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I grew up in Minneapolis and I remember the winters most of all - and not because winter was so dominate there but because they were so much fun. We lived in South Minneapolis, about a fifteen or twenty minute walk from Lake Hiawatha and a bit longer from Minnehaha Falls - my personal favorite name - if I still lived in Minnesota and had a dog, I would name it Minnehaha.
We skated nearly every day at the park near our house - ice skated, that is. The recreation department flooded the football field and built two hockey rinks in addition to a warming house. In that was a huge old wood-burning stove where we would go when we could no longer feel our toes and warm then until they stung.
My Mom took care of our clothes and equipment- of which there were many in the winter. A trip to the store was fun for us, work for her - we had just one car and my Dad drove that to St. Paul to his office every day. My Mom took care of us and took care of the house. She was very good at her work and our family is testament to that. I am lucky to have had such a wise woman as a mother and from her I learned a lot.
We went to church every week; our friends were there and it was the center of our community. It was there that I learned about adults and what they were like. Though mostly I learned from my Dad and my Mom.
As many of you know, she underwent emergency triple by-pass surgery about ten days ago. She is nearly 87 years old. She is doing very well - she is looking forward to getting out of the hospital and back to her apartment - she does not like to be cared for if she can care for herself. She wants to go back to church, to cook her own oatmeal and open her own mail. She has felt blessed her entire life and has never acted as if she were a victim. She is perhaps the most independent person I know.
She was not sure about whether to have the surgery. She prayed about it; she prayed to my Dad and she asked him whether it was time for her to die and join him - there is nothing more my Mom would like than to be with my Dad again - but he said he didn't know. And so she decided it was not her time and that God still had work for her to do.
Her famous sayings in our family were: the most important thing is to be kind and if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all. I don't always live up to those rules - she holds by them remarkably well - and feel guilty when I don't. It is a healthy guilt I feel.
They would be good lessons here and we would all do well to learn from my mother.
This has not been a easy year for me and for many of us. It should be enough that we deal with the regular and obvious tragedies of our lives. In the past ten days I have had to respond to the critical illness of my mother and the possibility of her death; there has been the awful news that Henry Ticknor suffers from serious heart disease; a long time and very good friend - one of the nicest persons I know - lost his father and we did a memorial service this past Friday; yesterday, we once more remembered Bill Tinker as we buried his ashes in the Memorial Grove; one of my other best friends - not from here -is facing significant emotional and financial struggles and I have been asked to help.
And I am by no means unique in what faces me - such events are multiplied throughout this community. There have been many sorrows in this congregation. People have lost parents and siblings this year; there has been illness and loss of jobs. Relationships have broken and souls have been hurt. Sorrow is apart of our life and we cannot escape it.
Why anyone would create more trouble and conflict to add to what life deals us is beyond me. This congregation is supposed to be a place of healing, not of wounding, of caring and not of condemning. We have not lived up to the expectations of my Mother - expectations we should all share.
This past year, I have been called arrogant, pompous, uncaring and insensitive, unwilling to meet with people in their needs, authoritarian and ignorant of our tradition; I have been accused of violating, intentionally, at least five of our seven principles. The Board has been accused of much of the same thing. And these have been the public claims - I have heard that much worse has been said privately. This needs to stop. This has been condemnation and not criticism and is harmful rather than helpful.
This is not how we should be together.
This is not an easy world - though for those of us in Fairfax County it is much easier than it is for just about anyone else around. There will always be death and pain and loss; there will always be estrangement and the loss of loyalty. Sorrow is a part of our lot in life. We cannot avoid suffering. But we can avoid causing it for others.
Last summer, we put up a new sign out on the street proclaiming our new name - the Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Fairfax - and, at the bottom, we added these words - a liberal religious community.
I want to invite all of us to sit down and begin a conversation about what kind of liberal religious community we want to be. What does that mean - to be a liberal religious community?
Let me suggest some ideas for us. I want to offer these to you as suggestions and invite you to begin talking about them over the summer, and then I would suggest that next year we sit down together and talk about what this means - to be a liberal religious community.
We can talk about the mission and covenant statement on the back of the order of service to see whether that remains adequate or needs changing. We can talk about the kind of building we want in order to become that liberal religious community - our Building committee will have some real plans by the Fall for us to discuss. We can do this in any number of ways - I just believe we must do it.
Last week in worship, Dave Anderson, Melanie Mattson and I tried to suggest a couple of things - first was that faith is like jazz - it is improvised but it is improvised of something. Faith is not just made up; it is rooted in a tradition and it takes discipline and practice to do it well. Just as Dave did not just sit down one day and begin to play as well as he does, we don't just come to faith and have it without the practice and learning. Secondly, we suggested that the religious life has three {at least] elements - we encounter the sacred, which can transform the self which should lead us to redeem the world.
Our tradition says this over and over, in one way or another: we encounter the sacred which can transform us and help us to redeem the world. I suggested last week that the early formulation of our faith as 'Love to God to and love to humankind' was a good one. It is a universal religious sentiment - it is one caught in the answer Jesus gave when asked what the great commandment was and he replied to `Love god with heart, soul and mind and our neighbor as our self.'
