GRATITUDE FOR COMMUNITY

PUUF, NOV. 27, 2022

 

Last Sunday evening, I sat nervously in my car, parked on Duane next to Astoria’s Garden of Surging Waves, thinking about the Colorado Springs massacre the night before when a crazed shooter had mowed down those dancing and celebrating at Club Q, killing five and wounding many others before a former military man wrestled his gun away and a drag queen stomped him with her high heels.

My “name-sister” Christina Mae Ketcham, sponsor of the vigil to commemorate Transgender Day of Remembrance and the many lives cruelly taken, had requested police presence for our vigil, but I hadn’t caught sight of anyone in uniform at that moment, so I waited till 7 o’clock and then made my way to the entrance to the Garden.

Lit by candles strewn about the walkways, the Garden took on a reverent atmosphere, and when I saw Christina, Tessa, Marco, spouses of transmen and women, and many friends, plus Officer Chris O’Neary in attendance, I knew I was entering a safe space and a space that had been sanctified by hope and love.

I was grateful for this gathered community.  And during that hour of quiet reverie and song, I felt my anxiety abate, my sense of connection increase, and my resolve to continue my support and love for our many Q-community friends and neighbors.

Gratitude---not just gratitude for Christina’s bringing us together, but gratitude for a former soldier who couldn’t stand it and risking himself, wrenched the gun from the shooter’s hands.  Gratitude for the Drag Queen who took the opportunity to stomp the shooter with her high heels.

What does “community” mean to us?  The dictionary would tell us something about people united in a common cause.  The vigil last Sunday night was a community that formed for an hour, united in their love for those who suffer for their gender or sexual identity, angry about the senseless loss of life, fearful for the dangers that may lurk in hidden places, but determined to continue to work for the cause of freedom for all.

Where else do we find community?  I’d like to suggest that our coffee klatches offer a sense of community, folks gathering in their own neighborhoods, talking about the conditions where they live, what the solutions might be, the ideas brainstormed for addressing some of those problems.  But these communities might not exist except for their common roots in the Pacific UU Fellowship, here on the Lower Columbia.

 I just love attending our coffee klatches.  No matter who is there on any given date, our enjoyment of each other’s presence is tangible.  Our quieter members offer their ideas, which they might not do so readily if it were a larger, less connected group.  Our more outgoing members keep the conversation going. 

There is a sense of belonging, I think, that affects most of us---evidence of that, for me, lies in the willingness to let me know that trauma just wasn’t going to work for us, a message relayed quietly, respectfully, and earnestly. That kindly communication from members of the larger community of PUUF was effective and it changed my trajectory from trauma to gratitude for the respect and caring others showed for my misjudgment.

I don’t know if you read through the November edition of News from the Pews, which is the chronicle of the goings-on in the coffee klatches.  At the end of each month, I list the topics and ideas that came up during the coffee klatch.  And it strikes me that among the ongoing themes that arise, we often turn to social justice concerns.  Our coffee klatches are not just socializing moments!

Here's an excerpt from the Astoria CK:  (We) opined upon the issues of local right-wing politics, the gun legislation on the ballot, and the ever-present challenges of racism and antisemitism, plus the dangers of Christian Nationalism.

The Peninsula folks started out talking about racism and white privilege which soon developed into deep concern for the peninsula’s problems with meth addicts, squatters in RV’s and other homeless folks, moving from disgust at the trash and ugly dwellings into a larger consideration of how these problems develop. 

Our Tillamook county friends considered the personal issues of ageing, of losing one’s spouse, of the decisions that need to be made about relocating, downsizing, living with one’s children, the mingled grief and relief that comes with some losses in life.

And the South County group had lots to talk about as well:  the slash pile fires for starters, and then a wide-ranging discussion of rent increases, right to work laws and how they were related to slavery and other workers’ issues, the Great Resignations of health workers, teachers, and others.  And capitalism’s hold on the world’s economy, particularly “the 1619 Project” and its Capitalism chapter.

(By the way) If you’re not currently attending your local coffee klatch, you’re missing out on some pretty interesting conversations!  If you’re not on my mailing list for CK’s and would like to be, please let me know!  And we have goodies!

But to return to the theme of Gratitude for Community and how we express that gratitude to our PUUF community and to the larger communities in which we live---

One casualty of the pandemic was our forced ending of much of our social justice outreach and the committee which proposed and carried out projects.   

What would you think about re-energizing that committee and undertaking some interesting social justice projects and outreach?  It could be done in a couple of ways:  reaching out to the area in which each CK is located, with the Peninsula finding a project that benefits the residents on the peninsula, for example.  OR finding a project that could include the whole Lower Columbia area.

