“Sitting on Our Ticket” A Homily for Advent

By the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, December 10, 2011

This service begins a series for the winter holiday season. Next Sunday, we will celebrate our Winter Holidays of Light ser-vice, and will decorate the church tree. On December 21, in honor of the Winter Solstice and the longest night of the year, we will hold our annual Candlelight Labyrinth Walk at 6:30 pm. On Saturday evening, Christmas Eve, also at 6:30 pm, we will celebrate the birth of the Christ Child with a traditional service of lessons and carols and an open-table communion. After the service, there will be an Open House with Christmas goodies and hot cider to share. Then, on Christmas Day, we will delay our service til 11 am to give folks time to open presents, and I’ll lead a simple circle of sharing. On New Year’s Day, the service will also be delayed til 11 am, and our Director of Religious Education Lydia Pélot-Hobbs will lead an informal service. On January 8, we’ll mark Epiphany or Kings Day and will share kingcake at Coffeehour. Our annual Greater New Orleans UU cluster Jazz Funeral for the Old Year with a Dixieland band is set for January 22, so that we can enjoy it with the Board of Trustees of the Unitarian Universalist Association, meeting in New Orleans for the first time since Katrina.

This morning we look at Advent. For Christians, it is a time of waiting and quiet reflection before Christmas; it symbolizes the time of waiting for the birth of the Christ. For many children, Advent is the countdown to presents on Christmas Day, and there are literally thousands of Advent calendars to help make waiting easier.

Sometimes waiting can be positive. The old adage, “Good things come to those who wait” – said by many of our parents – became a common saying because it’s often true. Some things can’t be rushed. No matter what you do or what you want, babies take 9 months, seedlings take 2-3 weeks, bread dough takes about 40 minutes to rise, new kitchens take however long they take.

Unitarian Universalism is a religion of action, not of words, not even of meditation and prayer, although of course many UUs DO meditate or pray. Our historic watchword has long been, “Deeds not creeds.” Waiting is a form of inaction, and is not comfortable for most Unitarian Universalists. Waiting can even be harmful, especially if immediate action is called for.
If your toddler is wandering off in a mall parking lot, for instance, or if your kitchen catches fire while you are preparing your holiday dinner, waiting is not a good thing. In the story by Arnold Lobel, "The Letter," Toad glumly waits for a letter to come in the mail – even though his best friend Frog is right in front of him. In the story by UU minister Robert Fulghum, a young woman sobs in the Hong Kong airport about her lost ticket home – which she is sitting on top of. Waiting is sometimes the wrong thing to do, especially if it keeps people from doing what needs to be done.

The young woman in the Fulghum story had everything she needed to move on, but she didn’t know it. She was stuck, over-come with powerful negative emotions that glued her to her seat; she felt helpless and lost and confused and sad. So she sat and sobbed. If she had gotten up off her chair, she would have discovered that it was in her power to get where she wanted to go. No one was preventing her from getting there, she was stopping herself. She was sitting on her ticket.

In our congregational situation, waiting would also be wrong. No matter what decisions the Board makes, there’s important work to be done right now, and no reason to wait. The faithful, faith-filled work of coming back together as a congregation, of forgiving and reconciling with each other, cannot wait, and must be done now. We must start as soon as possible to learn clear UU pro-cesses and procedures and implement them; we must mend fences with our district and re-establish communications with the wider UUA. We must not succumb to the temptation to “sit on our ticket.” We already have everything we need to move ahead right now, to educate ourselves, to heal the congregation, to practice forgiveness, to better organize our committees and teams to perform their responsibilities in our shared ministry, to encourage attendance at district workshops so that our lay leaders can learn to be better church leaders. Waiting on any of this would be wrong.

Several years ago, in the newsletter of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, Eliza Blanchard wrote a short Advent meditation:

For Christians, [Advent] calls for reflection as well as joyful anticipation, since the infant they await represents redemption, salvation in the hereafter. For those of us focused on bringing about salvation in the here and now, the season offers us the opportunity to ask: What are we waiting for? There is no one anticipated event that we expect will save the world.… During this season, we may rest for a while in the glow of holiday lights, but we do not wait. We will not stop working for all to share life’s blessings. We light our lights, pick an avenue for change, and work in the world, knowing we have the power to make it a better place.

You know those holiday commercials that urge you to buy now, saying: “Don’t delay! Operators are standing by!” Let’s take those words to heart spiritually. We don’t have to wait; in fact, we should act right away. There is work to be done, and no reason to wait. Your family needs you, your church needs you, your city needs you, the world needs you. Don’t delay! Get up off your ticket! So might this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

“What Are We Waiting For?”

A Sermon for Advent
by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
North Shore Unitarian Universalists
Sunday, December 4, 2011

This morning we mark the season of Advent along with our sisters and brothers in the Christian community all over the world. This Advent service is part of our on-going holiday celebration, which begins with this service, and continues next Sunday with the Intergenerational Holidays of Lights service. After that, North Shore will enjoy a beautiful service of special Holiday Music. Just as a reminder, there will be NO service at North Shore on December 25, Christmas Day, when everyone is encouraged to enjoy their sacred time with their loved ones.

The folk at First Church want to invite you all to a special Winter Solstice Candlelight Labyrinth Walk in our Sanctuary on the night of December 21st at 6:30 pm. It’s a beautiful service, and a wonderful way to mark the longest night of the year and the turn of the seasons.

The UU holiday celebrations will continue into the new year as the congregations of the Greater New Orleans UU cluster come together with the President, Moderator, and Board of Trustees of the UUA to hold our annual Jazz Funeral for the Old Year on January 22. That service will begin at 11 am.

The word “advent” comes from the same root word as “adventure,” and means the anticipated arrival of an important something or someone. On the Christian liturgical calendar, the 4 weeks of Advent are said to represent 4,000 years of the faithful waiting for the Messiah. Orthodox Christians are still waiting, this time for what they believe will be the second advent, or second coming, of Christ at the end of all time.

As Unitarian Universalists, inheritors of a long and proud liberal religious tradition, Advent is still a time of anticipation for something important that’s coming, but we do not believe that our job is simply to wait. We religious liberals do not just wait, we also work for the changes that will bring about the new world we anticipate and hope for.

This sense of humanity being co-responsible with God for bringing about of the world of justice and peace and harmony is also a very Jewish idea. The concept that God needs us to help heal the broken world -- tikkun olam in Hebrew -- is characteristic of Hassidic Judaism and has become a hallmark in progressive Jewish circles as well.

In the early years of the 20th century, the proponents of the Social Gospel, some of them Unitarian and Universalist, brought that same idea to liberal Christianity, insisting that the Kingdom of Heaven that Jesus spoke of required the work of human beings in order to be completed. It was not enough, these reformers insisted, to be pious and to attend church and to read the Bible. Religion could not be separate from the way people lived their lives in the world -- instead, actions must be taken to bring Biblical ideas of equity and mercy to bear on current-day social issues. During this turbulent period of history, the NAACP was founded (with Unitarian minister John Haynes Holmes as one of the original co-founders), social service organizations were developed, and religious folk of many different Christian denominations got involved in advocating for racial justice, improving facilities and treatment for the mentally ill, prison reform, and changes in immigration law.

Although the Social Gospel movement lost energy and steam after the 2 world wars, when it became difficult to sustain a movement based on the idea of the improveability of humanity, the basic foundational concept of human beings in partnership with the Divine to bring about the Realm of God, the world of justice and peace, has never been lost. The idea that we human beings have a duty to help build the Peaceable Kingdom by the way we live our lives and how we behave and treat one another is still one of the most important aspects of religious liberalism. We do not believe that we are passive recipients of God’s favor, or that we are helpless pawns of an indifferent fate -- we believe that what we do can make a positive difference in the world. Not only that, but we believe that we have a moral and ethical responsibility to do so.

I do not know if this story is true, that it actually happened. But it feels true, and it should have happened. In the way that we can learn even from fictional stories, I offer this one to you: A story is told of a rural town in England that was badly damaged during the Second World War, and which began its heart-breaking and weary work of restoration when the war finally ended. In the old town square had stood a large statue of Jesus with his hands outstretched in an attitude of invitation. On the pedestal were carved the words, “Come unto me.” One night, during a night-time bombing raid, the statue had been reduced to rubble.
With the aid of master artists and sculptors, the statue was eventually reassembled -- all except for the hands, for no usable fragments could be found. It was thought that the artists could be asked to fashion new hands for the statue. But when word got out of the proposal, a public protest went up, and the people of the town insisted that the statue be left without hands.
Today, in the public square of that English town, stands a restored statue of Jesus, arms open wide, but without hands. On the base are carved the words, “He has no hands but ours!”

No hands but ours. We are the hands of God, Divine instruments for doing what must be done in the world. God has no hands but ours, and there is so much work still to do.

