Ralph Waldo Emerson was such an inveterate optimist that his good friends (and professional curmudgeons) Herman Melville and Nathaniel Hawthorne doubted his judgment.  Melville put pen to paper to describe him as having a “defect in the region of the heart.”

His sunny disposition has long interested me, given his heart wrenching series of personal tragedies, a childhood of financial anxiety, career changes as he shed early ones that didn’t suit him, and a trust and confidence busting period in American history.  I would have expected a pessimist.  Instead, he emerged from this crucible of experiences with optimism, and with something worthy to say to the many of us today, similarly burdened by sorrows, and weighed down with worry about finances, jobs, and the future of our country.  He is fine patron saint or namesake for this church.

Let me tell you something about his life, and I’ll suggest a possible reason why he was so optimistic.  You may disagree, and knowing you, you’ll let me know over coffee hour!  I look forward to different interpretations.

Emerson was born in 1803, in Boston.  His father was a Unitarian minister, as, in fact, had been about seven prior generations of Emersons – either Unitarian or Congregationalist ministers.  The first tragedy Emerson was old enough to remember, when he was seven or eight, was that his dad died, probably of stomach cancer, leaving a young widow, pregnant for the eighth time.  The congregation let the family stay in the rectory until they installed a new minister, and paid her a condolence stipend of $25/mo for a year, but soon Mrs. Emerson was on her own, with six surviving children under the age of ten, two of whom, in the language of Emerson’s journals, were retarded and insane. 

To make ends meet, her sister, Mary, and she opened a boarding house in Beacon Hill, Boston.  She never remarried.  Imagine how financially vulnerable the family must have felt.  Will the new lodger stay the full term?  Will he pay on time?  Will he be a big eater?  Will the price of meat go up?  The children did odd jobs to help out.  How isolated did they feel?  They were more intellectually oriented than their economic peers, and far poorer than their social and educational peers, and to top it off – at least from an adolescent’s perspective,  by age fourteen, Emerson towered over nearly everybody he knew, at almost six feet tall – this in an age when people like Stephen F. Austin were 5’ 4”! I imagine this upbringing influenced his subsequent writings advocating self-reliance, don’t you? 

The three college able sons worked to put each other through school. For example, William opened a school for young ladies, so that Emerson could attend Harvard College (college is what high school aged education was called).  While there, he worked as a waiter in the school’s commons (probably for the free food) and also served as something of a gopher for the President’s office.  He graduated only in the middle of class, but perhaps that was partly because he read so widely outside the prescribed curriculum.  For instance, his Aunt Mary and he were very interested in the new English translations of Eastern religions, including Buddhism, Hinduism, and Islam.  Do you find Buddhist influences in such writings as The Over Soul?  I do, too.

When he graduated, he taught at the school so that William could attend Divinity School, but he didn’t take to teaching, or at least to teaching young ladies, so once his brother’s education was complete, he closed the school and cast about for a new career.  I imagine that many of you can empathize with his situation – your first job lands in your lap but after a few years you realize it isn’t a good fit.  Then you have to figure out what might be. 

Well, what was an impecunious, educated young man to do?  Since he had no capital, he couldn’t start a business or invest in one.  He had already rejected  teaching.  He’d never shown any inclination toward medicine.  So perhaps more from a sense of limited alternatives than a calling, he entered his father’s and brother’s profession, and enrolled in Harvard Divinity School.

The year 1829 was an eventful one for Emerson.  The happy events were that, at 26 years old, he was ordained and became an associate minister for a Unitarian church in Boston and he married, an 18 year old named Ellen.  A great sorrow was that he had to institutionalize his little brother, in an Asylum for the Insane, for increasing bouts of violence. 

This grief was soon supplanted by another.  His young bride had tuberculosis, and her condition worsened so rapidly that her mother had to move in with the young couple to care for her while Emerson juggled with his new ministerial duties.  Sadly, she died, when she was 20.  Despite what must have been a predictable outcome, Emerson was distraught at her death.  He wrote in his journals that when she had been dead for six weeks he felt compelled to open her coffin to convince himself that she was really gone.  Some of you have shared your grief experiences with me, and have said that you have the strongest sensation that your loved one is right behind you or beside you.  I bet that is how Emerson felt.

Like many grieving people, he suffered a lost off faith around this time, and also, I think, a mystical experience.  He had become increasingly disenchanted with Unitarian theology, describing it as “corpse cold” for focusing on dusty old books and long dead people when it should focus on the living and the loving and the giving and the grieving people right here and now.  In my very favorite description of Unitarians, he called us “God’s Frozen People”.  And truth be told, he had decided that he didn’t like pastoral care and didn’t really like being a minister.  He wrote that to minister to others, he decided that he needed to leave the ministry.  The man for whom we have named our church for 50 years, resigned from his congregation after only 3 years.

Year later, in 1837, Harvard Divinity School invited him to deliver the Commencement Address.  Apparently they didn’t know these views!  Imagine being one of the enthusiastic graduates and their doting parents hearing the following, no-holds-barred denunciation of their chosen faith!  Christianity "dwells with noxious exaggeration about the person of Jesus."… and …has turned Jesus into a "demigod, as the Orientals or the Greeks would describe  Osiris or Apollo.  He added that since God is in all men, “special miracles” don’t need to occur; revelation happens every day to anyone who pays attention. Instead of dwelling on such issues, he encouraged preachers to preach from their hearts and from life, not from dusty books, as he contemptuously referred to the Bible.  One critic said his views were an insult to religion.  Others decried him as an atheist (of course!)

Once he quit his job, I wonder if he felt like a failure.  He’d rejected two professions.  What next?  Wisely, he took a year to decide.  His wife had inherited some money and he used it to travel to Europe, where he met many of the great thinkers and writers he admired, including Samuel Coleridge and Thomas Carlyle, who were also interested in Asian influences in thought and theology.

When he returned, he married a second time (in 1835) a woman named Lydia (whom he called Lydian) by whom he had four children.  The oldest, his namesake, died at 5 of scarlet fever.  For any of you who are grieving now, I’d like to recommend a touching poem he wrote, called Threnody, about how everything in his home reminds him of the sweet little son, now gone.

