SERMON: CARPE DIEM! Latin for Seize the Day!
The Roman God Janus is depicted with one face always looking back and the other always looking ahead. Some of you may have noticed my strange attire today. You may have also noticed the other face I was wearing. Life can be understood looking backward, but the catch is that it can only be lived forward. I drew one eye closed and one eye open. Since there is nothing anyone can do to change what has happened or gone before, that eye is closed, things best forgotten. The other eye is wide open. That is so that we may learn from our past and the experiences of others who have gone before so that we need not repeat their mistakes. Also it allows us to view all experiences, ours and others, and learn from them so we may duplicate their successes.

Since there is nothing we can do about changing the past, let’s then focus on the future. As I go through this sermon today feel free to use the white paper to note things that come to mind: hopes, dreams, visions, aspirations, desires and goals, and save them for later. Dare to dream! Establish a vision for your future. Set a goal. A goal is a Dream with a date, but a Dream without a plan to achieve it is a hallucination. If a little girl can set a goal and with her mother’s help, actively change for a pretty dress what could we as adults achieve? Don’t just speak meaningless resolutions and wishes this New Years Eve. Take Action! Replace your wishbone with your backbone and DO IT! I encourage everyone to think, dream and live outside the box. It all begins with a box many of us have forgotten. A box we quietly tucked away and forgot. That is the box where we keep all our hopes and dreams. The “I wish?” “Wouldn’t it be great if,” “Someday,” box. Sometimes it�s sealed by “I should have” or “Let’s be realistic.�

THE DREAM
The reason that box is hidden away and we stop looking at the future is that it is sometimes painful to take it out and open it, mistakenly thinking that the contents must always remain stored away. For a minute though, just imagine the possibilities. There are no limits. What would you attempt if you knew you could not fail? Young or old, man or woman, black or white, reach into your dream box and lift out your future. Let yourself explore the wonderfully diverse nature of your personality. Lift the limits you, your family and associations, and society have placed on you and told you to live with. Unshackle your spirit and resolve to LIVE until you die.

You have so much potential locked up within your box or hidden beneath a bush. You are a wonderful creation, a magnificent miracle just waiting to shine. Share your gift with others, explore the boundless possibilities that exist, right now inside your own boxes. Having a Dream box full of exciting possibilities is one thing, making them come true is another. There is an old proverb: Three frogs are sitting on a log. One decides to jump off. How many frogs are left? Three! A decision to jump off is not the act of jumping! First, decide that your dream box will open and become reality then take action to make it so. The second action you must take is to find someone who will help you. This magnificent sanctuary you see here could not have been completed by one person alone. As with this service today, thankfully, many people helped put it together. Your mentor or coach will be someone who can help you open your boxes to reveal the wonderful dreams for the future inside. They are someone who can help guide you along this new path you have opened up. Oftentimes we can see the as yet unrealized potential within someone else before we can see our own. Reach out to someone and help them unseal their own box and let their dreams become reality. You will be amazed at how wonderful it feels watching someone becoming. The candle you nurture into a flame can in turn light a thousand candles. It all starts with you. Open your hearts, take a chance, reach out your hand, share your light and rekindle another’s flame. The journey of a thousand miles begins with just one step. A million points of light begins with just one candle. Open the box and let it shine.

SET GOALS
We are who we are. The choices we made and the associations we keep help define not only who we are as a person today, but where in Life that person will go. The decisions you make and the associations you choose today will determine where you will be five years from now. Just as the decisions you made then determined where you are today. The beauty of this plan is that if we are unhappy with the decisions we chose in the past, we can decide to close that chapter and set new goals open up a new chapter. And thus, change the future direction of our lives.

Set goals. In this new year and new millennium give birth to your visions for the future and nurture them. Focus on them, make them a priority in your life. Set deadlines for your goals. Nothing happens without a deadline. How many people would pay the IRS if they said, “That’s OK, pay us when you’re ready?” Develop a consuming passion that will not be denied.

Next year as you sit here you can count your achievements rather than say, “Well, maybe next year.” There may not be a next year! Write down what you want and when you expect to have it. Write down what you are willing to give up as payment to achieve this goal. Write out your plan for accomplishing this goal then put the plan into action. Read this plan everyday aloud until your goal is a reality. Remember, your past has no bearing or relevance to your future unless you let it. Past experiences serve as foundational lessons for future successes. Winston Churchill said, “Success is going from failure to failure with great enthusiasm”. So, instead of looking back, let’s peer ahead with wonder and anticipation of a great and wonderful year to come. The Christian Bible says “What the mind of Man can conceive, and the heart of Man will believe, He will achieve.” Zig Ziglar a very successful man and motivational speaker said, “With good vision, you not only see with your eyes but with your heart.” J.Paul Getty, the wealthiest man of his time said, “If I’ve seen farther than others it’s because I stand on the shoulders of giants.” What all these are saying is that you need a vision of your future. So where are you going and how do you plan to get there? If you are not out pursuing your own Dream you are following someone else’s. Your goal should be high enough that you must stretch and grow in order to attain it. You can accomplish so much more in life if you have a big enough ‘why’. Goals are the major landmarks on your road to success. Achievement of a goal has four stages: wish, want, need, got. What does it take to move a wish for something to a need? A dream or goal big enough that will motivate you into action. Those who accomplish great things are not necessarily smarter than other people; they are not more gifted, have better health, or have more education. They just have a bigger need because they have a bigger dream. You have to move away from what everybody in America does: wishing things were different. Take action! Think hard why you want these things, material or non-material. Think about it often enough and it becomes a strong desire to want it. Your vision of your future becomes your past. Most people use their vision of their past to see their future. Stop driving by your rear view mirror. Stay positive, forget what’s behind you and focus forward. Now visualize what you would do when you have achieved your goal. What does it feel like? Now it becomes a need. This is now something about which you can get passionate. Passion will stir your soul and provide the positive motivation and the energy necessary to get moving, change your circumstance and do something about it. Remember we are talking about your goals and Dreams here. You can only apply negative motivation to yourself. You can never negatively motivate someone else. You can threaten someone with a negative consequence but they will not be truly motivated. You can, however, apply positive motivation to both yourself and anyone else.

