Invocation

Receiving God

In a splendid introductory book, Invitation To The Spiritual Journey, there is an interesting section where the modern Hindu mystic Kriyanada, speaks about daily life. He states that daily life is to be lived in response, and in resonance with holy ideas and principles. He called this awareness, attunement, and that we are to actively seek to attune ourselves to divine ideals and holy purposes. Ironically, while steeped in the wisdom of the Vedas, he finished his discussion of the spiritual life by quoting from The Holy Bible; giving his mostly Western audience a new way of understanding Scripture. He read from John’s Gospel these words: [As many as received and welcomed him, to those people, did he give the power to become the children of God.]

As I understand it, both attuning and receiving are the direct result of the qualities of being receptive and the active discipline of remembering; remembering God in our lives, which the Sufis dance and practice as Zhikr, for it requires our active or mindful recalling of the divine presence, the Holy Spirit, as a part of our daily awareness. While She is ever present, ever available, we can receive her grace, wisdom, healing, and whatever our souls most need when we stop racing through the day- When we invite our minds and hearts into the state of listening, into the receptivity and the resonance we need so that we can attune and then be better able to enjoy a more centered, peaceful life.
A daily approach to spirituality need not be thought of as another demand in an already overly active schedule. However, it is true that it does take time to learn receptivity, and to be disciplined enough to consciously invite or attune our awareness…

Setting aside time and intention for some daily spiritual work- whether it is for yourself, in support of others, or for the goal of realizing a more compassionate culture, is not a dismal duty nor is it to be seen as an imposing obligation. It is best understood and most openly practiced as your soul’s privilege and a precious sustaining gift you can offer to yourself and your world.

From those sacred actions, your daily life can become an active prayer. On this week before Pentecost, When the Western church celebrates the presence of the Spirit within and among us, I invite you to consider the quality of your receptivity, how open and welcoming you can become, and then during this week, to discover more about how this Spirit of Life acts within and through you, and how participation in a Spirit based community will work among us…

At this time of a solar eclipse, at this time of celestial new beginnings and connections, we can recall these words of the American mystic, Ralph Waldo Emerson. He said:

“As we are open to the influx of light and power, and as we believe in our own inspiration, then are we capable of human ecstasy… For we are all children of the Holy Spirit.”

We are all kindled by one flame, and that light grows as the commitment grows, and its shared enlightening energies becomes our common fire.

Invite The Spirit into your own quiet times, and discover or uncover her energy… Feel her presence whenever you step toward your courageous hopes, and whenever you move away from your limiting fears…

Scriptural Reading(s)

From The Hebrew book of Joel, from the Christian book of Acts, Chapter 2; and from I Corinthians 12- Adapted from KJV, The Living Bible, and NRSV with some poetic and semantic license!)

And when the day of Pentecost was fully come, [the disciples] were all gathered in one place, and they were of one mind, one accord.

Suddenly, there came a sound like a mighty wind, and it filled all the house where they had gathered. What appeared to them were energetic images, cloven tongues, like that of a dancing flame and a flicking fire, and it rested upon each of them. And they were filled with the Holy Spirit, and they began speaking … as the Spirit gave them the words.

And there was, at this time, in Jerusalem, Jews of every tribe or region, and people of every nationality under heaven. When they heard this  loud clamor, they ran to see what had happened, and were confused and confounded with what they saw and heard!  Each of them, from near and far away, everyone who was there was able to listen to the words of inspiration in their own way, in their own language, and was able to make sense of its meaning for themselves.

Now, my brothers and sisters, I do not wish you to be uninformed. …There is a diversity of gifts, but the same Spirit. There is a diversity of approaches, and outlooks, but they come from the same source. And there are a diversity of uses, and there is a diversity of operations, or personal styles, but there is the one same source of inspiration that works in us all.

To some, has given the gift of wisdom and understanding, to another, the capacity for knowledge, and to another, the gift of faith. To another may be given the qualities of healing, and to another the ability to work miracles. To another person, they may be given the gift of prophecy, and to another, the gift of discernment of religious motives and spiritual meanings; To another, comes the gift of languages, and to another the endowment or the ability to interpret many meanings, many tongues.

However, what makes any of these Spirit filled gifts genuine, if it is a true gift of grace and inspiration, then it is to be used for the good of humankind, and not kept or used for your selfish gain. (other lists are found in 12:28-30; Romans 12:6-8; Ephesians 4:11; I Peter 10-11)

This was the first Pentecost… and it is symbolic of the Pentecost or the Spirit that can come to you at any time, and most often The Holy Spirit arrives when you least expect it!

Becoming receptive, becoming open and attuned to the Spirit is risking being permanently changed- to become transformed, and that can happen to any and to all of us who accept this gift more consciously and then live it more constantly … After all, we receive the Holy Spirit physically when we take our first breath, the inspiration that enlivens our souls, and She stays with us in this latent yet visceral way until we release our souls, when we take our last expiration… The exhalting fact is this: We are One  and we are never alone… The Spirit is always available to us whenever our hearts are warmed and whenever our will is informed… Whenever Kairos or God’s time occurs or simply whenever grace happens….

Guided Meditation: A New Pentecost Among Us

Spirit Beyond and Within Us

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I will be asking others to offer readings and to lead in these meditations during our worship services…)

Guidelines for Mudras… Asanas… Receptive positions…

Please sit as comfortable as you can, hands palms up and open…

or if you prefer, you may sit or stand with your head tilted back slightly, your eyes closed yet lifted as you would look up at a gentle, relaxed 45 degree angle… and with your receptive hand up and out from your body, and your active hand resting gently on your heart or your chest…

First, I ask you to simply visualize yourself, as you are, sitting or standing…. then slowly, I will ask you to increase your size… growing larger in your image and beginning to appear to yourself as if you were a gentle but glowing source of energy…

Now focus on the tips of your outstretched fingers…and begin to see a hollow cord, or a golden channel opening from your fingers outward, moving up, slowly rising out of this room, out into the sky, beyond the clouds… out and into vast regions of stars and space…

Gradually, you feel a connection at the the other end…a sense of warmth and recognition begins, you feel your connection begin to glow and shimmer…

Slowly, ever so gently, this feeling of warmth and glow begins to travel down this golden cord or channel coming closer to you…

As we hold on to this flow of connection, you begin to hear softly in your ears the ancient invitation of the Spirit’s appearing:

Come, Holy Spirit … Veni, Spiritu Sanctus…

What now appears to our minds eye and within reach are colorful tongues of flame, orange and gold, streaming into our outstretched hands and arms, filling our bodies with infinite, radiant light…

Finally the light centers, finds its home, settling in our hearts, we then cover its presence with our grateful hand, holding on to its potential for blessing, healing, serving, being…

Homily/Theme: What Does It Mean To Be Spiritual and Religious?