Advent may be a time of waiting, but what are we waiting for? Unitarian Universalists, whether theist or not, do not believe in the theological concept of an outside savior; we are not hoping and waiting for a Messiah; we do not have the luxury of thinking that a deus ex machina will arrive at the climatic moment and save the day. The time is now, and there are no hands but ours. AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

“Eid Al Adha – Sacrifice & Delight”

A Sermon by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, November 8, 2011

Today we look at the Muslim holiday of Eid al Adha, a holy time that celebrates the story told in the Qu’ran of the Patriarch Ibrahim’s willingness to obey Allah and sacrifice his son Ishmael. The willingness was enough, and at the last moment, Allah provided a lamb as a substitute sacrifice. For Jews and Christians, a similar story is told in scripture, only the Patriarch’s name is Abraham, the son is Isaac, and the sacrifice is a ram. For all three religions, the message is the same – honoring the dedication and commitment to God that leads to willing sacrifice, even of something treasured and beloved. (For those who look askance at a deity that would even ask such a thing, all three faiths stress that God did not allow the sacrifice to take place.)

If you think that this situation is one that could never happen today, think again. Just yesterday, on a reality television program (yes! I confess! I watch reality TV!) about in-laws in conflict, I watched as an over-protective mom demanded that her son-in-law sell his muscle car, a car he had lovingly restored and worked on since high school, in order to prove that he really loved his wife, her daughter. It was the worst thing in the world to that young man, and he agonized over it. As he delayed, the mother-in-law escalated her taunts. Then, as a tow truck arrived to take the car away, the son-in-law broke down and went inside the house to hide his emotions. The mother-in-law watched from the stoop as the car was hooked to the towline, and at the last minute, seeing that her son-in-law was willing to go through with it, she asked the tow truck driver to disengage. She was convinced the young man truly loved her daughter, and the sale itself was unnecessary.

“Sacrifice” is another one of those religious terms that we Unitarian Universalists have trouble with. In last week’s service, we looked at a selection from a young UU blogger who was near despair with this religious movement because of the inability or unwillingness of the UUs around her to discuss traditional terms like salvation, sin, and redemption in UU terms. The blogger Wondertwisted did not mention sacrifice, but she might well have added it to the list of words that UUs don’t want to talk about.

Sacrifice, like salvation last week, is a term that Unitarian Universalists can relate to better once we look at its original meaning. Sacrifice comes from two Latin words, sacer, holy or sacred, and facere, to make or to do – so its original sense was “to make holy” or “to perform a sacred function.” Like the familiar legend of the bluebonnets, of the Indian child who sacrifices her favorite doll in order to bring rain to her tribe, a sacrifice can be a giving away, a giving up, or a giving to one’s God. It is taking something that might be thought mundane or ordinary, and making it holy.

I want to talk about sacrifice today, and not just because today is the start of the Muslim holiday of Eid Al Adha, and not just because we religious liberals can relate to the original meaning of the word. I want to look squarely at the idea of sacrifice for religious liberals, because I believe sacrifice is not only essential to spiritual life, but to all meaningful relationships. I believe that sacrifice is inextricably intertwined with all the delight in our lives.

I know that’s a big statement, so let’s unpack it. Think of everything most important in our lives – intimate partnerships, parenting and grandparenting, being part of families, achieving success in careers and avocations, belonging to a religious community, even participating as active citizens in our country. Every single thing that we can name that is important to us requires a certain amount of sacrifice. Maybe we don’t use that word for our choices in all those different areas, but sacrifice is exactly what is happening.

Take your closest, most personal relationships, whether an intimate partnership, being a parent, or just being part of a family. In order for those connections to work and to satisfy us on emotional and spiritual levels, we have to give up at least a portion of some things that normally we hold dear – complete independence, total personal autonomy, the ability to do al-most anything we want anytime we want to do it. We sacrifice those things – even if we don’t think of it that way – for a higher good, the relationships, the connections, because we believe it is even more sacred to us than our freedom. And when things are going well and the relationship is in balance, we reap great delight from that sacrifice.

The same principle applies when we exercise our talents in work that is paid or in our favorite hobby or past-time. In order to get really good at cooking or playing trumpet or writing or selling or practicing medicine or law or whatever, we have to sacrifice some of our time in order to learn basic, intermediate, and then advanced skills in our field. We have to sacrifice financially, to be educated and trained in the area of our interest, perhaps also purchasing expensive tools or instruments or materials. But in the delight we get from gaining new skills and being able to get even better doing something we love doing, we tend not to think about the sacrifice involved.

What is true for intimate relationships and for work (whether paid or unpaid), is even more true in spirituality. Belonging to a faith community, committing ourselves to a religious path, requires sacrifice. Want to sleep late on the mornings of worship services and have all your after-work time to yourself? Gotta sacrifice that. Want to spend every cent of your money for your own and your family’s current and future pleasure and security? Gotta sacrifice that too. Want to have a life free of complications, conflicts, and challenging decisions? Oh yeah, gotta sacrifice that too.

No one in relationship, in religion, or in work is completely free. In order to be partnered, to be a parent or a grandparent, to be in religious or secular community, to excel at something, each one of us makes a sacrifice of some of our precious autonomy, our individuality, our ability to be on our own, our monetary resources. We sacrifice for our delight and most often find, when things are going well, that we don’t even think of it as sacrifice.

Many of you could tell a story of sacrifice if you began ot think of it that way. It might have been after Katrina, when you were living in evacuation in someplace maybe cleaner and safer than New Orleans, a place not riven by disaster. Maybe folks around you urged you to stay. But for whatever reasons crazy to outsiders, you gave up all that and came home to New Orleans, to your ruined house that had to be rebuilt, to your near-ruined city, and this near-ruined church. It was a sacrifice, given in love, for what you thought – and hopefully still think – was a higher good.

In the spring of 2007, when Board president Ann Maclaine called me in New Jersey to tell me First Church wanted me as your Consulting Minister, I was completely delighted and accepted at once. Only later – in fact, a few hours later, when my spouse Eric asked me about it – I had to sheepishly call her back and ask how much the compensation package was. I truly didn’t know, and frankly, I didn’t care. And when she told me a figure that was considerably below the Atlanta-area congregation that wanted me as their Interim Minister, it didn’t matter. It didn’t feel like a sacrifice, because I was coming home to New Orleans and to First Church.

Sacrifice and delight are indeed two sides of one coin. These two cannot be separated. If one is a devout Muslim or a Jew or a Christian, the sacrifices made in the name of Allah, Yahweh, or God, are worth it because of the religious delight one receives from adhering to the precepts of one’s faith and obedience to one’s God. Sacrificing for one’s partner – as that partner also sacrifices for you – builds our delight in one another. Sacrificing for one’s child, for the child’s health and well-being and future, is part of the delight of being a parent. Making certain sacrifices for one’s religious community and one’s home city, to ensure its health and continuity, enhances the delight we feel in those communities.

Of course, no one’s life is all sweetness and light, and none of us is always glad about the sacrifices we make. In fact, although it is true that most of the time – when things are going well – we don’t even think of what we’re doing as “sacrifice,” when we hit potholes and rough spots in our lives and relationships our sacrifices are suddenly revealed to us (and not in a good way). In times of conflict and controversy, things we once did for love are transmuted into onerous and painful sacrifices.

In really negative circumstances, we regret the sacrifices that we once made in perfect willingness; we might demand to be repaid (as when one former spouse demands recompense for putting the other former spouse through school), or we might want some kind of punishment to be inflicted on the party that hurt us, or we might draw a line on the sacrifices we’re willing to make in the future (as when parents decides not to loan their feckless adult child any more money).

When we begin to look at it that way, it might seem like sacrifice and delight are completely separate, or even that they are opposites. We might be tempted to say that when we’re happy, there’s no sacrifice, only delight, and that when things are bad, there’s no delight, only sacrifice. But underneath we know it’s not so. Sacrifice and delight are partners, and work together in all the most important aspects of our lives; it’s just that we don’t always see them in their true light.

So it is not a question of “Will I ever sacrifice?” or “Am I willing to sacrifice?” for the simple reason that, unless we are complete hedonists or complete hermits, we already ARE sacrificing in some area or aspect of our lives. The question is instead, “What in our lives gives us the most delight, is most valuable, most sacred, to us, and what are we willing to sacrifice for its sake?” An important follow-up question might be, “And am I willing to stay the course when things get difficult?” in our relationships and in our communities.

Eid Al Adha is a Muslim festival of sacrifice. It may sound strange to our ears, celebrating sacrifice. But maybe we too need a time to remind us that sacrifice brings delight, and to reflect on what is most valuable, most sacred, in our lives, to which we would willingly sacrifice. So might this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

“Salvation?”

A Sermon by The Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
Given at First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, October 23, 2011

Last August Music Director Betsy McGovern brought a new UU controversy to the attention of the Worship Team, all over a blog written by a young adult woman UU calling herself Wondertwisted, who posted a provocative piece entitled “A Dear John Letter to UUism.” Apparently the post generated comments all over the Internet and Facebook by UU ministers and lay UUs. I read the original essay and all the comments, and felt inspired to do this sermon. (Wondertwisted's blog can be found at http://wondertwisted.wordpress.com/2011/08/06/a-dear-john-letter-to-unitarian-universalism/ )

I was inspired to write this sermon, not just because there’s a recent uproar in our denomination, although that’s a good and legitimate reason to do a timely sermon, and not because I had read a book, but because I personally know something wonderful that I feel called upon to share. I want to talk about salvation in our church because I know that ours is a saving faith, because Unitarian Universalism saved my life.