Everyone likes to win, if you are trying to help motivate someone else, the carrot you dangle in front of them will help them get moving. Remember though, it must be something they believe in and want greatly. It does no good to offer someone a free set of tires if they do not own a car. Belief in your Dreams triggers in the mind the ways and means of accomplishing it. Belief in your ability to accomplish your goals banishes all fear and doubt. At this point don’t confuse the how to do something with the decision to do it. The decision to be successful comes first. Once the decision is made, then the how-to-do-it vehicle follows. You don’t need to know all the details of how something works to make use of it. First decide to achieve your goals then the means to make it happen will reveal themselves.

COACH
Once your vision is crystallized so that you can touch and taste it, share it with someone who can help you achieve it. A spouse, coach, mentor, God; whomever can support your vision. Don’t share your vision with anyone who might criticize your dream. If they have stake in helping you achieve your Dream they will help guide you so you can take action. Don’t confuse an open mind with one that’s vacant

Michael Jordan and Tiger Woods are unquestionably the best athletes in their sports. Both have coaches. Why not the rest of us? Your coach will help you to consistently and persistently pursue you dreams and goals; guiding you around obstacles and keeping you honest to yourself and your dreams. With a mentor’s help it’s no longer necessary to keep your Dream box, or any of your other boxes, hidden away.

Never live your life by the negativity of others. Do what you need to do for yourself and for your family’s future. What do you need with someone else’s opinion anyway? The only way to avoid criticism is to do nothing, to be nothing, to go nowhere with your life.

You are going to be criticized anyway, so why not be criticized for doing something great. If they are really giving it to you, ask them what they are doing that’s so great. They obviously think they have a better deal, so ask them to share their secret plan for success. Remember to keep moving forward. Happiness is a failure in your rear view mirror.

TAKE ACTION
Every morning in Africa the gazelle wakes up and realizes it must outrun the fastest lion or it will die. Every morning in Africa the lion wakes up and realizes it must outrun the slowest gazelle or it will starve. The moral of this story is that regardless of who you are, you better wake up and start running.

Great ideas and a Positive Mental Attitude are a great place to start, but progress also requires action. The guy who achieves and the guy who doesn’t both have the same 24 hours but the former does not hesitate to put a positive mental attitude and ideas into action.

Yes, there are fears and doubt. You would not be human otherwise. Nevertheless, Mr. Success goes through them in pursuit of his vision. You can’t mosey up on success. You have got to kick it into high gear and go after it like the checkered flag at the Indy 500. Do not wait. It is easy to sit up and take notice. What is difficult is getting up and taking action. Take action now.

Sit down and establish goals for all areas of your life, spiritual, family, career, and recreation. These goals should fall into near term, short term, and long term. Doing something every day builds a daily habit and your weekly goals just naturally happen.

Making your four weekly goals, and then your monthly goal happens all by itself. Put twelve of these months together and your yearly goal is a done deal! And it all starts with doing something today. Once you have decided what your goals are and pictured them in your mind, keep reminders of them clearly visible. Write them down. That is why you have the white paper. Researchers at Yale University did a landmark study beginning in 1953. They interviewed the entire graduating class. They found that only 10% had goals and only 3% had them committed to paper. Twenty years later the graduates were again interviewed. That 3% had accumulated a higher financial net worth than the other 97% combined!

Be specific about what you want and when you expect to have it. Know why you want it and what you are willing to give up, the price to be paid for your goal, in order to achieve it.

First, your goal should be written in the form of an action statement, “I will lose 10 pounds by March 1.” “I will…” Without action there is no beginning, just thought.

Second, the goal is stated clearly, and to the point, “..lose 10 pounds.”

This is something that can be measured. ” I want to be happier.” is a great statement but as a goal statement it is too ambiguous. Happier in relation to what, by when; how do you measure happiness? If loosing weight will make you happy then go for it. But it must be something that generates action.

Finally your goal statement must have a date, “..by March 1.” How would a football game look if there were not any goalposts or a game clock? Guys would be running every which way and would never know what the score was.