Let’s talk about some of the thoughts I’ve presented and see if we can come up with some workable ideas.  We’re a little rusty in the social justice department, at least in terms of boots on the ground, but we all seem to have strong opinions about what is wrong and how we feel about it.  Next step, of course, is how do we act on those opinions and feelings?

Anybody want to start the discussion off?  (Veja, will you manage the microphone for folks to use?)

Discussion ensued.

         In closing, I’d like to offer a recipe for feeling and expressing gratitude:

1.    Look for opportunities to be grateful

2.   Say it out loud----“thank you trees, or car that didn’t 

3.   Thank the universe, the powers that be, or God, if that works for you.

4.   Pay attention to what it feels like for you to be grateful.

5.   Be aware of the gift your gratitude gives to others.

Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE POWERS THAT BE

 MY UNDERSTANDING:  an epiphany on Nov. 26, 2022.

God is not a being.  "God" is the word used for the powers of the universe, visible in natural law.

"Jesus" represents a human being with human powers, subject to natural law and capable of understanding the powers of the universe as revealed in natural law.  Jesus, as well as others, has given humans insight into how best to live.

The "Holy Spirit" is spiritual power, available to all beings through natural law and giving meaning to the powers of the universe.

 

WHERE DO WE GO FROM HERE?

GLEANINGS FROM THE OCTOBER COFFEE KLATCHES

 

It’s been interesting to compile my notes of the September and October coffee klatches, the discussions, the complaints, even a few mild warnings about losing people because of the intensity level of our conversations about trauma and how it might affect PUUF’s ability to thrive because of the trauma that is endemic in our 21^st century world.

I have done a lot of thinking about this.  I understand our resistance to hearing more and more about trauma; it was difficult for me to hear about the many traumatic experiences that folks in our Fellowship have endured and are still enduring.  We all are still enduring the trauma of the pandemic, its limitations, the scary illness of COVID19 which threatened and took so many lives.  And is still occurring way too often right now.

In addition, in our Fellowship, we have several folks whose health is endangered by other causes---the ageing process with the threat of dementia, the failing health of spouses and friends, the prospect of losing our physical abilities.  It’s a tough row we hoe these days.  And I’m sympathetic. Cuz I’ve been there.

Let’s go back ten years to the year 2012, which was when I moved to the North Coast, in hopes of just enjoying being a member of a congregation.  I was worn out at the time from leading the Whidbey Island congregation as it built its own building, grew to 100 members, had a thriving RE program, a choir and a strong presence in the community.  I was worn out and ready for a rest.  And I wanted to be near a UU congregation.

I definitely got my wish to be near a UU congregation on the North Coast of Oregon, where I had spent so many happy days as a child and as a vacationer.  But that wish came with a challenge as well.  When I settled into that pew in the little green church in the fall of 2012 and began to enjoy the company of PUUFers, I could see clearly that some leaders were on the verge of burnout.

We had two folks in the congregation who were terminally ill and others experiencing ageing in a community with less than ideal health care provisions.  The congregation on Sunday mornings was pretty small—20 to 25 people in attendance.  People were getting worn out by the constant effort to provide pulpit speakers, to stay afloat financially, and to do the many tasks of successful layministry.  

I had hoped to just be a member but I found that my skills at ministry were needed and appreciated.  So despite my weariness and desire to be retired, when asked to help, I said yes.  And I have never regretted that decision.

But what I agreed to do, in the areas of pastoral care and preaching, were the things I enjoyed most about ministry---listening to people and relieving their pain and speaking my mind about important issues.  I didn’t want to do much more than that because I was tired and didn’t want to impose my new ideas on a congregation that was running pretty well, other than the burnout factor.

So when I thought about new ideas, I thought about the things I would enjoy doing, that would provide socializing opportunities for our farflung parish, and we started our coffee klatches--- on the peninsula, in Tillamook county, and in South Clatsop county.  And a monthly Happy Hour in Astoria.  We also improved our donations process, beginning the tradition of a spring canvass drive to secure pledge commitments for the coming fiscal year.  

We enjoyed the services one Sunday a month from Rev. Carol McKinley, who visited us from Olympia and brought her own thoughts about UUism.  But Carol was getting tired also, and ready to retire; she asked me what I thought about stepping into her shoes and being a regular preacher in PUUF’s pulpit.  The Sunday Services folks liked the idea and I became a regular.

We began to grow and eventually outgrew the little green church on the hill.  We started looking around for new digs and after some disappointments settled into the Performing Arts Center, becoming an Official Partner for the PAC with some of us even being on their board.  At the PAC we continued to grow a bit, but the PAC wasn’t a perfect fit and eventually the decision was made to accept the Presbyterians’ invitation to meet in their beautiful sanctuary. 