I don’t mean that I was in physical danger, like the child trapped in the well in today's children’s story, or that I was in fear of losing my immortal soul after death, in the language of my Roman Catholic childhood. What Unitarian Universalism saved me from my own personal hell. As our former minister Suzanne Meyer preached in St. Louis in 2003:

…there are many kinds of private hells in which living men and women dwell every day. These are small personal hells of meaninglessness, banality, and loneliness. Hells of shame, hells of guilt, hells of loss, hells of failure. There are as many kinds of these small hells as there are people who live in them.

It didn’t feel like hell at first, as many of these small private hells do not. I thought I was finally, after years of struggle, on my way to financial security and material prosperity. I had a job I had worked hard to get and that for the most part I enjoyed. It was in high-level fashion retailing, a career I had aspired to since my teenage years. I had a beautiful little son and a marriage I thought was strong. If there were stirrings of feelings of loss, of something missing, of things not being quite or completely right, I diligently kept those emotions in check.

Even after our family first found Unitarian Universalism, here at First Church in 1983 (although in our former building at 1800 Jefferson), I still didn’t think that the church was mainly for me – I thought I was there for Sunday School for my son. Sure, I enjoyed the services, and I was glad to be making new friends, but it didn’t feel personal.

One thing I know for sure is that you can’t keep a deep and serious unhappiness a secret from your own body. I began experiencing stress-related physical symptoms – a mysterious rash that cleared up on my day off from the Laura Ashley store, lack of sleep, nightmares. I finally was diagnosed with cancer in 1985. I quit my job and underwent surgery, and spiraled into a depression. If I had to sum up how I felt, I would have to use words like shame, guilt, futility, uselessness, meaninglessness. In the words of the old hymn, I felt lost, I felt wretched.

I know Unitarian Universalism is a faith that deals with salvation because our faith saved my life. Within our faith and within this very congregation, I found purpose and meaning and community. I was, without elaborate or formal ritual, released from the burden of guilt and shame I was carrying. I was freed to believe, to have faith in, first of all, myself, and then in the power of life and love moving through community to make my life, and the world, better. I can hardly talk about this without great emotion, without choking up, because it means so much to me. “I was once was lost and now am found, ‘twas blind, but now I see.” That’s salvation, and I found it here.

I feel terrible about Wondertwisted’s heart-felt words and her less-than-good experiences with Unitarian Universalism. But I’ll tell you one thing that makes me feel even worse – the number of comments on her blog and on Facebook from UUs who discount what she shared, who basically tell her, “Move on if you don’t like it, we UUs don’t deal with salvation.”

Unitarian Universalism is, again in Suzanne Meyer’s words, in the business of saving souls. We are indeed a salvation faith. And we do this, not by promising people a better life after they die – in fact, we take no denominational position on any afterlife – and not by scaring folks about some terrible eternal place they end up after death. Most UUs believe that life on earth, this one right here, can be scary enough and terrible enough, without recourse to some after-life Hell. Our small private hells are sufficiently painful; I know that mine was.

Do you know what one of the most common reactions new people have to Unitarian Universalism? In essence, it’s “Where have y’all been all my life?” Nearly every new UU I speak to practically complains that they needed our saving faith at some challenging or sad point in their lives, but they didn’t know we were there. I resonate with that reaction, because it is similar to how I felt. And I feel now with all my heart that it’s almost a religious crime for us not to be shouting about Unitarian Universalism from the rooftops, especially from the rooftops of New Orleans, still reeling and wounded from Katrina, still filled with people chained up inside their own small private hells of alienation, loneliness, grief, and despair.

Unitarian Universalism is a saving faith, a salvation faith. More than anything else, our job as a church is to save souls. We can get so caught up in the details of rebuilding our building, and raising money to do that and still run the church, doing our community service projects, trying desperately to balance the budget, teaching children, recruiting volunteers, forming committees, endlessly meeting and debating and discussing, that we can easily start to imagine that any one of these things is the main thing we are about as a church. We can get distracted by these things for a while and forget that we are in the business of saving souls.

So many people come through our doors every Sunday who are not looking for Unitarian Universalism, who are not looking for another place to give their time and money, who are not here because they are rejecting any or all religion. They are here because they feel lost, lonely and hurting, because they feel something is missing, even though they may appear to all the world to be just fine and dandy. They have no particular interest in religion — our brand or any other brand. They just know that they’ve already tried everything else: alcoholism, workaholism, drugs, shopping, gambling, partying, travel, therapy, self-help books and groups and programs. There’s nothing left for them to try and besides, we don’t charge admission — even the coffee is free.

A few of the commenters to Wondertwisted’s blog understand because they too have experienced the saving power of Unitarian Universalism. Julian wrote: “I believe UUism saves souls. I do believe there is salvation in UUism.” Tim Bartik posted: “People NEED a positive message on how they can be ‘saved’ towards a better relationship with themselves and people and this world, and many have a need to address their relationship with the broader universe.”

One commenter wrestled with the word. Susan Dorbeck wrote: “Now I’m struggling with what salvation means in this world, how to define it. What in me do I want saved? What do I want to save? Salvation is a big word. Does it mean comfort and solace? Does it mean an end to poverty and oppression? Does it mean hope and faith? Or the means by which we achieve those ends?”

Those are all good questions, and they are among the deepest religious questions there are. Why are we Unitarian Universalists not publicly wrestling and struggling with these important questions? Why is a devout and dedicated Unitarian Universalist young adult like Wondertwisted having to go elsewhere to have that conversation? Why aren’t all of us religious liberals using that language when we talk about our faith and our church to others? Do we really think our friends and neighbors are dying spiritually for a lack of joining a committee, having a stimulating conversation, hearing an interesting speaker, giving donations to a church, or drinking all that free coffee? Whether folks can articulate it or not, they want their lives to have purpose, they want to feel like they are living for something, they want their souls saved.

We are not misusing the word “salvation” to say that we are a salvation faith. We are instead going back to the original meaning of the word. In Hebrew, the word translated as salvation meant “to make sufficient.” In ancient Greek, the word meant “to make whole” or “to make healthy.” In both languages, the word used for salvation was almost exclusively secular. In almost every use in scripture, the word we know as “salvation” was focused on the here and now. When we use salvation on our terms, we are using it the way it was originally meant. We ought to feel just as free to use “salvation” our way as we do to use “church” our way.

I’m going to give the last words in this sermon to the spirited and passionate young woman who kicked this topic off. Here’s an excerpt from Wondertwisted’s September blog post, following up on the controversy stirred by her post in August. If you need me to say it, then I will – I agree with her completely.

If UUs don’t think the faith has anything to say about salvation — or redemption or transformation — then the Internal Revenue Service should revoke the tax-exempt status of every congregation with “Unitarian Universalist” on its shingle. And the good people in the meetinghouse should ask themselves what the heck they’re doing there. If they aren’t there for a chance at reforming their lives, their hearts or their communities, then why are they there at all?…

May we Unitarian Universalists claim our rightful place as a faith that saves souls, as a church that deals in salvation, so that we can reach out to all the folks in greater New Orleans in their own small private hells. So might this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

Three Word Mission

A Sermon for Association Sunday
by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
at First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, October 2, 2011

This past June, I had a kind of an epiphany at the UUA General Assembly, the annual meeting of delegates and members of Unitarian Universalist congregations from all over the U.S. and the world. For the past 7 years, one of the things that happens at GA is that certain congregations are awarded the title of Breakthrough Congregation. The UUA website explains what that is:

… the Breakthrough Congregation initiative was an effort to identify those congregations that had achieved significant and sustained numerical growth and give them an opportunity to share what they’ve done, and how they’ve done it.

Breakthrough Congregations are selected by the UUA’s Growth Team, and each congregation shares their story at General Assembly. I was especially struck by the presentation and video of the UU Congregation of Fairfax, Virginia, pastored by my friend and colleague Mary Katherine Morn.

To give you a little background, Rev. Morn has been serving Fairfax for 8 years – in fact, I did the Chalice Lighting at her Installation ceremony. Over the time of that ministry, the minister, Board, and congregation have together embarked on a conscious and intentional process of transforming important things about their church – how it was governed, how it thought of itself, what its purpose was, how they would treat each other, how they would present themselves to the world, and how they would welcome new folks.

One of the first things that the Fairfax congregation changed about itself was its Mission Statement. Now, UU congregations in general have a problem with Mission Statements. Sometimes they are too long, and almost nobody in the church, even those who helped write them, can remember them. Let me give you a couple of examples of this kind of Mission Statement:

•The First Unitarian Church of Wilmington, Delaware, inspires lifelong spiritual growth. We promote religious freedom and joyfully offer our community and our world the transforming message of our Unitarian Universalist principles. We share a freely-chosen faith that opens minds and deepens understanding of life's enduring mysteries. We rely on reason, intuition, personal experience, and diverse religious traditions. As individuals in community, we commit our energy and resources to this mission.
•Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of the Poconos: We are an accepting congregation, diverse in religious and spiritual expression, uniting in fellowship to enrich our lives and inspire the community by promoting Unitarian Universalist principles.

I defy anyone to remember either of those.
The 2nd issue with UU church Mission Statements is that sometimes they are so inclusive as to be almost useless. A Mission that is too anodyne, trying not to offend anyone, ends up offending by being too general. A couple of examples:

•Thoreau UU Congregation in Stafford, Texas: We are a spiritual community of open minds and caring hearts, working for social justice and religious freedom in Fort Bend County.
•From the UU Church of Lancaster: We are a welcoming, nurturing community that celebrates our spiritual diversity. Commitment to our Unitarian Universalist principles inspires us to create positive change in the world.

