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2020-04-17
This Week in Religious Education: April 16-23, 2020
From the Minister, Sun Apr 19
Spiritual growth involves, among other things, an increasing facility at letting go of the illusion of control -- i.e., an increased appreciation of grace (the wonder, beauty, and abundance that cannot be earned or deserved), decreased worry and anxiety from trying to control outcomes, decreased attachment to the ego's story about "accomplishments" and "failures," a decreased interest in blaming self or others.
While control is an illusion, there is yet a role for intention, for orienting ourselves on purpose in a specified direction. (The meditation experience illustrates this. You can't make your monkey mind stop jumping onto thought trains, but you are oriented toward an intention that it be still and somehow, over time, this makes a difference. The difference it makes is unsteady, unpredictable, often tenuous and temporary, and generally unclear and inarticulable -- yet important.) This orientation might or might not produce the results you had in mind, but it imbues life with meaning.
Jan Chozen Bays, co-abbot and co-founder of Great Vow Zen Monastery writes:
"If we formulate vows, and if we ask for help in carrying out those vows, we will channel and amplify our individual life energy so that it becomes more likely to accomplish lasting good. You cannot discover your vows by thinking. Your vow lies within you. It was born into the world as you were born."So what is your great vow?
Yours in faith,
Meredith
The Apr 12 service -- "Traditions of Liberation" -- is now available.
The text is HERE, and the video is HERE (and below)
Find videos of many past services at our Youtube channel: HERE
Sunday Afternoon Adult Religious Education
Sundays, 4:00 - 5:15, in zoom room ending 7899.
Click here:
https://www.zoom.us/j/2898507899
Or telephone: 646-876-9923, and use meeting ID: 289 850 7899
Apr 19: Exploring the Practice of the Week, "EveryDay Sacred". Read the post about this practice HERE.
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States and the adaptation for young people.
Get ready for our upcoming Zoom class: Four sessions, led by Rev. Meredith Garmon and Jeff Tomlinson
May 3, 10, 17, and 24 -- 4:00-5:15.
Order your copy from uuabookstore.org (or any major online bookseller), and start reading now!
More info about the UUA Common Read at uua.org/read
Zen at CUUC News
2020-04-15
Music: Sun Apr 19
Composers and the vows they take: from the Freemasons Mozart and Haydn, to the Hieronymite Antonio Soler and the Abbé Liszt, this morning’s solo piano music flowed from the pens of adherents to religious orders and societies. Mompou’s Música callada (Slient Music) takes its title from the teachings of the 16th-century Spanish Carmelite friar San Juan de la Cruz, who wrote of “Silent music; sonorous solitude.” Elsewhere, the CUUC Choir is on hand with statements of faith and idealism from diverse cultures. Read on for programming details.
Centering Music: Adam Kent, piano
Rondo in D Major, K. 485
Rondo in D Major, K. 485
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
Liebestraume No. 3
Franz Liszt
Opening Music:
Sonata in C-sharp Minor, Hob. XVI:36
Sonata in C-sharp Minor, Hob. XVI:36
I. Moderato
Franz Joseph Haydn
Anthem: CUUC Choir directed by Lisa N. Meyer and accompanied by Georgianna Pappas
I Dream A World
Martha Sullivan, poem by Langston Hughes and #6 - by
Musical Meditation:
Música callada Vol. IV
Música callada Vol. IV
22. Molto lento e tranquillo
Federico Mompou
Anthem:
Takadamu (Lead the Way)
Takadamu (Lead the Way)
Sally K. Albrecht and Jay Althouse.
Music for Parting:
Sonata in D Major, R. 84
Sonata in D Major, R. 84
Padre Antonio Soler
Don't Be So Predictable
Practice of the Week
Don't Be So Predictable
Don't Be So Predictable
Imagine being yourself for the love of discovering every day who you are in relation to others.
Category: Slogans to Live By: Carry these reminders at all times. These practices don't require setting aside a separate substantial chunk of time -- but they will slow you down a bit (and that's a good thing.) Resolve to get stronger at living by these maxims, day by day. Sometimes make one of them the focus of your daily journaling.
Adapted from Norman Fischer, Training in Compassion, "Don't Be So Predictable."
Freshness and openness and a capacity for surprise are hallmarks of mind training, which is one reason why it is so much fun. It is not, as it might seem to us (mapping onto it our received sense of morality or upright conduct), a matter of being ethical and sober in all of our actions. It is very much the opposite: we view with bemused curiosity our various responses and habits, even when it is clear that they are not too wholesome or even sane. With mind training we are quite honest about what is going on, never pretending, never whitewashing or denying, but at the same time not assuming that we have to give in to or believe our every impulse and thought.
We are all quite predictable because we are all fixated on identities we have constructed (with the help of our families and friends) that we consider to be accurate reflections of our possibilities. But they are not.
