CENTERING
SPIRIT OF LIFE
CHOOSE TO BLESS THE WORLD
Choose to Bless the World by Rebecca Parker, President of Starr King School for the Ministry
Your gifts—whatever you discover them to be--
can be used to bless or curse the world.
The mind's power,
The strength of the hands,
The reaches of the heart,
The gift of speaking, listening, imagining, seeing, waiting
Any of these can serve to feed the hungry,
Bind up wounds,
Welcome the stranger,
Praise what is sacred,
Do the work of justice
Or offer love.
Any of these can draw down the prison door,
Hoard bread,
Abandon the poor,
Obscure what is holy,
Comply with injustice
Or withhold love.
You must answer this question:
What will you do with your gifts?
Choose to bless the world.
The choice to bless the world is more than an act of will,
A moving forward into the world
With the Intention to do good.
It is an act of recognition, a confession of surprise, a grateful acknowledgment
That in the midst of a broken world
Unspeakable beauty, grace and mystery abide.
There is an embrace of kindness that encompasses all life, even yours.
And while there is injustice, anesthetization, or evil
There moves
A holy disturbance,
A benevolent rage,
A revolutionary love,
Protesting, urging, insisting
That which is sacred will not be defiled.
Those who bless the world live their life as a gesture of thanks
For this beauty
And this rage.
The choice to bless the world can take you into solitude
To search for the sources of power and grace;
Native wisdom, healing, and liberation.
More, the choice will draw you into community,
The endeavor shared,
The heritage passed on,
The companionship of struggle,
The importance of keeping faith,
The life of ritual and praise,
The comfort of human friendship,
The company of earth
The chorus of life welcoming you.
None of us alone can save the world.
Together—that is another possibility waiting.
SERMON: BLESSING THE REST
Rebecca Parker’s words invite us into imagining what it might be for us to “be a blessing to the world…” These words were spoken to her by process philosopher and Unitarian, Charles Hartshorne. This was at once an instruction and an invitation…one that Rev. Parker has taken seriously as evidenced not just by this poem but in and through all of her work as president of one of our UU seminaries, Starr King School for the Ministry, and also in her work for justice and her ability to speak truth to power in the most loving of ways, and in her embodiment of a process vision of the world – one in which love is woven through the fabric of all things, a world of radical interdependence.
We, too, now are instructed and invited in by the words: Choose to Bless the World…
Last week we invited the four-leggeds and the feathered one, the scaly and the multi-legged ones into our space – we recognized the blessing that they are to us, and we blessed them – we opened our hands and our hearts in a gesture of love, and for me, a gesture of promise…For blessing is not empty gesture or pretty words…but blessing is a gesture of commitment, even of covenant perhaps, to act in ways in which we are a blessing to the world by our words and our action, by our way of seeing and our way of being – ways which contribute to the well-being and flourishing of all life…
A reminder – let us indeed be a blessing to other animals – by at the very least, choosing to live in ways that causes the least possible harm…
and in a gesture of generosity and hope (for we are the ones with the power) using our mind’s power to imagine liberation, and the strength of hands to defend, and the reaches of hearts to persuade on their behalf, and to use the gift our speaking be their voices, hearing the unheard cries, imagining freedom, seeing the unseen suffering…
A reminder - let us choose to bless them in all ways and at all times…
But today we shall consider what it means to ‘bless the rest’ – all of creation, all people…
To uncover, discover our gifts and to answer the question Parker puts to us:
What will you do with your gifts?
What gesture shall we enact?
Blessing the world is a gesture of opening – minds, hearts, hands, arms, of using our bodies – our breath…to receive and return blessing…
Parker reminds us that our gifts can be used to bless or curse the world…
Our minds, hands, hearts…our speaking, listening, imagining, seeing, waiting:
Any of these can serve to feed the hungry,
Bind up wounds,
Welcome the stranger,
Praise what is sacred,
Do the work of justice
Or offer love.
To contribute to the well-being and flourishing of all.
On the other hand:
Any of these can draw down the prison door,
Hoard bread,
Abandon the poor,
Obscure what is holy,
Comply with injustice
Or withhold love.
What gestures shall we enact?
