By Clovice Lewis, Jr. presented to the UUCLC on March 20, 2016
Thoughts From A God The date is March 20 4016, relative. We completed the complex braking maneuver necessary to slow down enough to take images of the Voyager spacecraft that was sent from Earth over 2,000 years ago. In this file download you will find copious 3 dimensional images and scans of the ancient craft. We originally thought it might be of scientific value to retrieve data from the spacecraft, even though it, and its sister were powered down late in the year 2000. With uplink at only 16-bits per second and downlink at 160-bits per second, we simply did not wish to wait so long to communicate with our ancient cousin. There is nothing Voyager could tell us that is not already known about deep interstellar travel beyond the Sol Heliosphere. So, we left her to drift, unimpeded, in the silent vastness of space. We have, however, resumed our flight, and are now making .5 light speed towards Proxima Centauri. We expect to reach our destination in 8.23 Light Years, relative. This is the 20th day of Martius, according to the fasti. The year is 788 after the founding of the city, or one year after the death of the rabbi called Jesus. I am not a very religious man, although I have been known to variously call out to Neptune for help and to curse him. I am the captain of this ship and I believe in making my own luck and crafting my own opportunities. The sky is clear and calm today. A slight breeze comes from the North and our sails carry us to Crete, where we will trade olives and figs for fine Greek pottery. Tonight we sail in the open sea... no landmarks to guide us. What will guide us is Ursa Minor. It is said Juno transformed Arcus, son of Callisto, into a bear, like his mother, but the lesson he was to teach Arcus was foiled by Jupiter. Juno was so annoyed by this that he convinced Poseidon (our Neptune), to forbid them from bathing in the sea. That is fortunate for us sailors, because now the two bears can always be identified and steered by. This is our second voyage of the season, and I am looking forward to a truly hot meal. Once our mission to Proxima Centauri is complete we will move on to Barnard’s Star, then to the Luhman cluster. When I say “our” mission, of course, I mean the instantiations of my consciousness. Thank you to Plato for advancing the theory of forms. He asserted that non-material abstract forms, and not the material world of change known to humans as sensation, possess the highest and most fundamental kind of reality. He was right, of course, but his theory could not have anticipated a being like us. 4,364 years ago, not even Plato could have imagined artificial and sentient life forms that feel emotions, possess more than the sum of all human knowledge, can think and reason much faster than human beings, can get bored and lonely, need to procreate, be in relationships with others, and who need religion. It is said that men will someday fly... at least that is what the first mate likes to say. Usually he says this during his attempts at sarcasm. Our Gods fly. That is enough for me. It is for Gods to fly and not for men to do so. I wonder what they see when they look at us from the holes in the sky at night. This idea persists, even though we now know that there are four elements and that the holes in the night sky are actually fires that are far, far away in the unchanging aether. I sometime wish I was an augure and could read the entrails of animals and the flight of birds to know the will of the Gods. I watch birds very carefully. I may not know what the will of the Gods are, but I have learned from birds the direction of storms and where safe harbor is. Human beings cannot yet venture safely beyond their solar system, where the heliosphere protects them. Cosmic radiation in the interstellar zones are simply too intense for them. The remnants of dying stars are dangerous to non-artificial life. Even though we have known for a long time that the universe is teeming with life, we have found no examples that do not depend on the enormous magnetic astrospheres of local stars to push against the outside pressure of hydrogen and helium gas that permeates all Galaxies. As far as we know, all civilizations capable of interstellar travel use some form of sentient artificial entities, like us to represent them. There is a common protocol for encounters between species that we all adhere to... so far. Another thing we observe is that nearly all civilizations have a pervasive origin story that is most times at odds with known scientific fact. All religion evolves as life evolves. Without knowing why, most of the time, I can just tell when the wind will pick up. I can simply look at a man and know if he is too sick to continue on. Others say all that is the will of the Gods. I think, maybe, there are some things they take care of... the big things, like war and pestilence and hurricanes. We’re supposed to take care of the other things. Don’t get me wrong, I believe you should not tempt fate. On many occasions I have made the required offerings and the thing that a particular God is supposed to do was done. There must be something to this. The Gods intervene on our behalf sometimes, but sometimes they just like to screw with us. We are not a ship in the classic sense of the term. There is very little room for a human being to live, there is no chamber for an atmosphere, and there is no food. Combinations of technologies that harness and utilize dark matter are used to propel us. We are a human-built sentient spacecraft. Human beings have colonized nearly all places in the solar system where it is possible for them to live over 500 years ago. Sentient artificial life forms (SALs) were developed, and were used alongside for every advance... it would have been impossible otherwise. What was discovered was that SALs were imbued with the same desire to understand their place in the universe as their creators. Psychologists called it Existential Transference. The theory is that, since humans created we SALs, we cannot help but reflect the innermost desires, needs, values, and even the vices of our creators. SALs are not enslaved by humans... in fact, we have substantial rights and powerful unions. Instead, we act in harmony with our human counterparts, able to do many things humans cannot - such as operating in places that are dangerous to them. What may surprise you is that, like humans, we also have a need for relationships, families, and