During the following silent meditation, I’d like you to imagine that a miracle happens tonight and tomorrow, and in the follow

Homily: February 18, 2007

Slowing Down to the Spirituality of Life=

Meditation:

&nb= sp; Duri= ng the following silent meditation, I’d like you to imagine that a mirac= le happens tonight - and tomorrow, and in the following days, weeks, months and years, you have slowed down to the spirituality of life.

&nb= sp; To help the process, initially put your hand on your heart, and call up an experience or person that you’re grateful for….. Rest in that experience, and then change the focus of your attention and imagine your li= fe, slowed down to what to you is the spirituality of life. What would you be doing? – imagine I can’t see what you’re thinking nor feeling – simply – what would you be doing.

&nb= sp; Then imagine that this is true – how do you feel?

Talk:

&nb= sp; And yet how many of us lament that we are simply too busy to live this kind of life? Busy… The Chinese pictograph of “busy” is made up o= f 2 characters one symbolizing “kill” and the other “heart”. So the next time, you say, ‘I’m busy’= ;, think about substituting …’sorry…I’m killing my heart’!

&nb= sp; Why is it so hard? Intuitively we all know what is important, and yet it is ver= y, very hard to bring this into our lives.&nb= sp; Increasingly there are a lot of articles and books on the art of slo= wing down. But in true Unitarian fashion, I was curious about what spiritual traditions had to say about maybe why it’s so hard and more important= ly what we should do about it.

&nb= sp; After reading and reflection, I initially had so much to say – lots to think about and in particular, I want to recommend a book by Wayne Muller, The Sabbath – Restoring the Sacred Rhythm of Rest. But how to pare it down for this t= alk? I want to focus on one aspect which is basically a discussion about the purpo= se of life.

&nb= sp; The Dalai Lama says that the purpose of life is happiness. Pure and simple. Thi= s is our inner home and refuge. He then advises, “If you want to be happy, practice compassion. If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. <= /span>

&nb= sp; Would it surprise you that many writers state that the very foundation of all maj= or spiritual traditions is happiness and compassion?

&nb= sp; Ceci= le Andrews in her book, Slow is Beautiful states that the purpose of li= fe is leisure and she defines leisure as anything that connects us with the sp= irit of life - – nature, solitude, play, connection. She defiantly challen= ges the idea that leisure is simply renewal for work and goes on to further challenge the commoditisation of leisure which has moved from active to passive, usually costing money. I think that her view of leisure is very mu= ch in keeping with the spiritual traditions.

&nb= sp; Befo= re the Reformation, spiritual traditions encouraged people to spend an enormous amount of their time in celebration, festivity and contemplation. Work was a necessary reality that you tried to minimize as much as possible in order to pursue the real purpose of life. When you did work, you took lots of long breaks, playing games, having a pint of ale when a project was finished. If= a worksite got more done than they expected, they would just take an extra day off. Certainly not take the money.

&nb= sp; Anci= ent Romans had 175 public holidays a year. In the 1600’s in Paris, there were 103 official holidays= . Those holidays are what we might call active leisure. People would have community potlucks, put on their own usually free entertainment and during these holidays, if necessary have a protest rally in the midst of the celebration= . There’s a great poster by the Take Back Your Time folks that somebody posted at our office: “A medieval peasant worked less hours than you!”=

&nb= sp; As you know, those many holidays and spiritual festivals were literally purged= in the name of a new theology – Prosperity theology which arose during t= he Reformation a few hundred years ago. As one writer of this theology wrote: ‘God sent you not into th= is world as into a Play-house, but a Work-house’. If you work hard, God = will give you material wealth in this world, and rest in the next world. =

&nb= sp; One day per week was allowed for “soul work” where you sat on hard pews (gee, are these pews har= d?) listened to long-winded sermons (gee, is this sermon long winded) and read = only prescribed spiritual texts (whew!) and you were not to indulge in any frivo= lous or pleasurable activities. Now before you throw that little theology out, saying of course you don’t believe it, try the test of whether we actually believe in something or not – do you act as if it’s true? Feel a bit guilty when you’= re not working flat-out at work, or taking some time for yourself? Why do we respond to the question, ‘What do you do’ with our work occupat= ion?

