http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UE3CNu_rtY

By Br. Daniel B. Chapin, Vice President
ULC Monastery

Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future... - John Fitzgerald Kennedy

As I pen this months sermon here at my desk in Southern California I sense a feeling of anticipation... it is Fall after all. And for me this season has always stirred within me this sense. Leaves colored orange and yellow falling outside of my office window are beginning to collect on the sill. Pumpkins are appearing on neighborhood door steps... And the air, while still undoubtedly California - Has begun to take on a bit of its own regional crisp. I suppose what I sense this time of year, as in all years past, is an Anticipation of Change. The Summer, long and warm, has given way to Autumn and Autumn inevitably will exit the stage allowing for Winters showcasing.... and so it goes. The cycle will continue. The seasons will change. This is perhaps the ultimate Paradox whispered to those of us willing to hear during this Fall 2009 season -
The one thing we can count on as Constant is Change...
Can you feel it?

The above quote by the late John F. Kennedy echoes this sentiment:
"Change is the Law of Life..."

This understood, the challenge I pose to each of you during this season of change and within the context of this October sermon centers around your ability to not only Accept change but to Effect change. Let me say it again...
Understanding that there will always be change In your lives, your neighborhoods, your state, your country, your world & even your viewpoints, do you accept it? Are you open to it, or do you resist it?

The challenge deepens when we step outside of ourselves even a bit more. We might say, Yes, I accept the change that happens in my life, I am willing and open to allow for change in my experiences and even my biases. We might even assert that we embrace the change that occurs in the viewpoints and lives of those around us.
While you may accept, embrace and even encourage change within yourself, your communities & those around you - Let me ask you something -
Do You Effect change? Meaning do you work for change?

You see friends, we can be open to change while still being complacent to the type of change that develops. And, in that complacency we are then to be held fully responsible for negative changes that manifest around us. Let me use a specific example. In your community do you witness poverty? Are there certain groups of individuals who are discriminated against due to their spiritual or other belief systems?

Does this ignite a "Holy Discontent" within you?

If so, you more than likely are open to see these things change. Good for you. But Do You Effect This Change or simply stand by and accept whatever change might come hoping for the very best outcome? Oh yes, I can hear the brains working now....
So we might get this. I think I do.  But getting it and doing it is something entirely different. Accepting Change and Effecting Change is something entirely different...
Are you getting this? So what next? You might say, yes I accept change and I'd like to Effect change for the better; but I am only one man - one woman... I'm too old, too young, too uneducated, too inexperienced, too straight, too gay, too poor, too religious, not religious enough, etc., etc., etc.,

We here at the ULC believe you are ALL fully qualified to Effect positive change in the world around you. But you each, all of us each need to get off of our couches and our computers and do something to Effect Change. Don't simply talk about it.

As a church we could simply release dictates and essays encouraging some of those things we believe strongly about such as equal rights for all regardless of where they come from or what they don't have.. That's not enough and we recognize this. So we are doing much to Effect Change.

Allow me to use a Pastoral example geared toward you, the individual.. As Christ was leaving this earth, he encouraged his disciples to remember that the very same spirit that they witnessed residing in Him and which allowed for the dead to be raised and the poor to be fed and the sick to be healed - Also resided in them..

Here's some amazing facts to consider and hopefully which will empower you a bit more to this Effect:

1. At age 17, Joan of Arc led an army in defense of France...

2. At 21 Fred DeLuca co-founded Subway with just $1,000 in the bank...

3. At 14 country singer LeAnn Rimes won her first two Grammy awards...

4. At age 7 Mozart wrote his first symphony...

5. At 83 architect Frank Lloyd Wright was asked which of his masterpieces was the best. "My next one," he said...

6. At 43 John F Kennedy ran for the U.S. Presidency and won...

In closing friends I leave you with this piece of the Inaugural address of 1961 by Former President John F. Kennedy --

"Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans, born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage, and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today, at home and around the world!"

Encourage your friends to visit us at www.TheMonastery.org
Happy Fall 2009!!!

