Interfaith Services of the Lowcountry

i thank god for this amazing day

i thank god for this amazing day, for leaping greenly spirits of trees and blue true dream of sky, and for everything which is natural, which is infinite, which is yes

I who have died am alive again today, and this is the sun’s birthday, this is the birth day of life and love and wings: and of the gay great happening illimitably earth

how should tasting touching hearing seeing breathing any– lifted from the no of nothing– humanly merely being doubt the imaginable you?

now the ears of my ears awake and now the ees of my eyes are opened!
e.e. cummings

May your life be like a wildflower, growing freely in the beauty aand joy of each day…
Native American proverb

We are one, ater all, you and I; together we suffer, together we exist, and forever will recreate each other.
Pierre Teihard de Chardin

From the book, A Year With Rilke, his selection for June 21st:

Constellation
Look at the sky. Is there no constellation named Rider?
For the image is imprinted on the mind: this arrogance made from Earth and a second one astride,driving him, and holding him back.

Hunted, then harnessed: Isn’t this the sinewqy nature of our being?
Path and turning, a touch to guide. New distances.
And the two are one.

But are they? Or is it only the going that unites them? When they stop
they belong again to table or pasture.

The starry patterns fool us, too. Still it pleases us for a moment to believe in them. That is all we need.
Sonnets to Orpheus I,11

Myth Deprivation
Excerpts from a reflection by Eugene Kennedy from his book, The Joy of Being Human, for June 22nd…

Dr. Jan Ehrenwald, a psychiatrist, suggested that [we moderns] suffer from what he has called “myth deprivation.” … He means that {humanity] needs myths in which to believe– not fairy stories but the kinds of legends through which through which we pass on basic truths about ourselves–just as [we] need heroes to imitate and great visions to lead him on. When [humans] make ruin of their myths, turning everything sour and making antiheroes to stand over the graves of the dead gods, when men, in other words, tangle the lines of their own belief systems, they can only surrender themselves to the winds of fate. What we understgand about [humankind] at this time in historyconfirms something that should never have been forgotten: [Humans] cannot survive without beliefs any more than they could survive without air or water. [[we doe not reach or attain our fullsense of personhood] unless or until one searches for what is trustworthy, unloess he or she opens themselves up to some way of explaining the world and one’s life. It is a strange thing that this need keeps reasserting itself , no mtter how often it is thought to have been eliminated for good.
….dreams…
[Our human need to believe is obvious. Desperate things happen to us when we abandon the possibilities of faith and trust. We become more primitive and less like a human being....] What [humanity] needs is th rediscover the dreams he needs to put him or herself back together as a person. This is religious business, not a humanistic sideline, and it is an effort to which we all can contribute as long as we perserve the capacity to trust and the will to make that practical in the lives of those with whom we live.

My Relatives,
Time has come to speak to the hearts of our Nations and their Leaders. I ask you this from the bottom of my heart, to come together from the Spirit of your Nations in prayer.
We, from the heart of Turtle Island, have a great message for the World; we are guided to speak from all the White Animals showing their sacred color, which have been signs for us to pray for the sacred life of all things. As I am sending this message to you, many Animal Nations are being threatened, those that swim, those that crawl, those that fly, and the plant Nations, eventually all will be affect from the oil disaster in the Gulf.
The dangers we are faced with at this time are not of spirit. The catastrophe that has happened with the oil spill which looks like the bleeding of Grandmother Earth, is made by human mistakes, mistakes that we cannot afford to continue to make.
I asked, as Spiritual Leaders, that we join together, united in prayer with the whole of our Global Communities. My concern is these serious issues will continue to worsen, as a domino effect that our Ancestors have warned us of in their Prophecies.
I know in my heart there are millions of people that feel our united prayers for the sake of our Grandmother Earth are long overdue. I believe we as Spiritual people must gather ourselves and focus our thoughts and prayers to allow the healing of the many wounds that have been inflicted on the Earth. As we honor the Cycle of Life, let us call for Prayer circles globally to assist in healing Grandmother Earth (our Unc’I Maka).
We ask for prayers that the oil spill, this bleeding, will stop. That the winds stay calm to assist in the work. Pray for the people to be guided in repairing this mistake, and that we may also seek to live in harmony, as we make the choice to change the destructive path we are on.
As we pray, we will fully understand that we are all connected. And that what we create can have lasting effects on all life.
So let us unite spiritually, All Nations, All Faiths, One Prayer. Along with this immediate effort, I also ask to please remember June 21st, World Peace and Prayer Day/Honoring Sacred Sites day. Whether it is a natural site, a temple, a church, a synagogue or just your own sacred space, let us make a prayer for all life, for good decision making by our Nations, for our children’s future and well-being, and the generations to come.
Onipikte (that we shall live),
Chief Arvol Looking Horse
19th generation Keeper of the Sacred White Buffalo Calf Pipe

