- Francis Bacon 

Everyone thinks about changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.  

                                 - Leo Tolstoi  

The first decade of the new millennium seem to differ little from the old one.  Einstein’s insanity definition- doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results– makes it apparent that insanity is still commonplace. Doubtful now even thinking outside the box will suffice when circumstances demand we actually move out of the box!  

Across the whole spectrum of human activities change appears not just desirable, but vital. From religion to education, to economics and politics. Rather than book keepers crunching numbers, we must begin crunching concepts to decrease threats we pose to ourselves, other creatures, and our planet. This destructive species, Homo Sapiens.   

In short, justice and equity, reason in service to compassion, must become our bywords. Less emphasis on holy spirits, more on flagging human spirits under these immense pressures of profit over people. As Unitarian Universalists we have, or should have, a step up in all these domains compared to many other denominations and belief systems humans have devised. Just walk into any church down the street and you’ll likely encounter that warm, tribal smugness so comforting to our kind. You’ll be welcomed with assurances your search is over. They’ve found the answers, now you’ve found them. Look no further. Welcome home.   

We, on the other hand, though equally welcoming, hold out no answers. Easy or difficult. Just a simple invitation to join our search. You’re welcome here, with all your doubts and questions. Perhaps we need one of those digital signs out front flashing our message. “To question IS the answer”. But wayside pulpit’s work too. All furthering San Francisco longshoreman, philosopher Eric Hoffer’s declaration in his 1950′s book, “True Believers,” in which he tells us, if you run into someone with all the answers – run like hell!     

SHALOM 

Humanists, appropriately, celebrate “Human Light Day” on Dec 23rd (Bell’s and my anniversary) with music, dancing, story telling, scientific reflection, readings, candle light events, and social awareness for helping the needy and community. Hardly unique. For example, here are two beautiful meal blessings borrowed from Buddhist meal gatha (1) and Native American thanksgiving (2).

(1) “We receive this food in gratitude to all beings who have helped bring it to our table – and vow to respond in turn to those in need with wisdom and compassion.”

(2) “We give thanks for the plants and animals who have given themselves so we can enjoy this meal together. We also give thanks for our friends and family who have traveled here today. May this meal bring us strength and health.”

Humanistic songwriters John Lennon and Yoko Ono express so much reverence and vision for the world in this, another holy song: “Imagine there’s no heaven. It’s easy if you try. No hell below us, above us only sky! Imagine all the people living for today… sharing the world! You may say that I’m a dreamer, but I’m not the only one…”

So remarkably seasonal! It is said that religious buildings are really superfluous to the soaring spirit of human fulfillment held within. Perhaps Christmas trees, gilded decorations and wrap, sparkling lights, much as we love them, may be superfluous to this season, too! Capturing our mind’s eye, and hearts, just warmly familiar bricks in the uncertain edifice of our being.

I leave you with our family’s sincere wishes for a warm, happy, safe, and thoughtful season.

SHALOM

At a hotel in a small town whose residents were all deeply in debt, a stranger checked in. Laying a $100 bill on the counter, he asked to check out the rooms first. Once gone, the owner grabbed the $100, and ran next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher, in turn, ran to settle his bill at the Co-op. The Co-op manager quickly took the $100 to the town prostitute, who’d also come on hard times, settling his bill for “services rendered”. The hooker rushed over to the hotel to pay her delinquent room bill. The relieved owner quickly placed the bill back on the counter just as the stranger returned. Finding the rooms unsatisfactory, he plucked his money from the counter, and left.   

No one actually produced anything. No one earned anything. Yet the town’s now out of debt, facing a more optimistic future! Laughingly dubbed a stimulus program, this “fair trade” parable demonstrates a favorite topic of mine. Economics arranged in CA’s.. Exchanges based on ”Creditable Activities.”   