Yes, maybe you are an angry person, and you can't help but notice that anger arises in you frequently when certain sorts of events trigger it. But, anger having arisen, what now do you do with it? Don't be so predictable! There are many possibilities. I have never been angry in this moment before, so why would I want to project onto this moment all of my past moments of having been angry?
Zen teacher Shunryu Suzuki said, “In the beginner's mind there are many possibilities, in the expert's mind few." Don't be so predictable is telling us to cultivate beginner's mind in relation to ourselves and our own experiences. It’s telling us to stop being such experts on ourselves.
We should all stop becoming professional selves and become amateur selves. An amateur is someone who does what he does for the love of it, not for advancement or money. Imagine being yourself for the love of discovering every day who you are in relation to others: loving them, and yourself in the process of loving them. In this sense we are all a bit too professional about our lives and our relationships, engaging in them for self-advantage, which reduces the love—and the fun. Amateurs always have more fun than professionals. Professionals have to be predictable; amateurs can't be.
Adapted from Judith Lief, "Don't Be So Predictable."
If we do not make an effort to do otherwise, if we do not pay attention, then much of what we do will be in the form of automatic reactions. We can see this whole process as it is happening, although often we do not. We might recognize it in the sinking feeling of “Here I go again.” We might see it coming, but our reaction is so fast that we can’t stop ourselves.
This kind of predictability is fueled by the self-centered undercurrent of fascination with our own concerns and uninterest in others except to the extent that they either threaten or feed our own desires. When someone does us harm, we hang onto our grudge about that for a very long time. But when someone helps us, we take it for granted, and soon forget it.
We do not have to be so programmed and predictable. If we cultivate awareness enough to step back a bit from simply reacting, we can insert a gap or a pause before being carried away. In that little gap there is the freedom to respond in a fresh way, less predetermined. When we respond from a more dispassionate perspective, and are not just caught in the game of defending or promoting our ego, it is as though a different world opens up. We begin to see how our limited focus has prevented us from developing a bigger vision of what is going on and how best to respond to it.
Practice
When you feel threatened, don’t get defensive. Pause before you respond. When you are praised, don’t just lap it up. Pause before you respond. What do you notice? Explore the contrast between using experience to further your own agenda and seeing it from a broader perspective.
* * *
2020-04-10
Religious Education, Sun Apr 12
RE Family Check-In: We would like to know how our RE families are doing and what programming would provide needed support during this time. We invite families to complete a short check-in, click HERE. Thank you.
Online Programming for Children and Youth (details and Zoom links are on the CUUC Online Programming Schedule and in the weekly RE newsletter):
- Fri Apr 10, 6:30pm Senior Youth Group (8th/9th-12th Grade) in Room ending 8428 (Tracy's Zoom Room)
- NEW! Fri 4/10, 6:30pm Junior Youth Group (6th-8th/9th Grade) in Room ending 2210 (CUUC Mtg Rm 2)
- Sun 4/12: RE is the Online Easter Egg Hunt (see the RE Newsletter for details or email Tracy)
- Weekly Tues & Thurs, 9:30-10:00am PreK/K Story Time with Diane in Room ending 4635 (Private RE Zoom Room)
- Weekly Tues, Wed, Thurs, 7:15-8:00pm Story Time for Children of All Ages in Room ending 4635 (Private RE Zoom Room)
- NEW! Fri 4/17, 4:00-4:30pm DIY Musical Instruments: Recycle, Reuse, Recreate, Rhythm! with Lyra in Room ending 8428 (Tracy's Zoom Room)
From the Minister, Fri Apr 10
In the 1918 flu pandemic, pleas for volunteers to care for the sick went largely ignored. About 675,000 Americans lost their lives to the 1918 flu -- over 12 times the number killed in battle in World War I -- yet there have been very few books or cultural products about it. It's as though Americans, as a people, didn't like who they became. We suppressed the shameful memory of how we turned away from each other.
Yet not all Americans turned away. Then, as they are now, health care workers responded with courageous compassion. Whether their example is more widely followed today than it was in 1918 is up to us. One century ago, your 16 great-great-grandparents would have been about the age that you are today. Some of yours might have been health-care workers; probably not all of them were. Now it falls to us to step forward to redeem our great-great-grandparents who didn't. Because the neighborliness to which we are now called is apt to be an extended deployment, we will have to pace ourselves more carefully than we would for a hurricane or earthquake response. We also have technological tools for connecting and supporting each other that our great-great-grandparents didn't have.
This morning I got an email blast from the president of one of my alma maters. She affirmed, "I am certain that the test of this pandemic will give rise to what President Lincoln once described as 'the better angels of our nature.'"
It didn't in 1918. Let us make it so in 2020.
Yours in faith,
Meredith
Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz, An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States and the adaptation for young people.
Get ready for our upcoming Zoom class: Four sessions, led by Rev. Meredith Garmon
Sundays in May. Details coming soon.
Order your copy from uuabookstore.org (or any major online bookseller), and start reading now!
