A Christmas Message with two readings

No one wanted the nativity set. In the old pool hall that our congregation bought last summer for our new community center and offices, there were hundreds of statues and doodads and holiday decorations, along with 32 pool tables. After a congregational sale, a public sale, and a second public sale, where over $30,000 of merchandise was sold at low, low prices, the rather large box that included eight figures of a nativity set still remained. 

So I took it home where it stayed in our garage until Thanksgiving weekend, when we set up our tree and decorated the house. My wife put the nativity figures on the floor in front of the tree and said this was what they did in Mexico. Not only did it seem a little odd set out on the hard wood floor, but there was no angel in the set. I commented that this must be a Unitarian nativity. 

A week later, I came home and discovered she and a Mexican friend had made a landscape that must be at least twelve square feet, different levels and moss covering it with the figures set out, and an angel, the very angel that one of the volunteers at the public sale had bought and given to my five year old daughter. Not only was the nativity scene beautiful, but it felt complete to me, for it is the angel that announces the good news throughout the land that love has been incarnated, God’s child has been born. 

My eight year old son explained to me that he helped put out a bunch of animal figurines from his toys to add to the scene and that he helped figure out where they all should go. Then Marco told me that someone really important was missing. I asked who? And he said, “Santa. There’s no Santa here in our new really cool Christmas decoration.” As he looked at me with a concerned look. I took a big breath and said, “Oh Marco, the nativity celebrates the birth of Jesus as the incarnation of God’s love in the world. And he was born over two thousand years ago. Santa is also an incarnation of love, and even though he’s old, he’s not that old.” We talked about the pageant story that he helps enact each year and explained that the nativity story is the most celebrated story of love coming into the world, particularly when the darkness is truly vast.  

The Christmas story is counter-cultural. It is about the incarnation of love, the kind of love that not only shares bread with the hungry, shelters the homeless, and clothes the indigent but also loosens the bonds of injustice, liberates the oppressed, and unshackles those in bondage. The King of Kings comes not in regal fashion but in the lowliest of places, for there was no room in the inn. That’s the kind of place where love is born, and that’s the kind of world that we’re in where in several places there is no room in the inn for a young woman about to give birth. 

My friends, this year darkness seems to stretch especially far and wide. There are places in the world torn apart by war, where ordinary people live in conditions so horrific that have been created by other human beings consumed with hatred and a lust of power. There are staggering numbers of refugees in our world, more than any time since World War II, wondering if there will be a safe place for them to sleep and raise their families. Is it not true that all these centuries after the nativity story, we human beings are lost and wandering still, stumbling at every step over our own greed or need, our ignorance or fear. Even in this country, there is great uncertainty and much of what we so dearly cherish seems threatened. 

After a year of far too much bloodshed both near and far, the birth of the vulnerable among us is a reminder that peace is precarious. One of my colleagues from the westside expressed appreciation for The Lutheran pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer who recognized that peace must be dared. The way of peace is not hewing to the safe, secure path but it is venturing forth without any guarantees, responding to what we know deep within is true despite the fear, that Christmas Peace comes when we turn and face the darkness, that Christmas Peace comes when we accept our vulnerability and look upon others through our own vulnerability, Christmas Peace comes when we are among those more humble folk that recognize what really matters rather than those who pursue power, wealth, and recognition.  

It is in the dark that love is reborn. For we gather this evening to celebrate a story that has kindled hope in the hearts of ordinary people century after century, enduring empire after empire, for the simple truth that love is incarnated in the world through the compassion and kindness and sensitivity of people like us, people who are vulnerable.

I didn’t tell Marco this, but I will sometime as he matures: the incarnation of God’s love needs help. The world doesn’t change just because people pray for peace and goodwill, the world changes as we are changed by those prayers to act with kindness and understanding for the sake of peace and goodwill. The incarnation of love that emerges in human hearts is spread by other human beings who are touched by kindness and joy and hope. 

Even Santa needs help. I had the opportunity to help Santa in a very tangible way. Santa wasn’t able to show up himself to the youth center of RefugeeOne and I was asked if I would fill in for him. The youth center meets at Unity Lutheran Church up on the far northside of Chicago. It was a bitterly cold late afternoon but the moment I stepped inside that building and heard a child’s laughter, my heart began to warm. 

Santa provided me a suit to wear and even hair, a beard, and a hat. I entered the room with a cheery ho, ho, ho. I asked the kids who thought it was cold and assured them it’s even colder from where Santa comes, but despite the cold, hope and love can come forward in any life. I invited each child to sit next to me. One by one, I asked them what made them smile or laugh in the past year and what then what they hoped for in the next year. And then I gave them a gift and wished them a Merry Christmas. 

