When it comes to religion, what are your expectations?  Growing up, did you expect:  Promises of heaven.  Happiness.  Truth.  Moralizing Threats.  Authority.  Certainty.  Boredom.  Music.  Pomp.  Smiles.  Frowns.  Incredulity.  Judgment.  What are your expectations coming in the door?

I grew up with expectations that religion was all about fantastic stories, heaven and hell, threats and fear, moralizing judgment, sweetness and light.  It’s a wonder I ever darkened the doorway!  When I go to church, it’s easy to expect theologizing authorities and fantastic truth claims.

What did you expect?  Did you ever imagine that a community of passionately different people could build bonds of mutual appreciation, based on a promise, a covenant of mutual trust and support?

We arrive expecting absolute truths to anchor our values—my truths, of course.  What we find are diverse religious sentiments rather than a single set of beliefs.  What makes us Unitarian Universalist is that we promise mutual trust and support rather than trying to destroy one another’s sacred storiesl.

The Latin term `religio’ means to bind together.  It’s hard for many to imagine a `religio’ community to have no single sacred text nor truth claims (creed, beliefs) nor authority figure. `The right of conscience’ seems like having no value commitments at all, like you can believe whatever you fancy!  The truth is, we are a humanistic community of people who have pluralistic beliefs articulated in a wide range of religious, scientific and secular metaphors.  We promise to respect one another’s views.

This is all the easy part—embracing diverse beliefs.   When it comes to running the church, we promise mutual trust and support as well.  We bring many gifts, and just like with beliefs, they differ.  The “spiritual growth” we experience in congregational governance is not just theological or mystical insight.  It is learning relational skills: learning to listen, to appreciate others views, learning to accept when the group sees things differently from me, learning to want to hear others’ views, learning to forgive when slighted— learning to live the covenant of mutual trust and support despite the variety of relational skills and limitations.  Now that’s real spiritual growth!

Not what I expected from religion.  Building bonds of appreciation for one another’s gifts, laughing despite our quirks, embracing one another’s best efforts, restraining and being restrained from non-mutual breaches of covenant, and celebrating the unexpected joys of one another’s presence, this is what “religio” community really is.  Not theology, but loving bonds of mutual trust and compassion in our relationships.

Though it may take time to leave our expectations at the door, welcome to the warm and vital embrace of covenant community, a community of hope and compassion with a mission for a better world.  Will I see you in a committee or small group this week?

Blessings!

Rev. Rod Debs, pastor

“I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made plain, and the crooked places will be made straight,…. This is our hope.”   –Martin Luther King, Jr.

Happy New Year, 2010! I never dreamed of seeing 2010.  I’ve had lots of dreams:  aspirations, impossible scenarios, fantastic imaginations, longings of the heart.  Both possible and merely wishful thinking.  The trick is to see the possible within the fantastic.  Then to faithfully work for that dream.

Science fiction movies often present fantasies based on an element of possibility.  Decades later, it is fun to look at old movies and marvel at what technological fantasies have actually become reality!

I saw Avatar last week and couldn’t help but compare the blue creatures on the planet Panthea to Native Americans we invaded and conquered.  The shocking part of Avatar was that the audience, including U.S. military and retirees, found ourselves cheering the natives as they used their mutual relationship with nature to the disadvantage of the invading army despite its vastly superior weapons technology.  We saw beyond nationalism and economic interests, to transcendent moral values.  Our hearts voted for justice.

The impossible scenario in Avatar was that the blue creatures prevailed, while in reality, Native Americans, like many indigenous peoples, have suffered genocide.

What is the difference between dream and fantasy?  The dream of Peace on Earth, to All Goodwill, and the fantasies of movies?  Martin Luther King, Jr. did not say “I have a fantasy.”  He did not imagine weapons turning into flowers.  Nor did he fantasize privileged people crawling on our knees to make restitution for generations of oppression.  Rather, he dreamed of a possible, better world.

