GIFTS OF THE SEASON, PART 1 OF 5: “Enjoying Holiday Gifts”

A Sermon by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, December 14, 2008

Welcome to the first of a series of 5 worship services to honor the holiday season. Next Sunday, we’ll hold a big, all-ages multi-holiday service with lots of carols and special music, that will be led by Worship Associate Reese Brewer and outgoing Religious Education Director Coleen Murphy. (I’ll be leading a similar service at North Shore UU across the lake as part of our shared ministry with them.) On Christmas Eve, the church will be lit with candles for our Christmas Open House from 7 to 8 pm, an open-table Christmas Communion service with special music that will be co-led by me and Jyaphia Christos-Rodgers, followed by more Open House Festivities after the service from 9-10 pm. If you come on Christmas Eve, please bring some kind of holiday goodie to share; we’ll provide the hot mulled cider.

The Sunday after Christmas, December 28, we will hold our second annual Jazz Funeral for the Old Year. We’ll have a brass band and a real casket to bury our cares and concerns from 2008 to clear the way for the New Year. Our holiday series will end on January 4th with a service on the Three Kings, with kingcake afterwards at coffeehour. There are many gifts of the holiday season – come enjoy them with your church family.

We begin our series on “The Gifts of the Season” with a service on learning to enjoy holiday gifts, despite all the challenges in our lives. As our Reading this morning suggests, Christmas may just be another day on the calendar, but most people are either unwilling or unable to see December 25th as just another day. If you have small children in your household or in your extended family, it would be almost impossible to convince them that there was no reason to make a big deal of the holiday. But even without children, it would take either a very determined person or a very depressed person to ignore all the holiday goings-on around us. (And only the grinchiest of Grinches could not have been touched by the joy and excitement caused by the snow during the holiday season this week.)

There are always good excuses for NOT celebrating. Yes, it’s true: it costs too much money, it takes a lot of time, and it’s a lot of trouble. And yes, in almost every year, there comes some kind of trouble or major problem that seems to call the holiday season into question. After 9/11, after Katrina, after the stock market meltdown – after any disaster, many people question whether holding a holiday is appropriate.

I’m a 5th-generation New Orleanian, so my answer is always Yes, it’s a good idea to celebrate the holiday (whatever the holiday is). For one thing, human beings, even we modern human beings, are seasonal creatures. We are affected in ways we don’t even understand by the pulls of time and tide, the changing angles of light, and the subtle shifts in the length of the day. As near as we can tell, human beings have always marked the change of seasons with special rituals and holidays. Maybe it’s not just OK to celebrate the season – maybe we need to do it.

Recent news reports about studies on the links between happiness, health, and social relationships point to another reason to celebrate the holidays, especially with family and friends. In brief, the study, by James H. Fowler and Nicholas A. Christakis, looked at a research cohort over 20 years, and came to the conclusion that being happy makes you healthier, and that happiness is catching. Of course, they did not phrase their finding in quite that way; as one academic reviewer put it,

A recent meta-analysis of longitudinal observational studies found that measures of happiness, cheerfulness, and related constructs were associated prospectively with reduced mortality, both in initially healthy people and in those with established illnesses.…

…Regardless of methodological caveats, the work by Fowler and Christakis is groundbreaking in positing the intriguing hypothesis that some psychosocial determinants of health could be transmitted through social connections.

In other, more normal words, hanging around with people who are happy makes you happier, and makes you healthier too, no matter your socioeconomic status, your environment, or your pre-existing conditions. Think of that – celebrating the holidays with people you love, people who are glad to be with you, people who enjoy the holiday season – can make you happier AND healthier.

This is not to say that in order to be happy and healthy during the holiday season you have to subject yourself to every holiday party that comes down the pike, endure endless loops of badly played carols, bake 20 dozen cookies, decorate your house inside and out with hand-made ornaments and decorations, or spend yourself into penury buying wildly expensive gifts. In order to truly enjoy the gifts of the holiday season, one must be a good and even strict editor of your holiday activities.

As Laura Morgan Connor recommends, the first thing you must do to have happy holidays is to only do those holiday events or activities that bring you joy. Eliminate or reduce all those things that are stressful or upsetting to you. Buy cookies or holiday goodies instead of killing yourself standing on your feet in the kitchen, making everything from scratch – who cares? They’ll be just as appreciated and as gratefully received. Have the store or the mall wrap the gifts. Never, ever, do holiday shopping on weekends; wait til Monday or Tuesday -- there will be far fewer people. Decide what’s the minimum holiday décor to set the scene for your Christmas, and call it a day. Draw a healthy boundary around yourself, as a gift from you to you, and you’ll be glad you did.

The second thing to ensure enjoyment of the holiday season is to maintain an “attitude of gratitude” – be thankful for what you have, for the beauty around you, for good things that happen to you and for the good people that cross your path. You don’t have to have a person or thing to thank, just wake up and go to bed grateful. Realize that things could be worse and be grateful that they’re not. I promise, you’ll always find things to be grateful for.

Third, get outside yourself and reach out to those who are not as fortunate as you. As Margaret Collier Graham wrote in a little Christmas book published in 1906, “There is always somebody to be made more cheerful and there is nearly always a way of doing it.” Drop coins in the cauldron by the Salvation Army bell-ringer. Bring a scarf or a coat or a sweater for the Mitten Tree that the Sunday School children are collecting. Contribute to the Minister’s Discretionary Fund, which provides help to parishioners in need and unfunded church programs. Babysit for a single parent friend, or parent-sit for a friend with an elderly parent. Give what you can, whether it’s money or time or skill – you’ll be amazed at how much better YOU feel.

Finally, savor the small joys of this time of year, those unexpected moments, which can give such unalloyed holiday pleasure. Many of these holiday delights are free or inexpensive. Go to the Ritz Hotel in the old Maison Blanche building and check out the life-size gingerbread house; it smells wonderful. Watch out for other people’s outdoor decorations and fire your inner aesthetics critic. Just enjoy the love, enthusiasm, and holiday spirit being exemplified. Walk through Celebration in the Oaks in City Park, or just drive over and look through the fence. Get over to Al Copeland’s house one last time to enjoy the extravagant display. When your favorite holiday song comes on the radio, turn it up and sing along. When somebody says, “Have a Christmas cookie,” forget about your diet -- just say thanks and enjoy the taste of at least one bite. Draw in deep breaths of the Fraser fir Christmas tree smell. Look at your gifts with appreciation before you open them, and open them all, even the flannel pajamas and the regifts, with a sense of appreciation.

We all need joy in our lives, and the holiday season offers us many opportunities. May we face the holidays knowing our limits, filled with gratitude and generosity, and a sense of appreciation. So might this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

"What President-Elect Obama Needs to Know -- & Maybe Us Too"

The Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, December 7, 2008

The week before Eric and I got married, my older sister made plans to take us out to dinner, since she was going to have to miss the wedding. The 3 of us met for a wonderful meal at a trendy restaurant in Old City Philadelphia, and after we placed our orders, my sister leaned across the table towards Eric, her face alight with interest and curiosity. “Mimi tells me you’re a Republican,” she began, “I can’t wait to talk to you, because I don’t think I’ve ever had an in-depth conversation with a Republican before.”

A recent book, The Big Sort: Why the Clustering of Like-Minded America Is Tearing Us Apart, posits that while in the past, voting patterns showed that people who voted differently lived right next to each other, modern-day elections prove something quite different – in general, blue people and red people tend to cluster together. Whole neighborhoods and precincts and even districts vote mainly the same way. The result, say authors Bill Bishop and Robert Cushing, is that many people, like my sister, don’t even know people who think and vote differently than they do.

During the election season just past, I noticed that on both sides, people made assumptions about folks whose opinions differed from their own. “They’re just bitter and afraid” – “They’re dupes” -- “They’re nuts” -- “They’re selfish” – “They want the government to do everything” – “They want to destroy the social contract” and even “They’re evil.” Lacking real engage-ment and relationship, both sides just made wild characterizations of the other. Naturally, this did not make for meaningful dialogue.

President-elect Obama comes to office with a pledge to make change and to unite people across differences. These are good things, and I wish him well with it. But bringing people together who are separated by philosophy or ideology isn’t easy – it doesn’t happen just because of good intentions. There has to be an honest attempt on all sides to see another’s point of view, striving to truly understand how someone who has come to different conclusions arrived at those conclusions.

Unitarian Universalist ministers are in a good position to try to give advice on this score. Perhaps alone among American clergy, or maybe MORE than any other American clergy, we must deal with people who have widely divergent points of view. A UU congregation can consist of com-mitted atheists (I was going to say “devout atheists” but thought better of it), thoughtful agnostics, syncretic liberal Christians, born-UUs, heritage Jews, pagans of various stripes, and hyphenates too numerous to list. In one week, or even one day, a UU minister can hear requests for more, and less, spirituality, and comments that sermons are too intellectual or not intellectual enough. UU ministers have to be good at dealing with and caring for people who are different from each other and different from the minister.

Unfortunately, in politics, this is not always the case, as Bishop and Cushing point out in their book. It seems that many politicians, like many people, tend to communicate with the folks who already agree with them, and summarily dismiss or devalue the ones who disagree. If President-elect Obama is to succeed in his stated goal of “reaching across the aisle,” he will need to go deeper in listening to and striving to understand and appreciate people of many different political stripes. He will have to understand, as my grandmother used to say, “There’s good and bad in everything and everybody.”