The last of the young people to talk with Santa was a 16 year old from Malaysia. He approached me tentatively with an awkward smile. After he received his gift, the staff asked for everyone to gather for a photograph and then they asked me to stand with the 16 year old and his two younger siblings. Of course many other kids wanted to be in the photo. The staff told me that this young teenager's mother had a stroke that rendered her unable to care for her three children. The needs of his young siblings now fall on his shoulders. These staff members said it was the greatest joy to see this boy and his siblings smiling so big.

No matter how cold or how dark the world may become, what matters is that kindness and compassion are always possible. Though it is hidden to so many, the light of the world shines through the practice of love. We in American culture forget this at our peril. Peace comes when enough of us embody love. It is a paradox, the light of the world resides in the simple, the vulnerable, the humane, the kind, the compassionate. The light of the world spreads with acts of love, with human beings like us taking the way of peace. Whether in small acts or large, love is born each and every day and night. And tonight we celebrate the stories of how this love, the source of all love, incarnates into the world, stories upon stories that have been embellished.

Now you might say, well, all this talk is just fantasy. And I’d respond, “Have I not seen tears in your eyes?” Have you not been moved by the innocence of a child?” “Is it not true that life is saved by the singing of angels?“ “When have scales fallen away from your heart?”  Now, this Christmas Eve, is a time to make room in the inn of our hearts that love beckons. The birth of love is all about us. The miracle of life is calling us this night. May we prepare room in our hearts for this miracle. 

How shall we respond? 

Say “Thank you.” 

Say “I love you.” 

Forgive. 

Let go.

Sing. 

Rejoice.

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Reading: “Christmas Eve” from Kathleen McTigue

All these centuries after the story of the star, the wise men, the baby born in the stable and the angels singing him in with their mysterious alleluias, we are lost and wandering still. We stumble at every step over our own greed or need, our ignorance or fear. Bethlehem is not a gentle city tonight. Its people are wise in the ways of the clenched fist, the broken truce. Marked like them with the scars of ignorance and sorrow we come to Christmas baffled as any shepherd by the music that sounds so high above us, the syntax foreign to our skeptical hearts. Yet we try to speak the language of hope, lifting ourselves toward the future with a dream of what yet may be. We remember that the heart of Christmas is hope: hope that a child, born homeless and in danger, may grow up to be wise and kind; that the stars, serene in their darkness have something to teach; that there are mysteries around us, among us, singing ethereal harmonies. New hope in ourselves rises then, too: that we will learn, one day, and in the nick of time, how to walk our paths with truth and justice, how to bring peace to life on this earth, how to sing for ourselves the angels’ songs of praise, wonder and joy.

Reading: Christmas Always Begins at Midnight by A Powell Davies

The darkness is vast truly, but across it there is a path of light - a path of moving light. 

It tells a story, a thousand stories gathered up now into the Christmas story. Of an empire that was disdainful and arrogant. Of the privileged and mighty who had sold their souls for the tinsel of a moment's pomp. Of priests and temples where God was a commodity and truth a joke grown stale. They did not see that the very ground beneath their feet was slipping; so much of it was moving, and so fast. It was like the turning of the earth unnoticed. They saw only what they looked for; things they could measure in the scales of power, and with the reckoning of gain and loss. 

But there was something that humbler people could have told them; both of the old that was dying, and of the new that was newly born. For something had sung it at midnight. Something had shone in the darkest hour. A dream had been told and the hearts of women and men were kindling. Gentleness and brotherhood were waiting for the morning, and already in the nighttime were up and on their way. 

And so the empire vanished as the empires of today will also disappear. The thrones of the mighty crumbled and their palaces went up in smoke. The temples fell in ruins and the weeds grew up, covering the sepulchres of apostate priests. While the song swelled into a heavenly chorus, and again and again the darkness shone; and the dream of Jesus won the hearts of women and men.

Where Do We Go From Here? A Response

Where do we go from here? We go outside our comfort zone. We go to new places. We go to our best nature. We go high. We go deep. We go to our core values. And, from there we can stand united to continue to form a more perfect union. 

Rob Breymaier shared a reflection that answers the question of my last post: "Where do we go from here?" Rob is the executive director of the Oak Park Regional Housing Center, a member of my faith community, and a dear friend. I am grateful for his perspective. 


At heart, I'm an optimist -- a believer in the project of America. I am not ignorant of the crimes and inhumanities that have accompanied our founding and history. But, I do believe that we are forming a more perfect union. I understand that it happens in fits and starts. That there is progress and regression. That we have a constant tension of momentum to be more egalitarian, just, and inclusive at odds with inertia to maintain a status quo of inequality, oppression, and closely held power. Overall, I agree with President Obama's sentiment that America today is truer to its ideals than ever before. We should take pride in that while questioning our history and the pace of our progress.

My greatest fear is for America itself. I promise this is not hyperbole. My fear is based in the fact that Donald Trump was willing to leverage the worst instincts of humanity to get elected. Trump stoked the flames of racism, misogyny, Islamophobia, xenophobia, and anti-semitism to gain votes for the presidency. He also threw in ridicule of persons with disabilities for good measure. And, he succeeded.

