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Thoughts from Service Committee

What a Delightful Congregation!

A Message of Welcome from UUCT

Our congregation brings liberal religion to Northeast Oklahoma. Members are pleased to greet visitors because they want to share our approach to religion.

Our conversations are both serious and fun; we enjoy one another as we learn together. We care about our children and they know they belong here.

In my view, this congregation lives our Unitarian Universalist values - both inside the congregation and also in the broader community and the world. I am delighted to minister among the members and friends of UUCT.

Minister's Column/ June 2010

Reverend Doug

Rev. Jim Eller certainly had it right, at the close of his sermon on Sunday, May 23rd, when he reflected on how his sermon had indeed focused on conventional conceptions of both God and Jesus, although, in fact, he had not mentioned either “God” or “Jesus” in his sermon. He explained then, in his closing, that some people wonder about a sermon in which neither is mentioned, and, as he said, he wanted to make clear that his entire sermon had been about nothing else.
On the occasion of the congregation’s celebrating the many wonderful gifts of service—including a lot of just plain hard work!—given by Earl and Dicksie Schmitt, and Kelly Mindiola, over the years, Rev. Eller’s sermon had underscored the importance in our lives of committing ourselves to worthwhile goals, ones that take us outside ourselves and call on us, in the offing, to serve a higher power, to give our gifts of service as gifts rooted firmly in love. This is Tillich’s “God,” God seen from a perspective that asks, “What is it that is of utmost importance to you? How do you conceive of ‘God’?”
As Rev. Eller put it, a sermon about committing ourselves to service, because we love something bigger than ourselves, is indeed a sermon about God. As Rev. Eller put it, a sermon about love become incarnate—about the manifestation in this world of selfless love, of love for something bigger than one’s self—is indeed a sermon about Jesus.

Rev. Eller’s closing, on that Sunday, is itself firmly rooted in Unitarian theology. Henry N. Wieman (pronounced “Wyman”) was a 20th century theologian and minister—first a Presbyterian one, then a Unitarian one—who considered at great length the source of human good. For Wieman, people had a job to do: to commit themselves, in their own minds, to live lives that they would consider, from inside themselves, meaningful. Rev. Eller mentioned that both Channing and Emerson had preached that a “spark of divinity” rested in each of us—indeed, Channing called it a “likeness to God.”

Regardless whether the spark’s existence can be tested for, Wieman’s point was one that illuminates the good that people do and the gifts of service celebrated by Rev. Eller’s sermon. As Wieman put it, God is found in creative events, interchanges that occur when humans communicate, interchanges that occur when they love enough to take action that will transform humankind. For Wieman, “God” was a word that referred to “what actually operates to save and not merely to some belief about what operates in this way . . . .” For Wieman, God is the creative event, the process in nature that humans can and do experience.

If Wieman could have been there on Sunday, he would no doubt have agreed with Rev. Eller’s closing. He would have agreed that when we give gifts of service motivated by love, when we communicate to others that they are worth our gifts, when they understand and their lives are deepened and enhanced, and when there is an increased sense of community among everyone involved—well, then, we have seen Wieman’s God. And so, as the social gospel encouraged Unitarians a hundred years ago, talking about the word is not enough . . . “creative events” are required, and people must do them.
It was a wonderful occasion, on Sunday, the 23rd, to be reminded of all the creative events to be experienced in our congregation. I was able then to step back and to see what’s been going on around me—and what’s been going on around Revs. Eller and Nietfeld!—and to see them as Wieman’s God. That is what I heard—and what I saw!—on Sunday, the 23rd.

May 2010

Reverend Doug

Buddhism’s ideas are not only accessible but, as well, quite congenial to Unitarian Univeralists. Better yet, they are immediately useful, for they make sense now, this very day. I was once dissuaded from studying Buddhism, I see now, by the false notions that its study would require serious devotion to meditation and that, today, I just didn’t have the time! Applying Buddhism’s ideas to our lives, in a helpful way, is, of course, the ultimate objective. Let’s look at some of the ideas themselves.
People everywhere suffer, and the reason they suffer is–often–because they persist in failing to recognize the fundamental fact, that everything must and will change. Understanding that suffering is unavoidable helps to set one free from it, for there is no longer the gnawing sense that the suffering springs from bad luck or that, worse yet, the suffering is a punishment. One need not resent others, whose “luck” seems better, for it is not.
Buddhism does not raise up any gods, and thus it is often said that Buddhism is not a religion but a way of life. The Buddha himself, in the 6th century B.C.E., taught (perhaps with some delicious sense of the irony in this teaching!) that nothing worth knowing can be taught. And so Buddhism calls one to follow an experiential, pragmatic “Middle Way”–there are no top-down, universally valid premises (except, perhaps, this one!).
As the Buddha said, “Believe nothing, no matter where you read it or who has said it, not even if I have said it, unless it agrees with your own reason and your own common sense.” The implication for ethics is this: virtue is achieved, it is not prescribed. In overcoming our greed, desire, and attachments, we can see these attitudes as ones based on an erroneous view of the world, a view that says things are permanent, that they endure–indeed, that they endure in the same way that our modern economy causes us to see the world as a changeless, ever-present mall, one forever filled with the same stores, the same forms, the same . . . hype!
This is a category mistake, for in fact things are not permanent. Our false sense of permanence is reflected, then, in our own egos, and so our selves come to seem similarly permanent. This, then, completes the circle of suffering.
There is, to be sure, much more. It might be said, as a conclusion here, simply that Buddhism proposes a gestalt existence, one in which everything is interdependent, in which we see all things from an “all things are co-arising” viewpoint. In the event, our egos become much less important.
For those who would like to read more, here’s a short bibliography, with the more basic books at the top, the slightly-more advanced ones at the bottom. Note that some of them are published with UUs specifically in mind, and that one—Thich Nhat Hanh’s book—is published by Beacon Press, which is the UUA’s imprint and is, of course, accessible on line or through the Beacon Press catalog, which the UUA will mail to you on request.
Carrithers, M., The Buddha (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996)–very readable!
Rahula, W., What the Buddha Taught (New York: Grove Weidenfeld, 1974)
Ford, J., This Very Moment (Boston: Skinner House Books, 1996)–published for UUs
Ives, C., Zen Awakening and Society (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1992)–very readable!
Aitken, R., The Mind of Clover (New York: North Point Press, 1984)–essays on Zen Buddhism
Nakasone, R., Ethics of Enlightenment (Fremont: Dharma Clud Publishers, 1990)–essays
Kalupahana, D., Ethics in Early Buddhism (Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 1995)
Harvey, P., An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000)
Thurman, R., Essential Tibetan Buddhism (New York: Harper, 1995)
Thich Nhat Hanh, The Miracle of Mindfulness (Boston: Beacon press, 1987)–on meditation
I have many of these books and will bring them to my office, on April 28th, where you may check one out if you want to.

December 2008

(old one)

I know you will carry on the efforts we have been making together. UUCT is strong, vibrant, and full of initiative and resilience. You will have enough of what you need to continue growing in all ways - in maturity, spiritual understanding, care, numbers, and resources. You have my high regard and best wishes as I leave at the end of this month.
The community ministry I'm seeking has a couple of certainties: I'll be writing a weekly column for the UUA peacemaking website in support of the peacemaking resolution that will be voted on at the 09 General Assembly. I'll be supporting the Season for Nonviolence in Manhatten this winter and sitting in on a Kansas State University class called leadership & Spirituality in anticipation of teaching it.
Please take care of each other. You are precious and I will always hold you in my heart.
With affection, Thea