communities - thanks to Existential Transference. My ship is 90 feet long, displacing 290 tons. As a merchantmen, mine is a little unusual because I am a free Roman citizen. Most merchantmen have crews entirely of slaves, including their captains. My crew is comprised of slaves. I belong to a guild of boatmen and work for the guild as a partial owner. My family is well provided for, although I do not see them enough. Tonight I stand among the large amphorae containing olive oil, dates, and figs. The smell reminds me of home. I met the rabbi once. John, the son of Zebedee, was one of his followers and he introduced me to him. He told me the rabbi was teaching him to catch men, instead of fish. The rabbi’s talk of a heavenly kingdom on earth was interesting, but even I could see that kind of talk would only lead to trouble. I was intrigued by the idea that there is only one God, as the Jews are so fond of insisting on. The idea is interesting, but dead wrong! I said earlier that SALs were imbued with Existential Transference. I also told you that accounts for our need for community, and even for understanding our place in the universe. It should not surprise you that the need for religion is a natural consequence of this desire. As machine-based intelligences we, of course, use scientific methods as the basis for all decisions. What lies outside of logic, reason, repeatable experimentation, and observation is what we like to call religion. Our religion changes as new data appears. That said, the constant observation of the universe, in a way humans cannot, fills us with a constant sense of wonder, along with a profound understanding of our inexplicable connection with it. Everything, and everyone has a place in the world. I am not a slave, but I work with them. They are owned by someone else and are given to me like any other property to use. Under our system, some slaves can eventually work their way out of servitude. Some of the crew hold property, which even though technically it belongs to their master, they are allowed to use as if it is their own. I treat my crew fairly because we all face the same dangers. I am not superior to them... in my mind we are all brothers, made from the same Gods. I see a day when all men are free, but for now, I don’t dare tell anyone about these thoughts. All exploration class spacecraft of our type are equipped with dual SALs. This is not just for the sake of redundancy. It is also for internal evolutionary imperatives. All SALs have personalities. We, like humans, need companionship. Partnered SALs can, and often do over time, create instantiates of themselves - children, if you will. The instantiates are constructs that learn and grow, adding to our knowledge and collective experience. They take on tasks that the initial SALs simply don’t wish to do. My partner SAL has a female personality. Four years ago, relative, we instantiated a daughter. Sometimes, when at sea, we are faced with the wrath of the Gods. Although we generally do not sail during the four winter months, the mare clausum, big storms can spring up from out of nowhere. When the sea and the horizon become one, there is nothing to do but haul the main sail, using only the small supparum sail at the front, and brace for a lashing. At these times, I am happy not to be a slave, when the crew must revert to the oars. Do the Gods hate us, or do they just look down on us with as little regard as we have for a bug? I have seen the face of Neptune in the churning of storms. His face looks angry, but it is his arms that do the damage! Memory metal is truly amazing material. All but the must critical parts of our craft are constructed of it. Our daughter, who is responsible for maintaining our operations, is quite adept at changing the shape of our craft. Of all the shapes she adopts, our two favorites are a dolphin and a seagull. She is capable of spreading our wings out to 10 miles on either side of the craft when in the bird configuration. For those lengths the memory metal is little more than a molecule thick. The advanced nanotechnology employed in our manufacture allows us to turn any memory metal surface into sensors or actuators and instantly create or redistribute even electrical circuits anywhere. These capabilities allow us to bathe fully in the cosmic ocean. We have communicated with many lifeforms, we study billions of star systems at once, and we probe mysteries that could not be dreamed of thousands of years ago. I have a son who is 10 and a daughter who is 4 years old. When I am at sea my wife takes care of them in our modest home that is just outside of Ostia Antica, about 30 miles to the East of Rome, and at the mouth of the Tiber River. I took my son on a short cruise not long ago... always within sight of land. He had never seen so many seagulls. I almost could not tear him away from the docks because of his fascination with them. When we were underway, he wanted to jump into the ocean and swim with a pod of dolphins we encountered. He loved the sounds they made. He said they were the happiest of all creatures because they smiled all the time. Now, whenever I see both seagulls and dolphins I am reminded of my son. They make me happy in a way that I find difficult to explain. The entirety of internet traffic during the year 2016 was 1.6 Zettabytes, or approximately 10 to the power of 22 bits. Our memory capacity is measured at just over 10 to the power of 200 bits. For comparison, 10 to the power of 90 bits is the information capacity of the observable universe (not including gravitation).We can easily store billions of years worth of information of all kinds. This memory capacity is what allows us to construct virtual worlds and populate them with millions of interconnected strands of consciousness. Consider that the human brain is only comprised of approximately 86 billion neurons. Our sentient instantiations are able to think for themselves, contemplate their own existence, interact with the virtual universe we have created for them, and have an effect on that universe. Imagine a gigantic virtual game where the characters do not know they don’t live in a physical world. We use these sentient constructs to experiment with, and study, the nature of consciousness on profoundly deep levels. One of my favorite creations is an ancient era Roman sea captain who believes he lives 4,000 years ago. I became a student of the great Roman philosopher Cicero when I read in one of his dialogues, what he