Fwd: Don't Turn Back, and Don't Give Up, Because We Are on Our Way ... Romney
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From: SpiritWarriorSky@aol.com < SpiritWarriorSky@aol.com>
Date: Apr 22, 2006 9:37 PM
Subject: Don't Turn Back, and Don't Give Up, Because We Are on Our Way ... Romney
NO EASY RECIPES
Rev. Rodney R. Romney
April 23, 2006
. . . Cooking is an art, and while it is not an art I have mastered, it is an art whose results I have appreciated and enjoyed all my life. After all, one doesn't have to be a painter to enjoy looking at art.
When it comes to the spiritual life, we generally follow a similar process. We read the words of wisdom and instruction that spiritual teachers have spoken or written. We then try to apply these teachings to our own lives and to live by them. But what I have discovered in the spiritual realm is that there are no clear and easy recipes to follow, because not everyone is reading from the same book. What works for one may not work for another. Moreover, the spiritual recipes handed down to us are always being altered or revised, and one is left wondering if there are any such things as infallible doctrines, absolute truth or a universal theology which everyone can follow. . .
Many in the Christian tradition have historically believed that the wisdom and teachings of a man named Jesus offer an infallible guide, which, if followed, will result in spiritual perfection and salvation. But now, two thousand years later, we have come to realize that those teachings came down through a period of oral transmission and were not written until a number of years after Jesus died. Jesus himself apparently wrote nothing. Moreover, while the collection of stories and letters about him was extensive, they do not all agree. Moreover, only four gospels or stories of his life were chosen by an ecclesiastical council to be preserved in what today we call the New Testament. . .
Today we of the Christian faith and heritage live in what I would call an Age of Tumultuous Transformation, brought about by a new era of scholarship and understanding. Something new and drastically different is struggling to be born. What it will be is not yet known, but it will not only alter Christian doctrine and thought, it may also bring us into greater kinship with other religious traditions all around the world. We may yet achieve a universalism with all people and religions that has thus far eluded us.
No easy recipes are being offered by which this will come about, but the signs are visible on the horizon for those who have the insight to read and interpret them. We are on our way to something new, something transformative, something that could possibly bring humanity closer together, rather than holding us apart from one another. It may not happen in our lifetimes, but it will happen. Indeed it has already begun.
John Burroughs in Christian Century magazine said that the lesson which life repeats and constantly enforces is to "look under foot." We are always nearer the divine and the true sources of power than we think we are. The great opportunity is not in some distant future or some past scholarship but right where we are at this moment. The ground on which we stand today is holy, as indeed is every place and every moment. . .
Is this not what spirituality should be about: the quest to know ourselves, to know our own souls, within the confines of time and place that we currently occupy, and then to take up the quest of loving one another as we want to be loved? Is not our struggle to know God really a struggle to know and love ourselves? Spirituality is also our struggle to know and love one another and the world we all share. This struggle is always taking place on holy ground (the ground underfoot) as we experience both life and death in our midst.
Traditional Christianity claims that Jesus was resurrected from the grave and appeared to his followers before he was taken up into heaven. Whether we believe that or not, there seems to me to be a desire and hope in nearly all humanity to believe in the eternal life of the human soul and to see forgiveness, joy and completion extended to every person that dies. We can mourn the loss of a loved one, but we can also remember with gratitude and love the good times we shared. That is indeed a kind of resurrection of the one who has died.
One thing we here can all do together is to covenant to extend a warm and loving welcome to all . . . because we believe in the dignity and sacred worth of every person. [There are relatively few congregations] to openly welcome gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgendered persons . . . [and to serve as catalysts] for religious freedom, social justice and responsible stewardship of the earth and all its life forms and resources. Although we may have differences when it comes to theological belief systems, we respect the life and faith of every single person. Respect is a recipe that we have [to make] work.