These statements are well-meant, and they're not offensive, but they’re boring. They could apply to almost any church.

You may be wondering how the First Church Mission Statement compares. You can judge for yourself – turn your Order of Service over, and there it is:

•We are a richly historic, diverse and inclusive, liberal rel-igious community of free thinkers, inspired by reason and spirit. Members of First Church commit to seek meaning and wholeness in our lives and justice in the world.

Not bad.

By contrast to all of these, the Fairfax congregation went in a different direction, and came up with a 3-word Mission Statement that the whole congregation could get behind, buy into, remember, and actively apply to their church life. Their Mission Statement is Grow, Connect, Serve. That’s it – Grow, Connect, Serve.

If you go to the UUA website and view the Fairfax Breakthrough Congregation video, or go to the Fairfax website, you will see how this Mission is applied through everything the church does. The congregation understands “grow” in both senses, as to grow in numbers of members, and to grow in spiritual depth. They strive always to connect authentically with each other, and also to connect warmly with newcomers to the church. They see service as part of who they are – service to their church and service in the wider world. Grow, Connect, Serve. It’s their mantra, its their reason for being, it’s their motto, it’s their mission. Over 8 years, living up to it has helped them become a UUA Breakthrough Congregation.

I was very impressed with everything I saw and heard about Fairfax, and I was also inspired – which is of course why the UUA exists, why we are in Association with other UU congregations, and why we’re celebrating Association Sunday this morning. We can help one another, we can inspire one another, we can learn from and teach one another.

But I’m NOT suggesting we copy the Fairfax 3-word Mission Statement. Inspired by them, I came up with one I like for us. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to like it – indeed, it would be great if this Association Sunday sermon would spark a congregational conversation to come up with our own 3-word Mission Statement.

The 3 words that I came up with have a few more syllables than the Fairfax Mission, but I think they fit us better. Try this out: Hospitality, Community, Solidarity. Let me unpack them one by one.

Hospitality is a term that has been associated with the city of New Orleans for hundreds of years. It is also a religious imperative, common in traditions both Eastern and Western. It means to welcome the stranger, to make guests feel at home, to treat a new person with honor and affection, to create a home that is warm and welcoming. Hospitality shares a common root with “hospital,” and so there is an implication of healing. For the Semitic tribes of the hostile desert in Biblical times, hospitality wasn’t mere politeness – it ensured the safety and even life of travelers.

First Church has been including a reference to “radical hospitality” in its self-presentation well before Katrina, and it has become even more important after the Storm. We’ve practiced hospitality with each other as we returned home to the city and to First Church, we’ve practiced hospitality as we’ve welcomed new members, and we’ve practiced hospitality to the thousands of volunteers who have come to take part in our recovery and restoration. Practicing hospitality as our congregational spiritual discipline is natural to us, and thus it is a good choice as the first word in our 3-word Mission Statement.

Community is a term often bandied about, commonly used interchangeably with congregation. But you can have a congregation without having a community. In a congregation, folks attend the same religious organization. In a congregation that becomes a community, there’s more – folks care about one another, help one another, support one another. But even more importantly, folks in a congregation that becomes a community are accountable to each other. They make promises about being in right relationship, they call each other back to those promises when during stress or conflict they become obscured. In a congregation that becomes a community, the members are strengthened by their bonds with each other, and always seek ways to enlarge the community. As the second word in our 3-word Mission Statement, we would proclaim our aspiration of the ideal of Beloved Community that Martin Luther King Jr. spoke of.

Many UU churches, like the one in Fairfax, speak of service, and service is a good thing. But there is something beyond service, beyond social justice issues and projects, beyond helping those who are oppressed and in need – and that is Solidarity. Solidarity says that we aspire to go beyond service and helping – that we aim to stand with those often considered “the other” or “those poor people,” whoever they are. We who have been victims of disaster and prejudice ourselves stand with those for whom that is their constant state of being. We who have overcome great loss stand with those in loss and grief.

There is a poster in the kitchen of the New Orleans Rebirth Volunteer Center, upstairs on the 2nd floor of the First Church Religious Education wing, pointed out to all the volunteers who have stayed here since Katrina. It portrays a community of indigenous people in Australia who collectively came up with a passionate expression of how they felt about the outsiders who came to “help” them. The poster says:

“If you have come to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.”

Now, that’s Solidarity, and that is better, more just, more equitable, than mere service.

It took the Fairfax UUs 8 years to become a Breakthrough Congregation, and they did not have to overcome a major disaster and the attendant challenges of rebuilding membership, finances, and a building complex to do it. But it can still be an inspiration to us. We are only 6 years out from Katrina, and with the partnership of our Association and congregations and individuals within our Association, we have come a long long way. But we too can aspire to be a Breakthrough Congregation, we too can transform our habits and processes, and we too can start by changing our Mission Statement so that it inspires and challenges every single First Church member and friend to our finest efforts towards Hospitality, Community, & Solidarity. So might this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

"REBUILDING TRUST" A Sermon for the High Holy Days

by The Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, September 25, 2011

This morning, we tackle a difficult subject – how to rebuild trust after a betrayal. However difficult a subject, this is an appropriate time of year for such reflection, since the Jewish High Holy Days of Rosh Hashanah, or the Jewish New Year, is on September 28, and Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, falls on October 7. According to Jewish tradition, an angel of God keeps a book of the misdeeds of all human beings, for which they will be judged at the end of time. Offenses can be erased from the book, but only when there has been a change of heart and an attempt made to correct the situation. For centuries, it has been the practice for devout Jews to make amends to those they’ve offended as the new year and Yom Kippur approaches.

While all human misdeeds cause harm of one kind or another, betrayals of trust feel the worst. Whatever the situation, what all betrayals have in common is that the fabric mutual trust and love is torn by an act of either commission or omission of one of the parties. By this act, the trust necessary for maintaining the on-going intimacy of the connection is threatened if not des-troyed. Generally speaking for all such betrayals, several important steps must be intentionally taken by the offending party before reconciliation and the restoration of trust can take place.

This is not an easy subject to think about. There is not a person in this room who has not either suffered the betrayal of a loved one, or else acted as betrayer of someone who loved us. Most of us have probably experienced both at one time or an other, and it would be hard to say which end of that stick is the most painful. And as all of us know only too well from hard-won ex-perience, simply saying, “I’m sorry” just doesn’t cut it. As poet Ntozake Shange so strongly put it in her long play-poem that recently was made into a movie, apologies “dont open doors/or bring the sun back.” Apologies without action are mere words, sound and fury signifying nothing.

In the Jewish tradition, as we have heard in this morning’s reading, God’s forgiveness for offenses against God is sure and certain, with even the slightest attempt towards change for the better – an idea about the nature of God that influenced our Universalist ancestors – but not even God can forgive an offense against another human being. Only the offended person can extend forgiveness for the wrong done to them, and then only after an attempt to make things right again.

Religious ethicist Marie Fortune has written extensively on the subject of reconciliation, from such perspectives as survivors of domestic violence and church congregations harmed by the betrayal of trust of their ordained clergy. She has developed what she calls the “5 R’s of Atonement:”

Reconciliation = Recognition + Responsibility + Restitution + Repentance

Recognition comes first, and that’s appropriate. The very first step towards rebuilding trust after a betrayal has to be for the offending person to realize and acknowledge the wrong. For someone to keep insisting that “it was no big deal” or that “you’re just over-sensitive” is no way to restart a wounded relationship; indeed, this lack of recognition simply serves to make the situ-ation worse. Before any movement towards reconciliation can happen, therefore, it is necessary for the person who committed the offense to recognize and openly acknowledge that harm has been done.

After recognition comes Responsibility, for it is obviously not enough just to realize that one’s actions have caused a break in an important relationship, one must also accept responsibility for one’s behavior. Over the years of doing pastoral care, I have heard a creative variety of excuses for the failure to take responsibility. “It’s not my fault!” folks cry, “I was drunk-upset-angry-out of my head. I didn’t know what I was doing.” Folks really skilled at avoiding responsibility have a knack for turning the offended person into the responsible party; batterers often tell their victims, “You MADE me hit you.” But it doesn’t have to be offenses as large as physical violence; there are those who say, “You made me say that-quit my job-lose my temper-crash the car.”

The third R in Fortune's equation is Restitution. The wrong must be made right; what was broken must be made whole. If something was stolen, it must be returned or replaced. If there has been injury, it must be healed somehow. If it is impossible to repair the actual damage, then some other equitable way of restoring the offended person must be worked out, such as monetary compensation or substitution. This is an extremely important part of the equation, for without some kind of restitution, we are back to just words. If the U.S. Government had merely apologized to Japanese-Americans for their unjust internment during World War II without the accompanying restitution payments -- however inadequate -- the gesture would have been seen as an empty farce.

Finally, there is Repentance, a word that may be difficult for Unitarian Universalists, because of its association with more orthodox religious practice. Perhaps we should use the Talmudic term teshuvah, meaning “return,” instead. Before true reconciliation can take place, there must be a return to right relationship, a change of heart that leads to a change of ways. Someone who is not determined to change will surely repeat the offense; one cannot trust a person who is not willing to alter their future behavior.