By wording your goal statement this way, you are laying out the road map with your destination clearly fixed. All you need to do now is follow the mile markers.

Keep looking forward. You must constantly visualize what you want, not what you don’t want. You want to re-program your brain for success so start feeding it success based images. If you expect the worst, you invite the worst to happen. Why not instead invite joy and happiness and demand they become your travelling companions?

Pictures are nice reminders. If you can’t find exactly what you’re looking for in a magazine or brochure draw it yourself. Try putting them on your bathroom mirror, refrigerator, the inside of the front door, or inside your car. Places that your eyes often frequent.

When you don’t really feel like getting out the door, pictures of your goal will help motivate you off the couch. Something that I found very helpful when faced with doing something to progress toward my goal that I didn’t really fell like doing, was thinking of the alternatives. I could go out and put in the effort and get my goal that much sooner, or not do it, and either push back when it will be achieved, or face the possibility that my goal may never be realized.

The fear of not having what you want should be bigger and stronger then the fear of doing what it takes to make it happen. This will require change on your part.

CHANGE
If you always do what you always did, you will always get what you always got. If you want different results you MUST change what you are doing! It is Man’s nature to resist change. Change requires energy and action. That’s why Man created the Lazy Boy and remote control, to avoid spending his precious energy.

Like the trees, if you’re not growing and changing every day, you are dying. You must make growth and change a part of your everyday existence.

You do have the freedom to choose. You can choose to change or you can choose to remain as you are. Do not cop out by abdicating responsibility for your situation to someone else. You are where you are by the choices you made. The system, your boss, your spouse, all had input to where you are, but YOU made the choices. Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to the other 10%. If you do not like where you are, you have the power to choose to change. Don’t be mad at the way the ball bounces if you’re the one who dropped the ball.

The definition of insanity is doing the same things over and over again and expecting different results! Do something different. Change something and get different results. If you want to have more, be more, do more, give more, YOU need to change. To change the world why not start with the easiest thing and the best example of what you want: yourself. Be the change you want to see in the world.

Change by improving your relationships with your spouse and family, friends, and co-workers. Lasting success in anything depends largely upon your success in building strong relationships with people. When people trust and believe in you, they will support you, fight for you and follow you to the ends of the Earth.

People, when led properly and justly, become an unbeatable resource. An army of sheep led by a lion will defeat an army of lions led by a sheep every time. A man with belief, conviction and no skill will always defeat a man with skill and no belief. Eliminate the barriers you have erected that are keeping you from moving forward. Change your associations to a more positive, uplifting and supportive crowd. Begin diluting all the negative junk your old filter allowed into your brain by reading more positive books and watching less tv.

A great way to overcome your weak areas is to shine a spotlight on them and force them out into the open. If a schoolboy has difficulty in math, how does he become top of the class? Certainly by not hiding in a closet and never doing math again! He gets to be top of the class by doing MORE of what is difficult. Through practice and repetition, focusing on weak areas, they become your strengths. You, and no one but you, have the power within you to change who you are.

CHALLENGES
Use every moment you have to be productive, learn and grow. Don’t just kill time. Invest it. Read, talk with experienced people, listen and associate with successful people, and add to your knowledge and experience. Visualize your future. Do something of value.

Henry Ford said, “Obstacles are those frightful things you see when you take your eyes off your goal.” he also said, “Whether you think you can or think you can’t, you’re right.” Think of a very successful person and ask yourself how they would handle the present situation. If that person is a good role model for you, take that action. If they are a negative role model, do the opposite. This process will also help put you in the mindset of those successful people you are trying to duplicate.

As you begin to see your first goal realized, check with your long-term goal and see what’s next to tackle. Dream bigger. Always set new and higher goals. This will keep you continually growing, moving forward and pursuing excellence.

The next step is to identify any potential roadblocks or challenges. Facing challenges gives you an opportunity to think creatively. Once these have been identified, develop them into an action plan and devise a way to overcome the challenges. Overcoming the roadblocks will become milestones for measuring progress toward your goal. There is often more than one way to skin a cat. Be creative when it comes to potential obstacles. They often produce a result of equal or greater benefit.

Focus on the solutions to those challenges and the answers will come to you. Look at it this way, if you focused your vision on a bug on the windshield instead of where your car is going, you would eventually drive into a ditch. See through the challenges and focus on the goal. In overcoming, you have learned something that you can teach others and can also apply to other situations later. This may be the silver lining you are looking for. The point is that you solved the problem. Now move on down the road to your next milestone.

PROGRESS
It is important to measure your progress over meaningful periods of time. For example, if you were driving from Chicago to Los Angeles, you wouldn’t stop after an hour and ask, “Am I there yet?”

Meaningful change and growth takes time. Years in come cases. The point is that you will notice progress in the way you think and act and how you respond to other people, but it might not be overnight. At least four times a year evaluate your situation and see how far you have or have not come. Doing this on a regular basis will keep you on track and avoid any lengthy detours. As long as you are progressing toward your goal, you win, regardless of how long it takes you to get there. If you do not make it this time, there is always another day to try again. You only lose by quitting.

