There are a number of little sayings that refer to quilters:
When live gives you scraps--Make a quilt
When you fall to pieces--Make a quilt

These sayings suggest an attitude adjustment--a therapy, or a healing process that quilt making can supply. I am not going to talk only about what quilts mean to me, but what I have observed them to mean to others.

When we think of quilts, we think of a comfort that might mean "to encircle." We don't feel alone when snuggled into a quilt. The quilt is a "safe" place. What a wonderful gift for anyone of any age! Many people create soft, beautiful quilts for new babies, as well as warm, cheerful lap quilts for the elderly. The quilt becomes an ever-present reminder of the care--the time--the love that went into that gift. However, there is also a reward for the quilt maker. We find the truth in the words "it is more blessed to give than to receive." We experience the joy of creation, and the satisfaction in fulfillment of ideas.

I belong to several quilt guilds. Those groups make quilts for families who lose everything in a fire, experience other tragedies, or just for individuals who need extra comfort in some way. The quilters don't usually get to see who receives their gift, but they know that it will make someone feel special. Quilting is sharing oneself with others.

Quilts are also a tie to the past. Many of us can reach back to memories of those old special quilts of interesting designs made from little calico prints or the cloth from flour sacks. Perhaps we remember quilts made from warm, but scratchy, wool pieces. Or maybe we remember running our fingers over the velvets and corduroys of an intricately stitched crazy quilt, as we feasted our eyes on the endless decorative stitch choices.

I've known people who spend years studying the fascinating history of quilts and the people who make them. Hundreds of traditional patterns were made up by unknown quilt makers who wanted to decorate and beautify the quilts they stitched. Many treasured quilts from the past have been carefully preserved and passed down. They can be a binder” between generations.

Possibly you have seen one of the many sunbonnet girl quilts made using the fabrics from the real dresses a little girl wore throughout her childhood, or quilts made from shirts and ties. Maybe you have seen quilts made from special T-shirts, from award ribbons, or from dainty handkerchiefs. I've seen quilts made for almost any subject: weddings, anniversaries, births, sports of all kinds, music, fishing, golf, dolls, cars, motorcycles, railroads, pets, tribute quilts to certain people, and so forth. I made a tribute quilt to the memory of our pet guinea pigs. Because of the way they wove themselves into our lives, I decided to try a method I had no idea how to achieve. I wove the quilt in the same weaving look of the chair weaving on my bent-wood rocker. This was to symbolize their entwining with our family. I brought that quilt to share as an example of a tribute quilt to pets.

Many quilts have been made to commemorate events such as the Statue of Liberty Centennial, or the Bicentennial year of our independence. I made a quilt for each of those celebrations, and will share the one I did to celebrate the Statue of Liberty.

Some quilts also express grief over devastating events. An example of this would be the ever-growing Aids quilt project. I also have seen photos of many incredible quilts relating to the 9-11 disaster.

There is a very interesting history of quilts being used as a signal for the Underground Railroad. The hanging out of a log cabin quilt with a black center rather than the traditional red center meant that was a "safe house." A wheel pattern showed that a group was going to be departing.

I was invited to Boise back in 1990 to help design the Idaho's People Quilt. That was when I first learned of the Boise Peace Quilt Project. This is an amazing group of women who have sought to combine peacemaking and quilt making. These are individuals working to produce quilts as gestures of international goodwill and as awards for peacemakers. Their goal has been to create a more peaceful world one stitch at a time. They design and make quilts to present as an award to various chosen, deserving recipients in recognition of their unique efforts toward peace among people. I have a collection of postcards showing quite a few of the quilts, as well as some photos printed from their web site if anyone wishes to look at them after the service. There are too many for me to name and describe in my talk, but this is a beautiful collection of quilts.

While I was helping work on the design for the Idaho's People Quilt Triptych, one of the women suddenly jumped up and quickly ran out of the room saying, " My men--I'm forgetting my men!" The others explained that she takes meals twice a day to a large group of homeless men who live under the bridge. I found this to be indicative of the nature of quilters: always concerned for the comfort of others.

It is not only women who find satisfaction in quilting. I knew an amazing elderly gentleman while I lived in Richland, Washington who made many quilts despite his very swollen, arthritic fingers. All of his quilts were made of one-half inch squares. He would draw his plan on graph paper, color the design, and cut his fabrics into piles of half-inch squares sorted by color. Then following his design, he would stitch square after square by hand in a ladder, stair-step fashion. All of his quilts were hand pieced and usually contained words, phrases, or whole sentences as part of the pieced design.

When I was doing my quilt exhibit in Salem, Oregon, several women brought quilt examples to show me that were made by men in the prison. They were teaching the men to make quilts, and the men in turn made quilts for their charity projects: an example of the healing power of quilts.

I have never been sorry that I was introduced to the hand quilting process at the little Viola Community Club in the 70s. They have a long history of hand quilting quilt tops for people. The sisterhood of our quilting and chatter one day a week was something I will always remember.

Because I marvel at all aspects of the outdoors and nature, many of my quilts were inspired by and depict birds, flowers, trees, and landscapes. I will finish by quickly sharing some of those quilts. These are a type of quilt meant to be hung on the wall. Finally, because this is a church service, I would like to share my quilt titled "Agony At Gethsemane."
List of quilts shown:
Little Friends
United We Stand
O Beautiful For Spacious Skies
Call of the Cranes
Forest Floor Fragment
Mt. Shuksan--Shalom
Beachcomber
Consider the Columbine
Display of Daffodils
Egret Elegance
Glorious Morning
Marsh Mates
Agony at Gethsemane

Labels: comfort, creating, giving, helping, quilts, sharing

One of the deep pleasures of my seminary education has been the discovery of theology. At one time theology meant the "study of God." Now, at least in liberal religion, it means the study of what is most meaningful and valuable. It is an incredibly interdisciplinary area of study. The best theologians try to take what we know from all sorts of fields: biology, physics, psychology, history, art, literature are a few examples, and then try to figure out the nature of human beings and the universe and what that might mean religiously and ethically.

Albert Einstein said, "All religions, arts and sciences are branches of the same tree . . . " Most academic disciplines study a branch of the tree. But in my experience, it's the theologians who are trying to figure out the nature of the tree itself and then consider just what in that means for our lives. In theology classes, I've read a dense text on the evolutionary biology of emotional response, a fairly incomprehensible legal treatise on human rights, classical philosophers, and an economics book. Probably the most profound influence on my theology has been A Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson, which is a delightful overview of what we know scientifically about the earth and universe.

This morning, I want to share just one bit of my personal theology that I have developed over six years of reading, writing and discussing. I want to talk about my religious faith.

The word "faith" and its cousin "belief" are challenging words for many Unitarian Universalists. Often we associate "religious belief" with a person's intellectual confidence that God exists or that Jesus Christ died for humanity's sins or that there is a hell. We then associate "faith" with "believing" in these ideas even when no logical evidence exists for their truth. For example, if I "believe" in a personal God who cares for me, then I have "faith" God is looking out for me. The most rational among us sometimes reject such ideas and feel there is little point to discussing religious faith and religious belief.

However, the word "faith" with no religious context refers to what any person trusts to be true about the world and life. What a person has faith in guides the decisions he or she makes about how to live. People have faith in all sorts of things. Faith can be based on reason, experience, external evidence, or cultural expectation and tradition.

People in our culture often have in faith in ideas such as:
* Somebody ensured the airplane we just got on has no mechanical problems.
* The water in our town is safe.
* Children and youth will have better, richer lives if they are involved in sports or other structured activities.
* The scientific method is the best way to understand the world.
* Going to college, getting a good job, buying a house, and investing in retirement will ensure financial security and, thus, a good life.