More info about the UUA Common Read at uua.org/read
Find videos of many past services at our Youtube channel: HERE
We live most of our lives in very ordinary places, where we spend our time doing very ordinary things. If we set up the expectation that the Sacred is something remote from us, something “out there,” far removed from nitty-gritty reality, then it's no wonder we flop into our beds every night wondering why life isn't more fulfilling. How can we live in a way that honors our deepest values and our place in the grand scheme of life? READ MORE
Grouse said, "I feel very nervous when I lead our recitation of the sutras."
Raven said, "Mistakes are part of the ritual." READ MORE
Zen at CUUC News
2020-04-09
EveryDay Sacred
Practice of the Week
EveryDay Sacred
EveryDay Sacred
Category: Ecospiritual. These practices are oriented toward developing our spirituality through our connection with our planet home and our responsibility to care for it.
adapted from Rebecca James Hecking, The Sustainable Soul
EveryDay Sacred
We all have places we consider to be extra special, and there's nothing wrong with that. There's no doubt that cathedrals and mountaintops are extraordinary places, and that meditative retreat weekends are special times. But when we begin to internalize that those times and places are somehow intrinsically more sacred than the stuff of our everyday lives, we run into problems. The difference about holy places and times is our awareness and expectation of a spiritual experience. When we walk through a Zen garden, its quiet beauty acts on our mind, and settles us into a more peaceful state. Because of our expectations—this is a holy place, pay attention”—our subconscious subtly shifts, and we find ourselves open to the experience of the Sacred. We expect the experience, and most of the time we have it. If we don't, we may leave the sacred place feeling disappointed and a little depressed.
The problem is that most of our lives are not lived in Zen gardens, or medieval cathedrals, or remote wilderness areas. We live most of our lives in very ordinary places, where we spend our time doing very ordinary things. If we set up the expectation that the Sacred is something remote from us, something “out there,” far removed from nitty-gritty reality, then it's no wonder we flop into our beds every night wondering why life isn't more fulfilling.
How can we live in a way that honors our deepest values and our place in the grand scheme of life? It’s a matter of recognizing the sacred in the everyday. We don't need more time up on the mountaintop, however pleasant that might be. We need to grow our awareness of the Holy (however conceptualized) that surrounds us, and infuses us every moment of our lives. We need to cultivate a way of being in the world that connects us with something greater than ourselves, and situates our individual lives within the story of all life.
Each of us has singular experiences and life journeys that are not duplicated by any of the myriad of beings that have ever lived. This life is a one-of-a-kind spark of consciousness in the grand epoch that is all existence. This is the state of grace in which we live every day of our lives. Our task is to continually move in the direction of ever-increasing awakening. In the end, it really is all good. It is all holy. The sacred permeates the mundane.
Consciousness of the Sacred is not a goal that is ever permanently achieved. Some days we will be more conscious than others. The process of moving in the direction of awakening is itself holy, dynamic, and fluid. There is no end state, only the process of awakening, and then awakening some more.
We are all like fish, swimming in the ocean of the Divine every moment of our lives, unaware of the water that surrounds us and gives us life. But we can learn to feel the water moving all around, sometimes fast, like rapids, other times a slow flow.
Practices
1. EveryDay Sacred Altar. Decorate your altar with items symbolic of your daily life: perhaps a grocery receipt, bus pass, pen, bar of soap, calculator, baggage claim tag, or a wooden spoon. Choose items with care and arrange with intention. Include a candle. Light it and think about what you've created, and how you spend your days.
2. Small Miracles. Do this several times a day, every day. Pause from what you’re doing. Take a deep, slow breath. Bring your awareness to small miracles taking place around you: breath itself, a bird perched on a fence, a sleeping baby, autumn leaves, an earthworm, conscious thought, a starry night, eyes to see it, flowing water, dreaming, or the ground under your feet. Take a moment to let the miracles sink in. Finally, take another deep, slow breath before returning to your day. To remember to pause, leave yourself a sticky-note reminder, or set an alarm.
3. Ordinary Outdoors. Go to your own backyard or a nearby park and spend some time observing the animal and plant residents. Sit quietly so you don't disturb them more than necessary. Observe their activities and whether they are aware of your presence. Watch how they interact with each other. Observe plants as well as animals, see what you learn. Take them as your teachers. What wisdom can they offer you? After a period of observation time, write in your journal about your experience.
Group Activities
Share Sacred Moments. Take turns sharing sacred moments from your own daily lives, whether regular occurrences, or one-time moments. Focus on ordinary life and the pleasures it brings. Afterward, spend about fifteen minutes in silent meditation together, simply breathing slowly and deeply while bringing your attention to the present moment.
Questions for Group Conversation:
- Is there a special place that feels sacred or holy? What makes it special?
- Are there times in your daily life that invite connection to the greater whole? Perhaps early morning when everyone else is still asleep or maybe even a commute over a quiet country road? What feels special to you?
- What personal rituals or practices might help you cultivate a sense of the sacred amid everyday problems and challenges?
- If you knew you would die tomorrow, how would you view today?
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