Chances are that you have heard these words from your friends who have been seeking their own answers, and chances are that you have said these words yourself: hI am spiritual, but I am not religious!h

Generally, we all know what that means, right? That we identify ourselves as a person who explores, who bravely seeks answers, and who often can not find what they are seeking in the traditional ways of church, worship, with all of the limiting behavioral expectations and the exclusionary beliefs.

IF we have recently returned to our childhood faith, or when as an adult, we have reexamined the beliefs and values that are still being espoused, we can encounter limited understanding, traditional patriarchal meanings, or a series of disheartening attitudes that are, at their worst, harsh and depersonalizing, and even at their best, they can be stale and limiting.

In today’s culture, yes, even here in “The Holy City” area – One of the most resistant, most traditional, and most conservative of places, there are a growing number of people who find themselves dissatisfied with what passes for religious beliefs, and who can no longer feel comfortable, much less inspired, by traditional worship.

In particular, they can object to the repressive uses of theology and Scripture as agents of control that try to limit the scope of your questions, or cramp your desire to seek out your own answers.

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Just as many people say that they have out grown the image of God as the old man in heaven, sitting on a golden throne, as judge and jury over our souls, so too have many people outgrown the belief that we are sinners and need judgmental or parental authority figures to tell us what to do, and what to believe about God, life, love…

I expect that most of you sitting here have encountered this and resisted it, and it is possible that you have found yourselves a little lost, or at least disheartened over the lack of choice, or the lack of open, and progressive alternatives to church in our area. It can appear as if many churches here are living in a isolated time warp or a cocoon that shuts out the need for greater acceptance or tolerance.

For example, by my quick count, there are over 100 churches in Charleston county, yet there are only five communities of faith that welcome gay and lesbians, only three of these five church groups would be consider themselves to centrally Christian, only one to be inclusive and metaphysical, and only one maybe two to be welcoming of all faiths or accepting of having no faith at all!  No wonder there are so many spiritual Meetup Groups! There ae a lot of people who are looking around and most cannot find what they seek!

During my personal lifelong study and my ministry experiences, there has been a lot of resistance to the word spiritual, just as there has been in more recent years, there is the reluctance to call oneself a religious person. I feel that the time is ready and ripe

to define both terms in new inclusive and welcoming ways. (which by the way, are the words Jesus used in Aramaic to describe what he called being Blessed… As in the Beatitudes… Ready are you…)

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Let’s chose the easier word first… being religious… I bet you thought I would choose spiritual, didn’t you? Without belaboring it, most conventional churches are only superficially or sentimentally religious. They prefer to operate as pious social groups, for business networking, for parenting support, for reinforcing the status quo with a little sentimental story, or a passive ritual… That’s is what conventionally passes for being religious. However, there is a deeper, more troubling dimension to be religious in our culture today…

That is when being religious means that you are blindly arrogant. When Scripture is used as a political weapon for exclusion or inclusion- either you believe what we say or we will threaten you in two things: You will be threatened with being ostracized from family, friends, jobs, or you will be threatened with damnation and Hell because, according to the way they have chosen to read the words, they can pronounce that you are not accepted, that you are a sinner!

The pressure to conform to ideas and concepts you no longer trust or believe in is a heavy one; This coercision we can feel, especially from family and friends, can be very disheartening. I have heard this experience often from my clients in spiritual direction:

That they had to leave home religiously in order to find themselves- They had to be a bold, rebellious, and then become an adult seeker… However, it is also true that this path can be very difficult… being responsible for your own answers, being a mystic or becoming a prophet after truth is not an easy road! That is why so few people choose it!  As I see it, arrogant or judgmental theology has created

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more atheists, and more disillusioned people that any question based on science or social doubt could have ever done! However, it has also created many sincere seekers who wish to find spiritual ideals and a community that now fit their expanded understanding…

In the 12 Principles of Creation Spirituality, you will see that this community will consciously aim to rectify and restore your sense of dignity, value, talent, and purpose. It will not ask you to sacrifice your ability to reason, nor will it expect you to believe in anything or act in any way that is not compassionate and wise.

You see, religion, as it pertains to its original word meaning, religiare, is an expression of human belonging or spiritual bonding that keeps, respects, and holds people together in service to a larger ideal or a greater truth than one can have or hold just by themselves.

Being religious is having or holding on a sustaining belief in the grace that can be found in being together- in sharing, in working together to support and to encourage one another through our commonly held ways of worship, study, and service.

Now I fully acknowledge that stating or even declaring that you are  gspiritual but not religioush is an important necessary step in many people’s  spiritual journey- There is truth in saying that you first have to know what you do not believe in before they can find what ideas and ideals become your new sources for truth. When one goes through rejection, what you are expressing is what you no longer accept,  or that you no longer wish to practice a level of belief or consciousness that you feel that you have either outgrown, or that is dysfunctional or even disrespectful for you.

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Instead, many of you have chosen to remain outside of any church community until you can find a place that would support and inspire your new more mature and more inclusive awareness.

So I celebrate the virtue of necessary rejection! Without the courage to walk away, to explore, to seek, and to discover new truths you cannot realize or be responsible for having an adult or mature understanding of faith, God, spirit, truth…As Walt Whitman put it, we are to gdismiss anything that insults our souls, and then our very flesh will become a poem!h

We need a religious dimension to our lives so that we can experience a sense of belonging, and feel as if there are sisters and brothers around that we can trust, and that we can be honest with, and who will genuinely care about us: Mind/Body/Heart/and Soul.

When religion and spirituality intersect, and when they become clearly practiced, we can arrive at a complementary synthesis, or a complete belief system. As Matthew Fox, founder of Creation Spirituality puts it, gThere can be no mysticism without ethics, and no spirituality without justice.h I would add that there can be no complete sense of religious understanding without an active spirituality to accompany it. Without having sufficient regard for myth, mystery, and meaning, there cannot be a complete sense of of the Holy found in that community.