Because of his lifelong amorality and rudderlessness, no one felt comfortable saying for certain if this message was heartfelt or cynical. In fact, the campaign manipulated the media through that uncertainty.  While the message of bigotry was undeniable, surrogates portrayed it as cynical and therefore not as bad as if it were genuine. Meanwhile, the candidate himself would wink and nod to the white supremacists and other hatemongers he mobilized into political action. It was rare to hear objections that the message was antithetical to American values regardless. Even in cynicism this hateful strategy is destructive to our nation. The incredulity allowed Trump to play against pure evil and instead seem to be merely playing with the devil.

Never mind the ambiguity though. The transition period has clarified for us the true nature of the message. It was heartfelt. Trump is a hateful bigot and he intends to govern as a hateful bigot. There were clues we should not have avoided or rationalized. His choice of Mike Pence as vice president. His refusal to distance himself from white nationalists. His refusal to back down on a Muslim registry. His advertising that relied on sexist and anti-semitic imagery. That imagery of the campaign and the "calculated" choices he made are the framework for the ideology of the transition. There is no reason to suspect they won't be the foundation of his administration.

Trump has proposed a white supremacist for Attorney General. He named a white supremacist/anti-semite/misogynist as his chief strategist. He has made an Islamophobe/xenophobe his national security adviser. A segregationist (of both the race and class varieties) is on his short list of possible HUD secretaries. Given the available information, the logical conclusion is that Trump intends to serve as a white supremacist in the Presidency.

I am aware that this is a lot easier for me to say as a person who can check every box of privilege. I don't often need to swallow my pride. I am not faced with regular indignities. I haven't been forced to comply with systems and norms that are different than my own norms. Trump voters aren't likely to blame me for their problems or greet me with hatred.

Our immediate concern is to inform and interact with the Americans who voted for him so that they will not vote for him again. Our primary effort must be to expose him for the fraud he presents and the threat he poses. Because he is a threat to every American and to America itself.

The question remains, How do we engage with those who voted for Trump? I believe that many of them voted in the hopes that he would save their jobs and their towns. That he would save their way of life. That allowed them to accept a message that scapegoated, demonized, and targeted people of color, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, and women. Many of us are so disgusted by their ability to ignore his hatred that it makes it difficult to forgive them for their vote. But, our nation's future depends on our ability to confront Trump and his bigotry through the our fellow citizens. We must swallow our pride and begin conversation with them.

That doesn't mean we should allow people a pass on hatred. We must challenge bigotry when we confront it. We must condemn those who are truly hateful. But, we must also begin by reaching out to those nearest to us and learning about their concerns and fears. It will be through these intimate moments that we can begin to find bonds of common concern as well as common aspirations.

I am aware that this is a lot easier for me to say as a person who can check every box of privilege. I don't often need to swallow my pride. I am not faced with regular indignities. I haven't been forced to comply with systems and norms that are different than my own norms. Trump voters aren't likely to blame me for their problems or greet me with hatred.

Perhaps the burden I am referring to here falls primarily on people like me. People who can hopefully relate in some way to the Trump voter and begin a dialogue. I think as long as those like me check our privilege to be sure we are acting in service to social justice this could be a positive step.

I am willing to believe that some Trump voters did vote in hopes of economic change. That they felt it necessary to choose someone outside of the Washington political class.

I can imagine a perspective that sees the world moving too quickly and a feeling of being left behind. I grew up with people who I know are in situations where they don't know how they will take part in the America of the future. Who believe that the jobs they are qualified for are disappearing and that their future looks bleak. Yes, these people are almost exclusively white, almost exclusively middle class. These old friends have parents who worked for auto companies and other heavy manufacturers where they made good wages. Their parents were the last people to have jobs in a lot of those factories. My friends and I went to college or worked an apprenticeship. For some of us, it worked out. And, as it worked out most of us, especially the college educated, left for America's metropolises where opportunity is now concentrated. But, the jobs many of us prepared for aren't as plentiful anymore. Especially for those who stayed in place. The unions are diminished. Our degrees are less valuable as elite jobs require post-graduate work. People accept less for the same work. They don't seem to be able to save enough to get ahead. They wonder how they'll ever achieve their parents' standard of living. In the end, they find the phrase "Make America Great Again" to be a signal of hope.

Ironically, these people have a lot in common with the people I've gotten to know in the past 20 years. They feel targeted by "Make America Great Again." Yes, they are largely people of color and from other marginalized groups who have the exact same fears and concerns as my childhood friends. My friends from today see different causes and blame different forces. They see a continuous blockade to most of the opportunity in America that is getting worse. Few of them had parents making incomes as large as the elders of my childhood friends. But, they recall a time when their communities were more vibrant. They can remember local stores and safer streets. They miss the togetherness of their old blocks and neighborhoods. They wonder if that will ever be their reality again. Or, if they'll be kicked out as soon as their neighborhood becomes even modestly more livable.