By Rev. Daniel B. Chapin, Vice President
ULC Monastery

This month allow me to recap on some great wisdom - brief, but meaningful teachings & general life "smarts" obtained from years of experience & struggle, victory & defeat, joy & sorrow, young & old, traditional & not so traditional...
So, please take a moment, grab a cup of tea & read on - You won't want to miss these pearls... You might even recognize some of them. Oh, did I forget to mention that this compilation did not come from my own vast wisdom??
(I jest here of course!)

You see, I will always have my own personal stage from which to submit upon & preach from; but many go unnoticed or forgotten. It is to these that I relinquish sermon stage to this month. It is my hope that they might rekindle something within each of you - and perhaps, prompt within you what the great poet Walt Whitman once challenged:

"What will your verse be?"

In fact, that's a good place to begin - Mr Whitman, your opening remarks...
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"O me! O life!... of the questions of these recurring;
Of the endless trains of the faithless--of cities fill'd with the foolish;
Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)
Of eyes that vainly crave the light--of the objects mean--of the struggle ever renew'd;
Of the poor results of all--of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me;
Of the empty and useless years of the rest--with the rest me intertwined;
The question, O me! so sad, recurring--What good amid these, O me, O life?

Answer.

That you are here--that life exists, and identity;
That the powerful play goes on, and you will contribute a verse."
(Walt Whitman, Poet)
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"We understand the vision, religious freedom; we have the vehicle to attain this freedom, the Universal Life Church; we must begin to teach people who they are. Religion does not make people free, it only binds them down. Politics does not set people free, it only ties them down. The only way to set people free is to awaken their consciousness to the fact that they were born free. We must show mankind who God is, where God is, and what God is. We must teach mankind that this planet, Earth, belongs to us, all people, and that we must set up a kingdom of peace, joy, and love; the Kingdom of Man.."

(Rev. Kirby J. Hensley. Founder of the ULC 1959 - 1999)

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"Christians? Christians have all too often become famous for what we oppose, rather than who we are for..."

(David Kinnaman, The Barna Group_
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"Before Enlightenment, Chop Wood - Carry Water... After Enlightenment, Chop Wood - Carry Water.."

(Buddhist Parable)
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"Forgiveness is not so much about forgetting; rather it is about letting go of another's throat..."

(WM. Paul Young, The Shack)
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"Nine Tenths of the news, as printed in the papers, is pseudo-news, manufactured events. Some days ten tenths. The ritual morning trance, in which one scans columns of newsprint, creates a peculiar form of generalized pseudo-attention to a pseudo-reality. This experience is taken seriously. It is one's daily immersion in "reality." One's orientation to the rest of the world. One's way of reassuring himself that he has not fallen behind. That he is still there. That he still counts! My own experience has been that renunciation of this self-hypnosis, of this participation in the unquiet universal trance, is no sacrifice of reality at all. To "fall behind" in this sense is to get out of the big cloud of dust that everybody is kicking up, to breathe and to see a little more clearly..."

(Faith & Violence, University of Notre Dame)
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"There is only one vocation. Whether you teach or live in the cloister or nurse the sick, whether you are in religion or out of it, married or single, no matter who you are or what you are, you are called to the summit of perfection; you are called to a deep interior life perhaps even to mystical prayer, and to pass the fruits of your contemplation on to others. And if you cannot do so by word, then by example..."

(The Seven Story Mountain, Harcourt Brace Jovanovich)
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"One of the first things to learn if you want to be a contemplative is how to mind your own business. Nothing is more suspicious, in a man who seems holy, than an impatient desire to reform other men. A serious obstacle to recollection is the mania for directing those you have not been appointed to direct, reforming those you have not been asked to reform, correcting those over whom you have no jurisdiction. How can you do these things and kep your mind at rest? Renounce this futile concern with other men's affairs! Pay as little attention as you can to the faults of other people. And none at all to their defects and eccentricities...."