Thomas Sowell may not be the most quoted author in UU pulpits (indeed, this may be the first time he’s been quoted favorably in a liberal worship service!), but I found his book A Conflict of Visions (first written in 1987 then updated in 2007), not only well written and chockfull of meaty quotes, but also a good way of understanding political differences without resorting to name calling. His theory is that there are 2 main ways that people see human nature, the constrained view and the unconstrained view, and that these perspectives inform everything in a person’s life. While Sowell’s conflict of visions is a neat “theory of everything” for American political life, he is careful to state that the 2 conflicting visions are really the furthest ends of a continuum, and that there are no actual people who are 100% one or the other.

But even with that caveat, I found Sowell’s theory fascinating, and it inspired me to reflect on which vision most appealed to me. Which kind of vision-holder are you? Do you see human nature as improvable, or do you think human beings have been pretty much the same throughout history? Do you think it’s possible that human beings will do the right thing just because it is the right thing to do, or do you think that human nature will always need promptings or incentives in order to act altruistically, for the common good?

In general – and speaking generally about the conflicting visions is as difficult as speaking generally about Unitarian Universalists – those who hold the unconstrained vision, the opinion that humanity is “perfectible” tend to be political liberals, while those with the constrained view, who see human beings as inherently flawed, tend to be political conservatives. The unconstrained liberals aim for lofty goals, usually assuming that humanity’s better nature can be aroused. The constrained conservatives work toward acceptable trade-offs, usually assuming there will be unforeseen negative consequences of every well-intentioned decision.

While all of the above is theoretically true according to Sowell, it must be noted that it doesn’t always work out exactly like that in the real world. Sometimes, politicians calling themselves “liberal” or “conservative” will act according to the opposite vision, as when the Bush administration went into war in Iraq assuming happy outcomes and without adequate planning for negative contingencies – obvious drawbacks to the unconstrained vision. Former President Clinton angered many liberals when he enacted welfare reform, a clear product of the constrained vision.

Sowell points out that neither view is perfectly correct, that either vision taken to extremes would be disastrous. Someone who was unconstrained all the time would end up despairing and depressed, and someone who was constrained all the time would end up cynical and manipulative. Sowell, himself an avowed conservative of the constrained vision, stresses that both visions need each other for the fullest possible vision of the future. The world needs both idealists and realists. This, to me, is the most important thing I would want President-elect Obama to know: that neither political liberals or political conservatives are completely right or completely wrong, that neither the unconstrained or the constrained vision can work by itself, that what seems to be unreconcilable dichotomies are really 2 sides of the same coin, 2 ends of a long continuum.

If I were to join the children in sending a letter of advice to President-elect Obama, I would say, “Mr. President, Please remember that the people who agree with you don’t have all the answers. Please listen to the people who disagree with you, and consider their point of view. Remember that all decisions and all actions have consequences, some of them unforeseen, and that all “improvements” in public policy end up having at least a few negative outcomes. Please keep in mind that while we can always hope for improvement in human nature, we probably shouldn’t bet the country on it. And nothing’s wrong with a few incentives and rewards to get folks to act right.” And I would close the letter by quoting from the ubiquitous signs around town by the folk artist Dr. Bob: “Think that you might be wrong.” It’s way too dangerous to go around convinced you’re completely right, whether in politics or anywhere else.

Of course, this is good advice in UU church life and real life too. No one person and no one point of view is completely right. In order to get the fullest perspective, we need to listen to each other, and consider how we came to our conclusions. It’s a good idea for us, too, to think that we might be wrong, and to realize that we need each other even when we disagree.
I mentioned earlier that I thought a lot while reading A Conflict of Visions about whether I was of the constrained vision or unconstrained vision, and I realized that I had changed as I have gotten older. I used to be fully in the unconstrained camp – I thought, like the old Unitarian motto, it would be humanity “onward and upward forever.” As I’ve had more experience with life, I’ve moved more toward the constrained vision – poor human beings, I think sometimes, so flawed, so caught up in their “stuff,” pretty much the same now as during the Neolithic, only with better tools and toys. I guess you could say I have an eye in each vision. I would advise out new president to do the same.

When visions conflict, and strong emotions are aroused, let us not make “winning” our goal. Refusing to see another’s point of view makes such a “victory” meaningless. Let us be dedicated to our shared goals, and strive to honor the different paths that bring us together. May we be open to what we can learn from our diversity, and from those outside our particular congregation, group, and viewpoint. May we honor and celebrate our need for each other and our covenantal connection as we learn and grow together. AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

UPTOWN INTERFAITH THANKSGIVING SERVICE: “Giving Thanks in a Complex World”

A Sermon by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger,
at Holy Name of Jesus Roman Catholic Church
Tuesday evening, November 25, 2008

Texts: Psalm 137:1-6, Jeremiah 29:1-14, “Thanks” by W. S. Merwin

I am deeply honored by my interfaith colleagues for asking me to give the homily this evening. Unitarian Universalists are strongly committed to interfaith community work, and it is a gift for me to be home, and have the opportunity to work with such dedicated comrades in the sacred work of healing the world. As a former Roman Catholic, there is special resonance for me to be in the pulpit of Holy Name Church – where my graduation from Loyola Institute for Ministry was held, 16 years ago next month. So I come to this service in a spirit of gratitude.

Our Psalms reading relates of a time when, after an inglorious defeat in battle, a large portion of the Hebrew people was carried away by the victorious army of Nebuchadnezzar to exile in Babylon,where they were confronted with alien customs and traditions, as well as having to deal with the heartache of loss and bereavement, of being in exile. The people despaired of being able to keep their faith alive in that foreign place; they grieved all that they had lost. In the Psalms they cry out in a complex mix of mourning and anger, “How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?”

The answer they receive to that heartfelt cry was not one they expected or wanted. In the book of Jeremiah, we find the prophet left behind in the desolated and half-destroyed city of Jerusalem, receiving divine inspiration to send a letter to the exiles in faraway Babylon. The letter said, in part, “Seek the welfare of the place where you are.” The word used in the text that is usually translated as “welfare” is shalom, which also carries implications of peace in addition to health and wholeness. The exiles are being told: Seek the health and peace and wholeness of the place in which you are now; do not pine after that which is gone. Seek the welfare of the city where you are, for in its health and wholeness you will find your own.

Well, here we are, my brothers and sisters, gathered together in this sacred space, people of different faith traditions and backgrounds and life experiences who live together in the Crescent City, on this week of the national holiday of Thanksgiving, and we too find ourselves in a kind of exile. We too feel grief and pain and fear and rage; we too look back longingly to a place and time when we felt secure and safe and our city, however imperfect, was at least whole. We are caught in a time of economic upheaval, a time when many people who had previously thoght themselves safe, find themselves in danger of losing homes and/or jobs, losing retirement funds and/or college savings for children and grandchildren. And we think to ourselves, aloud or unspoken, “How can we give thanks in a time such as this – our nation at war, our economy in shambles, our beloved city still not rebuilt after 3 long years – what kind of Thanksgiving can this be?”

It is only natural that we should feel this way, current events being what they are, but it is a misreading of both sacred and secular history to succumb to this kind of despair. Although the exact circumstances we face may be unique to our place and time, our situation is not new. Even though it felt like complete disaster at the time, it was during the Babylonian exile that the leaders of the Hebrews brought together and codified their scrolls of law and history. The psalms of exile written during that time are some of the most powerful and moving pieces of spiritual literature ever written. And let us not forget that back in the devastated city of Jerusalem, the prophet Jeremiah bought a field as a sign of long-term hope and renewal. Almost makes you want to go out and buy a blighted property here, as a sign of our faith in long-term hope and renewal of beloved city.

Even the holiday of Thanksgiving, so important in the “civil religion” of our country, was not born in a time of peace and plenty. We forget that the near-mythical first thanksgiving occurred following the harvest of the Pilgrims’ second year on these shores. That first winter was a disaster, with failed crops, rampant disease, and the deaths of fully half their number. Families bereft of children; orphaned chiildren crying for lost parents; widows and widowers in grief; the entire company burdened by hard work without the love and companionship of those who had died –- and yet, and yet, that second autumn they gathered together with their Indian neighbors and helpers in a spirit of thanksgiving.

In 1863, through a declaration by President Abraham Lincoln, Thanksgiving became an official national holiday. By that time, already tens of thousands of men and boys had died at Gettysburg and the end of the Civil War was nowhere in sight. No one knew what the eventual outcome would be; a sense of despair and hopelessness permeated the riven nation. And yet, and yet, that terrible autumn, Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November as a day of national thanksgiving.

We have been through our own disaster here in the Crescent City, and for a time, we too lost fully half our population. Despite the 3 years that have passed, every one of us passes or lives with some awful sign of our on-going recovery and its snail’s pace forward. We mourn the losses of neighbors and neighborhoods; many religious communities, like mine, struggle with rebuilding with fewer and less affluent members than before. The crash of the economy offers us little prospect for immediate improvement.

We tend to think that people are grateful because they are happy, because their lives are going well. But surely if that were the only time human beings were grateful, there would be precious little gratitude expressed by precious few people throughout history. Perhaps it is more true that we are able to receive and appreciate the blessings of life, whatever our circumstances, because we know in our hearts it could be otherwise. We could have lost everything, even our own lives; we might not be here at all.