It's nothing new that these two groups are being played against each other. This is a classic American tactic most notable in the antebellum and Jim Crow South. But, it is also a common tactic of the segregated cities in the Midwest and Northeast of the 20th century. An important part of our work is to inspire solidarity between these groups. It's something that should occur naturally. Yet, it continues to remain unfulfilled because of our social divisions, especially our racial division.

But now, we have crossed beyond a normal threshold. The election of Trump is not normal. This is not an ordinary time. At this moment in American history, we must find a way to succeed where generations before us failed.

Our task before us is critical. We cannot be passive in this crisis. We have to be willing to work hard and be uncomfortable. It's going to be hard to challenge our white friends and explain to them the threat Trump poses, first to our friends of color and eventually to all of us. It will be hard to explain to our friends of color that we aren't minimizing hatred when we try to understand the motivations of our white friends and connect them to the concerns we all share. We, who can navigate multiple settings, must move between and among them to find the connecting points that will bring us together.

Let's begin by asking one another about our hopes and fears. At first, let's listen more than we talk. Let's find ways to challenge others while allowing them to challenge us. Let's confront unfairness while allowing people to save face. Them, let's start to connect people. Let's demonstrate our commonalities. Let's explain our different realities. Let's build empathy and understanding. Let's breakdown stereotypes and uplift truth.

It's nothing new that these two groups are being played against each other. This is a classic American tactic most notable in the antebellum and Jim Crow South. But, it is also a common tactic of the segregated cities in the Midwest and Northeast of the 20th century. An important part of our work is to inspire solidarity between these groups. It's something that should occur naturally. Yet, it continues to remain unfulfilled because of our social divisions, especially our racial division.

But now, we have crossed beyond a normal threshold. The election of Trump is not normal. This is not an ordinary time. At this moment in American history, we must find a way to succeed where generations before us failed.

Our task before us is critical. We cannot be passive in this crisis. We have to be willing to work hard and be uncomfortable. It's going to be hard to challenge our white friends and explain to them the threat Trump poses, first to our friends of color and eventually to all of us. It will be hard to explain to our friends of color that we aren't minimizing hatred when we try to understand the motivations of our white friends and connect them to the concerns we all share. We, who can navigate multiple settings, must move between and among them to find the connecting points that will bring us together.

Let's begin by asking one another about our hopes and fears. At first, let's listen more than we talk. Let's find ways to challenge others while allowing them to challenge us. Let's confront unfairness while allowing people to save face. Them, let's start to connect people. Let's demonstrate our commonalities. Let's explain our different realities. Let's build empathy and understanding. Let's breakdown stereotypes and uplift truth.

We will each have to find methods to accomplish this work that work for our constellation of circles. But, we can learn from one another along the way. In other words, let's talk to each other as well. We can gain insight and strength from our unity. Most importantly, I hope it will allow us to hasten the change we want to create.

Where do we go from here? We go outside our comfort zone. We go to new places. We go to our best nature. We go high. We go deep. We go to our core values. And, from there we can stand united to continue to form a more perfect union. 

Where Do We Go From Here?

"Where Do We Go From Here" is the title of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s final book. In it he writes

When our days become dreary with low hovering clouds of despair, 

and when our nights become darker than a thousand midnights, 

let us remember that there is a creative force in this universe, 

working to pull down the gigantic mountains of evil, 

a power that is able to make a way out of no way 

and transform dark yesterdays into bright tomorrows. 

Let us realize the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.

This week I've begun reflecting on gratitude. When going through a challenging time, it is always good to reflect on the question, "What blessings do I have here and now?" What people are in your life? What beauty is in your midst? What do you cherish?

In this time of uncertainty, many of us continue to make sense of the election. However you may be feeling, I encourage you to worship with your faith community. If you are in the Oak Park area, my congregation, Unity Temple Unitarian Universalist, currently worships at United Lutheran at 11am (at Ridgeland and Greenfield in Oak Park). We will have a worship for all ages that includes the children's choir. 

 

If you are local and want to join in a unique gathering that affirms diversity, hospitality, and practicing compassion among those who are most vulnerable, come to the Community of Congregations Thanksgiving service, the annual interfaith or, more accurately, multi-faith celebration of the blessings we share as fellow Americans. We will gather at Oak Park Temple (1235 N Harlem Avenue in Oak Park) at 7pm Sunday November 20. The theme is "Gratitude and Giving Thanks." 

