Sermon Archive

Our Consulting Minister, Marcia Stanard will be leading this special family service with carols and candle-lighting.
 

Our children will once again be presenting the Winter pageant, which features them in adorable costumes acting out the stories behind the solstice holidays of eight different religious traditions. This Wy’east creation celebrates how we all find meaning in the darkness of winter, no matter which stories are told, and which holidays we observe.

Next week we welcome the return of the light with celebrations from many different traditions. But today, let’s allow ourselves to go deep into the space of rest and reflection we are called to in this season of darkness. What lessons can we learn about ourselves in the stillness? Our Consulting Minister, Marcia Stanard will lead the service.
 

Sufism is the mystical branch of Islam, and Paul Werder has been a practitioner of this religion for more than a decade. Hear how Paul inspirationally presences this path in his everyday living, and also in his work as an organizational consultant, about which he has written a great book called Building Unity.
 

Chom Sou of Wy’east will talk about the Khmer Rouge genocide, his family living in a concentration camp in Cambodia, then a refugee camp in Thailand, and now in America, where he was born and raised bi-culturally, and has had to deal with acculturation issues. Chom is committed to serving individuals and families with histories like his own.
 

Reading:

We must be like the ox, and have no thought, except for the Party. And have no love, but for the Angka. People starve, but we must not grow food. We must honor the comrade children, whose minds are not corrupted by the past.The wind whispers of fear and hate. The war has killed love. And those that confess to the Angka are punished, and no one dare ask where they go. Here, only the silent survive-Dith Pran

Talk:

Good Morning Everyone...!!! Arun Suo sdey.... for those of you that don’t now that’s good morning in khmer.  My name is Channbunmorl but many of you may know me as Chom for short. When I was asked to do this talk about 3 months ago (that’s how far ahead the worship committee planned things. just a little plug for all the hard work that people in the worship committe do) well when I was asked to do this talk about 3 months ago I was very excited and honor to tell my parent’s story about their struggle to come to  America.  The process of me collecting this story opened my eyes even more.  I initially thought I knew everything about my parent’s life in Cambodia because they use to tell me about it all the time.  “kom poh chauol ienge sdai, dung hey bpael ienge pbee tuol ienge pabuh roe bai yum nah”  hey don’t throw that away.  It’s a waste.  you know when I was younger I barely had any food to eat.” said my dad (pause for a second)....

I consistently heard the phrase of not wasting food through out my whole childhood.  And as a child I always understood what my parents were trying to say to me.  This caused me to be more socially aware as a young child.

 My dad is from a small province of Takeo in Cambodia.  He was born on April 6, 1942.  He had 5 brothers and 4 sisters and he was the second to the youngest of 9 siblings.  My dad grew up with barely any food to eat.  He was so poor that he didn’t even have rice to eat.  His diet consists mostly of banana, mangos and tamarind. “I remember being so poor that I ate dirt.  I would take the dirt from the ground and boil in a pot.” said my dad.  (PAUSE...)

My dad was 11 years when he first went to school.  He went to school from the age of 11-14 and had only went up a third grade.  Education was free for my dad and other kids in his village but he had no money to buy materials and clothes on his own.  Although it was free for students to learn, you had to be able to look proper before coming to school.  There was a man that was a Representative for the village where my dad lived in.  He was very sympathic towards my dad.  He wanted to take my dad to live with him and his family because he saw great potential in my dad.  But this mean my dad had to move far away from his family. My dad said “The Representative saw that I was smart, but I didn’t want to leave my family.  I was never hungry for that.”

My dad was an avid reader, he practiced reading and that helped him with his vocabulary. My dad never regretted his decision.  So he left school at the age of 14 to find work so he can help support his family.  He would do odd jobs here and there just to make ends meat (PAUSE......)

My mom’s life was quite different than that of my dad.  My mom never knew her parents because they died when she was around four years old.  My mom has one younger sister, she was about a year old at the time of their parents death.  They were taken in by her dad’s sister and her husband.  My mom’s aunt took advantage of my mom ever since she took her in.  She started to work at the age of 8. she was importing/exporting goods between Thailand and Cambodia.  She would travel on a industrial train by herself from Cambodia to the Thailand.  She would bring items such as salted fish, garlic and other types of food from thailand to cambodia.  My mom said, “My aunt and uncle would take all my earnings away to give to their own kids until I was 16 years old.” (PAUSE....)