Most of the new nationwide research on what people are looking for in a spiritual community centers around becoming more pneumocentric- more Spirit centered and open to many ideas.

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which is contrary to the historical and conventional ways of church… This more Spirit centered approach will be more inclusive of various paths towards truth, it will be more participatory, and will seek to provide various ways of learning as a part of each service. It has become clear from all the feedback they have received that long time seekers, and those of the new wave of searchers will not be content with being gsacred observersh just passively sitting in their pews, and feeling parented by some authority figure or satisfied by simply be given pious pabulum that has little value or no direct application once they leave the service!  In short, they will not settle for religion being done gfor them or done to themh…  They wish to learn how to live their ideas more fully, not just talk about them! They want to wholeheartedly participate in developing an adult, responsible, and a knowledgeable faith that informs the whole person, and that tributes positively to the critical,necessary social changes we see around us…

Now for the word, spiritual… what a minefield that is! It is so inexact, so obtuse, with so many amorphous definitions that while we can wind up in a general consensus yet still lack depth or complete    understanding! It took me ten pages to define it in my book on Spirit, Time and The Future…

Generally speaking, the word spiritual is most commonly equated with a kind of universal energy, or with some force that it both within us and beyond us. Other times, the word spiritual takes on the more pious or sentimental ideas of grace, but still not knowing how or in what ways that blessing can arrive or occur. c

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I do not believe that spirituality is neither reducible to secular physics, nor is it a abstract, sentimental notion of God’s reality…

While Spirit’s basic effect is vitality, She can also be known as our source for wisdom, evolutionary relationships, soul centered healing, and justice making… It flows from the center of the Cosmos, and is evident in every breathe we take… The qualities most associated with Spirit are alchemical: They are the abilities of Transformation; Transcendence, and Transmutation… Change!

As I see it, the source for all this is the inclusive and expansive understanding of The Holy Spirit in Christianity and She is the same gracious and powerful Spirit or divine feminine that is found in all the timeless mystical aspects of the world faiths.  She manifests and releases creativity and compassion, and She guides  any community that is founded on interdependent, evolutionary impulses that direct us beyond ego and culture, and towards a sustaining sense of being whole and free…

I welcome you today to this opportunity to worship, and to work together, to share in creating a community of soulful exploration and compassionate understanding- a community that teaches how to live a pneumatic or a Spirit centered life- a life that is filled with discovery, affirmation, and blessings! Amen  So be It! Blessed Be!

Introduction to the Intent of The Kailo* Community

and to the 12 principles of Creation Spirituality

Many people today are in search of greater spiritual affirmation and renewal. Our world presses in from all sides, and we can feel like squeezed fruit; our energy, hope, caring become expelled, and all we have is a tired physical shell with a little pulp that is left.

One of the common ways we seek renewal, affirmation and rejuvenation, is to revisit our childhood faith. When we begin to look around, or evaluate whether or not our childhood church can meet our adult and changing needs. We can experience the old ways of worship and theology as being insufficient, empty. They seem to be out of touch with what we might need from a progressive church or an inclusive worshiping community. Because we can feel dissatisfied, some of us turn East, while others drop out completely. Some of us hold on to a desire to redeem whatever was inspirational in their religious past, but have yet to find an expression of spirituality and community that accepts many paths towards truth, and many ways that truth can be expressed.

Creation Spirituality is an international movement dedicated to greater ecological awareness and to an informed affirmation of our interconnected place within the Cosmos. It fosters and supports inclusive worship as celebration that provides the mystic, the prophet, the artist, and the healer  within each person with an deeper expression and greater validation.

As an interfaith, deep ecology movement, its teachings offer us new ways to reclaim our inclusive Western heritage and to revisit, reclaim, learn, explore and experience more timeless truths within our greater religious culture in new ways.

A Kailo Community empowers your personal search for whatever is good in Christianity, without negating the wisdom and truth you have learned from other sources. The goal of this community is to recapture the inclusive inspiration of the primitive church, or the church before the restrictions of creeds and beliefs. Our intent is to form a gathering of spiritual brothers and sisters for a communion/community that serves three primary goals:

First, to fortify your positive identity as a spiritual person, as a child of God, and to affirm your identity in a way that is inclusive, dynamic, progressive and without judgment.

Second, to provide one another with the deepening and enduring qualities of spiritual companionship, and share the uplifting resources found in belonging to a spiritual, mystical family.

Third, to offer every person a place for the encouragement of more mindful, ecological living and justice making, and to strengthen their right intentions in their careers and in their family lives.

* The word, Kailo, comes to us from the spiritual mother tongue, Sanskrit… It is the root word for the Western words that became healing, wholeness, holiness, and integrity…

May Day… A Look at Its Origins And Its Meaning For Us Today

The Rev. Peter E. Lanzillotta, Ph.D.

Throughout the progression of humanity’s religious quest, there has been either a desired dialogue or a dubious denial of the importance of nature to our religious practices and spiritual imaginations.

On one side, there have been the mystics, poets, philosophers, and artists whose source of inspiration was drawn directly from the natural world. In response to the mystery and majesty of nature, its balance and its beauty, we are given invaluable lessons that we need to take seriously. In the natural world, they observed, there is a visceral wisdom that requires our awareness and our respect. The cycles of weather definitely have an effect on our sense of health and well being and will lead us to acknowledge that nature cannot be divorced from our humanity and therefore deserves an important or central place in our religious understanding and expressions of worship. The variegated petals that unfold to us form around the truth that Nature is a pathway to God- and this pathway is as wide as Pagan festivals to medieval mysticism, from the Native Americans to the Transcendentalists. What they all share, from the flowery verse of Hindu Vedas to Whitman’s earthy leaves of grass, they speak of nature with respectful and reverent tones.

The contrasting viewpoint is that nature is our adversary, that it is something that we, as humans, need to conquer and control for our personal benefit. It declares that nature exists for our social and personal use. If it cannot be overcome, then it had to be dominated or domesticated, tamed or controlled. Often, this outlook falls into two primary camps- the ascetic and the opportunistic. In the first way of dealing with nature, we are to deny any connection to it… That somehow the physical being is bad, that nature is cruel, and life in the body is a harsh ordeal.