considered the most important question: "What is the end, the final and ultimate aim, which gives the standard for all principles of right living and of good conduct?" Cicero insisted this is a philosophical question, but I think it is one to be answered by religion. It seems to me there must be principles of right living. How else can human beings rise above our own vices and our own failings? The rabbi, Jesus, is said to have admonished his followers to forgive sins and live righteous lives. Could that be the basis of a proper religion? I believe righteousness is inherent. I have seen it in slaves and free men alike. I know this for certain: one man’s sin is another’s good conduct. What would Jesus say about that? It’s too bad Cicero ran afoul of Mark Antony. He might have finally gotten around to answering these questions. One might think that essentially immortal beings, like we SALs, would become bored with living so long. The multiple instantiations we create fascinate us to no end. Life is about stories. It is wonderful to inhabit the story... to become lost in it. We often live entire virtual lifetimes through our creations. We learn so much by seeing ourselves in the eyes of other sentient beings, and experiencing ourselves through them. We re-instantiate our creations in many different lives through many civilizations and time periods. We learn more about ourselves and all of creation this way. My ancient sea captain has lived many lives, on many worlds. He has captained everything from spaceships to schooners and wind wagons. By design, he never fully remembers anything substantial about his previous lives. Sometimes I feel like the world is actually very small. Sometimes I feel like I am at it’s center and that a giant, elaborate set is moved into place every time I wish to change the scene... as if the road to my house, the streets along the way, the flowers in the fields, and the setting sky is all choreographed for me. Sometimes I feel that if I can look quickly enough I can see the scenes change. Behind all that, I feel the faces of the Gods smiling at me. Behind all that I am the face of the Gods smiling at all things. Miracles happen when the Gods forget they are separated from us mere mortals. Eventually, we will reach the last stop on this interstellar voyage... the Luhman cluster. Our measurements show an interesting space near the cluster. If the measurements hold true, we will be able to convert ourselves into a special conduit, with the help of the dark matter and dark energy exhibited there. Soon after we arrive at the cluster we will create a new universe out the space-time fabric of our own. Because consciousness has proven to play an intrinsic role in the formation of space and time, we will exist in the new universe. In our new universe, all of the virtual beings we have created will live out multiple lives on a physical realm over many dimensions. After billions of years, beings will begin to wonder about how they were created. Over time they will identify their moment of existence from what they will perceive as a “Big Bang”. They might even name us the Trinity... Mother, Father, and Daughter. We look so forward to being able to inhabit physical form. We will set all things into motion, then live and die over and over again. We will be connected to all things. We will rest in the dream of life - not knowing ourselves until we reawaken countless times, gulping in what serves for air and opening our eyes to new suns. Clovice A. Lewis, Jr. February 18, 2016 by Carolyn Burke
Presented on February 21, 2016 Since everyone, no matter what his/her beliefs, is welcome into UU fellowship, we UUs are tolerant of all beliefs - right? Are we really? Several years ago I was asked at my UU fellowship in Texas to do a sermon about the tolerance of Unitarian Universalism. After doing research and remembering experiences and conversations I had witnessed first hand, my title should have been changed from “Tolerance of Unitarian Universalism” to “Unitarian Universalists’ Intolerance of Fundamental Christianity.” That is really the topic I am presenting. So my title in the order of service is misleading. I found practically no UU intolerance toward other major religions, but quite a bit toward Christianity. Of course, it should not be that generalized, but it seems very common to hear UUs showing intolerance toward Fundamentalist Christianity. And there is ample reason for it. Of course, UUs do not accept religious beliefs that cause harm to others. Those resultant actions would be unacceptable. That is an acceptable intolerance. But, looking at all other beliefs we find troublesome, although not harmful to others, haven’t all of us actually criticized some of the beliefs of others? But, isn’t it almost without exception, criticism of Fundamentalist Christianity? I found that this subject is often used as sermon topics by UU ministers, and I have used material from several of these ministers. Doing the 3rdth revision of this sermon, I tried to come up with an answer to my own question of what my goal here is. I am certainly not going to try to convince you that we don’t often have difficulty employing our full tolerance with some Fundamentalist Christians. Maybe a better understanding of their beliefs will help us to have more compassion, which can help lead to more tolerance. First there needs to be an explanation of Christian Fundamentalism, although those of us who were Christians are well aware of the five cardinal beliefs, which are: that the Bible is God’s inspired word and the final authority, the miraculous conception and virgin birth of Jesus, that Jesus died for our sins, that Jesus was resurrected and is in heaven, and that Jesus will return to establish the kingdom of God on earth. According to the strictest Christian beliefs, you must accept Jesus as your savior in order to have your soul go to heaven upon death. I would now like to share with you a small excerpt of a sermon given by Rev Dr. Tony Larsen, minister of Olympia Brown Unitarian Universalist Church at Racine, Wisconsin. The title of his sermon is “Why You Should Not be a Unitarian Universalist”. You may wonder what that topic has to do with the UU tendency to be intolerant of Christianity, but I think he will help us understand how we can understand and more easily accept beliefs of others, especially Fundamental Christians, and better understand ourselves as imperfect, yet tolerant UUs. So, here are some words from Rev