In 2019, the 7^th year of my service with you and my 77^th birthday, I decided to retire again; you all were getting ready to move on without me.  You were going into search and things looked pretty good.  And then the pandemic hit, we all went into lockdown, the search stalled and then fizzled when Rev. Denise decided she could not serve PUUF well via Zoom and also serve the Hillsboro congregation.

PUUF was back on its own, with no ministerial presence after 7 years of having a part-time minister.  So guess what happened!  She’s Baaaacck, as they say in the movies. And for the past almost three years, I have served you again, with diminishing energy but with great hopes for you.

And one day, talking with Terri, our board president, I stated simply “You have to figure out what you’re going to do when I can’t do this anymore.”  And you all started working on that task.

I was tired of trotting out the Golden Oldies in my sermon file and wanted to do something more creative to deal with the multiple crises our world was struggling with.  So coffee klatches with a focus were my bright idea.  My lengthy experience running groups in other congregations and also in junior high schools gave me great confidence.

But at this point, after a few intense coffee klatches in September, the enormity of the trauma load began to weigh on us all and after some discussion within the CKs, I decided to soften the approach, at the urging of some who were concerned we’d lose folks if things were too intense and challenging, especially since the trauma crises were ongoing.

So October has been more of a time when we’ve talked about grace, that unbidden moment that comes out of the blue and changes our lives when we least expect it---and often after a terrible experience.  We shared our stories in October, though other topics also arose.  And we will become more gentle in our approach to hard times, talking about gratitude and the gifts of being together with friends, rather than the pain of trauma.  It seems like a logical next move and definitely part of the healing process from trauma.

But wait, there’s more!

In talking recently with members of the Search committee, I learned that one challenge they faced was figuring out the Why and What folks wanted in a new minister---why did they want one and what did they want that minister to do?

And there appeared the challenge that arises when a congregation which started as a Fellowship, meaning a group of UUs who wanted their/our faith represented in their community, started their own church.  This trend grew from small beginnings in the 40’s and 50’s, with the blessing of the UUA, and this is how PUUF got its start, essentially, through the efforts of Arline and Cliff LaMear and probably some of you here today.  They were our forebears, the ones who took the first steps to create the Pacific UU Fellowship.

It's a success story in most ways, except for the inevitable burnout factor!

People were proud that they could start a church of their own and be accepted as a member of the greater body of the Unitarian Universalist Association.  Fellowships sprang up all over the USA and flourished, many of them growing large enough to be able to call a minister, at least part time, and hope to thrive.

Some ministers eagerly came to serve Fellowships, but many of them quickly discovered that a group which had been successful as a layled congregation did not particularly want to change over to pastoral leadership.  It felt like their freedom was at stake.

I have seen this happen before and I have personally tussled with it with mixed success in other congregations.  I gradually have learned that the key to leadership of a formerly layled group was to listen and learn who they were and what they were good at, what they needed help with, and not move too fast, but to get acquainted first.

My own experience was at a small congregation in Portland which had spun off from First Unitarian.  I was eager to show off my skills and plunged in headfirst with my new ideas.  Before long I had made enough people uncomfortable that they wanted me to be removed as minister and a small group of dissidents went to the board president with that very request.

         Over the next year, we managed to reduce the tension and I made amends as best I could for the rookie mistakes of moving too fast.  And many of them apologized to me. 

But I didn’t stay there much longer, and, taking my painfully learned lessons, went on to serve two other small congregations up in Puget Sound both of them started by layleaders.  My success rate went up, fortunately!

         I think something like this has happened at PUUF.  You are a strong group, with leaders who are wearing out.  You want lots of freedom and you’re not comfortable being bossed around.  And yet the workload is heavy and we are growing older, to the point where some of us are burning out.

         My hope for you is that we will work together to ease that workload for our overburdened and tired leaders, that we will encourage our newer members to take leadership positions, and that we will agree to consider new ideas before we balk.  Some of this is already happening and the board’s Visioning Committee is active in this regard.

         When I came here, I had taught three small congregations how to work with a minister, more or less successfully.  I had learned to shut up and listen to what was already good about the congregation, to make small changes not big ones, to work for agreement among leaders about those changes, and to not be bossy.

         The advantage to you was that I could live here.  The advantage to me was that I didn’t have to struggle to get you to do things.  I basically watched what you liked and encouraged it, added to it in the way of small social coffee klatches and happy hour, and suggested a more systemic way of handling pledges and other donations.  Nobody seemed to dislike any of these small changes.

