Sharing our Strengths

I want to share with you today a bit of the scenery along the path of my spiritual journey. My formal religious exposure was to protestant Christianity. However, I grew up on a ranch in the Nebraska sandhills and my informal religion was lived out through the physical environment that I was immersed in.

Religion has been defined as how we answer the question "How do I fit into the scheme of things?" This presupposes that we have answered the question "What is the scheme of things?" so that we can then determine the behaviors and beliefs that enable us to "fit". Or put another way "What meaning does our life depend on"?

When we ask those questions what experiences answer them? We humans, in our particularity, have answered those questions, consciously and unconsciously, in many ways.

At this point in my life I answer that question this way. The scheme of things is that all things are connected and I fit in by consciously participating in that connection. Or put another way - living in the moment of "oneness". I guess that addresses both the question "what is the meaning of life?" and "what is the meaning of my living?"

A professor from whom I learned much about Native American spirituality said it more poetically, "Spirit is that web that connects all things, and spirituality is dancing on that web".

Other people, in current times and past, have come to their own understanding of reality and what they must do to live in that reality. How we see our relationship with these people of other faith branches, as Partners, Rivals, or Enemies, will determine our ability to interact with them in ways that strengthen and nourish us all. Hans Kung has said "we can learn much from the religions of others without threatening anything dear to our own". Connection does not equal sameness.

As I think about my connection to people with faiths different from my own I have found the writing of Vern Barnet to be helpful. Barnet is the minister-in-residence at the Center for Religious Experience and Study, a Kansas City educational and inter-religious organization he founded in 1982. He is a UU minister, teaches religion classes and writes a column for The Kansas City Star. His articles, poems, and reviews appear in many journals.

Barnet has recently been writing and speaking on the "Gifts of pluralism". There are many differences in content, emphasis and style within religious groups and it is impossible to categorize all religious practice exactly, however, even while we acknowledge that many exceptions occur we can find a rough summary useful as a model for seeking understanding.

Barnet identifies three main branches of religious thought extant today. Primal, Asian, and Monotheism. We identify the core of each faith family by how they answer the question "What is sacred and how do you honor and share it"?

• Primal religions find the sacred in nature. This model is an ecology of the spirit (the system of individuals and environment). Existence is dependent on the support of and harmony with the physical environment.
• Asian religions, such as Buddhism, Hinduism, and Shintoism, find the sacred in consciousness, inner revelation, and the self made whole. The strength of this branch is in seeking to discover what it means to be a person. The emphasis is on acting from duty and compassion - not being attached to results.
• Monotheistic religions, such as Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Bahai, and even Unitarianism, find the sacred in history and community. The emphasis is on how to live with one another as a covenanted community. This branch finds meaning in moving toward justice, making a covenant of service, rather than individual profit. When UU's see themselves as a covenanted community they follow this model.

It seems to me that these three "branches" of thought appear to emphasize different aspects of the dance on the connecting web; connection to self, others, and the environment. Thus each has a unique strength. This is not a hierarchy; one is not better or more correct than another is. In fact I doubt if any one can exist without some aspect of the others. Can you truly be in community with another person unless you have some awareness of the unique person you are? And can you truly know yourself without an awareness of your giving to and taking from your environment? We are individuals, living with each other within an environment that we shape and are shaped by.

I believe all particles of the universe, (people, plants, animals, rocks, water, air, etc.) are equally important in creating a system which sustains itself (although, sometimes I wonder if humans are not perhaps the most maladaptive species in this process! We surely do seem to foul our own nest beyond the capability to support life). Sustainability is the process of continually creating the system, not of holding it static. Always "becoming", it incorporates both the process of synthesis and fragmentation. It is a continuous series of "begendings".

The biologist, Edward O. Wilson, interviewed in Discover magazine, Dec. 2001, says "religion and religionlike faith seem to have features that enhance survival and reproduction, including the bonding together of tribal groups and a conquest of the dread of mortality, which is the curse of conscious intelligence. Further, religion played an important role in organizing information about the world in mythic form before science undertook more naturalistic explanations."

