SERMON: “Return Again”
Rev. Paul Beedle
September 24, 2006
On the front page of yesterday's Chronicle, down in the lower right-hand corner, was an article titled: “Want to learn more about Islam? Share a Ramadan iftar.” Each year, the Houston Institute of Interfaith Dialog arranges small interfaith gatherings hosted by Muslim families in their homes, after sunset, to share one of the festive evening meals that follow each day's fast – the iftar. “Other than a brief explanation of an iftar, there's no agenda. That, however, usually leads to questions about fasting and the Islamic practice of praying five times a day. ... most guests ask about the food ... Dinner conversations typically center on family, work, hobbies and common ground...” [1] Participants include Catholics, Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists – the whole religious spectrum. This Thursday there'll be a citywide interfaith iftar, sponsored by the Institute and supported by some 50 organizations including the University of St. Thomas, Houston Baptist University, the United Methodist Texas Conference and the Anti-Defamation League. About 400 people are expected to attend. The article didn't say anything about how to get involved, but I looked online and found out that this Thursday's event is at 7:00pm at the Marriott Hotel on I-610 north of Westheimer. Contact information for the Houston Institute of Interfaith Dialog is at interfaithdialog.org. (They spell dialogue without the “ue” on the end.)
I get excited about this kind of event, and what I want to try and do this morning is tell you why. One wit has written that “trying to communicate your enthusiasm to another is like trying to describe the taste of olives.” [2] One's own enthusiasm, like an olive, doesn't taste quite like anything else. But with luck this morning, I'll manage to get across the flavor of mine. I want to start by saying a little more about Ramadan and the Jewish High Holy Days. Our opening hymn, “Return Again,” expresses the core meaning of both.
The experience of fasting during Ramadan returns one to the home of one's soul – the body – in an elemental way for an extended period of time. Study and reflection and discussion of the Quran during that time is meant to return one to who and what one is and to that aspiration to be a better person that causes one to be born and reborn again and again. Ramadan is meant as a time for Muslims to get in touch with the ground of being and the ground of faith, to become better people and create a better world.
Likewise, the Jewish High Holy Days, from Rosh Hashanah to Yom Kippur, and the fall holidays of Sukkot that follow, are a time to return to basics. The sound of the shofar is meant to call Jews to greater awareness here and now. To reflect on one's mistakes and to make amends is to attend to the basics of human relationships and to that aspiration to be a better person that causes one to be born and reborn again and again. The experience of eating outdoors in a temporary shelter returns one to an elemental experience of nature and one's place in it. And the celebration of the Torah at the end of Sukkot expresses gratitude for traditional wisdom that guides our striving to become better people and create a better world.
I enjoy it when holidays of different traditions coincide, because I like to put their themes in conversation in my mind, to contemplate what they have to say to each other. Even better is the chance to sit down together and listen to folks of other faiths talk about how their practices and observances affect their lives. So that's part of my enthusiasm for events like those iftars that were reported in the Chronicle.
I also enjoy the question that such contemplation or face-to-face conversation always raises for me: what do Unitarian Universalists do as a faith community that has the same effect – in this case, what do we do to return again to the home of our souls, to elemental experience, to that aspiration to be a better person and create a better world that causes one to be born and reborn again and again?
We don't have a big annual holiday of our own that does this job. I'd like to think that's because this sort of reflection and spiritual seeking is so much at the heart of our faith that we do it constantly. As freedom-loving, covenant-making people who strive to live as love demands, as people who seek truth as a sacrament and pursue service as a prayer, as people ever striving to help create justice and peace, every day and every endeavor must return us to the home of our souls, to who and what we are, and to where we are born and reborn again. Ever in dialogue over our differences, ever seeking unity of spirit in the bonds of peace, we must ever be going back to the basics, questioning, changing, and growing. At our best, I believe we do that, not only as individuals but together as congregations.