Avatar starts with the dream of a world Panthea in which all beings live in healthy mutual relationship in their ecosystem.  The fantasy part is that Panthea is able to stand up to imperial invasion by a dying world, Earth.

In reality, Native Americans could not survive invasion by European guns and germs.  But what if…? What if the advantage European invaders enjoyed had been only guns?  What if Native Americans had been resistant to European diseases?  Is it possible to imagine that a people with a superior mutual relationship within nature might prevail over sickly, violent, brutal, albeit technologically superior invaders?  Now you have a movie!  Avatar! A dream.

“With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.  With this faith we will be able to transform the jangling discords of our nation into a beautiful symphony of brotherhood.”  –Martin Luther King, Jr.

Fantasies of otherworldly delight may be mere entertainment and escape in a world of hopelessness.  Faith is different.  Faith is a commitment to act for the sake of a dream, even an impossible dream, if you feel it is really worth it—real enough to be worth your life commitment.

Living our faith in the dream of Peace on Earth, to All Goodwill — committing ourselves to mutual global relationships is how we “hew out of the mountain of despair a stone of hope.” Please come and join your energies in promoting this dream.  Blessings!                            Rev. Rod Debs, pastor

We are great individually.  And we are better together.

Thanksgiving and winter holy days seem to be an antidote to our common human practice of taking for granted the gifts of nature and of community.  Year around gratitude and generosity may indeed be the essential practice of our Unitarian Universalist faith.  Humble submission in Islam; obedient hospitality in Judaism; and loving discipleship in Christianity.  This season of feasting and gifting, this season of family gatherings and community celebration reminds us of what we too often take for granted.  We are great individually, and we are better together.

Socialism-bashing has been going around recently.  How indeed are we better together than alone?  Currency, rather than bartering, is a government service for the common good, as are banking regulations which guarantee capital funding of industry.  Few could run a business from money kept under their mattress.  Clean water, clean air, food quality would be spotty at best without our collective efforts.  If we were each to have private sewage and water, private roads, fire and police protection, private legal recourse rather than laws and courts, it would be clear that we are better together.  We take so much of our collective community services for granted.

Despite our Unitarian and American forbear, Ralph Waldo Emerson’s celebration of self-reliance, his calling us back from human society to honor the wild and free, we are deeply communitarian.  We are better together.  We must not forget that our guts are a community of bacteria, our flesh and bone intimately dependent on plants and animals, soil, sun and water.  Our language and DNA, no private creation.  Our culture of self-reliance and private accumulation are the products of social movements, reactions to social circumstances.  We are part of an interdependent web of all existence.

Winter holy days are the culture’s seasonal celebration of gratitude and generosity.  As Unitarian Universalists, gratitude and generosity are our year-around religious practices.

We recognize inherent worth and dignity in every individual.  And when we come together as a religious community we become more than private valuing persons.  We become Unitarian Universalist communities of celebration and compassion, collective service and spiritual growth, communities of mutual trust and support.  Something more than herding cats!

This holiday season may we celebrate greater gratitude and generosity for our global and intimate interconnections.  Blessings!

Rev. Rod Debs, pastor

“When you dream alone,
it is only a dream.
When we dream together,
it is the beginning of reality.”

–Dom Helder Camara

The genius of American initiative was articulated by Unitarian Ralph Waldo Emerson in his 1841 Essay, Self-Reliance:  “Trust thyself: every heart vibrates to that iron string.” His words ignited the imagination, not only of Unitarians and Universalists, but of a whole nation of innovators.

At the same time, it seems, individualistic Americans have become a very lonely people, lonely for others who will share “my dream” with me.  Forceful at times.  Demanding, when others “don’t get it.”  Our private dreams compete against others’ private dreams.  Each against all.  Negotiating alliances.  Struggling for the floor, for the air space, for control.  Winning arguments.  Losing relationships.  Divorcing and going it alone.  Dreaming alone.