During this time, he started his third career, a prototypical Emersonian one:  he made it up and relied solely on himself.  Although he had discovered that he didn’t like teaching in a school or ministering in a church, he decided to become an itinerant lecturer, not affiliated with a school or church, although he spoke at both, in lectures that combined spiritual and academic subjects in his famously stream of consciousness style.  I think the closest person to him today might be Depok Chopra.  Emerson rented a hall, put up flyers, sold tickets and delivered speeches on topics as varied as Nature, American Scholar, The Conservative, Idealism, Manners, and others on famous men of letters or history.   As you can imagine, his new career was not very lucrative, but his wife supported him, emotionally, and perhaps financially, too.  He later started a magazine, too, The Dial, in 1840 with Margaret Fuller, “to promote the constant evolution of the truth not the petrification of opinion.” He turned some of his lectures into articles for the magazine and essays for self-published books of essays. 

Emerson became extremely popular and respected.  I think the reasons are threefold: his personal demeanor, his content and delivery, and timing.  Haven’t you sometimes wondered if a charismatic person on the national scene would have been as effective ten years earlier or ten years later?  Let me tell you of the context of his growing lectureship so you can appreciate his appeal.

In 1837, the country was plunged in a great depression that lasted five-six years in various places.  Just like our more recent financial debacles, there was rampant finger pointing.  Some blamed foreign speculators (the British).  Others blamed two presidents in a row, Jackson and Van Buren, for failing to prevent it, and failing to assuage it once it was underway.  Of the 850 banks in the nation, half folded or closed doors, and this in a time with no deposit insurance.  Cities as large as Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York closed every bank within their borders.  Imagine what this meant.  Shop keepers couldn’t get credit for inventory.  Farmers couldn’t get credit for next year’s crops.  Parents yanked kids out of schools (there were very few free public schools) not only because they couldn’t afford the tuition but also because they needed to replace the employees they couldn’t afford with their kids in the fields and businesses.  Sound eerily familiar?  It was a very disconcerting time. 

Not surprisingly, the 1840s saw an influx of religious revivals. The Presbyterians were preaching predestination and the Calvinists were talking about sinners deserving punishment.  Meanwhile, down the street is a lecture by Ralph Waldo Emerson.

He didn’t have the bombastic oratorical style so popular then.  Rather, he walked to the podium, a tall, thin man dressed in sober black like the New England preacher he once was, and in what has been described and a deep and resonant voice, he began to talk.  He spoke as though he were thinking out loud, and he trusted and respected the audience enough that he was letting them “listen in.”  One of his quotes is that “a friend is one before whom I can think out loud.”  That is the impression he gave.  Though his topics were many and varied, a frequent theme was this:  Trust yourself.  You can trust yourself.  That little voice inside of you that you might call intuition?  That is God talking to you.  God is in everything – and that includes you.  So would he condemn you to Hell?  Inconceivable.  Are you an incorrigible sinner?  How could that be? 

How could one be a pessimist with that view?  To Emerson, God is in him and in everyone he meets.  He encouraged them to be self-reliant, and by trusting the authority of themselves, to respect themselves, too.  Imagine the impact on women.  He said you don’t have to experience a second hand relationship to God through a priest or a book, and by extension, other authority figures.    He encouraged everyone – men and women to trust that wee voice within to tell them what is right, what is good, what to do, and to seek or question when they don’t hear that voice.

Imagine the impact on an audience at this time.  They probably felt like they couldn’t trust banks, employers, the government, maybe even neighbors in what must have been a dog-eat-dog time.

Women loved him:  He didn’t talk down to them.  He avoided patriarchal language in discussing God.  Instead, he tended to use terms like “Over-Soul” or Nature.  

One of my favorite stories about his audience may be apocryphal, but it seems to capture a truth.  A journalist noticed a scrub woman who attended several of his lectures.  Intrigued, he asked her, “Do you understand what he is saying?” “Nope,” she said, “Not a word.”   “Well, then, why do you come?”   “Because,” she explained,“ I like to see Mr. Emerson standing up there, talking to me like I am just as good as he is.”  Isn’t that a lovely thing to say about a man who, in the latter half of his career, was the most famous American thinker on both sides of the Atlantic (along with Mark Twain)?    

Emerson was a man of integrity who inspired confidence and trust.  I believe that this was because he lived his values; he did trust himself.  As he became more famous, politicians and journalists sought his endorsements. He refused to be the poster boy for politicians or others’ issues but he didn’t shy away from controversial subjects important to him. He just picked and chose.  For example, he spoke out against slavery in 1844, was against the forced relocation of Cherokee Indians, publicly supported women’s suffrage and higher education as early as 1855, and refused to support the Fugitive Slave Law, when passed in 1861.  Some of these positions were not popular with his American audiences, as he he saw, traveling by train all the way to California giving lectures, and some of his positions astonished the Europeans when he traveled there for a year. 

When people disagreed or condemned his thinking, he never argued back or put down his opponent.  He let his lecture or essay stand where it was.  His ego was not ruffled by others' disagreement.   

To me, Emerson is a wonderful embodiment of 6 of our denomination's 7 principles: inherent worth and dignity of all people, the practices of justice and compassion, encouragement of free and responsible spiritual growth, right of conscience and the democratic process, and respect for the interdependent web of life.  The only one I don't see directly represented in his life and writings is the principle of a world community.

Sadly, his memory and some of his verbal skills faded about 12 years before his death, to the point where he could not lecture any more.  It is hard to tell from health references in his journals and others whether the cause was some sort of dementia. Touching, to me, is the title of his last book, “Society and Solitude.”

In these latter years, he was so beloved, that when his house burned to the ground, admirers paid to rebuild it. What a wonderful validation. 

Emerson did not regard himself as a philosopher, but as a thinker and he thought a lot: 50 volumes of writing.  “Essential writings: 850 pages.  He said, “you are what you think all day long.” 

Was he naturally optimistic, or was his attitude nurtured in the crucible of repeated grief?  Was his theology sunny because he was an innate optimist, or did he become an optimist because of his theology?  Perhaps he just chose to think in this way, all day long.

Every generation seeks a leader, a role model, a soul model.  Who is yours? Who encourages the best aspect of your nature?  Who encourages you to stand up for what you believe is right, even if others criticize you for it? Emerson was it for a generation torn asunder by the Civil War, as people strove to pick up the pieces of their lives, their families, their states.