Invocation/Offertory/Benediction Merton and Zen
Two monks, one a Christian and the other a Zen disciple were walking together, discussing spiritual ideals as they went along…. The Christian asked, ” Where is the Buddha? the Zen monk replied,” Buddha is found or remains in whatever give up or throw away. ( from yourself ) Persisting, the Christian then inquired, Who is Buddha? and the Zen monk replied, ” Who are you?” Turning the tables, we are given the Koan in Western terms… The Zen monk asked, ” Where is Christ?” The Christian monk answers, ” Christ is found in the first and in the last, in the beginning and in the ending” Persisting, the Zen monk inquires, ” Who is Christ?” and the Christian monk states, ” Who are you?”

Offertory Statement
Before I grasped Zen, mountains looked like mountains, and rivers like rivers. WHen I got into Zen, mountains no longer were just mountains, and rivers were no longer just rivers. But when I understood Zen, mountains were mountains, and rivers were rivers.
Before I grasped the essence of church, money was just money and community was just community. When I got into the essence of church, money was no longer just money and the community was no longer just a community. But when I understood the meaning of church and community, money was money and community was community. The offertory koan for the support of this church community will now be inscrutably understood and received.

Benediction:
In the words of Eckhart, Christianity and Zen merge… For this I know :The only way to live is like a rose, which can live without knowing why.

Selected Reading: Meditation by Thomas Merton

“[ Meditation is spiritual work, sometimes difficult work. But it is the work of love and of desire. It is not something that can be practiced without effort, at least in the beginning. And the sincerity, humility, and perseverance of our efforts will be proportionate to our desire. This desire, in turn, is a gift of grace. Anyone who imagines that they can progress in mediation without praying for the grace to continue, will soon give up. ... Meditation is almost all contained in this one idea: the idea of awakening our interior self and attuning ourselves inwardly to the presence of the Holy Spirit... In mental prayer, in silence and in attunement, we must allow our interior perceptions to become refined or purified. Some of those perceptions will not fit our idea of the spiritual life at all, which serves to humble us. Much of the coldness and dryness in modern prayer will be an unconscious defense against the grace that threatens the ego or that unsettles and changes us.... Without realizing it, life without prayer and meditation desensitizes us so that we can no longer perceive grace, listen for our inner voice, receive intuition, or be open to emptiness and the fullness that is found in Christ.

Meditation is then always to be associated in practice with abandonment to the will and action of God.... Meditation that does not seek to bring our whole being into conformity with God's will must remain sterile and abstract. But any sincere ,interior prayer and meditation cannot fail to be rewarded by grace. ...

And as St. Theresa of Avila believed, no one who was faithful to the practice of prayer and meditation could ever lose their soul, and would gain a clear and calm sense of Paradise.]”

Pastoral Reflection: Eckhart looks at the interior life .