In City of Refuge, the book chosen for the “One Book, One New Orleans” campaign this fall, author Tom Piazza writes of that first difficult Thanksgiving after the Storm. Craig and Alice and their 2 children, a white middle-class family from Uptown whose home is relatively unharmed, have evacuated to suburban Chicago to stay with Alice’s elderly uncle and aunt.

Uncle Gus is a crusty old man who listens to conservative talk radio; several times in Katrina’s aftermath, he and Craig have come close to verbal conflict, but were always steered away by one of the women. Craig and Alice have found an apartment in the area, but have returned to Uncle Gus and Aunt Jean’s to share Thanksgiving dinner as an expression of their gratitude. Craig is feeling more than ambivalent. He thinks

…what right did he have to be grateful, when so many other people had lost everything? Blessings seemed so arbitrary, and if you didn’t deserve your blessing, how could you be grateful for it? Why had God been good to them and not to others? It didn’t make sense…

Then Uncle Gus speaks, remembering another Thanksgiving:

…I spent Thanksgiving of 19 and 52 in Korea… And, you know, so many of your friends die when you are in a situation like that, or get injured, disap-pear, and you wonder why you are still alive and they aren’t…

We had a chaplain there with us, named Father Bill Joseph. He gave a blessing over dinner… everybody was thinking about home and our fam-ilies, and thinking about our pals who would never see their families again, and wondering whether we would make it home.…

Anyway Bill Joseph said, like he was reading our minds, he said, ‘We don’t know why we are here, and others are not. It’s not just that we don’t know; we can’t know. People go away for reasons that make no sense, and we are left here. All we know is that’s how it works; we can’t know why. So the question for those of us who are left, is not why but how – how do you use your time you have left, which you don’t know how much it is. How do you want to live that time? Because that’s the only thing you have any control over.’

And I’ll tell you, that made so much of a difference to every man at those tables in that big hall. It was like he gave us back to ourselves, or…put us back where we needed to be. I don’t know how to say it better than that.”

There’s no need to say it any better than that. It is that very sense of thankfulness despite all outward appearances and despite all pain that enables us to go on and endure, through tragedy and loss. We have God’s scriptural promise to be with us, to restore “our fortunes and gather [us]… from all the places” we have been driven. That that restoration in New Orleans might take as long as the biblical 70 years is perhaps a given in our situation. And yet, and yet, we can say “thank you” for all that we have and all that we are.

In a poem of terrible beauty, W. S. Merwin takes up this thread of giving thanks in a complex world, a world that continually hurts and disappoints us, that manages to keep surprising us with its apparently inexhaustible inhumanity.

…back from a series of hospitals back from a mugging
after funerals we are saying thank you
after the news of the dead
whether or not we knew them we are saying thank you…
we are saying thank you and waving
dark though it is.

Dark though it is, though terrible choices are forced upon us, though we live in permanent exile from New Orleans as she used to be, though evil and pain seem rampant and even sometimes regnant, we still have the power to see and claim the good and the beautiful in each day – and to give thanks for it. And so we say together in this painful time in this complex world, “Thank you thank you thank you.”

Bread Communion

Sunday, November 23, 2008
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans

Pastoral Prayer and Reading

Meister Eckart wrote: “If the only prayer you say in your whole life is ‘thank you,’ that would suffice.”

Gathered around this table in a circle of love,
let us take time to offer our grateful thanks:

We give thanks this day for this shelter, this religious home,
this congregation of liberal faith,
for all that went into building it,
& all that goes into maintaining it.
We remember that not all people are welcomed
into such an inclusive & caring congregation
& we pledge to spread the good news of Unitarian Universalism for others.

We give thanks this day for the strength of our religious community
& the ways we care for each other when we are in need,
& remember those among us who have asked for our care:
--We give thanks for the many willing hands who pitch in when there is work to be done,
especially this Saturday for the unloading of the Christmas trees
for our church’s major fundraiser;
thanks to everyone who helped,
all those who helped organize,
and all those who’ve signed up to sell trees this season;
--Those among us recovering from recent surgeries and those dealing with chronic conditions or with mental health issues;
--Those in our church & in our city who have been laid off or RIFed from jobs;
--A member of this faith community has asked for our prayers & good thoughts, as he embarks on a protest at the School of the Americas in Georgia, putting his faith into action;
--Those in our church who cannot afford a big Thanksgiving dinner, & who need our love & care.
If you would like to be of help in any of these situations,
or if you know of someone who needs help, please contact me.

We give thanks this day for the loved ones here present,
& for those who are separated from us --
Those lost to us in death,
Those distant from us in miles,
Those parted from us in conflict.
May we strengthen our ties & keep our memories bright;
And may we find the strength & courage to mend our broken relationships.

We give thanks this day for this food spread before us,
For the earth, sun, rain, wind, & turn of the seasons
that helped it to grow,
And for the human work that brought it to this table.
We recall that not all enjoy this bounty
And pledge to work to end hunger & want for all people.

We give thanks for the peaceful outcome of the recent election,
& for the historic result of that election.
We remember that progress does not come without struggle &
That it is never the result of one generation’s work,
but each increment forward is based on what was achieved before.

On the day after the election, the UUA sent bouquets of yellow roses
To the surviving families of Viola Liuzza and James Reeb, Unitarians
Who were killed in the struggle for civil rights in 1965.
The car read simply: “In loving memory of Viola Liuzza and James Reeb,
And their lasting influence on our country,
from the Unitarian Universalist Association.”

It is hard to give thanks when facing so many challenges.
Thanksgiving can be an issue when money is tight,
when you’ve been laid off,
when you think about all the difficulties facing us
in our personal lives, in the church, and in our city.
In City of Refuge,
the book chosen for the “One Book, One New Orleans” campaign this fall,
author Tom Piazza writes of that first, so-painful, Thanksgiving after Katrina.

Craig and Alice and their 2 children, a white middle-class family from Uptown whose home is relatively unharmed, have evacuated to suburban Chicago to stay with Alice’s elderly uncle and aunt.

Uncle Gus is a crusty old man who listens to conservative talk radio; several times in Katrina’s aftermath, he and Craig have come close to verbal conflict, but were always steered away by one of the women. Craig and Alice have found an apartment in the area, but have returned to Uncle Gus and Aunt Jean’s to share Thanksgiving dinner as an expression of their gratitude. Craig is feeling more than ambivalent. He thinks

…what right did he have to be grateful, when so many other people had lost everything? Blessings seemed so arbitrary, and if you didn’t deserve your blessing, how could you be grateful for it? Why had God been good to them and not to others? It didn’t make sense…

Then Uncle Gus speaks, remembering another Thanksgiving:

…I spent Thanksgiving of 19 and 52 in Korea… And, you know, so many of your friends die when you are in a situation like that, or get injured, disappear, and you wonder why you are still alive and they aren’t…

We had a chaplain there with us, named Father Bill Joseph. He gave a blessing over dinner… everybody was thinking about home and our fam-ilies, and thinking about our pals who would never see their families again, and wondering whether we would make it home.…

Anyway Bill Joseph said, like he was reading our minds, he said, ‘We don’t know why we are here, and others are not. It’s not just that we don’t know; we can’t know. People go away for reasons that make no sense, and we are left here. All we know is that’s how it works; we can’t know why. So the question for those of us who are left, is not why but how – how do you use your time you have left, which you don’t know how much it is. How do you want to live that time? Because that’s the only thing you have any control over.’

And I’ll tell you, that made so much of a difference to every man at those tables in that big hall. It was like he gave us back to ourselves, or…put us back where we needed to be. I don’t know how to say it better than that.”

There’s no need to say it any better than that.

We give thanks this day for all the gifts of love & care we have received,
From the generations that have gone before us.
for their sacrifices we give thanks.
We give thanks this day for all the opportunities
we have to be of service to others;
for all the beauty & wonder of the natural world around us;
for laughter & dreams, for creativity & joy, for rest & quiet;
for everything that gives us comfort & hope when times are hard—
Let us be truly grateful.

For all of these, & for so many blessings we cannot name,
We give thanks this day, & every day.
AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!


Invitation to the Sharing of Bread
(inspired by a piece by Mark Belletini)

From time immemorial, human beings have come together,
and the sign and token of a welcome reception and warm fellowship
between friends and strangers alike has been the sharing of bread.

The ingredients of bread are pretty much the same all over the world:
a grain of some kind, such as corn, wheat, rice, barley, or oats -- symbolizing the staff and strength of life;
water -- representing freshness and purity and the unity of life.
Sometimes, other ingredients are added:
yeast or soda -- for raising the dough & the spirit;
sugar or honey -- providing food for the yeast & sweetness on the tongue;
eggs -- enriching & enlivening the texture of the bread.
The ingredients are brought together,
mixed, kneaded, raised, punched down for a finer quality,
baked in a hot oven, and cooled.

Being together in a Unitarian Universalist congregation
can feel like that too:
the mixing together of disparate people;
the kneading together of strangers into friends
through shared worship & shared labor;
the raising of our hearts in shared joys & shared sorrows;
the pummelling we feel when engaged together
in worthy conflict over goals, directions, means;
the warmth of shared community;
the cooling comfort of understanding & acceptance
when hot passions are aroused.

Our common table is now laden
with the breads of many places, many heritages,
many backgrounds & cultures & life experiences --
The bread represents all of us,
our pasts, our extended families, our ancestors.
It also represents the many paths,
the many strands, the many life experiences,
that have come together to make up this community of liberal faith.

When you behold this table,
you are not just looking at bread -- you are looking at all of us.