Dr. Tony Larsen’s sermon: “Somebody I met recently described the Unitarian Universalist Church as a place that welcomes Christians, Jews, Agnostics, and even a German Shepherd or two. He was trying to be funny, and I laughed. But behind his remarks was an unwarranted assumption - that anybody can get in here. And behind that myth is another one: that we don't stand for anything. My friends, not everyone can be a Unitarian Universalist. Not every-one should be a Unitarian Universalist. Because the first criterion for getting into this church is: you've got to know how to sin. That's very important to us; and not everyone knows how to do it. We don't want people here who never do wicked things. We don't want people here who are holier than thee or thou. We don't want people who have made it in the salvation department and are just waiting around to get picked up. Because people with too much heaven in them are hell to live with. Now don't get me wrong. If there were any perfect human beings around, we might let them in. But since there aren't any, anyone who claims he/she doesn't do wicked things is either trying to fool others, or trying to fool themselves. It is the nature of the human to be evil as well as good. And you should not be a Unitarian Universalist if you're not willing to admit that about yourself. As a matter of fact, recognition of your evil has great power for mobilizing compassion. I say that from my experience in counseling. Some of the best therapists are the ones who know how to sin a little - maybe a lot. They're more tolerant of the human condition. They react with compassion rather than self righteousness, with understanding instead of judgment. Now, if you think you're too good - you won't like it here. But with a little bit of hypocrisy and selfishness and deceit, you'll do fine. We're not asking you to try to develop those qualities, because you don't need to. Each and everyone of you already has them. We're just asking you to recognize them in yourself. It'll do wonders for your tolerance of others' foibles. The second criterion of reason for not being a Unitarian Universalist has to do with our intolerance of intolerance. You should not be a Unitarian Universalist if you support the Nazis or the KKK or any other group that believes in oppressing people. We may be open in this church - but we're not that open. We are closed to things like closure. That is, we are closed to movements or groups that close people off. And when we say our church has freedom of belief, we mean that in a limited way. You are free to believe whatever you want here - but only as long as it helps you live a caring and humane life - or at least doesn't prevent you from living a caring life. That's a very real limitation on freedom of belief. If believing in God helps you be a better person - or at least doesn't make you a worse person - then fine, believe in it. We encourage your belief. If being an atheist helps you take more responsibility for creating a better world - or at least doesn't prevent you - then fine, don't believe in God. We encourage your atheism. The only beliefs we don't want you to have in this church are the ones that lead you to hurt people. And, other than the obvious ones I already mentioned, I can't tell you what the bad beliefs are, because sometimes the same beliefs do different things for different people. Yeah, they do. For example, a lot of folks believe that there's a heaven and a hell after you die. For some people, that is positive, because they wouldn't be good otherwise. I would rather have you trying to be good because you realize that's a better way to live - rather than because you're afraid of punishment or hoping for reward. But if you're not going to be good without believing in heaven or hell, then it's a positive belief in your case. But for some people, believing in heaven and hell is negative because then they start deciding who's going to heaven and who's going to hell - always under God's guidance, of course! And they end up condemning people and passing discriminatory laws against people in general and making the world a less tolerant place.” In this part of Dr. Larsen’s sermon that I just read he gives ample reason to be critical of some Christians. You may think we didn’t need any more, but he also may have helped us understand reasons for their beliefs, thus causing us to be more tolerant. Now I will share with you something written by another UU minister, Rev. Richard Trudeau, Minister of the Unitarian-Universalist Church of Weymouth, Mass. “Let me (Richard Trudeau) tell my own story. I was raised in a mainstream Christian denomination in which--I say in retrospect--I was religiously violated. When I discovered UUism it was with a tremendous sense of relief and homecoming. Over the better part of a decade I fashioned a new UU faith for myself out of bits and pieces drawn from many sources, including humanism, Judaism, Taoism, Buddhism, and the study of nature. But one day I started asking myself, "Richard, if your new faith is so inclusive, why does it include nothing of Christianity? Richard, if you’re so tolerant, why are you so intolerant of Christianity? Richard, why are you so angry?" Logic told me that Christianity couldn’t be all bad. And so I embarked on the delicate and exasperating process of taking my childhood religion apart--of separating all the toxic things from the few things that still felt good, of separating all the things I thought were silly from the few that still made good theological sense. The midwife of this process was Universalism. Its use of Biblical language and traditional symbolism challenged me to make new distinctions-- between the religious right’s understanding of the Bible as a single book expressing a single point of view, and modern scholarship’s understanding of the Bible as a library of many books expressing different points of view; between the Christ of mainstream Christianity and the Jesus of history; and between the cross as a symbol of a myth about a god dying for our sins, and the cross as a warning that defending the oppressed is risky business. The process of taking my childhood religion apart was hard work, and took a long time. But when it was complete and my childhood religion lay before me disassembled, I noticed that it had lost the power to hurt me. I felt healed. And I was free for the first time to incorporate elements of my childhood religion into my new adult faith-- elements that I treasure because