We need compassion for this time in which we live. We need compassion for the thousands of people being branded as illegal immigrants in this country, a compassion that can be found in the teachings of a young Jewish carpenter named Jesus. It was in the name of Jesus that Dorothy Day crusaded for the rights of the poor and those being victimized by major corporations. It was in the name of Jesus that men and women in the past crusaded against slavery and holding sharecroppers in servitude. It was in the name of Jesus some crusaded for child labor laws, unemployment insurance, a minimum wage and decent housing for the poor. It was in the name of Jesus that Martin Luther King, Jr. marched with workers who were only asking for a living wage. He gave his life for the freedom and equality of all people. Our remembrance of these persons and others like them is a resurrection of their lives.
Along with compassion, we need courage for this time. Bill Moyers said recently in a talk, "This is a time for heresy, as American democracy is being threatened by perversion of money, power and religion. Money has bought out elections right out from under us. Power has turned our government of the people, by the people and for the people into the patron of privilege. Religions have been hijacked by fundamentalists who have made religion the language of power, the excuse for violence, and the alibi for empire. We must answer the principalities and powers that would force on America a stifling conformity, or the day will come when we will no longer recognize the country we love."
The name of Jesus has not always been associated with compassion and courage. It has also been used to segregate, discriminate and separate. An unspoken motto of many churches and religious leaders has been "The urge to purge, rather than the urge to merge." Instead of striving to achieve oneness as a religion or a human race, many religious leaders obsessed by their own narrow views, have discriminated against women, against homosexuals, against equal rights for all, against religious diversity, against anyone who disagrees with them, and against the deepest values and ideals of our own country. We need to find a unifying purpose and principle in both government and religion, for if we don't, the day will come when we will no longer be the land of the free and the home of the brave.
An old rabbinic saying expresses it well: "We agree to differ; we promise to love, and we unite to serve." That may sound like a recipe, and perhaps it is, but it is not an easy recipe. It will take complete dedication on the part of all of us to live it out fully. But in the end it will take us beyond our differences and unite us in a sacred work. We can always do more together than we can do alone. We need each other. We always have, and we always will.
A year ago I wrote out a list of Spiritual Principles by Which to Live and shared them with you. This list is the result of my living my last fifty years as a minister and educator, coupled with a growing, evolving belief that these principles will bring me my greatest joy. It is also the best recipe I know for bringing harmony and peace to the world. I repeat it again in slightly abbreviated form.
1, Everything is one. All creation is an expression of a higher force we traditionally have called God. We are all connected to all life.
2. Unconditional love is the highest expression of our being . The greatest act of our lives is to love, because it is love that brought us into being, and it is love that will see us safely through this life.
3. Life is eternal and our most precious gift. We do not die. The body dies, but something within each of us is eternal and lives forever. Call it the soul, the spirit, consciousness, or whatever you will. Life, I believe, is eternal. We must not only respect our own lives, we must also cease from any activity, especially war, that would harm or destroy others.
4. All religious systems contain some truth, but they also have some tenets that are not true. There is no one true church or one true religion. All religions are the products of human growth and diversity and subject to human error.
5. Slowly the world is being spiritually transformed. A new consciousness and unity is slowly being achieved. Even though our government has made some horrible mistakes recently in relation to Afghanistan and Iraq, a higher consciousness and a new unity of people is being slowly achieved. This vision will slowly become a reality as more people begin to work toward it.
I do not offer these principles as easy recipes, for they are not. I am only stating what I think must happen if we are going to create a better world. We may not live to see all the changes for which we yearn, but we can leave this earth knowing that we, in some small way, helped to create a better world for future generations. How can we ask for any more than that?
This is not a time to be frightened or skeptical. This is a time to move forward with courage, compassion and faith. We are, as I said earlier, at the edge of an age of tumultuous transformation, an age of enlightenment, understanding and love. So today I say to this congregation today and to all who hear or read these words: don't turn back and don't give up. We're on our way.
posted by Rev. Rick Mitchell, PhD at 9:39 PM
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