Clergy and faith leaders from multiple traditions will lead the service. Choirs from at least eight congregations have been rehearsing to provide the music. Xavier McElrath-Bey will preach. He is the Senior Advisor and National Advocate with The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth. Mr. McElrath-Bey has a heart-wrenching story of growing up in prison and now dedicates his life to supporting vulnerable youth. He is a compelling speaker and recently spoke at the White House. A free will offering will be split between The Campaign for the Fair Sentencing of Youth and our local Holiday Food and Gift Basket program that supplies households in our community with direct support during the holidays. 

 

This week, I shared the below readings with my congregation.

Warmly, Alan

 

Here are some readings to reflect on:

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The crucial problem of Judaism was to exist as an isolated, autonomous, cultural, religious, and political unit in the midst of the hostile Hellenic world. ... In the midst of this psychological climate Jesus began his teaching and ministry. His words were directed to the House of Israel, a minority within the Greco-Roman world, smarting under the loss of status, freedom, and autonomy, haunted by the dream of the restoration of a lost glory and a former greatness. [Jesus'] message focused on the urgency of a radical change in the inner attitude of the people. He recognized fully that out of the heart are the issues of life and that no external force, however great and overwhelming, can at long last destroy a people if it doesn't win the victory of the spirit against them. "To revile because one has been reviled-this is the real evil because it is the evil of the soul itself." Jesus saw this with almighty clarity. Again and again he came back to the inner life of the individual. With increasing insight and startling accuracy he placed his finger on the "inward center" as the crucial arena where the issues would determine the destiny of his people. ... He recognized with authentic realism that anyone who permits another to determine the quality of one's inner life gives into the hands of the other the keys to one's destiny. ... The basic fact is that Christianity as it was born in the mind of this Jewish teacher and thinker appears as a path of survival for the oppressed. That it became, through the intervening years, a religion of the powerful and the dominant, used sometimes as an instrument of oppression, must not tempt us into believing that it was thus in the mind and life of Jesus. "In him was life; and the life was the light of humanity." Wherever his spirit appears, the oppressed gather fresh courage; for he announced the good news that fear, hypocrisy, and hatred, the three hounds of hell that track the trail of the disinherited, need have no dominion over them.
- from Jesus and the Disinherited by Howard Thurman (Howard Thurman was arguably the most significant African American theologian in the 20th century. He mentored Martin Luther King and others active in the civil rights movement. This reading comes from the work that helped me understand Christianity through the lens of those who have known great suffering.)

Dietrich Bonhoeffer was an evangelical minister who resisted the German Nazis and was arrested in April of 1943. In June of 1944, a year before he was executed, he wrote the following:
Who am I? They often tell me I would step from my prison cell poised,

cheerful and sturdy, like a nobleman from his country estate.

Who am I? They often tell me I would speak with my guards freely,

pleasantly, and firmly, as if I had it to command.

Who am I? I have also been told that I suffer the days of misfortune with serenity,

smiles and pride, as someone accustomed to victory. 

Am I really what others say about me? 

Or am I only what I know of myself? 

Restless, yearning and sick, like a bird in its cage,

struggling for the breath of life,

as though someone were choking my throat;

hungering for colors, flowers, for the songs of birds,

thirsting for kind words and human closeness,

shaking with anger at capricious tyranny and the pettiest slurs,

bedeviled by anxiety, awaiting great events that might never occur,

fearfully powerless and worried for friends far away,

weary and empty in prayer, in thinking and doing,

weak, and ready to take leave of it all.

Who am I? This man or that other?

Am I then this man today and tomorrow another?

Am I both all at once? An imposter to others,

but to me little more than a whining, despicable weakling?

Does what is in me compare to a vanquished army,

that flees in disorder before a battle already won?

Who am I? They mock me these lonely questions of mine.

Whoever I am, you know, O God. You know I am yours.

- from Letters and Papers from Prison by Dietrich Bonhoeffer 

A Message to My Congregation about the Election

Dear Members and Friends,

Yesterday citizens throughout our nation elected those who will lead our nation, and the only thing that could have been predicted was that there would be a broad range of emotions on this day. 

If you are struggling with the election results, I urge you to reach out. Get together with people who matter to you. Call or FaceTime or Skype those who are dear to you. Have real conversations. Laugh. Cry. Don't remain isolated. Be reminded that your community is still here-you are not alone. Also, I encourage you to take time away from all forms of media. Breathe. Connect with what is life-giving here and now. Notice the kindness of strangers. 