The joy of Unitarian Universalist communities is not only that we covenant to affirm and promote the individual’s “right of conscience” and personal integrity, but that we covenant our mutual trust and support of one another’s individual dreams.  Not only do we “trust thyself” as Emerson wrote, but we dare to trust one another’s genius because “every heart vibrates to that iron string.”

As a young UU, I plumbed the depth of my own honest thought and delighted in the UU religious community that would affirm my “right of conscience,” my private dreams.  In community, UU faith  matures.  Our imaginations expand and we search out others’ dreams.  Shared dreams.

It is unsatisfying to dream alone.  Private dreams that remain only dreams.  We are longing to dream together.  “When we dream together, it is the beginning of reality.”

Dreams of shelter and meals with the homeless.  Dreams of children joyful and exploring the world with beloved adults.  Dreams of community visibility for this reality-based religious community.  Dreams of a gazebo out front, portable classrooms in the vacant lot.  Dreams of a sanctuary on the hill.  Dreams of interfaith discussions on base.  Dreams of UU campus groups.  Dreams of UU art, theater and dance events.  Dreams of solar energy.  Dreams of community gardens and farmers’ markets.  Dreams of packed Coffee House Live, Arts Live.  Dreams of parenting cooperatives.  Dreams of UUFEC camp-outs.  Dreams of a popular public lecture series of liberal voices on the Emerald Coast.  Dreams of lonely dreamers finding others who share their dreams.

We used to ask, what are your dreams?  Perhaps it is now time to ask, what dreams do others share in common with you?  Let their reality begin!

Blessings!
Rev. Rod Debs, pastor

Minister’s Reflections Rev. Rod Debs July-August, 2009

“Ask not what your country can do for you. Ask what you can do for your country.” (John F. Kennedy)

10:30AM to 3:30PM, Saturday, August 29
Leadership Development Conference
with Connie Goodbread
Mid-South District Lifespan Program Consultant
@ UU Fellowship of Montgomery
presented by Alabama-Florida Panhandle UU Minister’s Cluster

In the Preamble to the U.S. Constitution we find the civic-minded aspirations of our nation’s founders: By “Union” of “We the People” the United States was established for the purpose of Justice and Tranquility, not only for a powerful, wealthy, permanent aristocracy as in Europe, but more broadly for “the common defence” and “the general welfare.” Civic-minded patriots rejected the self-interest of kings, priests and wealthy classes in framing the Constitution of a united people.

That the Constitution was designed to promote the common good and the general welfare is clear. But today, such civic-mindedness in our country is optional—except for taxes and jury duty. I dare say, every economics school in the country teaches self-interest as our nation’s fundamental economic law. In the “free enterprise” system, self-interest rules. Common interest is optional!

I stopped by a garage sale where a fellow shopper purchased a guitar to give to a child as part of a free music program in Uptown Station. Such civic-mindedness is wide-spread despite the glorification of private accumulation of wealth, and of the “successful” as a superior elite. Taxes? Rather than being a civic duty, taxes are publicly denigrated as theft. Self-interest is sacred.

The spiritual leader at the founding of the American Unitarian Association, William Ellery Channing celebrated the democratic concept of “disinterested” behavior. Self-interest pits each against all in society. Even civic-minded individuals and groups find ourselves in conflict based upon our diverse perceptions of what is in the public interest. But it is by the democratic processes of public discourse and disinterested policy-making whereby society can rise above both self-interest and parochial perspectives of the public interest.

One example of disinterested decision-making comes to mind: A congregation I served considered purchasing a computer so as to centralize their financial and membership data. The Board discussed the proposal and a motion was made to purchase a PC. When the “question” was called, there was one dissenting vote. All eyes went to the one voting “no.” The Board Chair asked, “Please share why you voted against this motion, if you would.” The dissenter responded, “I think we might be better served with a Macintosh. It is more user-friendly.” Everything got quiet. Though the PC users on the Board thought that their computer preference would serve the public interest best, the Board members suspended their own parochial perspective for a moment. They paused. From a disinterested perspective, they recognized they had no clear basis to choose one computer system over another. They withdrew their votes and tabled the matter until they could make a disinterested decision. The democratic spirit is to take every person’s view seriously, not just winning a vote.