Rebuilding trust after a betrayal in an intimate relationship is never easy – and it’s not always possible or even desirable. But in those situations where both the offended and offending parties desire that the relationship be repaired so that the former level of intimacy can be reached, the 4 steps of recognition, responsibility, restitution, and repentance must take place for authentic reconciliation to occur. (Of course, there are many cases in which one or both par-ties is either unwilling or unable to go through the full restoration process. A relationship of some sort may go on in such cases, but since trust cannot be restored, the prior level of intimacy and mutuality is forever lost.)

None of us likes to consider the possibility that someone we care deeply about will betray our trust, but there is no escape. Letting ourselves love means letting ourselves be open and vulnerable. Being in an intimate relationship with another person means there is the possibility that they will hurt us or that we will hurt them – in fact, it’s not just a possibility, it’s a certainty. We’re all human; we all make mistakes; we all act selfishly or thoughtlessly at times. But when such situations arise, the important thing is NOT to say, “I’m human, so shoot me” but instead to act in ways that restores the torn fabric of our relationships and rebuilds the trust that was broken.

This sermon is entitled “Rebuilding Trust” for a good reason; it has not been about “how to avoid having your trust broken” because that would be a weird sermon about how not to love other people. All of us have been in this situation and we will again, as long as we’re alive and in connection with others. Trust can always be rebuilt after a betrayal, but only as long as there is willingness to try on both sides, and only as long as the offending person recognizes the wrong, accepts responsibility, offers restitution, and returns to right ways of behavior. To extend trust without these conditions is to ensure future betrayals; to expect trust without these 4 Rs is to demand a relationship one has not earned. And intimate relationships, whether personal or in community, need trust in order to be authentic.

Reconciliation = Recognition + Responsibility + Restitution + Repentance

This is a formula for real relationships in the real world. So might this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

Annual Budget Drive Service: “Feeding The Flame”

First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
The Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
Sunday, September 18, 2011

“Rise up, O flame.” We sang these words for our Meditation this morning. Some UU congregations use this round as a ritual way of lighting the chalice every Sunday. Ever since the tradition of lighting a chalice as a way to begin a worship service and other sacred time, during the mid-1960s, a clear and visible flame, rising up out of a chalice or other container, has been a holy symbol to us Unitarian Universalists.

It seems inevitable that we religious liberals would take up somehow with fire. As far back as there have been humans, fire has been sacred to us. Of the four ancient symbols once thought of as the elements of all life and health – earth, air, water, and fire, it is the latter that has stayed consistently consecrated across religious and cultural boundaries. Not all religions have sacred earth, or ways of sacralizing the air, but just about every spiritual path lights a flame.

At the most basic level, fire sheds light and lends warmth; it cooks food. It purifies and removes contaminants. It trans-forms chemically, making one thing into another thing. But like the other sacred elements, fire has its destructive aspect. Indeed, if you Google the theme of this year’s Annual Budget Drive, “Feed the Flame,” you will find that the vast majority of citations are negative, referring to rage as the fire that is fed.

For us, however, the flame is a positive symbol, standing for community and connection, for passion and dedication and commitment. Cherie LeBlanc’s powerful design shows many hands reaching forward, adding their bit, to make the flame grow higher.

In my letter to the congregation printed in the ABD brochure, I recalled a scene found in many fictional depictions, both movies and books. It is of a group of early humans, or human-like creatures, seated in a circle at night, and then one of their number bringing fire to them. On the ABD committee, we actually had a discussion of whether I was remembering right about such a scene in the iconic movie “2001: A Space Odyssey.” In the end, we decided it didn’t matter. Whether we’re exactly right or not, nearly of us can recall a scene like this. Maybe it’s even atavistic, an almost-memory from our earliest ancestors. Somewhere deep inside, we remember: Our community was once cold and dark and hungry and afraid, and then there was fire. Things got better, we got stronger, and we were no longer afraid.

This community has been our own metaphorical dark cold night. There were many outside our congregation who counted us out – but we never did. We drew closer, even when our symbolic campfire was held together by telephone wires. Our many hands, and the hands of sisters and brothers around the country, have fed the flame of our renewal.

We fed the flame of our renewed life with our own hard work, our ideas, our commitment. We fed the flame with contributions of our time and our money. To feed that flame, we learned new skills – skills in some cases that we never expected that we’d need to have, and perhaps never even wanted to have – and applied them to our building and to our ministry. To feed the flame, we held countless meetings and thoroughly aired every point presented.

To feed the flame, we told our friends about what was happening here – that despite all the work needed on our complex, this congregation is doing vital, important work in metro New Orleans, partnering with disadvantaged communities of color, with immigrant workers, and with the other two UU congregations, and that the work is being done from a strong foundation in worship and education and commitment to liberal spirituality. To feed the flame, we have cared for one another in times of illness, accident, loss, or other hard times.

While it has taken longer than we wished, we as a religious community are poised on the brink of a bright and shining new chapter in our congregational life. This year, we will complete the first of three phases of the new requirements of the improved state building codes, and we will open the Community Kitchen that we will share with the New Orleans AIDS Task Force. Our Sanctuary will have its own electricity, enhancing opportunities for congregational events as well as rentals. And we will finally have in hand a Permanent Certificate of Occupancy, ensuring our stay in the building and allowing us to move ahead with our plans and vision.

Everything we do as a congregation, from our quality worship, our excellent religious education for children and youth, our wonderful music program, our wider urban ministry, our care for one another, our relationships with our sister UU congregations here in New Orleans and around the country, and even our fun times together, like the Fellowship Dinner last night, rest on a foundation created by the Annual Budget Drive.

Every member and committed friend contributes regularly, as they can, to support the church operating budget, which then pays the salaries of our professional staff (the minister, music director, religious education director, and nursery care worker), as well as paying for our support staff, the church sexton, bookkeeper, and rental manager. The budget pays the mortgage to the bank on the building, the insurance premiums, and all the utilities bills. The budget covers purchases of worship supplies, sheet music, and Sunday School supplies. In smaller amounts, it contributes to our social justice ministry. The budget is the catalyst for all that we do as a church, and makes possible our life together.

We realize that we cannot just take the total goal of the ABD campaign and divide it up by the number of every single member and committed friend. We know that not every individual or every household can contribute the same amount – but every individual or every household can contribute some-thing, and every contribution is important to the whole. Every contribution feeds the flame of our life together.

My spouse and I have considered our commitment to First Church’s health and future, and considered also our personal situation. Despite our reduced circumstances from the closure of the nightclub where Eric worked, we have increased the percentage of our giving from my First Church salary plus housing to 5%. We do this as a sign of our hope and commitment. I hope that each and every one of you will give serious thought to increasing your contribution as best you can, to help feed the flame. Welcome the call from your Visiting Steward; it’s a chance to share stories of what First Church means to us.

When the flame is fed, it rises up and is more visible. It gives more light and more warmth. It truly becomes a beacon. Feed the flame, and let our light shine! The city, and the world, need First Church, and we need each other. AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

“Learning to be Full”

A Sermon by the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, August 14, 2011

I want to start this sermon by thanking Steven for his help in putting this service together, for his testimony, and especially for his courage in being willing to be so open and vulnerable with his spiritual community; I also want to thank a couple of parishioners who helped behind the scenes with resources and ideas for this service, but who wished to remain anonymous. This is an important topic for all of us, and I appreciate the assistance I’ve received in getting this service ready for you today.

A large part of the job for any minister is pastoral counseling. And as your post-Katrina minister, it has been a somewhat larger piece of this ministry than perhaps it usually is. For almost 4 years now I have listened and tried to be of help as various parishioners have shared with me the challenges they were coping with, the difficulties they were facing. And while there was a great deal of variation in the stories I heard, there did seem to be a common thread. Whatever it was that figured as the “presenting problem” for the counseling session, nearly every person who sought counseling with me said they felt a lack, an empty place, a hole in their lives.

In addition, many of them also said they felt worthless or unworthy, as if they were a fraud in their own lives and fearful that other people might find out. Sometimes this was experienced as a voice in their head, not necessarily like a paranoid person hears voices, but just an inner voice that insisted they had no talent, were not lovable, and were incapable of getting ahead or getting better. For some it was the voice of an abusive parent or grandparent; for others it was particularly brutal teacher or a former intimate partner. Still others described it as a part of themselves that was always critical.

I know something about this, for inside of me is my own perverted version of my mother’s voice. While my mother, who died in 1992, was in her lifetime was highly critical of me at times, she never really said to me all the things I hear in my head. But that doesn’t matter, for me it’s real enough. The voice tells me I have a lot of nerve getting up to preach on Sundays, since I don’t know what I’m doing and no one wants to hear what I have to say anyway. The voice says I’m lucky to have a spouse, or friends, or family members that put up with me, because I’m not really worthy of love or respect. I have never been able to get rid of the voice, but there are times when it is fainter in my head. I know what it is like to feel like there is something missing, that I’m not completely whole. I hope that my having this experience makes me a better, more empathetic counselor and pastor. I know it makes me human.