(Thomas Merton, New Seeds of Contemplation)
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"I've had it with you! You're hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You keep meticulous account books, tithing on every nickel and dime you get, but manage to find loopholes for getting around basic matters of justice and God's love... You're hopeless, you Pharisees! Frauds! You love sitting at the head table at church dinners, love preening yourselves in the radiance of public flattery. Frauds! You're just like unmarked graves; People walk over that nice, grassy surface, never suspecting the rot and corruption that is six feet under." (One of the religion scholars spoke up saying, "Teacher, do you realize that in saying these things you are insulting us?")
He said, "Yes, and I can be even more explicit. You're hopeless, you religion scholars! You load people down with rules and regulations, nearly breaking their backs, but never lift a finger to help...."

(Jesus Christ, The Message Bible)
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"If one loves Krishna, he must love Lord Jesus also. And if one perfectly loves Jesus he must love Krishna too. If he says, "Why shall I love Krishna? I shall love Jesus," then he has no knowledge. And if one says, "Why shall I love Jesus? I shall love Krishna", then he has no knowledge either. If one understands Krishna, then he will understand Jesus. If one understands Jesus, you'll understand Krishna too..."

(Srila Prabhupada - Room conversation with Allen Ginsberg, May 12, 1969 Columbus - Ohio)
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"Wicca is a religion that teaches connections to Nature and to the forces behind Nature ( the elements ). Its purpose is to align an individual with the flow of energy on this plane and to teach rapport with deity. In most cases, it involves worship of both a goddess and a god and reverence of the natural world, although there are some Traditions which revolve around the worship of a singular deity. It is not a Satanic-worshipping religion, as Satan is a creation of the Judeo-Christian culture, whereas Wicca is not. We believe in the sacredness of life, not in the willful destruction of it.."

(Donald Perry, Wicca Wisdom)
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God said: "The religionists would have you believe that I created you as less than Who I Am so that you could have the chance to become Who I Am, working against all odds--and, I might add, against every natural tendency I am supposed to have given you. Among these so-called natural tendencies is the tendency to sin. You are taught that you were born in sin, that you will die in sin, and that sin is your nature. One of your religions even teaches.....there is only one way to heaven (salvation) and that is through no undertaking of your own, but through the grace granted you by God through acceptance of His Son as your intermediary. Once this is done you are "saved." Until it is done, nothing that you do--not the life you live, not the choices you make, not anything you undertake of your own will in effort to improve yourself or render you worthy--has any effect, bears any influence. You are incapable of rendering yourself worthy, because you are inherently unworthy. You were created that way. Why? God only knows. Perhaps He made a mistake. Perhaps He didn't get it right. Maybe he wishes He could have it all to do over again. But there it is. What to do..."
Neale said:"You're making mock of me."
God said: "No. You are making mock of Me. You are saying that I, God, made inherently imperfect beings, then have demanded of them to be perfect or face damnation. You are saying then that, somewhere several thousand years into the world's experience, I relented, saying that from then on you didn't necessarily have to be good, you simply had to feel bad when you were not being good, and accept as your savior the One Being who could always be perfect, thus satisfying My hunger for perfection. You are saying that My Son--who you call the One Perfect One--has saved you from your own imperfection--the imperfection I gave you. In other words, God's Son has saved you from what His Father did. This is how you--many of you--say I've set it up. Now who is mocking whom?
No one else will judge you ever, for why, and how, could God judge God's own creation and call it bad? If I wanted you to be and do everything perfectly, I would have left you in the state of total perfection whence you came. The whole point of the process was for you to discover yourself, create your Self, as you truly are--and as you truly wish to be. Yet you could not be that unless you also had a choice to be something else. Should I therefore punish you for making a choice that I Myself have laid before you? If I did not want you to make the second choice, why would I create other than the first?
This is a question you must ask yourself before you would assign Me the role of a condemning God."

(Conversations With God - Book I, Neale Donald Walsh)

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August 2009

By Br. Daniel Chapin, Vice President
ULC Monastery


A Person of faith does not avoid questions; we embrace them. In fact, to truly pursue the living God, the True Creator, the Same one who lives in you as in me, we as men and women of faith must embrace questions.