There are, of course, other examples of a less democratic spirit. At a congregation with several biology professors and a clear commitment to “green” environmental practices, I observed a member with a little bottle of “Round-Up” spraying weeds in the cracks in the pavement of the parking lot. It took a special effort for him to come out on a week-day when no one was around so as to kill the weeds that made the parking lot look scraggly. I suspect he thought it would be better to avoid the debate and just get the job done. How many of us have side-stepped democratic process at one time or other because, “It is easier to get forgiveness than to get permission!”?

Breaking faith with the democratic process comes in many forms, but it boils down to the feeling of civic-minded folks that: “I know better than they do!” “It’s too important to the community, and I care too much to let others muck it up!” Countless civic-minded folks break faith with the democratic process, often in the name of “democracy.”

Leadership that honors diverse perspectives, leadership that follows processes of disinterested decision-making, Unitarian Universalist leadership is a wonderful challenge—especially for us who care so passionately for the common good. May we keep faith with one another and honor this precious democratic process handed into our care.

Blessings! Rev. Rod Debs, pastor

Minister’s Reflections Rev. Rod Debs, pastor                            
June, 2009

Our home is blessed with a puppy, fortunately now, almost grown.  What I am learning is that training a puppy is really about the whole family learning.  Seuss has us trained to walk every evening.  He has trained us not to leave flower pots or lawn furniture with straps or garden hoses or kayak handles within chewing range.  I am learning that losing my temper does absolutely no good.  We’ve learned that Seuss needs to be with us in the house (with “the pack”) when we’re home.

Dog-training is not really about the pup’s education alone.  It’s about all our growth in caring and wisdom and responsivity—including our neighbors who deserve a bark-free community.

Spiritual growth is not just a private affair.  Raising children we learn that in order to be effective, we parents must learn what works and what doesn’t.  We learn gentle restraint of our children and of ourselves when we’re angry.  We learn to listen to children’s needs and their “acting-out” without judging and punishment:  No child is “bad” for being hungry or having a dirty diaper.  No teen is bad for wanting to be with friends or for being bored or intimidated by school-work.  We ourselves must learn not to “act out” with verbal or physical violence, nor to judge ourselves for being exasperated!  Spiritual growth is something we all do together.

Congregations mature as well.  When fellowships are small, volunteers are appreciated for taking initiative and doing what needs to be done.  Then we start to butt heads.  Those who “take the bull by the horns” are greatly appreciated, while at the same time we learn to respect others’ creative input in getting things done.  We’re better together than we are alone.  As a community, we learn to bring our individual genius and passion to those authorized by the Board to focus on various aspects of our ministry with one another:  committees for Children’s Religious Exploration, Religious Services, Membership, Facilities, Finance.  The congregation as a whole grows to affirm the democratic Principle (#5 in our covenant) as we learn to trust and participate in collaborative processes.

National politics involves the same collective spiritual growth.   Government officials are elected, but not to be independent operators, elected dictators.  They and we must obey the laws and support the Constitution—which, by the way, does not enshrine capitalist accumulation of wealth, but is instituted to serve the common good, “the general welfare.”  Let me be so bold as to say that private accumulation of wealth at the expense of the common good is unpatriotic and un-American!

When politicians serve private gain or private ideological purposes, it is not simply for us to blame them for their undemocratic “acting-out.”  All of us, the whole nation needs to grow into caring and wisdom and responsivity for “the general welfare,” the common good.  Spiritual growth is not private.

Finally, religion is not a private matter.  Private spirituality, private salvation and private wealth lead to self-righteous judgment and brokenness (as opposed to wholeness).  The “umma” (community) in Islam, the Buddhist “sangha,” the Christian “kingdom of God” and the “beloved community” of Unitarian Universalists, all involve collective spiritual growth, collaborative caring and wisdom and responsivity.  May we engage in “service, spiritual growth and caring fellowship” together.