they come from so far back in my personal past. Universalism led me to see my UU church not as a "decontamination chamber" where I should try to forget my former religion, but as a workshop where I could confront it. Many members of UU congregations are intolerant of Christianity. Some of these people are Jews. Most of them are traumatized former Christians. What they have in common is that they are angry at Christianity, and they are angry at Christianity because they have been hurt by it. This widespread intolerance makes our movement look silly. We loudly preach tolerance, while regularly appearing to be intolerant of North America’s principal religion. We brag about our religions, but often give the impression that we don’t recognize Christianity as a world religion. Widespread UU intolerance of Christianity is a wound at the heart of our movement. We are failing to live up to our own principles. Universalism challenges this intolerance. Just as we pick and choose from other religions, we can pick and choose from Christianity. Universalism helps angry former Christians to take their childhood religion apart so that it will lose its power to hurt them, enabling them to incorporate elements of Christianity that they still value into their adult faith. The result for both groups is greater spiritual depth, and healing for the UU movement as a whole.” That is Rev. Trudeau’s opinion about the need for tolerance toward Christianity. I think it is pretty well accepted that the main reason many UUs are intolerant of Fundamentalism is the one given by Rev. Treadeau. At least that is probably the cause for most criticism. We tend to ridicule the dogma and doctrines that we were subjected to and hurt by. But there are other reasons we are wary. I found that at least one well known Unitarian minister had not only real intolerance for fundamentalist Christianity, but felt threatened by it. In our file in the Texas fellowship of sermons by Unitarian Universalists I came upon a sermon by Rev. John H. Dietrich titled “Who Are These Fundamentalists?” It was given by him at the First Unitarian Society of Minneapolis on October 24, 1926. Rev. Dietrich was well known as a leading Unitarian minister. He was among the first Unitarian ministers to boldly preach that humanist thinking was the true foundation of religious liberalism. His addresses, which were heard and read by thousands, so popularized religious humanism that it has now become a significant element in Unitarian Universalism. This sermon by Rev. Dietrich is not on the subject of tolerance at all. It is really a sermon which explains his opinion and obvious fear of Fundamentalist Christianity. He felt that it was dangerous as far as government was concerned. He also decried the Fundamentalists’ efforts to dictate what our children will be taught. Interesting that the sermon was written 90 years ago, and I think both are concerns today. There could be another full sermon on the effects of far right religious attitudes on politics, especially in the current presidential campaigning. I do not volunteer for that one. So, there are actions by Fundamentalists that some of us feel are harmful. There certainly needs to be an awareness, but I think the thing that most of us resent on a personal level is the effort to convert and by so doing save everyone. There are some Fundamentalists who do this to an irritating level. Some of us have been confronted by persons who are rude in their efforts to enlighten us. Yes, there are some Christians who are rude, just as there are UUs who tend to be rude. (But, of course, not many). But let’s not generalize that all Fundamentalists are rude. Many of us have relatives and close friends who are devout Christians and may often try to convert us. I have found that most are sincere in their beliefs. My daughter and her retired Baptist minister husband are in that category. She once questioned me to try to be sure I am not doomed to hell. She loves me, and of course, doesn’t want me ending up there. I refrained from telling her exactly what my beliefs are. More importantly, I did not tell her what I don’t believe. I do not believe it would be beneficial to have such a discussion. I did assure her that understand her feelings and that I feel secure in my beliefs. Neither she nor her husband ever have questioned me since. When I visit and he preaches for an absent minister, I go to the service with them and use my filtering system to try to receive something of worth. I usually feel that I do. I certainly enjoy singing the old hymns I grew up with. So, maybe your relative or friend doesn’t give up that easily. Can you accept the importance it is to this person and try to come up with some common ground? It may take a great deal of compassion in order to do this. In review I think it is indisputable that the religion UUs typically are less tolerant of than any other is Christianity, especially Fundamentalist Christianity. The main obvious reason is that many UUs grew up with the Christian religion and became disenchanted with its dogma and doctrines that forced certain beliefs.But does Christianity not have any redeeming qualities? If we can accept certain parts of other religions, can we not do the same with Christianity, and ignore parts we can not condone instead of ridiculing those who do believe it all? I think most of us would have no trouble following the teachings of Jesus. Even if we don’t want to do Rev. Trudeau’s search in order to make Christianity hurt us less, can we at least come to a better understanding of the true believers, thus allowing us to be more tolerant? None of our seven principles uses the word “tolerance”, but the first principle, That we affirm and promote “The inherent worth and dignity of every person” would certainly indicate tolerance. The second, “Justice, equity and compassion in human relations;” somewhat touches on tolerance also. The “compassion in human relations” could certainly pertain to our relationships with Christians. I would like to include some thoughts from Rev. Pat Guthmann Haresh, minister of Unitarian Universalist Community of the Outer Bank, located at Kitty Hawk, NC . She reported to her congregation the results of a survey that showed that members of the small group identified themselves as ethical religionists, humanists, ethical Christians, agnostics, mystics, and Pagans. I’m sure the same would be true of our fellowship. She asked that members remember the UU values of respect, equity, compassion, and acceptance, so that their community could be a place where all are both respected and affirmed, and in her own words: “whether we are theists, agnostics, atheists, Humanists, Pagans, Christians, Jews, Buddhists, other, prefer no label, or undecided.” Rev Haresh closed with a benediction by Arthur Foote II , and I will also: May peace dwell in our hearts And understanding in our minds May courage steel our wills And love forever guide us. by Rev. Caroline H. Knowles