Since most of us are 21st century Americans, we probably have faith, or have had faith, in many of these propositions and have made decisions about how to conduct our lives based on them. We drink water from the faucet without fear. We buy houses and invest in retirement. We read scientific discoveries as truth. However, none of these propositions is true all of the time.

The Hebrew word that is translated in modern Bibles as "faith" does not mean "belief in something without evidence" but means "steadfastness." All of us steadfastly direct our lives by certain ideas. Even if we know that going to college and buying a house doesn't always, every time, mean a good life and that the water in the tap might not always be safe, we choose to live our lives by those ideas.

We have faith.

But what of religious faith? Religious faith, like secular faith, guides the decisions we make about how to live. Only religious faith is typically based on beliefs about what helps us live value-filled lives and what helps sustains us during times of despair. Religious faith is about what we believe directs our lives toward love and justice and hope. It guides how we act to make our lives and world better.

For Christians, Jews, Muslims, and some people in this room their religious faith is in God. God is the one who has the power to help steer lives toward love and justice and hope. This faith provides direction to people. It helps one focus on what is most valuable. When life is hard, a person can pray to and trust God. One can follow old religious traditions that have developed methods for aligning one with God and love, justice and hope.

Modern secular culture and much of Unitarian Universalism teach that what we can have faith in is ourselves. Both teach that it is our actions and our will to influence our actions that direct us toward what we value we most and toward love, justice and hope.

This was what I was taught growing up--that I was ultimately responsible for my own fate and for improving the world. The saving of the earth and ourselves, this implies, is achieved by what each of us is able to do. We have faith in ourselves and our ability to make and act on good choices.

I think this is partly true. Often I have faith in myself to do the right thing to make a difference and I do it.

But not always. I can't always do it.

I cannot do all that has to be done and often what I can do, I cannot do perfectly. If what I can will myself to do is responsible for creating a good life and world, than what I do does matters tremendously, and it matters much more than I can deliver.

Many times I do not do what I know I should do.

We all have these experiences. We decide to lose weight, but eat cake the very day we make the decision. We decide to live in gratitude, but find ourselves wishing for an air conditioner or a different car. We decide to live in love, but find ourselves judging a difficult person. We decide to change the world, but do little of significance.

Other times I don't know what to do.

Does anyone really know the correct way to raise a child or deal with a challenging family member? Or the best way to spend time and money to end the pain of a suffering world?

I'm also certain that sometimes I act in ways that hurt myself and the world that I'm not even conscious of.

I know in my past I behaved in ways that seemed right and appropriate, but now I realize were damaging, because I have seen their results. I had a friend who grew up in a racist home and community and had no idea her attitudes were damaging until she was an adult and lived in other communities and met other people.

What do I do at these moments? Where do I turn? What guides my actions? Faith in myself provides no guidance. I simply feel guilty, hopeless and paralyzed.

To respond effectively to the world and live with hope, I need something more.

I know a wonderful man who has a deep faith in God. He works very hard to make the world better for people who struggle against oppression. But at the end of the day, he says, I have done my part; the rest is up to God. I envy the man's commitment and ability to do his part and then remain confident that his God continues to work while he rests. He is not guilty, hopeless or paralyzed.

I want that sort of faith.

I was raised by academics and am myself highly educated. What I was trained to do, and what seems as natural as breathing, is to think rationally. I mull the evidence. What I have faith in and what guides my moral choices cannot contradict the scientific evidence, cannot contradict what we know of history and of psychology, anthropology and sociology, and cannot contradict my experience. It is not part of my experience or tradition to find faith in a personal God who is beyond history and nature and can influence the world.

Still my experience demonstrates that this world is more mysterious than we can rationally understand: there is synchronicity, moments of grace, falling in love, call to vocation, and the intensity of birth and death. My mind, experience and heart tells me that there is something beyond myself that can guide me toward what is most valuable and toward love, justice and hope.

Henry Nelson Wieman, an influential liberal theologian in the early to middle part of this century, helped me find what I'd been looking for. For Wieman the question of the religious journey was, "What can transform people in such a way to save them from the depths of evil and bring them to the greatest good which human life can ever attain?"

He had two answers. The first is what we can will ourselves to do--the emphasis of secular and Unitarian Universalist culture. He called that ethics.

His second answer addressed the question what "transforms us when we cannot transform ourselves?" What, in other words, can we have faith in to help us when we don't behave as we want, don't know what to do, or don't realize our limitations?

His answer was creativity or as he called it the "creative event."

Very simply, creativity brings together a person's experience of the world's diversity, mixes it within a person, and changes the person so he or she can experience new, deeper relationships. Through creativity a person's life and the world become richer, more meaningful, more full of love and more just.

Creativity requires engagement with the world. Wieman calls this "creative interchange." We must reach out beyond our own understanding to listen and appreciate the other--whether that is a pinecone, our friend, someone with the opposite political views, or our own mysterious breath. We must reach out with our time, attention and heart.

One important element of this creativity is we do not control it. We cannot make the creative event happen.

We also cannot decide how it will change us. Wieman says, "The creative event cannot be used to shape the world closer to the heart's desire because it transforms the heart's desire so that one wants something very different from what one desired in the beginning."

However, we can lead our lives to make the creative event more likely to happen. For Wieman this meant increased appreciation of the world, times of silence, prayer and worship, and engagement with others particularly in sustained small groups.
Still, we cannot will creative change to happen.
It is out of our power.
It is beyond us.
Wieman's idea of creativity seems true to me.

The operating principle of the universe appears to be to be creativity--the combining of diverse elements to make something new. That is how we got atoms, molecules, flowers, blueberries and us. The operating principle of human culture also appears to be creativity. That is how we got democracy, the English language, and Unitarian Universalism.

So it makes sense that creativity would be what makes human change possible, help us live more by our values and align our lives toward love, justice and hope.

I have also experienced the transforming power of creativity, certainly many times, but I have one story that clearly demonstrates the change. In Spokane a couple of years ago, I took Spokane Alliance Leadership training. The Spokane Alliance brings together churches of wide theological differences, unions, educational institutions and non-profit agencies to work for meaningful non-partisan political change. Based on the work of Saul Alinsky, their philosophy is that people work together better across differences, if they know each other, and they do this through relational meetings, where each person shares their thoughts feelings on a specific question and the other listens and then they trade places.

While practicing relational meetings, I was paired with a woman very different from me in age, class, political affiliation and religious belief. For some reason, I don't now remember, she began discussing Wal-Mart. I boycott Wal-Mart because of their labor practices. She did all her shopping there and was bitterly angry with people who criticized Wal-Mart. At first, I was surprised at her bitterness. Most people I know who shop at Wal-Mart at least feel guilty about it. Then I felt superior. I understood the issues. I was ethical. I stood up for what I believed. But because the assignment was to listen, I listened. And because I listened, I experienced her fear of living on a fixed income, prices rising and her standard of living slipping, until she saw herself homeless. Wal-Mart prices allowed her to live with a standard of living that she was used to, at least for the moment. I understood then how Wal-Mart is the result of a society that values consumerism above all else and where the poor are getting poorer. It's fine for me, financially secure, to be superior in my Wal-Mart boycott, but Wal-Mart is not going anywhere with its labor practices and philosophy of closing down local retail economies until the root issues of poverty and consumerism are addressed.

I had listened and I had changed. I no longer felt superior. I knew I needed this woman to work for justice and to end poverty. We needed each other. Love, justice and hope increased in the world at that moment.

My faith in creativity has changed my approach to life. When I don't do what I think I should or when I don't know what to do, I remember my commitment to creativity. And I always remember, I cannot will creativity to happen. It is like my friend with his faith in God. He does his part and lets God do the rest. I do my part and let the creative power work in me and in others.

