2, 4, 6, 8: Who Do We Appreciate?

A minister wanted to modernize his church a little bit. So he had the paper-towel dispensers removed from the restrooms and he had those hot-air hand dryers put in. But then, a couple weeks later, he had the hot-air hand dryers taken out of the restrooms and the paper-towel dispensers put back in. Somebody asked him, “Why?” The minister said, because he went into the restroom the other day and someone had put a sign on one of the hot-air hand dryers. The sign said, “If you want to know what last Sunday’s sermon was about, press here.” I imagine there are some ministers who’ve given sermons that aren’t appreciated by everyone. I wouldn’t know. I’ve never experienced that.

Charles Schwab, the investment expert, says, “The way to develop the best that is in a [person] is by appreciation and encouragement.” I think life would be better, people would do better, things would run better, if we all appreciated those around us more. So, let us appreciate, if not the preachers in our lives, the spiritual guides in our lives.

I heard a preacher preach a sermon once, quoting a Bible verse, to justify not tipping waiters and waitresses, because they’re “just doing their job.” Yikes! The preacher said: You don’t have to tip waiters and waitresses, if they’re not going over and above “just doing their job.” Right. It’s not as if waiters and waitresses are being paid less than minimum wage, with the understanding that customers will increase their pay by tipping them. I think there’s a special place in hell for people who don’t tip waiters and waitresses. And for preachers who preach sermons that say,  “Don’t tip waiters and waitresses.” (And I don’t even believe in hell, I’m just using it to make a point.)

Ralph Marston started a website several years ago called, “The Daily Motivator.” Now, Ralph Marston is rich and famous. Ralph Marston says, “Truly appreciate those around you, and you'll soon find many others around you.” I think we should all appreciate workers we see in our everyday lives. So, let us express our appreciation to waiters and waitresses, in the way that they appreciate: by tipping them. They say you should tip 15 to 20%. (Personally, I try to tip at least 20%. Not because I’m so generous; it’s just easier to figure out 20% than 15%.)

I think some of you may know that I am a science-phobe. Actually, it’s not that I fear science, I just don’t have a scientific mind. I appreciate all that science has given us - space rockets, man on the moon, tang - I just don’t always understand science. For those who are familiar with the TV show “The Big Bang Theory,” I am the Penny of life. (Penny is the non-scientific foil on the show.)

Anthony Daniels may, I’m not sure, but may share my non-scientific mind. Anthony Daniels is the actor who played C-3PO in the Star Wars movies. (He wasn’t the little robot-y thing, R2d2; he was the one who looked like the Tin Man in “The Wizard of Oz.”) Anthony Daniels says, now, “I have a greater appreciation for kitchen appliances, having played one.” I think we should all (including me) appreciate those who use science to make life better. So, let us express our appreciation to scientists, for making discoveries that usually advance our lives: in space, in the kitchen, everywhere.

Voltaire, the philosopher and advocate for religious freedom, was born in Paris in 1694. Voltaire was an artist, a prolific writer of every genre: poems, plays, novels, essays, historical and scientific works. Voltaire says, “Appreciation is a wonderful thing: It makes what is excellent in others belong to us as well.” Artists, like Voltaire - poets, playwrights, painters and more - share with us their vision of life, even if it makes us uncomfortable. I think artists are often unappreciated (that’s why they’re sometimes called starving artists). So, let us express our appreciation to artists: poets, playwrights, painters and more (including church singers and musicians).

I saw a bumper sticker a few years ago that said, “If you can read this bumper sticker, thank a teacher.” I think one of the most under-appreciated professions in America is teaching. Teachers teach our kids, they taught us and we rarely express our appreciation. Solomon Ortiz is a former Democratic congressman from Texas. (My guess is that being a Democratic congressman from Texas puts you on the endangered species list.) Solomon Ortiz says: “...we must all do more to show our continued appreciation for our Nation's leading role models.” Teachers. I think we should all appreciate those who teach our kids and who taught us. So, let us express our appreciation to teachers (including, of course, Sunday School teachers), for helping us to learn how to think for ourselves.

I heard or read once that on the day President Kennedy was assassinated, a teacher down south went into her classroom and announced the president’s death. The school kids cheered. Yikes! Talk about living in two Americas. (I can’t imagine living in that America.) Obviously not everyone appreciated President Kennedy. President Kennedy says, “...the highest appreciation is not to utter words, but to live by them.” He certainly did that. I think we should all appreciate those who run for political office, and sometimes risk their lives to do it. So, let us express our appreciation to politicians even those (and this is very difficult for me to say) even those we disagree with.

Let me take a minute to brag on my daughter, if you will. She’s an intern in Washington in Sen. Carl Levin’s office. In a few weeks, she’ll intern for the rest of the summer in Sen. Tom Harkin’s office. I’m so proud of her. As I imagine, or at least I hope, that all parents are proud of their children. Haim Ginott was a school teacher in Israel, a child psychologist and the author of the book, “Between Parent and Child.” Haim Ginott says, “If you want your children to improve, let them overhear the nice things you say about them to others.” I think all children - like all adults - want to be appreciated. So, let us express our appreciation to our children - in some cases, for just being children.

I’ve started sending my wife flowers at work. For traditional flower-sending holidays, like Valentine’s Day. And even for non-traditional flower-sending holidays, like St. Patrick’s Day. (She’s not even Irish. Although I guess we’re all Irish on St. Patrick’s Day. “I’ll take another green beer, please.”) I send her flowers, because she appreciates getting flowers. I also do it to show how much I appreciate her. Mother Teresa says, “There is more hunger for love and appreciation in this world than for bread.” I think we should all appreciate those we love. So, let us express our appreciation to loved ones; with words, and maybe even sometimes with flowers.

My wife and I moved to Muskegon a few weeks ago. We live a five minute stroll from the beach, so we watch a sunset nearly every night. Now I’m not a big fan of “praising” God. It makes me think that if God exists, she has an ego that needs to be stroked. But when I see a sunset, I want to praise someone or something. Or maybe just say, “Thank heavens!” Alan Cohen owns the Florida Panthers hockey team. (I guess they’re called the Panthers, because panthers are known to be so agile on the ice.) Alan Cohen says, “Appreciation is the highest form of prayer.” I think we should all appreciate all the life that surrounds us. So, let us express our appreciation to God or Goddess or Nature or the Universe or the Holy or the Source or Whatever, for all that is seen and unseen.

Today we celebrate Appreciation Sunday, a chance for us to say, “Thank you,” to those who give of their time, talent and treasure to make this congregation what it is. So: If you give of your time, by showing up here on Sunday morning or in some other way, “Thank you.” If you give of your talent, by singing or playing an instrument on Sunday morning or in some other way, “Thank you.” If you give of your treasure, by putting money in the collection basket on Sunday morning or in some other way, “Thank you.”

I was listening to the radio the other day and I heard a phrase in a piece of music that says what I want to say better than I can. “Life is a song worth singing.” Isn’t that the truth. So, let us sing the song of life, let us express our appreciation for life and let us express our appreciation to all those who make our life and our congregation better. Oh, and thank you for listening to my sermon. I appreciate it.

Three Mothers I Admire

NARRATOR
Welcome to the theater...of the mind.
This is a three-act play,
on this Mother’s Day,
entitled, “Three Mothers I Admire.”
I’m the Narrator.
I’m also one of the actors,
along with my wife, Kathleen.

Act 1.
It’s a beautiful sunny day.
A man is in his backyard,
holding a golf club.

MOTHER EARTH
Ouch!

SON OF THE EARTH
Who said that?

MOTHER EARTH
I did.

SON OF THE EARTH
Who are you?

MOTHER EARTH
Your Mother.

SON OF THE EARTH
Mom? You sound different.

MOTHER EARTH
Not your biological mother.
Mother Earth.

SON OF THE EARTH
Holy cow!
Where are you?

MOTHER EARTH
Down here, under you.
Where’d you think I’d be?
By the way,
what are you wearing on your feet?

SON OF THE EARTH
Golf shoes.

MOTHER EARTH
Golf shoes?
Cleats!
Oh my aching back!

SON OF THE EARTH
Sorry.
I was just practicing some chip shots in the backyard
and I wanted to wear what I wear on the golf course.

MOTHER EARTH
Don’t apologize.
Usually I like cleated golf shoes.
They’re like acupuncture to me.
I guess I’m just feeling old today.

SON OF THE EARTH
Old?
You’re not that old.
Why, some people say you’re only about 6,000 years old.

MOTHER EARTH
Yeah, right.
And if you believe that, I’ve got some swampland in Florida I’d like to sell you.
Wait a minute.
Come to think of it, I do have some swampland in Florida I’d like to sell you.

SON OF THE EARTH
Well, how old are you then?

MOTHER EARTH
Don’t you know you’re not supposed to ask a woman her age?

SON OF THE EARTH
Sorry.

MOTHER EARTH
That’s okay.
I’m not afraid to reveal my age.
I like to say that this year I’ll celebrate my 5 billionth anniversary of turning 29.

SON OF THE EARTH
But I thought that The Big Bang Theory tells us the earth is 14 billion years old.
I don’t mean scientists.
I mean the theme song for the TV show The Big Bang Theory.
I hear it every week.

MOTHER EARTH
They’re talking about the Universe.
The universe is about 14 billion years old.
I’m just a child compared to the universe.

SON OF THE EARTH
So why do some people say you’re only 6,000 years old?

MOTHER EARTH
Religion.
Religion makes some folks believe unusual things.

SON OF THE EARTH
Like believing that I’m talking to Mother Earth right now?

MOTHER EARTH
Something like that.
But I was thinking more along the lines of religious people
believing that an earthquake is God expressing anger.

SON OF THE EARTH
It’s not?
Is it you expressing anger?

MOTHER EARTH
[Chuckles] No.
It’s just my tectonic plates shifting.

SON OF THE EARTH
In anger?

MOTHER EARTH
[Chuckles] No.
Not that I don’t have plenty to be angry about.
Global Warming.
Over-population.
Air, Water and Soil Pollution.
The list goes on and on and on.

SON OF THE EARTH
On behalf of all human beings, I apologize.

MOTHER EARTH
No need to apologize.
It’s not as if it’s all just the fault of human beings.
What am I saying?
Of course it’s all just the fault of human beings!
It’s not as if zebras are causing Global Warming.
Or bears are causing Over-Population.
Or dolphins are causing Air, Water and Soil Pollution.
That’s all the fault of you humans.