Last Wednesday faith leaders and laity from Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice joined people of faith from around the state for a Faith Out Front Pilgrimage. In a gesture of hope we walked to four churches in the area near Market and the 15 in San Diego. We walked our faith together to pray in unison and to learn about the ballot issues facing us here in California this year…to encourage voter registration and to ground our choices in our deepest values…
We began at Christ the King Catholic Church where so much work for justice has been done…Outside of that church there is a statue of Jesus that I’ve told you about before…It is Jesus with his arms outstretched in a gesture of blessing and invitation…but on this statue Jesus has no hands and on the plaque underneath is written: “I have no hands but yours.” An instruction and an invitation to be the hands, the feet, and the body of God…however you understand and conceive of God…perhaps as love or perhaps even as the actions that you take to save and uphold life.
And so we were – walking through the neighborhood and lifting up the values that our faith traditions – and they were varied! – hold in common…this was amazing. We articulated that our faith traditions move us to repair the fiscal gaps affecting public education and public safety by supporting Proposition 30.
We articulated that our faith traditions move us to support Proposition 34 – the effort to end the death penalty – at that stop in our pilgrimage we were at Bethel Memorial AME church where I was invited to give the going forth prayer…sharing the podium with that church’s pastor Rev. Anthony Hughes, and the Bishop George McKinney of the Church of God in Christ – so this was an example of how we might find common ground to bless this world…
We articulated our opposition to Proposition 32 – a deceptive and unfair attempt to silence the voices of workers couched in language that misleads into thinking that it is about It was written to look like real reform, but in reality it was intentionally crafted to crate massive special exemptions for secretive Super PACs, wall street investors, big developers and other corporate special interests -- at the same time crippling the ability of everyday Californians to have a voice about issues that matter. But the real agenda is that Prop 32 is funded by the exact same wealthy interests it was written to benefit. If it passes they'll be free to pursue a radical conservative agenda to eliminate environmental protections, attack workers' rights, roll back public education, and more.
We ended our pilgrimage with support for Proposition 36, which seeks to reverse the inappropriate application of the three strikes law, which results in extreme sentences for some who have no violent crimes, and disproportionately affects people of color. For me, to bless the rest…to choose to bless the world, I have to put my body where my mouth is…and know that while there is injustice, anesthetization, or evil
There moves
A holy disturbance,
A benevolent rage,
A revolutionary love,
Protesting, urging, insisting
That which is sacred will not be defiled.
And know that
Those who bless the world live their life as a gesture of thanks
For this beauty
And this rage.
We find this response…this benevolent rage, this revolutionary love and the living of life as a gesture of thanks for this beauty – for the beauty of the earth and all life - in another movement that is my hope for the world…a movement this is to blessing the world…that blesses the rest in profound and meaningful ways. Paul Hawken calls it “the largest social movement in history,” and proclaims that it is “restoring grace, justice, and beauty to the world.”
In his 2007 book, Blessed Unrest, with the subtitle: how the largest social movement in history is restoring grace, justice, and beauty to the world, “ Hawken shares his encounters with people all over the world who participate in various NGOs and non profit environmental groups that work to, in his words, “safeguard nature and ensure justice.” (1).
Of his speaking around the world on the threats to the environment and justice everywhere, Hawken talks about walking a tightrope of maintaining balance between the bad news (which we know all too well is really bad) and the need to describe the problem accurately and clearly, and the need to provide examples of constructive action. What Hawken found wherever he went is that people would gather to talk about the groups that they had started or were working with –some small, some large, but all the people dedicating their lives to educating, advocating, agitating, legislating…
Hawken was struck by the thousands – one or perhaps even two million – organizations that are doing this work…and who hears about that?
He sees this as the growth of ‘something organic” – a movement without leaders, structure, organization, but nonetheless making a difference in empowering people and slowly, raising consciousness.
He calls this “the largest social movement in all of human history.” And says,
“No one knows its scope, and how it functions is more mysterious than what meets the eye.
"What does meet the eye,” writes Hawken, “is compelling: coherent, organic, self-organized congregations involving tens of millions of people dedicated to change. When asked at colleges if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science that describes what is happening on earth today and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t have the correct data. If you meet the people in this unnamed movement and aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a heart.”
He goes on: “Inspiration is not garnered from the recitation of what is flawed; it resides rather in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider.”