In 1959, both of my parents coincidental moved to the Province of  Baw Pailin.  At the age of 16 my dad moved up there by himself to find work.  My mom and her aunt moved up there as well to find work.  Both of my mom and dad was working in a coffee manufacturing company, where they would make coffee.  It was not clear to me when they started dating.  But they married sometime in April of 1962, at that time my mom was 15 and my dad was 20.  As soon as my parents were married, my mom’s aunt and uncle still wanted to take money away from my mom’s earnings.  My dad stood up for my mom and refused to let this happen.  My mom’s aunt was so furious, that she disowned her. 

At the time, my dad was working in the factory and getting paid fairly well.  He made $1500 hundred dollars a month in khmer currency value.  At the time, 40 dollars of khmer dollars is equalivalent 1 us dollars.  My dad was making $37.50 a month and that was enough for them buy food and have enough to eat.  In 1963 my mom got pregnant with her first child.  It was a baby girl.  She was filled happiness and joy. (PAUSE...)

Unfortunately, she died after living for only 7 days.It was unclear to me how she died.  How interpreted from my parents was that that she had died from an inflamd esophagus. It hit parents pretty hard, but this was not an uncommon thing in Cambodia for a young child to die just after birth.  My parents were distraught.  In those times, it was all about survival.  My parents then gave birth to my oldest brother.  He was was born on September 10, 1965. They named him Sarath.  Three years later, in 1968, my mom gave birth to her third child.  It was a boy.  Then five years later, in 1973 she gave birth to a daughter, this was her 4th child. 

“ Your father had just given him a bath, and I saw that he had some dirt on his face, I decided to wash his face.  After I washed his face his whole body started to shiver.  I was holding him in my arms trying to make the shaking stop.  But it didn’t, he began to shiver profusely.  It was difficult for him to breathe and he was  gasping for air.  he began banging on his chest as I was holding him in my arms. (PAUSE...)

My mom’s third child died then 19 days later, just under 8 months, my parents 4th child died (PAUSE...)

During the 1970’s in Cambodia there was tenison between khmer people and the khmer government.  At the time, the person who had the power to make executive decisions was by a man name Prince Sihouk. In early 1970, the Khmer Rouge Regime attacked the government of Cambodia.  The was the beginning of a civil war between Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian Government   

The united states  was bombing Cambodia from 1969-1975 killing hundred of thousands of innocent Cambodians.  They got a tip from the south Vietnam saying that the viet cong was occupying parts of Cambodia, but they were none to be found. Only Cambodians died during the bombing done by the United States. 

On April 17, 1975 the War between the Khmer Rouge and the Cambodian government was over.  But this is was just the beginning of a nightmare that was going to lasted for almost 5 years.  20 days later the Khmer Rouge took total control of Cambodia.  During that time the population of Cambodia was 7 million people.  There were many people that were executed on the spot, teachers, merchants, doctors, lawyers, actors, and even if you wore glasses they would have killed you on the spot.  This was a sign of intelligence, they didn’twant people who were educated because they were afraid that those people would revolt and fight back.

They were telling citizens that the U.S. was going to bomb Cambodia again, so they ordered  people out of their homes to travel to a safer location.  But they never returned back home.  Some people would walked for months, they would walk for hundreds of miles on foot and thousands of people would die a long the way.

My mom, my dad and brother walked for a week to a campsite in the Southwest part of Cambodia.  Before they landed in a concentration camp, they were working at place that was building infrastructure for the khmer rouge military soldiers. Everyone that was working was deprived of food and there were limited resources. My dad would always tell me this story,

“Your cousin at the time was so hungry and he actually stole a tomato from the khmer rouge.  They caught him and was about to cut his head off.  I jumped in front of your cousin and said to the solider that the next time he steal another tomato you can cut my head off. They somehow listened to my me and didn’t cut your cousin’s head off, but my I was scared that he was going to steal something else, so I quickly took your mom and brother in search for a safer destination.  A long the way we would see dead bodies in the riverside.  We were desparate and thirsty.  We were really thirsty and I remember seeing dead carcuses along the river. We had to drink the water that was infested with dead bodies. This is something you just don’t forget.  I don’t know I just I don’t know.” (PAUSE..)