Countries close banks, banks don’t close countries. How ironic that our staunchly “Christian” nation is run in large part by the very folks an enraged Jesus cast out of the temple! Surely points out the drive for justice and equity, that deeply spiritual aspect drawing tens of thousands to our streets - beginning at the “Wall.” Among them, workers, church goers of all stripes,  and human rights activists.  

Closing words from our own Peter Morales:- ”Last Sunday, I had the opportunity to join the Occupy Boston protesters in this city’s financial district. Unitarian Universalist ministers from several of our Massachusetts congregations came together to organize an evening vespers service at the Occupy Boston encampment, offering spiritual support and encouragement to the hundreds of souls gathered there.”   

The hundred dollars make its rounds again   

An extraordinary 9/11 special by PBS “Frontline” dealt with the religious and secular sides of the catastrophe. The falling projectiles, finalized humans, could scarcely be mistaken for soaring angels when hell surfaced to earth that day. An old priest, many years in the cloth, watching the grotesque scene unravel, recognized (even then) a religious footprint. Familiar to him, this statement of passion and conviction gone horribly astray! 

A sense America would never be the same was born that day. Our “Fifties” Norman Rockwell sketchbook smudged, if not erased, forever. Crusader comparisons quickly faded, perhaps to be replaced by a stronger  insistence that we live in a Christian nation, founded on Judeo-Christian principles. Unlike nameless (or named) “others!” 

Yet any casual glance around our Capitol reveals symbols in word and stone of pagan Greece and Rome, long pre-dating Christ’s arrival. Philosophies of the non-Christian “Enlightenment” tumble from the lips of Toms (Paine and Jefferson). Most UU’s are intimately familiar with the Deism that prevailed among the founders. Following a 1500 year absence of democracy in Europe, we even borrowed council from the Iroquois far to our North. President John Adams, with senate approval, stated in the “Treaty of Tripoli” (1797) that our government “is in no sense founded on the Christian religion.” Indeed!  Find one reference to God in the Constitution. For 180 years our national motto was the secular “E pluribus unum” (from many one).  How appropriate for our times! 

Perhaps it’s true, and we’ll never be the same again.  When 9/12 dawned there had been an unprecedented outpouring of sadness, sympathy and affection from our human family. That may well have been our greatest loss. Since that fleeting moment, we have lost the COMMONS. 

And seem to have stopped looking. 

SHALOM 

Challenging words when beliefs clarion as fact of political truths woven on moonless nights, blinding us to daybreak. So what joy discovering “The Christian Century”online.  Their motto: Thinking Critically, Living Faithfully.  More exciting, their article by Kimberly Winston titled, “Study of secularism sees boost on college campuses.”  It quotes prominent sociology professor Phil Zuckerman’s complaint, “We’ve been studying religious people for years, but there is a huge chunk of humanity who are not religious. Who are they? I would like to study them with the same vigor we study religion.” 

Amen!  Hallelujah!  

This year the Humanist Institute will establish the country’s first master’s program in Humanism, a philosophy substituting human morality and reasoning for belief in the supernatural. A few Sundays back I tried to emphasize compelling 21st century myths and traditions necessary for times never encountered by humankind. Also an Op-Ed piece, brazenly suggested tucking away the Constitution, leave the bible bedside – and consider how eventually machinery replaces even Indian and Chinese workers. Professionals too!.  

The MAJOR quandary of our century? How humans “make a living?” Our planet’s youngsters experience ANY degree of security without adequate medical care and education? To question,  truly MUST be the answer! 

Even lacking a UUFEC  Humanist chapter, secularism’s essential to modern minds. A worldview likely to invigorate even liberal arts education. For that new humanity we ALL share. 

SHALOM 

Thus reads the preamble found on the inner cover of each issue of “Humanist” magazine. If you find yourself in agreement, odds are you’re a humanist and may want to identify as one. That’s why we’ll try to bring our chapter, ”Humanists of Greater Fort Walton Beach” back from dormancy. After all, Mack and Ann Piper, our fellowship’s founders, were charter members and card carrying humanists. 