         Interestingly, when I decided I needed to fully retire and move away and introduced the idea of coffee klatches as discussion groups to work through the possible injuries caused by the pandemic, the fizzled search, the ageing of our membership, that sort of thing, the reaction was not enthusiastic.  Was I asking too much of you?  Maybe so, or maybe it’s the timing, coming as I am getting ready to really sever my relationship with you next summer.  

Grief in both me and you is a real thing.  And it is part of the trauma.  No wonder we’re needing to step back a few paces and look at the good stuff.

I am grieving my need to leave you behind, possibly not seeing many of you again.  We have been good companions on the UU path and I will miss you very much.  I am making plans to move to Vancouver WA, where there is a mid-sized church with a settled minister.  I need to let go completely of the many responsibilities of ministry.  

You may be grieving too.  We will talk more about this as we move closer to June 30, the end of my contract with you, and get ready to say goodbye.  I will probably need your help with things like a yard sale and with packing, but we can figure that out later.

We have a little time now for conversation about what I’ve said and to talk about the theme of this homily:  Where do we go from here?

 

 

 

Searching for Grace

 SEARCHING FOR GRACE

Rev. Kit Ketcham, PUUF, Sept. 25, 2022

 

         As I’ve met with the four coffee klatch groups this past month, I’ve noted the heavy, heavy load that accompanies trauma, hearing about trauma in others, and dreading the impact of the next traumatic moment.

         At our Water Ceremony on Sept. 11, we had asked each participant to name a trauma that, for them, had been life-changing, unexpected, and shocking.  When Meredith and I read the cards at the end of the ceremony, we were both in awe of the heavy load each person there was bearing. 

         Not just in their own lives but also in the awareness of the load their friends and neighbors were experiencing.  Right now, we are all living with trauma and the effects of trauma, in a sort of churning stew of tension and uncertainty.

         But I’m reminded of the kids’ TV show long ago “Mr. Rogers Neighborhood”.  Fred Rogers was a guiding light for kids and their parents in the 70’s and 80’s with his show.  And one story he told has stuck with me.

         It was a personal story for him, for when he was a little boy, worried about a scary incident that he had observed and wondering what would happen, his mother took him in her arms and said “When you see something scary like this and you are worried and afraid, to comfort yourself, look for the helpers.  Look for the people who are stepping in to help.”  

Not just the firefighters and the police and doctors and nurses, but the ordinary people, the ones who run first to the emergency or trouble, offering their help.  Mr. Rogers made that his life’s work.

         I was reminded about Mr. Rogers’ childhood question on a recent weekend when I learned that a Gearhart friend of mine had been found dead in her home.  She and I were members of a group we called Freddy Girls and we met on Monday mornings at the Fred Meyer Starbucks to gab and gossip about Gearhart goings-on, a practice we’ve had for several years.

         These women were helpful to me when I was going through the scary situations of retinal surgeries and heart rhythm irregularities a few years ago, driving me up to St. Vincent and OHSU for treatments.

         As I learned more about this sudden, shocking death of my friend, I found that two of the women in our little group had worried about this friend on Friday when they saw that things didn’t look right at her home and decided to check on her.

         They found our friend seated on a chair inside the sun porch, her head resting on her arm against a small table.  She was clearly dead and had been for several hours.

         Our friend’s husband has Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s, so they immediately checked on him in the next room, found him naked, incontinent, and incoherent.  They called 911 for help and then washed the husband, clothed him, gave him something to eat and water to drink, as they awaited the ambulance.  They called the son and daughter of this couple who live in Stevenson, to break the news and ask them to come.  And then they sat with our friend until help arrived.

         I tell you this story not to stun you with another story of trauma, because this story is about the two women who were the helpers, who did what needed to be done in a terrible situation, for a friend at the end of her life.

         I know trauma stories are awful and triggering for many of us.  We hate to hear them sometimes but if we listen to the “rest of the story” as newscaster Paul Harvey used to say, we often find that there is hope and grace in the aftermath.

         Last Saturday when I visited the tiny Tillamook county coffee klatch, each person had experienced something difficult during the past month.  They also wanted to know about the Water Ceremony, how it had gone, and when I mentioned our closing hymn, Amazing Grace, one woman looked at me with tears in her eyes and said “It’s the grace, the unearned, unbidden acts of kindness and love that help me to get through trauma.” And she told us of her personal experience with grace.

         Last week, two unscrupulous American governors hoodwinked a planeload of migrants and flew them to Martha’s Vineyard in the Atlantic Ocean, expecting that “this would own the libs”, when they arrived, poor and hungry, in the wealthy community of both ordinary people and celebrities.

         Instead of rejecting the migrant families, Martha’s Vineyard opened their hearts to these strangers, fed them, found them shelter, clothing, welcomed them into their midst, and helped them acclimate as best they could.  With limited language skills and unfamiliar with New England customs, these homeless people found grace, mercy, and kindness, not angry rejection.