It was 1976 and they were in a concerntration camp.  They worked long hours.  My mom had given birth to her 5th child.  It was a boy, but unfortunately he passed away after only living for about a year. So far my mom had given birth to five kids and only one survived. (PAUSE...)

Killing fields poem.  

Now it was 1979 the Vietnamese invaded Cambodia and the killing stopped.  My parents and older brother (Sarath) went to a refugee camp in Thailand, in hopes of a safer environment.  It was definitely a safer environment than the concentration camp, and people were given food to eat.  But the Thai military treated the Khmer people like animals.  They couldn’t go outside of the camp. 

“I’ve saw plenty of people who would try to go outside of the camp but would get shot down while running away.  They didn’t treat us like we were humans.  We were constantly scared for our lives.” (PAUSE..)

My parents were there from 1979-1984.  During that time my mom gave birth to her 6th and 7th child.  My brother was born in 1979, he was born with cerebral palsy. and a year later she gave birth to my sister Mary.  In November of 1984 my parents had documents ready to go to America. Luthrerin Immigrant and Refugee Services sponsored my family.We landed in Portland,Oregon on November 16, 1984.  My mom was four months pregnant with me.  Five months later, on April 20, 1985 I was born.  IRCO (Immigrant Refugee Community of Oregon) helped my family with adjusting to living in America. 

According to Southeast Asia Resource Action Center there over 200,000 Cambodians living in the United States.  California, Washington, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania have the highest population of Cambodians. According to the Asian Pacic Islander American Health Forum, in 2006 Cambodians still had higher rates of povertry than of the national rates.  The national rate for families living in poverty was 9.8% and for Cambodians it was 17.6% (PAUSE...)

It was difficult for my family and other Cambodian families to transition into American culture.  It was so different, things here were so fast and the city was so noisy.  Like many other Cambodians, my mom had suffered from PTSD and that was difficult for her to find and maintain a job. This is and still is a problem in the Cambodian community.    

On may 17, 2002, my brother the one that had cerebral palsy passed away in our home from a seizure.  This was my mom’s fifth child that she had lost in her arms.  It was the first time I had ever saw someone die right in front of my eyes.  Out of 8 children in our my family only three have survived. 

Coming from an Immigrant family had it’s advantages and disadvantages.  Immigrants are bi cultural.  If you assimilate too much you will be likely to lose your cultural heritage.  But if you don’t assimilate enough, it will be difficult for you survive in this country.This was a problem for many Cambodians, trying to hold on to their cultural heritage while trying to be like everyone else. For example, I use to have this internal battle with being an  American and a Cambodian.  At home I was an American, my parents would constantly keep calling me an American kid and outside of the home I was Cambodian.  I can never be fully an American.  When people always make references to someone who is an American-they always think of them as being white.  Growing up I had internalized this hatered towards my own people.  I use to make fun of the people who came here who didn’t English that well because those people made Cambodian like me look bad. I would call them a FOB (Fresh off the Boat).

But then I use to make fun of or not accept Cambodian people who did not understand khmer languange.  I also would not accept them if they would just only hang out with white people because I associated that with them be shameful about their own heritage. I would call them white washed.  It was really hard to determined who were the real Cambodians or even looking it at from a bigger picture.  Who were the  quote unquote the real Asians.  As I am moving up into the professional world I will continue to have this internal battle with my identity.  How do I balance being Cambodian and an American at the same time? (PAUSE..)

How can I be proud poem. 
 

I was not the always the smartest or the most hard working kid in school.  But I knew that my parents had sacrifice so much for me to come to this country.  They had instill in me about the value of education and how important it was for me to take advantage of my opportunties in America. I worked ever since I was 12 years old and that made me and appreciate the value of hard work.  My sisters and I use to pick blueberrys, strawberrys, or raspberrys for money to buy school clothes.  I would help my parents work at their cleaning jobs as well.  My family was the one that shaped me to become who I am today.  Right now I want to take this opportunity to thank my family.  In my 25 year life existence this is the first time I ever said this to my family.