Bread, like the human heart, was made to be broken.
Only broken bread can nourish;
only hearts broken by love can be open.
When bread is broken, it fulfills its purpose --
to sustain & become part of those who eat it.
When the heart is broken, its purpose is fulfilled --
to sustain intimate relationships,
to embrace the bittersweetness that is life & love.

Let us share this bread of our common heritage,
bread broken for us,
bread that represents all of us.
But remember, the bread is only a symbol --
the real staff of life is love,
broken & nourishing.
Let us all be sustained & nourished by this community of seekers,
by this free church & liberal religious tradition.

“What Are You Worth?”

A Sermon by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, November 16, 2008

What are you worth? In the meltdown of our country’s economy since mid-September, many Americans, including some in this church, have spiraled into crisis, with home foreclosures skyrocketing and investments in the stock market – where many of us with retirement accounts have our retirement accounts – have plummeted. Many people who had thought they had so-called “good jobs” have discovered painfully that they have insecure jobs, or even no jobs at all. And it is difficult for us to interpret and cope with this situation without recourse to self-blame. In these circumstances, “What are you worth?” becomes almost an accusation instead of a question.

That nagging sense of guilt comes from our unwitting participation in the pervasive American civil religion. A major component of this civil religion is the idea of the self-made person, the person responsible for themselves, the person who pulls themselves up by their own bootstraps. In this nearly-unconscious perception of reality in America, financial success is seen as the result of personal hard work and perseverance while financial failure is the result of personal shortcomings and laziness. Almost no matter our real religious heritage, nearly all of us Americans have absorbed this notion that people who are successful have earned it, and correspondingly, that people who fail deserve it as well.

The American myth of success developed out of a secular exaggeration of the teachings of French reformist theologian John Calvin, whose doctrine of predestination and God’s chosen or the “elect” rapidly became a religious endorsement of the status quo. Calvin’s quote: “…[W]ordly success and prosperity are construed as signs of God’s approval” grew into a doctrine of the materialist American creed. Over time, the opposite was also thought to be true: if the rich were rich because they had God’s approval, then the poor must be poor because of God’s disapproval. Whatever happens to you, you must somehow deserve it.

Whether we choose it or not, we are all affected by this philosophy. When things are going well, we feel pretty good about ourselves. It starts with the positive feelings engendered by our parents’ and teachers’ approval, good grades, high ACT and SAT scores, and getting accepted into good schools, and progresses to getting a raise, a promotion, recognition among our peers (or even better, among the public), a bigger and better apartment and then a house (with numbers of bathrooms and the newness of kitchens enhancing the positive glow), more exotic and luxurious destinations on our longer and more frequent vacations. Later, one can feel blessed and secure by the number and amount of supposedly secure investments guaranteeing us happy golden years. While we congratulated ourselves on our hard work, and perhaps a little on our good luck, it all seemed, at the time, to be signs that we were somehow good people.

Clergy are not immune to this peculiarly American syndrome. In nearly every religious faith, when we ordained gather, we ask each other about the size of our congregations, observe the size of buildings and campuses and parking lots, an speculate on the amount of compensation. Ministers who have moved from a smaller church to a larger one are congratulated; those going in the opposite direction are commiserated with. I do not absolve myself – there have been times in my 14 years of ministry before I returned home here when I judged myself as “moving on up” – going from a 150-member church to a 365-member church. From there, I once assumed that I would either build that church into more than 500 members or I would “graduate” to another such church. In large part in at least 12 of those years, I saw my self-worth as a minister tied to the size of the church I was serving, and the size and prominence of the city in which that church was located. I neither condemn this attitude nor celebrate it; it just was.

And so, for many of us, myself included, the failure of the stock market and the loss of value of our homes and of our investments, the diminution of value of our children’s college funds, the loss or potential loss of our jobs, all become marks of personal failure, symbolic that even God or the Universe is no longer on our side. We can even see this attitude reflected in the way that some of us have responded to the current crisis. As my colleague Tom Schade asked in a note to the UU Ministers’ Chat, “Do we think those who suffer now do so now because they were imprudent in their borrowing, or in their spending?” Do those going through foreclosure or those being laid off in the financial industry deserve their fates? Does thinking that way make us feel better about our own situations – they deserved their bad end, those other people, because they were stupid or gullible, or greedy and grasping, but we will be all right, because we are smart and unselfish? Isn’t that just another form of good people flourish and bad people fail?

What are you worth? What makes you feel good about yourself? Maybe you already know it’s not the size of your house or the newness of your appliances or the smallness of your electronic gadgets; maybe you’ve already grasped that basing your worth on the amount in your bank account or IRA is specious. But what if your self-worth is founded something else, something less selfish – like the achievements of your children or grandchildren, their grade point averages, the specialness of their schools, the exclusivity of their college, the prestige or recompense of their adult job? What if your child or grandchild failed a class or failed a grade level, or dropped out of school, or took drugs, or got arrested – would you then be worth less?

What are you worth? What in your life makes you feel valuable? From where do you get your sense of self-worth? The questions are no longer, if they ever were, rhetorical or academic. These are inherently religious and spiritual questions, not because they cannot be answered using pure science or reason, but because those answers are so ultimately unsatisfying. After all, the scientific answer to the question, “What are you worth?” might simply be the commercial value of your physical parts and chemical make-up, or it might reasonably be the total value of everything material you own. But when we proclaim, as our Unitarian Universalist principles do, “the inherent worth and dignity of every human person” we intuitively understand that the “worth” referred to is not the monetary value of our bodies, nor is it the total amount of all we own, nor the social status we might have inherited or worked toward, nor even the achievements of our precious children or grandchildren.

Human beings have inherent worth and dignity. We Unitarian Universalists do not subscribe to a doctrine of depravity, wherein human beings are thought to be incapable of moral behavior without God’s grace. We do not believe there is such a thing as God’s elect – since our ancestors developed the idea of universal salvation, we have held that ALL humanity is God’s beloved, or, less theistically, that all human beings are equal. We do not reduce human beings to the worth of their bio-chemical components, nor do we rate human beings as better and more valuable due to their material wealth or achievements. While we rejoice in the accomplishments of our children and grandchildren, having children or grandchildren without numerous accomplishments does not diminish our worth.

But here’s the trickier part: we UUs also do not judge people as “over-reaching their station” when poor and working class individuals and families reach for the supposed security and safety of the middle class, no matter their success or failure. We do not rub our hands gleefully over the demise of Wall Street firms and the tumbling-down of financial titans. Schadenfreude, rejoicing in the troubles of others, is unworthy of us, unworthy of our UU principles. People who suffer misfortune, whether they are rich or poor, deserve our compassion and fellow-feeling.

I do not pretend to know what the solution is to our nation’s financial and economic crisis. I offer no suggestions to our new president or other elected officials on how to extricate us from the present situation. I am just a pastor, and can only lift up religious principles, a spiritual way forward. There are difficult times ahead for our church, for our city, for our country. Our church budget will be stretched very thin, as you will learn in more detail at next week’s Congregational Meeting. I’m sure your personal budgets, like mine, will be pulled pretty tight as well. There is help available. Because you worship in this neighborhood, every one of you is eligible for Angel Food Ministries, which can help with monthly groceries. If you need other assistance, please make an appointment to come see me. We’ll get through this together.

For myself, I have found a great deal of freedom and joy in coming home to New Orleans to serve this church and I’m discovering a whole new kind of success. To me, every day that First Church remains open as a spiritual home in a recovering and wounded New Orleans is an achievement; to me, every returning member and every new member is a tremendous victory. I have never been prouder to serve a congregation, and never been happier to live in any city anywhere. I would not exchange this ministry for one in a UU church with $1000 monthly budget for flowers (and there actually is such a church). No home I have ever owned is as comfortable to me as the apartment I rent on Annunciation Street. And I refuse to look at my retirement accounts, since I figure I won’t be using them for at least another 10 years or so, and who knows what will happen in the meantime?

Perhaps we New Orleanians are more prepared than other Americans for a sudden and complete shift in the way things are valued. It has already happened to us, 3 years ago, and we learned how to live through that, get through that, and come somehow, more or less intact, to the other side. The “how” turned out to be crazily and devastatingly simple – it was love. Love for our families and closest relationships, love for our friends, our neighborhoods, our congregation, love for this exasperating and wonderful city.

In a meditation written in 1992, my colleague Robby Walsh writes of coping when seismic plates of security shift:

Did you ever think there might be a fault line
passing underneath your living room:
A place in which your life is lived in meeting and in separating,
wondering and telling, unaware that just beneath you
is the unseen seam of great plates that strain through time…
And that your life, already spilling over the brim,
could be invaded, sent off in a new direction,
turned aside by forces you were warned about but not prepared for.
Shelves could be spilled out,
the level floor set an angle in some seconds, shaking.
You would have to take your losses,
do whatever must be done next.

When the great plates slip
and the earth shivers and the flaw
is seen to lie in what you trusted most,
look not to more solidity,
to weighty slab of concrete poured
or strength of cantilevered beam to save the fractured order.
Trust more the tensile strands of love
that bend and stretch to hold you
in the web of life that’s often torn but always healing.
There’s your strength.
The shifting plates, the restive earth, your room, your precious life,
they all proceed from love,
the ground on which we walk together.