         By the way, the Unitarian Universalists in our sister church on Martha’s Vineyard were right in the middle of the welcome.  Because that’s what UU’s do.  It’s our mission in life.

         I got to thinking about ministry and pastoral care and realized that my work as a minister is helping people who are experiencing trauma.  It is my work, it is my calling.  I listen and love and understand how hard it is.

         I know personally how hard it is to hear about trauma, whether in others’ lives or mine.  I know how hard, indeed impossible at times, it is to NOT be triggered.  But it is a learned skill and many of us have learned it, having experienced that moment of grace in our lives when somebody really listened, listened without jumping in at the wrong time or with the wrong words.  

Or they volunteered to drive us when we could not get to the doctor ourselves.  And they stayed with us to help us understand the doctor’s instructions.

         The helpers are all around us during every traumatic situation.  Sometimes we are the helpers, sometimes we are being helped.  It is all grace, grace given and grace received, and Grace is our Super Power---as UUs, as human beings whether we are religious or not, as people who understand that kindness and mercy and just being willing to help might be the real trinity!

         I know that many of you have experienced both the trauma and the moment of grace that often accompanies trauma, whether it comes unexpectedly from friends or family who appear and hug us and feed us and clothe us at a terrible time of our lives.

         It’s been a hard month at the coffee klatches, I know, and I’m glad to be able to refocus our gaze at the times when someone came to help us pick up the pieces of our lives and move on.

         At the South County coffee klatch yesterday, munching away on the goodies folks brought, we shared stories of trauma and the healing grace that often comes unexpectedly and without expectation of reward.  This has been a tough month in many ways but it’s time to focus on our SuperPower, the ability to help, to bring hope, to listen without interruption and to soothe and strengthen our fellow human beings.

         I’d like to spend a little time discussing what we’ve learned this month, in the coffee klatches or in our personal lives.  (Discussion for about 15 minutes)

 

BENEDICTION:  

Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place.  Let us go in peace, remembering that we have the power as individuals and as a congregation to bring Grace to those in time of need.  May we watch for opportunities to use our SuperPowers in the service of love and justice.  Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

 

CLOSING CIRCLE.

 REMEMBERING AND HEALING FROM TRAUMA

Sept. 11, 2022

 

       Where were you when the planes crashed into the World Trade Center, into the Pentagon, and into an empty Pennsylvania field?  Speak that place into the silence as we listen.

       It was a Tuesday.  It was 5:14 a.m. here in the PNW.  It was the first or second week of school for many children and youths.  

And teachers.  It was a week after the celebrations of Labor Day.  It was a perfectly ordinary sort of day---until the news reports came rolling in, the TV screens flashing horrifying photos of people jumping out of the World Trade Center, planes obliterating parts of the Pentagon and two of the towers,  brave passengers cooperating to divert their hijacked plane away from the Capitol grounds in Washington DC., scenes gleaned from video found in phones in the wreckage of that doomed plane with its brave passengers.

       My definition of Trauma has come to be “a shock that comes without a choice”, an event that is lifechanging and comes out of the blue and we can’t stop it.

       For all Americans and perhaps all humans, life on earth changed that day.  Fear became a way of life for many, fear of strangers, particularly strangers who have a different religion, a different lifestyle, a different name, a different appearance.

       And in our country and in others as well, Vengeance, Revenge, Hate, became the response to the action which took so many lives and affected our worldview and our American self-confidence.

       We learned we were vulnerable as a nation, that we could be attacked and murdered in formerly safe places:  office buildings, airplanes, and school classrooms, church sanctuaries, grocery stores, movie theaters, and on the streets of placid cities.

       With every new event of violence over the past years since that fateful day, the trauma has been multiplied over and over.  It reminds us every time of trauma which has gone before, before Sept. 11, 2000

And then the election of a despotic president who dismantled policies and practices designed to protect us while flying the fake red flag of “freedom” caused an already-divided American people to turn against each other even more strongly, encouraging belief in conspiracy theories and fraudulent elections. 

       Every violent event, one on top of the other, brought Post Traumatic Stress Disorder into our common lingo.  And then the pandemic descended, making it difficult to connect with friends and family, to attend religious services in person, to shop safely, to mingle with groups indoors, to wear the pesky masks which could save our lives.  

We lost family members to the coronavirus, we ourselves survived its onslaught but may have been reinfected again and again, unwittingly.  And the long months and years of isolation brought loneliness, frustration, sometimes loss of employment.