So I do what I can. I do those things I know I can do to make my life and the life of others better. My Then I open myself to creativity. I appreciate the world. I become "wholly attentive," as Annie Dillard said in this morning's meditation. I listen. I meditate. I pray. I worship. I stay in relationship with people.

I have also been fortunate, as you are, to be in a congregation that provides opportunities that prepare us for creative transformation. Small groups and affinity groups, such as the PPQ and men's groups, allow us deepen and lengthen relationships. Non-violent communication teaches us to listen more deeply to others and ourselves. We worship together. We value generosity, community, gratitude, acting in love, and paying attention.

I find as practice my faith in creativity, my faith deepens.
Sometimes I am exhausted and overwhelmed: the study of ministry takes so long, family and work is demanding, hundreds die in Iraq each month, hundreds others starve all over the world, and the glacial ice cracks as it thaws. All I can remember in those moments about the practice of my faith is that I should "appreciate" and be "wholly attentive," to the other and myself. So I look at trees. I examine the chunky puzzle piece bark of pine trees and the new bright green growth at the tips of fir branches. I wonder at the stately trunks of pines and the branching trunks of apple trees. Often as I'm admiring this artistry a squirrel darts out, its bushy tail high as it scurries across the grass, or a bird sweeps down and flies gracefully among branches.

Mostly, I just breathe easier after meditating on trees.

But once, I was pulled deeper. In trees, squirrels, and birds I saw how amazing Life is. How it is strong, tenacious and creative in its expression of itself. Life can be a tree, a squirrel, a piece grass, an ant, or a lilac. Life is undaunted by change. When the atmosphere could no longer support Life in the form of dinosaurs, Life morphed and made other things--mammals and different of sorts of birds and reptiles. Mass extinctions have wiped out 98 percent of species that have ever lived, but Life is still abundant. From my yard, I saw magpies, robins, horses, petunias, phlox, honeysuckle, weeping birch, and day lilies. I couldn't see, but knew they were there: worms, ladybugs, and the bacteria that decay leaves. What more Life I would see if I walked down the street or flew to Peru. I was awed by the abundance of Life.

Then I remembered that I am a bit of Life. I am strong. I am tenacious. I am creative. I can be alive in new ways.

I also remembered that I am only one bit of Life--just a small part and thus both significant and insignificant, both powerful and not powerful.

My exhaustion evaporated. I walked slowly back into the day--where I found my family and work, the journey toward ministry, and a world both suffering and flourishing.

I joined, bringing the vibrant piece of Life that I am to the webs I live in, realizing that I could act or, if needed, just be, and I could trust the creativity and strength of Life itself to be a part of whatever happened.

I knew that there would be love. There would be justice. And there would be hope.

May it be so.

Labels: creativity, fatith, nataure, religion

The UUCP is one of many congregations participating in "Justice Sunday" in partnership with the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. Our church is a member of the UUSC, which is an organization dedicated to advancing human rights and social justice, and which provides resources to local congregations like ours. This year, Justice Sunday calls for consideration about war, poverty, and our nations priorities. The UUSC provided us with a sermon prepared by Carmen Emerson, a divinity student who works for the organization. I have taken excerpts from her sermon, and from the writing of Doctor Martin Luther King, who died 40 years ago this past Friday.

One year before Dr. King's death in Memphis, he gave a speech at the Riverside Church in New York City entitled "Beyond Vietnam, a Time to Break the Silence." King said of Vietnam "Somehow this madness must cease. . . . . I speak as a citizen of the world, for the world as it stands aghast at the path we have taken... The great initiative in this war is ours. The initiative to stop it must be ours."

The five years before the Riverside Speech had been busy ones for King. In 1963 he was jailed in Birmingham Alabama, and later that year he delivered his "I Have a Dream" Speech in Washington, D.C. In 1964 he was awarded the Nobel peace prize. He witnessed the signing of the Civil Rights Act in 1964 and the Voting Rights Act in 1965. In 1965, at Howard University, Dr. King gave his first speech against the War.

We often think of the risks Martin Luther King took in the violence and unrest of the civil rights movement, but in many ways his opposition to the war was an even greater risk. He alienated many political allies and friends. Clayborne Carson, a King historian at Stanford University, explains: "The white liberals had kind of abandoned him because of his Vietnam speech. [President Lyndon B.] Johnson thought he had gone off the deep end. And most black people in the civil rights movement thought he had gone off the deep end." At Riverside Doctor King acknowledged:

"Many persons have questioned me about the wisdom of my path--Why are you speaking about war, Dr. King? Why are you joining the voices of dissent? Peace and civil rights don't mix, they say. Aren't you hurting the cause of your people? Such questions mean that the inquirers have not really known me, my commitment or my calling."

According to Clayborne, King was politically isolated in the final years of his life. King acknowledged this alienation when he spoke at Riverside. He said, "Some of us who have already begun to break the silence of the night have found that the calling to speak is often a vocation of agony."

It should be said, though, that Dr. King's speech at Riverside was not an occasion for despair. In fact, he was celebrating, because he had found a community of faith opposed to the War. He was addressing a group known as "Clergy and Laymen concerned about Vietnam." The Group was formed in October 1965, and Doctor King was one of its few black members. It must be said that the Group served Doctor King's pragmatic interests: he had well-founded concerns that he would be smeared as a communist for opposing the war in Vietnam, and his association with the Clergy and Laymen Group helped him place his views within the broader religious opposition to the war. But the "Clergy and Laymen" group served Doctor King's spiritual interests as well. He said:

"We must rejoice--for surely this is the first time in our nation's history that a significant number of its religious leaders have chosen to move beyond the prophesying of smooth patriotism to the high grounds of a firm dissent based upon the mandates of conscience and the reading of history. Perhaps a new spirit is rising among us. If it is, let us trace its movement well and pray that our own inner being may be sensitive to its guidance."

Doctor King also had a sustaining spiritual kinship with the Unitarian Universalists. In 1966 he addressed the UU General Assembly in Hollywood Florida. He said:

"There are those wonderful moments in life when you speak before a group that is so near and dear to you that you don't feel like you have to engage in the art of persuasion. You know that you are with friends. I can assure you that I feel that way tonight."

Of course, Doctor King's address was about segregation and civil rights; had he addressed the UU general assembly about Vietnam in 1966 he would not have found uniform acceptance for his views. Dana McLean Greevy, President of the UU Association in the mid-sixties, was a member Clergy and Laymen concerned about Vietnam. But throughout America, the war divided UU congregations. People left the church, both out of a feeling that the increasingly anti-war church did not support their views, and because they felt the church was becoming more of a political institution than a religious one. Even within the our chuch there was division and conflict over the war.

Even today, developing a single UU position on war and conflict is a daunting, if not impossible task. Right now our church and others have been asked to consider this question:

Should the Unitarian Universalist Association reject the use of any and all kinds of violence and war to resolve disputes between people and nations and adopt a principle of seeking just peace through non-violent means?

I am sure that, among you sitting here today, there are a range of opinions on this issue. And there are people like me who are not even prepared to formulate an opinion. I would need time to sit quietly, to unpack all the thoughts and feelings that keep me from embracing that statement whole-heartedly. I need to examine my misgivings: hold them up in the light, and turn them around so I can see them from all sides. I have to find a way to articulate and express my concerns, and to find a place for them in the UU discussion.

I's not easy. But it's what Unitarian Universalists have been called upon to do over the next couple years. These discussions will lead up to a statement of conscience about just war and pacifism for consideration by the 2010 General Assembly. In the fall our church will engage in conversations about war, just war, just peace and pacifism. I hope you will take part.