This point of view was most vividly championed by the Victorian celibate priesthood and earlier, in this country, it was well represented in Puritan times by Yankee Protestantism with all of its puritanical codes and its capitalistic ambitions. Under this approach to nature, we are to use, to plunder, exploit and harness nature to fit or fuel our desires for progress and for profit. Only then or in that way, does nature have any value for us!

As I have outlined it, it is obvious where I stand… And even though it is not an objective comparison, it is one that operates clearly in our culture today. It is historically factual and its influence on theology has contributed greatly to how religion can be used to support environmental deregulation and it has contributed to the ecological and spiritual crisis we now face.

As this relates to May day, we gain our first appreciation of its origins from the Roman revels of Flora, the goddess of the flowers, and most likely an earlier Pagan celebration that they adopted. Historically, the people of Southern Europe or more temperate climates observed that Spring could easily begin in March. However, if you lived in Northern Europe, or in the Northeastern and upper Midwestern parts of our country, a good claim could be that Spring really doesn’t arrive until May 1st!

But May… Ah, May… Well, we can always hold good thoughts about the weather in the month of May… It is after the cold winds of winter and before the harsh heat of summer…

It is the month of Camelot… the merry month of May when we can celebrate our delight in the flowers and in all greening and growing things…

And so it is, that we derive our best source for the origins of May Day from Merry Old England… Of course!

Many of you already know something about the Celts and Druids. They were famous for many things that later became infused into our modern culture. Among the more curious and phenomenal were the ideas associated with nature spirits, leprechauns spirits, fairies and the like… But we also have the marvels of Stonehenge, and we have the vivid scenes from Shakespeare’s plays that are filled with nature, alchemy and symbolism such as MacBeth’s witches with all their toil and trouble!

More importantly to our spiritual quest, there has been a revival of deep and earnest interest in the divine feminine and in the ideas and practices associated with the worship of the goddess. The classic text, that is almost required reading for those interested in this feminine spiritual outlook would be Margot Adler’s Drawing Down The Moon. What is on major importance for us is that these practices, images and symbols were pre-Christian ( and from what I have observed in the Low Country, they are post Christian) and the central teaching is that we cannot live our lives apart from nature or without a central correspondence to nature as a source of wisdom and understanding. We cannot or should I say, we dare not live hermetically sealed off from nature in our condos and skyscrapers, or training out nature by being constantly plugged in our MP3 players and our smart phones!

In fact, there is now a new malady making its appearance among our youth- a deficit of Nature that keeps them alienated and out of touch with how nature teaches us to live. They are removed from healthy food, exercise, exploration of the natural world, and are living in a largely artificial way! While technology can certainly be useful, it needs to serve our aesthetic and compassionate values, not create them!

The major obstacle to a more full and joyous celebration of  earth based holidays such as May Day, Midsummer’s, Equinox, even Halloween,

Comes from the suspicion associated with them being carnal, being visceral, being joyous… or in short, not being Christian, and therefore evil!

Furthermore, these revels associated with May poles, and bonfires might be demonic and could corrupt your orthodox and pious soul!

And yes, if these festivals are lived out as they are portrayed in Hollywood, they are certainly lascivious and “over the top” and could easily be seen as a corrupting influence on youth and society as a whole. However, most of these rituals and rites are respectful and celebrate the connection of our bodies with our souls, and that our lives are drawn from nature and to give thanks and to be exceedingly grateful that our existence depends on keeping a respectful balance and correspondence to the natural cycles and rhythms of the year…

Another objection to celebrating May day and the earth festivals is simply because… Well, Pagans do it! What is a Pagan? Is it someone like Aristotle, Plato, or Marcus Aurelius- someone who does not believe in a Christian understanding of God? In short, the word pagan has been drastically abused and when it has been employed it is often derogatory and dismissive. Its Latin origins simply meant to be a country dweller in contrast to someone living in walled cities…

The truth is that religion has always taken the ways and rituals for worship from its environment or natural surroundings. If you live among the animals, amidst the trees then these living things can take on a symbolic expression and have a spiritually significant meaning for you. Jesus, Buddha, Mohammed … Almost all the great religious leaders of humankind did not draw their most enduring teaching stories from life in the “concrete jungle”

The parables are filled with natural symbolism… Similarly, the Native Americans looked to animals, birds, and tress, as did the Celts.

However, when the Christian missionaries arrived in Northern Germany, France, and the moved into the British Isles, they were… Appalled to see such displays of joy and celebration! It was so licentious and it was accompanied with heathen drumming, flute playing, and dancing- Horror!

They saw it as their moral duty to root out this decay, and to train people to abandon their bodies in favor on their rational sensibilities…

In doing so, their aim was to break their spirit, and abolish their Myths and symbols. In other situations and circumstances, where the Myth and the cultural observances were deeply engrained, and the resistance was too great, they decided to “sanitize” their festivals and practices and gave them new, tame meanings… From those efforts we have the origins of the Christmas tree, the Easter egg, etc.

So all this review, brings me to May Day, a joyous Pagan Holiday!

Among the Celts and Druids, it was called Beltane, and it was celebrated as part of the wheel of life, one eighth that signals Summer’s impending arrival!

Of course, May day is the more tepid and tame version of Beltane…

Originally, Beltane was a holiday celebrating and encouraging fertility!

And the May Pole… well, its an upright symbol that it to be encircled by flowers. All who wished to be fructified, or to encourage their own fertility  were encouraged to use this time to seed the soil or the awaiting wombs so that there would be a joyful harvest in the coming seasons! Young women would dance around the large trunk trunk/pole and offer signs and songs for fruitfulness- in any way you wished to desire it! Other customs associated with May day were hobby horse riding, Morris dancing, and washing one’s body in the morning dew!

When I was preparing this topic, I purposely spent time in my home garden… While I am usually filled with the ideas of the tasks to be done, this time I stood, and walked mindfully through the rows… As it was, by the time and phase of the Moon, time to plant, I took some seeds and stooped over, make some rows with a hoe, and started to lay out what I hope would be an abundant summer harvest…

As I began the process, I became lost in thought… My mind flashed on how universal and timeless this act of seeding was! Most every year of my life has had a garden in it… Across the generations of my family life, up and

down the rows of humanity, people have planted… Humans have planted their seeds, their hopes and their desires for a million years, and I am but one of the recent ones and it is just my time in the unfolding centuries to take my place, make my effort to grow food for my life …

Suddenly, my reverie ended… And I stood up and was still … It was almost totally quiet …empty… Expectant…

Well, almost quiet until a defiant mockingbird decided to wake me up and bring me back to his particular form of celebration, his enthusiasm seemed to have no bounds! Yet, for a short precious while… I was one with the Chinese rice farmer, the Cherokee planting the early corn, my grandfather putting tomatoes deep into the soil…

Now I could begin to understand how the reverent Celt would have felt when he or she was confronted by the many mysteries of nature and how it enveloped life, and how deserving nature is of our care and dedication. It was a feeling that made me quietly content, serene, happy…

If this is a more enlightened form of what it means to be a Pagan… Then count me in! I am a Pagan, too!