Thomas Merton looked for a Christian mystic that closely resembled or who intuitively understood Eastern mysticism and the philosophy of emptiness known as Zen. He found the person that even the Hindu, Jain, Buddhist and Zen contemplative call one of their own: Meister Eckhart. “[ The shell must be cracked apart if what is in it is to come out, for if you want the kernel, you must break the shell. And therefore, if you want to discover God's nakedness, you must destroy its symbols, and the farther you get into the core or kernel of spirituality, the closer and emptier you become, until you come to the essence. When you come to the One truth the One reality that gathers all things into itself, there you must stay.] … I pray God will rid me of God, and that the highest thing that one can let go of is to let go of God, for the sake of God. ” The spiritual life, for students of Zen, for disciples of mystical Western teachings, for U-U’s, is to rid oneself of all the negative images of God, all the false or harmful teachings, the judgmental beliefs, the punishing practices, the superficial use of symbols. . . and move one’s awareness past all those associations and experiences to the center or the essence of oneself, and there in the profound quiet and emptiness, God will live and become known to you.

SERMON: Thomas Merton: Wisdom and Emptiness
Reflections on his life and work in Zen And The Birds Of Appetite

Most of you are acquainted with Thomas Merton. He was the most well known monk/scholar whose writings opened up a pioneering dialogue between the modern world and the monastery, and he helped to make popular the growing interest in bridging the Western traditions of spirituality to the Eastern insights and teachings. Though he died twenty five years ago, he was a modern prophet, a giant in the move toward synthesis and comparative religion. He was one of the few truly holy men the West has recently produced, and as both contemplative recluse, and as a contemporary prophet, he contributed much to our understanding of the rhythms and truths that flow between religion and life. Through his writings, such as Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, he increased our attention on how religion needs to serve the change of social change, and how spirituality applied to daily life helps to rids us of any hypocrisy between what we believe and how we live. Other books, such as Seven Story
Mountain, and The Waters of Siloe, we are given a window into his life, and we can share the struggles of coming to religious maturity through parallels in our lives.

Lastly, his scholarship, found in writings such as the Wisdom of the Desert, or on St. Bernard of Clairevax speak to us about living a life of heartfelt devotion, and how love is the supreme virtue in Western mysticism. Today, I would like to focus my words on his other great contribution, the formation of East/West dialogue. It is the topic that offers the liberal religious church an incentive for sharing in comparative thought. Because Unitarian-Universalism draws from differing traditions and practices, the unity of all the various paths is especially importance for us, and can reveal the common basis for values and inspiration to hold and understand. This unity in the quest for truth, toward the appreciation of humanity, culture, and the future is what Unitarianism can become. One of my West Coast colleagues, a U-U Buddhist, spoke of this recently from his pulpit in Berkeley. He reported that [ Unitarianism no longer can be seen as a New England tradition or a West Coast phenomenon. Instead of being defined or limited by our roots and routine ways of thinking, worshiping, and behaving, we need to be climbing to the highest most flexible branches. It is from those flexible and adaptable heights we can begin to bend toward recognizing and giving room to other liberal and open minded faiths, and joining in with them to form a progressive religious presence that is worldwide.]”

We have to prune the tangential side shoots, and trim out all the divisiveness, and put the energy into growth among the forest of free religious traditions that enrich our world.] ( isn’t great that I found another U-U minister who loves to use Nature metaphors!)

Unfortunately, theologians from various world religions often decline to speak to one another, for the scandal of learning about other creeds and commentaries, other ways to see humanity and experience God might threaten their orthodoxy and upset their comfortable assumptions…. But mystics East and West, are another breed of religious or spiritual human being. They welcome the exchange of ideas and practices that brings together the depth of their individual tradition with the beauty and insights of another. The results are a new synthesis of spirituality that in some ways is more complete, more versatile, flexible and applicable to the world’s needs and to our journey as U-Us toward self discovery and wholeness.

One such meeting was the dialogue, which became the friendship between Thomas Merton and D.T. Suzuki, the great Zen Buddhist scholar. Over the years of writing and speaking with one another, a bridge of heart and mind developed and a deep appreciation of one another constancy searching within life’s profound mysteries.