SON OF THE EARTH
Why do we do that?

MOTHER EARTH
Probably religion again.
Some people take the words in the Hebrew scriptures literally.

SON OF THE EARTH
Which words?

MOTHER EARTH
The ones where it says that after God created humankind in God’s image,
“God blessed them, and God said to them,
‘Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it;
and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air
and over every living thing that moves upon the earth.’”

SON OF THE EARTH
But those are beautiful words.
Very poetic.

MOTHER EARTH
I know.
But some people hear those words, “subdue” and “dominion,”
and think they hear the words, “pollute” and “over-populate.”

SON OF THE EARTH
Oh.
Well, in defense of humankind,
some people believe the earth is just a stepping stone to heaven.
We can do to the earth whatever we want
and it’ll all work out “in the sweet by and by.”

MOTHER EARTH
That’s a defense?

SON OF THE EARTH
Yes, although admittedly, not a very good one.
Let’s hope humankind wakes up
to the fact that the earth is all we’ve got
and we should protect and preserve it.

MOTHER EARTH
Let’s hope.
By the way, what’s your favorite part of me?

SON OF THE EARTH
Oh, I love so much of you:
Trees with their fall colors.
Magnificent mountains.
Even a fresh layer of new-fallen snow.
But probably my favorite part of you
is walking along the beach at sunset, barefoot.
I love the feel of sand between my toes.

MOTHER EARTH
And I love the feel of toes between my sand.

SON OF THE EARTH
I love you, Mother.

MOTHER EARTH
I love you, too, Son.

SON OF THE EARTH
Happy Mother’s Day!

MOTHER
Thanks!


NARRATOR
Act 2.
A darkened room.
A single lightbulb is hanging from a wire
above a table where a man is sitting.
He’s a psychic, gazing into his crystal ball,
to communicate with a woman beyond the grave.
She speaks.

MOTHER TERESA
Who’s there?

PSYCHIC
Mother?

MOTHER TERESA
Yes.

PSYCHIC
Mother Teresa?

MOTHER TERESA
Yes. How can I help you?

PSYCHIC
I wanted to talk to you about your life.

MOTHER TERESA
Whatever for?

PSYCHIC
Well, you’re up for sainthood in the Catholic church.
You received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.
And I just find your life,
your spiritual life,
your commitment to charity,
amazing. Miraculous even.

MOTHER TERESA
The miracle is not that we did the work,
but that we were happy to do it.

PSYCHIC
Yes.
I’ve read about your life...

MOTHER TERESA
[Rolls her eyes] You mean you checked me out on Wikipedia.

PSYCHIC
Well...yeah.
And I read there that you were born on August 26th, 1910.
But you consider the next day, August 27th, the day you were baptized,
as your “true birthday.”

MOTHER TERESA
Yes.
By blood, I am Albanian.
By citizenship, an Indian.
By faith, I am a Catholic nun.
As to my calling,
I belong to the world.
As to my heart,
I belong entirely to the Heart of Jesus.
How long have you been a Catholic, my son?

PSYCHIC
Ahhh...well...umm...I’m not.

MOTHER TERESA
You’re not?!
Well then, how long have you been a...
[says it like she just sucked on a lemon]
...Protestant?

PSYCHIC
I’m not a Protestant, either, really.
I’m a...Unitarian.

MOTHER TERESA
God in heaven!
[Crosses herself.]
Well, you’re relatively young.
There’s still time for you to convert to Catholicism.

PSYCHIC
Riiiight.
Now I have to admit
that you and I disagree on a couple of issues.
The issue of abortion.
I support a woman’s right to choose.
And I know you don’t.

MOTHER TERESA
I’m a Catholic nun.
What can I tell ya?

PSYCHIC
I also have to admit,
another issue I never understood is why,
when you were handing out food
to the poorest of the poor in India,
why you didn’t also hand out condoms.
I would think over-population is a big problem in India.

MOTHER TERESA
Again, I’m a Catholic nun.
What can I tell ya?

PSYCHIC
True.
Okay, so let’s set those issues aside
and just talk about your spiritual life
and your charitable work.

MOTHER TERESA
Sounds good.

PSYCHIC
You founded the Missionaries of Charity,
a Roman Catholic religious congregation,
which this year consisted of over 4,500 sisters
and is active in 133 countries.
Wow.

MOTHER TERESA
We ourselves felt that what we were doing was just a drop in the ocean.
But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop.
Let us touch the dying, the poor, the lonely and the unwanted
according to the graces we have received
and let us not be ashamed or slow to do the humble work.

PSYCHIC
You are like love personified.
How important is love in what you do?

MOTHER TERESA
The hunger for love is much more difficult to remove than the hunger for bread.
Spread love everywhere you go.
Let no one ever come to you without leaving happier.
Love is a fruit in season at all times, and within reach of every hand.

PSYCHIC
Many of the people you helped were all alone in the world,
with nobody else to give them a hand.

MOTHER TERESA
One of the greatest diseases is to be nobody to anybody.
The biggest disease today is not leprosy or tuberculosis, but rather the feeling of being unwanted.
Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody,
I think that is a much greater hunger,
a much greater poverty, than the person who has nothing to eat.

PSYCHIC
What would you like to say to people today?

MOTHER TERESA
I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor.
Do you know your next door neighbor?
Be faithful in small things because it is in them that your strength lies.
If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one.
Peace begins with a smile.

PSYCHIC
Mother Teresa, thanks for talking with me.

MOTHER TERESA
You’re welcome.

PSYCHIC
It is Mother’s Day.
And I just want to say:
Happy Mother’s Day, Mother Teresa.

MOTHER TERESA
[Chuckles] But I was never a mother.
I never had any children.

PSYCHIC
Oh, I think you had millions of children.
Many of them were adults.
Happy Mother’s Day.

MOTHER TERESA
Thank you.
And God bless you.


NARRATOR
Act 3.
It’s a beautiful summer day.
A 9-year-old boy is playing baseball
with neighborhood children in a field.
A blue-haired lady, in a flowered dress,
who lives in a house near the field,
steps out onto her side-porch and bellows...

GRANDMA
Billy! Lunch!

BILLY
Oh, I gotta run guys. Sorry.
(Oh man, running to my Grandma’s house isn’t easy.
It seems like her house is a mile away.
I’ll bet when I’m older, though,
I’ll realize this field was just across the street
from her house, maybe a hundred feet away.)

GRANDMA
Hi, Billy.
Wash your hands.

BILLY
Okay, Grandma.
What’s for lunch?

GRANDMA
Sliced tomato and cottage cheese
and a braunschweiger and onion sandwich,
with lots of mayonnaise.
And a glass of whole milk.

BILLY
Oh, boy!
My favorites!
I sure am lucky to be living in 1964,
before anybody has ever heard of
cholesterol or clogged arteries.

GRANDMA
What are you talking about?
Just eat your lunch.
But first say grace.

BILLY
Good food, good meat, good God, let’s eat.
Amen.

GRANDMA
Billy! Show a little respect!
Don’t you learn anything
when I take you to church every Sunday?

BILLY
Well, this past Sunday I learned that the Communion wine
they serve in church is really grape juice.
Hello!
And it’s not even Welch’s grape juice.
It’s some kind of funky generic brand!

GRANDMA
What did you expect?
They can’t serve real wine
or they’d have every drunk in town show up for church.

BILLY
[Chuckles] Yeah, we can’t have that.

GRANDMA
Of course not.
And they serve generic brand grape juice,
Mr. Smarty Pants,
because churches these days have to scrimp and save just to get by.
I’ll bet churches 50 years from now
won’t have to worry about money at all.

BILLY
From your mouth to God’s ears.

GRANDMA
Billy, do you know why I take you to church every Sunday?

BILLY
Not a clue.

GRANDMA
Because one day I’d like to see you
grow up to be a minister.

BILLY
Seriously?

GRANDMA
[Laughing] Are you kidding?
How hard up would God have to be
to have you as a minister?

BILLY
Gee thanks, Grandma.

GRANDMA
Hurry up and eat your lunch.
The TV Weatherman, Buck Matthews,
whom I worship like a god,
just said we’re under a tornado watch.
We have to get down in the basement till it’s over.

BILLY
Aw, it’s so boring in the basement.

GRANDMA
Are you kidding?
You love it in the basement.
Remember, I’m the township clerk,
so I have old ballots you like to draw on the back of.

BILLY
True.
You’re the township clerk?

GRANDMA
Yup.
I’m about the only Democrat in this town,
but they vote for me anyway.
They say it’s because they love me.

BILLY
(Chuckles) So they love you, even though you’re a Democrat.

GRANDMA
Yes. Isn’t that nice?

BILLY
Ah, I guess.
You know what Grandma?

GRANDMA
No. What?

BILLY
I’m glad you live next door to us.
Then I can come visit you
whenever I get bored at home.

GRANDMA
[Chuckles] Gee, it’s nice to know
I’m your alternative to boredom.

BILLY
I didn’t mean it that way.
It’s just fun to come over here.

GRANDMA
I’m glad you feel that way.

BILLY
Grandma, can I ask you something?

GRANDMA
Sure. What is it?

BILLY
What do people mean when they say you’re a Gold Star Mother?
Is that the same thing as when we get a gold star in school?

GRANDMA
[Sigh] No, not exactly.
Do you remember seeing the picture of a young man in uniform in my living room?

BILLY
Yes.

GRANDMA
That’s my son, Curt.
Your mother’s brother.
Your Uncle Curt.
He died in the Korean War, a couple years before you were born.

BILLY
I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t make you feel bad.

GRANDMA
No, you didn’t.
I’m glad you asked me.
It’s good to remember Curt, he was a good son.

BILLY
I wish I would’ve known him.

GRANDMA
You would’ve liked him.
And he would’ve liked you.

BILLY
You think?

GRANDMA
I know.
He was irrepressible.
Just like you are irrepressible.

BILLY
Whatever that means.

GRANDMA
Billy, remember when I kidded you before
about you becoming a minister?

BILLY
I’m trying to forget.

GRANDMA
Well, I didn’t really mean it.

BILLY
Really?

GRANDMA
Really.
I think you’d make a fine minister.

BILLY
Gee, thanks Grandma.
You know, I don’t come over to your house when I’m bored.
I come over to your house because you nurture me in body, mind and spirit.
 You show me the meaning of unconditional love.
And you demonstrate to me the importance of finding joy in life.
Grandma?