If you are in need of connecting with others, I invite you to

• This evening, join me at our current meeting space at United Lutheran Church at 6:30pm for an hour of reflection and sharing. You are welcome to stay and listen to the choir rehearsal following or join me for smaller prayerful reflection.
• Come tomorrow (Thursday) at 7pm for a second gathering for reflection and sharing. 
• On Saturday from 10 am - 2 pm, join me and Marsha Borders at the long-planned Chicago Area UU Council's workshop "Sustenance for the Work of our Hands" at Countryside UU Church (1025 N Smith St in Palatine). If you wish to come, please register at  uuchicagoarea.org. 
• Also this Saturday 8:30am-noon, join Rev. Colleen Vahey and several other members at the Community Renewal Society"s Annual Membership Assembly at St Agatha's Church (3147 W Douglas in Chicago)
• Join us in worship on Sundays - this Sunday I will be in the pulpit, Rev. Emily Gage will provide the story and in lieu of a reading, board member Rob Bellmar will share our new mission and goals.
• Come to Mindful Meditation on Tuesdays facilitated by Terry Kinsey

This month, given that our theme is STORY, is a time to share stories of resilience. It is also a time to open our hearts to hear the stories of those who have a different perspective than our own. It is a time to cultivate empathy and build relationships. 

This is a time to practice mindfulness, especially when fear threatens to consume. During this campaign, we have witnessed a great deal of xenophobia, misogyny, homophobia and racial bigotry. 

It is essential to remember that we are not alone-and we are not powerless, especially when connected with others. Each of us can contribute to creating the kind of world that we want to see. We can respond to pain and suffering with compassion. And we have plenty of learning opportunities and teaching opportunities if we take the time to discern them.

Here at Unity Temple, we will continue to call for empathy, to affirm the worth and dignity of every individual, to seek equity, compassion, and justice in human relations, and to contribute to building the beloved community in our midst and beyond our walls. 

Last night and this morning, as I walked and reflected on the present moment, I became aware of the tremendous love that we have in our congregation and the deep love I have for you - this community.  I am thankful to serve you, in both good times and bad. This is a traumatic time for so many in our community. Join us this evening if you want a place to go. Come worship on Sunday. Walk with us and others committed to the values we hold dear.

Love with Courage,

Rev. Alan Taylor

   

Readings for your reflection - for our Wednesday Reflections:  

  

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You do not need to know precisely what is happening or exactly where it is all going. What you need is to recognize the possibilities and the challenges offered by the present moment and to embrace them with courage, faith and hope.

- Thomas Merton

 

 

It is a cry from the lives of people battered

By thoughless words and brutal deeds;

It comes from the lips of those who speak them,

And the lives of those who do them.

Who of us can look inside another and know what is there

Of hope and hurt, or promise and pain?

Who can know from what far places each has come

Or to what far places each may hope to go?

Our lives are like fragile eggs.

They crack and the sbustance escapes.

Handle with care!

Handle with exceedingly tender care

For there are human beings within,

Human beings as vulnerable as we are,

Who feel as we feel,

Who hurt as we hurt.

Life is to transient to be cruel with one another;

It is too short for thoughtlessness,

Too brief for hurting.

Life is long enough for caring,

It is lasting enough for sharing,

Precious enough for love.

Be gentle with one another.
- "Gentleness in Living" by Richard S Gilbert 

Division Is a Choice. So is Overcoming it.

A couple readings that bring me solace at this time of deep division. The first is from my colleague Rev. Lynn Unger. The second is from Robert F Kennedy.

Mathematics

There is no algebra for death.

No life lost cancels out another.

The idea that there is some other

side to the equation is a lie

perpetrated by centuries of war and revenge.

There is no other side. You cannot subtract

and equalize the equation.

There is an addition of loss,

grief upon grief upon grief.

There is a multiplication of loss,

ripples of sorrow expanding

through families, friends, communities, nations.

Division is a choice.

Division is a choice.

Lynn Ungar 7-8-16

I have some very sad news for all of you, and I think sad news for all of our fellow citizens, and people who love peace all over the world, and that is that Martin Luther King was shot and was killed tonight in Memphis, Tennessee.

Martin Luther King dedicated his life to love and to justice between fellow human beings. He died in the cause of that effort. In this difficult day, in this difficult time for the United States, it's perhaps well to ask what kind of a nation we are and what direction we want to move in.

For those of you who are black - considering the evidence evidently is that there were white people who were responsible - you can be filled with bitterness, and with hatred, and a desire for revenge.

We can move in that direction as a country, in greater polarization - black people amongst blacks, and white amongst whites, filled with hatred toward one another. Or we can make an effort, as Martin Luther King did, to understand and to comprehend, and replace that violence, that stain of bloodshed that has spread across our land, with an effort to understand, compassion and love.

For those of you who are black and are tempted to be filled with hatred and mistrust of the injustice of such an act, against all white people, I would only say that I can also feel in my own heart the same kind of feeling. I had a member of my family killed, but he was killed by a white man.

But we have to make an effort in the United States, we have to make an effort to understand, to get beyond these rather difficult times.

My favorite poet was Aeschylus. He once wrote: "Even in our sleep, pain which cannot forget falls drop by drop upon the heart, until, in our own despair, against our will, comes wisdom through the awful grace of God."

What we need in the United States is not division; what we need in the United States is not hatred; what we need in the United States is not violence and lawlessness, but is love and wisdom, and compassion toward one another, and a feeling of justice toward those who still suffer within our country, whether they be white or whether they be black.