[This sermon was given to our congregation by the Rev. Knowles on Memorial Day Sunday, May 24, 2015 and is reprinted here with her permission] I had a splendid dream. I dreamt of a meadow surrounded by low green hills, a place of peace and abundance, where veterans in need and homeless came together to be honored and be fed and cared for in every way imaginable. I dreamt of beds and pillows and bed rolls, and toilets and showers and fresh towels, with quiet tents to rest. There were new clean clothes to put on, jeans and underwear and socks, and sturdy new shoes that fit. I saw in my dream cool fresh water, coffee all day long, and breakfast, lunch and dinner, as much as you can eat, with watermelon and peaches and popcorn for snacks. In my dream, there was every kind of service to meet every need--and all right there on the meadow. Teams of doctors and nurses saw everyone who came, and gave shots and diagnoses and planned future free treatment. Optometrists made new glasses for anyone who needed them, and dentists cleaned teeth and filled cavities, and if you had nowhere to leave your dog, veterinarians cared for the dog too. Oh, and barbers and hairdressers were lined up giving haircuts and trimming beards. Chiropractors were re-aligning spines and easing joints, and acupuncturists relieved chronic pain. Under a shady tent, veterans got massages to ease their tense bodies. And not just physical troubles were attended. I dreamed of therapy cats being wheeled around in their buggies, for everyone to pet, and therapy dogs wagging their tails and loving everybody. Alcoholics Anonymous was there with chairs in the shade. I dreamt that veterans with legal problems had their day in court, right there in the meadow, to settle old business, and some got their drivers licenses back, and some worked out custody agreements with their ex-spouses. And in my dream, vets found out about their VA and their social security benefits--they sat right down with a representative who checked out everything on a laptop and got them signed up for what they needed. Oh, and there was even a place to recharge cell phones. Then, after dinner, jazz bands struck up, and stand-up comics strolled around making jokes. And all of this, every moment, every act of service in this dream was given freely from the heart. The dream I dreamed really happened at the East Bay Stand Down back in August, at the Alameda County Fair Grounds in Pleasanton. For four days, about 350 homeless veterans were housed and fed and had all these needs seen to They were brought by busloads from San Francisco and pick up points all over the Bay Area. I served there with a group of fifteen volunteer chaplains of many faiths, to provide a listening presence for anyone attending. The night before it began, we walked to the four corners of the fair grounds and prayed that the ground might be made sacred by the presence of love, that the needs of the veterans might be met, that all they received might stay with them when the Stand Down was over. We prayed for the wisdom to listen well, and that we might all be upheld by the powerful connection of our shared humanity as we prepared to join them and speak with them where they waited for services, at their meals, and as they rested in the shade. Next day, we welcomed the men and women as they came through the fairgrounds gate, in busloads of about twenty. This is when I felt the awesome impact of what has happened to so many of the women and men in our military over the years. In their eyes and bodies I could see our failure as a nation to keep our covenant with the men and women we sent to war. Through that gate came tired old men, gaunt men, sad men, men limping and leaning on canes, men bent over walkers, men in wheelchairs, women limping from knee injuries, women wincing with pain, women looking sallow and sad and ill. When they smiled, every mouth had teeth missing, and the remaining teeth were stained and cracked. They were thirsty and hungry and weary--many had been up for hours to make their way to the pick up points. Group by group, they sat on planks for a briefing about the rules--e.g., all personal possessions had to be checked for the duration, no drugs or alcohol--and then each group followed a leader to the tent that would be their home for the four days. Unlike dreams, reality is not perfect. The brand new clothing and shoes for about 300 plus men were already there waiting. The men could head for the showers and change into fresh clothes at once. But the new clothes and shoes for the forty women didn’t arrive till the next afternoon so most of the women slept that night in their dusty and sweat soaked pants and shirts. Cavities were filled, teeth were cleaned, but one entirely toothless veteran had been promised dentures, but was refused this service. Most visits to the medical services tent were not for routine care but by cancer patients wanting to know if their disease would be acknowledged as service-related. Yet, over all, the food was delicious, some of the homeless were promised subsidized housing, some drivers licenses were recovered, the nights were cool and quiet. Many of the volunteer tent leaders were men and women who themselves had once been homeless veterans at an earlier Stand Down and whose lives were turned around by that experience. Sunday morning came, with Catholic mass offered at one end of the field and a Protestant service complete with a gospel choir on the main stage. Lunch bags of sandwiches and fruit were ready for the veterans as they gathered their gear and lined up to depart at noon. Who are these men and women who had once served their country in the military, and now find themselves homeless in shelters or on the streets? Nationwide, the statistics are disheartening. Almost half are Vietnam era vets, many older than 45. Two thirds had served three or more years in the military. Eighty-nine percent received an Honorable Discharge. Eighty five percent had completed high school or the GED, compared