But it’s not just me and folks in this congregation, or even survivors of Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans and the Gulf Coast. Many, many people in our society feel this lack, and it is indeed what it is called in our reading and in Steven’s testimony – it is a spiritual emptiness, a disease of the spirit. But it is not just what you might call a passive hole, it’s a hungry, gnawing hole. It virtually demands to be filled, and folks try mighty hard to do just that, throwing drugs, alcohol, overeating, overwork, overexercise, meaningless sex, gambling, cruising the Internet, and shopping for things they won’t use that they can’t afford, and many other activities into that howling empty space. And you know what? Nothing ever works; not a single one of those things or actions can fill the void inside. In fact, the whole time you and I and other people are doing those things, we already know how useless it is, and we keep on doing it anyway. (In the rooms of AA and OA and NA, they say, “Crazy is doing the same things over and over, and thinking you will get different results.”) If addictions could be solved intellectually and rationally, by simply making a decision, they wouldn’t be addictions, and there’d be no such thing as 12-Step programs.

As any pregnant woman knows, if you’re craving chocolate, a nice tuna fish sandwich on whole wheat bread won’t work. If what you are craving is spiritual food, you will not be satisfied by any amount of eating, drinking, using drugs, gambling, shopping, or anything else. You must feed your soul what you are hungry for.

Spiritual food. You are the only person in the world who can say what that that might be for you, but it is possible to make of possible “menu” of what spiritual food could be. It would be activities that are life-affirming, life-nurturing, activities that draw a person out of their own head and into right relationship with others and with the Spirit of Life. They are things that help a person to feel ultimate life and love. These might include: meditation, reflection, prayer, appreciating nature, listening to music, dancing, reading wholesome books, journal writing, drawing/painting/creating, working for social justice, serving others, meeting with others for spiritual support, taking good care of yourself through eating and exercising in a healthy way, and getting enough sleep at night.

Let me say right now that if you feel like I’m saying you have to do ALL of these things in order to feel full and whole, then that’s your addiction, the nasty voice in your head talking. A healthy, whole person finds the two or three or so activities that work for them, and devotes themselves to those. (I say more than one because every single one of us needs to do that last one – taking good care of yourself through eating and exercising in a healthy way, and getting enough sleep at night.)

Now I’m going to play psychic, and tell you that I already know that the voice in your head is saying, as Steven shared with us, that you don’t have time for that kind of stuff. You are too busy, your plate is too full, you don’t have a free moment, to take time off to do something as useless as attend meetings, or sit and meditate, or write in a journal, or help out a food bank, or any of the other things on our list of spiritual food.

There’s an old story often used in counseling to help illustrate the things that fill the full plates of our lives. Go through it with me right now as a kind of meditation. Picture a large glass jar, and surround it with sev-eral big rocks, lots of medium-sized pebbles, and then an amount of sand. The big rocks represent the most important things in our lives; the pebbles are the sort-of important things, and the sand stands for all the normal and regular but mostly quotidian things in our lives. Now, put all the medium pebbles in the jar, and pour in all the sand that you have. If there’s any room left, put in one or two of the large rocks. If you are normal, if you fill the jar this way, you have several of your large rocks – remember, your most important, most valued, things – left outside the jar of your life.

Now pour everything out, and this time, put the big rocks in first. Next, add in the pebbles. Finally, scoop up and pour in the sand, shaking the jar a little to let things settle. This time is different, right? Lo and behold, everything, or nearly everything, fits. Best of all, the most important things in your life, went first. That’s how you have to treat your physical and spir-itual health – as one of the foundation rocks of your life. That has to go first; as Steven said, it’s what everything else in your life rests on and fits into. Now you have time.

Today we are announcing the start of a new spiritual support group in the church, called FULL, which stands for “Feeling Ultimate Life & Love.” The FULL group will be open to any person who feels spiritually empty, who senses that there is a lack in their lives, and who have had issues with any of the unhealthy behaviors and addictions that we have mentioned. The group’s first meeting will be Wednesday, September 7, beginning at 6 pm in the Large Classroom. In this first session, we will begin a process of sharing with each other, and practicing different spiritual disciplines with each other. We will also decide together what the group’s regular meeting schedule will be, and the group’s permanent or semi-permanent meeting location. I will lead the group at the start, but it is my hope that the group will eventually be self-sustaining and self-led.

Let me be clear that the FULL group is not meant to replace Over-eaters Anonymous, Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, or any other 12-Step group, but to be an added resource, a supplement, to what those groups do. The Feeling Ultimate Life & Love group is to help those of us who feel the need to experience UU-style spirituality with each other, in order for us to nurture and support each other in our quest for wholeness.

It may not be possible to completely fill the gaping hole in our souls, or completely silence the carping voice in our heads. But together we can feed on spiritual food, and help each other to feel more full and to realize we are not alone. Together we will support each other so that we’re feeling ultimate life and love, because that’s the only way we will truly feel full. So may this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!

“Many Colors, One Palette”

A Sermon for the GNOUU Hot Art Service
North Shore Unitarian Universalists
The Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
Sunday, August 7, 2011

Back when I was an art major in undergrad school (that was back when I had this crazy idea that my career path would be “artist”), laying out my palette of oil paints was one of my favorite things. I loved squeezing out shiny squiggles of paint in lustrous colors with evocative names, such as viridian green and alizarin crimson and cerulean blue, and arranging them just the way I wanted on my palette pad. I took enormous pleasure in that process, and took my time doing it, but it was just the first step in creating a painting.

Years before that, I had felt a similar sense of satisfaction with boxes of 64 Crayola crayons. (Believe me, I had no truck with those little useless boxes of 8 colors or even 16 – all I cared about was the 3-tired boxes of 64.) I used to spend hours arranging and rearranging the crayons in what I considered to be the correct color order, since they never arrived in that "perfect" order. But of course the real creative part was taking the colors out of the box and making something with them.

On Friday afternoon, I had the honor of representing the congregations of the Greater New Orleans UU cluster at a demonstration at the Hale Boggs Federal Building in New Orleans. The ostensible purpose was to join a pro-test against the annual meeting in a New Orleans hotel of the American Legislative Exchange Council, known as ALEC for short, that is funded mostly by the Koch Brothers of Texas, with contributions from big tobacco, big oil, and big pharma. The group is notorious for feeding their member state legislators “model” legislation to protect the interests of large corpora-tions against the rights of workers, unions, minorities, and women. (You can find out more about the group online by googling ALEC, or by going to the website of The Nation to read the exposé that was published last month.)

But since the time that had been set for the anti-ALEC demonstration months ago turned out to be only hours after the jury in the Danziger Bridge case had brought in a verdict of guilty on all counts for 5 former NOPD officers for shooting innocent civilians in the days after Katrina, the gathering on Poydras Street took on something of a celebratory air. There was a sense that if there could be justice in the Danziger case – however delayed – that justice was possible in other seemingly hopeless situations.

Strung along the plaza in front of the federal building was a very diverse group. The locals included representatives from groups active since before the Storm in combating police brutality and after-the-fact official cover-ups, white anti-racists, union members black and white and male and female, students and professors from local universities, including a busload from LSU, immigration activists, and community organizers. There were about a dozen people who had come down from Ohio and Wisconsin, two states that have had recent bad experiences with ALEC-inspired state laws. There were Catholics, and Protestant Christians, Jews and Muslims, and not a few atheists. I met two Unitarian Universalists from the Baton Rouge church – a mother and son team, reminding me of all those demonstrations I went to with my son Stephen – and I saw at least one member of Community Church (Rev. Jim was and is on vacation in Colorado; he and I take turns representing us on community events when we can).

A folk singer led the group, numbering around a hundred people, in traditional protest songs, songs written for the Alaska oil spill as well as the BP oil spill, and a few that seemed to have been written for this occasion. Protest signs ranged from the serious to the silly, with LOTS of different ways to spell out ALEC; many signs bore color photos of different state legislators who had succumbed to the blandishments of the lobbying group.

I was glad to be there, and I was glad for the diversity that was present, but being among so many people of different ages, faiths, and ethnicities was not an end in itself. We were there for something, something important – to stand for justice, for democracy, to make a difference.

We Unitarian Universalists can get pretty excited about diversity. Workshops are held at district meetings and at General Assembly on the topic, and articles on diversity are published in the UU World magazine. Ministers and lay leaders question their counterparts from other churches, asking, How big – how many people of color – whether or not there are working class people in their congregations. And these are not invalid questions, because we Unitarian Universalists ought to be concerned about whether our religious message – our “good news” – is reaching as many people, and as many different kinds of people, as possible.

But much more important than diversity is purpose. We have to be gathering different kinds of people for a good reason, just as placing paint on a palette, or arranging crayons in a box, has to be for a purpose. From what I’ve read, I’m convinced that if they had to, the Koch Brothers could pull together a pretty diverse group of people – but I’m also convinced that even they did such a thing, it wouldn’t be for purposes of wider justice.

When I think about our cluster, the Greater New Orleans UU cluster, and I think about us fairly often, I have some of the same concerns. It is a good thing, a very good thing, that these three congregations have come together, and it is only natural that so much of our purpose for doing so in the beginning was for recovery and support. That was what we needed at the start. But now that we are very close to the 6th anniversary of Katrina, it is needful to ask What else is our purpose? It’s a good thing, a very good thing, that we came together, and I brag about us for doing that all the time when I’m around other UUs. But what are we together FOR? WHY are we together? What is the greater goal, the higher purpose, for these 3 disparate different congregations to be together for?