We should have a blessed unrest…a restlessness that calls us to use our gifts to bless this one world…
For everything is connected and everything is at stake…
So there is naming of all that is connected – the environment is not an issue among issues it is the context for all issues…and the issues of poverty, war, the economy, all take place upon this blue boat home and everything is connected. And everything is at stake – and that is why there is this blessed unrest…and I believe that this is the most important issue of our time…it is our moment to truly bless the rest…and to feel
A holy disturbance,
To harness a benevolent rage,
To live from a revolutionary love,
Protesting, urging, insisting
That which is sacred will not be defiled.
And Parker tells us,
“The choice to bless the world can take [us] into solitude
To search for the sources of power and grace;
Native wisdom, healing, and liberation.”
So we will find ways to bless ourselves…to go inward in a gesture of contemplation and inner knowing…that we might find “the sources of power and grace” that we need, that each of us needs to live from that choice to bless the world… And find within the power needed to do whatever is necessary…
The choice to bless the world is more than an act of will,
A moving forward into the world
With the Intention to do good.
It is an act of recognition, a confession of surprise, a grateful acknowledgment
That in the midst of a broken world
Unspeakable beauty, grace and mystery abide
Blessing the world is a confession of surprise – the ability to see life’s promise…
This broken world is also beautiful, full of grace, and we are held in mystery…
And empowered and emboldened to use our mind’s power to imagine possibilities for wholeness and love…
To use the strength of our hands in gesture of blessing and to do the heavy lifting of holding the broken, serving the hungry, dismantling the structures of oppression and repression;
To open the reaches of our hearts – to allow our hearts to break wide open to let in all who are suffering…to hear the wide cries of lonely, the oppressed, to let in love and pour it out to the world;
To use our bodies in a gesture of resistance to all that would thwart life’s promise.
And we do not do that alone. Parker tells us:
More, the choice [to bless the world] will draw you into community,
The endeavor shared,
The heritage passed on,
The companionship of struggle,
The importance of keeping faith,
The life of ritual and praise,
The comfort of human friendship,
The company of earth
The chorus of life welcoming you.
None of us alone can save the world.
Together—that is another possibility waiting.
Shall we choose to bless the world?
SPIRIT OF LIFE
CHOOSE TO BLESS THE WORLD
Choose to Bless the World by Rebecca Parker, President of Starr King School for the Ministry
Your gifts—whatever you discover them to be--
can be used to bless or curse the world.
The mind's power,
The strength of the hands,
The reaches of the heart,
The gift of speaking, listening, imagining, seeing, waiting
Any of these can serve to feed the hungry,
Bind up wounds,
Welcome the stranger,
Praise what is sacred,
Do the work of justice
Or offer love.
Any of these can draw down the prison door,
Hoard bread,
Abandon the poor,
Obscure what is holy,
Comply with injustice
Or withhold love.
You must answer this question:
What will you do with your gifts?
Choose to bless the world.
The choice to bless the world is more than an act of will,
A moving forward into the world
With the Intention to do good.
It is an act of recognition, a confession of surprise, a grateful acknowledgment
That in the midst of a broken world
Unspeakable beauty, grace and mystery abide.
There is an embrace of kindness that encompasses all life, even yours.
And while there is injustice, anesthetization, or evil
There moves
A holy disturbance,
A benevolent rage,
A revolutionary love,
Protesting, urging, insisting
That which is sacred will not be defiled.
Those who bless the world live their life as a gesture of thanks
For this beauty
And this rage.
The choice to bless the world can take you into solitude
To search for the sources of power and grace;
Native wisdom, healing, and liberation.
More, the choice will draw you into community,
The endeavor shared,
The heritage passed on,
The companionship of struggle,
The importance of keeping faith,
The life of ritual and praise,
The comfort of human friendship,
The company of earth
The chorus of life welcoming you.
None of us alone can save the world.
Together—that is another possibility waiting.
SERMON: BLESSING THE REST
Rebecca Parker’s words invite us into imagining what it might be for us to “be a blessing to the world…” These words were spoken to her by process philosopher and Unitarian, Charles Hartshorne. This was at once an instruction and an invitation…one that Rev. Parker has taken seriously as evidenced not just by this poem but in and through all of her work as president of one of our UU seminaries, Starr King School for the Ministry, and also in her work for justice and her ability to speak truth to power in the most loving of ways, and in her embodiment of a process vision of the world – one in which love is woven through the fabric of all things, a world of radical interdependence.