Also, each one of you is a role model for others.  Many of you are role models for me. What do you want your legacy to be?  What do you encourage in others?  And is that what you want to convey?  Is your theology consistent with  your demeanor and lifestyle?  Look at yourself from the outside, from time to time. 

Each of us as individuals, and together as a group can be Emersonian.  Each of us can pick and choose which issues to focus on: when to be quiet and when to stand up for something in an outlet that is effective.  Each of us needs to be self-reliant, and pick ourselves up out of disappointment or grief or self-blame.  Like Emerson and his mother, many of us will have to adjust our hopes and dreams; we’ll need inspiration.  And according to Emerson, that source is very close:  it is here and now, inside you. 

Catechism of the Soul

One of my favorite jokes about Unitarians is this:  a Unitarian dies and takes the elevator up to Heaven.  When he exits, he sees a signpost with two references:  one points left and says, “Heaven.”  He other points right and says, “Discussion of Heaven.”  Being Unitarian, guess which way he goes? 

I wonder if we could create a similar joke about souls.  Our visions of souls are probably much more diverse than they are of heaven.  Maybe the joke should start out:  There is a shop with the word, “Souls” above the door.  If you walked in and looked among the tables and bins and racks, what would you expect to find?  We are familiar with a variety of soul concepts, such as the soul present at birth (or before) that lingers beyond our death as a ghost or in heaven or hell.  We also know such party line concepts from various religious and secular traditions as immortality, reincarnation, moral beacon, spark of divinity, connection to the universe, and personality, or conscience, or life force.  Many of these definitions ascribe divine like attributes to the soul. 

What I’d like to do this morning is crack our respective definitions with the tap of some very basic questions.  Did any of you have to memorize  long lists of questions and definitive answers as part of catechism in Sunday School?  Let’s try that.  If you believe that the soul is X, then what are the implications of your definition.  For example, can the soul evolve from the efforts of the individual or external forces or is static and complete?    

We can consider the topic of the soul from virtually any point on the theological map.  If you are a Humanist, for example, at what point do humans develop a soul, however you define it (perhaps as personality, conscience, or cognition).  Does the soul grow and change like the rest of us, and if so, how should an ethical society address the resulting variability?

If you are a theist, when does God endow humans with souls?.  Is it at birth or death or other points along life’s continuum?  Are all souls the same?

In early Jewish writings, the spirit of God was a powerful wind, the Ruach Elohim.  The ruach of a human was breath given him by God, as in the creation story when God creates man out of clay and then breathes life into him.  The loss of this breath equals death, so the human spirit, or soul, was simply and powerfully our life force, framed by birth and death.  Later Jewish writings more rigorously segregated life of the body and the existence of a separate soul. 

Like the Jews, the Greeks regarded psyche, translated as soul, as this vital force that leaves us at death, but by about 400 BC, Plato attributed inspiration and art and ecstasy to this psyche.  Later, in the century before Jesus, the Jewish Saducees believed in the immortality of the human soul, a view that Jesus adopted, too.  

The Medieval Jewish theologian Maimonides envisioned the soul as the source of five activities which we tend to separate as physical, mental and emotional.  He saw the soul as the repository of nutritional need, sensation, imagination, emotion, and rationality.   His model is especially intriguing in this way:  Our immortality depends on the quality of or life.  By exercising free will well or poorly, we determine our own immortality or extinction.  I rather like that.  Later theologians defined living well as we would expect: moral action and loving God. 

Hinduism and Buddhism contend that matter is illusory and Soul is reality.  To Hindus, all reality is within Brahma, or Ultimate reality.  Our soul is our connection to this broader reality, and it is only in exercising our souls through meditation, study, prayer, action, that perceive this veiled reality. 

The early Christian Church and its theologians were surprisingly uninterested in the soul as we conceive of it today.  Their big concern was free will and divine grace.  This was an active tug of war since humans were seen as basically sinful, if left to our own devices.  It was God’s gift of grace that elevates us from this lowly state.  Catholicism, Orthodoxy churches, and Protestantism variously described the execution of this grace, through the seven sacraments, personal action, or just Jesus’s sacrificial death.

The Holy Spirit is probably the least clear member of the Trinity, Christianity’s name for God, but its 20^th century incarnation appears to be that divine spark within, or that communication from God to us individually.  When people have a peak religious experience, such as a conversion experience, the Holy Spirit has entered them.

The prevailing Christian view is that people have souls as long as they live and afterward, too.  However, this position was not always held, even for Christ.

The early ecumenical councils held contentious battles about the nature of his divinity: Was he 1/2 man, 1/2 god?  Were those components differentially discernible? For example, was he God when he was performed miracles and man when he was hurt or hungry? At what point did he become divine? Timing was narrowed down to three "finalists": at baptism, when the Holy Spirit descended upon him, at death, when the heavens opened up, and at birth, which finally became the orthodox view.  The apocryphal gospels are fascinating because of their heavy handed ways of advocating for one interpretation or another, as are the contorted stories about Mary's own miraculous birth (to render her body worthy to carry the Christ child).   

By extension then, is our parentage important to our souls' health and development?  If you harbor a psychological interpretation of soul, you would probably argue yes.  Certainly there are individuals and families that are markedly more soulful, spiritual than others.  A theist would deny a parental role, I assume.  Do we differentially distinguish our souls from our humanity? Most UU's favor a more holistic view, but I would be interested in hearing from any of you who would separate those threads of being.

In Genesis, the soul correlates to a specialized, moral knowledge that humans lack and then gain. Although God can prevent Adam and Eve from accessing the Tree of Life, He cannot remove the wisdom they have already gained from the other tree. Western educators have argued since Rousseau about whether children's minds are tabulae rasae, or blank slates, to be filled by parents and teachers, or whether children have some inherent knowledge that can be educed, or brought out, by good teaching. Does this suggest that infants and small children lack souls? Not so long ago, Catholic doctrine held that unbaptized babies went to Limbo, unable to enter heaven, but certainly not evil enough to visit hell.  Perhaps the soul develops a bit at a time as we gain knowledge of good and evil, along a moral development model.  In such a case, we could conceive of children, and adults, with larger and smaller souls, just as we distinguish between strength and intellect. 