This is why milestones are so important; they give you tiny victories and empower you to go on. You can measure progress and feel that sense of accomplishment. Reward yourself for achieving tiny victories, small things that you have denied yourself as the price to be paid in order to win. And I do not mean having a double cheeseburger and fries with a Diet Coke as a reward for losing 5 pounds! It should be something that is meaningful to you and helps you move forward towards your goal.

Don’t confuse activity for accomplishment. Earl Nightingale, an early master of success teaching said, “Successful people are Dreamers who have found a Dream too exciting and too important to remain in the realm of fantasy; and who day by day, hour by hour, toil in the service of their Dream until they can touch it with their hands and see it with their eyes.”

SUMMARY
Look back. Acknowledge your triumphs and defeats. Learn from the mistakes and missteps. Drop any baggage that may be holding you back. Turn around, seize THIS day!

Face forward and set a new course. Set your goals, write them down, enlist a mentor to help you achieve them, allow yourself to change, stay focused, take action daily and this will be the best year of your life.

_______________

Adapted from his forthcoming book “The Road to Success is Always Under Construction”, Chris Summers President/CEO CRS Enterprises, travels nationally delivering his popular lectures on personal freedom and financial independence.

There are so many stories about these days at the end of December, and this morning I would like to tell you just a few of them. Each of the three main stories I’ll tell you seems to embody a certain central word, and for each of those three words I will light a candle. Then later in the service, I’ll use the candles to light something else, as you’ll see.

1. The oldest Christmas story is thousands and thousands of years old. That long ago, people noticed that every year at this time, when the days have been getting shorter and the nights longer, the cycle reverses, the sun starts coming back, and the days start getting brighter and longer again. Today, we call this the winter solstice. It’s December 21st on our modern calendars. But in the ancient calendars it came four days later. So in the world of several thousand years ago, long before the man Jesus lived, December 25th was already a symbolic and famous date, the date of the winter solstice.

People didn’t call it the winter solstice, though. They spoke of things in terms of their gods and goddesses. And December 25th was the birthday of their sun-god. When you think about it, the winter solstice is the day the sun starts being born again, so by definition it is the birthday of all sun gods. There were many sun-gods; each culture had its own. For the Greeks, tomorrow was Apollo’s birthday, and they carved pictures of Apollo driving his chariot pulled by flying horses across the sky, and pulling the sun behind him.

Another religion, which was much more important for our own history, even though most people have now forgotten its name, was the religion of Mithraism. Mithra was also a sun god, and tomorrow would be his birthday. Mithra was called the Son of God. Shepherds followed a special star in the sky to find the place of his birth, and they brought gifts to him on his birthday, and taught that he was the Son of God, sent to save the world. Since he was a sun-god, the sacred day for this religion was Sunday. They also carved bas-reliefs of Mithra in a chariot, pulled across the sky by flying horses.

If this story sounds familiar it’s because back in the year 336, the Christian church adopted Mithra’s birthday, December 25th, as the official birthday of Jesus, and also adopted Sunday as the holy day of Christianity. Until then, Jesus didn’t have an official birthday, and Christians didn’t celebrate Sunday. In fact, Christian writers of the first three centuries used to brag about the fact that they had no holy days, which they regarded as purely pagan practices. All that changed in the early fourth century.

And as a footnote to complete a theme I’ve mentioned twice, around 1865, the Civil War cartoonist Thomas Nast created an important image that brought an ancient theme full circle. Nast was the man who first gave us the Republicans’ elephant and the Democrats’ donkey. He was also the man who drew the picture showing us that Santa Claus rode in a flying chariot pulled through the sky by flying animals on the eve of the ancient winter solstice.

The story of Christmas on December 25th really goes back many centuries before either the Christians or the Jews existed. It was a religion of great faith: a faith that nature is trustworthy, faith that life and light will always begin returning at this time of the year, and a faith that their God was there and that he cared for them. They used evergreens, holly, ivy, mistletoe, and lights as symbols of their faith. And we still use all of their ancient symbols, as signs of our own faith.

So the first candle we’ll light for this season is the candle of Faith.
(LIGHT CANDLE OF “FAITH” AND TURN IT AROUND SO THE NAME “FAITH” SHOWS.)

2. If you are Jewish, or if you have Jewish friends, they tell a different story about this time of the year, though it is similar, too. It is the story of Hanukah, which begins on the 25th day of the Jewish month Chislev, which corresponds to what we call the 25th day of our month December.

(Tell Hanukah story)

It is a story of faith, and it is also a story of hope: hope that these forces that make the world so predictable and comfortable for us will continue to be friendly to us. They called these forces Lord, or God. For the Jews, it was and is a story of faith and hope in their God.

And so on Hanukah, Jews light not one but eight candles to stand for the faith and hope they felt when their oil light, which had only enough oil to burn for one night, burned for eight days, until more oil arrived. It was the hope that the God who had cared for them would continue to do so, and the hope that they would continue to serve that God with their hearts, minds and souls. And so the second candle we light for this season is the candle of HOPE.

(LIGHT CANDLE OF “HOPE” AND TURN IT AROUND)

3. The third Christmas candle will come from the third Christmas story. It may be the one you know the best, it’s the Christian story about December 25th. It was written about fifty years after Jesus had died, more than eighty years after he had been born. But those who put the story together put it together from parts of much older stories.