GRANDMA
Yes, Billy.

BILLY
I love you.

GRANDMA
I love you, too, Billy.

BILLY
Happy Mother’s Day!

GRANDMA
Thanks.


NARRATOR (BILL FREEMAN)
I’d like to thank Kathleen for taking part in this.
She was not the focus of one of the acts,
not because she’s not a mother I admire.
She is.
But I’m waiting for Best Friend’s Day, then I’ll write about her.

Also, many of Mother Teresa’s words
were actually things she’d said over the years.

Finally, in the interest of full disclosure,
I can never remember having a conversation with my Grandma
about me going into the ministry.
But I do believe she would’ve been supportive of me becoming a minister.
Thank you for listening to our little theater presentation.
And Happy Mother’s Day.

All I Really Need To Know I Learned From Television

Years ago, there was a television show about a radio station, “WKRP in Cinncinnati.” One day the station manager had a brilliant idea for a promotion – give away free live turkeys for Thanksgiving. So they got people to gather in a grocery store parking lot. The radio station’s newsman was there to describe the scene because this was going to be an historic event. Then a helicopter flew over and the station manager and the sales manager dropped the live turkeys from the helicopter. The newsman described the horrific scene. He said the turkeys, “fell like wet bags of cement.” Thankfully nobody was hurt, except for the turkeys. The station manager said afterwards, “As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly!” One of the funniest moments on television ever. 

I’ve spent a lifetime watching television. Some people would say I’ve wasted a lifetime watching television. But I don’t think so. Robert Fulghum, a Unitarian Universalist minister, wrote a best-selling book several years ago, “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten.” I read that book at that time; it was wonderful! He said to play nice, put things away when you’re done with them, take a nap in the afternoon. Wonderful advice. It’s what we all learned in kindergarten. 

But I learned a different way. All I really need to know, I learned from television. I learned about classical music from watching “Bugs Bunny” and the “Lone Ranger.” I learned that if you’re ever arrested, never say a word to the police without your attorney there. I heard that on “NYPD Blue” and many other police shows. I learned about the law from watching every episode of “Boston Legal.” Although, I talked with an attorney who said that he couldn’t make it through even one episode of that because it was unlike the law. But I’ve learned about several legal issues from that show at least. 

Admittedly, I had to unlearn some things from watching television. I had to unlearn that, unlike Wile E. Coyote, when people fall seemingly to their death, they don’t show up ten seconds later. Even Jesus took three days to show up, according to my Christian brothers and sisters. 

Groucho Marx said, “Television is very educational. Whenever someone turns on a television set, I go in the other room and read a book.” 

I used to, I think, get my affirmation from TV. I watch, therefore I am. I hope I don’t do that anymore. I think I am healthier today because of television, not because I was a couch potato or anything, but because of the anti-smoking ads on TV, I never took up the habit of smoking. Because of the anti-drug ads on TV, I never did drugs, because they said they would kill brain cells, and I was smart enough to know I didn’t have any brain cells to spare. 

Nicholas Johnson was a member of the Federal Communications Commission years ago. He said, “All television is educational television. The question is, what is it teaching?” Sometimes it teaches really well. 

I remember an episode of “The West Wing,” which taught people, I think, about the Bible and homosexuality. The President was greeting a group of radio talk show hosts that came to the White House. As he said hello to them, he noticed one radio talk show host in particular, a woman who was there to take the place, I think, of Doctor Laura, that’s who she represented on the show. He said to her, “I like the way you say that homosexuality is an abomination.” She said, “I don’t say that, Mr. President, the Bible does.” He said yes and quoted Leviticus. He said, “I’m glad you’re here because you can help me with some things. I’m thinking of selling my daughter into slavery, as the Bible says you can do. What would be a fair price for her?” He said, “My chief of staff insists on working on the Sabbath, which the Bible calls an abomination, and he should be put to death. My question is, do I have to kill him myself or can I have the Secret Service do that?” He said, “My mother wears clothing made from two different fabrics, which the Bible says is an abomination and she should be put to death. Should we have a family get-together and all kill her together?” This was three or four of the best moments on television and advanced the issue of gay rights for many people, I believe.

I was home sick on November 22, 1963, lying in our living room, watching television when a bulletin came on that President Kennedy had been assassinated. I watched all the coverage that day, and then that Sunday, coming home from church, we turned the TV on and saw Lee Harvey Oswald get shot by Jack Ruby. I’ve seen people die on television, as we all have. Mark Twain said, “A person who has lived to the full is prepared for death,” but I wish some people could have lived a little longer. 

I was watching television on April 4, 1968. I think I was watching Mannix, when Dan Rather came on to say that Martin Luther King, Jr. had been shot and killed in Memphis. A few years later I was watching NBC when Jane Pauley came on to say that John Lennon had been shot and killed in New York City. I’ve seen and heard about too many deaths on television. 

I heard about McCarthyism from watching a CBS news retrospective many years ago, featuring Edward R. Murrow. I learned about the destruction that can come about when a demagogue is allowed to speak evil, hateful, ignorant things on television. Just recently we heard a congressman who, in a similar vein, said that 80 or so House members are communists because they are progressives. Now, thankfully, he’s just laughed at. 

Winston Churchill said, “Courage is when someone stands up and speaks out.” I’ve seen many people stand up and speak out on television – stand up and speak out for equal rights and against unequal wrongs, speak out for civil rights and against uncivil wrongs. 

I believe that if it wasn’t for the watchful eye of television, the civil rights movement would have ended much quicker and many more civil rights supporters would have died. If it wasn’t for the watchful protective eye of television, people like Bull Connor would have killed African Americans indiscriminately. I think. 

Think about that young man who stood in front of a tank in Tiananmen Square in China many years ago. Because of the watchful, protective eye of television, I think that tank didn’t blow him away. But then China threw out the foreign journalists and unplugged the network cameras and I shudder to think what happened to that young man.

Think about what happened to Rodney King. If somebody hadn’t been there with a camera 20 years ago and television hadn’t broadcast those vile pictures of Rodney King nearly being beaten to death by the police, Rodney King probably would have accused the police of brutality in the courts and the police would have said, “No he just ran into a door, nobody beat him up.” But because of the watchful eye of television, we know that’s not true. And even though those who beat him up were found not guilty the first time, which resulted in riots in Los Angeles, the second time they were found guilty of violating Rodney King’s civil rights. Rodney King said during the riots, “Can we all get along? Can we all get along?” I saw that on television. 

Think about the Treyvon Martin case. Horrible. If it wasn’t for people on television like Reverend Al Sharpton, calling for justice, George Zimmerman would be walking around now without the cloud of second degree murder charges against him. 

Think about the four students killed at Kent State in 1970. If it wasn’t for the watchful eye of television, how many Kent States would there have been across the country, of students protesting the Vietnam War and shot by the military or the police? 

Think about Occupy Wall Street, even with the protective, watchful eye of television, young people have been tasered, have been pepper-sprayed with what seemed like a hose of pepper spray. Can you imagine what would have happened to the Occupy Wall Street people if there hadn’t been the protective eye of television? How many people would be dead? 

My wife and I recently moved from Holland to Muskegon. We were trying to figure out what we should do about television. Should we order cable or satellite? She researched it. It’s hard to get a handle on the exact prices of things. Finally I said, “Let’s not have cable or satellite. We can watch TV shows on the computer. Let’s just do that.” So that’s what we’ve done. Now it’s only been a week and I haven’t yet started getting the shakes, even though I can’t watch “Hardball” and “Politics Nation” with Al Sharpton and “The Daily Show” and “The Colbert Report” live. Hopefully that won’t happen. 

Ann Landers said once, “Television has proved that we will do anything to avoid looking at each other.” I hope that’s not the case for me at least. I hope I don’t watch television to avoid looking at people.

 

Now I’m not going to stand here and tell you that everything on television is just wonderful. It’s not. You know that. There is much trash TV. The Kardashians? Snooky? Fear Factor where people eat bugs just to get on TV? Much of what is on TV is God-awful. Gallagher, a comedian, who smashes fruit on stage, said, “I wish television sets had a knob where you could turn up the intelligence.” He said there is a brightness knob, but that doesn’t really work.

Why do people watch bad TV? I can’t figure it out. You can usually tell when a sitcom is bad by the loudness of the laugh track. The louder the laugh track, usually the worse the sitcom. But there are good programs on TV, even though back in the 60s, 1961, the chair of the Federal Communications Commission, a man named Newton Minow, called television “a vast wasteland.” But this was at a time when CBS News aired a report “Harvest of Shame,” detailing the inhumane treatment of migrant farm workers. I wonder how much better things are today. This was at a time when Carl Reiner and Mel Brooks worked in television. This was at a time just before Johnny Carson took over “The Tonight Show.” I don’t think all television is a vast wasteland, although Ernie Kovacs defined television as “a medium, so-called because it is neither rare nor well-done.” 

But television has given us “Cheers,” and “Seinfeld.” Television has given  us “Hill Street Blues” and “St. Elsewhere.” Television has given us “Modern Family” and “The Big Bang Theory.” Television has given us Bill Moyers and Charles Kurault. 

Years ago I watched “Sunday Morning with Charles Kurault” religiously. It was my church. I was there every Sunday in front of the TV. Charles Kurault was my minister. He lifted my spirits. He touched my soul. “Sunday Morning with Charles Kurault” took us to Tienanmen Square in China. . “Sunday Morning with Charles Kurault” took us to Russia to see the return of Vladamir Horowitz, the great concert pianist, for his first trip to Russia in more than 60 years and we saw a live concert from Vladamir Horowitz. . “Sunday Morning with Charles Kurault” took us to South Africa to watch live when Nelson Mandela was released from prison. Charles Kurault said once, “There is a national conscience that can be touched.” And I think Charles Kurault touched that national conscience quite often. 

Television is just a box. It can be a jewelry box full of valuables. Or it can be Pandora’s box, full of evil. The choice is up to each one of us. That’s something I learned from television.

Creation Stories That End With A Bang!

I love Ricky Gervais. Ricky Gervais has hosted the Golden Globes the last couple years. He’s been refreshingly irreverent. Ricky Gervais is the creator of the British “Office” which became the American “Office.” Ricky Gervais created “Extras,” which is a British comedy. If you haven’t seen it, you should get it.