Whether our concern is for ecological integrity or personal peace, try to take some time this May Day to offer someone a flower, a smile, some loving regard… Go for a walk, open up your senses to all the natural lessons, epiphanies and miracles there are to behold…

Take nature into your keeping, and place it near to your heart…

Amen; So Be It; Blessed Be….

A Prayer for May

From Julian of Norwich

There is a treasure in the earth.

Be a gardener. Dig a ditch. Toil and sweat.

Turn the earth upside down, and seek the deepness.

Continue in this labor, [then] take this food…

And carry it to God and to your neighbor as your true worship.

In God’s being is Nature; God is the true Father and Mother of Nature, and all are made to flow out of God to work the divine will.

Nature and God are in harmony with one another.

For Grace is God as Nature is God.

Neither Nature nor Grace works without the other.

Let us never forget our debts to both Nature and Grace.

Our Father/Mother/Spirit God;

You who are the Creator, Provider, Sustainer of Humanity and the Natural World, we offer our praise for the beauty of the earth, and all that is nature that surrounds us. We affirm that both Nature and Grace are our gifts from the Creation, and that we are to be the willing and grateful stewards.

As we respect our bodies, we respect the animals and all that lives alongside of us and that shares this planet with us.

May we never act in arrogance, but always seek to live in balance , in praise, and in peace. AMEN

April Fools Day: In Praise of Holy Fools

The Rev. Peter E. Lanzillotta, Ph.D.

Good Morning! And if you have not already gotten the subtle message, it is April Fool’s Day! So I could not think about giving any sermon that did not include some humor, and to focus on how the Fool has an important role in religion and life.

As I quickly have discovered and long suspected, there is an important link between religion and humor, and that it is an ancient and a universal one.  While being almost ubiquitous, few, if any, religions have allowed humor to gain wide acceptance, with the least amount of acceptability in American Protestantism, which is probably the reason why there are so many religious jokes in our culture. There is no topic more receptive to humor, it seems, more enticing to laughter than piety, Puritanism, and an outlook that is joyless, strict, and self righteous.

Most clergy it appears, believe that religion is no laughing matter- that ultimate truths can only be known seriously or scientifically. They seem to disregard the fact that humor is a wonderful teaching tool, and that truth can be both funny and inspiring.

So today, of all days, we can ask: What’s so funny about religion? What are the elements in humor that teach us how to face life courageously? Why is it good to laugh, and what in our laughter, reveals reverently the mysteries and blessings of life and how we can care for enjoy one another?

Lets begin our look into “the whys and wherefore” of humor as it relates to religion, by first looking at how humor affects us as human beings.

Physiologically, the ability to laugh involves responses of 15 separate pairs of facial muscles that create a visible chance in complexion, posture, expression, and breathing.

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Next,  Anthropologists confirm that humor and laughter are found universally- and like music, it functions best as a bridge of connection and empathy from one human to another, overcoming differences in language, time, distance, or behavioral customs, religious beliefs.

A third consideration comes from research in holistic medicine. Physicians now conclude what the ancients have always known: “Laughter is good medicine; and that a merry heart does a soul much good.]”

Studies have shown laughter as being able to act as a curative agent- lowering cholesterol, increasing both red and white blood cell levels, strengthening immunity, producing pain killing endorphins, and last but not least, humor retards aging! You see, it reduces the creation of facial wrinkles, and who knows, maybe laughter makes a person more sexy and attractive, as having a good sense of humor always appears at the top of most desirable qualities one looks for in a potential mate.

Now what about the connection between humor and faith, or humor and spirituality? And what are some examples of how humor is used religiously to make a point? One hint: It isn’t the kind of humor that starts out: there once was a Nun from Nantucket, or Once a priest, a minister and a rabbi walked into a bar… Instead, my focus will be on how various forms of humor such as satire, wit, and hyperbole are used to teach self knowledge, self acceptance, humility, compassion and truth. Humor is best used religiously to point out the ironies of life; to address human foibles, and to teach us how to accept our human inconsistencies. Most often, with an attitude of love behind the remarks, laughter can be used to confound the ego, and to open a person to new insights about themselves. It results in moving the hearer from despair to hope, and can help to replace our tears of frustration with tears of joy.

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Humor can be found in almost every circumstance of life: Dr. Viktor Frankel, Holocaust survivor taught that “Humor is one of the soul’s weapons in the fight for self preservation. It helps us to rise above our feelings of helplessness and deprivation. We laugh religiously, to preserve our dignity, we laugh to stay sane and to remain humane.”] In his lectures, he would echo the author of Proverbs when he said, “a merry heat is like medicine, but a broken spirit drieth up the bones.” Proverbs, by the way, is worth reading- a very funny book!

As a quick summary, religious humor can be defined as the form of humor that is a benevolent, empathetic response to life’s inconsistencies, incongruities, mishaps and reversals. Humor that lets us laugh at ourselves and that gives us the gift of laughing with others is a gracious, healing, and redeeming gift.

Next, when looking at the various characters in Western literature and mythology that teach us about the value of humor we encounter three important figures: The Clown, The Jester, and the Fool … Each has an important place in the world’s mythological stories, and in teaching us how best to understand ourselves with humility. They teach us, through their stories, about life’s paradoxes and how to keep a healthy perspective about what our egos want, desire, or need. Their universal presence in Western literature, Scripture, and folk stories, attest that a person cannot possibly arrive at being a balanced and healthy adult without being able to laugh at yourself- and that you can be assured that life will always give us ample opportunities for appearing to be foolish, and for pointing where and how we need to become more aware, more wise!

These characters in literature, these psychological archetypes of the human condition, teach us that if we take our faith too seriously as to drain the joy and laughter from it, it becomes a perversion and you risk missing the full and complete message any spiritual path or any ethical teacher has for you.