- Like the god Mithra and the Greek god Dionysus, Jesus was also a son of God, with the power to save his followers.

- As in the older story of Mithra’s birth, men followed a special star to find the place of Jesus� birth, and they brought gifts fit for a savior or a king.

- Like Dionysus, Jesus’ father was the most high god and his mother was a young woman.

- Later in life, Jesus would have twelve followers, as Mithras had. He would heal the sick and raise the dead as Asclepius had, and turn water into wine like Dionysus.

- Jesus and his twelve followers would have a Last Supper at Easter time, at which they would eat bread and drink wine that had been associated with his body and blood - just as the followers of Dionysus and Mithra had done for a long time.

Religion scholars who study the stories of Jesus and other ancient religions love to point out the similarities and borrowings, and there were a lot of them.

But there was a difference, too, that brings in our third Christmas candle. Jesus had faith, he trusted his God and he was not afraid of the world, like the believers in the religion of Mithraism. And Jesus taught hope, too. He hoped and believed that his God would keep being there and keep caring for everyone.

But for Jesus, the answer to the world’s real problems didn’t rest with the return of the sun, or waiting for a God to make things better. He said that the Kingdom of God - which meant the kind of world God wants us to have — was up to us to bring about. It was within us and among us, he said. And it would be here as soon as we learned how to love one another. When we could treat everybody else as our sister or brother, as a child of God, he said, this whole world will become like a kingdom of God. Because of all the powers on earth, the most powerful is the power of Love. Love can forgive us when we make mistakes, can embrace us as we struggle, sometimes fail. Love can love even the unloveable. And if you love your enemies, as he also taught, they’re not your enemies any longer. That’s a great power.

And so the third Christmas candle we light is the candle of Love.

(LIGHT “LOVE” CANDLE AND TURN IT AROUND).

Religious people have celebrated faith, hope and love forever, and they are important parts of this winter solstice or Christmas season. But they aren’t the whole story; they’re only part of what is going on inside of you this season. Because you know as well as I do that not all of the feelings you have are feelings of faith, hope or love. Part of living is that sometimes we are afraid, or sad, or we are filled with regret, which means that we are sorry we did some of the things we did, or we wish we had done some other things instead. And those feelings can make it harder for you to enjoy Christmas, or even to enjoy yourself, you know?

So besides faith, hope and love, you have some Fears at Christmas. (PICK UP “FEAR” PAPER AND SHOW IT). What are you afraid of at Christmas? Well, you’re afraid that the people you’ve given presents to might not like them. Think of all the times that you�ve said or thought to yourself “Oh, I hope he likes it!” or “Oh, I hope she likes it!” And this doesn’t stop when you grow up, either. You are always giving people things you hope they’ll like, and are always a little afraid that they might not like them.

Or you’re afraid you won’t get the presents you want. Or you’re afraid they won’t be “cool” presents so you can impress your classmates. Or maybe you’re afraid that if Santa Claus is making a list and checking it twice, and is gonna find out who’s been naughty and nice, that maybe he will find out that you haven’t been as nice as you might have been.

These fears are awful things, even though everybody has them, and even though you will have fears of one kind of another for the rest of your life. And they can make Christmas a lot less happy for you.

And so for this Christmas, I’m going to tell you a secret about how to get rid of your fears. You think of the things that you can count on, the things that give you hope. Spring will come again; the days will begin getting longer and warmer. You can count on your family, your friends. You can count on your church community. Your parents love you; your friends love you. God loves you - all the gods love you. There are a lot of things you really have faith in, and faith cuts fear like scissors cut paper. So think about the things you can count on, the faith you have. Then take your fears (LIFT THE PAPER WITH “FEARS” ON IT) and you just take them over to your FAITH, say “Begone, fears, and let Christmas come!” and touch them to it (TOUCH THE FLASH PAPER TO THE CANDLE FLAME)

Besides fears, you might have some sadness this Christmas. (PICK UP THE “SADNESS” PAPER AND SHOW IT). Someone you love or someone who loved you may have died this year, and you may be sad about that. Or you may have lost a pet, whether it was a cat, or a dog, or a hamster or a goldfish, and that’s sad, too. Or someone you love may be sick or hurt or far away. It is hard to enjoy Christmas when you’re sad.

And so for this Christmas, I’m going to tell you how to get rid of some of your sadness. Think of all the things that you are glad for, all the things that give you hope. The presents, the toys and clothes and cool games, the fun of swapping Christmas stories with the other kids in your classes. Think of all the things you have to look forward to, and see how that makes you feel less awful. Just gather together all of your sadness and take it over to your Hope, and you just let your hopes touch your Sadness and say “Begone, sadness, and let Christmas come!” (TOUCH THE FLASH PAPER TO THE “SADNESS” CANDLE)

Besides some fears and some sadness, you might also have some Regrets. (PICK UP THE “REGRETS” PAPER AND SHOW IT). In other words, you might wish you hadn’t done some of the things you did this past year, or you wish you had done some things that you should have done but didn’t. You could have been nicer to your parents — or to your kids. You could have worked harder in school, or in sports, you could have done more around the house, you could have played more and had more fun than you did. You could have done a lot of things that you didn’t do, and you wish you had.