This is NOT a revival of the “Philosophy” group or “Free Thinkers”, and certainly no competition with Alex’s fine following of thinkers and atheists meetings. The re-birthed chapter will likely meet monthly, as determined by its membership. Format, whether an open forum, book discussions, issues activism, or any other activity promoting the humanist life stance; also up to its members. A necessary prerequisite, at least ten individuals must demonstrate interest - which will include signing up as active members of the American Humanist Association.  

Introductory AHA membership’s $35, cut $10 from regular fees. This includes a subscription to the “Humanist”; “Free Mind” (the membership newsletter); special conference and merchandise discounts, and a vote in all AHA elections. UUA has a long association with humanistic thought.  Many signatories to the first “Humanist Manifesto” in 1934 were UU clergy and lay people. So it’s also been with UUFEC.  

I can be reached at u2rhuman@earthlink.net or phone (850) 243-5247.  

SHALOM  

“Nuthin’s fer shure but death and taxes, an’ I ain’t so shure ‘bout taxes.” -Anon (June 2011)

Ionce did a Sunday service regarding Neanderthal twin brothers, Ugh Laff and Moomaw. Remember Ugh Laff was the one with all the answers – while his younger twin Moomaw (born five minutes later) had only questions? Ugh Laff spoke to mountain gods spitting fire into night skies, and understood river demons claiming people were venturing out too far. One night, Moomaw’s small band of questioners grasped a fallen tree trunk and floated to the distant shore. Headed off to those mountains. And beyond.

In the grand scheme of things, Ugh Laff’s tribe of staunch believers advanced generation after generation, ruling as priests, kings. corporate CEO’s etc., astride our endless fears and insecurities. Moomaw’s gang was still muddling across mountains and tossing seas as humanists. Whoops, let it slip, didn’t I?

I probably titled that service, “The Certainty of Uncertainty” even though humanists rely on scientific methodology, seeking answers within nature. But why even call that humanism? Ultimately it’s results, not labels, that count. Current polls state one in six Americans carries no religious label; even less amid Europe’s towering cathedrals and traditions. Didn’t the Nazarene, himself, demonstrate that our human spirit is too deep and far ranging to be walled or even confined by community? Another great leader within Moomaw’s lineage of curiosity and uncertainty, told us there’s nothing to fear but fear itself.

With endless resources, another young President was uncertain a middle-class Pakistan neighborhood would yield our enemy number-one! Some still doubt Bin Laden’s death, the twin tower truth, who had Kennedy killed. Sane or otherwise, Moomaw’s kin hasten into dark nights of our new century, braving the floods, clutching the tree trunk of indecision. Much to the disgruntlement of Ugh Laff’s people, watching us disdainfully from their fading shore of conviction. We, of Moomaw. The sting of uncertainty remains sweet upon our lips!

- Oscar Wilde

Morality is the best of all devices for leading mankind by the nose.

– Nietzsche

That’s a bit hard on a concept presumably inspired by the gods, handed down through millennia.  After all, good stuff does get done! It’s likely ideas of right and wrong swung out of trees with us.  Morality’s long relationship to religions, although we seem willing to cast aside spiritual armor dealing with tribal truths contrasting with ours. Convert them to our truths;  failing that, cast them aside and, “Let God sort them out.”

Our moral truths may be better honed than other primates, but then perhaps we are simply more flexible! Our arsenal of self-defense mechanisms includes morality and self-righteous indignation, yet when doing immoral things to opponents we must first convince ourselves of their “otherness” as vile, vicious and dangerous. Or it’s for their own good. Maybe they even enjoy it.

Despite twenty-first century science, scriptural or secular justifications still tolerate turning on one another. Rudyard Kipling, describing the Khyber Pass and man’s moral courage and virtue, wrote “There is neither East nor West, Border nor Breed nor Birth, When two strong men stand face to face, tho’ they come from the ends of the earth.”