Talking about war and conflict seems abstract and academic, for those of us who don't control the bombs or guns and who don't witness the carnage first hand. But it's not, because the resources we waste on bombs and guns prevent us from providing justice and opportunity at home. Doctor Martin Luther King recognized this in his speech at Riverside in 1967. He explained there was a very obvious--an inverse correlation--between war in Vietnam and the war on poverty in America. He said,

"A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor--both black and white--through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such."

Doctor King's words are heartbreakingly true today. Forty years later, exchange the war in Vietnam for the war in Iraq and consider the socioeconomic status of those in the Gulf Coast most hurt by Hurricaine Katrina: consider the state of health care, education, affordable housing and civil liberties in our nation, and consider Doctor King's words: "A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death."

In the five years since President George W. Bush invaded Iraq, the U.S. has spent or committed $600 billion on and to the war. Can you imagine what Dr. King could have done with $600 billion? Can you imagine what half that amount would have done to renew the gulf coast? Instead, on the gulf coast, the poorest people in the world's wealthiest nation struggle to complete a recovery effort subjugated to the same disparities of race and class that called King to act over 40 years ago. Just as Dr. King observed, it is the poor who are most grievously injured by our nation's misplaced priorities.

Affordable housing in New Orleans is non-existent, rents have increased by as much as 200 percent; and only one of seven general hospitals in New Orleans is operating at pre-storm levels. Mental health problems and post-traumatic stress are rising, as are suicide rates, but funding and resources for mental health continue to be reduced.

The poorest of the poor continue to pay the highest price. Taxpayers in Louisiana and Mississippi will be asked to pay $1.8 billion, for proposed Iraq war spending in the 2008. Again, those are funds that could have made an immediate and lasting difference to post-Katrina recovery efforts. That is money taken away from education, health care, and housing for those in dire need in the Gulf Coast Region and throughout the United States.

In the history, facts and figures considered today, certain questions persist: Why do we kill other people? Why do we take care of some while neglecting others? When faced with the overwhelming needs of this nation and of the world, are the odds too great? Have we rationed our moral outrage to the point of apathy? Coming to terms with those questions and that doubt is a necessary step on the road to change. In the words of Martin Luther King,

"Even when pressed by the demands of inner truth, men do not easily assume the task of opposing their government's policy, especially in time of war. Nor does the human spirit move without great difficulty against all the apathy of conformist thought within one's own bosom and in the surrounding world. Moreover when the issues at hand seem as perplexed as they often do in the case of this dreadful conflict we are always on the verge of being mesmerized by uncertainty; but we must move on."

We are most fortunate to be in a community where we can work together to find our truth and imprint it upon our world. As people of a theologically and politically diverse faith, it is our highest calling to hold each other up through the work of justice and peacemaking. We need not fear unanswerable questions. We have covenanted to accompany one another in a search for truth and meaning, and questioning is a sacrament to us. We need not surrender to apathy or be mesmerized by uncertainty. We are active agents in our own salvation. We have ourselves; we have each other; and we have a social justice legacy that it is in our bones.

In many ways, the hardest thing we have to do is make the choice to act. To save our singular country from the threat of spiritual death. And to seize the moment now. In the words of Doctor Martin Luther King:

"Now let us begin. Now let us rededicate ourselves to the long and bitter--but beautiful--struggle for a new world. . . . Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? . . . . . Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with [our] yearnings, of commitment to the cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history."

Labels: Martin Luther King, social justice

Thank you for inviting me to speak with you today about giving circles, shared giving, and philanthropy in general. During our time together today, I want to do two main things:

* I want to share with you some knowledge about giving circles--what they are, how they work, and why they are important.
* And, I'd like to tell you a little bit about the Moscow giving circle, called The Circle: Moscow Women Giving Together, how we began our journey, what we have accomplished so far, and where we hope to go.

But, first, a little exercise in visualization. Close your eyes and picture a "Philanthropist" What's coming to mind? How many of you pictured someone male? Someone white? Someone quite wealthy? Someone quite old? Maybe someone dead?
Philanthropy is a big word and for most of us, it doesn't quite fit. My hope is to convince you that we can all claim that title, if we want it.

In fact, most givers don't fit this profile at all. Most givers are people like you and me . . . And giving circles are one of the ways that people like us can give back and make a difference in our communities.

So, what is a giving circle anyway? Giving circles have been described as a cross between a book club and an investment club. They are formed when individuals--often people of moderate means--pool their money and decide together where that money is given.

* Donors pool and give away personal resources (wide range of sizes and $$ amounts)
* Donors decide together where their money is granted (usually local)
* Giving circles educate their members about philanthropy and about the community
* They have a social dimension that is often as important as their philanthropic dimension
* They maintain their independence from any one organization.

Giving circles aren't new--the idea of pooling money and using it for mutual aid is as old as the hills. But, we think that giving circles in their current iteration are part of a larger shift.

* People want to give back--the secret of philanthropy is that the greatest gift is almost always to the giver.
* People want to make a difference NOW--we don’t want to wait until we are rich or dead . . . and we want to make good, thoughtful decisions.
* We are seeking community--and like to do things that bring us together with others who share our values.
* We like to do it our own way--and giving circles can be designed to work for any community and any group of donors.

What is important about giving circles?

* Donors--There are more than 400 giving circles across the country, and they engage donors--12,000 according to our most recent data
* Dollars--They give back to the community--giving circles have given away nearly $100 million over the course of their lives and gave away $13 million in 2006 alone!
* Do MORE--They build civic engagement--giving circle donors learn about their community's needs and nonprofit resources. They become involved in meaningful ways--volunteering, serving on boards, and getting engaged in community improvement efforts. They are an exercise in democracy.

From our interviews with giving circle members and founders, we have learned that giving circles have a huge impact on their donors.

"This endeavor has transformed many of our members in very profound ways. They take more responsibility for others and their community. Participation has opened their eyes to other issues in society. I would say that the giving circle has been a spiritual journey for all of us."
Ericka Carter, The San Fernando Valley Giving Circle

* Demystify philanthropy
* Leverage resources to make a difference
* Learn about issues, needs, and organizations in the community
* Build community--both within GC and outside of it
* Members giving and volunteering beyond the giving circle
* Giving is more informed and thoughtful and more focused and strategic

So, here's the story of our giving circle. It's a story about how a small group of motivated individuals were able to get something started.
* Running group . . . talk talk talk . . . pulled in Amy Grey and Gerri Sayler. Decided: women's giving circle and $365 (dollar a day)
* Each of us invited some people we knew to a party. We thought that maybe we'd have 15 or 20 people, but fifty people came. We had a goal of attracting thirty women and raising $10,000. But, in the end, we had 47 members and raised more than $19,000!
* Our membership is a wonderful slice of Moscow.
* Our members range in age from mid 20s to late 60s. We include women who have lived in Moscow for one year and for 48 years.
* We volunteer an average of 10-20 hours per month
* Politically, group members described themselves as everything from very liberal to conservative, to apolitical.
* What we share is a commitment to this community and a desire to be part of an interesting group of women working to make Latah County even better.
* In our first year, we gave $18,500 in seven grants ranging from $1500 to $5000. Our first round of grants went to the following organizations:
* St. Vincent de Paul: $5,000 for emergency energy assistance
* University of Idaho Child & Youth Study Center: $4,000 for intensive reading intervention and tutoring
* Palouse Youth Hockey Association: $2,000 for scholarships and equipment
* Troy Elementary School: $2,000 to help create an outdoor science education program
* University of Idaho Sustainable Campus Move-Out Program: $2,000 to encourage recycling of unwanted furniture, clothing, and equipment at the end of the school year.
* West Park Elementary: $2,000 to help repair dilapidated playground equipment
* Moscow Rendezvous for Kids: $1,500 to support access to arts education for all interested children

For me, personally, this has been a way to take my giving and give it more purpose, focus, and direction. I have always given, but I have generally given reactively. Fifty dollars here . . . twenty dollars there . . . someone is running a marathon for AIDS . . . someone else is biking to cure juvenile diabetes. This is a good way to give, but I began to feel that if it was the only way that I gave, then I was missing the chance to be intentional with my giving.