A year or so ago Ricky Gervais made a movie, “The Invention of Lying.” He played a guy who lives in a time and place where nobody lies. Nobody ever heard of lying; nobody knows what lying is. Then Ricky Gervais owes rent money, but he doesn’t have the money. So he goes to the bank and the teller says, “You don’t have any money.” He says, “Yes, I have lots of money in there.” Of course, the teller believed him because nobody has ever lied. So he gets a lot of money out of the bank. Then his mother is dying in the hospital. She’s frightened. She’s wondering what’s going to happen after her life ends. Is this all there is? Ricky Gervais tells her no, after you die you go to a place of peace and serenity – heaven. Then she passes on in comfort. Hospital workers overheard him say this to his mother and of course they believed him, because everybody tells the truth, nobody lies. So then he becomes a prophet, speaking on behalf of the sky god and they believe everything he says.

In real life Ricky Gervais is an atheist. I think at the end of the Golden Globes a couple of years ago he said, “I want to thank God for making me an atheist.” I imagine that Ricky Gervais believes that stories that religions tell are lies. Like creation stories. I imagine he believes those are lies. But are they? Are they lies? If my wife and I are driving along and we see a car, empty by the side of the road and I say, “I imagine the car ran out of gas and the driver has gone to buy a gallon of gas to get it going.” Then she says, “No, I’ll bet that the driver was kidnapped and is in danger.” Now neither one of us knows the truth, but are we lying or are we just guessing? Are writers of different religions’ creation stories lying or are they just guessing?

Joseph Campbell, as you probably know, is an expert on comparative religions and religious myths. Joseph Campbell said once, “Follow your bliss.” He was interviewed several years ago by Bill Moyers for the PBS program, “The Story of Myth.” Joseph Campbell said, “All the gods, all the heavens, all the worlds are inside us. They are magnified dreams.” Are religions that tell creation stories lying, are they guessing, or are they telling magnified dreams? What they hope happened, what they think happened, their best guess at what happened, maybe their poetic way of saying it, their imaginative words.

Now religious people have a problem with the word “myth.” They don’t like that word, it has a negative connotation. “Maybe your religions’ creation stories are myths, but my religion’s creation stories are true. They’re truth.” Many religious people have a problem calling creation stories and other spiritual stories “myths.” But what else can we call them?

Native peoples believe that the North American continent rests upon a big, gigantic turtle. I’ve also heard that there are those who believe that the earth itself rests on a stack of turtles. And I’ve heard the question asked, “Well, what’s underneath the bottom turtle of that stack?” And of course the answer is: another turtle.

Now some might call those silly stories. Some might call them lies. Some might call them myths. Some might call them magnified dreams. But they are, I think, told mainly so children and adults can understand, and can visualize, what nobody really knows for sure, or nobody knew for sure when the story was made up.

Ancient Africans believed that people were made out of clay and these clay people travelled the globe. Some went north, where there isn’t as much sun. Some went south, where there’s more sun. So the clay people that went north have light colored clay and the people who went south have dark colored clay. Some might say that’s a silly story, a myth, perhaps told so children, inquiring as to what goes on, would have some kind of explanation, perhaps explaining why we have different skin color, a poetic way of telling that story. It’s poetic, it’s imaginative, it’s a story. But I don’t think it’s a lie. It’s just a way of trying to explain why we have different skin colors.

Long ago, Greeks believed that a big bird laid a golden egg and the bird sat upon the egg for a long time. Then the egg hatched and part of the eggshell went up and became the sky and the other part became the earth. A silly story, some might say. A creative creation story. I would say not necessarily a lie. A myth. Nobody really knows for sure. And remember, hundreds of years ago, people all over the world thought the earth was flat! Unfortunately some people still believe that. In fact, they also believe that humankind never set foot on the moon – that it all happened at some studio at NBC.

Christians and Jews share a creation story – Genesis 1. “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moved across the waters and God said, “Let there be light. And there was light. And God saw that it was good. And God separated the light from the darkness. And the light God called day and the darkness God called night. And there was evening and there was morning, the first day.”

Now I like that story. Maybe because that’s what I grew up with. But it seems to me it’s very poetical, it’s very creative, it’s very imaginative. It’s not true, it’s a myth, but it’s got nice words. It’s a nice description of what might have been true to people a couple thousand years ago who had no idea how the world began.

Some people, unfortunately many Christians, take those words as literal truth. I did a Bible study at my first church. Now, you have to understand, this was a church in a denomination that’s said to be the most liberal Christian denomination there is. And we read that first story of Genesis and I said afterwards, “Now what did you all think of that? I mean we know that the Bible is not a scientific textbook, and that this is just a poetical story and later on, when it talks about how Adam and Eve were created, that’s not to be taken literally, we know that we are the product of evolution. The moderator of that church, who was in the Bible study, the highest elected official in that church, said, “Oh, well, I don’t believe in evolution. I believe in creationism.” Oy vey! My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?

I know people, otherwise intelligent, rational people, who got A’s all through school, even in science classes, who believe that the earth is 6,000 years old, who believe in what they call a “young earth,” who believe that God planted dinosaur bones in the earth to confuse people. Some people just can’t handle myth. They can understand that Jesus told parables that weren’t true, but those were parables and that was Jesus so it’s OK. But they’d have you believe that Jonah really spent three days in the belly of the whale or their whole belief system crumbles.

Now let’s turn to what scientists say. Scientists tell us their best guess is that the universe began, as you know, with the Big Bang Theory. That 14 billion years ago or so, there was a burst of energy. What happened before that, we’re not sure. What happened a moment before that, they don’t know. They’ve got to say that probably it wasn’t a bang, sort of like the old philosophical question, “If a tree falls in the forest and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?” Well, of course it does, but they say that this didn’t make a bang, they say it made more of a “whoosh.” But anyway, the Big Bang Theory is science, not superstition. And scientists are such that, if there is a better theory that comes along, they’ll go along with that, they won’t cling to the Big Bang Theory forever, because they’re interested in the truth, not holding on to some superstition. Now I’ve pretty much expended all that I know about the Big Bang Theory. Science is not my forte, although you might be surprised by that because every week I do watch, “The Big Bang Theory.”

Spiritual mystics tell us what happened a long time ago doesn’t matter. And what’s going to happen in the future doesn’t matter. The only thing that we should be concerned with is now, because what happened in the past is long gone and what’s going to happen in the future has not yet come along. The only thing that matters is now. So the question is: Are we now going to argue over whose creation story is more correct? Or are we going to try to save creation? Are we going to work towards ending global warming? Are we going to work towards ending air, water, and soil pollution? Are we going to work towards ending wars and killing humans and animals? Are we going to work towards ending, what seems to be coming closer every day, the possibility of nuclear annihilation?

I always get a kick out of people who, and it’s usually Americans, talk about a fear of the first use of nuclear weapons. Actually it would be the third use of nuclear weapons, because as we know, America was the one to use nuclear weapons first and second in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. So the question, it seems to me, is: Are we going to argue over creation stories or are we going to try to protect creation, the earth, humans and animals?

You Can't Keep A Good Prophet Down

This past summer I was having lunch in downtown Holland with a friend of mine. We were eating outside, it was a gorgeous day, a ton of people were walking by. I jokingly said to my friend, “You know, I’m not going to live forever. I was kind of hoping God would make an exception in my case, but I don’t think she will. So I look around and I ask myself, ‘How will these people carry on? How will they get along without me?’” My friend chuckled and said, “Don’t worry. They won’t even notice you’re gone. They won’t miss a beat.” Gee thanks. Of course I know that was true.

Even though many of us will probably only be remembered by those who love us (hopefully), there are people who are remembered sometimes for millennia. I’m thinking of spiritual people, prophets, teachers, whose words and wisdom are remembered for many, many years by millions and millions of people.

Henry Adams was a descendent of the famous political Adams family. His great-grandfather was John Adams, his grandfather was John Quincy Adams. He lived around the turn of the last century. To paraphrase Henry Adams, “A teacher affects eternity. He can never tell where his influence stops.” I can imagine, or at least I hope, all of us have had that kind of teacher, who influenced us, who influences us still. I know I had a couple of them. Probably the most influential teacher I ever had was my preaching prof in seminary.

Now you have to understand, before I went to seminary I was a TV news reporter, many, many years ago, and TV news reporters do what’s called a standup. They hold a microphone and stand up in front of a building like city hall, saying 20 seconds worth of memorized words.  Well, whenever I did a standup, it would take me like 20 takes, because I couldn’t memorize even 20 seconds. Then I went to seminary and our preaching prof said that what he was going to teach us to do was to speak for 20 minutes from memory. Without notes. Without a manuscript. I thought: Good luck. But I took a preaching class every semester, and eventually somehow it happened. He taught us not to just speak from our head, but to speak from our heart. When you speak from your heart, you can memorize twenty minutes worth of words.  Hopefully.

Teachers can affect us forever. As my preaching prof did. Now you also have to understand the fact that he’s not exactly bragging that he taught me because we’re from opposite ends of the spiritual spectrum. He is a conservative Trinitarian and I am a progressive Unitarian, but he taught me nonetheless.

I want to talk to you about three teachers, three prophets, who many of us still remember years, even millennia, after their deaths.

The first prophet I want to talk about said, “I have a dream that one day little black boys and little black girls will be able to hold hands with little white boys and little white girls as brothers and sisters.” Of course I’m talking about Dr. King, who said that in his famous 1963 “I have a dream” speech. Dr. King was an amazing man, as you know. He started college at the age of fifteen. He went on to get a bachelor’s degree and a divinity degree and a PhD by the age of twenty-six. Just recently I read his PhD dissertation and I was surprised by its content. He compared the theology of Henry Nelson Wieman, a Unitarian Universalist, a long time professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School, and Paul Tillich, who I don’t believe was a Unitarian, but many Unitarians look to his theology for insight and inspiration. I was surprised by that, I guess, because I figured that Dr. King was a traditional Baptist minister. But obviously he had very liberal leanings, not just politically, but theologically as well.