This bond of a shared journey built a recognition between these two men that catapulted the awareness of Zen into the Western culture and that brought out the parallels to Eastern mysticism found in Western mystics, principally, Bernard of Clairevaux, known for his approaches to spirituality and love, and Meister Eckhart, known for his approach to the Creation and for his understanding of holy emptiness as the way toward experiencing divine allness.

The interface of comparative teachings and spiritual practices is an intricate and extensive one. I could not begin to summarize all there is without occupying days of listening and years of practicing together so that we could begin to experience the truths they share. As Eckhart put it, “[ When we try to speak of divine matters, we have to stammer... because we are forced to express our rich experiences with the poorness of words]” It is strange- this Mystery, this Void, this essence of Being, for as we experience it, we cease to talk about it, for it has no words, no explanations. We love God when we accept ourselves mindlessly. We humbly accept that we are to live it.]” As a simple synopsis, I will focus on Merton’s dialogue with Suzuki on one main topic, the Eastern ideal of enlightenment compared and aligned with the Western ideal of Paradise.

“[Zen practice encourages the necessity to separate innocence and intuition from knowledge and analysis, using both, but knowing how they differ, and where they are best applied. Using the analogy of the Garden of Eden, Zen matches Christianity as it states that the original status of humankind was the pure Void, the free consciousness, an innocence existence, uncorrupted by ego assertions.]” Innocence is a fresh, unprejudiced state of understanding and receptivity, it is not reducible to a moral issue or a legal outcome. After the ego developed,( what many esoteric teachers call the Fall) we learn to substitute the worldly knowledge of good and evil, that is, sensate knowledge and intellectualism for our intuitive, intimate understanding. The tradgy of the Fall is not found in the sin of disobedience, but in the intellectual belief that we are to base our lives on separation or analysis for all our answers concerning life, God, psyche or soul. Mystics East and West agree that the goal of spiritual practice, prayer, meditation and discipline is the restoration of that holy innocence. They also agreed in the method to this goal: it can be accomplished by the steady process of emptying one’s heart and mind of all unnecessary beliefs about separation and alienation, and replace them with the virtues and truths that embrace the Oneness or the essence of the original blessings- peace, trust, joy, and love.

The danger, they say, is that knowledge, while necessary, does not dispel illusions of self and society but can contribute to confusion concerning one’s identity, or purpose in the world. Such estrangement from intuitive and inspirational relationship between humanity and divinity, between one’s outer self and one’s inner being reinforces separation and accelerates confusion which develops into desires and attachments that build a hard ego, a false self. Only wisdom, born of prayer and practice, clarifies or completes knowledge for the head and the heart, so that emptiness is arrived at or in Western terms, emptiness is replaced by the allness of God understood and graciously perceived. This emptying out process is difficult work that is done over the years and across the span of oneself. Instead of filling ourselves with so much stimuli and social intensity, the mystics of East and West urge that we learn to let go, to say no, and give time and deference to the deep essentials of life which include finding our inner, quiet voice, and our peaceful, compassionate heart. Suzuki finishes his remarks by observing that only to the degree that we are free, free and empty of the false or competing concepts of self is our innocence restored and our enlightenment realized. Merton concludes his thoughts on Paradise in a similar outlook. He affirms that the Eden’s garden gate is still open, that Paradise is not lost, nor is God’s grace ever removed from us. It is only as inaccessible as we believe and act like people separated or alienated from God, that is our sin, believing that we live apart or removed from sustaining grace. He affirms that Paradise is always present, available and intact within us. It is our complexities, and preoccupations that hide this beauty, this joy, this truth from us. Lastly, as the bridge and the conclusion we have the observation of Eckhart who recalls this primal truth about humanity and divinity, and the intimacy and affection found there. He said, ” The eyes with which I perceive God, are the same eyes with which God perceives me.” If I see God as judgmental, then the God I see will judge me. If I see God as loving, trustworthy and true, then God will see me, and love me in that same way. This is an essential lesson for any of us; it is vital to any worthwhile religious education, and changing perceptions is at the core of so many problems that ask for a spiritual solution to the estrangement and lacks that we feel. If two great teachers can agree, and find a single voice that bridges East and West, so can we learn to cross over any obstacles that confront us. We too, can find God through prayer and practice, through the efforts of holy subtraction and simplicity. May you all learn to see God as God sees you, and may the truth than span our globe, find their home in your hearts. AMEN