Don’t think these feelings only come to kids. You’ll have them for the rest of your lives. Older people also look back and wish they had done a better job in their jobs, or with you, or a hundred other things. These regrets can get you down, and make it hard to feel like celebrating Christmas, if you let them.

But this year, you don’t have to let them. Because for this Christmas, I’m going to tell you how to get rid of some of your regrets. Instead of getting all sad about the things you wish you hadn’t done, or the things you wish you had done that you didn’t do, think of somebody you love. You know, they did some things wrong this year too, and you still love them. That’s a pretty good clue that they still love you, too. So this Christmas, gather up all of your regrets (PICK UP THE “REGRETS” PAPER) and you take them over to thoughts of people you love or people who love you. Then you say “Begone regrets, and let Christmas come!” (TOUCH THE FLASH PAPER TO THE ‘LOVE” CANDLE.)

These are tricks that work on Christmas or on any other day. But don’t just think about it, do it. Oh, it’s easy to make excuses and put it off. “I’d love to get back in touch with my faith, hope and love,” you may think, “but there’s just too much to do. Maybe next year.” So you put it off, this Christmas season comes and goes, and you’ll never be blessed by its magic at all.

There’s only one time to try all these things, to let your faith, your hope and your love burn away your fears, sadness and regrets. And that time is now! (HOLD UP THE “NOW” PIECE OF FLASH PAPER.)

So have a good Christmas now. Because if you wait too long, this moment, and this Christmas, will quickly disappear. (HOLD “NOW!” FLASH PAPER OVER A CANDLE.)

Merry Christmas!

Five months ago today I left St. Paul, Minnesota and began the two-day drive moving me to Austin. Though I’d been born in Tulsa, I had lived in the North for the past thirty years and I knew there would be some cultural adjustments here. Before I moved here, I was instructed by e-mail in the proper use of the word “y’all.” It was explained to me that “y’all” is singular, while the plural version is “all y’all.” After arriving, there were other new things to absorb, in addition to the heat. Like the armadillo races in Leukenbach, or the amazing number of pick-up trucks that aren’t hauling anything.

As Christmas decorations began going up, I was surprised - though no native Texans seem surprised - to see that Santa Claus had a Lone Star belt buckle, a cowboy hat, boots and spurs. And I don’t know whether this is a state-wide custom or not, but I was also surprised to see that some of the public Christmas decorations down in Gonzales included not only four or five Wise Men, Santa with boots and spurs and assorted farm animals, but also Popeye and Olive Oyl!

Besides the funny and fun differences, there are some other new traditions, coming mainly from the Hispanic communities. And of these, one of my favorites is this seasonal custom of La Posada.

Dawne Spinale, our interim DRE, told me about it when she came up with the idea of turning today’s coffee hour into an invitation for the adults to visit the religious education classrooms. Then I was moved, as I know many of you were, in learning of the La Posada enacted in town recently between Hispanic and black churches, where Hispanic Christians went from church to church seeking admission, only to be told there was no room for them, until the final church welcomed them in for hospitality and food. It was very moving for the participants, and for most of us who read about it.

It’s a whole different lens through which to see the Christmas season, and a profound one. I had never seen the old story of Mary and Joseph being told there was “no room at the Inn” as being more than a prelude to the tales of the stable, the animals, and the birth of Jesus in a manger.

They really weren’t asking for much. Just a place that would take them in, someplace where a child might be born. But there was no room at the Inn.

La Posada, though, brings out so much more. It takes the focus off of Christmas presents and makes us the gifts to one another, whether we choose to offer those gifts or not. We want somebody to see us as a fellow human being, just to say, “Of course there is room. After all, you’re just like me: alone, in need, vulnerable, and dependent on the compassion of others. Of course there is room.”

For me, this changes the whole Christmas story. Something sacred wants to be born. The opportunity presents itself, as it almost always does, in the plainest, simplest way. A couple anonymous people who don’t look like anything special will give birth to something holy, and the world has no room for it. Religious stories are seldom about kings and queens. The surprise is always that the highest comes out of the lowest, if that’s not too crudely put. The holy is within and among us, just as Jesus taught that the Kingdom of God was, and our abiding failure is the failure to recognize it.

Now if we could see these as sacred opportunities, there would always be room in our Inn. If these people dressed or looked like such important messengers should look, we’d be there for them. If they wore a crown, or came as movie stars or football quarterbacks or beauty queens - well then, of course there would be room at the Inn. But a couple simple-looking ragamuffins? Get away! Go sleep in the barn. This Inn isn’t for just anyone. It’s for the right kind of people, our kind of people. Go away.

This spirit of refusal has always been a part of us. It’s Scrooge, with his “Bah Humbug!” attitude. It’s the Grinch Who Stole Christmas. That’s what this spirit does, this “No-room-at-the-Inn,” Bah-Humbug spirit: it steals Christmas, turns it back into just another Monday. Something holy wants to be born and we won’t see it, so this spirit of refusal says “Sorry Mac, there’s no room at the Inn.”