As you know, Dr. King began his ministry leading the Montgomery bus boycott after Rosa Parks refused to give up her seat to a white man and sit in the back of the bus. He went on to march for peace and justice and equality. He led peaceful, non-violent protests. Because of him, the voting rights and civil rights laws took effect in the 1960’s. Then on April 4, 1968, he was killed, murdered, assassinated. Why would anyone want to kill Dr. King? He was a man of peace! I think it gets back to the quote I mentioned at the beginning of this section of the sermon. “I have a dream that one day little black boys and little black girls will be able to join hands with little white boys and white girls as sisters and brothers.” Not everyone today wants that to happen. Can you imagine what it was like 50 or 60 years ago? “But Bill, we have a black President!” Yes, we do. And according to the Southern Poverty Law Center the number of death threats against Barack Obama since he took office compared to when George W. Bush left office, the number of death threats have increased 400%. So we have a ways to go to achieve Dr. King’s dream.  Although they could kill his body, they could not snuff out his spirit, they could not erase his words, they could not wipe out his wisdom. His spirit, his words, his wisdom live on in many of us years later and I think will continue to live on for millennia.

The second prophet I want to tell you about said once, “I am a Muslim and a Hindu and a Christian and a Jew, and so are all of you.” Of course I am talking about Gandhi. Gandhi was an amazing man. He was born in 1869 in India. He was a Hindu, in spite of what he said. He became a lawyer and traveled to South Africa, where he began his foray into civil disobedience, peaceful protests. Dr. King said his civil disobedience, his peaceful protests, were influenced by Gandhi. Gandhi returned to India, where eventually he convinced the British government, through peaceful protest and non-violent resistance, to end their Imperial rule of India. Gandhi was the main force for India gaining their independence. On January 30, 1948, Mahatma Gandhi, he was called Mahatma or “great soul”, Mahatma Gandhi went for a walk and as usually happened there was a throng of people around him. One man bowed before him, then pulled out a gun and shot and killed Gandhi. Gandhi’s last words were, “Oh, God!” Why would anyone want to kill Gandhi? He was a man of peace! Again, it gets back to the quote I mentioned at the beginning of this section of the sermon. “I am a Muslim and a Hindu and a Christian and a Jew, and so are all of you.” Some people today would hate that phrase, would hate that idea, would reject being interfaith. Can you imagine what it was like eighty years ago? Although they killed his body, they could not snuff out his spirit, they could not erase his words, they could not wipe out his wisdom. His spirit, his words, his wisdom live on in many of us all these years later and I think they will continue to live on for millennia.

The third prophet I want to talk about has said, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say to you, ‘Love your enemies!’” Of course I am talking about Jesus. Jesus was an amazing man. He was a Jew. At the age of thirty he became a rabbi, a teacher. His ministry lasted one to three years, depending on which gospel you read. I think it would have lasted three years because if it had been just a year he would have been just another flash in the pan. He was followed by at least a dozen disciples they say, but I’ve got to believe dozens and dozens, if not hundreds or thousands, followed Jesus because of his words. Not because he walked on water, not because he changed water into wine; I’m a “Jefferson’s Bible” kind of guy, I don’t believe those things actually happened. But he spoke truth to power, he spoke peace to those who wanted war, I do believe he showed us how to live – that you don’t stone to death an adulterous woman even though the Scriptures say to.

At the age of thirty-three they say, a couple thousand years ago, commemorated this past Friday, Jesus was killed, crucified. Why would anyone want to kill Jesus? He was a man of peace! Again, it gets back to the quote I mentioned earlier. “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy,’ but I say to you, ‘Love your enemies.’” What he was doing there was wrong on so many levels to the religious extremists of his day. It is written in the Hebrew scriptures, “You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemies.” But I say to love your enemies. Who does this Jesus think that he is, changing the scriptures, saying to ignore what the scriptures say and instead follow what he says. The religious leaders of his day, I think their heads were ready to explode. It would be as if today someone said, “It is written in the Christian New Testament, that homosexuals are an abomination, but I say to you, they deserve dignity, and worth, and respect and love.” There would be religious extremists of today who would say, “Who do you think you are saying that? Saying that what you believe is better, is more important, is more right than what is written in the Christian scriptures.” That’s why they killed him. They didn’t kill Jesus for anyone’s sin. They killed Jesus because of their own sin, because they wanted to cling to the sin of hate instead of love, they wanted to cling to the sin of war rather than follow peace, they wanted to cling to the sin of revenge rather than follow Jesus’ words of forgiveness. So they killed him. But even though they snuffed out his body, they could not kill his spirit. They could not erase his words, they could not wipe out his wisdom. So Jesus’ spirit and words and wisdom live on in many of us. And will for millenia. You can’t keep a good prophet down.

Matthew Fox, not the actor from “Lost,” but Matthew Fox the theologian who was kicked out of the Catholic Church for his beliefs, wrote a book several years ago called “Original Blessing.” It was a counterpoint to those who believe in Original Sin. The first chapter of Genesis says that God created humankind and God blessed them. Original Blessing. Not Original Sin. I think we are all born into Original Innocence, not Original Sin, and I think that even evangelical Christians go along with that because they speak about innocent human life in the womb. It seems to me that human life can’t be innocent in the womb one moment and the next moment be born into sin. It doesn’t make any sense. It seems to me that we each are born with original innocence, that every baby born is not a tangle of sin but a bundle of joy and we each keep that original innocence, that spark, that sacred spirit within us for all time. It can never be diminished, it can never be decimated, it can never be dispirited. No matter what anybody does to us, no matter what any of us does, by mistake, we always have within us original innocence, that spark, that sacred spirit always within us.

The other day I turned on the radio and the song came on that I thought was perfect for this sermon. It was either coincidence or providence that that happened. I’ll let you decide. The song is called “Perfect” by Pink. At least that’s what I thought it was called until I looked up the lyrics and found out the song I heard was the G-rated version. There is a PG-13 version that may be more popular with young people.  I’m not going to quote that one. I’m going to quote the G-rated one. Pink sings, “Pretty, pretty please, don’t you ever, ever feel like you’re less than, less than perfect. Pretty, pretty please, if you ever ever feel like you’re nothing, you are perfect to me.” You are, we all are perfect. Born perfect in original innocence, born with a spark of life, born with a sacred spirit that lives on until the end of our days.

Confessions Of A Secular Humorist

I used to be a stand-up comic. At least for a few weekends, many years ago, at the old Comedy Den in Grand Rapids. I MC’d there, which means I introduced the real comics. And I told a few jokes and did a few impressions. Unfortunately, the impressions I did were of people who are either long since retired or are no longer with us. “This is Casey Kasem. Time now for our long-distance dedication.” “Hello, Americans! This is Paul Harvey. Stand by for news!” “This is Walter Cronkite. And that’s the way it is.” “I’m Andy Rooney. Why is it I talk like this? I wonder about that.” I learned a lot about comedy watching those real-life comics do their acts. I saw their acts on Thursday night; two shows on Friday night and two more shows on Saturday night. It’s hard not to learn about telling jokes and telling funny stories and timing after watching all that. Whatever I know about comedy I learned back then.

When I was a kid, I wanted to grow up to be a stand-up comic. But then when I did it those few weekends, at the old Comedy Den, I thought: You know, this isn’t for me. I don’t want to stand up in front of people and...tell...jokes. I don’t want to have to learn new stuff every week...and...memorize...it. Hmmm…? [Laughter]

The Buddha said, “Happiness is never decreased by being shared.” It’s the first day of April. April Fool’s Day. Let’s share a little happiness. Let’s laugh a little. Maybe tell a few jokes, and maybe learn something along the way.

Nobody knows exactly where April Fool’s Day came from. The best guess is that, in the 1500s, they changed the calendar to what we have today. Before that, the first day of the new year was considered to be April 1st. Then they changed it to January 1st. But some silly folks insisted on celebrating the new year on April 1st. They were called “April Fools.”

As the old lyrics say, “Everybody plays the fool sometimes.” In the immortal words of Chuckles the Clown, for those who remember the old Mary Tyler Moore Show, “A little song, a little dance, a little seltzer down your pants.” Now we probably don’t want a little seltzer down our pants, but we do all want to laugh. Not that anybody here worries about sin, but I want to assure you that it’s not a sin to laugh in church.

Mel Brooks, in his movie, “The History of the World, Part I,” gave us an idea of where stand-up comedy came from. He said it was from hundreds of thousands of years ago, during the cave man days. He showed a cave man comedian, talking to other cave men in a cave, telling jokes. But nobody was laughing. He couldn’t get anybody to laugh. Then a dinosaur stuck his head in the cave and grabbed the cave man comedian between his teeth and yanked him out. People thought that was a hoot! They thought it was hilarious! Of course it wasn’t so funny to the cave man comedian.

Eckhardt Tolle says, “Don’t seek happiness. If you seek it, you won’t find it because seeking is the antithesis of happiness.” So let us not seek happiness but let us try to be happy. Or at least try not being unhappy.

When I was a kid, my favorite comedian was Red Skelton. I loved Red Skelton. He had different characters: Clem Kadiddlehopper, the seagulls Gertrude and Heathcliff. Red Skelton was funny. He said there was a guy in prison, about to be electrocuted, sitting in the electric chair. The warden said, “Do you have a last wish?” The man said, “Yeah, I wish you was sitting on my lap.”

Milton Berle was one of pioneers of comedy on TV. Milton Berle said, “Laughter is an instant vacation.” We all need a laughter instant vacation now and then. We all need to laugh.

When I was a little older, my favorite TV comedian was Flip Wilson. I loved Flip Wilson. Flip Wilson had characters, like Reverend Leroy. Reverend Leroy was the minister of the Church of What’s Happenin’ Now. Flip Wilson said he didn’t care about what happened a long time ago, he didn’t care about what was going to happen in the future, he only cared about “What’s happenin’ now!” (You don’t know how close I came to suggesting that Interfaith Congregation in Holland be called The Church of What’s Happenin’ Now!) Flip Wilson didn’t really tell jokes, he told funny stories. He told about a kid who sold lemonade, put a lemonade stand in his front yard and put up a sign that said, “Lemonade: All You Can Drink for a Dime.” A guy stopped, said “I’d like a glass of lemonade,” and the kid said, “That’ll be a dime.” The guy paid the dime. The kid gave him a glass of lemonade. The guy drank it and said, “That’s very good. I’d like another glass. The kid said, “That’ll be another dime.” The guy said, “Wait a minute. Your sign says, ‘Lemonade: All You Can Drink for a Dime.’” The kid said, “That’s right. But you had a glass, didn’t you?” The guy said, “Yeah.” The kid said, “Well, that’s all you can drink for a dime.”

There’s a difference between humor and comedy. Humor is comedy with a college education. Comedian Jay Leno says, “The difference between men and women is that men think The Three Stooges are funny, and women think they’re idiots.” Probably true. I saw a trailer for a new movie coming out about The Three Stooges. Based on the trailer, I think that at best the movie is going to be about comedy rather than humor. (But I’ll go see it anyway.)