What are you worth? You are, we are, each of us, precious and wonderful. We are good gifts, just as we are. We have nothing to prove. We do not need to earn a right to be here. Everything we once thought permanent is, in reality, temporary, on loan, provisional, interim. We do not grieve, but rejoice in what is permanent and real and steady – the foundation of love and compassion. These are real and reliable. It is the ground on which we walk together, in good times and hard times and all times. AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

“The Blessed Healing We Can Do for Each Other”

Homily for Healing Service
The Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, November, 9, 2008

I want to thank church president Cherie LeBlanc for coming up with the idea for this service, and for organizing the Day of Healing activities for after the service. After Gustav, Cherie thought that day for our mental health, a day for healing our minds and hearts and souls, was something that many of us need right now, and I agreed with her wholeheartedly. We all owe her a debt of gratitude for her efforts, especially for the beautiful design of the posters and the Order of Service. I’m also grateful for the contributions of Marie O’Neil to today’s activities; Marie moved here for essentially this purpose – to aid in the healing of the people of New Orleans. We are appreciative of her many contributions to the day. I also want to thank Amina Rae Horton, a former and returning member of the congregation, for adding the closing Dances of Universal Peace to the day’s activities. We are glad she is back “home” and look forward to her participation in church activities. Finally, I want to thank my colleague, the Rev. Kim Miner, who graciously stepped in to help with the healing ritual after Kathleen North was unable to be here due to an accident with her cat this morning.

In this service, we come together to help comfort and heal each other even though all of us are need in healing. It is a testament to the power of religious relationship and to the timeless truth that we can help heal ourselves by reaching out to help others.

I do think we need a day like this, and we’ll probably need more than one day like this. In this recovering church, in this wounded city, in this divided country, people are coping with enormous challenges and gigantic stressors. Some were caused or made worse by the aftermath of Katrina, some are health-related, some have to do with worry over the current economic situation, some are political. Some are combinations of some-of-the-above. Some of us have trouble sleeping, others have anger issues, some self-medicate with alcohol or drugs, others have problems in our most intimate relationships, some suffer acute episodes of depression, others feel disconnected or isolated. We are all in need of healing of one kind or another.

Healing is not the same as curing. The patients in Dr. Remen’s story (“Caring Made Visible” by Rachel Naomi Remen, MD) are healed of their sense of isolation, but not cured of cancer. We in New Orleans can be healed from stress and depression, but we’ll still have our damaged city and damaged church and damaged lives to deal with. You might say that curing is for the outside, and that healing is for the inside. But the healing that we can reach for within, and the healing that we can do for each other, makes us stronger to change what can be changed and better able to bear what must be borne.

In this Day of Healing, we will experience several different modes of healing. Marie will lead us in a meditation exercise of guided imagery. Together we will chant a special healing chant. We will listen to healing music by The Nevilles based in the New Orleans Voodoo tradition, an invocation to Papa Legba, an African spirit said to be the guardian of doorways and messenger to the other Voodoo loa, related to both St. Peter and the Archangel Gabriel in the Catholic tradition. After the service, we will share food and drink (always an important part of healing here in New Orleans!), and then learn some yoga, biofeedback techniques, muscle relaxation, and breath work. We will end the day with movement and dances of peace. Healing is found in all religious and spiritual and cultural traditions, and different paths to healing are utilized by modern medicine and science. We honor the diversity in our congregation by using different methods to access the power of healing.

In this service, we will also hold a healing ritual, adapted from one developed in the UU church of Cambridge, Massachusetts, by my colleague Thomas Mikelson, who led the healing ritual in this church building for the UUCF conference held here 10 years ago. The ritual includes a form of healing touch, used in many healthcare settings to restore a sense of well-being through a transfer of energy from one person to another.

In the ritual, Rev. Kim and I will make ourselves available for any person who wants some one-on-one time. We will deeply listen to whatever the person wants to share or whatever issue the person wants to focus on. A person may ask for prayer or good thoughts or positive energy, or may just want a time of companionship. We will NOT do counseling, but will offer prayers, if that is what is wanted, or just listen. We will also offer healing touch, in the form of hug, or hands on shoulders, or a palm to a forehead.

But the healing of the ritual is not just or not only what Rev. Kim and I will do with whoever comes forward while the music plays. The congregation plays an integral role in the healing. By being fully present and compassionately witnessing, by thinking good thoughts or making your own prayers or sending positive energy, you too are a part of the ritual, and united, we become a healing community, connected to one another by the streams of energy flowing around and through and from us.

Church cannot just be the place where there is a lot of work to do. There is a lot of work to do, but if that is all we are, few people will want to come for long. Church cannot be just the launching pad for our work for justice in the world; if that is what we are, we will rapidly burn out the activists among us. Our church must also be a place of comfort and healing, the one place we want to come to when we feel wounded and lost and alone, the place that gives us strength for whatever we have to face. Only then can we hope to get work done and to accomplish justice in the wider community.

Participate in the day’s events as you feel ready and comfortable. There are many different ways to heal, and we’re offering lots of alternatives. One thing they all have in common is that we are sharing them together, as a congregation. May we come together and be a healing community for each other; may our caring be visible and tangible. And may we always remember, as Hubert Humphrey once said, that the greatest healing therapy in the world is friendship and love.

Closing Prayer
May all those who came forward for healing find what they are seeking.
May all those who gave their compassionate witness also find healing.
May we come together to be a healing community for each other, so that we can then become an agent of healing for our city.
May we gain the courage and wisdom needed for that transformation to a healing ministry to happen.
May the Spirit of Life move in and through this congregation for the good of its members and friends and minister, so that we may act for the good of our hurting community.
So might this be! AMEN--- ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

"The Sacrament of Voting” – Election Day Sermon

by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, November 2, 2008

Did you ever wonder how the Founding Fathers first came up with the idea of voting? After all, there was no voting in England, no voting in Holland, none in France, none in Spain or Portugal. All over Europe, there were kings and queens and other hereditary rulers. Before the Revolution, most colonists had not even been able to choose their own governors; these had almost always been appointed from overseas.

It is true that the drafters and signers of the Declaration of Indepen-dence and the Constitution were men of the Enlightenment, and were well versed in studying ancient Greece and Rome, where the idea of democracy was born. But it’s a mighty big leap from long-ago Greek and Roman times to the Age of Reason in the 1700s. Did they just make it up, or had the framers experienced the responsibility of voting somewhere closer to home?

The fact is, there WAS voting in the original 13 colonies, and in a few cases, it wasn’t just the men exercising the franchise. Since the first arrival on these shores, colonists who belonged to liberal congregations made important decisions by voting – in the Congregational churches (which evolved into 2 camps when the Unitarians split off in the early 1800s), the Universalist churches, and the Quaker meetings (where decisions were made by consensus, not exactly voting, but it still far removed from religious authoritarian rule by hierarchy).

Voting became enshrined in liberal churches for theological reasons that had nothing to do with politics. Unlike conservative religions that viewed humanity as fallen and depraved, helpless on their own to choose appropriately between good and evil, religious liberals asserted that human beings were endowed by their Creator with both free will and a functioning conscience, and thus equipped to make moral and ethical judgments. Indeed, it was the liberal view that humanity had been given the responsibility to make such decisions by God as part of the divine plan. And so, from earliest times, members of American liberal congregations prayerfully and reverently voted on all matters of importance in their churches.

Think of it – because so many colonists had the experience of voting in their congregations, making their own decisions by the free exercise of their conscience in matters that were sacred and holy, it is only natural that their minds would turn to resentment of secular decisions made thousands of miles away, without their having a say. If free will and free choice and the free exercise of conscience were good enough in godly matters, how could coercive rule be justified in worldly matters?

While this is certainly not the way I was taught about the American Revolution, the truth remains that congregational polity, or congregational democracy, voting in church, was part of the inspiration for the demand for voting by the Founding Fathers. From an act of sacred covenant within a religious congregation, voting became a secular sacrament celebrating citizenship.

In Unitarian Universalist churches of today, becoming a voting member is considered a big step, and voting at congregational meetings is stressed as both a duty and a privilege. Newcomers to a church are welcomed to participate in all church activities, join any committee or team, contribute in any way they wish – except they cannot vote in congregational elections unless they commit themselves by signing the Membership Book. Helping to make the decisions in the life of the church – the budget, the leaders, the minister, whether or not to buy or sell property – becomes a sacred responsibility, a kind of sacrament. Not to participate is to signal a lack of commitment to the values and ideals of the church. And so it is, analogously, in political voting. It is a sacrament of citizenship; it is a way of demonstrating concretely one’s commitment to the values and ideals of the country.

It is time once again to participate in the sacrament of voting, to go to the polling place in your precinct and stand in a long line with your neighbors and make decisions about local and state officials, changes in local laws and ordinances, and choose the president of the United States for the next 4 years. It is a time of great decision, and all of us need our greatest powers of discernment and the guidance of the Spirit of Life, in order to choose our leaders well.

As my colleague Rev. Dr. Forrest Church, Minister of Public Theology at All Souls Unitarian Church in Manhattan, preached 4 years ago, all of the candidates from which we are to make our choices are flawed men and women. Not one is perfect; not one is ideal. As in every election since the dawn of democracy, we must choose between differing sets of flaws and shortcomings and differing sets of skills and talents, doing the best we can with the choices we have. I have made my decision, I know how I will vote on Tuesday, but I have not deluded myself that my preferred candidates are free from flaws or as good as they could possibly be. But they are, to my way of thinking, the best of the choices presented to me in this election, and I will cast my votes with a placid heart, if not with passion.