It is a way of using what is or what has been to forbid what might be. That’s the sin involved here. It’s a way of keeping life small, forbidding its possibilities to grow beyond our habits. It’s ancient, much older than the Christmas story.

Something in us hates it when others might outgrow us, when they’re not like we are, not “our kind of people.” Churches do this too. In every church I have served, I’ve heard the same stories from visitors and newer members. They may not sound like they’re related to this La Posada story, but see if they don’t begin to feel familiar.

Newcomers to our churches usually arrive excited by this amazing range of possibilities, a religion for both head and heart, where no questions are forbidden. They have dozens of ideas for how we could spread this “good news” with the hundreds or thousands of others in the community that would love a place like this if only they knew about it. But when they say their ideas out loud, they feel that the old-timers just find reasons why they wouldn’t work, or want it studied by a committee for a year. New people come with excited ideas of what might be, and find them shut down by established habits of what has been. Looking at this from the outside, it feels like fear of change, fear of the new and different. Looking at it as an old-timer, it feels like protecting this institution you’ve loved and nurtured for so long. But if you’re an excited newcomer, it begins to feel like there’s no room at the Inn for the new life that is begging to be born.

So they go away: because, as they will tell you and as many of you have told me, they were never really invited in. There was no room at this Inn, so they left.

Nothing here is evil or awful; it’s just human nature. We get used to our people and our habits and we’re glad to see our people on Sunday, so we don’t notice there are lots of other people trying to find some room in this Inn, and not knowing how to get in. When they leave, they take with them the possibilities that might have been born here if they had stayed. There are starting to be more and more of them, they’re starting to wonder if there isn’t room for them here after all. It’s happening. And I think some new possibilities are beginning to be born. We’ll see, but I’m optimistic.

See how reality changes, depending on what kind of story you view it through? If you just see classic stories like the La Posada story as fables from a distant past, they’re not much help. But if you enter them, and let them enter you, they are a window onto our own lives, our own world. I just tried using the metaphor of people finding no room at the Inn to talk about the experience of many newcomers to many churches, including this one. But there are many more down-to-earth, more personal, examples of finding, or allowing, no room at the Inn. You can think of many as you let this subject settle in this week.

I’ll share just one story with you, a personal. I hadn’t thought of it as relating to the Christmas story at all until I learned about the La Posada tradition, but now I think it was a good example. It involved the last time I saw my grandfather, thirty-one years ago this month, just a few months before he died.

I hadn’t seen him in nine years. I had moved out of state, gone into the Army, gone to Germany and then Vietnam, then gone to Michigan to finish college. My brother called to say he didn’t think our grandfather would live much longer, so I decided to drive the four or five hundred miles to visit. He had always been such a sweet man.

I phoned information for Clarinda, Iowa, got his number, and called him. He was very happy to hear from me, and it would be “just fine” if I visited after Christmas. I called again a couple days before leaving, and he was still very happy to hear from me and it was still “just fine” if I visited.

A few miles outside of Clarinda, which is in the extreme southwest corner of Iowa, my car broke. I went up to the farmhouse, but the lady didn’t want to let me use her phone. Finally her husband came down, a big burly fellow, and she allowed that I might come in while he was there, but don’t go walking into other rooms.

The operator gave me the Ford garage, the only garage in town that would be open now. They towed my car in. I had a 1966 Datsun 1600 two-seater sports car, and I had some doubts that there would be a Datsun mechanic in Clarinda, Iowa. Once they got the car in the garage and popped the hood, it got better for a minute, as three big old farmer-mechanics in overalls all leaned over to look at the engine. I heard some positive, approving grunts. Then one of them looked up at me and said “Nice car. Did you make it?”

And I thought, ” I’m going to die here!” It was the alternator, they said. The alternator was broken. I know nothing about cars, and an alternator sounded like an exotic piece of equipment. My mind began replaying the worst scenes from old Alfred Hitchcock movies as I imagined how my end might come. Then they discovered that my little Japanese Datsun used a Delco alternator, which was made by Ford and which they had in stock! I accepted it as a miracle. They charged me a very fair price, gave me a donut, and told me where to find my grandfather’s house, just a few blocks away.

By the time I got there, it was about nine o’clock: cold, dark and windy, with blowing snow. I knocked at his door, and within just a few moments he came. When this dear old man opened the door, I was suddenly aware of two things, simultaneously.

The first was that he had no idea who I was. He was quite senile; his mind was almost completely gone. He didn’t even know he had grandsons, and he didn’t know me, though he thought my last name rang a bell, since it sounded like his.

I came to see my grandfather, and he opened the door to find a complete stranger, come from far away on a cold, dark, snowy night.

The second thing I noticed just as quickly was that, even while he had no idea who this strange young man on his porch was, he was opening the door as wide as he could, and welcoming me inside. There was room at this Inn, even for a strange young foreigner.

I stayed for two days, and in the few lucid moments he had, there were some warm and wonderful memories with this dear old man. His mind was mostly gone, but his heart was still working, and working well. I would have to introduce myself to him several times a day. Every time I would come out of one of his rooms and he would come out of another, he would be mildly shocked to find a stranger in his home and would say again “Well hello and welcome! And who may you be?” Every time I would tell him my name and let him know I was his grandson. And while he tried to react politely, I knew that for all but a few minutes he had absolutely no idea who I was.