On the Times and Tides of Life

Opening Statement: The Temple of Majesty

The world is a mirror of infinite beauty, yet none of us truly sees it… You will never enjoy the world aright until the sea itself flows through your veins, until you are clothed with the heavens and crowned with the stars…. Until your spirit fills the whole world and that you remember how recently you were made , how wonderful that you came into this world, and that you are to rejoice in each morning as your place for today’s glory….

Reading: from ” Gifts from the Sea”

Is there not a hint of deeper understanding in the acceptance of the eternal ebb and flow of life? … For the life of our emotions and of our relationships are intermittent. When you love someone, you do not love them all the time, in exactly the same way, from moment to moment. It is an impossibility …. We seem to have such little faith in the ebb and flow of life, love, of all our relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide, and we resist the ebb. We are afraid that love will be lost and never return. We try to insist on permanency… But only continuity that is truly possible in life, as in love, is found in freedom.
How can one learn to live through the ebb tides of one’s existence? It is easier to understand here, on the beach, where the breathlessly still reveal another life below the level which we mortals can reach; … That each cycle of the tide is valid; whatever recedes will eternally return.”

Alan Watt’s Journal
“[Ever since I could remember, the smell, the sound, and the motion of the sea has been pure magic... Even in those times when I need to 'get away from it all,' and as the Chinese poets puts it, " wash all the wrongs of life from my pores," there was nothing better than to find a rock, or walk, or just sit with the seas and the skies... Although the rhythm of the seas beats out a certain kind of time, it is neither clock time nor is it calendar time. It has none of that kind of urgency. It is timeless time. It in concert with the time of the universe, and that every lapping wave can be synchronized with each in breath and out breath, breathing as we do, the waves into our very being.]”

There are times in our lives where the ebb and flow of our feelings and experiences ungulate like the rhythmic coming and going of the seas, sometimes bringing peace to our souls, and other times being the harbingers of a dramatic, life-altering experience.

Life flows…. And never stops…. Even when death is experienced on one level, it is but a change that the tides in their rhythmic graces supply to us; to teach us, to console, to inspire, to accompany us throughout all the motions and movements of our hearts….
Life flows onward and its capacity for teaching us about love and life never stops… While it might seem to pause or even freeze in our hearts and minds, it is always flowing in us … While we can build dams, barriers, and try to place obstacles in our hearts and minds, there is no place that can sustain, no way to resist the surges and tides of life, and because it is relentlessly gracious, it is those same rhythms that connect us and put us into each others arms, the same waves of emotions and sensitivities that flow through us and outward to every person we see and meet….

We all come from the womb of life, the ocean, and our connections to it are primal, often unconscious, and yet never less than real and there is always a part of our being that will affirm that connection and how being in touch with the ebb and flow of those waves gives us endurance, hope….
We all flow from the same source- the same oceanic feeling, the same fluid soul …. the oceans do not know human differences, nor will the waves accept human vanities and peculiar ways we seek to separate or distance ourselves…. The salt, the sand, the winds, and the feel are universal…. Gracious…. Even holy for us….

As John Muir put it, “[ God does not appear in a random world, or flow through sometimes narrow chinks or is present only to chosen places, races, and situations.... But God flows in a grand, universal and undivided currents and it saturates us all....]”