We are like different colors on one palette – impressive and attractive, but useless unless we’re accomplishing something. Ensuring each other’s survival through raising money, while a good thing, is not enough. Sharing worship in common, as we are doing today, also a good thing, is not enough. We must share a higher purpose together – and I hope that purpose is making the Greater New Orleans area a better, more just, more ethical, more equitable, more democratic, place for as many people as possible in every way we can.

Some might say we have to be completely recovered ourselves before we can reach out to help those even worse than ourselves, but they would be wrong. None of the three congregations – not even Community Church – is wholly and completely restored, and yet already we have been able to make large contributions to the city of New Orleans and the surrounding area, both through our own united efforts and through the work of our shared non-profit, the Center for Ethical Living & Social Justice Renewal.

The list of the community organizations, community groups, and individuals that we have partnered with and that we have been to help would take longer than to recite than we’ve allotted for this sermon. The important issues we have addressed include the destruction of housing projects in New Orleans and the subsequent lack of affordable housing, the closure of Charity Hospital and the push to raze a recovering Mid-City neighborhood for an unneeded behemoth hospital for LSU, wage theft, immigration reform and the right to remain, hunger, homelessness, aid for struggling urban public schools, the revitalization of our local culture and tradition such as the Mardi Gras Indians, food justice and the lack of fresh produce in so many neighborhoods, free healthcare clinics in underserved neighborhoods, care for families in the inner city who are dealing with the nitty-gritty of racism, official indifference, crime, and the public-schools-to-prison pipeline, and of course helping individuals, neighborhoods, and churches to rebuild and come back from Katrina’s destruction.

THIS is why we’re together. Because the people of New Orleans and the 5 surrounding parishes need us, need our voice, need our influence, need our hands and hearts, our work and our monetary contributions. Because justice and ethics and equity and democracy are too important to squabble over and much too big for any one congregation to do by themselves alone.

This is who we are, and this is what we are for. The congregations of First Church, North Shore, and Community Church, urban, inner city, suburban, exurban, rural, middle class, well off, working class, achievers, strugglers, retirees, employed, unemployed, old, middle-aged, young adult, and youths, gay, straight, bisexual, transgender, intersexed, and gender queer, black, white, and Latino – many colors, one palette, for the purpose of making the greater New Orleans area a better place for all of the people who live here.

So might this be! AMEN – ASHÉ – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTÉ – BLESSED BE!

“All of Us Humanists”

A Sermon by the Rev. Melanie Morel Sullivan
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, June 12, 2011

Once while I was serving the church in Chattanooga, the Rev. John Buehrens, then the President of the Unitarian Universalist Association visited and was our guest speaker. During the Sunday Morning Adult Forum after the service, a member of the church challenged him about the future of humanism within our movement. His reply is worth remembering; he said that humanism was now, and would always be, the foundation of all other theological positions within Unitarian Universalism. He went to elaborate that unless a spirituality embraced the inherent worth and dignity of every person, the value of reason, science, and the intellect, and the use of the democratic process (humanist positions all), that it would not fit with Unitarian Universalism. But, John added, humanism itself is evolving, and there must be room in our movement for those whose theology cannot be completely encompassed by the term “humanism.”

Now, I’m from here in Louisiana, where as you know politics is a spectator sport and a cherished form of entertainment, and I know a good politician’s answer when I hear one. John Buehren’s reply was a very careful yes-but-also-no. It happens, however, that I agree with his assessment, and I suppose it is the job of this sermon to explain to you why I believe that all of us UUs are also all of us Humanists.

Both Unitarianism and Universalism began as courageous heresies of orthodox Christianity, heresies that never denied the worth and value of Jesus’s teachings and message, but that did disagree profoundly with doctrines about the nature and person of Jesus. And the whole time these courageous religious liberals staked a claim to the name “Christian” -- even while denying Jesus was God and questioning the miracles and the bodily resurrection. This willingness to question and make our own religious decisions led later in the 19th century to an acceptance of the truths to be found in all the world’s religions, and to the Divine that could be found in nature. These understandings led further to the development of religious humanism among us in the early 20th century, which brought us to courageous stands on civil and religious rights for people of color in the ‘50s and ‘60s, and for women, and gays, lesbians, bisexual and transgendered persons in the ‘70s and ‘80s. And all the while, as we grew and changed and gained new revelations from new experiences, we never abandoned our spiritual roots.

UUA records indicate that even when humanism was in its heyday, it was never was the sole theological viewpoint in all our churches. By 1996, in an in-formal poll done by the Department of Ministerial Settlement, even the most traditionally humanist UU congregations admitted that their newer members were describing themselves as mystical humanists or Christian humanists, or using some other modifier. The “Fulfilling The Promise” survey done by the UUA at the end of the 1990s found that for the first time in a generation, what you might call “plain vanilla” humanists made up less than half of the respondents, although it remained the top faith position. (For those of you who like numbers, the breakdown was humanism 46.1%, pagan 19%, theist 13%, Christian 9.5%. The other 12.4% were spread among various minority positions and “not sure.” The reason it doesn’t all add up to 100% is that so many UUs were checking more than one option. )

In the Cherry Hill, NJ congregation, where I served before coming home to Louisiana in 2007, surveys of members in preparation for ministerial searches over the years showed a clear shift, with fewer people each time saying that God was completely irrelevant and that theological language made them uncomfortable. But still, it should be noted, in that congregation as in Unitarian Universalism as a whole, humanism of whatever stripe remained the majority. As Department of Ministry chair John Weston wrote at the start of the 21st century, “The humanist tradition is the common currency of our movement. If there is an ideological center to this movement, it lies there.”

Say the word “humanism” and the reactions you receive will depend on who’s listening. If your listeners are fundamentalist conservative Christians, you may get looks of horror. If you are in academia, you will get a polite reception. If you are inside one of the “temples” of UU humanism, you will get warm regard. If you are talking to a UU pagan or a UU Christian or a UU Buddhist who has felt shut out or belittled by staunch humanists in their churches, you may hear a litany of complaint.

Well, I can’t do much about the reactions from fundamentalist Christians, but I have a lot to say about what happens within Unitarian Universalist congre-gations. One of the things I am here to say is, Lay down your rhetorical battle weapons. We are not on different sides; in fact, we are all on the same side, and the sooner we realize it, the better for all of us, and for religious liberalism.

The fact is, all of us are humanists. Here in the United States, the govern-ment that was founded in the aftermath of the American Revolution was based in classical humanist understandings from the Renaissance; the word “senator” was taken from ancient Greece and Rome, which for our country’s founders were paradigms of civilization and culture. To the extent that we support representative democracy, it might be said that all Americans -- even the conservative Christians! -- participate in classical humanism.

I was raised as a humanist, although that word was never spoken in our house that I can recall. But I do remember asking my father why he first got involved in the organized labor and Civil Rights movements. He answered thoughtfully, “Because I just couldn’t stand the way they treated people.” Sounds humanist to me.

Almost all Unitarian Universalist Christians are basically Christian humanists. Christian humanism also developed during the Renaissance, and de-emphasized dogma and creeds, holding to an idea of a tolerant and loving God. These Christians taught that Jesus’s great gift to humanity was NOT his blood sacrifice but his moral example, his way of life to be followed, and that he was not a fully divine figure to be adored and worshiped. Sounds humanist to me.

Another kind of humanism is cultural, and I dare say there are few people in- or outside UU churches who disagree with it -- indeed, social conservatives are among those who are vociferously in favor of it. Cultural humanism is the core curriculum of any college or university worth the name: philosophy, art, music, language, and science. Although there have been inroads on the understanding of what ought to make up a liberal arts education, most universities still require a core load in these subjects -- even if they sometimes seem to apologize for doing so. The idea is that there are certain subjects that every person ought to receive a basic education in -- sounds humanist to me.

Religious humanism is, of course, the category into which Unitarian Uni-versalist humanists fall. Religious humanism takes a position against supernat-uralism, recognizes the value of scientific insights, and holds that orthodox religion can learn a lot from the understandings of the modern world. A religious humanist can be agnostic or atheist, or can even hold to what seminaries might call a “naturalistic theism” -- believing in what Ralph Waldo Emerson termed “the God of nature.” By the way, if you attend services at a congregation, you are by definition a religious humanist, because a secular humanist does not go to or belong to a church!

It is no accident that so many of the signers of the original Humanist Manifesto were Jewish, for Judaism is, like Unitarian Universalism, a creedless faith that is centered on behavior instead of belief. The message of the Hebrew Scriptures -- the Torah, the Talmud, the Mishnah, and all the rest -- can be summed up with the question, “How are you treating your fellow human beings?” Sounds humanist to me.

Buddhism is also in its essence a very humanist religion. It does not require belief in a Supreme Being, and is centered on human actions and relationships. Mahayana Buddhism requires of its adherents lovingkindness to all living creatures, and Zen focuses the mind of the practitioner on the present moment -- all that we know for sure that we have. Sounds humanist to me.