A stand-up comic said, “I specialize in self-deprecating humor, but I’m not very good at it.” I don’t think I’m very good at self-deprecating humor, but I don’t like laughing at other people. I look back at my life and think of all the stupid things I’ve done, and notice how kind of funny they are. When I was a kid, I had a stand by my house, too, but I didn’t sell lemonade, I sold rocks! Now they were pretty rocks, I’d get them down the street, brush them off, polish them up and sell them. That was the plan, anyway, but nobody bought any. My family says that I was just a pioneer of the pet rock craze a few years later. Right.

While I try to just pick on myself, I do see funny things about other people do. My sister for example. My sister is a literalist, biblically and otherwise. She and her daughter, my niece, went to the beach along Lake Michigan. They came upon a sign that said, “Senior Pictures.” My sister said, “Oh, isn’t that nice! Some elderly folks must be here today, they’re going to get their picture taken before they go to Florida for the winter.” My niece said, “Uh, Mom, high school senior pictures?” We still laugh about that. Even my sister laughs about it now.

Whenever you see somebody claiming to be a Christian comedian, be very skeptical. You see, usually “Christian comedian” is an oxymoron. They might be funny to a church lady or something, but not to the general public. Although, several years ago I was channel surfing on a Saturday afternoon and I came across somebody who called himself a Christian comedian. And I’m like, “Yeah, right.” But really, this guy was funny. His name was Mark Lowry. I think he sings also, he sings with the Gaither group. I was cracking up listening to this guy. He said, “People ask me what I think about something. I tell them I’m a Lowry; I don’t know what I think about something until I hear the words coming out of my mouth.” I know how he feels. Sometimes I don’t know how I feel about something until I hear the words coming out of my mouth on a Sunday morning.

We all need to laugh. Whenever we can, because life is too short not to laugh. Norman Cousins, the editor of the old “Saturday Review,” was in the hospital. His doctors told him he didn’t have long to live, he had some kind of rare disease and he was going to die soon. So he checked himself out of the hospital and into a hotel. In the hotel, he spent days and days and days watching old comedy movies and funny TV shows. Then he went back to his doctors and they told him he was cured. He had cured himself with laughter. He laughed himself to life. “Reader’s Digest” says laughter is the best medicine and Norman Cousins proved that.

I remember a couple years ago watching the funeral of Tim Russert on TV. Tim Russert, the host of “Meet the Press.” “If it’s Sunday, it’s “Meet the Press.” People told touching and humorous stories about Tim Russert. One of those people was Mike Barnicle.  Mike Barnicle was a writer for a newspaper in Boston and now he’s a commentator on MSNBC. Mike Barnnicle said that the Russerts and the Barnicles were close friends, so they decided to vacation together. They drove out West together, but in separate vehicles. As the Barnicles and the Russerts were driving out West, they got stopped by the police. The policeman pulled them over. Mike Barnacle and Tim Russert got out of their cars. The officer said, “Did you realize you were speeding? I’m going to have to give you both a ticket.” The trooper opened his ticket book and there was only one ticket left. “I’ve only got one ticket left; I’m not sure what to do.” Tim Russert pointed at Mike Barnicle and said, “Well, Officer, I was only following him, if that helps.” We all need a laugh, even at a funeral, sometimes especially at a funeral. We need that release; it helps us cope with tragedy. We all need to laugh sometimes.

An old English proverb says, “What soap is to the body, laughter is to the soul.” We all need our soul cleansed by laughter, as often as possible.

The other night I was watching comedian David Letterman. He was talking to Rachel Maddow from MSNBC. They were talking, of course, about current events. During the conversation, David Letterman said, “It’s 2012. Why are we still shooting and killing other people. Why hasn’t that worn off?” Sometimes comedians can break through our defenses and make us see things that maybe we wouldn’t see if it were someone else. If a politician had said that, I think it would have gone in one ear and out the other, with possibly a few exceptions. But David Letterman was able to punch through to us. (Maybe that’s why they call it a punch line.)

Lao Tzu, author of many spiritual sayings, said, “Happiness has nothing to do with wealth or status. It’s a matter of harmony.” On this April Fools Day, may we all live in harmony through happiness. May we all giggle and chuckle, not just this day, but every day, as often as possible. May we all laugh ourselves to life.

Seven Steps To Living Fully Alive

In a previous life I was a radio talk show host. One day I got to interview one of my favorite people, Coleman McCarthy. Some of you may not know who he was, or is, but he was a columnist for the Washington Post and a syndicated columnist. He also started a peace center in Washington, D.C. We got to talking about Gandhi, and I think I wanted to impress him with my knowledge of Gandhi because, you know, I’d seen the movie [laughter] and I also had read Gandhi’s autobiography. So I mentioned that to him and he said ,”Well that’s good, Bill. Gandhi wrote about 80 books, so you only have 79 more to go!” When I think of someone who lived their life fully alive, I think of Gandhi. Gandhi was a very spiritual person. He knew how to live fully alive as we all need to do.

St. Irenaeus was an early church leader, a second century bishop. He said once, “The glory of God is a human being fully alive.” But how can we live fully alive, how can we achieve that? I think there are at least seven steps to living life fully alive: being aware, being thankful, being loving, being kind, being curious, being creative and being playful. Now each one of those seven steps probably deserves their own sermon or their own chapter of a book, or their own book. So I’m going to give you the Reader’s Digest version of those seven steps and maybe in a year or so I’ll preach a seven part series on each of the seven steps to living fully alive.

When I was seven or eight years old, I was playing in my aunt’s backyard and I climbed a tree. I was clinging to a branch and it broke! I fell to the ground. Gravity! For the first time I was aware of my breath, because the wind was knocked out of me. I couldn’t breathe. To be aware begins, I think, with being aware of our breath. Although it may be the most difficult of the seven steps, to be aware, because to be aware you have to be aware that you’re not aware and how can you be aware that you’re not aware unless you’re aware? It’s kind of a circular thought. But I think being aware, achieving awareness, takes maybe a spark of enlightenment or an epiphany or an “ah hah” moment. But once we are aware, I think we can enhance our awareness with our breath. Aristotle said, “The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness,”and I think we can enhance our awareness through meditation. If that’s a difficult concept for some of you to wrap your mind around, consider it relaxation, just sitting and being for awhile. Don’t do something, just sit there. Sit down and shut up, but also sit down and wake up. I think the first step to living fully alive is being aware.

Sometimes I’ll go for what I call a Thanksgiving walk. I’ll walk and I’ll see the blue sky, as I did yesterday, and I’ll give thanks. I’ll hear birds singing and I’ll give thanks. I’ll feel a cool breeze on a warm day and I’ll give thanks. I’ll smell flowers and I’ll give thanks. When I’m done with my walk I’ll go home and drink a cold glass of water and I’ll give thanks. We all need to be thankful, grateful. Meister Eckhart was a spiritual mystic, a German theologian in the Middle Ages. He was, for a time, considered a heretic, so he’s my kind of guy! Meister Eckhart said, “If the only prayer you ever said in your whole life is ‘Thank you,’ that would suffice.” We all need to be thankful, we all need to have “an attitude of gratitude,” as they say. We have to be aware of what we’re thankful for, but we all need to give thanks more often than once a year on a Thursday in November. I think we should be thankful every day. I think the second step to living fully alive is being thankful.

One of my favorite political satirists lived basically before I was even born – Will Rogers. It was Will Rogers who said, “I belong to no organized political party; I’m a Democrat.” It was Will Rogers who also said, “I never met a man I didn’t like.” I want to broaden and deepen that a little bit and say we all need to strive to say that we never met a man, woman or child we didn’t love. We all need to love everyone. Now it’s easy to love someone you just met. It’s more difficult to love someone you’ve gotten to know. They may be filled with flaws and imperfections different than your own and so you may not like them. I know it’s not easy to love everyone, but I think it’s something we need to strive for. Whenever I do a wedding, I often quote one of the most profound pieces of literature ever written: “Love is patient. Love is kind. Love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends.” Our love for others should never end. I think the third step to living fully alive is being loving.

We were visited recently by a couple of window salesmen. Thankfully my wife answered the door. They sat in the living room and I, thankfully, had to go do some things. When I came back about an hour later, they were still there; she was still listening to them and they were there for another half hour or so. My wife is very kind. I think in a lot of ways she personifies kindness. She was too kind to say to these guys, “We’re not going to buy these windows,” after just a few minutes and so she listened to them. Maybe it wasn’t kind to lead them on [laughter], but she was too kind to shuffle them out the door. We all need to be kind, maybe not spending an hour and a half with window salesmen, but to do something nice for someone. We can all do something nice for someone. If we can’t be kind, we can at least not be cruel. If we can’t be helpful, we can at least not be hurtful to someone. We all need to be kind. Plato said, “Be kind because everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” We are all fighting a hard battle of life and we need to be kind to each other. If we can be kind to people whom we know, then maybe we can be compassionate with someone we don’t know. And then maybe we can work for justice for people we’ll never even meet. We all need to be kind. The fourth step to living life fully alive is being kind.

I spoke on my radio show the other day (I have a one day a week radio show now, instead of a five day a week one) and I spoke about the difference between ignorance and deliberate ignorance. We are all ignorant to a certain extent. We all don’t know everything. We don’t even know what we don’t know. But there are people who are deliberately ignorant. I’ve got to believe that somebody who thinks the earth is only 6,000 years old knows in their heart of hearts, their mind of minds, that scientists are more accurate than that when they say that the earth is billions of years old. These people are just being deliberately ignorant, perhaps for religious reasons, to follow whatever scripture they believe, but I think some people are sometimes deliberately ignorant. All the rest of us are curious. We want to know the truth. Mortimer Adler, the long-time editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia Britannica – he was one of the founders of the Great Books Program – Mortimer Adler said, “We all crave knowledge, the way our body craves food.” We all want to know (or most of us do anyway), we want to know the answers to life’s big questions. We want to know the meaning of life. What is our purpose in being? I think the fifth step to living fully alive is being curious.