Our legal system appears to argue this point frequently in criminal cases.  If a murderer cannot distinguish good from evil, cannot understand that the murder was wrong, he is punished differently than one who can.  States with a death penalty, such as ours, for example, cannot impose it.  In a rather nice irony, a criminal who "has become like one of us, with his knowledge of good and evil," can be put to death, and one who has not "become like one of us, with his knowledge of good and evil" will live.

What about animals?  My belief in souls is shaky enough for me to dismiss the idea that animals have them, and Genesis's version would certainly leave little room for them either. However, Genesis begs a certain question: what about beings that never act evilly?  If animals act on instinct with neither evil knowledge nor intention, they may lack this definition of soul but that does not impose any hierarchical ranking of goodness, does it?  Which is morally superior, to know the difference between good and evil and behave badly, or to not know the difference between good and evil and behave well?

There have been a number of interesting studies of animals, particularly animals with higher cognitive functions, such as apes, whales, and dolphins,  that document not only language and humor, which many of us know, but also what appear to be senseless acts of violence, such as murder unrelated to territory, hierarchy or family unit, and rape.

Given this variety of positions, what is your definition of soul?  I’ll tell you my working definition: for each individual, the soul mirrors what s/he perceives God to be. For those who believe that God is immortal, the soul probably is, too.  For those who believe that God is nature and all within it, then soul is our connection to that all around us.  For atheists, it is those aspects of our personality that are not chemically or organically defined, like talent or inspiration.  So as you consider one of your positions, such as “soul” think about other positions that may intertwine, such as “God” and mind, body, soul interconnections.    

Into the Forest - the Value of Literary Myths for Personal Insights

When I was a little girl, like many children, I lived a divided life. Perhaps you remember your own. I separated a vivid fantasy life from a rather rigid attachment to absolute, concrete truth.

On the one hand, I sleepwalked and sleeptalked and had powerful dreams. I spun elaborate fantasy games in which I was, of course, the heroine. I firmly believed in ghosts.

Many children decide at some point, probably in order to discount the possibility of parental sex as well as to dismiss ANY genetic connection to their parents, that they are REALLY adopted. In my case, because I really WAS adopted, I KNEW, with TOTAL assurance, that my absent mother was going to come and whisk me away on the eve of my birthday. Depending on how well I was getting along with my Mom that year, I envisioned this nighttime visitor as either a horrible harridan or a beautiful princess, either one with magical powers. On those years when I yearned for her, I would sit up by my window, waiting. When I dreaded her arrival, I would boobytrap my room or invent some excuse to sleep in my parents' room, although I sadly feared that they would be too weak to protect me from my doom.

Many children ask a lot of questions to find order in the universe. The books I chose to read as a child had to answer YES to the question, "Is it true, MOM?": encyclopedias, for example, and those red and blue bound sets of biographies found in school and public libraries. I started at the A's and went right on through: Clara Barton, Founder of the Red Cross; Helen Keller, Humitarian (probably read when I thought I would go blind).

But by the time I reached 10 or 11, the alphabetical biographies and encyclopedias no longer served their purpose of providing order in the universe. True though they might be, their content seemed remote and rather simple, whereas my little life was immediate and becoming overwhelming. These neatly packaged truths did nothing to impede the chaos that seemed to engulf me. My body and emotional life were changing, of course, and even more pressing at the time, my brother had begun to walk, throwing and destroying most inanimate objects in his path, like Godzilla in diapers.

What suddenly appealed to me were those volumes of fairy tales titled by color: The Blue Fairy Book, the Silver, the Yellow, I moved the set into my room and poured over the books. I even asked fewer questions at dinner because these books did not raise vexing questions. Instead, they comforted me and thrilled me. As the central character in my rather theatrical version of life, I felt like every motherless princess I read about. I, too, was besieged by three little demons (siblings) who existed in order to menace my life. Like these heroes and heroines, I too, felt betrayed by the powers I relied on. Imagine my disillusionment when my parents displayed a discomforting inability to protect me from childhood sorrows or predict some holiday disaster. Imagine my discouragement when my sincere prayers, made in good faith, to hit a baseball, to fly, to become invisible, were stonily ignored. Like the characters in these rich tales, found surprising allies, like the childless old crones of my neighborhood, or so they seemed at the time, who ALWAYS bought my Girl Scout cookies, ALWAYS stayed home Halloween night and offered GOOD candy, and ALWAYS helped me every spring to find the mittens I had lost in their snowy yards. These hero tales were my stories. They comforted by acknowledging my grievances and disappointments and self‑doubts. They held out the hope for unexpected help, discovered wisdom, secret caches of weaponry by which to torture my siblings, and well deserved treasures like Christmas presents bought early and hidden.

What I came to realize and would like to share with you, is that life is not so neatly divided into Capital T TRUTH and capital F FANTASY, but rather into several kinds of small t truths and many ways of illuminating those truths. The nonfiction addressed numerous facts, to be sure, and they offered insight into the world but not into myself, with which, like anyone growing up, I was starting to become confused.  For the comforting sense of self‑discovery and of warm connection to others, I recommend the world's rich resource of fairy tales, myths, and stories, particularly hero quests, to be found, in part, in the world's religious traditions.

***
The importance of religious stories is NOT whether each quote, each passage is divinely revealed, literal truth, albeit in thousands of years of translations. And it is on this very point that I feel sad when I hear the arguments of BOTH fundamentalists and those religious liberals (who would adamantly deny any similarity to one another) who cling to an historical and literary "all or nothing" approach to religious writings. To defend OR dismiss such full bodied stories BECAUSE they are true or BECAUSE they are false misses the point. Our own world experience is not so neatly divided.  Memories of beloved or fearsome fictional characters, for example, are often MORE vivid than our recollection of real people, and often teach us lessons that last longer than those imparted by our three dimensional friends. The point is that these stories do not promise CAPITAL T truths for all people and all moments any more than the encyclopedia does. Rather they offer a rich, resonating, mythological direction to a truth which a reader may need and may discover.

Hero stories, both fiction and nonfiction, tell the same story, speaking to the achingly familiar experiences of their readers.