Passion’s a great thing to have in an election, but it is not necessary. I have had passion for candidates and for issues and it does make elections more exciting. But most of the times that I have voted in my life it has been with less than avidity. I know there are those who consider it their duty NOT to vote unless they are enthusiastic and committed about a particular candidate. “How can I pick between Tweedledum and Tweedledee?” they ask, or “The candidate I really wanted didn’t make it this far – I don’t care enough to vote.” I know there are others who feel they cannot vote unless they have gathered and digested every possible bit of information about the issues or candidates before them. “I don’t feel right voting,” these overly-conscientious folks say, “because I don’t know enough to make a good decision.”

Back when I was single, I dated a man who told me (I kinda thought of it actually as a “confession”) that he had never voted. “Never?” I asked him, goggle-eyed. I was thinking of when I was 16 and 17, when the voting age was still 21, and how frantic I was to vote, and with what emotion I cast my first ballot; I was thinking of campaigns when the candidate had my heart as well as my vote, and elections when voting seemed especially vital and important. I couldn’t imagine never having voted.
“No,” he said, “I’m so busy, I just don’t have time to fully investigate candidates and their claims. So rather than be an uninformed voter, I don’t vote.” He seemed a little proud of his stance – don’t vote at all if you’re not informed, but I was appalled. I broke up with him soon after.

I thought to myself, “I’d rather have a partner who votes opposite me than one who never votes at all.” Be careful what you wish for – 3 years later I met and married my spouse Eric, who most of the time does indeed vote opposite me. But he takes the responsibilities of citizenship seriously, he makes a stand, and he is sincere and informed in his beliefs. To me, that’s way better than not voting.

Neither of those attitudes – waiting for passion and trying to be completely informed – is conducive to the sacrament of voting. Perfect is the enemy of the good. The covenant we share demands much of us – our commitment as much as our participation. Voting is a sacrament not because it is without flaw, not because it always produces perfect decisions, but because we all promise that we are in this together, however broken and faulty this human endeavor.

We face a challenge in this election. Will we vote our fears and our dislikes, or will we vote our ideals and our hopes? Will we refuse to vote out of pique or disappointment? Will we choose rightly?

But we are not the only ones who face a challenge. In his latest election day sermon, “Religion and the Body Politic,” Forrest Church writes:

Our next president will face a challenge ... greater than any we have faced in recent decades. He must rise to the occasion and we must rise with him. If he fails to rise, it is our responsibility to present not a partisan but a patriotic demand that he and the congress put aside their base-pleasing talking points and act on behalf of all the American people, first, by making the hard decisions that will right our economy. And second, by conducting our foreign policy in a way that will make our nation and our allies once again proud of America at its best.

And so we must rise. We must rise to the occasion of Election Day, whether for us it is exciting or tedious, a joy or a mere duty. And after the election, no matter which candidates win, we must rise above partisanship and preferences to urge on all our elected officials at every level to act in the best interests of all the American people. And only when we do this will we be able to be proud of America at its best. May this happen, and soon. AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

"Race, Class, & Katrina"

UU Fellowship of North Westchester, New York
Sunday, October 26, 2008
The Rev. Melanie Morel-Eensminger

As I stand here I have so much to thank you for. Thank you for this opportunity to share with you in this worship service, and thanks as well for hosting the “Creating a Jubilee World” workshop for the Metro New York District. With all my heart, I thank you for the members of this church who have traveled to New Orleans since Katrina to help us with recovery. And thank you for the upcoming trip to New Orleans by your Youth Group and their advisors and chaperones. We are so grateful for all the saints who are marching with us on this long, long journey. Thank you.

It ‘s appropriate that we’re talking about New Orleans during this weekend of the Jubilee World anti-racism workshop, for what the world witnessed during and after Hurricane Katrina was a clear and precise insight, a revelation, into the intersection of race and class in America.

Who was left behind when the general evacuation order finally came on that fateful Labor Day weekend 3 years ago? That’s easy – the poor, the working class, the disabled, the elderly, the folks with no car or unreliable hoopties, the folks nowhere to go, the folks with large extended families and connections, all of whom also had nowhere to go. They were directed by authorities to the Superdome and Convention Center, where there were no generators, no police protection, and no stockpiled supplies. (Indeed, National Guard troops stationed behind the Convention Center were directed to hold people back at gunpoint from the foodstuffs locked in the refrigerators there– even though food not used immediately was destined to spoil in the appalling heat.)

People who managed to somehow make it to the Naval Support Facility were turned away roughly; people who trudged over the Mississippi River Bridge were met by police officers who shot over their heads to keep them from crossing. The Red Cross was forbidden to enter the devastated city, because it was thought that relief supplies would just slow the evacuation.

You heard the rumors, and you might even have believed them. There was NOT an epidemic of rapes at the Superdome or the Convention Center. Not a single person was murdered in either location – unless you count the numerous elderly and disabled who died from dehydration and from lack of medication as murders, which I guess in a way they were. There were NO snipers shooting at rescue helicopters. News outlets that blared the rumors on front pages printed the retractions on back pages, if at all.

White people filmed leaving closed shops with armloads of goods were said to be “gathering supplies,” while black folks were “looting.” Middle class white people who refused to leave the city were bravely protecting their property; black and brown folks who refused to leave were suspect as thieves. The majority-black prisoners at Parish Prison were deserted by guards and left to drown or starve or both. While Third World countries like Indonesia (Indonestia!) offered aid, our president remained on vacation.

While loss of property crossed both race and class lines, and obviously hurt the poor and working class harder than the middle and upper classes, who died, for the most part, did not. Katrina's dead are overwhelmingly from the poorest and most oppressed groups in the city. Even recovery has its race and class aspects – almost all of the white upper and middle class neighborhoods are being rebuilt without argument or serious controversy, no matter how low-lying, while poor and working class black neighborhoods are up for debate. “Gee, should those people be allowed to go back there?”

Despite the slow pace of recovery and the lack of support from the federal government, we New Orleanians, black and white and brown and yellow, young and old, native and newcomer, we persevere. We love our city, we treasure our culture, we refuse to cooperate in our own erasure. We keep on keepin’ on. With the help of good folks from all over, we rebuild our churches, our homes, our neighborhoods. And we send those dedicated volunteers home newly christened as New Orleanians wherever they live, linked in solidarity with us. This is the way all change comes and all reconciliation – people crossing over the categories that separate them, linking together to make things better.

You can go to the Greater New Orleans UU website to find out more and to discover ways your congregation can be part of of the renewal of Unitarian Universalism in the Crescent City.

Thank you for all the ways you are marching with us.

“Spirit of Life” Service, Sunday, October 19, 2008

First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
The Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger

INTRODUCTION TO “SPIRIT OF LIFE”
Adapted from the “Spirit of Life” Workshop Program by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger

This worship service, adapted from the first of 9 Spirit of Life workshops by Barbara Hamilton-Holway, offers members of the congregation an opportunity to explore their Unitarian Universalist spirituality, by focusing on the lyrics of Carolyn McDade's song "Spirit of Life." Like the song, this service and the Spirit of Life workshops are designed to be welcoming to Unitarian Universalists of many spiritual sensibilities and theological persuasions. In this service, each of us, young and old and in-between, is invited to claim our own definition of spirituality and to recognize the spiritual aspects of our own lives.

The word "spirit" derives from the Latin word for "breath" and "inspiration." That means that the Spirit of Life can be understood as inspiration for life, or the very breath of life. It can be felt as a loving force, a life force, or what Howard Thurman calls a "growing edge"—"the upward reach of life when weariness closes in upon all endeavor." The Spirit of Life can be experienced as god or goddess, as deity unfolding, as divine comforter; it can be felt as the collective human spirit, the power of nature, the forces of the cosmos, or innate wisdom. Each person finds meaning for the words "Spirit of Life" that works for them, for our own understandings and experience.

Carolyn McDade's "Spirit of Life" may be the most loved and the most often, most widely sung hymn in Unitarian Universalist congregations across the country and even around the world. One visitor to a Sunday service in a UU congregation said that as soon as she joined her voice with the congregation in singing "Spirit of Life," she knew she had found her religious home.
In this morning’s worship, we will reflect on the questions, “What does the song ‘Spirit of Life’ mean to you?” and "What experiences or moments have you had of feeling 'wow'—feelings of oneness with the earth, feelings of connection with the mystery and wonder of the universe, feelings of connectedness with other human beings, or a sense of God or the Spirit of Life?" Sharing how we feel and what we think to one another helps strengthen our congregational connection, across all the lines that separate us. May the Spirit of Life move through each of us individually and collectively as we sing this beloved song, in English and in Spanish.

READING BEFORE SMALL GROUPS
Adapted from the “Spirit of Life” Program by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger

True spiritual growth can be achieved only through the persistent exercise of real love. …The principal form that the work of love takes is attention. When we love another we give him or her our attention; we attend to that person’s growth. When we love ourselves we attend to our own growth. …By far the most common and important way in which we can exercise our attention is by listening. — M. Scott Peck

Reflecting, speaking, and listening are core activities in each of the Spirit of Life workshops, and they are core to this worship service as well. Listening, M. Scott Peck writes, is a kind of attention that fosters spiritual growth. As in the workshops, this morning we will take some space to silently reflect, to listen to the still small voice within. Then you will be invited to move into small groups, and to speak and to listen to the folks in your group as we share our thoughts and feelings about the song “Spirit of Life” and what it means to us.