What must it have been like, to be Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak creating Apple computers? A second important question that follows that is, in order to be creative, do you have to be named Steve? [Laughter] We can all be creative. I think we should all be creative. There are those who say that when we are creative is when we are like God, the Creator. (I don’t know that anyone here would say that, but there are those who do say that.) We all need to be creative. Bill Moyers is a creative genius. He introduced us to Joseph Campbell and the power of myth. Bill Moyers says, “Creativity is piercing the mundane to find the marvelous.” We can all pierce the mundane to find the marvelous. Now, maybe we can be creative at home or at work. In cleaning the house we can be creative, or in mowing the lawn we can be creative, or we can be creative in making widgets. But if we can’t be creative at work, maybe we can be creative away from work – we can paint or write or garden. Somehow I think we can all be creative. I think the sixth step in living fully alive is being creative.

I get a kick out of watching my wife’s grandsons (well now they’re also my grandsons) just play. They are eight and ten years old and they can take an old piece of wood and find a way to play with that. They can find fun in anything and when they giggle and laugh about it, it’s such a delight! We all need to take time to play, to carve out some time in life to play. We can learn so much from children in doing that. It doesn’t have to be play with a purpose, it can be purposeless, meaningless fun, play. Maybe it’s playing cards with friends or going bowling or golfing or shooting pool or swimming in a pool, whatever it is that brings us joy, we should do that and have fun. George Bernard Shaw, the great playwright, said, “We do not stop playing because we grow old. We grow old because we stop playing.” He should know because he lived to be 94 and his plays were often playful, humorous. He always could find ways to play. I think the seventh step in living fully alive is being playful. Deepak Chopra is another person I think of when I think of people who are living fully alive, living a spiritual life. When I talk about living a spiritual life, I mean someone who’s living fully alive. Someone who recognizes that we are spiritual beings in bodies, not bodily beings with spirits. We are not fallen creatures, we are rising spirits. I was surprised about a year ago to see Deepak Chopra in an ad for a computer or Microsoft or something. But what he said in that ad was profound and you don’t usually hear something profound in a television ad, but this was. He said, “I am a human being. Not a human doing.” Each one of us is a human being, not a human doing. But if it’s possible, I think we can better ourselves as human beings by living fully alive, by being aware, being thankful, being loving, being kind, being curious, being creative, being playful. It’s like a song by Tom Cochran that has been sung by different groups, Rascall Flats, I think did it: “Life is a highway. I wanna ride it all night long.” My hope for each one of us is that we ride life like a highway: all night long, all day long, for all time.

The Difference Between Politics And Justice

A couple weeks ago, I stood outside a hotel in Muskegon and held a sign. The sign said, “Jesus was a Liberal.” Inside the hotel was a presidential candidate. [Rick Santorum.] He’s a well-known conservative. The media said over 500 people came to hear him. I would guess that 99.9% of them are conservatives. When many of them walked past my sign that I was carrying, many of them said, “Oh, no. That’s not right. Jesus was a conservative.” I said, “I don’t think so, because Jesus said to feed the hungry and house the homeless and care for the poor.” I said, “If Jesus was a conservative, I don’t think he would have said that.” Not that conservatives don’t feed the hungry or house the homeless or care for the poor, but those are more traditionally liberal values. One woman told me, “Go to hell!” Now I try to look on the positive side of anything and try to think the best of everyone, so I assumed that she was telling me that this particular presidential candidate was going to make a campaign stop in Hell, Michigan and she was inviting me to go there with my sign.

I didn’t see the presidential candidate go into the hotel, because he went in the back and I was in the front. But by the end of his talk, I realized that and stood at the back where his SUV was. He got inside his SUV on the passenger side and took off and looked over and saw, I hope, my sign and kind of smiled and waved.

I didn’t do that to try to antagonize those hundreds of people going in. I was exercising justice. I was trying to speak truth to power, which I think is one definition of justice and has been for thousands of years.

Moses went to Pharaoh in Egypt and said, “Let my people go!” and Pharaoh said, “No.” This happened repeatedly and Pharaoh continued to say, “No,” even when, according to the story, God sent many calamities and catastrophes to fall on Egypt. Finally Moses said, “Let my people go!” and Pharaoh said, “No,” and according to the story, God killed the first born male of every family in Egypt. Then Pharaoh said, “Go!” And the Israelites left Egypt to search for their own land, to worship as they saw fit.

Now I tell you that story, not to make you think that I believe that it’s true. I think it was a mythological story, a story told to show the Israelites that they are God’s chosen people. And I don’t tell you that story in the event that you’re pro-choice, so that whenever you encounter an anti-choice person and they say God is pro-life, you could tell that story and say, “Well, God killed the first-born male of all the Egyptians and that doesn’t sound pro-life to me.” That’s not why I tell you this story. I tell you this story because Moses was engaging in justice, Moses was speaking truth to power, Moses was bringing justice to the powerless. Pharaoh’s response was a political one. He didn’t want to free the slaves. He didn’t want to free the Israelites. In part, I think, because of the negative economic impact on Egypt.

Justice has a long history and it means different things to different people. To some people, justice means what it means in Texas – hang ‘em high. That’s not how I use the word justice. I use the word justice the way religious people of different faiths use it. The way non-religious people use it. It’s used in a sacred way and a secular way to mean speaking truth to power, to mean caring for the poor, to mean housing the homeless and feeding the hungry. The prophets in the Hebrew scriptures talked about justice – taking care of the widow and the orphan. All that’s what I mean by justice.

Scholars say that the entire Bible can be summed up in one verse. The Hebrew scriptures and the Christian New Testament can be summed up in one verse, found in the book of the prophet Micah. Micah 6:8: “God has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does God require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with God.”

To many people that just means individual action. Justice means what one person does for another person. I’d go along with that, except that I believe in American Exceptionalism. I think that American Exceptionalism doesn’t just mean that we can invade any country we want to whenever we want. I think American Exceptionalism means that we care about everybody in our country. Because I believe in American Exceptionalism. And because of three pesky words in the Preamble to the Constitution: We the People. If only that said, “I the dictator,” or “We the special committee of folks,” but it says “We the people.” To me that means that “We the people” is the government. That collectively we elect the representatives to the House and Senate and the White House. So I don’t think the justice that was talked about by the prophets of old or by secular groups or by other faith traditions is just an individual thing. Especially here in America. I think it’s more expansive than that. It’s “We the people.” Perhaps that means we the people are going to act prophetically and do justice for all of our citizens. If that was just an individual thing or if churches could just take care of justice in America, there wouldn’t be 49 million people without health insurance. There wouldn’t be 45,000 people who die every year because they don’t have health insurance. To stop that kind of thing, it can’t just be fixed by individuals or churches or synagogues. It has to be “We the people” in the form of our government.

I am proud and pleased to be the minister of two different churches that both care about justice. Interfaith Congregation in Holland serves breakfast to needy people every Saturday morning. Harbor Unitarian Universalist Congregation in Muskegon serves supper through Mission for Area People, the MAP Supper House, and sponsors a food truck periodically to provide for people in need. Those actions are part of justice, but I think they are different than justice. They’re charitable acts, they’re compassionate acts, they’re random acts of kindness or planned acts of kindness. And charity, I think, is different than justice. Justice tries to get at the root cause of poverty. Charity helps those who are in poverty, but justice tries to get at the root cause of poverty. Charity deals with the symptoms, justice tries to get at the disease.

Archbishop Dom Helder Camarra of Brazil said once, “When I feed the poor, they call me a saint; when I ask why the poor are hungry, they call me a communist.” Doing justice, speaking out for justice, trying to get at the root cause of poverty, might cause you to be called a communist or a socialist or what, in some people’s minds, is even worse – a liberal! But we need to get at the root cause of the systems that cause things like poverty in order to eliminate poverty. Jesus said, “The poor you will always have with you,” but that was not a directive. He was not saying make sure you always have the poor with you. He knew that we would always have the poor with us because we’d always have greedy people and whenever you have greedy people, you have needy people.

Martin Luther King, Jr. was the personification of justice. Martin Luther King, Jr. started his ministry in 1954, basically with the Montgomery bus boycott. Rosa Parks, who was the secretary for the NAACP, refused, as you know, to give up her seat on the bus in Montgomery to a white man and refused to sit in the back of the bus, which started the Montgomery bus boycott which went on for months and months. Finally, justice prevailed and discrimination was no longer allowed on Montgomery buses. Dr. King was the leader of that as he was the leader of many demands for justice – civil rights, voting rights, equal rights. He led marches, as you know, that got some people killed and eventually got him killed.

Dr. King said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.” He knew it couldn’t happen overnight. Barack Obama, before he became president, said, “Dr. King once said that the arc of the moral universe is long but it bends towards justice. It bends towards justice, but here is the thing: it does not bend on its own. It bends because each of us in our own ways put our hand on that arc and we bend it in the direction of justice.”

The interesting thing is that justice oftentimes needs politicians to become reality. Justice needed Dr. King to demand civil rights and voting rights, but it took Congress to pass the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts and for the President to sign them. A lot of times justice requires politics to become reality.

A few years ago when I and several other ministers went to Washington, D.C., we lobbied Congress to pass a hate crimes bill, the Matthew Shepard Bill. But we could only do so much and then the politicians, the elected people, “We the people,” had to act on justice for it to become reality, and they did. They passed the Hate Crimes Bill and the President signed it.

A couple of years ago, I and other ministers went to Lansing to lobby legislators to pass the anti-bullying bill. It took a lot of demands for justice, but it finally happened when enough politicians did justice and passed the anti-bullying bill and the governor signed it into law.

I was thinking the other day about what ministry means, what does it mean to be a minister? I think it’s in the name. The best that a minister can hope for, I think, is to create a “mini stir” among us. [Groans.] Forgive me for that. But that’s what we did in Lansing and in Washington. Justice needs politicians, oftentimes, to become reality.

This past week we were working on a new booklet for this church to describe all the aspects of this church for first-time visitors and long-time regulars. We did that. As we did that, we said we should make a brochure, so I took different parts of that booklet and made a brochure. A brochure is too small to put the entire booklet in it, but I thought I took the highlights of what this church is all about, what we’re like on Sunday: the music program, the education program, our theology (or lack of same). Tuesday night I went to bed thinking, “It’s perfect. I wouldn’t change a word of it. The brochure says exactly who we are.” Then I woke up on Wednesday and thought, “I forgot to include justice in the brochure.” A church without justice isn’t a church. A church that isn’t welcoming of everyone, a church that doesn’t help everyone they can, a church that doesn’t speak out against discrimination, a church that doesn’t speak for justice for all isn’t a church. People would just come in and sit down and listen to a lecture and go have coffee afterwards and that’s all it would be. A church without justice isn’t a church. A church without justice is just a country club.