Our lives were changed once again as we gained understanding of the danger of an illness so infectious that none of us was truly safe.  Yet millions of our fellow citizens refused to believe that warning and many died agonizingly in ICU units crowded to overflowing.

       Where do we go from here?  We are vaxxed, boosted, masked in medical settings, bumping elbows when hugs aren’t safe.  

       We have come to recognize trauma in a lot of places we hadn’t known before.  We are coming to recognize how deeply the effects of trauma can burrow into everyday lives, making us vulnerable to personality and lifestyle changes that in turn can create their own trauma.

       We may see past trauma these days in our personal lives, our family lives, our community, and our national, global, historical institutions.  We have learned that the effects of trauma can be passed down through genetic pathways.

       Over the coming months, we will be exploring the effects of trauma, both past and present, in our personal lives and how those effects shape our institutions, our families and our friendships.  

We’ll talk about these issues in our coffee klatches, which are small and friendly groups, interested in PUUF and the future of this congregation.

       We’ll share what we are comfortable sharing about our own trauma history and we’ll listen respectfully to what others share.  We’ll look at how our congregation has been affected by the painful experiences of losing members over disagreements, of the struggle to find a new minister only to be hampered by the pandemic and the difficulties of ministering via Zoom.

       Where the air needs to be cleared around an old conflict (or even a newer one) we’ll listen for understanding and move on.

       We’ll listen to each other’s efforts to heal from the traumatic event or events and encourage each other to address the inner pain that a painful childhood can produce.

       Remembering the adage that “Hurt people hurt people”, we’ll think about the times we have been hurt and have hurt others in return, sometimes purposely and sometimes inadvertently. 

       The cards on which you wrote down a trauma in your life just now reveal that there is a substantial amount of pain in our lives, some of it dealt with, some of it buried and festering.  In our conversations together, we’ll look at ways of using trauma to learn and to grow from.

       We’ll talk about healing from trauma and facing new challenges in a changing world.  For when we bury trauma, we delay our healing.  

       A year or so ago, I said to our board---you’ve got to figure out  what you’re gonna do about PUUF when I can’t do this anymore.  And we have talked about my adjusting my preaching and pastoral care efforts, coming up with a new schedule for me starting this month.

       Our coffee klatches will meet monthly, as we always have, socializing and snacking as always but also talking about the issues trauma presents to us as human beings.

       Instead of speaking on the 2^nd Sunday, as I have up to now, I will meet with the coffee klatches, and on the last Sunday of the month, I will speak about what I have learned about us from the discussions in each CK, offering information about the commonalities we share, the concerns we have, and the ideas that have emerged as approaches to healing, both personally and as a congregation.

       We will have a little time set aside during our service to discuss what I’ve learned from our CKs so that all have a chance to hear what’s being discussed.

       In this way, I hope to offer a deeper examination of who we are as a UU congregation, fulfilling the promise of our principles and honoring our values and commitments to reason and reverence.

       I have started making plans for my eventual moving away from Astoria and leaving the OR coast.  I am ready to stop working.  I am hoping to find a good independent senior living residence somewhere around Vancouver or Longview, where I can really retire!

       But in the meantime, I want to do all I can to help you create a pathway forward no matter what, whether you choose another minister or decide to continue as layled.  

       As we think about the changes we have ahead of us, let’s commit ourselves to honest and kind communication, listening carefully to others’ needs, and finding the path that our principles and values illuminate for us.

       Let’s pause for a moment of silent reflection and prayer

 

 BENEDICTION 

Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place.  Let us go in peace, remembering that though trauma persists in everyone’s life, we have the strength to endure and the will to mend the damage.  As we go through the next several months of talking about our lives with each other, may we find peace and healing in ourselves and in our life together.  Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

 

To My Followers, the hangers-on at the Saloon and Road Show

 I have recently discovered that since I changed my email address, all the comments you've made over the past many months, even years, have not been forwarded on to me for moderation.  I have now changed my settings and you should be able to send a comment on any of the recent posts, so that I can approve them and post them on the blog.

Thanks to those of you who have read the blog faithfully and have even tried to leave a comment---if I have time soon, I will attempt to tackle the backlog and approve the pending comments.

Sincerely,

Ms. Kitty

The Evolution of Spiritual Experience

THE EVOLUTION OF SPIRITUAL EXPERIENCE

Rev. Kit Ketcham, PUUF, Aug. 14, 2022

            As a junior high school teacher and counselor for 25 years in suburban Denver, I had plenty of stressful moments, hilarious moments, frustrating moments, confused moments, moments when I knew I would have to take some disciplinary action toward a kid or a parent, moments when I simply cried out at the pain in a child’s life.