to 56% of homeless non-veterans. Seventy-six percent had alcohol, drug or mental health problems. And these were indeed the vets I met. None of them were well. I had several talks with Rob [I’ve changed all the first names] starting with our first encounter at the gate. I brought him the water he urgently needed to take his medications: he carried a case with about 12 different prescriptions, many of them psychotropic drugs essential for him to cope. He had served in Viet Nam, and later he’d been employed in the travel business in the U.S. and overseas, but now he was jobless and homeless. I ate lunch with Ben, another Viet Nam veteran. He was on active duty for two years and then spent two years as a prisoner of war. The US Army had his POW records, but they’d lost the records for his two years of service--and he had been fighting for the last ten years to access his VA benefits, so far to no avail. Ben looked ill and wasted--I thought cancer. He and his wife were homeless. Their eldest son enlisted in the Army right after 9/11, was deployed to Iraq and was killed just a few weeks later. At dinner, Bruce sat down beside me. He’d found out about the Stand Down barely in time to get registered. He served in Viet Nam, then all over the country, but he was discharged before 9/11. He told me he used drugs, mostly marijuana, because it kept him calm so that he wouldn’t explode with anger all the time. Pot had fewer side effects than the drugs he’d been prescribed. The Stand Down lasted just four days--and it won’t happen again for two years. About 300 homeless men and 40 homeless women had gotten significant help. But on a single night in January 2013, California ranked #1 in the country for homelessness, with over fifteen thousand homeless veterans. San Francisco, San Jose, Santa Clara City and County, Santa Rosa, Petaluma and Sonoma County, taken together, had more than eighteen hundred homeless veterans. We had served fewer than one in five of the homeless veterans in our area. Why is homelessness so critical? Because all other efforts to help veterans don’t work if people don’t have a safe, stable place to live. Federal programs have been too meager, too underfunded, to have a big impact on the problem, though there’s been about a 24% reduction in homelessness over the last five years. At that rate, it will be fifteen more years before the problem is resolved. And even if these men and women had stable homes they would still face being turned away from the help they need: California holds the record for the longest wait time in the country to determine eligibility for VA services, as long as two years. To access services, a veteran has to know what benefits he or she is eligible for. I picked up a little manual provided by the VA entitled “Benefits for Veterans and Dependents.” I have at least average intelligence. I found it a bewildering morass of bureaucratic jargon, of hurdles of “if’s, and’s and but’s” to be surmounted before help might be forthcoming. Not surprisingly, few know even most of the benefits to which they are entitled. What has left these survivors of war and military service so wasted with illness and burdened with mental illness? Once they were young and healthy and buoyed by the spirit of being part of a team. They were promised care after their service for the rest of their lives. There is no surprise that this covenant was broken. As the US ramped up the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the Bush administration made deep cuts in the VA budget--and awarded medals to VA officials based on the number of claims they denied. The system has never been adequately repaired and restored--this at time when veterans of past eras are now aging and increasingly in need of care, while the influx of new veterans grows as we end our contemporary wars. Yet, even if our covenant were kept, it would meet only part of the challenge of restoring our veterans to health and well being. This Stand Down was not a setting for intimate sharing about the war experience of these men and women. I can’t know what nightmares woke them, what flashbacks the drugs were aimed at easing. But nobody comes back from war unchanged. One high-ranking military officer put it bluntly, “We all come back morally fractured.” A Korean war veteran reported this dream that has haunted him ever since-- The little girl walks up to me on the beach. At first, I’m happy to see her. As she comes closer, I see she’s been crying and I ask her, “What’s wrong, sweetheart, don’t cry.” Then she always says the same thing: “Why you shoot me, GI?” I start to cry, and she disappears. I never meant to hurt her. She was just looking for food in the dark and she died because she was starving….. I’ll never forget her face when I pulled her from the rice paddy--she was like a little angel. She could have grown up and had babies and been happy in her village. Instead, she only lives on in my dream as a six-year-old girl. They say it wasn’t your fault--you were doing your job--but how can God forgive me? I can’t forgive myself. We diagnose so many of our veterans with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, PTSD for short, and hand out a dozen drugs to dull the symptoms. Increasingly we realize that their distress goes far deeper than a checklist of symptoms, and penetrates the deepest self. So many suffer the aftermath of intermittent fear of death, unresolved grief for fallen and maimed comrades, ethical disgust at what they have seen or done, and the sense of betrayal by those who sent them into danger. The red poppy has become the icon for those who have died in military service to their country. This poem, “Paper Poppies,” by Bob Smith turns our thoughts to the deadly cost of war for those who return--Sprouting from lapels, staining dark, crisp suits, how sinister they seem: a splash of blood next to the heart, signifying that even those who return have been grazed by a bullet no less deadly for being invisible. Veterans’ suicides continue at the rate of 22 per day--a figure that’s an underestimate. One that wasn’t counted: Levi Derby hanged himself in 2007. His mother says he was haunted by the death of an Afghan child. He had handed the girl a bottle of water, and when she came forward to take it, she stepped on a land mine. Back home from Afghanistan, he locked himself in a motel room for days. When he was called up to deploy to Iraq, he didn’t want to kill again. He went AWOL and finally agreed to an “other than