Most hero stories conform to a set sequence of 4 episodes, with additions, deletions, and variations that make each story special. In general, the episodes are these: a young hero is compelled by circumstances usually beyond his control to undertake a dangerous journey through a strange land. There he must defend himself against evil characters and betrayals, usually with the unexpected aid of some surprising ally. Once he has dispatched the bad guy, the hero wins some treasure, which often includes wisdom, honor, and love. This he must remove from the strange land and take back to civilization and share with others for a satisfactory conclusion.

This format fits such religious heroes as Moses, Buddha, Mohammed, and Jesus. It also corresponds to such great classic heroes as Heracles, Aeneas, and Gilgamesh. It even fits Little Red Riding Hood, Dorothy in Oz and virtually every plucky detective. Significantly, it encompasses many recent heroes, too, like Ben Franklin.

Like this remarkable cast of characters, we too, feel challenged and vulnerable, treading alone through our personal forests, caught without adequate tools or preparation. "If only that experience had occurred to me later in life", we think, "perhaps I could have handled it better."

But one of the inevitable aspects of misfortune IS bad timing. No one says, “now would be a good time to lose a job” or “I choose today to develop a disease.” We are invariably caught off guard. We feel afraid, perhaps disappointed in ourselves. We may well feel angry or bitter. In hero myths, there is no pat answer to the why of life.

Bad, scary, evil things just happen. They happen to you and your children and your friends. Your enemies, too, if that is any consolation. Analyzing why events occur to us may well be important for each of us at some point, but equally important AND validating is losing one's sense of isolated suffering. Grief, fear, and betrayals are social phenomena as well as personal tragedies. At the very least, misery loves company, and these stories provide that. At best, the reader finds tales that sympathetically mirror his own experiences and offer insight for threading through the thicket of life's difficulties.

The first of 4 components in these stories is that most heroes, like us, do not undertake their adventures lightly, or even by choice.  In fact, most start only in order to flee death, a symbolic motivation for all of us. Motherless Hansel and Gretel and Snow White flee wicked stepmothers who would kill them. Similarly, both Jesus and Moses undertake infant journeys to flee imperial decrees to kill the sons of the Jews, almost certainly untrue historically, but symbolic of any baby's and mother's first journey together. Both Moses and Heracles are forced on their way because they committed murder: Moses flees the country and Heracles is forced to pay reparations to the king in the form of ten extraordinary labors.

Let’s consider the application of these stories to our own situations.  Who has not experienced this strong flight sensation, the wish that everything would remain as it was two minutes ago but is no longer; that awful realization that something horrible has happened that compels us to embark we know not where and to we know not what end? A child suddenly injured, damaging words or acts irretrievably said or done, terrible news received and no clock to turn back. These are the awful moments that divide our lives into temporal segments, with everything identified no longer by date but by phrases like "That was before I was diagnosed" or "That was after she died.” Some people even use the term, "my new life" or "my second life". Indeed, these ARE initiations into a new life, a new journey.

The second component is the journey, and very significantly, in NONE of these stories is the trip easy. Our heroes are fought, captured, tricked and tempted by formidable evil characters. They are also betrayed or ignored by powers they believed in. Heracles lived a life so difficult and had to perform labors so perversely chosen that when he died, burned alive by his own wife, Zeus raised him to Olympus as a god. Snow White and Sleeping Beauty, like more contemporary anti‑heroes, are mercilessly pursued by evil witches, who, failing to kill them, condemn them to long lasting semi‑deaths. The lengthy Harry Potter epic details the trials and tribulations of his journey from the whipping boy of the Dursleys to a destined battle with Lord Voldemort. In both the codified scriptures and the religious folklore of their religions, Jesus, Moses and Buddha are tempted by every human torment imaginable. Jesus, of course, is tortured and killed by both secular and religious factions representing two aspects of life. He then descends to Hell and returns to the earth, like Aeneas, and also ascends to heaven, representing the unification of the three ancient worlds: earth, heaven, and the underworld, under the jurisdiction of one god.

Many characters are defeated, often betrayed, only to fight again years later. Certainly this was the bitter experience of the Jews exiled in Babylon. During the golden years of David's and Solomon's reigns, around 600 BC, the Jews developed a belief that they were the special, chosen people of a uniquely powerful god. Imagine their bitter humiliation when they were defeated by the infidel Babylonians, the capital beseiged, their people forcibly scattered. How impotent their god must have seemed as they watched His sacred home, Solomon's Temple, easily defiled and then razed to the ground. It is this pain that infuses so many of the Psalms. In fact, when he was the president of our denomination, John Buehrens, said that he never prepared for a funeral without first reading among those poems.

Ben Franklin was deceived three times by powerful men whom he trusted. Let me tell you the most egregious case. Governor Keith of Pennsylvania befriended the clever young printer, then aged 18, inviting him frequently to his home and offering to set him up in the printing business. He encouraged Ben to take passage on a ship to London to procure better quality supplies which the governor would secure with letters of credit as well as letters of introduction. Once on board, the American coast rapidly receding behind him, Ben discovered that the governor had sent along neither letters nor money, and the young man, betrayed by one he had regarded with pride and faith as a benefactor, was abandoned 3000 miles away with no way to return home. Ben worked for several years in London among various printers to earn the money to limp home again, dreams dashed.

Other cases of betrayal involve Daniel and Jason. Jason abandoned his wife Medea who then kills their two children in crazed revenge. Daniel is thrown into the lion's den by coworkers of many years standing who resented his promotion to grandvizier for King Nebcadnezzar. It does not invalidate the power, the truth of these stories to talk about Daniel, Jason, and Ben Franklin as parallel stories.  In fact, I believe the latter PURPOSELY structured his autobiography to EMULATE such hero stories.  He was an accomplished writer, after all.

Life, and our partners in it, are often fickle. Which of these stories does NOT ring true for you? Fleeing defeated, with your tail between your legs, knowing that you will be compelled to fight the same battle again? Feeling humiliated that something or someone you believed in has betrayed you or proved weak or unworthy? Being asked to perform functions you feel utterly incapable of fulfilling? These are not hollow stories, entertainments, opiates of the masses. We have met these characters and they are us.

