Now you know I am just joking. I didn't grow up in poverty, and now? Well if this is poverty bring on chastity. This week I finally managed to get myself into the swimming pool, not one but five days. I felt that cool soothing water. I looked out at the trees. To have space, quiet, beauty and time to enjoy these, you might say that that I have inherited an incredible fortune.
Many humans are not so fortunate. According to Sojourners magazine, 30,000 children die each day of preventable causes, and millions suffer from hunger and malnutrition. The choice of this topic came in response to an invitation from Sojourners "Vote out Poverty Campaign" to mobilize religious people to put poverty on the top of the nation's political agenda. We are not telling people who is the best candidate. We are asking you to exercise your right to vote and to let your government know that you vote with concern for the conditions for all human beings.
Some might wish we would go further. These people say that we like talk about things, but we never do anything. They long for effective action, and their cries challenge our complacency. It's easy to become complacent. How are we going to do anything about poverty anyway? And there are so many worthy causes asking us to contribute, so much need, so many problems in the world. Man, its hard enough to take care of ourselves; to do those things that we are sure we need to do in order to be okay. Do you know what I mean?
It takes faith to address the presence of poverty in our world. You may or may not have faith that there are great powers working for healing in our land, but there are. Some of us have learned about the need to think positively. This isn't the same as sticking your head in the sand, and pretending everything is all right. It's what we learned when we got sick and tired of being sick and tired, and realized that complaining and negativity wasn't enough to make things better.
So we learned that sometimes you gotta find a reason to be optimistic, you gotta look for the forces of good and decide to align yourself with them. Maybe your ego points out that you are outnumbered, but you know you don't want to join with forces of greed and cynicism. You know that there is bound to be some people who will stand up for what is right. So you look for the beginnings of good works happening, and you support it any way you can.
Do you know the first thing I did when when I received an email informing me about the "Vote Out Poverty" campaign? I gave thanks. Some of us laugh at such silly rituals. "Those religious people!" we say, "Giving thanks here, giving thanks there. Come on! quit with the false humility, the false piety. God ain't responsible, people are."
I am not saying that people aren't responsible. I am saying I've learned to give thanks and that keeps me from going to pity parties. It helps me to hook up with people who are working to make things better. And if it looks like no one is making a situation better, I can give thanks when I see people looking in the right direction and fix'n to do something. Do you know what I mean?
If people are talking about poverty, at least they are thinking about it. When people are using their voices to express a desire for change, to me that is cause to give thanks. I know that something is going to start shaking. Then I feel that vibration. I get excited and I'm not tempted to go hang out in those pity parties.
When the email told me that churches all over America were going to be praying on their concerns for poverty in our world, I didn't say "oh what good is praying going to do? You see I know that some of the best things that every happened to me began with a prayer. If I hadn't learned to pray, I might not be here todays.
I practice "silly" rituals, things like saying Thank You God, because I feel change start happening right away inside of me. Now I know that some of us don't like to hear a UU Minister, their minister preaching talking like this.
But hopefully by now you know I am going to try to translate my experience into a language that will be accessible for you. You know I am not telling you there is some old man pulling the strings that you've got to keep him happy by saying thank you. I am talking about the way I say yes to life. Saying "thank you god" is a way of affirming that the world isn't out to get us. If the three letters g-o-d get in your way, try considering it as a metaphor. If that still won't work for you, you can find another way to acknowledge and celebrate that help is on the way. You can say "thank you Universe, or thank you life, or simply "Woo hoo!"
Truth is all of us have our idioms and scripts that we repeat over and over. And I am not talking about phrases that improve our attitude about life. Internally we proclaim things like "those people always get their way." We proclaim versions of murphy's law. We say "If something can go wrong, it will."
If you receive word that people are working together to overcome poverty, and rallying people to speak up for the needs of the many, how do you want to respond? I hope you can recognize and affirm the powers working toward healing and wholeness in our world. I hope you can find a way to celebrate and move yourself in the direction of life, liberty and happiness.
Saying yes, affirming your intent to stand on the side of love, means intentionally planting seeds into your consciousness that will bear good fruit. It takes practice to bring our consciousness into harmony with life. When see or hear of poverty, we want to find the places that the life force is trying to break through with new life. We want to look where there are stirrings; when someone is reaching toward healing and restoration. When we see these things, we want to respond in a way that says yes. For some that's a "thank you God." For others it takes a joyful and sincere "woohoo" to enable a move into right relationship with life.
When I read Sojourner's email I didn't really say "Thank you," but my heart gave thanks to hear that people were joining together in faith expressing concern about people who can't or don't find access to the resources they need to live a healthy, happy prosperous life. The energy in my heart warmed me and helped me to breath more fully. And that is what inspiration is about. It's the breath of life coming into us to enable us to move forward.