Speak in Khmer...

Mom dad thank so much for taking such good care of me and making sure that I never starve and that I always food in my stomach and clothes on my back.  You have inspired me and raised me to be a good person.  It was because of you that I learned to be compassionate towards other people.  Because of you, I am proud to be khmer and I want to speak khmer the best I can and pass this own to my kids and my kid’s kid.  As long as I am alive I will make sure that my kids will speak khmer and pass on our culture and tradition to them.  I love you so much...

Jey- Thank you I love so much.  You was always looked out for me and helped me out so much.  I think if it wasn’t for you I would have graduated from college and probably wouldn’t have this opportunity to go for my Masters. 

Bong Rath thank so much for being cool and funny big brother.  I really appreciate that you always took me to go play basketball.  You helped me become a great shooter.  It was  because of you I had a positive male role model and you shaped me to become a positve male role model for other camobdans and other youth in he community.  I love you. 

Tan you were only a year older than me.  I know we have gotten a long when we were younger, but as we got older, we became closer and closer as a family.  Thank you much for being there for me when I needed you.  you are awesome.  I love you.

Poem...

There are days when we say that we hate our life.  That we wished that it could be better.  You may think  that you have it bad but never realize that the next person may have it worse.  Although we have those bad days, we have learn to push through those bad days to get to the good days. I can never complain when it comes to my parents stories.  I appreciate the life that they gave me and.  We should also appreciate other individual gifts and talents so that it can motivate them to become the type of person that will make them happy.  It is easy to say this on paper but doing it is the most important thing. I want to be the first to take my own advice. 

Timmy-my nephew  I want to say that I appreciate that you are a great cook and that you are a talented and creative musician.  i think that someday your music will inspired people.  And I hope someday I can rap over your drum playing

koby I appreciate your ability to never give up.  You are very smart and bright.  I think you will be a great thinker and will be able to motivate and influence people in a positive way with your words. 

Orion you have an infectious laugh and I think that you will be a leader not a follower.

Each autumn, we pause to give thanks for the food we gather from the earth. In this intergenerational service, we’ll hear a story from four of our members about the bread each has baked, has in hand, how it connects to their personal history, and the meaning it holds for them. Then, during social hour, they’ll share these loaves with all of us.

Travis Wright, who has been counseling veterans at the Portland Vet Center for more than a decade, will talk
about his experiences working with vets, individually and in groups, from the Korean, Viet Nam, Iraq, and
Afghanistan Wars. Travis speaks from the heart about this subject.
 

Association Sunday 2010: Our modern UU faith is the result of a merger of two liberal religious traditions 50 years ago. Who were these denominations and which of the two groups ended up “winning” in this process of cultural and theological assimilation? Rev. Sarah Schurr, a founding member of Wy’east, will explore these questions and the impact on our church community. Rev. Schurr serves as PNWD Developmental Outreach Minister for Alaska and acts as consulting minister for the Juneau UU Fellowship.  
 

  When someone is diagnosed with a terminal illness, life takes on new meaning, and the ultimate question of how to die becomes imminent. In 2007, Don Colburn, then a health reporter at The Oregonian, shared the intimate story of one woman's journey with terminal cancer, and whether or not to use Oregon's doctor-assisted suicide law. Today Colburn reflects on his own journey with Lovelle Svart, a woman determined to live to the end. Don Colburn is a long-time health reporter and poet.

Don Colburn
Wy'east U-U Congregation
Portland, OR
June 20, 2010

THE EXTRAORDINARY ORDINARY (or THE ORDINARY EXTRAORDINARY?)

A few years ago - on the evening of Sept. 28, 2007, to be exact - I watched a woman die. Her name was Lovelle.

She was 62. She had inoperable lung cancer and had been ill with cancer for about five years. She died at home. About a dozen family members and friends gathered at her bedside, knowing she was about to die. A hospice nurse was there.

Doesn't that sound, at least if you weren't in the room, unremarkable?

It was, and it wasn't. Which is why my working title this morning is "The Extraordinary Ordinary."