We, too, now are instructed and invited in by the words: Choose to Bless the World…
Last week we invited the four-leggeds and the feathered one, the scaly and the multi-legged ones into our space – we recognized the blessing that they are to us, and we blessed them – we opened our hands and our hearts in a gesture of love, and for me, a gesture of promise…For blessing is not empty gesture or pretty words…but blessing is a gesture of commitment, even of covenant perhaps, to act in ways in which we are a blessing to the world by our words and our action, by our way of seeing and our way of being – ways which contribute to the well-being and flourishing of all life…
A reminder – let us indeed be a blessing to other animals – by at the very least, choosing to live in ways that causes the least possible harm…
and in a gesture of generosity and hope (for we are the ones with the power) using our mind’s power to imagine liberation, and the strength of hands to defend, and the reaches of hearts to persuade on their behalf, and to use the gift our speaking be their voices, hearing the unheard cries, imagining freedom, seeing the unseen suffering…
A reminder - let us choose to bless them in all ways and at all times…
But today we shall consider what it means to ‘bless the rest’ – all of creation, all people…
To uncover, discover our gifts and to answer the question Parker puts to us:
What will you do with your gifts?
What gesture shall we enact?
Blessing the world is a gesture of opening – minds, hearts, hands, arms, of using our bodies – our breath…to receive and return blessing…
Parker reminds us that our gifts can be used to bless or curse the world…
Our minds, hands, hearts…our speaking, listening, imagining, seeing, waiting:
Any of these can serve to feed the hungry,
Bind up wounds,
Welcome the stranger,
Praise what is sacred,
Do the work of justice
Or offer love.
To contribute to the well-being and flourishing of all.
On the other hand:
Any of these can draw down the prison door,
Hoard bread,
Abandon the poor,
Obscure what is holy,
Comply with injustice
Or withhold love.
What gestures shall we enact?
Last Wednesday faith leaders and laity from Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice joined people of faith from around the state for a Faith Out Front Pilgrimage. In a gesture of hope we walked to four churches in the area near Market and the 15 in San Diego. We walked our faith together to pray in unison and to learn about the ballot issues facing us here in California this year…to encourage voter registration and to ground our choices in our deepest values…
We began at Christ the King Catholic Church where so much work for justice has been done…Outside of that church there is a statue of Jesus that I’ve told you about before…It is Jesus with his arms outstretched in a gesture of blessing and invitation…but on this statue Jesus has no hands and on the plaque underneath is written: “I have no hands but yours.” An instruction and an invitation to be the hands, the feet, and the body of God…however you understand and conceive of God…perhaps as love or perhaps even as the actions that you take to save and uphold life.
And so we were – walking through the neighborhood and lifting up the values that our faith traditions – and they were varied! – hold in common…this was amazing. We articulated that our faith traditions move us to repair the fiscal gaps affecting public education and public safety by supporting Proposition 30.
We articulated that our faith traditions move us to support Proposition 34 – the effort to end the death penalty – at that stop in our pilgrimage we were at Bethel Memorial AME church where I was invited to give the going forth prayer…sharing the podium with that church’s pastor Rev. Anthony Hughes, and the Bishop George McKinney of the Church of God in Christ – so this was an example of how we might find common ground to bless this world…
We articulated our opposition to Proposition 32 – a deceptive and unfair attempt to silence the voices of workers couched in language that misleads into thinking that it is about It was written to look like real reform, but in reality it was intentionally crafted to crate massive special exemptions for secretive Super PACs, wall street investors, big developers and other corporate special interests -- at the same time crippling the ability of everyday Californians to have a voice about issues that matter. But the real agenda is that Prop 32 is funded by the exact same wealthy interests it was written to benefit. If it passes they'll be free to pursue a radical conservative agenda to eliminate environmental protections, attack workers' rights, roll back public education, and more.
We ended our pilgrimage with support for Proposition 36, which seeks to reverse the inappropriate application of the three strikes law, which results in extreme sentences for some who have no violent crimes, and disproportionately affects people of color. For me, to bless the rest…to choose to bless the world, I have to put my body where my mouth is…and know that while there is injustice, anesthetization, or evil
There moves
A holy disturbance,
A benevolent rage,
A revolutionary love,
Protesting, urging, insisting
That which is sacred will not be defiled.