Being part of a giving circle allows me to make a larger gift and make it much more thoughtfully. There is also the power of pooling my money--my $365 may not seem like a lot. But being able to give away $18,500--that was powerful! And doing it while spending quality time with other interesting, passionate, and engaged women . . . what could be better?

What is next?
* The Circle is currently recruiting new (and existing) members to sign up for 2008-2009 giving cycle.
* We will rethink our priorities for this year
* Emphasis on learning about our area's needs and resources
* Working on getting more women--and men--engaged and feeling confident as philanthropists.

Labels: community, donating, donations, giving circle, Moscow, philanthropy

Opening Words
"Because: Gay and Lesbian Studies 101" by Rev. Mark Belletini
So one of the members of the search committee asks me
"But why do you people"--
(He really said that, "you people--)
"Why do you people have to talk about it [so much]?"

Right . . .
Well, because:
Because, if I fell in love--
You know, with sonnets and everything--
and I wanted to name all the stars in heaven
one at a time with a goofy smile on my face--
I'd love to be able to.
Or because--if I didn't fall in love,
I'd like to be able to grouse about it a bit,
or work up a bitter Theory to explain it.

Or because--if my lover got run over by a drunk driver--
(it happens you know, remember blue-eyed Stewart?--
I'd like to be able to take a few days off work
and cry and stuff, OK?
Because, if my partner-in-life--
Whom I can't really legally marry because it upsets someone's stomach or something--
suddenly developed an infection and got sores all over his body
and had to go to the hospital
(you know, just like my friend Stephen?)
I'd like to take him there and hold his hand for a few days
And still get paid on family emergency leave
So I could still eat and pay the rent and all . . .

And because, well--lying all the time is still wrong, isn't it?

Oh, and because--whether you believe it or not--
My life is just as important to me
As yours is to you.

Meditation
"We thank you now for love. . ." Daphne Rose Kingman

We thank you now for love--the great, miraculous gift.
For love in the body that comforts,
For love in the emotional body that delights and frustrates and instructs,
For the love of our sacred circle of friends,
For love in the spirit beyond all walls and wounds, bounds and ends.
Love--we thank you for love.
Love that stirs and soothes us,
Love that gathers us into all joy, and delivers us from all brokenness.
Love that hears the soundless language,
Love that imagines and dreams,
That can conquer all, and willingly surrenders everything--
Love that brought us into our lives
And love that will carry us home.

The State Of Our Unions: Gay Marriage Advances Down the Aisle
On August 25, 1996-- the hottest day of that year-- my partner, Theresa, and I were "married" in this church by our then minister, the Rev. Lynn Ungar. Many of you who are long-time members of this church were here with us, packing this space to the walls and up the stairs, along with our Moscow community friends and additional friends and family members who had come to join us from out of town. I remember some of you brought your kids with you--very young children who were attending their first wedding--a wedding of two women, which was still a bit of a big deal back in 1996.

That sweltering Saturday afternoon, Theresa and I, dressed in dresses, walked ourselves down this aisle holding on to each other and a sharing a bouquet from our summer flower garden, as our friend, Jo, sang "Give Yourself to Love." I clearly remember I had to swallow hard so I wouldn't break down in tears at the overwhelming feeling of being surrounded by so many supportive friends and family beaming at us as they turned their heads to see us coming. At the front of the church, we lit a unity candle together, and then Lynn began a short wedding homily with an excerpt from a book called The Riverhouse Stories: How Pubah S. Queen and Lazy LaRue Save the World. In the excerpt, Lazy and her sweetheart, Pubah, are attending the wedding of their good friend, Elby who is marrying her long-time boyfriend:

At the back of the room someone sang music from an opera. The groom's ex-wife read a poem. Everybody cried.

"Why are we crying?" Pubah wondered as they went out the door and down the street into the night when the ceremony was over.
"Commitment makes us cry," Lazy told her. "We're so small next to commitment. When two people walk right up to it so willingly . . ." she drifted off.
They looked back. The small white church burned with a golden light inside . . .

"Shall we marry, Pubah? " asked Lazy.
"But what would it mean? " Pubah asked. "For us, it's illegal."
"How can that be?" Lazy said--and thought of all the things that ought to be illegal and were not--"Like asking children to sit down all the time at school--that ought to be illegal and it's not. And what about wars, for heaven's sake? "

Then she had another idea. "Let's marry illegally," she said. "Our community supports us. When it lasts, it's a statement. When it lasts, it's a joy--for everyone…"
"Especially for us," said Pubah.
"For everyone," Lazy said. "Joy to the world is joy to the world. Why is everybody so darned fussy about where the joy comes from? "

Indeed. "Joy to the world is joy to the world!" So we were "married" that day--illegally, but joyfully--and were well feted afterwards with a full-on best-dish-you-could-bring potluck and a DJ-ed dance where Theresa's sister taught everyone how to do the Macarena.

You know--as humans, we celebrate so many of the most meaningful times of our lives in the presence of our loved ones. Family and friends gather around us for all those special "rites"--namings, baptisms, confirmations, graduations, and yes, marriages. We are held up and blessed, congratulated, kissed, and wished well with plenty of hugs and tears all around--as well it should be. During these times, the love of our family, friends, and community is not only most evident, but most wanted and needed to help guide us through life's passages from one landmark to the next. We not only gain meaning and direction for our lives from these events, but the outpouring of love and support we receive gives our lives a certain shape and quality. And what quality is of more importance to nurture and celebrate in the life of a human being than his or her capacity to give and receive love?

Most members of our species possess this driving desire to couple-up and settle down--and it's not that much different for gay folks than straight folks. Why we should continue to be excluded from the acknowledgement and encouragement of our relationships, well--that's what ought to be illegal.

Back in 1996, Theresa and I weren't as politically aware of same-sex rights and other gay issues as we've become over the past few years. We'd done some work helping to try to defeat some of our state's anti-gay measures in the past--I particularly remember working against Proposition One in 1994. Its intent was to remove books and materials dealing with homosexuality from schools and public libraries all across the state and to effectively gag teachers so that they could not say anything even remotely positive about homosexuality. Thanks to a lot of good hard work by lots of local folks and others throughout the state, it was defeated--by a narrow margin. But it seemed like things were slipping a bit all around the country around that time. A month after our wedding in 1996, Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act into law. I remember feeling that as a huge blow and thinking it would kill any further progress toward marriage equality.

But, as I've been looking back through various records to find information to fill out this picture of our progress toward marriage equality, I realized that things weren't as dead as they seemed at the time. Indeed, there were little pockets of potential that just needed some creative nudging to help them unfold in the face of what appeared to be such tough odds.

In order to relate this journey of progress (and regress) to you today, I've tried to put it in context by creating this Readers-Digest condensed timeline of our unfolding issues since the early 1970s (when I was in college!).

In 1973, the American Psychological Association removed homosexuality from its list of mental disorders. This huge change contributed to the questioning, examination and removal of various laws relating to homosexual behavior. Some states started decriminalizing homosexual acts (like sodomy) and removing other related laws throughout the 1970s. After that, the 1980s became a decade when gay civil rights acts began to be proposed and passed--laws that offered gay people some legal help and protections. In 1984, the Berkeley (CA) City Council passed a domestic partnership bill giving benefits to long-time gay and heterosexual couples.