I contend, along with many other UU thinkers and theologians, that nearly ALL current-day Unitarian Universalists are religious humanists of one form or another. It’s just that, as John Buehrens told the Chattanooga congregation, humanism is evolving, and there are now many different ways to be a religious humanist. Today, there are atheist humanists, agnostic humanists, Christian humanists, Jewish humanists, Buddhist humanists, pagan humanists, mystical humanists, and so on.

Back in the 19th century, psychologist William James met a famous sage from India. The sage told him that in the Hindu worldview, the universe rests on the backs of 8 celestial white elephants. “What do those elephants stand on?” asked the rationalist James. “Another elephant,” came the reply. “And what is beneath that elephant?” asked James, and the answer came again, “Another.” At this point, the Mahatma interrupted and said, “Dr. James, I must tell you, it is great white elephants all the way down.” For us Unitarian Universalists, it’s humanism all the way down.

All humanisms share some common characteristics. First, a fascination with and honoring of the human. Second, an understanding that as human beings, we bear a responsibility for our lives and for this world. And third, that we humans are put together in such a way that we CAN be responsible for the way we live our lives and for the world. All humanisms, of whatever variety, share these 3 threads.

Taken together, these common themes stand in stark contrast not only to conservative orthodox Christianity, but to religious fundamentalism of all kinds, which insist that humanity is hopelessly depraved, inherently careless, helpless to improve, incapable of responsibility, and that therefore all volition and control must be submitted to divine and human authority figures. This fundamentalist position also contrasts sharply with the principles of Unitarian Universalism. It is no wonder why John Weston says that humanism is the “common currency of our movement” -- but common currency should never be mistaken for orthodoxy.

It is unfortunate that all the different kinds of UU humanists don’t always get along with another or even understand one another. For some years in the 1990s, across our denomination, many traditional UU humanists have expressed feelings of loss and dismay. This was chronicled in a coverstory in the UU World magazine in 1997 (for which I was quoted in a sidebar entitled “Ain’t I a Humanist?”). It is revealing that the World’s editor chose to title the article “The Marginalized Majority: UU Humanism in the 1990s.”

It is true that in the early fervor of young humanism that adherents were often rather loud in their dislike of any religious language whatsoever, or any ritual or spiritual trappings, what one humanist famously derided as "smells and bells." This distaste often extended to the utterance of a single word in the service. When I first arrived to serve the Chattanooga congregation, I ended one of my sermons with "Amen" -- and two older gentlemen stalked out, outraged.

There is a new version of religious humanism in Unitarian Universalism today. It is a religious humanism that still values the role of science and the intellect and continues to assert that orthodox religions must be transformed by modern insights. But today it is understood that these insights might include a broad range of ritual, practice, belief, story, myth, and study, and the use of religious language with new understandings. UU humanism has changed and grown and become more inclusive; I think that this is a good thing.

These hope-filled words come from my colleague and proud humanist Fred Muir:

The new religious humanism uses the language of balance, of balancing left and right sides of the brain, of reconstructing dualism in order to honor the interdependent web, of breaking up (but not eliminating) the century-old mantra of reason, rationality, and responsibility with myth, soul, ritual, and spirit. This is a religious humanism for a new century, a new millennium -- this will be the core of our Unitarian Universalist faith.

So might this be! AMEN -- ASHE -- SHALOM -- SALAAM -- NAMASTE -- BLESSED BE!




A SHORT BIBLIOGRAPHY ON UU HUMANISM

Muir, The Rev. Frederick John. “How We Got From There to Here: From Unitarian Christianity to Unitarian Religious Humanism,” in UUMA Selected Essays, 1999.

Ross, Warren R. “The Marginalized Majority: UU Humanism in the 1990s,” UU World magazine, Nov./Dec. 1997

Weldon, Stephen P. “Secular Humanism: A Survey of Its Origins and Development,” in The Journal of Religious Humanism, Vol. XXXIII, numbers 3 & 4.

Weston, The Rev. John H. “The Seven Humanisms and How They Grew,” Unitarian Universalist Voice, Fall 1996

Wintermute, Carol. “Varieties of Humanism,” in The Journal of Religious Humanism, Vol. XXXIII, numbers 3 & 4.

“Building the Beloved Community"

A Sermon for Flower Communion
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
Sunday, May 22, 2011

My colleague Tom Owen-Towle was not a Freedom Rider, but 4 years later as a young seminarian he came down South to Selma, Alabama, following Martin Luther King’s invitation to interfaith clergy. He worked with other students to help set up the mass meetings in a field outside the town. His exact assignment, as he recounts in his essay “Ten Hallmarks of the Beloved Community,” was to remove cow patties from the ground so the big tents could be erected where civil rights movement leaders would speak to the crowds. It may not have been fun or glamorous, but it was important. It was his contribution to the Beloved Community.

“Beloved Community” is a phrase that was often used by Dr. King and other Movement orators. It referred not just to the people active in the civil rights movement, but to an ideal reality that, in Owen-Towle’s words, “includes yet always transcends our own skins, clans, congregations, collectives.” The idea of the Beloved Community is always open to those who not yet inside its embrace; it is always reaching to include more and more people from the margins. Like Jesus’ phrase “kingdom of God,” it refers to a time that is both here and not-yet.

It was inspired by the work of 19th century philosopher Josiah Royce, who urged,

Judge every social device, every proposed reform, every national and every local enterprise, by the one test: does this help towards the coming of the universal community?

It is a mistake to use the term Beloved Community to refer to a smaller subset, for example, one single congregation. Beloved Community is much larger than that. It is a reminder that no matter how much we feel affection for our individual church or denomination, we must always widen our embrace; we must always be ready to welcome the stranger, the outcast, the marginalized, the oppressed.

Owen-Towle asks, “What would be necessary to incarnate a version of the Beloved Community wherever Unitarian Universalist congregation is located?” and answers his own question with 10 points:

1. Beloved Community means holding to the difficult. In this point, “difficult” refers both to issues and to personalities. The point of building the Beloved Community is NOT for people to feel all comfy and cozy, and not to be challenged – the goal is to be, in Owen-Towle’s words, “to be adventurous in service of the prize.” Sometimes that will mean staying the course when the going gets rough.
2. Beloved Community produces where it’s planted. While it can be a good thing to spread compassion in areas far from where we live, our main responsibility is to bloom where we are planted. I once served a UU congregation that raised thousands and thousands of dollars to help people in a country over 5,000 miles away – and yet they gave virtually nothing to the impoverished city that was their county seat, a mere 6 miles away. Whatever we might do to help those who are faraway, we must be dedicated to the recovery and renewal of our own city and area.
3. Beloved Community requires vigilance. The Beloved Community is always in the process of being builded, it is never completely built. We must always ask ourselves, How can we be more welcoming? How can we hold ourselves accountable to this vision we hold in common? We can never drop our guard or stop being watchful.
4. Beloved Community honors the law of respect. How much stronger would we be if pervasive respect was manifested in our church and in our lives? We must treat everyone and everything respectfully, for it is the only virtue large enough to caringly include the “other.”
5. Beloved Community is open. The door never shuts in the Beloved Community – there are always more people and more ideas to be included. This is especially true for this congregation, for we remember and honor our historic name “Church of the Stranger.” Who’s not in the picture we have of our congregation, and how can we include them? That is always the question.
6. Beloved Community supports its members. Being of service to others also means being of service to each other. This is an area where this congregation excels – whenever an individual or a family in the church is known to be in need, the folks of this church spring forward to help, to be there for each other in concrete ways. We celebrate together, we mourn together, we are together in thick and thin. As long as we remember to widen the circle of our caring, we are building the Beloved Community.
7. Beloved Community members fight fairly. Striving together to build the Beloved Community does not mean we will not have disagreements and conflicts – in fact, these are practically guaranteed! What matters is how we treat each other in the midst of and through times of turmoil. We prove who we really are and what we really believe in by how we act when times are tough.
8. Beloved Community balances justice with joy. I don’t know about you (but maybe in fact I do), but I won’t be part of a group that is always deadly serious, that is always focused on a problem not solved, that is always grim in its pursuit of its goals, however noble those goals may be. The Beloved Community must have joyful celebrations together or there will not be enough energy and heart for the hard work. As revolutionary Emma Goldman once said, “If I can’t dance, I don’t want to be part of your revolution.”
9. Beloved Community is always changing. Our Transylvanian ancestor Francis David’s Latin motto “Semper reforma,” which can be translated as “always changing.” It is related to the idea that the Be-loved Community is never finished, never completed, that there is always more to be done. We can never allow ourselves to think that we already know what has to be done and what is needed – there is always more to learn.
10. Beloved Community is held in an eternal embrace. In the Beloved Community, there is a constant awareness of the past, the present, and the future. We honor the past, our ancestors, their work, their struggle, their hopes; we look to and plan for the future as best we can, while working as hard as we can in the present. We know we are connected to something larger than ourselves, however we define that Ultimate Reality. We rely on that, we lean back upon it, we are ever assured, as our Universalist ancestors used to say, “Rest assured!”

On this Flower Communion, as we have rededicated ourselves in our Flower Meditation, let us be renewed in our efforts to build the Beloved Community, not just within these sheltering walls, but ever outward, among all three UU churches in our Greater New Orleans cluster, to all the people and the land and air and water of this city and its surrounding area, and on and on to include eventually all people and all the earth. May our efforts be to the building of the Beloved Community, even though we may never see all the fruits of our labor. So might this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!