            Many of these moments in that career were kinda humdrum, just doing my job moments.  But others of those moments still linger in my memory:

            That time when 9^th grader Gail came into the main office when I was there, looked at me, said “my boyfriend just committed suicide”, and ran into my arms.

            That time when Bonnie sat defiantly in my office and said “yeah, I’m a lesbian and I don’t care who knows it.  So what?”

            That time when Bob confided his suicidal thoughts and his latest attempt.

            That time when spelling-challenged Heidi gave me a poem she’d written entitled “thanks for the mammaries” in gratitude for the long talks we’d had.

            All of these moments led me into a place of contemplation, compassion, and action in my effort to help these teenagers find peace.  But one important moment came back to me, as I was preparing for today and thinking about how, in my spiritual life, both positive and negative emotions have been the source of a deep spiritual realization.  And how it took me a long time to learn it.

            Picture a tiny office, goofy but inspirational posters on the wall, a Kleenex box handy on a small table.  Picture a somber mom and brother and me awaiting the arrival of a young girl who has been summoned from her math class. 

Picture that girl coming through the door, seeing her family members, and wondering, with dread, what has brought them here.  

          Her father had been ill and hospitalized but expected to come home shortly.  Instead, her mother and brother were here to tell her that he had died.  Suddenly and out of the blue, in the hospital, his heart had just stopped and could not be restarted.

            Time seemed to stand still as this seventh grader absorbed the news.  As she sank into a chair and leaned into her mother’s arms, I felt the enormity of the moment, of the occasion, of the gathering of a family at the hardest time of their lives, and of the witness I bore to their pain.

            I couldn’t do anything to take away that pain, I could only be there.  And for me, just being there was an experience of deep spiritual meaning inspired by our mutual grief.  For her father had been a fellow teacher in a nearby school.

            Ten years earlier, I would not have thought of it as a spiritual experience.  I would have been so tense and afraid I would do the wrong thing that I would have done anything to avoid it.  

But my own experiences of loss by that time had taught me that these are the kinds of experiences that open us up to life, if we let them.

            Up to that point, my spiritual moments, when I even recognized them, were wrapped in laughter, or physical pleasure, or tenderness between myself and another person. 

They were sweat-soaked on the top of a high ridge or singing with friends around a campfire, or getting up in the middle of the night to attend to a child’s nightmare.  Utterly mundane moments until I learned to notice them, to pay attention to their deeper meaning           

            We all have access to spiritual experience but we have to learn to recognize it, to allow it to show us its meaning, to hold it under the microscope of our minds, to feel its resonance in our gut and to rest in the moment of awe we discover there.

          In his book, “Spiritual Evolution”, psychiatrist George E. Vaillant lays out a vivid portrayal of human beings’ inherent, inborn spiritual nature and ties it to our brain’s design and our innate capacity for emotions, both positive and negative.

            He argues that evolution has made us spiritual creatures over time and makes a scientific case for spirituality as a positive force in human evolution.

            He traces this positive force in three different kinds of evolution:  first, the natural selection of genes over millennia; second, the cultural evolution, within recorded history, of ideas about the value of human life; and third, the development of spirituality within each human lifetime.

I’ve always known that I rarely find my spiritual moments in a religious service, though they do happen and they often are embedded in our singing together.  

When we sing our closing circle song, for example, and I look around the circle at all of us, I tingle with that feeling of being part of this group, thinking later about what you mean to me and what I hope to mean to you.

According to the Public Religion Research Institute:   “Spirituality is a complex concept with a wide variety of possible meanings. Because this concept is inherently subjective—(since) many activities and experiences can be imbued with spiritual meaning­­--(because of that) developing a standard definition poses challenges.” 

            They found that three questions helped people verbalize their sense of spirituality.  These three questions asked Americans how often they “felt particularly connected to the world around you,” “felt like you were a part of something much larger than yourself,” and “felt a sense of larger meaning or purpose in life.”

            As I was thinking about this statement from this respected research institution, I was drawn back to our UU Sources, the places from which we draw our inspiration and our values as a religious body.

            Here’s a quote from our UU official documents which can be found in one of the first pages of our hymnal, along with the 7 principles.  

The Living Tradition we share draws from many sources (and this one is listed first):  Direct experience of that transcending mystery and wonder, affirmed in all cultures, which moves us to a renewal of the spirit and an openness to the forces that create and uphold life.

            Didja get that?  Direct personal experience of mystery and wonder, that experience we cannot fully describe, is a foundation of our UU faith.

            Our own evolution as a religious tradition has evolved from Trinitarian Christianity in the fourth century to Unitarian Christianity 15 centuries later, then on to an acceptance of Universalist Christianity and a merger with the Universalist denomination in 1961, from there to our pluralistic, multi-faith tradition whose values incorporate wisdom from many other sources, and not strictly religious voices.