Then, in the 1990s, attention to particular gay political issues began to rise sharply--focusing on gays in the military, gay marriage, gay adoption of children, issues of discrimination and hate crimes against gays.

That's a very broad 30-year overview that begins to set the stage for the appearance of challenges to equal marriage rights.

In 1991, a group of same-sex couples in Hawaii applied for marriage licenses and were turned down, after which they filed suit claiming that the state marriage laws were unconstitutional. In 1993, the Hawaii Supreme Court ruled that the refusal of marriage licenses was unconstitutional. It turned the case back to a Circuit Court, saying that the couples should be given marriage licenses unless a compelling interest in banning them could be shown. A commission was established to study the issue, and eventually--in the interest of making a very long story short--in 1997, Hawaii became the first state to actually offer some spousal rights to same-sex couples.

Meanwhile, other states were getting nervous watching this process unfold. In 1995, Utah passed a Defense of Marriage Statute stating they would not recognize any same-sex out-of-state marriages. Concern ratcheted up among state senators and representatives on Capitol Hill and, with Republicans in control of the Congress, Bill Clinton signed the Defense of Marriage Act in September of 1996. After that, states began passing their own constitutional marriage definitions and bans--Alaska in 1998, Nebraska in 2000, thirteen more states in 2004 (Missouri, LA, AR, GA, KY, Mississippi, Michigan, MT, ND, OH, OK, OR, and UT). In 2005, Kansas and Texas followed suit. Then, in 2006, AL, CO, SD, SC, TN, VA, WI and our own Idaho passed constitutional bans on same-sex marriage, some varying in language, with ours being among the most strict--banning recognition of civil unions and domestic partnerships as well. This November, Florida and Arizona will vote on their own ballot measures to ban same-sex marriage (and other forms of unions) as well as (ironically) California, where gay marriage is legal right now. The expectation is that it will be defeated there because of all the marriage gains there--but no one can call it for sure.

But there is good news. As of just this Friday, there are now THREE STATES where gay couples can get legally married--MA (since 2004), CA (as of June 17 this year) and Connecticut (as of Friday, October 10). Apparently, over 10,000 same-sex couples have gotten married in MA since 2004. But in California, over 11,000 gay and lesbian pairs have gotten married since just June--surpassing in four months the number married in MA in foir years. Of course, CA marriage licenses were made available to people from other states from the start, where as MA same-sex marriage had been limited to just state residents.

There are eight states that offer some form of civil union or domestic partnership:

2000--Vermont--has civil unions that are equivalent to state-level spousal rights
2002--Dist. of Columbia--has domestic partnerships equivalent to state-level rights2004--Maine--has domestic partnerships with some statewide spousal rights
2004--Massachusetts--issues marriage licenses for people who live in state
2007--New Jersey--has civil unions equivalent to state spousal rights
2007--Washington--has domestic partnerships with some state spousal rights
2008--New Hampshire--has civil unions with equivalent state-level spousal rights
2008--Oregon--offers domestic partnerships with equivalent state spousal rights

And as of 2008, the state of New York recognizes marriages by same-sex couples from other states. A number of large cities and municipalities have created various forms of domestic partner recognition in order to extend benefits as well, as have many businesses and corporations. Even our own City of Moscow has made a brave effort towards fairness by allowing city employee's domestic partners to apply for benefits. I hope one of these days someone will test it, so we can see if it holds. It could prove to be a creative way to wiggle out of our state's strangle-hold--and perhaps then our UI powers might venture to try it.

Really, it's rather head-spinning to try to keep up with all the progress that is being made around same-sex relationship recognition. New developments take place practically daily it seems. And so far, no states have slipped off the face of the earth or fallen into fiery crevasses. In fact, some state's economies are even being helped.

Straight people seem to still be getting married--and divorced--regardless of our progress down the aisle. And as time goes by, more and more people opining through the myriad of opinion polls indicate they're getting less and less fussy on the subject of same-sex relationship recognition. Although, they still don't want to share the old standard "horse and carriage" marriage. Well, let them keep dragging around in that old beast of burden, I say. We'll create the new model, where any two can ride--and no animals will be harmed in the process!

It's really quite amazing how much has happened since our wedding in 1996--and as we move forward into the future it feels like we just keep gaining momentum. I've certainly seen more progress than I ever expected in my lifetime, and it gives me great hope for the future of the lives and relationships of the LGBT students I work with. No doubt, it'll still take quite some time for our own state to be able to move toward marriage equity. But selfish and self-serving constitutional amendments and their agents will be worn down or die off in time.

And our day will come. Love is gaining ground in various cities and states, countries and companies every day. Like water that carves through rock with a steady trickle over time, or sometimes in the fury of a flash flood--love will cut its course across states and borders everywhere, clearing the aisles for us and our partners to stride down freely and openly into a fair and equal future.

Closing Words
"Go out into the highways and by-ways . . . " John Murray (#704)

Go out into the highways and by-ways,
Give the people something of your new vision.

You may possess a small light, but uncover it, let it shine.
Use it in order to bring more light and understanding
to the hearts and minds of men and women.
Give them not hell, but hope and courage;
Preach the kindness and the everlasting love of God.

Labels: love, marriage, same-sex, spousal rights, wedding

Opening Words:
Hippocrates, Decorum

Advice to physicians:
"Perform these duties calmly and adroitly, concealing most things from the patient while you are attending to him. Give necessary orders with cheerfulness and serenity, turning his attention away from what is being done to him; sometime reprove sharply and emphatically, and sometimes comfort with solicitude and attention, revealing nothing of the patient's future or present condition."

**********************************************************************

Word for meditation:

Proverbs 1:10 (Advice from King Solomon, son of David)

"My son, if sinners entice thee, consent thou not."

*************************************************************888

Informed Consent

Hello. As introduced I am a Family Physician. I got to spend a month on an Indian Reservation in the Grand Canyon this last spring. With no cable TV, no home or old car repairs to distract me, I found myself reading a book recommended by a friend in his first year of law school. It was titled "The Silent World of Doctor and Patient," by Jay Katz. It was a scholarly piece addressing the long history of the lack of communication between physicians and the people they care for. Dr. Katz chose to focus on the legal doctrine of informed consent. This concept is centered on the idea "that patients are entitled not only to know what the doctor proposes to do but also to decide whether an intervention is acceptable in the light of the risks and benefits and available alternatives, including no treatment." So, a judge in California came up with the idea that patients have some responsibility in their care, and doctors need to respect this. I wish to explore this subject today and invite your reflection.
First, let me ask, are there any lawyers here?

I ask to offer my apology, since I am not a legal scholar. The concept of informed consent arose in US law in the late 1950s. Notice I say this came from judges and has been somewhat reluctantly accepted by doctors. I will not cite case law, but it makes for good bedtime reading.

So I guess I should ask, are there any physicians besides me here today? I'm trying to get a sense of the audience, since doctors have a certain perspective on this topic.

Finally, how many of you have personal experience with signing an informed consent document? I have been a patient too, and if your experience was like mine, the process is treated as an inconvenience, a legal formality. Today I wish to convince you, all of you, the mistake in this casual approach.

It may or it may not surprise you that most doctors (80-90 percent in multiple polls) believe most patients are not capable of giving truly informed consent. So let's see what you all think. How many of you believe you can become informed about a medical decision and then consent or refuse for your treatment?

And not?