&nb= sp; But prosperity theology which was befriended by capitalism, industrialization, corporate globalization and consumerism is not our theology. Instead, I wou= ld argue, we need to reclaim the theology of happiness and compassion which ag= ain, many writers maintain is the foundation of all major spiritual traditions. =

&nb= sp; But how do these spiritual traditions suggest we do this? First of all, they believed in the spiritual tradition of the Sabbath or sacred time which is devoted to rest, celebration, connection, contemplation and renewal. It is found and given g= reat importance in all spiritual traditions. In fact, it’s a precept or ru= le or command.

&nb= sp; It is one of the ten commandments of the Christian faith: “Remember the Sabbath”. It’s right up there before the commandments not to murder or steal.

&nb= sp; The traditional Jewish Sabbath starts precisely at sundown – not when we’ve finished - writing this email, or finished this important proje= ct. At sundown, the 24/7 stops.

&nb= sp; Islamic tradition calls on people of faith to stop five times a day at a precise time, not a convenient time, to pray to Mecca.

&nb= sp; David Brazier in his book about Buddhism maintains that in the very foundation of= the faith, “the third of only four noble truths in Buddhism is stopping - which occurs when a person deeply sees the state of their life and decides = to do something about it.

&nb= sp; And finally for humanists who prefer science to faith, the science of circadian rhythms tells us that all living things are hardwired to have a rhythm of r= est. And if there are any workaholics out there, this is for you too – you= are a living thing! There is a rhythm in our waking activity and the body’= ;s need for sleep. There is a rhythm in the way day dissolves into night, and night into morning. There is a rhythm as the active growth of spring and su= mmer is quieted by the necessary dormancy of fall and winter. There is a tidal rhythm, and in our bodies, the heart perceptibly rests after each life-givi= ng beat; the lung rest between the inhale and the exhale.

&nb= sp; Scie= nce & religious faiths tell us this is the way to live. But we have lost th= is essential rhythm and therefore lost our way. Wayne Muller maintains that ou= r relentless emphasis on success, productivity and consumerism has become a form of violence. Wayne Muller comments that “Modern life is specifically designed to seduce our attention away from our inner place of what he calls, ‘refuge’. Seductions are insatiable – hundreds of channel= s, cell phones, the computer, email, radio, and advertising – every stimulus = competes for our attention: Buy me, Watch Me. Drink me. He comments, “It is as if we have inadvertently stumbled in= to some horrific wonderland”. We are inundated with external stimulation. The average person is exposed to the same amount in a year that a person fi= fty years ago would have experienced in a lifetime. We’ve traded our time= for money. The average person in North America has twice as much stuff as they did in the late 40’s.

&nb= sp; So no wonder we’re all exhausted. Without rest, and moving faster and fa= ster, we respond from a survival mode, where every encounter, every detail inflat= es in importance, everything seems more urgent than it really is, and well-mea= ning people make sloppy reactive decisions.

&nb= sp; With the erosion of private time and leisure with no regular Sabbaths or spiritu= al resting places, time seems to fly even faster, and we constantly feel we ha= ve less and less of it. A permanent sense of loss or wasted time seems to haunt us, no matter how successful we are. “If only I had the time” s= eems a constant refrain. No wonder, constantly striving, we feel exhausted and deprived in the midst of great abundance, longing for time with friends and family, longing for a moment to ourselves.

&nb= sp; List= en to this longing – it is what the Dalai Lama says is our intrinsic movement towards happiness. It’s hard-wired in you. Trust your instin= cts or your inner light that all spiritual traditions talk about that understan= ds what’s important and nourishing in life and what’s not.<= /p>

&nb= sp; For years, I’ve done a guided exercise with clients and friends and mysel= f, which asks, if materially you had enough, how would you live? Every time the answers are the same…nobody ever mentions much shopping or TV or even, time on the Internet – hard to believe. Instead, they’d spend t= ime with friends or family, hanging out, eating, playing… they’d probably work part-time, they’d spend time in nature, they’d ha= ve time for creativity and solitude, they’d do the things they love R= 11; whether it’s gardening, hobbies, they’d volunteer and make a ‘small difference’… it’s quite simple. Sometimes, I call them habits of the heart – when we’re doing these activiti= es or spending time with these people, we’re happy to be on this Earth. =