Lovelle chose to end her life by swallowing an overdose of barbiturates prescribed by her doctor at her request under Oregon's Death With Dignity Act. She was one of 49 Oregonians who died this way in 2007.

Lovelle agreed to let me and photographer Rob Finch document the last months of her life. This was Lovelle's journey, of course, but it was also a journey for Rob and me, and I want to share some of my own discoveries from that experience. We reporters try to be flies on the wall, but it's not that simple.

At the time we undertook the Lovelle project, The Oregonian had published nearly 1,000 stories mentioning the Death With Dignity Act. But none had followed a patient through the decisonmaking process and witnessed someone carrying out the life-ending act - in real time.

This is what we tried to do. To show, as it was happening, how use of the law comes down to an intimate, personal and possibly troubling set of decisions for one person and her family. Rob and I would record what we saw and heard, and let readers and viewers come to their own conclusions.

We called our series Living to the End.

We wanted this to be Lovelle's story, told in her words and her voice, unfiltered. We wanted, as much as possible, to get The Oregonian out of the way. To do that, of course, we had to spend an inordinate amount of time and effort getting IN the way.

We wound up publishing 27 video "diaries" of Lovelle speaking directly to the public, plus four print stories, including a Sunday front-page feature chronicling her final day. We also published online a five-minute audio of the last moments of her conscious life, when she swallowed the drug overdose and fell into a coma. That audio plays against the background of a still photograph of Lovelle lying in bed as she lifts the glass to her lips.

Some background. As you probably know, Oregon was then the only state where it is legal for a doctor to prescribe, on request from a terminally ill patient of sound mind, a drug overdose intended to end the patient's life. The patient must make the request in writing and orally, twice, at least 15 days apart. Two doctors must certify that the patient has a life expectancy of less than six months. The patient must swallow the drug, without help; it cannot be administered by a doctor or anyone else.

Oregon voters approved the DeathWith Dignity Act twice. It took effect in late 1997.

Both proponents and opponents were surprised by how few Oregonians actually use the law. Fifteen in the first year, a high of 59 last year. A total of 460 in 12 years, accounting for just over one of 1,000 deaths in the state. Virtually all of those died at home, under hospice care. Most were over age 65, and had cancer. Almost all were white, insured and well educated.

Most of the attention on the Death With Dignity Act has focused on the politics, from the ballot measure campaigns in the 1990s to the Bush administration's failed effort to overturn the law. Usually, there's an implicit assumption of two sides fiercely opposed. You are for it or "agin" it. You regard it as right or wrong, humane or uncivilized. If you are terminally ill, you either choose it or you don't.

But it's not that simple.

Opponents do see it as a violation of the Hippocratic Oath to "First, do no harm," and a betrayal of the doctor-patient relationship. Advocates do see it has a perfectly humane way to let people take control of their dying and free themselves from fear of pain and loss of dignity. One group calls it physician-assisted suicide; the other, aid in dying.

For the record, I'm skeptical of both of these labels and the claims behind them. I'm not afraid to say I don't know. I wasn't entirely comfortable in that room on the night of Sept. 28, 2007, standing amid the small talk, the nervous laughter, the tears and the trappings of Lovelle's act of dying. Nor would I have been, if she had died in a hospital room or an ICU.

There's a lovely passage early in Walt Whitman's masterpiece "Song of Myself," inspired by a child's question, "What is the grass?" Whitman ponders the grass in various forms, including "the beautiful uncut hair of graves." Then comes this line, which always has amazed me:

"And to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier."

I thought of that line often while we were witnessing the final months of Lovelle's life.

In the very first video diary by Lovelle, she introduces herself as someone who has just been told by her doctors that she probably has less than six months left. Remember, she had been ill with cancer - and heart disease - for nearly five years. And here's what she says:

"I've been fighting this for so long and fighting my body for so long that it almost became � [sigh] � OK, maybe I can stop fighting everything and just enjoy what there is for the rest of my life."

Our stories on Lovelle turned out to be not so much about her dying, as about her living to the end, and figuring out, in the words of Mary Oliver's poem, "when the time comes to let it go."