    

       Let’s look at the three kinds of evolution I mentioned earlier.   First, natural selection of genes over millennia: We are talking here about the evolution of cold-blooded (literally and metaphorically) cold-blooded reptilian creatures into the warm-blooded (again, both literally and metaphorically) warm-blooded mammalian creatures capable of play, joy, attachment, and trust in a parent or mate. 

           Simply put, as mammals developed their ability to survive and adapt to changing environments and to evade predators, their brains became more and more complex and this became a trait selected to increase survival.  In our fellow primates, we see the manifestation of behaviors which signify attachment, bonding, and nurturance of offspring and of mates.

            Second:  cultural evolution has been as important for human survival as brain complexity.  It is faster and more flexible than genetic evolution.  With expanded communication came expanded knowledge and application of that knowledge.  

It was this capacity for cultural development that may have given modern humans an evolutionary advantage over earlier humanoids.

            Sociability increased survival rates and as communications improved, homo sapiens traveled, traded, learned from, and mated with unrelated others far away and the value of human life began to expand in human consciousness.

            Over millennia, through cultural evolution, religions (which are a major factor in cultural norms) also have evolved, and those which emphasized love and compassion rather than fear and dominance were more conducive to cultural development.  

As an aside, I am moved to comment that if the Abrahamic religions---Judaism, Christianity, and Islam---had not let fear and dominance influence some of their doctrines, we might be in better shape today culturally!  And maybe our UU religion of love, compassion, and justice can lead the way.

            Third:  personal evolution in a human being.   It takes a while for a human being to evolve as a fully conscious creature, able to experience life-changing events and analyze and internalize them as factors which can expand consciousness and survivability.

            As children, we move slowly from self-centered, demanding two-year-olds, as an example, into adolescence and young adulthood, becoming persons more capable of compassion and understanding of others.

            At some point, many of us, probably most of us, have experiences that we learn from.  We may not get all introspective about these experiences; rather we may grieve or rejoice and move on.  And at some later point---as it happened to me and may have happened to you---we are likely to take time to pay attention to the emotional experience we’ve had. 

When we are able to do so—and it may take a while before we get there---we become conscious of the enormity of the event and how we may have been affected by it.

            Going deeper will seem scary, but we do it, and when we do, we are encouraging and allowing ourselves to evolve, to increase our survivability and to model that behavior for our children and friends.

            Dr. Vaillant has listed the positive and negative emotions which can be gateways to spiritual experience.  It’s probably easier for most of us to start our deeper explorations with a positive emotional moment.

            The positive emotions of compassion, forgiveness, love, hope, joy, trust, awe, and gratitude, to name a few, are largely experienced in relationship---with ourselves, with other beings, and with the universe.  They expand us, widen our vision and our tolerance for differences.  They enlarge the scope of our moral compass and increase our moral courage.  They enhance and impel our creativity.

            Let me ask you to think of a recent positive emotional experience.   As you think about that event in your life, let me ask you the three questions mentioned earlier:  

 1.  Did it help you feel more connected to the world around you?  2.  Did it help you feel you were a part of something larger than yourself?  3.  Did it help you feel a sense of larger meaning or purpose in life?

            This quickie dip into deeper spiritual searching may be too brief to have worked for you and that’s okay.  It is only a suggestion that spiritual experience lurks in the everyday positive emotional experiences of life.  It may encourage you to be more mindful of the potential for spiritual experience in life’s every moment.

            And it can be found in negative emotional times as well---when we grieve a loss, we often find solace in examining the memories of love and the lessons learned through this loss.  When we are angry, going deeper may offer a pathway to greater understanding of an outrageous situation and give us motivation to solve a dilemma.  When we are afraid and explore the fear, we may find greater courage than we have ever dreamed of.

            Every human being, I’ve come to believe, can learn to notice those expanding moments in life which accompany our emotional experiences.  

As we learn to do this, just as we learn to follow the threads of a complex equation or a complicated pattern of some kind, we are sharpening our awareness of the facets which make up human life---and our lives.

            Improving our ability to be mindful, to notice our surroundings, to learn from each experience, good or bad, and to allow that process to take place adds to our ability to adapt to change, to survive difficult events, and to find, ultimately, greater peace of mind and compassion for our fellow travelers.

            Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

As Terri extinguishes our chalice, let’s pause for the benediction:

  Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place.  Let us go in peace, remembering to take notice of the meaning of the emotional moments in our lives, drawing strength and new resolve from our spiritual experiences.  May we find depth and greater understanding as we allow our spiritual selves to evolve and grow.  Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

CLOSING CIRCLE