Questions, contrary to some beliefs, are not in fact scary.

What is scary is when thinking, feeling, pliable humans such as we are - Don't have any questions... What is beyond scary and even tragic is faith that has no room for questions. This is a close minded faith, a faith with no room for growth & increase. A faith with no free will to choose and stretch and expand.

A friend recently sponsored a "Doubt Night" at this church a while ago. People were encouraged to write down whatever questions or doubts they had about God and Jesus, the Bible and Faith & Church & Various Religions - Anything.... They had to acquire a large box to hold all of the scraps of paper. The first question was from a woman who had been raped and didn't press charges because she was told that doing so wasn't the "Christian thing to do.." The man then went on to rape several other girls and this woman wanted to know if God would still forgive her even if she hadn't forgiven the man who raped her...

Did I make note that this was the First Question? Here are several more that filled the box & were asked during that evening:

"Why does God let people die.... So Young?"
"Why does it seem that mean people get the most money?"
"Why does the killer go free and the honest man die of cancer?"
"Sometimes I doubt God's presence in starving Africa."
"If we can ask God for forgiveness at our last breath, why strive for a Godly life in the present?"
Either God is in control of everything and so all the crap we see today is part of his plan (which I don't want to accept), or it's all out of control (which sucks too). What's up?"

The above is a random sampling. Personally I get dozens, sometimes hundreds of emails a week with questions. Heaven and hell and suicide and the devil and God and love and rape and religion - some very personal and heart wrenching and some very philosophical...

Most responses my friend and myself gave to the questions that particular evening were about how we need others to carry our burdens and how our real needs in life are not for more information but for loving community with other people around us in this "So Called Life..." But what was truly powerful for those who spoke with us was that they were free to voice what ran deepest in their hearts and in their minds.

Questions, Doubts, Struggles, Fears...

Questions - Questions - Questions...

It wasn't the information we provided to their questions that really helped them - Rather, it was simply being in an environment in which they were free to voice what was inside.

This is why questions are so central to faith. This is why we at the ULC Monastery encourage you and you and you of all faiths, cultures, backgrounds, ideologies, etc., etc., etc., to come with your questions, your ideas, your beliefs. We want to nourish them, support them, uphold them even if we don't see eye to eye with you; Your questions, you own them, Your facts, you own them... And we encourage you to support others in this same light...

A question by its very nature, no matter how shocking or blasphemous or arrogant or ignorant or raw, find their roots in humility. This is a humility that acknowledges that there is a God. And there is more to know... Questions bring freedom. Freedom that I don't have to be God and I don't have to pretend that I have it all figured out.

In the Book of Genesis, God tells Abraham what he is going to do with Sodom and Gomorrah, and Abraham shoots back, "Will not the Ruler of the Earth do right?" Abraham seems to believe God to be in the wrong and that the proposed action is not in line with whom God is, and Abraham questions him about it. And, as the dialogue continues God does not only not get angry with Abraham, but he engages Abraham even more...

Maybe this is what God is looking for - People who don't just sit there and mindlessly accept whatever comes their way. What is the first thing Mary says to the angel who brings her the news that she is going to be the mother of the "Messiah?"

"But how can this be? I'm a virgin?"

Questions - Questions - Questions...

What are some of Jesus' final words as he hung upon the cross?

"My God, My God, Why have you forsaken me?"

Jesus on the cross. Questioning God... Central to our faith is questioning. Not raw, belligerent arrogant questioning with no respect, but naked raw questions, which arise out of the desire to know and connect with the God of our understanding. This type of questioning frees us indeed. It freews us from having it all figured out. It frees us from always thinking we need to be right. It allows us moments when we can come to an end of ourselves and our ability to understand. It allows us the opportunity to learn about ourselves and our Makes, to learn about each other... Isn't that why we are here?

It allows us Moments when the very silence is plenty enough.

www.TheMonastery.org