Think about the words we’ve just sung in both English and Spanish – all the ways the Spirit of Life is called forth, to “come,” to “sing,” to “blow in the wind” and “rise in the sea,” to “move in the hand.” Notice how the depth of “roots” is contrasted with the freedom of “wings.” It’s a fairly easy song to sing, even children learn it easily, and yet it seems to have so many meanings.
Take some time right now to think about “Spirit of Life.” Why do you think it is so loved and is sung in so many UU churches? What does it mean to you? What does it make you think about or remember? Does the song “stir” something in you? If so, what? How do your feelings about the song relate to your idea of spirituality? After a short time of reflection, you will be given the signal to move into small groups and to share with the people in your groups.

“WOW” REFLECTION
Adapted from the “Spirit of Life” Workshop Program by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger

No matter how old we are, no matter what our beliefs about religion or God or spirituality, each and every one of us occasionally gets an experience in life that makes us say, or think, “Wow.” A “wow” moment is when you are overwhelmed by feelings that you have trouble finding words for later – but at the exact “wow” moment, words aren’t necessary. A “wow” can be happy or sad, or it can be a moment of oneness, of unity – although with precisely what, you can’t always say.
Maybe you had a “wow” moment when you first saw the Gulf or the ocean. Maybe it was a clear night away from city lights when you could see the stars and the Milky Way above you. Maybe it was a grand mountain view, or maybe it was an intimate campfire in the dark. Maybe it happened at a concert, when you were swept away by the power of the music. Maybe it happened at a gathering of family or friends. Maybe it was when you first held or saw your child, or your partner. Maybe it was a beautiful sunset, or a walk through a forest. Maybe you were touched by the exquisite simplicity of a mathematical equation or scientific formula. Maybe it was while you were participating in a protest with a group of other people on an issue important to you. Maybe it was at the moment of the death of someone you loved.

We all get these moments, which my colleague Barbara Hamilton-Holway calls “wow” moments, but that you might call “ahas” or “eureka” moments or revelations or epiphanies. We may describe them differently – some may feel lifted outside themselves, and others might feel more deeply inside themselves. For some people, “wow” moments are more likely to happen when they are happy, but some people have found deep meaning in times that were challenging, or even sad. Some people have them in crowds, and some people have to be alone to feel them. Whatever you call them, and however and how often they occur for you, “wow” moments have a way of making the world look different, even if only for a short time.

One of my favorite “wow” moments happened at a Jazz Fest years and years ago. I was alone in the crowds, and had just bought myself a plate of food and a strawberry lemonade. I walked over to a stage where the Creole Wild West Mardi Gras Indian tribe was performing. Both hands full, I made my way to the front of the stage. Around my waist was a fanny pack, and into the web belt of the pack I had stuck a maraca. To keep from losing it, I had tied it to the belt with a long shocking pink shoelace. The Creole Wild West began their peace chant, “Hatchet in the Ground,” and I and the other people in the dancing crowd were chanting with them (me still with both hands full). As we were singing and dancing, a woman standing next to me reached over as natural as you please and took the maraca from my belt, still tied to me by the pink shoelace, and began shaking it in time to the music.

I do not know how to explain this, but suddenly, I had a birds-eye view of the Fairgrounds, and I could see, as if I were very high up and looking down, the whole crowd in front of the stage with the Creole Wild West, as well as the crowds beyond there, moving around the fest. I was amazed at this view, and was enjoying everything I could see, and then I saw myself down there, holding the plate and the cup, and tethered to the unknown woman next to me by the bright pink shoestring. “It’s wonderful,” I thought to myself, “We’re all one thing -- it’s a mistake to think we’re separate.” But by thinking the words, suddenly I was back in my body, smiling at the woman next to me, just as the chant ended on stage.

For a brief time, I knew my unity with every single person at Jazz Fest, on stage and off, black and white, old and young. It was an amazing moment, and it has meant a lot to me, even though it only happened that once.

Think back to some of the “wow” moments of your life. Where were you? Who were you with? What was happening? How did it make you feel? Do you think of these “wow” moments as “spiritual”? Take some time to think of your favorite “wow” moments, and then share in your small group.

CLOSING STORY "AN EXTRAORDINARY HOUR"
Adapted from the “Spirit of Life” Workshop Program by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger

Once upon a time in an ordinary worship service, a group of ordinary people gathered, sitting in folding chairs in a Unitarian Universalist congregation, and shared their feelings and stories from their lives.

Peter told of his first time attending an AA (Alcoholics Anonymous) meeting. At first, he was uneasy and uncomfortable, he said, but then meeting got started, people introduced themselves, and they told their stories. When Peter spoke, the group listened and welcomed him to the group. Peter said he felt he was not alone.

Molly told of joining with four people she had just met at a party to spontaneously play bongos and drums and flutes. Together they found their rhythm and made music as one body.

Preston told of crying in the shower when he learned his grandmother had died.

Randy spoke of his partner, during labor and delivery, pushing so hard her face turned purple as he witnessed his baby's arrival into the world.

Ramona spoke of her feeling at the time of adopting her child. Though not born of her body, still, really and truly her child. She said she was swept over with a feeling that anyone could be her child. Anyone.

Yassir spoke of his feeling of oneness when he was alone in the brilliant, white snow-filled mountains.

Jim remembered a childhood experience of watching a spider kill a caterpillar. Though as a child he didn't have the words for it, he knew the oneness of creation and destruction, of life and death.

Judi told of being with people from a variety of religions and backgrounds, living all over the city, working together, hauling and stacking sandbags during a flood of her hometown.

Maria spoke, beginning by saying "I can't speak in front of people." She went on to speak of being Hispanic and being raised by a loving white Mormon couple, never feeling like she belonged. She thought she had said all she had to say. She was silent and then got in touch with more. "My whole life," she said, "I have been searching for home."

As each one spoke and they all deeply listened, as they looked into one another's faces, as eyes met eyes, it was as if they were all saying, "Welcome home, welcome home, welcome home." An extraordinary hour with extraordinary people.

“How United Activism Can Help Save New Orleans”

GILLESPIE BREAKFAST PRESENTATION
THE REV. MELANIE MOREL-ENSMINGER
OCTOBER 11, 2008

I want to start by telling you a little about myself. My name is Melanie Morel-Ensminger, I am a 5th-generation New Orleanian, and I serve as the minister of the First UU congregation, which ordained me 15 ½ years ago. Eighteen years, I was administrator of this church, and used to help Jack Gillespie organize and publicize this Breakfast. After ordination I served Unitarian Universalist churches in Ellisville, MS; Chattanooga, TN; Auckland, New Zealand; and most recently, suburban Philadelphia, where I was involved in anti-racism work, same-sex marriage rights, support for inner-city Camden, and rallying for a group of Palestinian-Americans who sought to build their own mosque in the face of bigoted neighborhood opposition. I came home 2 years after Hurricane Katrina, which was to me 2 years late.

The Morel part of my name comes from my father, the late Barney Morel, who at the time of his death in 1991 was retired as the subdistrict director of the United Steelworkers. He had been a union man, specifically Congress of Industrial Organizations, since before World War II. His other activities in New Orleans included serving as the labor representative on the Save Our Schools Committee, set up by Mayor Morrison in 1960 to bridge the issue of Orleans Parish public school desegregation. He was also active in the Urban League, and I guess, needless to say, the Democratic Party, for which he was a delegate at the convention in Atlantic City in 1964. My political life and my idea of strategy begins with my father and the stories he told me about organizing unions and civil rights work in south Louisiana in the 1940s, 50s, and 60s.

As a teenager, I organized local boycotts of lettuce, protested the war in Vietnam, organized Moratorium Day at my high school, worked to change the form of government in St. Bernard Parish, and volunteered for Bobby Kennedy for President. As an adult, I protested against nuclear power, served on the board of the local Health Systems Agency, known as a HSA, and worked hard in Dutch Morial’s campaign as the first black mayor of the city.

It was Dutch who gave me my second most important political lesson. In a fight on the HSA, a group of Dutch’s allies on the board met in the Mayor’s Office to seek his help and advice. To our surprise, Dutch got mad. He hollered, he shook his finger. “Don’t ask me to do your politics for you! Line your own ducks up! Do your own politics!” I never forgot that.

At my father’s funeral, my siblings and I were astonished at the diversity of the crowd who attended. There were black and white working men with hard, calloused hands, who told us, over and over, “Your daddy got me my job” or “Your dad saved my job.” And then there were men in sleek expensive suits and shiny cufflinks, clearly of the management and even owner class, who told us, “I respected your father so much” or “I never knew another union rep I trusted as much as your father.” This, too, was a lesson – that it was possible to do good work for justice for working poor people and still be respected and admired by people on the “other side.”

As I said, my father came up through the ranks of the historic “non-skilled” unions, the Congress of Industrial Organizations, or CIO. Unlike many other union leaders, my father dropped completely the sense of rivalry and turf when the CIO merged with the American Federation of Labor (AFL). “We’re on the same side,” Barney insisted, “The fight is over.”
I think of all these lessons when I see New Orleans progressive organizations reverting to self-destructive and self-defeating “usual and customary ways” of operation. It’s especially discouraging to me when there’s so much work to be done after Katrina.