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While similar in their message to humanity and society, we have been given three characters, and each one in this comic trio has their own distinct characteristics. The most familiar to us all is the Clown. Maybe earliest in our cultural development, the clown creates chaos and nonsense, and is seen as a figure who has descend from the ribald revels of earlier centuries into the slapstick and ridiculous antics of today. The next time you see a circus clown, remember that he or she is a vestige of ancient shamans, and medicine workers who, would juggle their way into prominence as mummers- or simply all those who wear a disguise to hid their true intent- using exaggeration to make a point! While it was true that sometimes a clown or a jester was kept around as a scapegoat, more often they were recognized as having a special relationship to the spirit, and they could function as a guide or as a counselor… in disguise. The Jester, usually attending to a king or queen was there to provide comic relief… And to advise the members of the court as to what the people are thinking about them… Sort of a comic spy… And informational network that would reveal the truth in public and by using amusing ways … Only the astute knew how to read between the lines of gesture, pantomime, and grin…. Jesters often were also considered to be “touched by God” or possessing special insights. Most notably in the Shakespearean plays such as Twelfth Night, As You Like It, and King Lear, the jester offers wise counsel to overcome problems and distress. From the clown, the jester, and the fool we are given many beloved characters from literature; Buffoon, Harlequin, Joker, Punch, Pulcinello; even Palliacci… Each instructing us on how appearances work to charm and to deceive. Each conveys messages that delve beyond the obvious, and that can be seen to instruct, inform, warn, or alarm….

Since it is April Fool’s, I will spend most of the time with the concept of the Fool. From the ancient Tarot to common psychological perceptions, the idea of a fool or being a fool has many varied meanings…

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What the Fool teaches us the about the balance point for serious thought, and analytical knowledge. The Fool acts in ways that would seem be superficially irrational, illogical… And yet, it proves to be heartfelt and is often comically true!

The origin of the Fool might even predate the clown and the jester, as it relates directly to displaying the human condition of folly, amusement, and the universal awareness of our human shortcomings. Folly as a word, comes to us from the French, and refers to someone as an inflated windbag- someone full of bluster, but empty of substance. (Hmm-Folly Road or Beach?

The Fool evolved, however, into a different direction from the clown or the jester as someone who shows us the place of the shadow side of life; someone who seems outwardly foolish and irresponsible, yet practices and possess a kind of sensual and crazy wisdom that proves to be more in line with a sustaining compassionate truth; showing us a different reality than what all the rigid codes of morality provides and more truth than the false security of adhering to polite manners fails to supply. Through seemingly foolish risks of openness and wonder, you can turn a problem upside down, and find answers that all your careful analysis might not ever find! Being so open, appears to our common sense to be, a fool’s errand, and we can ask without a willingness to extend ourselves into the very heart of life, do we ever arrive at our full and true selves? Remember on this day, and on every day that you can share a laugh with someone, you can be come silly- which originally meant to be blessed with laughter, and by being silly you gain the perspective that welcomes learning, and how best to accept and embrace all that our lives could contain. So you see, in a reverse analogy or its opposite actuality, the Fool is to being foolish as being child like is to be being childish. Wisdom, then, comes with an open heart and a willingness to suspend judgments and criticism which rarely contains joy or benevolence.

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By being open and empathetic, ones learns to honor the other person, to find those places in the heart where we truly touch, where we are beheld just as we are, and where we are found, even with our broken pieces, to be accepted, truly whole.

Before I delve in a little deeper, and given that this has to be a short presentation, I will leave the rival archetype of The Trickster for another time… For you see, while the Trickster character in myth, story, and legend will employ humor, it can have a malicious or even a macabre twist to it. When one feel that life has played a mean trick on them, generally it doesn’t feel funny… Yet there may be irony, insight, and instigation that can awaken us to seeing the error in your ways…. The trickster is the metaphysical practical joker, and someone who intentionally upsets others in order to teach them valuable lessons…. So at another time and place, I will venture into stories about Native American Coyote, The Norse god Loki,  The holy fools of India, The vast array of Sufi stories, the path of Crazy Wisdom in Tibetan Buddhism, or the Zen koan and its humorous way. Each of these tricky ways has much to teach and tell us about life, the uses of mischief, the truths found in paradox, and the nature of enlightenment.

Focussing, however, back on our Western religious heritage, and what was so wonderfully sung and spoken of by our choir today, we can easily affirm that The Bible, of course, is a very funny book! When read it as historical literature, and stripped of pious pretense, devoid of its theological inconsistencies, which is the only way many U-U can and do read it with any appreciation, it is filled with sardonic sayings, witticisms, ribald scenes, and hyperbole that teaches and inspires us through the path of foolish wisdom. Frankly, all the humor in the Bible that keeps scholars chuckling- its comic stories, double meanings, and risqué events prove to be quite entertaining!

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From the Hebrew Testament, I recommend the stories of Isaac & Rebecca; Noah (without Bill Cosby) Moses & Zipporah; Esther, Bell, and the great book of Proverbs. But be careful about reading these stories out loud! Some of them would receive an R rating!

As for Jewish humor as a whole, our world is far richer because of its contributions.

… Wikipedia references….

The influence of the US Jewish community on American English, include teaching us Yiddish words that just are funny just to say: schmaltz, schlemiel, klutz, schmuck… Many non-Jewish Americans (though certainly not all) will recognize some of these words. Popular books (such as Joy of Yiddish and Born to Kvetch) explain these words to the general public. However, bear in mind that while many Americans from other regions and ethnic backgrounds may recognize Yiddish words such as those above, it is more likely that only those who are more educated, or widely read, or who have Jewish friends and acquaintances via their place of residence or profession, etc., would fall into this group.

There are a number of standard American phrases which originated from Yiddish, including: Get lost, What’s up, I should worry, I should live so long, I need it like a hole in the head, You don’t know from nothin’, Certain types of rhyming slang, especially those where deprecation is shown via partial reduplications, also originated in Yiddish — for example “Joe-schmo” or “Oedipus-schmedipus, so long as he loves his mother.”

In the Christian Scriptures, while Paul recommends that we become “fools for Christ”, it is Jesus, when stripped of his sanctimony and assumed propriety, who was a master of teaching through humor.