You might think that the battle is out there, in Washington or Crawford TX, in Iraq or Iran. But there are other campaigns besides the "vote out poverty" campaign. There are campaigns from the Pity Party that tell us there is nothing we can do about all the suffering and injustice in the world. They tell us that humanity is doomed. They tell us that the world is out to get us.
When people start talking about poverty, there will be plenty of voices of pessimism and despair. I am saying that any time people express longing for cooperation and consideration of all people, it is a time to celebrate. It's good news that someone is trying to make room for hearts to speak and respond to the fact that large numbers of people have suddenly slipped into poverty, lost their jobs, their houses, their cars, because their income no longer enables them to pay their bills.
When our hearts find room to respond to these facts, we will cry "can't we do something about this?" And when we keep asking the question, we will find a way to say "yes."
So please don't be too quick to say that having a service on poverty doesn't do anything. We often don't have the ability to see immediate material manifestations of the shifts in our consciousness. That's not the way this world works. It's not possible for us to start a a new organization, a new campaign and a new project after every service. But don't tell me that there is no value for us in having a sanctuary and a beloved community to help us develop consciousness and practice love.
If we demand to see immediate payoff before we are willing to consider challenges, then we close our minds and our hearts. Implicitly or explicitly, we then say "Sorry we don't want to hear about poverty. We've already got our hands full trying to figure out how to reverse environmental devastation. We are already too busy trying to see that our child gets a good education, all of our energy is spent trying to do something about the daily killing of stray animals, or trying to protect reproductive rights, or end the discrimination of people based on their sexual orientation. Sorry I have to close my mind and my heart off from hearing your concerns." When we have no faith, we must first see outcomes, and we become pretty accomplished at armoring our heart. We get pretty good at separating ourselves when we say "There is nothing I can do."
When we agree to pray, think and talk about the suffering of poor people, we gain a chance to see ourselves as a part of. When we agree to remain connected to the suffering of others, we create in ourselves compassion. We open our hearts to be with others rather than running from the knowledge that they are suffering.
We also allow ourselves to know our connection to the forces influencing the situation. In this instance we are talking about the sharing or hoarding of resources. We remember that we have a part in creating our world. Then lifting people out of poverty is not a job only for politicians or captains of industry. Then we reclaim our responsibility, our ability to respond.
Even if we don't have the ability to fix a problem, we always have the ability to respond. When we remember this, we reconnect with our values. We also remain aware of our connection to humanity and all life. And since we are a part of this world, that means we stay connected to society. Now it may be very painful to remain connected to society, but disconnection brings about more pain in the long run.
At our best, our church is concerned with consciousness, the level from which we create our experience. We encourage examination of beliefs and behavior to see if we are in alignment with our principles. Becoming conscious enables us to take responsibility. It enables us to see the root level of changes in our lives and in our society. It takes a change of consciousness to stop avoiding a problem, but instead to decide to look for a solution until one is found.
It is no small feat to break the silence about poverty. Much in our culture asks us to ignore the existence of poor people. Members of the middle class are especially steeped in pretense. We are asked to deny that our job is to keep in place a system that siphons the wealth of the many and gives it to the few. We are asked to pretend that opportunity extends equally to everyone, and that whether wealthy or poor, you get what you deserve.
Having to maintain this pretense comes at a great cost. We end up denying our feelings and being cut off from our humanity. So let us give thanks for the campaign to vote out poverty. Let us yell woo hoo to realize that we are challenging patterns that blind us.
Perhaps poverty seems too big, and we believe we are too small to do anything about it. This is our pretense. We can't help but doing something about it. Maybe we have believed that we needed to protect our hearts. Reclaiming out caring and our connection to all people is a major step in reclaiming our heart.
We can begin by treasuring our caring even when we are at a loss to fix a problem. We can embrace our vulnerability. We can give thanks that there is something inside us--some beautiful value that wants to find expression in this world. We can affirm our responsiveness, our joy and our grief. We can refuse to be cut off from our neighbors, our truth and ourselves.
Today what would happen if we laid down our willingness to trade the fullness of life for the predictability of comfortable numbness? Can we admit our confusion, and allow for solutions outside ourselves? We can look for and find forces outside ourselves working for healing. We can continue without knowing what will come. At times we know fear, but with love we will embrace life. We will reclaim our connection to the dynamic mysterious miracle of life. Halleluiah! Woo- Hoo! and woo-hoo-hoo (the latter is intended to be something like the sound people make on a roller coaster.