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I feel downhearted when I see New Orleans progressives dissipating a lot of energy infighting amongst themselves over tactics and turf and over who’s more right or more moral. In my imagination, I see New Orleans’ corrupt elected leaders and the oligarchy that really runs things rubbing their hands together in glee. “Oh goody, they’re fighting each other again.”
•As a white person struggling all the time with my own internalized superiority, I feel embarrassed and frustrated when I hear progressives patronizing the black and white working class and poor, telling other folks what’s good for them, because after all “we’re the experts” and “we know better.” This is no way to be in solidarity with the workers and the poor.
•It drives me bonkers when progressives try to make their case to the public in massive overstatement that only alienate potential allies and supporters. If every single thing done by our political and ideological opponents is the end of the world as we know it, we just become the political equivalent of the Y2K scare. Y’know, y’all, I just don’t believe we’re on the brink of martial law and the mass internment of white leftists.

Before Hurricane Katrina, there were members of my immediate family who were regularly on the outs with each other. One sibling not speaking to another sibling, and vice versa; this one not close to that one; that one feeling like they were adopted. Before the Storm, we could go months without seeing or even speaking on the phone to one another. But after Katrina, every-thing changed. Suddenly, “you were Daddy’s favorite” and “mom liked you best” and some little slight that had been remembered forever all faded into the unimportance they had always really been. We see each other now every month for a regular family dinner, and we usually see each other several times outside of the monthly Morel dinner. We’re closer now than ever – Katrina taught us what’s really important.

My point, and I do have one, is that progressive organizations of the New Orleans area should learn these same lessons. We should minimize differences and unite to work for a better Crescent City. We should learn to play politics with the Big Boys, line our own ducks up, and avoid as much as possible techniques that are both outmoded and self-defeating. I personally am not aware that calling City Council members names ever got one of them to change a vote.

There have to be ways to work for justice for New Orleans’ most oppressed citizens and make the city a better place that still leave us with our self-respect and our principles intact. Certainly, real work that challenges the status quo and seeks to change systems causes conflict – but we progressives ought not, I think, to be the ones throwing the insults, using verbal violence to get our points across. A little humor can go a long way. My friend Vivek Pandit in India once organized a protest of schoolchildren begging for money for the Indian government, which had said they had no money for schools for rural “Untouchable” students. The kids carried signs which said, “Our poor government has no money – please contribute to the government.” Y’know, somehow after that, the government found the money.

We should also remember the way activists were trained at the Highlander Folk School. “The more radical the views you espouse, the more conservative you should dress.” Think of the well-dressed black civil rights protestors, some of whom had also gone to Highlander. If we really want our message to get across to regular folks in the mainstream, then maybe our public persona shouldn’t look quite so outré and bohemian. We don’t have to look like we live on Audubon Place, but we ought to look like folks who have to be taken seriously.

Not since Reconstruction or the Huey Long era has New Orleans been in so much trouble – racially, socially, physically, financially – as we’re in today. The progressive community in New Orleans would be much more powerful and influential if we banded together, found common cause, lined our ducks right and cared how we came across to other people. New Orleans needs us.

“Who am I? Who are you? Where to? What next?”

First Sermon by Consulting Minister the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
for the North Shore UU Society, Lacombe, LA
Sunday, October 12, 2008

I am so honored to be here with you on my first Sunday as your part-time shared consulting minister. Last month, my consulting with your leaders was by phone and by email, advising on worship and membership, and dealing with pastoral care matters. I am delighted with this service to begin my every-other-month preaching with you. Thank you so much for this opportunity to minister with you, and thanks also for the wonderful time and delicious meal at last night’s Circle Supper. If you are not signed up for a Circle Supper, I urge you to do so right away – you are missing out!

As this is our first time worshiping together, introductions are in order. Who am I? Who are you? These are questions always asked of new folks, as Unitarian poet Carl Sandburg relates in his book-length poem “The People, Yes.” “What’s your name, where you come from, stranger? Who are your people?” But these are good questions as well for a new minister serving a new congregation. You’ve learned something about me in the brief bio that was in the newsletter, and in the longer one you heard at the start of this service. As we interact in person, by phone, and by email, please feel free to ask me anything else you want to know about me. In return, the timeline that began with the Meditation this morning will help teach me about this congregation and all of you – and hopefully you too will learn something as we go on and add to it. But we won’t be finished any time soon, for all of us are on the move, growing and changing.

In “The People, Yes,” Sandburg gives a picture of all Americans as perpetual motion machines – always on the move, never completely satisfied, ever looking ahead to the next thing. Even when involved in everyday activities, constantly on the lookout for those “lights beyond the prism of the 5 senses,” for that ineffable something – we don’t know what it is, but we’re sure we’re gonna find it – always asking, “Where to? what next?”

What I like about those questions is that there are different ways they can be interpreted, depending on the inflection of the speaker. They can be eager, anticipatory: “Where to?! what next?!” Or they can be depressed or despairing: “Where to? what next??” They can be frightened or apprehensive: “Where to? what next?” Today, I mean to express all-of-the-above, because ambivalence, mixed feelings, about change is normal.

Those of us in greater New Orleans have had to deal with more than our fair share of change (if there is such a thing!) and many of us feel like we’ve had enough. But it’s not just us – almost everybody dislikes change. Most of us enjoy knowing what we can depend on, and feel good being able to predict things. A few years ago, a church consultant told a conference of UU leaders, “The only person who likes change is a wet baby.”

Change is uncomfortable, even painful, even changes that we yearn for. After escaping from Egypt, wandering in the wilderness, the Israelites complained bitterly to Moses about “the good old days” – when they were slaves! Modern adults get a better job, make more money, and then are surprised by how unhappy they are, even though things are “better.” Children yearn to grow up, insist on being treated older than they really are – and then moan about how hard everything is. At age 10, my son once said to me, “I don’t mind growing up, but why does it have to hurt?” Why indeed?

However painful, change is necessary to growth. In Passages, Gail Sheehy notes, “Changes are not only possible and predictable, but to deny them is to be an accomplice to one’s own unnecessary vegetation.” Ouch! It’s unfortunate, but true, that vegetation is the inevitable result of the stubborn or fearful refusal to make necessary changes. Change opens the doors to new growth and maturity – but conflict usually walks in as well.

In UUism, we have seen this happen over and over again. I will use 2 of many possible examples from our history to illustrate how change and conflict go hand in hand. My first example occurred during the late 19th century, as Unitarianism expanded into the Midwest. In the 1880s, the Unitarian societies of Illinois, Ohio, Missouri, western New York and Pennsylvania formed the Western Unitarian Conference. They established as their motto “Freedom, Fellowship, and Character in Religion” – and in so doing, ignited a furious controversy that took 8 years to settle. Other Unitarians were outraged at what the motto left out: no God, no Jesus Christ, no institutional church. “How can we be a religion without God?” they asked. “How can we be Unitarian if we are not Christian?” In effect, they demanded, “Where to? What next?”

You already know how the “Issue in the West” was decided, even if you’ve never heard the story before. Today, Unitarian Universalism is non-creedal, with no doctrinal test for membership. We welcome into our goodly fellowship a wide diversity of faiths to which our experience, our minds, and our hopes bring us. We are held together not by beliefs but by behavior; not by shared creeds, but by shared values.

My 2nd example comes the time when the Unitarians and the Universalists first began cooperative efforts on social reforms during the latter part of the 19th century. Despite the cooperation, there was serious resistance on both sides to a merger. Both were suspicious – would the benefits outweigh the disadvantages? Would each lose a sense of their own special character? The early part of the 20th century found many Unitarians and some Universalists embroiled in the Humanist debate, and the Universalist denomination looked askance at their colleagues, thinking, “Why do we want to get involved with them?” By the 1930s, merger was discussed ad nauseum at each denomination's annual meeting, but little progress was made. In 1953, the Council of Liberal Churches was formed, in which many administrative functions of the 2 were combined, and a year later, the 2 youth groups united. Finally, finally, more than a century after the idea was first proposed, in 1961, the merger was completed, and the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations was born. Today we are all UUs with little thought to the labor and even trauma it took to bring the 2 Us together.

As uncomfortable, painful, and full of conflict as it might well be, the North Shore congregation is approaching the time to ask “Where to? What next?” (You might also be asking, “Just how much transition can one church take??”) In a short, too short, period of time, you have faced the physical storm of Hurricane Katrina, the spiritual storm of a minister’s breach of trust, and the financial storm of a too-big mortgage shouldered by too-few members in a time of economic near-panic. You weathered the smaller storm over the resignation of your previous consulting minister. That’s A LOT for any one congregation to deal with, let alone within a compressed period of time.

In this transition year, you have agreed to share ministry with your sister churches of Community Church and First Church in an innovative arrangement so creative that the UUA doesn’t even have any comparables to share with you. I am proud that all 3 of our churches have created this relationship, and I believe that this experience will strengthen all of us.

As you prepare to look ahead to a possible future with a new, more permanent ministry arrangement, you must first come to terms with the past. You must look at what your church has meant in the past before you can peer into the distant future, and faithfully answer those important questions: “Where to? What next?” I invite everyone present to place their Post-Its on the timeline, whether today or later, and I urge you to keep on adding to the timeline as more significant events occur to you. Take time every Sunday to look at the timeline as it grows and becomes more complete; encourage everyone to participate. We can’t possibly know “Where to? What Next?” until we know where we’ve been and why.

Let us walk together on this journey of discovery, being open to what we might find, and looking out for those “lights beyond the prism of the 5 senses” to be our beacons on the way. So might this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!