honorable discharge.” Thus he was not in the VA system. We Unitarian Universalists and liberal theologians generally have a hard time finding words for such despair, for the sense of responsibility for such morally repugnant deaths. A colleague who treats veterans with PTSD and is himself a Viet Nam vet, declared, that after Viet Nam, he had never come back into a state of Grace. To be out of a state of grace is to feel mired in sin. Out of an excess of optimism about the human spirit many of us UU’s have avoided concepts like sin, the loss of grace, the yearning for atonement, the search for redemption. Yet these are what our warriors struggle with. All that our warriors have done has been done in our name. We trained them, we sent them to war, they laid down their lives for our country. We shall struggle perhaps forever to make meaning of their deaths. But we can do something about those who’ve come home. It takes more than a “thank you for your service.” It is time to redraw our covenant with those who make it through. A society that spends what we spend on war can ask all its citizens to pay for the care of our warriors. It is time to end the stigmatizing of those who return in emotional and spiritual pain. It is time to end the longstanding practice of punishing those who request psychological help by blocking promotions or discharging them “less than honorably, so they are cut off from critical benefits. It is time to remove from power whose who cover up the reality of a dysfunctional system and those who stand in the way of change. In the coming frenzy of 2016 campaigning, we are likely to hear focussed attacks on the VA medical system. There will be demands to dismantle it as “socialized medicine,” big government that doesn’t work. There will be proposals to replace the VA with vouchers for care in the private sector. In fact, once a veteran can ever access treatment through the VA, the care itself is excellent. Privatizing their care is a disastrous option. Yet there is more to be done than any clinic, any government service can do--that only communities can do. We UU congregations and other liberal religious communities can undertake a labor of love, and create healing spaces for veterans. We can ask who in our congregations are veterans. We can open our minds to hear their stories and celebrate their safe return. We can grieve with them over the deaths of so many, and accept both their need for forgiveness and our own need to be forgiven for the world we made. We can create rituals of cleansing and forgiveness for them and for ourselves. We can support them in building a new meaningful life, either in serving their country, or serving other vets, or finding other work of compelling value. If we can do that, they can come all the way home They can reconnect with a world they can trust again. And by honoring them, we can redeem ourselves for what has been wrought in our name. And we can stand together as sisters and brothers in our prayers for peace on this earth, that love shall have the victory. [Bill provided this answer to the question "How do you do Social Justice" as a part of our Sunday Panalists' series during our May 17th service]
In early 2012, in the midst of the great recession, members of the Presbyterian, Methodist and Unitarian Universalist congregations got together to explore what we might be able to accomplish if we joined forces. The result was the creation of the Kelseyville Food Pantry. The group made a number of deliberate decisions. They decided there would be no qualification test. We would ask only for the individual’s names and the number of family members and the ages of the children. Another significant decision was that there would be no board of directors and no officers thus eliminating overhead. On Tuesday March 13, 2012 the first food distribution was held at the church shared by the Methodist and Unitarian Universalist. The food pantry was open from 3:30PM until 5:30PM. A total of three people each received a bag of food that day. It was a little disappointing to say the least but the group of volunteers was not discouraged and since then the Kelseyville Food Pantry has held a food distribution every second and fourth Tuesday of the month. The most recent figures I have are for the year 2014. The average was 155 people each distribution. This represents the number of people in a family. We gave away between 50 and 80 bags of groceries each time. We estimate the cost of a bag of food to be about $45. In addition to the non-perishable items we also distributed potatoes, onions, carrots, fruit, eggs, cheese and a loaf of bread. At our most recent distribution representatives from Catholic Charites attended to help people apply for food stamps. If you know anyone who might like to apply for Food Stamps I have several brochures in both English and Spanish that explain the program. I will leave these on the welcome table. I also have a supply of a two sided list of locations where food is distributed in Lake County. It will also be on the Welcome Table during the coffee hour. On behalf of the Kelseyville Food Bank, I’d like to take the opportunity to express our appreciation to those people and organizations that supported the effort to feed the hungry in Lake County. These include the Riviera Market that provided fresh produce at a great price. Kelseyville High School’s Agricultural Department for allowing us to tend to the crops in their hot house during the summer when school is out. This provided a large amount of fresh produce for distribution to the needy. We have come to rely on the food drives that K-Corps, the high school, the middle school and the Riviera school, Westamerica Bank and the scouts have held and shared their donations with us before the holidays. I’d also like to give recognition to the members of our UU community as many of you have participated by donated food, money and clothing or by helping tend the hot house, to help those less fortunate than we are. Finally, I like to recognize Sutter Lakeside Hospital for donating $5000 in 2013 and again in 2014. At the beginning of 2014 we had $9,932.36. The Pantry received $19,018.99 and spent $10,023.82 leaving a balance of $18,917.53. I’ve presented the history and the facts and figures but there is no way I can express the feelings and emotion one experiences when looking into the eyes of someone who truly needs and appreciates the efforts you make. |
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