So I ask you tonight to return home, to say a prayer for the family of Martin Luther King, yeah that's true, but more importantly to say a prayer for our own country, which all of us love - a prayer for understanding and that compassion of which I spoke. We can do well in this country. We will have difficult times. We've had difficult times in the past. And we will have difficult times in the future. It is not the end of violence; it is not the end of lawlessness; and it's not the end of disorder.

But the vast majority of white people and the vast majority of black people in this country want to live together, want to improve the quality of our life, and want justice for all human beings that abide in our land.

Let us dedicate ourselves to what the Greeks wrote so many years ago: to tame the savageness of man and make gentle the life of this world.

Let us dedicate ourselves to that, and say a prayer for our country and for our people.

-RFK April 4, 1968

Mourning All Victims and Praying for Healing

The past week, I was with my family in a campsite, away from all electronic media. When I returned to civilization, I learned of two more black men needlessly killed by police officers and, at a Black Live Matter rally in Dallas, five police officers were shot and killed by a black sniper.

I am heartbroken and saddened by both the continued brutality and escalation in violence.

I mourn the loss of all these lives and I grieve for their families. The heinous intentionality of the police killings hits at a visceral level just as the killing of unarmed individuals. If you feel helpless, I encourage you to gather with others who share similar commitments.  If you are in Chicago, I encourage you to participate tomorrow in the interfaith and interracial Prayer for Peace. It is hosted by one of the great churches on the westside of Chicago that is a leader in the African American community. It is the same church that hosted the Call to Unity thirteen months ago following the Charleston massacre.

Now is a time to engage with others, opening to relationship cross religions and cross races. This is what is needed if our nation is to heal.

Here is the information:

A Time for Lamentation and Pride

I've been struggling with words. Yet, in response to the heinous Orlando shooting, we must not be silent. 

I echo the call to lament and the call for pride by Cameron Trimble of the Center for Progressive Renewal:

Today we pause to lament.

We lament that our nation has experienced another mass shooting without a single piece of legislation passed since the last mass shooting to even attempt to prevent this one. 

We lament the tragic loss of 49 lives that dared to display joy in what they deemed as safe space.

We lament that LGBTQ pride month has been interrupted by heinous homophobic mass murder. 

We lament that islamophobic slurs from a presidential candidate have interrupted the blessed season of Ramadan.

Today we pause to lament. More than just a cathartic display of grief or sorrow, lamentation, according to Catholic nun an noted author Elizabeth A. Johnson, is "dangerously remembering the dead in solidarity with their suffering and hope of future blessing...[which] has the capacity to nurture ongoing resistance to the victimization of others." Pride may very well be the most powerful act of resistance that exists of those whose lives are constantly assaulted by bigotry and hatred. If pride as resistance can diminish future victimization of anyone, then by all means let us soon stand and march with pride again.

I echo her sentiment: We believe we are stronger together than alone. We believe a collective effort to heal the world is more likely to produce solutions to the world's most complex and troubling problems. We believe the human spirit can be healed, the capacity for abundant life does exist, the common good is attainable and that we all have inherent worth and dignity. Today we grieve the loss of 49 innocent lives who lived that reality by their own acts of joyous resistance to homophobia. 

If we are ever going to change the world, we are going to have to do it together -- every single unique, beautiful one of us. And it starts by embracing our whole selves for everything God created us to be and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

Yes indeed: We are in this together.

When we become the gift we give to others

“A blessing spirituality is a relating spirituality. One does not bless without investing something of oneself into the receiver of one’s blessing. And one does not receive blessing oblivious of its gracious giver.”   

  -- Matthew Fox

I knew something was wrong when my phone rang at 5:30 a.m. and I saw that it was my mother calling from California: “Your father had a stroke,” she said. “It’s affecting the right side of his body; he cannot walk and he’s having a hard time finding the right words as he speaks.” When I asked whether I should come out, I heard his voice in the background: “No!” That was a good sign. So, I expressed my love and concern for them, then went through my day in a haze. Not only did I have a very busy day planned, but Bakersfield, CA is difficult to get to from Chicago. That evening was the beginning of my congregation’s Board Retreat, and I had a long planned outing with my daughter that afternoon. 

That night, my mother called to say that my father had a second stroke, and was further disoriented. As she shared the news, I realized that I’ve never heard my mother sound so scared or so helpless. I hung up the phone, emotionally paralyzed, uncertain what to do. “What’s it going to take, Alan?” my wife asked. “What’s it going to take for you to go and provide support to your parents?” She paused, and then in response to my silence, she said: “If it was me, I’d have gotten on a plane after the first phone call.” 