I'll admit to my skepticism. I often thought it was best for me to just decide, since the subtleties of the treatments, the odds of success or failure can be quite complex. But I think what I was confusing for an "informed" decision was instead what I considered the "right" decision. And that illusion, that there can be a "right" decision in the morass of uncertainty surrounding a person and their illness can be quite intimidating. But, as you heard Hippocrates advise, we doctors should at least act confident, even if we are unsure. I'll admit it. Often, I don't know what the right decision is. For instance, just to make this level of uncertainty of treatment clear to you, lets talk about heart disease. A heart attack. Acute myocardial infarction. Statistically, there's got to have been one or two of you out there who have gone through this. Most people have known some one with such a medical episode. Modern treatment of heart attacks includes intervention. In the old days we gave medicines and oxygen, observed in the hospital for arrhythmias. Now a days we intervene either with bypass surgery or angioplasty and stents. Do you know how many lives are saved with these interventions? We do know this number. Three good studies came up with the same results. If you separated 2000 acute MI patients, treated 1000 with the medicines and bed rest, the other 1000 with angioplasty or surgery, you would save four lives per thousand in the treated group. You need to treat 250 patients with this intervention to save one life. So what is the right decision in that setting? Medical culture is strongly on the side of intervention. How would you like to have a detailed discussion about the pros and cons, risks and benefits of this intervention when you're clutching your chest and dripping sweat, panting and short of breath? I'll admit to skipping the informed consent process in such settings. And I have skipped it when ordering a routine test. And for this I apologize. But it does not make the concept invalid because it may be difficult or inconvenient.

So let's add another confusing motivation. We have a profession, doctors, who deal with uncertainty, yet are trained to portray confidence. Most are private businessmen, dependant on a discriminating marketplace for their livelihood, and now I am suggesting they should openly share their uncertainty with their patients. Would this openness be welcome? Would it sell? Would this doctor have high moral standards and no patients? Does financial pressure affect a physician's ability to openly communicate? There are lots of studies that show doctors order more tests when they profit from these tests. But there are lots of reasons, on both sides of the doctor patient relationship why frank discussions might be avoided. For instance, just this last year the President of the American Board of Hematology/ Oncology chided his colleagues. In the last 10 years the percentage of patients dying of cancer who received chemotherapy within two weeks of their death almost doubled. More people trying to beat what will kill them. And why has this gone up so? Have doctors lost the skill of prognosis? Or are doctors just afraid to pass on bad news? Or is there a shared deceit that serves both parties in an unhealthy way?

I believe physicians and patients are often supporting each other in a mutual charade. Doctors are taught to be confident. Patients want answers. Why not give it?

There is a long history in the medical profession of reluctance in sharing information with patients. As physicians we are sworn to do no harm. Hippocrates gets credit for that. And as you heard in the opening words, four thousand years ago he thought lots of information was best kept from the patient. The worry was that information can cause harm. There is no doubt it can cure. The placebo effect is testimony to that. Doctors have known, for millennia, in an intimate and daily way, the power of information to affect a patients well being. It was long considered inappropriate to share grave news with patients. Sir Thomas Percival wrote advice to physicians in the 19th century:

"This office (delivering gloomy prognostications), however, is so particularly alarming, when executed by the attending physician, that it ought to be decline . . . However it can be assigned to any other person of sufficient judgment and delicacy."

He goes on to explain that the power of the physician to heal may be diminished by conveying such news. And if the goal is to heal one must maintain that power.

So the paternalistic role of physician is ancient, well established. Is it not desirable to patients that their physician fit the image? In an illness we may be vulnerable. When we seek care, are we seeking the responsibility of our illness and the treatment, which is required if we are to participate in a decision, or do we, the patients want to revert to a childlike state where our needs are decided for us? This psychological explanation for the paternalism of the doctor- patient relationship is most likely inadequate, and most definitely beside the point. But this does beg the question, can a sick person make a healthy choice, or should that choice be made for them? Doctors have often chosen the latter. Maybe patients have too. The doctrine of informed consent instead expects physicians and patients to communicate as adults, with mutual respect and dignity regarding their care. Both parties need to be in conversation. One shares an intimate knowledge of their life, their illness, their circumstances and desires; the other brings knowledge of disease processes and treatments. If the two are able to share, to speak, and to listen, to share their fears, what they know and do'’t know, the patient interests may be met.

And is the burden of uncertainty too great to bear? The truth of this world is that often two things can be true and yet seem to contradict. And for this we need faith. Often in medicine we need to make a decision based on partial information. Why not share this uncertainty with the person most affected by this decision? For too long the medical profession has shouldered the load of doubt, treating the patient like a child. This unequal relationship has lead to many misunderstandings. We can do better.

In summary, I support the concept of shared responsible decision making that is behind the doctrine of Informed Consent. I believe it is aligned with our Unitarian Values. All people, sick or well, have inherent worth and dignity. As a physician I should not let my fear of uncertainty, nor let the patient's desire for certitude interfere with the free and responsible search for truth.
Thank you for your time and attention. I invite your response.

*************************************************************************************

Closing words:
Jay Katz MD JD

. . . Informed consent could play a vital role in containing the much lamented explosion in medical cost. A greater clarity about the elective nature of many treatments may change patterns of utilization of medical services in significant ways. The time costs of conversation may turn out to be much less than the costs of intervention. . . . "Second medical opinions" may be one answer, but "first patient opinions": may be a better answer.

"Flow Revisited: Csikszentmihalyi meets Ellis"

Mihalyi Csiksentmihalyi describes the psychology of optimal experience in his 1990 book called Flow. Flow is described as the optimal combination of challenge and skill. Albert Ellis, the father of cognitive behavior therapy, has explained how to cope with frustration by being both disappointed and accepting of reality. Are the secular theories of grace? Are they competitive or complementary?

Opening words
. . . We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, they are endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness . . . .
(Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776)

Aristotle said that more than anything else, men and women seek happiness.
(Csikszentmihalyi, p. 1)
Why did God make us?
God made us to show forth His goodness and to share with us His everlasting happiness in heaven.
Father McGuire. The New Baltimore Catechism and Mass, NY, Benziger Bros.1953.

Ed Diener, a researcher from the University of Illinois, found that very wealthy people (400 richest Americans) report being happy on average 77 percent of the time, while people of average wealth report being happy on 62 percent of the time. (Csikszentmihalyi, p. 45).

Trouble? Life is trouble. Only death is no trouble.
(Zorba the Greek, in Campbell, p. 65)

History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake.
(James Joyce, in Campbell, p.65)

The [Holy] Grail becomes symbolic of an authentic life that is lived in terms of its own volition … that carries itself between the pairs of opposites of good and evil, light and dark… The best we can do is lean toward the light, toward the harmonious relationships that come from compassion with suffering.
(Campbell, p. 197)

No great improvements in the lot of mankind are possible, until a great change takes place in the fundamental constitution of their modes of thought.
(J. S. Mill, Csikszentmihalyi, p. 9)

Meditation:

People are disturbed not by the events that happen to them,
but by their view of them
(Epictetus, in Ellis, p. 184)

Closing Words

"An Irish Blessing"

It’s easy to be pleasant
When life flows like a song.
But the person-worthwhile is the one who can smile
when everything just goes wrong.

For the test of the heart is trouble,
which always comes with years.
And the smile that’s worth all the praise on earth
Is the smile that shines through tears.

Sermon
1. UUA principles addressed
a) Acceptance of one another and encouragement to spiritual growth in our congregations
b) A free and responsible search for truth and meaning
2. My intentions
To give you a path on which to pursue happiness
To synthesize the work of Flow (Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi)
with Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (Albert Ellis)

Thesis:
1. Happiness or grace is the experience of enjoyment defined as flow
2. Flow is the union of challenge and skill
3. The absence of flow leads to boredom or anxiety
4. Self-shame and self-blame keep us from a return to flow.
5. Explore the possibility of a flow-like process that will get you back to a true flow experience, aka happiness or state of grace.