The third component of these hero stories, following the reluctant start and the difficult path, is that our heroes are almost always aided by the least likely of allies. In fact, many helpers appear in the form of woodland creatures, tiny fairies, or superficially weak people. The Shoemaker's Elves are one example, Aesop’s Fables are full of them, and our first introduction to Yoda in the Star Wars movies makes use of this first impression proved wrong.  St. Christopher's old hermit and the seemingly small Christ child he carries across the river is, too. Certainly Oz is populated by a motley assortment of helpers for Dorothy.  The burning bush is another.  These allies often share a seemingly modest gift that turns out to be powerfully useful, like Moses’ staff, or magic words.

Pagan, Jewish, and Christian folklore are replete with stories of a god or angel disguised as a peasant, child, or animal. Good fortune comes to him who honors the humble visitor, misfortune befalls him who doesn't

These stories represent our tendency to undervalue others, particularly those we don't recognize as important or as like ourselves. What enslaved Hebrew would have expected liberation from an Egyptian prince named Moses? What Arab would have foreseen that Mohammed, of all people, who married a rich widow twice his age to become a very successful merchant, would retreat to the mountains to receive the divine sutras? What Indian would imagine that any prince would leave the pampered life of a palace for the monastic life of physical denial chosen by Buddha? And finally, how ironic that the most sustained Jewish messianic figure to emerge out of the many that appeared during the two centuries beginning this common era, would be NOT the expected military or political hero but a backwater preacher with a short ministry who was ignominiously killed by his own religious leaders.

Have you ever enjoyed some of those serendipitous moments of grace or revelation from a stranger or from someone you least expected? Someone who says exactly what you needed to hear and at precisely the right moment? Even better, each of you meets the needs of the other, connecting somehow, in a deep and resonating way; passengers on a plane, perhaps, never to meet again, or someone you have known for a while but never really noticed. These rich encounters pale in the telling, don't they? "I met this woman," you might begin, "and we started talking and she said ... and I said ... and she knew just what I meant and I understood her. It was as though we spoke shorthand… Somehow your world view brightens.

The fourth and final episode of these stories, both of the heroes and of ourselves, is that the hero must leave the strange land in order to claim the treasure and fulfill the responsibilities that await him after his difficult journey. St. Paul makes the point that the Jesus story would be meaningless if he had not risen again. Protestant churches reinforce this by displaying empty crosses, stressing his resurrection, his conquering of death, in heroic fashion. Aeneas descended to Hades to speak with his beloved father, but he must return to earth in order to found Rome with the wisdom he gained below. Snow White and Sleeping Beauty's princes must lead them out of the forest to their own kingdoms, representing civilization, where they will now reign magnanimously. In many traditions, ranging from medicine men to psychotherapy, people undergo trances, a semi-death state to return to the past or some other source of wisdom, and must return to this world to relay to others the wisdom of their mental journey, and to live differently because of it.

The many reported near‑death experiences mirror this too. The experiencer travels through a tunnel illuminated at the end. There he meets a beneficent figure who is variously named, according to the religious tradition of the person. In this lighted place he gains insight into his life from flashbacks or loved ones he meets, and, like Ebenezer Scrooge, feels compelled to return to life in order to make changes based on his experience.

People I have spoken with who have undergone some transforming experience seem to feel similarly compelled to share it with others. This might be as simple as showing baby pictures to every person in a restaurant, because for some parents, the birth of their child is a mystical experience, although personally, that is not what I would call it. Support groups are predicated on this conclusion too. People whose second life, as many call it, begins with cancer, or the birth or death of a child, or sobriety, often need to discuss their journeys: the beginnings, the battles and betrayals, the unexpected grace notes, the light at the end of the tunnel that they have seen or hope to find.

Your lives, your futures are like this too, of course. Together here at church, and separately as well, we hope to find guidance, assurance, wisdom as we stumble from one adventure to another, EVEN when we feel most reluctant to embark on them. Sometimes we actually stride purposely toward one goal only to find, like St. Christopher, that we were looking in the wrong place all along. Other times we are overconfident in the skills we have, like Prince Five Weapons, or in the people we trust, like Ben Franklin, only to discover their limits. At times like this we will find help from one of two untapped resources: overlooked, undervalued allies or ourselves. With that help we can leave the forest and proceed with a renewed sense of purpose and responsibility.

These hero quests in the Bible, fairy tales, novels are not "Helpful Hints from Grimm" of “7 Habits of highly Effective Heroes." They are just real life, capital R, Capital L, with the spirit of life left intact for each of us to discover, and apply.

Grudge Management or UU Yom Kippur

Carl Thoresen, a professor at Stanford University, has studied the psycho-social factors connected with cardiovascular problems for more than 20 years.  He has also designed training programs that incorporate life changes to reduce health risks.  Recently, he solicited volunteers to participate in a forgiveness study, because he believes that people who  take less offense and pardon others show fewer symptoms of depression, anxiety, stress, and other physical symptoms.  But Thoresen’s study hit a glitch right away.  Although almost 200 people volunteered to participate, all of whom had an offense they were willing to consider forgiving, the vast majority of volunteers were women, not a diversified sample.  "Men just don't seem to connect with the term 'forgiveness,"' he said.  A simple name change, however, attracted droves of male volunteers.  He changed the title from "forgiveness training" to "grudge management!"  

Attitudes toward forgiveness, contrition, reconciliation, and grudges – reflect not only our gender and upbringing, but also our theologies.  As UUs, used to discussions like “Build your own theologies” we may have adjusted our religious or atheistic philosophies over time, but do we retain the forgiveness teachings of our youth?  Let’s test this on ourselves.  I will share a true story of a family that offers lots of opportunities for both grudges and forgiveness.  As I do, please think about how you would handle the situation.  After that story, I’ll share the clemency teachings of the five major world religions and the results of some scientific/academic studies about forgiveness.  At the end of the sermon, I’m to ask you to choose an approach and apply it, today, to one transgression for which you wish to be forgiven, and one transgression against you, by someone else you wish to forgive.   

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A man I met on a church campout last year told me the following story, which was very much on his mind.  Fifty years ago, when his brother and he were toddlers, maybe 2 and 4 years old, their father abandoned the family and the parents divorced, apparently in absentia.  The boys had no further contact with him.  No cards, no child support, no extended family relations.  Their mother subsequently moved to Arizona and remarried, and the step-dad adopted them (since there was no contact with the father to dispute it) and gave them his last name.  This was particularly significant for the big brother, whose name had been junior.  Fast forward fifty years.  At a business convention, the big-brother heard a colleague extolling the virtues of the Internet for genealogical research.  Maybe some of you have enjoyed that hobby.  Not only was he able to research long dead ancestors, but also long lost relatives.  So, he decided to research his dad.   