“Let us be united,

let us be filled with hope,

let us be those who respect one another.

Liberation is costly.

We must hold hands and refuse to be divided.”

–Desmond Tutu

Blessings!                                                                                                       Rev. Rod Debs, pastor

Introducing Congregational Ministry Committee members: 

Tiny Anderson andersontb@valp.net 543-3290
Fred Boyer boyer@valp.net 582-4417
Lois Von Ryik Lvr1@cox.net 897-2162
Deborah Baker bakerd1@mail.okaloosa.k12.fl.us 499-0198
Rod Debs minister@uufec.com 225-3826.

“Peace is not unity in similarity but unity in diversity, in the comparison and conciliation of differences.”  Mikhail Gorbachev (Nobel Peace Prize, 1990)   

Unity is often spoken of but without explanation of how to attain unity in diversity.  Democratic processes decide that one side wins and has control.  By reason and rhetoric, sometimes by misinformation, incorrect or incomplete information, we are coerced to the unity of conformity.   The real challenge is unity in diversity.

In his Autobiography, Benjamin Franklin wrote:  “Disputing, contradicting and confuting People. . .   get Victory sometimes, but they never get Good Will, which would be of more use to them.” 

In the religious community, the counsel of elders that we call the Congregational Ministry Committee (CMC) is the most important committee of the congregation.  Recognizing that each one of us ministers to one another, the purpose of the Congregational Ministry Committee is to strengthen the quality of ministry within the congregation—all our ministries to one another.

Anytime any of us hears a concern or anxiety a fellow member has, it’s all our job to take those concerns to the committee chairperson or staff responsible for that area of our Fellowship activities.  Concerns that don’t seem to get addressed can eat at us.  Unmet concerns can undermine our relationships and distract from our mission of “service, spiritual growth and caring fellowship.”   So the CMC members’ task is to listen and to hear any concerns anyone might feel are not being addressed.

The Congregational Ministry Committee will research concerns to get accurate information, to get concerns to those who can do something about them, and to get back to you with the results.  Sometimes a committee or staff will appreciate hearing of the concern and will be able to “fix it.”  Sometimes more information itself will resolve your concern.  Sometimes the CMC will only be able to communicate your concern though others do not agree with your proposed solution and can only “take it under advisement.”  Members of the CMC will take each concern seriously and follow up on them.

Periodically, the Congregational Ministry Committee will revisit the UUFEC Mission Statement and Congregational Covenant of what we do here.  The CMC will facilitate a review of committees and staff effectiveness in carrying out our Fellowship mission and goals so that we can constantly improve and adapt to new circumstances.  Review and Renewal is for strengthening all congregational ministries, committees and staff alike.

St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) wrote:  “We must love them both – those whose opinions we share and those whose opinions we reject.  For both have labored in the search for truth, and both have helped us in the finding of it.” 

“Take courage friends,
The way is often hard, the path is never clear,
And the stakes are very high.
Take courage.
For deep down, there is another truth:
You are not alone.” –Wayne Arnason

We humans find ourselves in the posture of humble awe and wonder.  I think this posture itself is the defining core of religion.   

Religion is not about beliefs, not about intellectual consent, according to religious historian Karen Armstrong.  She writes: “Indeed, it is only since the Enlightenment that faith has been defined as intellectual submission to a creed.” (Every Eye Beholds, 1998)  Religion is a posture of awe and wonder, a posture of humility before something awesome transcending oneself. 

The egotist who truly behaves as if there is nothing greater than him/herself is rare.  

When believers declare they know God, defining Him as a father, a king and judge, I can understand why others call themselves “atheists.”  It is embarrassing that the awe- some reality we observe in microorganism and in galaxy is characterized with dated human metaphors.  Those among us who call themselves “atheist,” dissociate themselves from that God “imagined” in our own image.   We reject idolatry, the error of mistaking the pointing finger for the moon. 