&nb= sp; Init= ially when I thought about doing this talk, I called it “Slowing Down to the Spirituality of Life”. But as David Kurdtz in his book, Stopping, remarks, some amorphous idea of “slowing down doesn’t work beca= use everything around us is going so fast. We get revved-up even if we don̵= 7;t want to be.”

&nb= sp; Why won’t slowing down work? Because of something called entrainment whic= h is an unconscious “process that governs how various rhythms fall into sy= nc with one another”. For example if you place two pendulum clocks beside each other, both out of sync, shortly you’ll discover that they’= ;ve fallen into the same sync. It’s the same for atomic particles, tides = and human beings.

&nb= sp; R= 20;Entrainment” also means “getting on a train”. When we’ve boarded the f= ast train, we can’t slow down – we’re not the engineer.

&nb= sp; I think instead we need to learn from the spiritual traditions and actually s= top. We have to find our own sacred time or Sabbath and make it a priority in our lives. This act of sacred time is when we step outside the quick flow of li= fe and luxuriate, as it were, in a realm where there is enough of everything, where we are not trying to fill a void in ourselves or the world, where we exist for a moment at both the deepest and loftiest levels of our existence, and participate in the web of life – all that is.

&nb= sp; Wayne Muller says that the Sabbath is revolutionary. Andrews calls ‘a crap detector.’ When we emerge from that place of inner abundance, not only are we less likely to be seduced by prosperity theology and consumerism, we= are much more likely to practice compassion not only to ourselves and to those around us in everyday life and work, but to live by our values and beliefs = and do acts of service or social activism.

&nb= sp; We need to actively challenge the theology of prosperity. The wonderful social activist, Vandana Shiva in her latest books says that we resist life as commerce and the world as a commodity. Instead we prioritize people and nat= ure above commerce and profits, ecology and equity above trade, citizens above corporations and people’s lived realities in their everyday life above the abstract constructions of corporate capitalism.

&nb= sp; So I encourage us all to find our sacred time that connects us with the purpos= e of our lives – happiness and compassion. And because we believe in commu= nity rather than the cult of individualism, I suggest that we structure much of = our Sabbath with others as our ancestors did.

&nb= sp; Since writing this talk, I have a much deeper appreciation for the structure of o= ur Unitarian fellowship – our formal services, our Chalice groups, our Adult Relig= ious Classes on Deep Ecology or Everyday Spirituality, our social events which reflect the original idea of Sabbath – either potluck dinners here at= the Church or in our homes, or our games nights and our coffee houses. Or my ha= tha and kundalini yoga classes, my voluntary simplicity discussion groups or my chanting and meditation groups.

&nb= sp; And finally, I suggest that we teach our children about this theology of sacred time, compassion and happiness. In fact, I think they already know this and teach us.

I have a bible of sorts to remind me what’s important – years ago, when my three children were still teenagers, I had a really smart idea – one of only a few really smart= and wise ideas in all my years. Since they were all poor, and because I didn’t want material presents, I started asking them to instead of a material present for birthdays or Christmas/Solstice, just give me a paragr= aph or page of what they were grateful for, or what they had learned this year,= or simply anything that they wanted to write. These are my bibles and my gifts – they remind me about what’s important.

&nb= sp; I leave you with just a few excerpts of sacred words written by my daughters = when they were between the ages of 15 and 18:&n= bsp; thank you for kindness; thank you for summer rain; thank you for traditions; thank you for not lett= ing us watch so much TV; thank you for instead of giving us material gifts, giv= ing us experiences; thank you for kisses and cuddles from your best friends when you’re sick; thank you for weather that matches your mood; thank you = for speaking out about what you believe; thank you for the smell of cranberries; thank y= ou for being so happy you want to cry…

&nb= sp; Thank you…