One video diary dealt with Lovelle's complex relationship with her mother. Another focused on her 43-year smoking habit. In others, she talked about her life regrets, her wish to dance the polka on her dying day, her difficulty balancing the need for visitors with the need for time and space by herself, and how a dying person, not just her bereaved survivors, experiences grief. I'll never forget Lovelle's advice: "The way to talk to someone who's dying [she paused] is just to do it."

Lovelle understood our wish to tell what happened and not give in to sentimentality, not to glorify or sweeten. (She told us she got sick of people calling her "brave.").

In some ways, this story wasn't very newsy. We all knew - sort of -- from Day One what the result would be. Lovelle would die. The only suspense was about whether Lovelle would actually do what she said from the beginning she might do.

But "to die is different from what anyone supposed, and luckier."

"We're in uncharted territory," we kept telling ourselves. That was both warning and reassurance. It was daunting not to know how this would play out or whether we could be there to witness the end. But we reminded ourselves that this uncertainty was exactly why we were doing it. Who wants to write - or read - predictable stories?

It's not just the unknowns that vex you, as Donald Rumsfeld famously said about the war in Iraq, it's the unknown unknowns. The "unk-unks," as they have been called. You have to be ready for them, even if by definition you can't.

Isn't that true of dying?

This was no fairy tale. The story had to acknowledge its own complication and how the end of life, like the rest, is often more gray than black-and-white. Why should this come as a surprise?

I'll mention just three of many complications.

1. We knew there was one outcome that was unacceptable. We could not publish if we felt in any way that doing so would force or cajole or "tilt" Lovelle into a decision that was not fully hers. This was our version of the physicist's dilemma known as the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. To put it bluntly: How much did our presence "change the room"? Did we alter the story just by being there? We asked ourselves this a lot.

2. Lovelle lived in an assisted-living center, and her 90-year-old mom lived down the hall. Lovelle chose to die in her mother's apartment, not her own - for the simple reason that her mom's apartment was bigger. Unlike Lovelle's, it had a separate bedroom. Lovelle, an obsessive detail-person, wanted to make sure those at her bedside could step out into another room if they wished. But that meant Lovelle had to ask her 90-year-old mom for permission to die in her bed. Her mom would have to watch her daughter die in the mom's bed - and by a means that she saw as morally wrong. She had voted against the Oregon Death With Dignity Act. Here was an unconditional maternal love. Lovelle, whose relationship with her mom often had been strained, was transcendently grateful for her mother's willingness to put aside her own religious opposition to the Oregon law and be there for her daughter on the day she ended her life.

3. Once Lovelle decided that she wanted to end her life by taking the overdose that she kept hidden on a shelf in her closet, a crucial question remained. When? This is a much more tangled question than I had realized. If she waited too long, she would lose the ability to swallow - and disqualify herself from taking the drug. If she acted prematurely, she would, well, miss out on part of her life.

All those complications became part of the story. Readers, I'm convinced, welcome this approach. They feel included by it. They understand. Their lives, too, have swerved or gotten messy.

On that final day of her life, Lovelle called AAA in the morning to come fix a dead battery in her car. She helped set out a buffet of salad, fruit and cold cuts. She spent some time alone with her mom, and with her friends. She danced the polka in the living room. Late in the afternoon, she briefly delayed her ingestion of the lethal overdose in order to walk down to the parking lot for one last cigarette. The extraordinary ordinary, indeed.

And, yes, this story was different because someone we got to know pretty well was going to die. "You guys are so somber today," Lovelle said on one of our last video visits, eight days before she died. Rob and I each took a shot at telling her why, stepping around the obvious, but not ignoring it, either. A coworker, a friend, a fellow traveler, a collaborator on this story, was dying. I remember that Lovelle thanked us for saying what we said, because, she said, it wasn't falsely "objective."

"No tears in the writer, no tears in the reader," the poet Robert Frost said. "No surprise for the writer, no surprise for the reader."

The day before Lovelle died, our supposed agreement to be with her, filming, to the end - which we had gone over and over - nearly blew up. It wasn't that Lovelle had changed her own mind, but that she was feeling increasing pressure from her mother and her siblings and did not want to upset them further. Why should we have been surprised? I didn't want to argue with Lovelle - she had, after all, only 24 hours before she planned to die - so I left the question of access unresolved. The final decision, Lovelle said, would be up to her mom.