He had no idea whether his father, who would have been in his 70’s, was still alive, much less where he lived.  All he knew was that, at the time he left the family, his father had been a brand new Baptist minister in a remote, rural, southern town.  So he searched for and found a database of Baptist ministers.  Lo and behold – he found his father’s name (all the more touching because it had been his own).  He was alive and still ministering, now to a much larger, southern congregation.  Without much ado, he called the church and when he reached the minister, he said, “I believe I am your son; my name is xxx.” 

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Can you imagine the emotions on either side of that phone line?  I had goose bumps as Rob told me this story.  What feelings can you envision?  Guilt, grudge, hope, anxiety, worry, joy, “gotcha”?  Over the course of this and several subsequent conversations, the brother learned that his father had remarried.  His second wife knew that he had had a prior family, but none of their three adult daughters knew, nor did the congregation. The father decided to tell his family about the call from his estranged son.  Can you imagine that series of conversations!  Well, the upshot is that the whole family invited both brothers to come visit for a weekend.   

The big brother did go, with his wife and children.  They were welcomed with open arms.  The sisters were delighted to meet a brother they had never known.  The father and his wife extended invitations to spend Thanksgiving and Christmas, and started sending cards and checks to the grandchildren.  However, the man who told me the story, the younger brother, felt very uncomfortable with this.  In his view (and his mother’s), the father had abandoned the young family long ago when they needed him, and he didn’t feel the need to reconnect now.   Still, perhaps out of curiosity, perhaps under pressure from his brother, he did go one weekend to meet the family.  There, he formed two indelible impressions.  First, he was startled by the striking physical resemblance of his father and brother.  Second, he was severely disappointed that his father never apologized – never said the words.  So he returned to Houston, distributed the cards and checks to his children, but did not feel the need to re-establish a relationship with a man he had not remembered in the first place.

I’d like you to take a moment to put yourself in the shoes of these various characters, the father, the mother, the older and younger brothers, the second wife, and her daughters.  Some of you can relate very personally to this story, because of abandonment OF you or abandonment BY you.  Others of you can empathize.  What grudges have you held, or what apologies or forgiveness have you sought or granted?  *              *                  *                  *                  *                  *                  

Now, I’d like to move this from the personal to the theological and scientific.  Let’s consider the forgiveness teachings of the five major religions and some health and university studies.  In the interest of time, I’ll simplify each one with the full recognition that not all members of each faith believe my simplistic summary.  I’d like you to think about your own grudges and forgiveness experiences in light of each of these approaches.  Which one reflects your personal views and approaches?  Are there others you would like to try?  

Christianity teaches that humans are innately sinful, through Original Sin in the Garden of Eden, but that we are redeemed by God’s unending grace.  He is wholly merciful, and forgives us even before we forgive ourselves.  Still, it is important for us to admit our wrongs and solicit that clemency.  We can confess our sins directly to God.  If we seek absolution from a priest, it is God’s mercy he confers; not his own.  Jesus taught that when we are sinned against, we should forgive our transgressors 70 x 7 times, and that God will reward us for that.  I envision a model of Christian forgiveness is linear – a communication between the individual who sins or forgives and God, who pardons or rewards her. 

Judaism teaches that a sinner can and should confess sins against God to God, but that sins against other people need to be resolved between those people, as in the Hassidic story I read. God sort of recuses himself from that process.  Teshuvá is the key concept in the rabbinic view of sin, repentance, and forgiveness.  In it, repentance requires five elements: recognition of one's sins as sins (hakarát ha-chét'), remorse (charatá), desisting from sin (azivát ha-chét'), restitution where possible (peira'ón), and confession (vidúi).  Whereas the Christian model is linear, the Jewish construct is circular, because one must seek forgiveness from the one hurt, AND be forgiven, for the circle to be complete. 

 How many times do we hear apologies as though the words alone should end the conflict – “I said I’m sorry”, when in fact, the other person does not believe an insincere statement or is still too mad to accept a contrite apology?  Not only may each person have his own timeline for forgiving, but a verbal apology may not seem equivalent to what transpired.  Judaism teaches that appropriate restitution is fair and right.  This reminds me of some of Judge Ted Poe’s creative yet logical penalties, before he ran for congress, such as a drunk driver who had to pay child support when he killed a parent, or a thief who had to make car payments in restitution for the car he stole and wrecked. 

Islam, of course, adopted both Jewish and Christian elements into its own theology.  Like the latter, Allah is Merciful (127 times in the Koran) and Compassionate (115 times), but this quality is not guaranteed, as it is in Christianity.  For example, He does not extend his mercy to those who are, themselves, unmerciful to others or who refuse to repent of their sins.  Allah will accept the repentance we offer, and can release us from punishments if we express contrition later on, because He is patient.  As in Judaism, an apology should be accompanied by an appropriate offer of payment.  The one harmed has the right to request it, and can accept or decline what is offered.

Hinduism and Buddhism are markedly different from the three Monotheistic religions because they do not believe in a personal god at all.  In Hinduism, Brahman is impersonal.  It does not know that you exist.  It cannot hear, respond, or forgive.  Therefore, there is no need for prayer or atonement to an external Form.  The Hindi’s ultimate goal is to achieve transcendent peace, or moksha, which is like Nirvana in Buddhism.   The impediments to that peace are what westerners call sin, such as selfishness or pride, and both Hinduism and Buddhism see these as self-created, and potentially, self-diminished.  Those feelings that tend to make us most ill tempered are attitudes or feelings that bind us to our egos or our physicality.  Our goal should be to free ourselves from both.  Forgiveness is an important virtue because it helps us shed that ego.  When you forgive someone for hurting your feelings, you are admitting that your feelings are not really all that important in the scheme of things.  When you forgive yourself, you move along to a larger world in which you are not the center of attention – even your own!  Interestingly, at each of four stages toward moksha, or peace, forgiveness is important, but in a different way.  For example, at a lower level, forgiveness demonstrates kindness and empathy toward others (and ourselves). Later on, the choice to hold grudges and resentment indicate a person’s preference to cling to ego rather than advance spiritually to transcendence, where there is no ego. 