I find evidence for this belief in the popularity among us of Peter Senge's ideas about “learning organizations.” Go on Google and type in “Peter Senge” and “Unitarian,” and you'll find a raft of sermons and newsletter columns by Unitarian Universalist ministers that quote his work. Most often the book quoted is The Fifth Discipline, first published about 15 years ago, recognized as one of the best and most accessible explanations of systems thinking around. In a nutshell, he says that learning organizations do five things: first, they build a shared vision; second, they cultivate team learning (that is, they develop a shared awareness of how groups work and perform well together); third, they cultivate personal growth and learning and a sense of individual calling or a personal ministry; fourth, they raise and cultivate the awareness that our ideas about reality do not necessarily describe reality – an openness to new views and understandings; and fifth, they cultivate systems thinking – awareness of the interconnected and evolving nature of the world, an organic rather than mechanical understanding of how parts make up a whole. All that probably sounds familiar to you, whether or not you've ever heard of Peter Senge – so much a part of Unitarian Universalist culture are these ideas. We engage the whole congregation in developing a shared vision for itself, a sense of its long-term direction and purpose as well as five-year plans for achieving pieces of that vision. We invest ourselves in learning about group dynamics and teamwork. We invite each member to find their personal ministry within the congregation, and to learn and grow spiritually. We strive to be open to new views and not too attached to familiar ones. And we famously and faithfully explore “the interdependent web of all existence.” And, as Senge teaches, we consider leadership to be the act of creating conditions where the whole community learns and moves together toward its shared vision and goals.
Now, lest you think this is merely good organizational practice and not really a religious practice, I want to tell you where Peter Senge's work has taken him. His latest book, co-authored with three other well-known contemplators of change – Otto Scharmer, Joseph Jaworski, and Betty Sue Flowers – is called Presence. Here's some of what they have to say:
“Can living institutions learn to tap into a larger field to guide them toward what is healthy for the whole? ... We've come to believe that the core capacity needed ... is presence. We first thought of presence as being fully conscious and aware in the present moment. Then we began to appreciate presence as deep listening, of being open beyond one's preconceptions and historical ways of making sense. We came to see the importance of letting go of old identities and the need to control and [to make] choices to serve the evolution of life. Ultimately, we came to see all these aspects of presence as leading to a state of `letting come,' of consciously participating in a larger field for change.” [3]
“Presence” is a classic concept in religious mysticism, and the ways that Senge and his colleagues are thinking of it are in line with mystical theology. Indeed, they are aware of that fact. They cite “Christian traditions ... associated with `grace' or `revelation' or `the Holy Spirit[,]' Taoist theory ... of the transformation of vital energy ... into subtle life force ... and into spiritual energy[, the] essential quieting of mind that Buddhists call `cessation,' [what] in Hindu traditions ... is called wholeness or oneness[, and] in the mystic traditions of Islam ... is known simply as `opening the heart.'” [4] Just as our reflections on the work we do together as a congregation leads us to reflect on deeply spiritual matters and values, so Senge's study has taken him to this distinctly religious ground.
What we do with covenants and with reflection on our work, and with such organizational tasks as bylaw and policy revision and the making of five-year plans, is as much a part of our faith as our personal spiritual practices and our service to the larger community, because it too leads us to “Return Again” to the home of our souls, to who and what we are, and to the places where we are born and reborn again in heart and spirit to the values and vision we share, to the ways we can make a difference together, to the personal callings and ministries we each may discover, to new and more accurate understandings, and to connection and participation in what is larger than ourselves, the better world that can be and is laboring to be born.
I invite you to let the changes that lie ahead of us as we prepare to move into our new building, and the sometimes dry and daunting organizational tasks that it is now time for us to undertake – the five-year plan, the bylaw and policy revisions, the new covenants, and all the rest of it – let these things be more than organizational work. Let them be a reminder that we do aspire to a shared vision of living together as love demands, seeking deeper and more accurate shared understandings, and working effectively together to serve the larger community and the highest hopes of humankind. And may the discoveries we make in developing our own best practices and policies also be gifts of deeper understanding and love that serve the causes of peace and justice in the world. So may it be. Amen.
[1] Houston Chronicle, Sept. 23, 2006, A1 & A8
[2] Otis G. Firefly's Phantasmagoric Almanac (Scholastic Books)
[3] Peter Senge, et al, Presence: An Exploration of Profound Change in People, Organizations, and Society (New York: Currency Doubleday, 2005), pp. 13-14.
[4] ibid, p. 14