The reality that amazes us moment by moment, is beyond human words or imagination.  It is what is. All the atheists I have ever met have a great sense of awe and wonder.  They are far from being self-absorbed egotists.  They may reject the term `God,’ but they do recognize the existence of reality greater than themselves. That is, in my opinion, a theistic perspective.   

Carl Sagan responds:  “Well, if we say that the definition of God is reality, or the definition of God is love, I have no quarrel with the existence of reality or the existence of love.  In fact, I’m in favor of both of them…. So my proposal is that we call reality `reality,’ that we call love `love,’ and not either of them God, which has, while an enormous number of other meanings, not exactly those meanings.” (The Varieties of Scientific Experience, 2006) 

Call this amazing and unfathomable something that we experience moment by moment “reality” or call it God, both naturalistic theist and atheist find ourselves in the religious posture of humility and wonder. In speaking with those who believe in loving-and-damning-God metaphors, we could do better than simply saying what we don’t believe.  Do we communicate our sense of awe and wonder before an amazing, unfathomable reality?  We don’t deserve the caricature of being called self-worshiping egotists! 

Blessings! 

Rod Debs, Pastor  

Rev. Rod Debs 

“Courage on the Emerald Coast”

“We drink from wells we did not dig; we are warmed by fires we did not kindle.” (Deut. 6.11)

In honor of those past whose generosity blesses our lives,
we offer our gifts of time, talent and treasure,
to bless lives around us and to come.

Fellowship members were courageous in 1992, in purchasing a long vacant Mormon Church, our current home at 1295 Bayshore Drive, for $140,000. Then Fellowship members refinanced to fund a $100,000 renovation in 2001. We enjoy this attractive facility today because of the courage and generosity of those who went before.

Only two years after the beautiful renovation, members ambitiously called your first, full-time settled Minister, made possible by savings accumulated with part-time professional ministry.

In the six years of our ministry together, some of our beloved community have died: Susan Porter, the sparkling- eyed artist who directed the beautification of our Fellowship; Fran Boudolf, a poet who embodied Southern kindness; Walter vonRyik who journeyed from Luftwaffa to USAF, a charming survivor; John Horn, gentle father with the entrepreneurial spirit; Roger Harris, a Southern Alabama boy, poor, hard-working and generous; Hall Tennis, artist, dancer, patriot; Gertrude Oakman, strong-willed lover of birds and native plants. Words cannot tell the stories of their lives, nor the gifts of time, talent and treasure they brought to our religious community.

Many wonderful and talented new members have found a home here, succeeding those who have passed. Why, now, does Stewardship encourage us to “step up” our gifts of time, talent and treasures to the Fellowship?

Member mobility! Last year, fifteen members relocated. With the passing of those who have died and those who have left the area, we, newcomers and old, are now the stewards of this thriving Unitarian Universalist presence on the Emerald Coast.

Those who are new reading this list, will only see names. Others know the wonderful people behind these names and their commitment and generosity. In six years, these have moved on:  Don and Lynn, Hank, Carrie and John, Max and Jan, Doug, Cliff and Mary Ann, Karen, Guy, Gary, Steve, Carol and Chris, Robert, Gary and Margie and Frank and Rose, Melanie and Evan, Heather, Blake and Lisa and Hannah and Ella, Dora and Russ, Leslie and Rick and Daniel, Mindy and Terry and Dylan and Miranda, Jeanette and Lawton and Molly (our only canine member).

We are now stewards of the UU dream come to life in this religious community. When Jeannette and I offer a 10% reduction in ministerial compensation so as to end the depletion of UUFEC savings, we do not see it as anything more than what many have done in the years before us. As you reflect on your dreams for liberal religious community on the Emerald Coast, we invite you to join all those who have gone before in contributing their time, talents and treasures to this thriving UU Fellowship.

Please join us in “stepping up” as good stewards of this thriving Fellowship. Now is our day.

Blessings!

Rod Debs, Pastor