The times when the ocean has meant a lot in my life are quite diverse, and yet, I feel they are instructive because they give me a map of human experience and emotion that I would have never designed, yet, strangely, have experienced as a deep part of my soul….
They are poignant moments and there are tragic ones…. Times when I knew that my life felt lost, and times when I almost lost my life…. Tides when my emotions were filled and overflowing with optimism, and times and tides when I was more empty than a small tide pool at lowest tide ….
Among the memories that stand out I have chosen two….. For their contrast and for their intensity, to share with you the depth of emotion that the oceans of the heart can contain….

When I was married, I lived along the Atlantic ocean, first near Plymouth, MA., and then later near Glouscester up on the North Shore….
Often, my wife and I would take a break from ministry and art to take a walk on the beach- time to reflect, pray, discuss the mundane and the metaphysical, and just keep company with each other’s spirits….
Those times of respite and relationship are times that I sorely miss,
but as I reflect back on them, I am filled with a little remorse, and much gratitude… So even though I am now alone, I feel that it is important to have those kinds of time together… Too often we can be too busy, or not see that just because there is not a screaming need to response, that we are in need of one another’s company…. And yes, I hope that I will find another partner …. Someone to walk the beaches with me again….
The second was a turning point in my ministry where I realized how important churches and clergy can be to its city or community. I realized from this experience that my mission is to be an open, available resource for people who did not think or feel along the ordinary or status quo lines, but that a liberal church exists to serve the entire community of the unchurched, who, for reasons easy to understand, have not either found us, or know that we exist…. And it is not until there is a need for celebration, or in this case, a time of profound crisis and sadness, that they discover the importance of a community like ours.
About fifteen years ago, I was the minister for a bereaved family. It was a high profile murder case where I had to not only minister to the family but act as a protective screen from the national media that was covering the tragedy. I walking along a dock near my home, when my eyes focused on a poster stapled to dock pillion…. It had the face of a young woman on it and the request that if anyone had seen her to notify the police or the family…. I had an instant flash of recognition that somehow I would be directly involved with this person, yet I did not know how or why…..
When I returned home, I received a call from my church sexton whose voice was quivering…. He said that a family had come to the church looking for a minister and could I come down to talk with them…. I said of course I would…. When I arrived the family members were already inside the church, and I went over to welcome them…. They began telling me the story of their wife/sister/daughter who was missing and that they had suspected was murdered two weeks before… Of course, it was the same women whose picture I saw on the pole earlier in the day….
It seems as if she was last seen accepting a boat ride from a work colleague…. Little did we know that this innocent act of trust would have such gruesome results.
I was asked to provide the family with two memorial services….
The first I more private one for the neighbors and friends of the woman…. The family lived in a little alcove of homes near the water in Salem Ma, and she was a well known person in community affairs from working with the children to environmental protection…. When I arrived, 300 people were there…. all crowding onto a little spit of beach to say good bye to a friend…
The personal irony for me was that just four hours before, I presided over a Sufi wedding in the church- a joyous almost raucous event of celebration, energy and love! What an emotional seesaw it was for me….
The memorial was a touching tribute to the impact of one life on a community… It had contained reflections from family and friends, which I concluded by finishing my remarks with passing a wreath of flowers around the crowd before I took it to the ocean and cast it into the sea…
Two days later, the public memorial was a dramatic gathering….
The church I served had seats for 400, but there was standing room only, and probably 700 in the sanctuary…. I felt compelled to keep the photographers out of the service, and to keep the cameras away from the family during the service…. Again, very poignant thoughts and words, some of which I have read for you this morning….
It was the turning point of the ocean, a turning point for my ministry… That I was called to be the minister to thousands who shared in this experience of loss, the betrayal of trust, and to be involved in trying to reconcile the worse and the best of human natures ….
From that time on,
I realized that my ministry has to be to everybody, and anybody…. And that the call to ministry was like the call of the oceans, to be there and to offer that solace and hope during all the times and tides of our lives….