On the last afternoon, Rob and I arrived 10 minutes early at Lovelle's assisted-living center and sat in the car. We went over what we thought would happen, for the umpteenth time, and our priorities. Try to fade into the background during the first 5 minutes, say as little as possible. Try for a final video with Lovelle. Find some way of asking her mom the big question: Can we take a picture of Lovelle after she drinks the stuff? We needed to bring closure. And it's Lovelle's wish, too, after all.

And then we asked ourselves, out loud, the biggest question of all: Under what circumstances would we just walk out? Our editors had given us permission, even encouraged us, to think like this. We each came up with some scenarios, and I was relieved to hear them sound far-fetched. What if Lovelle's mother ordered us out of the bedroom where Lovelle was about to die? What if opponents of Oregon's law somehow got wind of her intention and picketed in the parking lot or made a scene? What if one of Lovelle's brothers freaked out at what he called "the media vultures" and turned violent? What if he knocked over the tripod or just started screaming? Lovelle's sister had warned me that this family was "a weird bunch," and there was no telling what any of them might say at any time. "We're not easy people," Lovelle herself said on a video.

Most importantly, what if Lovelle somehow, some way - contradicting everything we had seen and heard from her so far - gave us a signal that she was undecided after all, yet felt "locked in" because of our presence and what she might have signaled to readers and viewers? Not going to happen, we realized. But still, we had to acknowledge that if either of us felt that way - that creepy - we both would leave.

Hours later, I would duck out to the laundry room across the hall from the room where Lovelle lay dying and call my editor by cell phone. "I think they're starting to feel like we're not the most important thing in the room, which is exactly right," I said.

What a relief that was.

This Sunday service was presented by Tandi Koerger, the Program Specialist of the Pacific Northwest District of the UUA. She inspired us to consider where we could be headed as a congregation and what a new minister will mean for Wy'east -- the opportunities and the challenges. Tandi works extensively with small congregations, which she calls the Small and Mighties.

30 May 2010

Opening Words:

Let's come together and make a deal:
Everyone who is willing to take an almighty risk.
Let's get together and propose a stunning bargain,
A daring contract for the world
To see and hear, a human drama unfolding.
Here it is: there is a meaning in the world
And we human beings can participate in that meaning,
And that's the gospel!
There is worth and dignity within and among us,
And when we congregate, true community is possible.
And there's more: our beloved relations extend beyond our doors,
All the way out to the whole world and the cosmos,
This most excellent interdependence of all existence!
This is cause for celebration!
Let's get together and get busy Ð
Let us sing spiritual songs and clap our hands
And dance dances to the living rhythms of the earth and sky.
There is so much to experience, to learn, to hope.
When we join together, the odds toward goodness begin to multiply;
As the circle enlarges, the numbers cannot keep pace and group is larger by leaps, bounding.
Come, Come whoever you are!
Let us worship together.
~ Rev. Thomas Anastasi

Story for All Ages: Penny Brigade

Sermon

I am Tandi Rogers, your Program Consultant for the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations in the Pacific NW. Our district includes 59, about to be 60 congregations throughout Alaska, Oregon, Idaho, and Washington. A little over half of the congregations in our district have less than 100 adult members, just like you.

My purview is any program in congregations that breathes life into their mission and make them come alive and awake in the world. It used to be strictly religious education, but I convinced my boss that religious education is most anything we do as a religious community, or at least the potential is there if we're looking for it.

Also part of my job is planting new congregations. They finally added that to my job description, because I was going to do it anyway. I couldn't help myself. I'm an evangelical.

Yes, evangelical Unitarian Universalists do exist. I'll tell you why I'm so zealous. Because when I open a newspaper and read the news I think what if -insert politician's name here- had taken Our Whole Lives sexuality education from this church?

Our Whole Lives isn't just about the mechanics of sex; it's about consensus, power dynamics, communication, collaboration, intimacy, and personal ethics. It's about our communal and individual core beliefs that guide our chosen behavior. Can you imagine if our world leaders had taken Our Whole Lives?