Yes, Jesus was a funny man! Who knew? When I was young, the way his teachings were related to me, it seemed to only foster greater guilt and deeper shame. All of a sudden, there was this comic and cosmic twist!

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His message became one of joy over sorrow, freedom from guilt, and he used humor to challenge his opponents starchy and rigid rule making,

and to overcome the moralistic, and often hypocritical teachings.

Honestly, now, how many of you ever thought of Jesus as being filled with joy and laughter? My conversion… So to speak… Happened one day when I was in my late teens, when my image of him moved from being my painful suffering savior, to being my happy, playful teacher… And guess what! I have Hugh Heffner to thank!

You see, I was avidly reading Playboy at the time… Just for the interesting articles, of course, … when I turned the page to see a picture of Jesus, and I was startled! There, in living color was this picture, in a Renaissance style, of a Jesus, who was laughing gleefully!

I quickly began to read this article by the noted Harvard theologian Harvey Cox, which was entitled, ” For Christ’s sake!”  Well, up to that time in my life, whenever I would whenever I heard those words, it usually did not refer to reverent outcry, but was spoken in great exasperation! Intriguing!

Cox’s premise was that we need to see Jesus as a man who enjoyed life; as someone who taught us about the meaning and purpose of life using stories, parables and humor to get his point across to us. Wow! To think that he was this robust, enthusiastic man who was in love with life, yet he was not simply a comedian, for he lived with moral courage, and he was foolish enough to believe everyone of us could really live by our values and ideals!

Just ponder for a moment, some of his best ironic humor, and how he used hyperbole to make ethical points and give us behavioral guidelines:

” It is easier for a Camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into heaven.”  A comic statement about the value of trying to amass wealth and what ultimate good it would do for you… And this one,  “Don’t put your light under a bushel basket, but put it up on a candlestick”

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That is, do not hide your beauty, your purpose, your mission under some tight wraps of insecurity, but proclaim the miracle you are!… And he goes one giving us stories about how the self righteous seek to “strain out gnats but swallow camels” and when he warns the judgmental to “take the beam out of your own eye, before trying to take the speck from your neighbors”… and on throughout the various Gospel accounts…

Our own style of religion, as U-Us, has tried to keep the tradition of comedy and humor alive… Well, if you leave out our hymnal! Too serious!

We have advocates for liberal humor as widely diverse as P.T. Barnum and Mark Twain; James Thurber, e. e.cummings, Robert Frost, the cartoons and plays of Jules Phieffer, and one of my favorite theologians, Ogden Nash, will begin our liberal list… Maybe we will have to add Stan Goldberg, too!

In closing, I recommend reading the Bible for its humor, and  wholeheartedly endorse becoming more like a wise fool in your approach to life. Wherever true humor is found, a spiritual quality exists, and laughter as medicine and as friendship are indispensable parts of being alive and free. Without humor, life and religion would be a dry bone of contention, arid intellectual wrangling, irritating moral pronouncements.

The real truth, as I see it, is that religion needs to be fun, and that it is fundamental to gaining a healthy perspective on our lives. Try never to lose your sense of humor- and to appreciate how it leads us to a full heart, and how humor can lead us to a greater enjoyment of one another as an inclusive, hilariously diverse community!

So Be It!

Beware The Ides!

Looking at Predictions, Prognostications and Warnings!

March 15, 2012

The Reverend Peter Edward Lanzillotta, Ph.D.

Beware! Beware! Watch Out! Be Very Afraid!

OK… Everybody, get ready, get set, now panic! Its 2012! Fill yourself with endless sources of  apprehension, fear, dread, angst, and desperation! Doesn’t feel good to be anxious over so much in our lives? If not, Why worry?

Today is the Ides of March… The one day in the historical calendar considered to be even more fearsome, ominous, and nefarious than Halloween! Or January 2nd, or even tax day, April 15th!

Just when you were getting over your tristedecaphobia, along comes a fearful and loathsome day to be sure- with its only remedy known to the ancients were to cast spells of deliverance, or for the reversal of bad fortune, hexes, and other such dastardly sentences that foretold doom…

But back to the Ides… Why is it considered such a fearful day, one provoking dread, despair and danger? According to Plutarch, the great ancient Roman historian, Julius Caesar was assassinated on this day in 44 BCE.  It was the Roman New Year’s Day,  a time for holding public celebrations since calendar year began in March, with the Spring…

The Ides, in Latin, has a simple definition; It was the day that divided the month in half… And in the irregular calendar of Roman times, that dividing day could be anytime between the 13th to the 15th of any given month. This day of dubious significance was a simple way marker, and a well known passage of time that endured into and past the Renaissance, so we can be safely assured that Shakespeare knew this custom.

In his well known history, Juilus Caesar, often taught to us in high school without much comprehension or understanding, he takes the historical records of Plutarch, and adds his particular brand of genius, and dramatic imagery to the famous lines of prediction and prognostication of the sooth or truth sayer: “Beware the Ides of March!”

Caesar, on his way to the Senate, and then on to public festivals, listened to the insistent cry, but refused to heed this ominous advice. According to Plutarch, however, Caesar originally did take caution, but a friend named Decimus convinced him that he was “above” such nonsense… When out in the streets on that day, Caesar and the soothsayer meet again, and Caesar declares, ” See, the Ides have come!” And the soothsayer replies, ” yes, but they have not past! Then, according to Shakespeare’s rendition, we are horrified by the fact that one of his best and trusted friends becomes the first assassin, and Caesar cries out, ” Et Tu, Brute?” So the Ides are a day of betrayal, revolt, and social upheaval!

When looking sociologically, and politically over the centuries, we can look back in amazement to the importance of mistaken predictions and dire warnings, and how they have been taken seriously- so much so, that they could alter the course of possibilities and outcomes.

As time permits, I would like to hear about your reactions to predictions made by politicians, financial experts, etc.,and how our media will use these oftern sensational conclusions, often out of context, to rile and worry us, creating headlines that highlight the scare of the week!

Then in either a few days or a few years, they completely reverse themselves! It seems abundantly clear, that these warnings are like a casino game… They come true just enough times, usually much less as little as 5% of the time, yet people can react in an uproar about them… You know, like the hurricane prediction center, where the weather experts and climatologists will deliver us ominous warnings every Spring! And even if an earthquake or a hurricane has not happened for thirty, or one hundred and thirty years… You know… We are due! So you had better be fearful, and watch out!