It was only then, in that moment, that my thoughts became clear and I knew what I had to do. I swung into action, bought a plane ticket, and was at my father’s side the next afternoon. In the month of May, our congregation has been exploring what it means to take a path of blessing.  When we reflect on the meaning of blessing, we often refer to a prayer asking for God's favor and protection and we frequently speak of the blessings received, and enjoyed. A crucial part of our spiritual life is to cultivate gratitude and bring our awareness to how we are blessed. 

But there’s another side to blessing, which I like to think of as making space in our hearts for remembering what is truly important for us. And it goes beyond even that, it means listening carefully and finding in ourselves the blessings we can share: to give of ourselves, particularly our attention, our compassion and our support. Often these gifts come wrapped in a simple passing comment or gesture of kindness.

Sometimes what we need is simply to take pause, to find stillness and hold the stillness. Sometimes we can’t see what we need to see until someone who loves us puts a hand on our brow to reteach us to recognize our hidden wholeness. 

When my mother called with news of my father’s illness, I needed a firm nudge, a kick in the pants. I experienced my wife’s words as the voice of life’s eternal spirit, that still, small voice we aren’t always able to hear because we are too distracted: whether too busy, too focused on our work and family, or too caught up in our own story. 

I was with a Pentecostal colleague recently. As we parted, she didn’t say what I typically do: “Have a good day.”  Instead she said: “Have a blessed day.” It was a simple farewell, a charge to notice the blessings in my life and, in turn, to be a blessing to the world. 

Matthew Fox, the author of Original Blessing, a spiritual classic that suggests seeing our lives shaped by Original Blessing rather than Original Sin, says: “Blessing involves relationship. One does not bless without investing something of oneself into the receiver of one’s blessing. And one does not receive blessing oblivious of its gracious giver.”

It didn’t matter there was an especially long security line at the airport; I was clear and comfortable in my mission. When I arrived at the hospital ICU, I witnessed my father in a very tender space. I was at his side for the next 24 hours, and then there to transition him to home. Thanks to good care and modern medicine, my father has regained much of his capacity. He can even dress and feed himself now. And, I have finally come to understand what people have said to me for years: “As our parents become weaker, we are called to become stronger.”

To use a phrase from John O’Donohue, author of To Bless the Space Between Us, “A blessing spirituality is a relating spirituality. It blesses the space between us. It acknowledges the kinship we all share.” When we make space for blessing, we can respond to whatever life brings. We can celebrate our joys and the people we hold dear. And we can, when life obliges, attend to the most painful realities, even illness or loss. 

What now for us in Oak Park as violence escalates among our neighbors?

Rev. Ira Acree of Greater St John's Bible Church in the Austin neighborhood, was quoted on the front page of the NY Times today with the important story that is so difficult of the wider region to acknowledge. It is here.

As I listen to our neighbors to the east of Austin Boulevard, I hear four primary concerns: the lack of economic opportunity due to a lack of economic investment, profoundly poor education, violence, and police misconduct. They are of course inter-related. But the escalating violence is a health issue and a moral issue—that so many young people and families are caught in the middle. 

The Saturday before Palm Sunday, Rev. Acree officiated at three funerals, two of them for a grandson and a grand-niece of two different parishioners. These were young people at the wrong places at the wrong times. The violence is gang-related but many of the victims want nothing to do with them, including the 13 year old recently shot who had pleaded in a video to reduce gun violence. You may have heard about the four youth shot and wounded at Washington and Waller—just a few blocks from us. A few of us joined church pastors and laypeople in that immediate area for a prayer vigil.

It is scary to reflect on what we can do as pastors, deeply concerned individuals or a wider community. As I get to know more people of faith in the Austin neighborhood, I’m struggling with how I for many years ignored this community and how to invite others to begin a relationship. It’s a conversation I hope will grow. Despite that it is overwhelming. Maybe because it is overwhelming. 

I want to lift up Rev. Acree for being a voice in our neighboring community of Austin that has both a footprint and a population larger than Oak Park—where a whole community is often neglected. Yet they are our direct neighbors! 

We happen to live in a location where God calls us to pay attention, engage in some way, grow, and speak the truth in love. And sometimes act.

I’m hopeful the Community of Congregations that draws from Oak Park and environs will mature to a point of truly engaging congregations in the Austin community—and we all will be better for it. This is what this coalition of churches has prioritized over the past two years and I’ve agreed to come on the board and lead it further in this direction. I’m hopeful the Community of Congregations and the Leaders Network which Rev. Acree serves as Co-Commissioner will find meaningful ways to partner. There likely will be other avenues to engage churches in Austin as well. 

I’m sitting in bed with a bad sinus infection, and feel the urge to write all this... and hoping you who are local will join those of us getting involved with the Community of Congregations to begin this nascent work. We’ve got to start somewhere. And conversations are happening and hopefully will multiply. 

May this season of Spring bring flowering to all efforts to engage the Austin neighborhood and the wider West Side. 

With Love with Courage,

Alan