Key factors of sustainability are:
Diversity - functions being performed by more than one unit and each unit being able to perform more than one function.
Adaptability -- Does survival of the fittest mean "Kill or be killed" or "who is most adaptable?" Adaptability requires the ability to embrace change. I recently heard someone comment that it isn't so much that people don't want to change but that they want to direct the pace of that change.
Creativity -- Creativity has been defined as the ability to let go. One morning on my walk I noticed a spider web between a light pole and a near by bush. As I stopped to examine it, I was struck by the fact that that little spider had to let go of the pole and swing out over a huge amount of space in order to connect to the bush. There was no way to have a leg in both worlds.

Paul Hersey, a guru in the organizational development field, defines a learning organization (or one which will survive) as one which adapts to its changing environment through cross-functional teams (people know how to and do help each other out). Any social system could be substituted here, church, government entity, school, family, club, etc. Information sharing is vital to know what's going on with each other and with the environment around us.

Religion has been used historically to oppress as well as liberate people. Our differences are more often threatening than strengthening. The insights and strengths of each faith family can be perverted and distorted.

Dale Jacobson once told me that "Our weaknesses are simply our strengths overdone". That has helped me to re-spect (look again at) the behaviors of many people including myself. Is the gossip just overdoing their interest in and concern for people? Is the terrorist just overdoing their concern for fairness and justice? And what about the perfectionist, and the worry wort, and the procrastinator, and the liar?

I've come to wonder if we could better state that "our weaknesses are our strengths done for the wrong reasons?" The reasons of fear, and its expressions of anger, violence, greed, and disconnection.

Barnett says, "Over some 30 years of observation, I've come to think that there are basically two forms of religion. One is the religion of escape, suppression, or denial of the unpleasant facts of human existence, or it tries to manage them with superstitious methods. The other is a faith that participating deeply in the world's suffering, disappointments, and tragedies - as well as its bliss - leads to new life. The profoundest joy comes not from distraction by a trinket or a momentary thrill but from the full acceptance of promise within each present situation."

Steven Levine, author of the book A Year to live states that "all fear has an element of resistance and a leaning away from the moment. Its dynamic is not unlike that of strong desire except that fear leans backward into the last safe moment while desire leans forward toward the next possibility of satisfaction".

We can look at each of the three faith groups and see what distortions are likely to appear when their strength (interdependence with the environment, self-knowledge, and community) is powered by fear.

• Primal religions reveal a shadow side of superstition.
• Asian religions reveal a shadow side of narcissism and self indulgence.
• Monotheism shows a shadow side of self-righteousness and militancy.

We experience the sacred, when we come from our strength, our "connectedness", rather than fear, scarcity, and disconnection. How do we connect to each other? Timothy Miller, in his book, How to want what you have, shares his model for living in the present moment, (the personal expression of the infinite connection). Pay attention, make no unnecessary value judgements, and practice gratitude.

Pay attention. We call forth a strength in others and ourselves by what we pay attention to. We can re-spect (look again at our surroundings, other people, and ourselves) and identify the undistorted strength. We can give attention not answers. And we can celebrate what is vs. performing incantations to bring something into being or to prevent something from coming into being.

Show compassion. Miller defines compassion as "no unnecessary value judgements". I have thought about getting a bumper sticker that says, "Comparisons are odious". Comparisons involve measurement and someone always loses. When our children were small we had a great group of friends who spent a lot of time together. When we were all at the house of one couple the husband, intending to give his wife a complement, said "'Mary' bakes better chocolate chip cookies than anyone else in town". That statement immediately separated her from every other cookie baker in the room. And from conversations we had had I knew that what 'Mary' really wanted was to be connected to other people. The non-comparative statement "'Mary' makes delicious cookies." would have made it possible for everyone to be a winner. Value statements that involve comparisons don't add value. Support, encouragement, and nurturing do.

Gratitude. Have an "attitude of gratitude" for what comes your way in life. Honor the flow, your part in it, and thus your self. Just as forgiveness is not about letting go of someone's behavior but in letting go of the "self" you chose in response to their behavior, gratitude is not about the event so much as the "self" you choose in response to that event. I have learned, I have grown, and I can now, .

What strength does each branch of religions thought contribute to the dialogue? Ecology of the spirit. Personhood. Community. Dialogue leads to mutual purification. By informing each other we experience connection through many avenues and learn more about how to move through the inevitable fragmentation to a new connection.

How do you experience the sacred? Where do you find meaning? What are your strengths? What shadow side do you reveal? How do you lean forward into hope rather than backward into fear?