with each other is about things like financial worries and struggles.
The Unitarians may have broken away from the Calvinist more than 200 years ago, but there still remains a secularized Calvinism within many of us in which we link together our financial well-being or lack of financial well being with feelings regarding our worth as human beings - - and during hard times this keeps us isolated from one another when we need each other most.
In the days, weeks, months, and maybe even years ahead, I would like this to be a place where any one of us might be able to stand up and say, “I’ve lost my job,” or “I’m scared,” or “I’m struggling” and be surrounded by nothing by love, support, and encouragement.
The truth is I think that would happen today, but my challenge to you is to take steps to create an atmosphere here where people would be even more willing to take a risk like that.
If one thing which sustains us during hard times is faith, and if a second thing which sustains us during hard times is community, then a third thing which sustains us, I believe, is gratitude.
I know that this may seem like a strange thing to say. We usually associate feelings of gratitude with good times, with the best of times in our lives. I know that many people think that gratitude is a result of happiness, and that happiness is a result of having everything we want, and the way to be more grateful is to find ways to get everything we want. But in fact I’ve come to believe the reverse is true. Gratitude comes first. The more grateful we are - - not for what we had yesterday or for what we might have tomorrow but for what we have today - - the happier we become, even when times are hard.
Let me finish this morning with Jane Kenyon’s poem “Otherwise.” I hope I don’t read this poem to you too much, but I read it regularly myself and find it valuable, and especially appropriate on this Sunday before Thanksgiving.
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, and flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know, it will be otherwise.
My friends, today and always, may you be grateful for the blessings of your lives, may you have the courage to turn to others with the troubles you carry now, and may you meet every challenge not with fear but with faith in the goodness of things yet to come.
So may it be. Amen.