So that's why I'm about growth and abundance. We have a saving message and saving religious community. You are not alone on your life's pilgrimage. We are born into goodness from star dust and Yahweh's breath (or the breath and spark of Life's Spirit, if that speaks to you more joyfully.) And we are connected infinitely through the stories of our lives unfolding. That connection brings an interdependent responsibility to each other. (Notice I said interdependent, not co-dependent.)

Abundance. What do you think of when you think of Abundance?

Abundance, Scarcity

Creativity, Good enough

Mission just getting buy, making due

Shared Power, My way

Shared Ministry My issue, my needs

Possibilities, Attachment to the way it's always been done

Open to being transformed, Closed to change

Name tags, Everyone already knows who I am

Calm courage, Anxiety

Love, Disassociated

Gratitude, Entitlement

Generosity, Mine

Creating something, Consumer mentality: what do I get?

Bigger than ourselves together

Read Abundance list all together

Growth follows a culture of abundance. It's attractive. Scarcity? Not so much. ... actually, not at all. A culture of scarcity breeds a couple people doing the same jobs (and often many jobs) in a congregation over and over until they are attached to them.

Let's unpack Growth. What do you think of when I say growth?

Numbers

* Indicator
* Helps you ask better questions
* Fan of benchmarks. Evaluation. Are you experiencing an intended outcome?

Spiritual Depth

* Who are you?
* What does it mean to be a member?
* Spiritual practice and devotion as individual religious leaders and as a religious community. "How's your prayer life?"
* An understanding of "who owns you" and a healthy relationship with power and authority.

Organizational Maturity

* Are you acting your size? Often the Small and Mighties error on trying to offer too much and be too much to everyone who walks in your doors. Holding to clear priorities and letting the rest go without apology.
* Keep your structure simple. If you were a leader from a larger congregation, understand that the governance and decision-making processes are going to be different.
* Leadership Succession planning and shared power. Invest in the talents, gifts, and growth of each other!
* This is so important. It may be the most important thing I will say to you today, and I also believe that it is the distilled saving message of Unitarian Universalism: you are not alone. You do not have to do it all, know it all, or be it all. The other Small and Mighties are so jealous of you, because of your geographic proximity to other Unitarian Unversalist congregations. Use that asset! Ask for help or barter with another congregation for the stuff/ service/ leaders you need. Offer your gifts. Get together for coffee with your leadership counterparts.

Incarnational

* What impact are you making outside your walls?
* How do you represent Unitarian Universalism outside your walls?
* Does your wider community watch you and say, "yep, there goes those Unitarian Universalists!"
* Do your religious and secular allies call upon you when they need help? Or someone to stand with them in solidarity?

Now when you as a religious community pay attention to your spiritual depth, organizational maturity and your incarnational growth... the numbers will follow. Abundance will follow. Health will follow.

And when that happens pay attention to the new voices around you and remain open to the transforming evolution that is vibrant religious community.

I've been saying religious community a lot haven't I? I'm curious as to whether this is alarming any of you. There are usually a handful of folks who hear me preach that squirm when I freely use religious words. And I have to tell you that I'm a humanist. A humanist who is very comfortable with mystery and wonder and language of reverence.

Because I am a humanist I am deeply committed to authentic human inter-relations and beyond. Because I'm humanist I want people to find a faith (whether it be science, Christianity, Buddhism, Paganism, deep ecology, or Harry Potter), I want people to find a faith and a religious community to help walk them through a bold, loving, joyful, courageous life that leaves the world better than we found it.

So I have to detach from the notion that my theology and my issue in the world is The Way. How arrogant! There's a reason we're diverse. Divest yourself of the shoulds that others and the media and our upbringing all load on you. Get rid of those shoulds. Write them down and burn them. As Mary Oliver says, "let the warm animal of your body love what it loves." Find what brings you joy and what you are uniquely qualified and equipped to give to the world.

I'm talking to both you as individuals and as a religious community, as the Wy'East Unitarian Universalist Congregation. Find where your joy and gifts and concerns all intersect and go there. And encourage others to find their path. Let your paths cross and intersect and support. And take time to appreciate accomplishments and growth and celebrate that.

There is a district full of other congregations cheering you on, Wy'East. You are not alone. Bring on your joy! Bring on your abundance!