Now you can look at this next example as coincidence or providence, I’ll leave that up to you. That happened on Wednesday morning. On Wednesday evening I went to the Holland City Council, as I have been known to do, and first I told them about my little adventure with the brochure and how I realized that a church without justice isn’t a church, it’s just a country club. Then I asked them again, as I often do, to add the words “sexual orientation and gender identity” to their already existing anti-discrimination ordinances, to be fair to lesbians, gays, bisexual, and transgender people. Then I said, “It seems to me that a city without justice isn’t a city. A city that doesn’t welcome everyone isn’t a city. A city that allows discrimination against anyone isn’t a city. A city that isn’t about justice for all isn’t a city. A city that isn’t about justice for all is just a country club.” And the five people who voted no in the past stood up and said, “Bill, that was brilliant! We’re going to change our vote!” No, they didn’t. My words, as usual, fell on deaf ears.

But I’m not going to quit speaking those words. I’m not going to quit speaking truth to power. I just can’t. I have to go before the city council whenever I can and say, “Be about justice for all.” Because if I didn’t do that, I wouldn’t feel like I was a minister. I would feel like I was the leader of a country club. We all, or many of us, have that need to speak out for justice whenever we can, to work for justice whenever we can. We all, or many of us, have to do our part to bend that arc of the moral universe towards justice.

I'm A Naturalist, Christian, Buddhist, Unitarian Universalist

When I first started in television many years ago as a local news reporter, after a couple of days on the job, my news director called me into his office. He wondered if there were any religious reasons why I couldn’t work weekends. I said, “Well, you know, my mom is Jewish so I go to synagogue with her on Friday nights; and my father is Seventh Day Adventist, so I go to church with him on Saturday; and I’m a traditional Christian and I go to church on Sunday.” I laughed and he laughed and I said that I was just kidding and that no, there’s no religious reason why I couldn’t work weekends, because at that time I wasn’t religious. Or was I? I mean, I think we’re all spiritual people, whether we go to church or not.

When I was three, four, five years old, before I remember going to church, I saw the sacred in everything. I didn’t know to call it the sacred, but I saw the divine in everything; I saw the holy in everything. Later I learned that I was a Naturalist. I saw God, if you will, in all of nature. Later, I read folks like Henry Nelson Wieman - Henry Nelson Wieman was a professor at the University of Chicago Divinity School - he was a Naturalist. Henry Nelson Wieman said, “Nothing can transform [humankind] unless it operates in human life.” It’s all part of nature. I think every child starts out as a natural-born Naturalist. Every child is filled with wonder and awe, as I was as a child, probably as you were as a child. So I was and I think I still remain, in part, a Naturalist.

On Sunday mornings when I was like, six, seven, eight years old, I would run to my grandma’s garage. My grandma lived next to us, and I would get into her bulky old blue Chevrolet Bel Air and I would get behind the wheel and pretend I was driving. She thought that was okay, as long as I didn’t press on the gas, because then I would flood the engine. So I would pretend to drive and she would come out in her blue flowered dress and her white hat and drive us to Sunday School and church. We went to this little chapel. They’ve since expanded to seat hundreds of people. The chapel sat probably seventy-five, eighty people. It was big to me, because I was little at the time.

I learned Christianity at that church. Not the dogmatic, doctrinal, creedal codes, you know, the rules and regulations of Christianity. But the kinds of hands-on Christianity, where I made a candle for my mom out of what looked like honeycomb and we rolled it up and put a wick in it and it was a candle. We had an Easter egg hunt there. We would play musical chairs and duck, duck, goose in the basement. And in church we would hear the words of Jesus, like “Blessed are the peacemakers,” and I probably also recited things like the Apostles Creed, but that never made much sense to me back then. And I haven’t progressed much since then, because it still doesn’t make sense to me.

I never have seen Jesus as God. Even when I went to a Christian seminary. I asked what I thought was a fellow liberal student, “You all don’t really believe Jesus is God, do you?” And he said, “Well, yes, we do,” and the implication was that I shouldn’t ask that again, because I might induce doubt in somebody’s mind. So I was a Christian, I think, because of that little church. And I remember my minister at the time, who is still a part-time minister there - he’s like ninety years old - he invited a Catholic priest to preach on Thanksgiving. I think he did that every Thanksgiving. That planted a seed in me about ecumenism and interfaith. So it was at that church where I learned about Christianity and I think that a part of that is still with me today.

When I was in college I remember hearing about transcendental meditation, TM. I heard that you needed to pay to go to a TM meeting and a guru would tell you a secret word or phrase that would help you to meditate. While I was tempted to do that, I think that part of me thought it was a scam, so I didn’t do it. Years later I would learn about meditation, mainly through Buddhism. I would learn that you didn’t really need a secret word or phrase, you could use “love” or “peace on earth” and just repeat that to yourself and meditate on it just by clearing your mind of all thoughts. I think people have a difficulty or anxiety over meditation. They think it’s this weird something. But meditation is really just relaxation. It’s “Don’t just do something; sit there,” for ten minutes or twenty minutes or two hours.

I remember reading a Mortimer Adler book. Mortimer Adler was one of the founders of The Great Books Program, a philosopher who said, “We all need to be idle sometime during the day.” He called it “idling” like a car does. Just sit there not moving any place while you meditate. That led to my study of Buddhism. I read several books about Buddhism by Thich Nhat Hanh and the Dalai Lama; about happiness, compassion and ethics.

One book in particular which was very profound for me was “The Four Noble Truths.” The first noble truth almost made me stop reading the book because, as you may know, the first noble truth is “Life is suffering.” I thought: Had the Dalai Lama never heard of Norman Vincent Peale and “The Power of Positive Thinking”? Life is not suffering, as long as you’re thinking happy thoughts. Of course, the more I thought about what he wrote, the Dalai Lama not Norman Vincent Peale, the more I realized he was right. The Dalai Lama said that even little babies are suffering. A newborn baby is suffering because it has just come from the warmth of its mother’s womb into real life and one day, like all of us, even though it’s hard to think about, a little bitty baby will die. The Dalai Lama said that an eighteen year-old young woman and an eighteen year-old young man, even if the young woman is gorgeous and the young man is handsome and they have the world by the tail, the Dalai Lama said that they, too, are suffering because one day when they’re not eighteen, maybe when they’re eighty, they’ll have lost their looks, long ago. That hasn’t happened to me yet. [Laughter.] But I’m sure it’s happened to others. Anyway, we all suffer, we all will one day die, but we can look beyond that, we can detach ourselves from our worldly possessions, the Dalai Lama says, and we can help other sentient beings to have happiness in their lives.

I was so convinced by what the Dalai Lama said about kind of losing yourself and helping others, that I thought about going to the University of Michigan and saying I want to donate my organs. I imagined that somebody behind the counter would say, “OK, fine, just fill out this card and you’ll have a notation on your driver’s license that you want to donate your organs.” And I’d say, “No, no, you don’t understand, I want to do that now. I want to give up my heart and lungs and liver and kidneys and corneas so that somebody else can live.” I wanted to do this selfless act, but I figured if I did that, they would either send me to the psych ward or put me in a cell next to Jack Kevorkian for trying to commit assisted suicide. Well that feeling passed in a day or two and I realized that I do want to live, but I also want to help others.

The Buddha said, “Better than a thousand hollow words, is one word that brings peace.” And that’s what I hope to bring to the world is peace and love and justice and equality. That’s why I still consider myself, in part, a Buddhist and I think I always will.

I think the first time I visited Fountain Street Church in Grand Rapids many years ago we sang a hymn called, “This is My Song,” and it blew me away. It’s found in the Unitarian Universalist hymnal. Fountain Street Church isn’t Unitarian Universalist per se, but it’s had Unitarian Universalist ministers for the past 60 years or so. That song, “This is my song, O God of all the nations, a song of peace for lands afar and mine,” blew my mind. I thought: What do they mean by “God of all the nations”? You mean God isn’t just the God of America? It goes on to talk about how in other countries people have blue skies, just like we do and they love their homeland, just like we do. And I thought: Now wait a minute, you mean not everyone in the world wants to emigrate to America and become United States citizens and achieve happiness? At the time I thought that’s what everyone wanted to do. But, of course, I realized that wasn’t true. And that, I think, began my path to Unitarian Universalism.

As some of you know, a couple of years ago I joined the Unitarian Universalist Church of the Larger Fellowship, the church without walls. I joined on Christmas Day, 2010. A couple months ago, I joined Harbor Unitarian Universalist Congregation, because I’m now on a path to hopefully being a Unitarian Universalist minister. I appreciate the Unitarian Universalist Principles and Purposes. The principals of seeing the dignity and worth of every human being, respecting all faiths, pursuing truth and meaning and purpose in our lives. It all makes so much sense to me, as I’m sure it does to you. One of the most famous Unitarians was Ralph Waldo Emerson, who said, “Life is a journey, not a destination.” So many people, so many churches, so many religious faiths, believe all you have to do is accept the truth of their faith at the age of 11 and then you don’t have to think about it again. But what I appreciate about Unitarian Universalism is we’re always thinking about the purpose of our lives and the meaning of our lives and we’re always on the spiritual journey that isn’t a destination, but is a journey. That’s why, while a part of me still is a Naturalist, a part of me still is a Christian - in a following Jesus who said, “love your neighbor” kind of way - and part of me still is a Buddhist, now I see myself as a Unitarian Universalist, which I believe embraces all those faiths.

Lately we’ve been seeing on the news all the death and destruction from all the tornados that have torn through much of the heartland. Dozens of people have been injured or died. But as usually happens with these kinds of tragedies, neighbor helps neighbor. Nobody goes to their neighbor and says, “Well you know, I’m a Naturalist and if you’re a Naturalist, too, I’ll help you.” Or “You know, I’m a Christian and if you’re a Christian, too, then I’ll help you.” Or “I’m a Buddhist and if you’re a Buddhist, too, I’ll help you.” Or “I’m a Unitarian Universalist and if you’re a Unitarian Universalist too then I’ll help you.” Nobody does that. In times of tragedy, we all see the common humanity of each one of us and we do whatever we can to help. And isn’t that what every group, whether secular or sacred does and teaches? That we help our neighbor, whoever they are, because we see the common humanity in each one of us, whether we consider ourselves Naturalists or Christians or Buddhists or Unitarian Universalists. Or none of the above. Or all of the above.