To love what is holy, ultimate, transcendent with heart, soul and mind. To love the truth and to love love itself - so might early Unitarian and Universalist affirmations be understood - and our neighbor as ourself. Our neighbor are those in need. What more -and what less - should be demanded of us? Love to God and love to humankind. I like that.
Let me suggest three things for us to think about focusing on. It is not enough just to want to be a community - we need to think concretely here. I want to invite you to think about them this summer and then we can sit down and talk together more this fall. This is by no means exhaustive or exclusive - these are three ideas we might consider. I offer these as the possibilities for us as a liberal religious community:
The first is that we will be a place of spiritual search and journey. UUCF will help its members, and the community, search for religious truth and meaning. I have encouraged several members to explore becoming trained spiritual directors; I expect that when the Mindfulness Center starts we will be offered a wonderful resource for that search.
This involves being at worship regularly and having attention to the quality of worship. Our music program is essential here - it is one of the glories of this congregation and I would suggest we invest more resources in music.
Secondly - we will be a place of service to the community. In a recent document, the Social Justice Council listed this as a primary goal, and I really applaud that. UUCF can be a place where people find an opportunity to be involved in local, social service projects. While education and advocacy matter, I hope we can think more about being social servants - in housing, feeding, tutoring, volunteering - using our hands to help this community.
Many of you have said to me that you come here seeking meaning in your lives. My experience is that we find meaning when we feel that we are useful -when we do something for others and for the world. So let us seek opportunities for us - as individuals and as a community - to be useful.
And, third, we will provide a place for families to thrive and grow. This is not to ignore the needs of singles, or the elderly, but to recognize that Fairfax County has a population that is composed of families and increasingly so. I would hope that to think of families as not isolated units but as a part of this community which might bring us all together. To invite those without families into families here, to recognize that families are a very varied group - traditional, same-sex, childless, single parent, multigenerational - this we might think about. How do we raise our children and what support do we give our children and their families in this difficult world?
These are ideas - no doubt there are many others - but ideas to think about, to talk about, perhaps to come to agreement about. I especially want to invite those who have been so critical this year to take part and to find those ways of being together which is most healthy.
My Mom has been an active member of a church for her entire adult life - that is almost 70 years of congregational living. She has seen it all - she has been in small congregations and large ones; she has been a leader and been a follower; she has stood up front and she has sat in the pews; she has liked ministers and been glad to see some leave; she has seen conflict and resolution happen over and over. She has seen the best in human behavior and the worst in human behavior in her churches. There have been times when she did not like going and times she questioned supporting the church.
But she has never stopped going and never stopped supporting. She has tithed - that is given 10% of her income - her whole life. My folks tithed during the depression; they tithed during the boom of the fifties; my Mom tithes now -even on a limited and fixed income. She could not understand how anyone could reduce their support of their community simply because they have some complaints - this would baffle her no end.
And she has done this because she has faith - faith that the church has the right mission - which is, I believe, exactly the same as ours - love to God and love to humankind. Her church uses some quite different words but at the heart, my mother believes, and lives, that our faith is about love - about love of what is holy in life and love of others. It is not about love of self.
She does not do it out of fear. She does not go to church and she does not support her church because she is afraid of hell. She goes because she believes she can become a better person. I hope that for once and for all we will stop using the excuse that UUs are less committed because we can't threaten members with hell, or that others give to their church out of fear of damnation. That is an insult to my Mother and to most Christians; indeed to most people of faith. It is simply not true.
My Mom goes to church to be transformed, to become a better person, to grow - as Channing said - in likeness to God - she goes because she needs forgiveness; she goes to learn and to serve. She believes that she will be a better person by going to church. She doesn't always like what is going on, but she believes she can learn even from that. She would agree with Carl Sandburg, who became a Unitarian late and life and said `the church is the last great hope of humankind.'
A recent study completed about what makes people happy came up with
some very clear items which contribute: they are, in order:
1. a belief in God
2. life- long or long term relationships
1. generosity to charitable groups
2. generosity of time in volunteering outside of work
It is no wonder my Mom is happy - even though there has been plenty of sorrow and tragedy in her life. She has learned the important lessons of life that the about items suggest: lessons of humility and gratitude and compassion.
She believes that there is something greater than her - for her it is her God - which she needs. She has learned that she cannot think her way through everything and that she needs faith. And she has learned that in spite of her imperfections, she is loved - she is loved by God, by her community, by her family. This has taught her humility.
She has learned gratitude - to give thanks to the powers that be that she is and can be. She is very grateful, now, to medicine and to her will to live a useful life. She is grateful for the love she has received from others; she is grateful for the incredible beauty of this creation; she is grateful for the opportunity to love and to learn.
And she has learned compassion. She has learned that in giving she receives. She has learned that being kind is the most important thing; she has learned that love will conquer fear; and that life is stronger than death.
She has learned this from her church and in her faith. And that is why she goes - to keep learning these lessons.
We can be that kind of congregation. A place where love rules, where our search for the truth leads to compassion; where humility is practiced and where gratitude can be expressed.
We can be that kind of congregation - where justice is joined with mercy, where kindness abounds.
We can be that kind of congregation - where children see the best in adults and learn to grow by the example we set.
We can be that kind of congregation.
We can be that kind of congregation - where love of what is sacred and love of humankind is everywhere and always expressed.
We can be that kind of congregation.