seeker for truth

(sermon delivered on February 1, 2009 at the First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin) READING This reading comes from an interview with the 14th Dalai Lama "Recently I am emphasizing that due to the modern economy, and also due to information and education, the world is now heavily interdependent, interconnected. Under such circumstances, the concept of 'we' and 'they' is gone: harming your neighbor is actually harming yourself. If you do negative things towards your neighbor, that is actually creating your own suffering. And helping them, showing concern about others' welfare -- actually these are the major factors of your own happiness. If you want a community full of joy, full of friendship, you should create that possibility. If you remain negative, and meantime want more smiles and friendship from your neighbors, that's illogical. If you want a more friendly neighbor, you must create the atmosphere. Then they will respond." PRAYER Please joi...

Did a little internet research today I thought I'd share. I searched for the full text string of each of the seven UU principles and recorded the number of hits. I think it is an interesting rough estimate of what priority each principle has at this point in history (although a better study would break down the evaluation by posting date, so that the time element contributes to the analysis instead of weakening it). At any rate, here's what I found: [# of Hits - UU Principle] 34.2k -The inherent worth and dignity of every person 22k - A free and responsible search for truth and meaning 21.9k - Justice, equity and compassion in human relations 18k - Respect for the interdependent web of all existence of which we are a part 17k - The goal of world community with peace, liberty, and justice for all 11.6k - Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations 10.7k - The right of conscience and the use of the democratic process within our congrega...

I decided a few days ago to finally visit the MacArthur foundation website. I had been hearing their recognition clip on NPR for years: "The MacArthur Foundation supports creative people and effective institutions committed to building a more just, verdant, and peaceful world." I think it's a great mission statement for a foundation: it is nearly exhaustive without losing focus on the values that it promotes. At any rate, this led me to read more about the programs that they sponsor, and subsequently to realize that I want to be a MacArthur Fellow. Unfortunately you can't apply to be a MacArthur fellow. Which is probably an excellent idea to save your selection volunteers from having to pour over oodles of applications from all over the spectrum (a lot of people would do anything for $500,000 in no-strings-attached funding). But, in deciding what I would do with the funding, I came to a few important realizations: (1) that I am ready to begin work on writing on so...

I was reading an article by Robert Bellah called "Unitarian Universalism in Societal Perspective" delivered at the UU general assembly in 1998. (http://www.robertbellah.com/lectures_7.htm) He places UUism squarely in the mainstream of the American religion tradition, primarily by discussing how it is principally in line with America's cultural bias of individualism. I find this argument compelling and I agree with the analysis, but for me it has highlighted what I believe to the the biggest hurdle standing between where we are and where we are headed (as a species). Before I attempt to articulate the hurdle, another example: in the fouth season of the West Wing. The President is faced with a genocide in the fictional African nation of Kundu and asks one of his staffers, "Why is an American life worth more than a Kundunese one?" The staffer responds, "I don't know sir, it just is." The power of this dialogue, for me, is the clear acknowledgement o...

Since I cannot begin to lay out my full worldview in just a few moments in order to derive how that worldview informs my approach to the environment, I will, instead, simply point out a few defining features of my religious/political/scientific worldview and connect those to my stance on the environment. First of all I reject the mythology of the fall. I reject the idea that man was, in some idealized past, perfect, and that he might again, although through no power of his own, re-achieve that perfection. Instead I believe the version of meta-history that Occam’s Razor would select: We humans are a species who has become sentient. We are infants (or toddlers, or adolescents, if you prefer) who are just figuring out how to come to terms with the fact that this sentience has significantly disconnected us from the processes of biological evolution which produced us. Second, I embrace the concept of free-will. I believe that we are, individually and collectively, self-determining to a very...

I am flabbergasted that it has been almost a year since I began (briefly) to write this blog... after a staggering 4 entries *chuckle* I apparently fell right off the ole' blog-wagon... at any rate, fatherhood is fast approaching (2 weeks until anticipated birthmother due date), house construction is mostly complete... I have decided to abandon my earliest preconceptions about how this blog should work (i.e. dedicated and more or less polished writing with a specific sort of audience/mindset paradigm). Instead, I'm going to attempt to renew this enterprise by utilizing tidbits of writings that I am doing for other purposes, less purpose-built and a much lower threshold for polish. As well as providing simple linkage and commentary on other content that I have already put "out in the 'verse". In that spirit, here is the text of the testimonial that I gave at church ( http://www.austinuu.org ) this morning: Good morning! In my few years as a member of this church ...

Invocation: A wise person once said to me, you get to choose how to live, and there are basically two choices, you can choose to be right or you can choose to be peaceful. The more I have reflected on this the more clear it has become that choosing to be right is about ego, while choosing to be peaceful is about wisdom. Peace be with you. Let us join together in song. Prayer: How can we become more compassionate? It is helpful to think of a generic situation where you are engaged with another person. You perceive their actions, and from this perception you normally confer onto them motives and thoughts. It is by these motives and thoughts, which we have imagined, that we determine how we will react to their action. One form of compassion happens when we are clear and honest about the actions of others, but kind and generous when we infer thought and motive. There is an expression for this in English, it is called ‘giving the benefit of the doubt.’ One way to cultivate our capacity for ...