Difference? Today’s soldiers seldom share face to face confrontations.

New millennium morality demands evolutionary human adjustment! Clearly, morality and decency still rest upon circumstance – as they always have. Regardless of the morality claims of  faith or belief systems, moral people have always chosen the life stance- Reason in service of compassion.  In my words, being good for nothing.

SHALOM

It would be easy to sit and pen a few thousand words on the meaning of Humanism (I likely have), but Kurt Vonnegut’s definition in his book, “A Man Without A Country” sums it up well. “We humanists try to behave as decently, as fairly, and as honestly as we can without any expectation of rewards or punishments in afterlife.” Or as we UUs would have it, being good for nothing!

Often UUs, humanists and free thinkers in general are thought of as “Head People.” Good time to put that theory to rest! The inference being that “head people” stand opposite to or oppose “heart people.” Psych 101 assures us the “gut” (emotion) ultimately makes our decisions. Of course it does! But a great deal of cognitive work is needed beforehand. If there is time.

On Japan’s island, as often in nature, things (there’s another word for it) just happened! Humankind, with our ability to visualize tomorrow, plan accordingly. All is well, IF all goes as planned. But when unexpected calamity rains down, we go with the gut. Perhaps our Western “Abrahamic guts” infused with capitalism differ markedly from the ancient, Eastern counterparts. Witness the lack of looting, patient waits in food or shelter lines, or phone calls to desperately loved ones. It is easy to conclude that Japanese are such “head people,” but only partially correct. Note also on snow and tsunami soaked ground, freshly falling tears.

True, you’d find few humanists at strident political or mega-church rallies. Walking, perhaps, a more solitary path. But nonetheless, in the humanist (head) scheme of things we hear the same bells. Those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki towns, soon in Northern Japan. Our hearts go out, in equal measure, to the homeless earth wanderers, crushed islanders, whether in Japan or Haiti. The humanist urgings of reason in the service of compassion ring in all our ears.

SHALOM

Panhandle Free Thought Association

Saturday April 9 at 10:30 AM See if ”Fifty states are superfluous.” No telling where that will go!

Saturday, April 16th 10:30 AM “Has societal change accelerated with the dawn of the computer age?” Change, I dunno. Confusion, fer shure.

It seemed somehow appropriate to be in the middle of Obama’s “Audacity of Hope” with the Middle East perhaps on the verge of evicting our slumlords. Shortly defined, audacity means “fearless doing” and “aggressive boldness or unmitigated effrontery.” One witnesses bravery on Egyptian streets hourly. As for the unmitigated part, how about our new governor introducing his cut and slash budget in a church ?  As UUs, especially here, sometimes we shy away from comments on the emperor’s wardrobe, but it was not always so.

Dr. King, whom we’ve just celebrated, stared into the face of such grim realities as the glaring contrasts of poverty and wealth. In this abundant nation there are now more people in poverty than in his time! More than 167 million children live in households struggling to put food on the table. More than a million and a half American children, including 33,0000 in Arizona so lately in the news, are homeless – obliged to endure a lack of safety, comfort, privacy, adequate healthcare, uninterrupted schooling, fractured communities and families. So it was not surprising that the President singled out a murdered 9-year-old for attention. He described her as a dancer, gymnast, swimmer, ’A’ student, member of the student council, the only girl on her little league team, and a volunteer in a charity for less privileged kids. What audacity is in Obama’s challenge! “Live up to Christina’s expectations.” (our grand-daughter’s name)

Again, Dr. King reminds us that, “The greatest tragedy of this period of social transition is not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.”

If these words smack a little of audacity, I’m shocked. Really shocked! They were supposed to be spiritual.

SHALOM

FREE THOUGHT ASSOCIATION

Saturday March 12th, 10:30 AM
“How can science and religion co-exist?”
What do you think? Stop by!

Saturday, March 19th
We’ll submerge ourselves in the topic
“Safeguarding the future of our oceans. Can we?”