And know that
Those who bless the world live their life as a gesture of thanks
For this beauty
And this rage.
We find this response…this benevolent rage, this revolutionary love and the living of life as a gesture of thanks for this beauty – for the beauty of the earth and all life - in another movement that is my hope for the world…a movement this is to blessing the world…that blesses the rest in profound and meaningful ways. Paul Hawken calls it “the largest social movement in history,” and proclaims that it is “restoring grace, justice, and beauty to the world.”
In his 2007 book, Blessed Unrest, with the subtitle: how the largest social movement in history is restoring grace, justice, and beauty to the world, “ Hawken shares his encounters with people all over the world who participate in various NGOs and non profit environmental groups that work to, in his words, “safeguard nature and ensure justice.” (1).
Of his speaking around the world on the threats to the environment and justice everywhere, Hawken talks about walking a tightrope of maintaining balance between the bad news (which we know all too well is really bad) and the need to describe the problem accurately and clearly, and the need to provide examples of constructive action. What Hawken found wherever he went is that people would gather to talk about the groups that they had started or were working with –some small, some large, but all the people dedicating their lives to educating, advocating, agitating, legislating…
Hawken was struck by the thousands – one or perhaps even two million – organizations that are doing this work…and who hears about that?
He sees this as the growth of ‘something organic” – a movement without leaders, structure, organization, but nonetheless making a difference in empowering people and slowly, raising consciousness.
He calls this “the largest social movement in all of human history.” And says,
“No one knows its scope, and how it functions is more mysterious than what meets the eye.
"What does meet the eye,” writes Hawken, “is compelling: coherent, organic, self-organized congregations involving tens of millions of people dedicated to change. When asked at colleges if I am pessimistic or optimistic about the future, my answer is always the same: If you look at the science that describes what is happening on earth today and aren’t pessimistic, you don’t have the correct data. If you meet the people in this unnamed movement and aren’t optimistic, you haven’t got a heart.”
He goes on: “Inspiration is not garnered from the recitation of what is flawed; it resides rather in humanity’s willingness to restore, redress, reform, rebuild, recover, reimagine, and reconsider.”
We should have a blessed unrest…a restlessness that calls us to use our gifts to bless this one world…
For everything is connected and everything is at stake…
So there is naming of all that is connected – the environment is not an issue among issues it is the context for all issues…and the issues of poverty, war, the economy, all take place upon this blue boat home and everything is connected. And everything is at stake – and that is why there is this blessed unrest…and I believe that this is the most important issue of our time…it is our moment to truly bless the rest…and to feel
A holy disturbance,
To harness a benevolent rage,
To live from a revolutionary love,
Protesting, urging, insisting
That which is sacred will not be defiled.
And Parker tells us,
“The choice to bless the world can take [us] into solitude
To search for the sources of power and grace;
Native wisdom, healing, and liberation.”
So we will find ways to bless ourselves…to go inward in a gesture of contemplation and inner knowing…that we might find “the sources of power and grace” that we need, that each of us needs to live from that choice to bless the world… And find within the power needed to do whatever is necessary…
The choice to bless the world is more than an act of will,
A moving forward into the world
With the Intention to do good.
It is an act of recognition, a confession of surprise, a grateful acknowledgment
That in the midst of a broken world
Unspeakable beauty, grace and mystery abide
Blessing the world is a confession of surprise – the ability to see life’s promise…
This broken world is also beautiful, full of grace, and we are held in mystery…
And empowered and emboldened to use our mind’s power to imagine possibilities for wholeness and love…
To use the strength of our hands in gesture of blessing and to do the heavy lifting of holding the broken, serving the hungry, dismantling the structures of oppression and repression;
To open the reaches of our hearts – to allow our hearts to break wide open to let in all who are suffering…to hear the wide cries of lonely, the oppressed, to let in love and pour it out to the world;
To use our bodies in a gesture of resistance to all that would thwart life’s promise.
And we do not do that alone. Parker tells us:
More, the choice [to bless the world] will draw you into community,
The endeavor shared,
The heritage passed on,
The companionship of struggle,
The importance of keeping faith,
The life of ritual and praise,
The comfort of human friendship,
The company of earth
The chorus of life welcoming you.
None of us alone can save the world.
Together—that is another possibility waiting.
Shall we choose to bless the world?