I will do this w/ words, pictures, homework, and a song

Background and defining terms:

Flow, Challenge, and Grace (March 26, 1995)
Synthesis of Flow (Mihaly Csikzentmihalyi) with
Family Systems Theory (Murray Bowen)

Topics covered included:
Micro & macro flow,
life themes, and
Characteristics of highly differentiation-of- self people
1. Operationally clear about he differences between feeling and thinking
2. routinely make decisions on the basis of thinking
3. life is much more under the control of deliberate thought
4. free to engage in goal directed activity w/ others and
5. to lose themselves in the intimacy of a close relationship
6. less reactive to praise or blame
7. have a more realistic evaluation of his own self
(Bowen, p. 475)

There are people, regardless of their material conditions,
who are able to improve the quality of their lives,
who are satisfied, and
who have a way of making those around them also a bit happier.
who are open to a variety of experiences,
who keep on learning until the day they die, and
who have strong ties and commitments to other people and the environment in which they live.
They enjoy whatever they do, even if tedious or difficult;
they are hardly ever bored, and
they can take in stride anything that comes their way.
Perhaps their greatest strength is that
they are in control of their lives.
(Csikszentmihalyi, p. 10)

Grace:
1. On this, almost all Christians agree: Grace is God's initiative and choice to make a path of salvation available for men.
2. From the non-theist perspective, grace appears to be the same as [good] luck
3. In Catholicism, grace is God’s divine life itself, which enables the work of Christ to flow through us.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_grace)

Flow
Flow is the process of achieving happiness through control over your inner life by meeting challenge with action through the perfection of skills (physical, sensory, symbolic, job, and relationship)

Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy
Thesis
You largely choose to disturb yourself about the unpleasant events of you life, which is encouraged by social learning
Irrational beliefs and self sabotaging habits are choices you make in the present
It take work and practice to alter irrational beliefs, unhealthy feelings, and self destructive behaviors. (Ellis, pp. 243-244)

For example
It’s great to succeed, but I can fully accept myself a s a person and have an enjoyable experiences even when I fail.
I don’t have to succeed to be a worthwhile person.
(Ellis, p. 241)

Csikszentmihalyi and Flow
Flow is enjoyment not pleasure

Thesis:
how people respond to stress determines whether they will profit or be miserable
It is possible to enjoy life despite (perhaps even because of) adversity
the periods of struggle to overcome challenges are what people find as the most enjoyable times of their lives.
which result in a more complex self

Ralph Ellison: goal
‘to snatch a little of life’s insights even in the face of insurmountable odds’

Elements of Enjoyment
1. Confronted w/ a challenging activity that requires skill
2. Concentration that merges action and awareness
3. & 4) Clear Goals and Feedback
5) Actions have a deep but seemingly effortless involvement
6) You have a sense of complete control
7) You lose all self-consciousness but emerge w/ a greater sense of self
8) Your sense of time is altered and transformed
(Csikszentmihalyi, p. 48)

I think that what we’re seeking is an experience of being alive, so that our life experiences on the purely physical plane will have resonance w/in our own innermost being and reality. … so that we actually feel the rapture of being alive …
(Campbell, p. 5)

Control over consciousness cannot be institutionalized. As soon as it becomes part of a set of social rules and norms, it ceases to be effective in the way it way originally intended to be. (Csikszentmihalyi, p. 21).

Notes on Albert Ellis. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: It Works for me – It can work for you, Amherst, NY, Prometheus Books 2004.

Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy
to use my head to govern my feelings
to govern feelings but not squelch them
to avoid an over-optimistic attitude that consists of finding something to be glad about in every situation.
to retain some bad feelings so that they motivate me to keep trying to change the obnoxious events in my life while savoring the present and future
(Ellis, p. 61)

REBT: Rational Emotive Behavioral Therapy

Goal
Adversity
Rational Beliefs
“I don’t like this (e.g., unloved, unsuccessful),
Healthy Consequences
“sorrow, regret, disappointment, frustration, annoyance, displeasure, irritation”

Goal
Adversity
Irrational Beliefs
“I must have a different outcome.”
Unhealthy Consequences
“shame, embarrassment, humiliation, anger, desperation, detachment, rage, depression, panic, self-pity, ”

Disputing irrational beliefs
“Why must you have a different outcome?”

Rational Mantra (Gradient vector toward flow)
I do not need what I want. I never have to succeed, no matter how much I wish to do so.
I can stand being rejected by someone I care for. It won’t kill me and I can still lead a happy life.
No human is damnable and worthless, including me. (Ellis, p. 248)

Irrational mantra (Gradient vector away from flow)
I must do well and have to be approved by people whom I find important.
Other people must treat me fairly and nicely.
Because I am not being approved by people whom I find important, as I have to be, my life is awful and terrible.

Shame attacking homework exercise:
Challenge and a skill aka a flow like experience to get back to flow
an adventure that will maintain you emotionally health and keep you reasonably happy
no matter what kinds of misfortunes assail you.(Ellis, p. 243)

Think of something that you would consider v. shameful and humiliating.
Pick something that would embarrass you
Do it in public where other can stare and laugh.
Don’t do it as a joke or for amusement.
Don’t impose too much
Don’t frighten or harm others
Don’t do anything that will get you in trouble w/ the law
Keep risking and doing things that you irrationally fear,
Keep acting on your irrational fears on a regular basis

Example:
Getting on a bus and yelling out all the stops at the top of your lung or
going into a department store and yelling “Ten thirty-three and all is well”
Stop a stranger in a popular meeting place and say “I just got out of the loony bin, What month is it.”
Walk a banana on a leash and feed it w/ another banana.

Lesson:
you are the shamer of yourself,
no one else can make you feel humiliated.
Choice:
to feel shame and anxiety or
to feel regret and concern

Thesis:
1. Happiness or grace is the experience of enjoyment defined as flow
2. Flow is the union of challenge and skill
3. The absence of flow leads to boredom or anxiety
4. Self-shame and self-blame keep us from a return to flow.
5. The shame-attaching exercise will help get you back to a true flow experience, aka happiness or state of grace.

References

Bowen, Murray. Family Therapy in Clinical Practice. Northvale, NJ: Aronson, 1994.
Campbell, Joseph and Moyers, Bill D. The Power of Myth. New York: Doubleday, 1988.
Csikzentmihalyi, Mihaly. Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience., NY, NY: HarperCollins, 1990.
Ellis, Albert. Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy: It Works for me – It can work for you. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books 2004.

Appendix
Melvina Reynolds, “Somewhere Between”
Sometimes I think I'm a sinner,
Sometimes I think I'm a saint,
Sometimes I don't know what I am,
But I know that a saint I ain't.

Chorus:
Somewhere between the good and the evil,
Somewhere between the right and the wrong,
Somewhere between the kind and the mean,
Somewhere between is where I belong.

Sometimes I'd steal from a baby,
Sometimes I'd give you my shirt,
Sometimes I lie on my couch and moan,
'Cause my conscience is doing me dirt.

(Chorus)

Sometimes I rail at my kinfolk,
Sometimes I'm gentle and good,
Sometimes I wonder, and count every blunder,
And wish that I knew where I stood.

(Chorus)

If I could just peek at my record,
I'd know if it's dirty or clean,
I'd know if I'm destined for heaven or hell,
Or to flow like a bird in between.

(Chorus)

Labels: acceptance, Csikszentmihalyi, flow, Rational Emotive Behavior Theory, search for truth and meaning