I would like to relate two of the many times I have been asked to “deal with” dire predictions, warnings, and apprehensions that became public knowledge and that have served to increase cultural fears, worries, and anxieties… The first was the “scientific and computer scare of 2000, and the second was all the Biblical predictions of 2000 about how the earth will end and the Rapture and the Second coming will soon arrive! Beware!

Concerning the computer changeovers that were to happen… I can remember the cultural panic where everyone was anxiously told about the

possible computer glitch that could wipe out one’s hard drive or create social havoc with tons of lost information! What to do? Will the scientists and the geeks rescue us in time? You all can remember this one!

With all this concern about whether or not our computers would be YTK compliant, I have to readily admitting to be YTK complacent…

Maybe I trusted in technology too much, maybe since I am so unlike a an knowledgeable engineer in these fields, that I did not know better, but when we approached January 2000, I did not do anything… And when there was this collective sigh of relief over a problem that, in all likelihood, was never all that dramatic, there is a lesson, when confronted by something unsettling- out of your control- do nothing.. Listen! Sit with it, do not react! Gather information reliably… Then decide what you will do!

The second, was in my professional bailiwick… It was all the stress and fuss over the Biblical predictions of the End times… When Revelations comes true… The earth will end, and the pious dead will rise from their graves, and the Rapture will take the faithful to heaven! Beware! Be afraid!

Watch out! Jesus is Coming!

While I was at Penn State, as the interim minister at State College,

I was asked to participate in an interfaith panel that had, as its goal, how

best to respond to the nightmarish, even ghoulish expectations of Revelations, and how to answer questions about the Endtimes that seem to be now upon us! Some faculty and a few of the local clergy gathered for this large public forum on these disturbing questions- questions and anxieties made dramatic and forceful by all the media coverage that poorly trained conservative preachers received and whose stock and trade is alarm, fear, and repentance, all during the last, fateful year of 1999…

Without going into a Biblical exegesis, let me say that there are no dangerous books, only dangerous interpretations… And those who lack a metaphorical understanding of Scripture, those who take a modern literal  approach, seeking a direct answer are the one most prone to alarm, and are the people most likely to proclaim it or spread it to others…

As each of the Christian representatives offered their explanations, even their apologies for mistaken translations, erroneous doctrines, and the like, I found myself looking for a common ground that would give people there more of a sense of rationality, responsibility, and hope.

When it came to my turn, I thank the various clergy and scholars who held forth on complex Biblical and elaborate theological themes, and then I presented how I believe that an informed, responsible Humanism is the best benchmark or the most effective way to address all the unnecessary panic and concern.

Applying our best sources of critical thinking, understanding and insights from physical sciences, sociology, and psychology that emphasize our personal responsibilities for the world we have made, was for me, my best answer, and the one that will provide any degree of worldly rescue or ethical salvation we seek.

And what of today’s spinning theories, predictions, excuses, and dire warnings? From the ominous Mayan calendar coming to its end, to resurrecting the obtuse Nostradamus predictions of famines and wars, to the financial blunders of CNBC, to the ever changing rules about health and nutrition, stress and wellness, what is there that one can safely or securely believe? Is our whole culture immersed in political spin? Or preoccupied in the reading of  economic entrails?

It seems to me that our 24 hour news cycle capitalizes on either outrage or disaster, crisis or fear mongering… And for relief, they give us tabloid morality, while quickly reporting every conflicting story, and feeding us with a steady diet of stress and alarm… In fact, I feel that it can be said that our elevated level of national fear from the events of 9/11 and the constant harping on these devastating pictures and dire warmnings is what made the Iraq fiasco possible!  To me, its no wonder that among the leading prescriptions for Americans, are anti-anxiety drugs…

While I do take the threat of nuclear proliferation seriously, and I do give great credence to global warming, I am finding myself refraining from watching the media, keeping up with headlines, and actively abstaining from too many politcal and economic discussions…

Where I would prefer to place my thoughts and direct my actions are towards some collective or shared actions that support both realism and idealism, truth and hope which I would call a Compassionate Humanism.

While guarding against any Pollyanna escapism, no matter how enticing it might be, and without realistically dismissing the difficulties our culture faces or the challenges inherent in economic renewal, I do find myself constantly asking myself how does the mass media help or harm my awareness or contribute to my personal knowledge and responsible actions? How does the scandalous headlines contribute to any creativity, motivation, hope, or sense of renewal? Maybe we all should fast from the Media , or skip the news for Lent!

What are some of the predictions you have heard about our world, and by listening and believing in them, how has your life changed?

In way ways does doom and gloom affect you? In my book on spirituality and time, Spirit, Time and The Future  by Outskirts press, I take on the Mayan and other predictions about the end of the world, and I emphasize how to live a spirit centered life with courage and hope. Whether you read this or stay infromed from other sources, it is imperative to us not to lose eoither our objective and compassionate perspective or our wiollingness to work for personal change and social transformation. Since we are connected to one another by cultuire and climate, by breath and business, it only makes sense to work of overcoming our fears and work together for a sustaining sanse of hope and living in a sacred world.

Pastoral reflection: “Prepare for the worst, and expect the best”

One of my favorite end times story relates to a small but devout group called the Millerites. Their belief that the world was going to end when we reached the year 1834; so they gathered up all their members, and climbed a high peak in New York (presumably so they would be closer to God and therefore among the first to be taken in the rapture) and there they waited…

The first day and into the night was filled with anticipation… Wow we are all going to be saved: Glory Halleluia! However, when the dawn of the next day came… and nothing happened… They were increasingly distraught, disillusioned and amazed that their predictions could be wrong! Many people left muttering to themselves… What gives here?  Others, the remaining faithful decided to recalculate, and keep believing… Spinning out another theory, and then another to make sense of what they had said, and to make what they are now saying more plausible and believable…

One of the best pieces of advice, is ultimately a pragmatic one, one that is often recommended, but generally speaking, falls short of common practice: Prepare for the worst, and expect the best!

The practical people in our society really get that first part, and we are thankful for their stability, reserve, and ability to build a secure future. The Idealists among us really get the second part- to keep oneself open, willing, and expectant of all the possibilities our lives can hold… The trick as they say, is to be practical and open to change, to be spiritual and realistic, to be relaxed and responsible… The healthy prescription of balance seems to be the necessary strategy to keep fears at bay, and responsible potentials more available to us all!