Buddhism’s teaching are similar in regards to forgiveness.  God is not part of it.  We suffer because of our own choices to cling to greed, anger, and delusions.  When we are lenient toward others, we become compassionate toward ourselves. Good karma includes accepting mistakes – ours and others.  Bad karma is creating bad feeling.  Rabbi Kushner, author of “Why Bad Things Happen to Good People,” said something that sounds very Buddhist: if after two days you still haven't forgiven something, now it has become your problem.  One of my favorite quotes on the subject of forgiveness and resentment is this:  Resentment is a poison you drink, hoping the other person will die!  In the Hassidic story I read earlier, God was the river. In Buddhism, life is a flowing river of constant change.  To hold a grudge against a person because of an event years ago is to create over and over an image of something that no longer exists.  It is to perpetuate an illusion. You are different now, the other person has changed, and the event itself has transmuted in the minds of those one who care enough to cling to it, and, sometimes, to change the story.    

Let’s wrap up this section by reviewing a few forgiveness studies in the scientific community.  Michael McCullough, director of research at National Institute for Healthcare Research said that recent studies suggest that people with vengeful personalities and a chronic desire to retaliate (because of their high hostility), may put themselves at much higher risk for early death through cardiovascular problems.  (Don’t you already think that when you witness road rage?) A University of Wisconsin study found that older people are more likely to forgive, and concluded that forgiveness is a form of wisdom learned in stages.  The University of Northern Iowa has developed psychological treatment plans for adult women who had been victims of childhood incest, certainly one of the most difficult transgressions to forgive.  The results indicated that those who went through forgiveness therapy experienced less anxiety and clinical depression than a control group, and that gains for the forgiveness group also persisted after the therapy ended.  Elderly women, according to the journal Psychotherapy, who scored well on a standard test of forgiveness traits had higher self-esteem and fewer episodes of anxiety and depression compared to those who scored poorly.  And finally, one study at the University of Miami at Ohio suggested that people whose partners had been sexually unfaithful might recover faster if they exacted some kind of emotional revenge on the guilty party. If you think about it, each of these examples correlates to one or another of the theological teachings. 

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Now, what might you glean from these teachings that you could apply to the story of the two brothers?

Christianity might say that the father should confess his mistakes to God and that God has already forgiven him.  The sons should forgive their father 70x7 times as Jesus taught, meaning, until they really, really mean it and can move on. 

Judaism might say that the father can have two separate conversations – one with God and one with his sons.  He was right to open his home and family to the boys, in reconciliation.  Perhaps the invitations and the birthday checks are a form of implied compensation, but he should explicitly ask forgiveness, and, perhaps, offer to pay back child support, which the sons (or mother) can accept or decline. 

Islam teaches that Allah would not forgive the dad until/unless he repented, and would expect both an apology and an offer of restitution. 

In contrast, both Hinduism and Buddhism say that no God is involved in this process.  There is only self.  The father and the sons should look within themselves and address whatever emotions hinder their spiritual development.  If these feelings include, for example, guilt on the father’s part, or resentment and anger, on the parts of the sons and mother, the individuals are keeping themselves from finding peace.  The river of life includes rocks and shoals of experience.   

Among the scientific studies are results that indicate that if Rob and his brother attributed any depression or anxiety or rage they may have suffered to being abandoned by their father, it was within their power to alleviate some of those conditions by forgiving him, rather than blaming him, and that doing so not only improves one’s health but also indicates a form of wisdom, gained with age. 

This sermon has included a lot of information.  I want to challenge you to apply it to yourselves.  I want you to write down two personal conflicts you have experienced that have bothered you for a long time.  In one, you want to forgive a person who hurt you.  In another, write down an incident for which you wish to be forgiven for harming someone else.  Now I want you to commit to apply one of the approaches you have heard today, and then monitor the effect of that commitment a week or more from now.

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If you are most comfortable with the Christian teachings, then ask God to forgive you.  He already has. Then forgive yourself. In addition, forgive your transgressor 70 x 7 times (which really means say it until you really mean it and believe it and can let it go). 

If the Jewish or Muslim perspective resonates with you, then pick up the phone or a pen, contact the person, apologize, and be prepared to offer some form of appropriate restitution – maybe a kindness or a repayment or a service.  He or she may or may not be prepared to accept your apology.  That’s his or her right.  Half of the value of this is for you.  Alternatively, if someone has hurt you, you have the right to be merciful and forgive him/her, but also the right to ask for an apology and fair compensation – whichever will close the circle and put it in the past.  Again, even if the person refuses, half this process is good for you. 

If the Buddhist or Hindu teachings make sense to you, then think of that flowing river and how much water has flowed since the incidents in your mind.  You are hurting yourself by dwelling on them.  You are drinking poison yourself.  Let go of both your guilt and your resentment to feel a sense of relief in your shoulders, or in your gritted teeth or in your despondency.  This is not as easy as it sounds.  It means giving up expectations that others should behave as you wish.  That’s your ego talking.  Don’t expect contrition, apologies, or payment.  Your peace of mind is all you can control.  It is up to you. Let go. 

If the scientific results are meaningful to you, review your health in light of your grudges.  Are you taking medications for depression, anxiety, stress, blood pressure or other cardiovascular ailments?   Do you tend to hold grudges or resentments or a persistent sense of victimization?  Are there any mental choices you can make that might introduce measurable physical improvements? Do you want to ask your doctor about this?          *                  *                  *                  *                  *                  *

In conclusion, it occurs to me that when one has first suffered a wrong or a tragic loss due to someone else, it's often pointless to speak of forgiveness. That often comes only with time and reflection, because forgiveness is not the same as forgetting.  Forgetting is easy. 

Forgiveness is all the harder because it may involve neither forgetting nor understanding.  It may require us to ignore who is right and wrong. It may necessitate giving up any hope of an apology.  Finally, it can deprive us of the pleasure of strong feelings, often long held, about our memories, our roles, and our sense of self.  How sensible, how human, that religions and psychologists and doctors and universities teach us to forgive others simply because it is good for us and good for those around us.  (end)