I remember some of the stories he shared during his few lucid moments, stories from sixty-five years earlier, the story of how he had proposed to my grandmother, back in 1907, stories told in crisp and poignant detail, as though he were still there - which, in some ways, I guess he was.

Now when I think back on that strange visit of so long ago, I am transfixed by that image of him throwing his door wide open to invite into his home a total stranger on a cold dark night. I keep trying to remember the lines from the poem: “I was hungry and you fed me, I was alone and you took me in-” That’s not quite right, I can’t quite remember them.

But I do remember what it felt like the night I knocked at a stranger’s door and he took me in. I try to write a script for him as I replay the scene in my mind. I have him saying dramatic things like “There’s room at this Inn!” But the words aren’t right. They’re too phony, too contrived. He did it better, without any words. He just opened the door as wide as he could, welcomed me inside, saw my little suitcase, and showed me to a bedroom where I might sleep. I learned it was his bedroom; he had taken some blankets to the big sofa. But he wouldn’t hear of offering his young guest - whoever I was - anything but the best bed he had. I will remember that visit for as long as I live.

Well, that’s kind of how the Christmas story ends, too. Mary and Joseph were finally welcomed in, and something holy was born, something holy and memorable that had the power to save the world.

That part’s true. It can testify to it. Every time there is room at an Inn, every time we overcome fear with love, the stage has been set for another kind of manger scene where something holy can be born. And the attitudes, the spirits, the memories that are born of that encounter of finding that yes, there is room at the Inn and we will find you a nice bed - that attitude really can change the world. It changed mine. Even hearing about it second-hand in this story may bring a change into yours. Something happens to the one who, against all odds, was welcomed in by the stranger, something that will never be forgotten.

If only, somehow, this spirit could become contagious and others could catch it! That’s the kind of miracle that really might save the world. In fact, it’s the only miracle that could save the world.

These are remarks in response to the book The Cultural Creatives: How Fifty Million People Are Changing the World by Paul Ray and Sherry Anderson. The good news is that a thirteen-year study of American society shows a huge and growing number of people - between 25 and 50 million whose guiding values sound a lot like the basic values of most people who happen to attend UU churches - who could be the next “silent majority” with the numbers and the creative power to change the direction of our society. The bad news is that, for decades, Unitarians have developed - some would say, “reveled in” - an identity at the fringes of American society. The power offered in this new group - which has not been self-identified yet - lies near the center, as a part of the larger society, rather than apart from it, as cultural liberals have so often been. Is this a challenge, and a calling, which we can, should, or even must meet?

PUPPET SHOW: “The Lone Ranger and the Posse”

STORY: The show begins with the Lone Ranger opposed to The Posse (four pup-pets). It’s a point of both pride and identity with the Long Ranger that there’s only one Lone Ranger, while The Posse is (just) a group, a herd. But then a second Lone Ranger appears, and then two more. They are all still clear that they are “The Looooooone Ranger,” but as there become two and four of them, they’re confused, and look at the other “Lone Rangers.” Finally, after four of them appear and they look at each other, they begin to move together, until finally it is clear, from their unison movement, that the Lone Rangers have become The Posse. (There needs to be some hat or mask or something that is easy to slip on a hand puppet and identifies them as Lone Rangers.)

NARRATOR: This is the story of the Lone Ranger

Lone Ranger puppet appears and cries, “I’m the Looooooooone Ranger!”

NARRATOR: - and The Posse.

Four puppets appear, moving together, like they’re riding horses. They go to the left (up and down together), then turn and go back to the right, then disappear.

NARRATOR: The Posse always had some friends with them -

The four puppets appear again, quickly go in formation to the left, then back to the right, then disappear.

NARRATOR: - the Lone Ranger was always alone.

Lone Ranger appears and cries, “I”m the Looooooooooone Ranger! The heck with The Posse!” Lone Ranger stays in sight during next line, and turns toward the Narrator’s voice during the following line:

NARRATOR: And sometimes, it was pretty lonely.

Lone Ranger: “I’m the Looonely Ranger!”

NARRATOR: But not The Posse-
The Posse appears and starts going together to the left as the Narrator continues.

NARRATOR: They were never lonely.

The Posse turns and goes back to the right, then disappears.

NARRATOR: But one day, something very unexpected happened. First, the Lone Ranger appeared -

Lone Ranger: “I’m the Looooooooone Ranger! The heck with The Posse!”

NARRATOR: - and then, out of nowhere, a second Lone Ranger appeared!

Second Lone Ranger appears on the right side: “I’m the Looooooone Ranger! The heck with The Posse!”

First Lone Ranger suddenly turns at the sound of the second Lone Ranger. The second Lone Ranger moves across stage, over to the first, and snuggles up against the first Lone Ranger. As the Lone Rangers are moving together, the Narrator continues:

NARRATOR: And just as they were getting used to there being two Lone Rang-ers -

Two more Lone Rangers appear on the right side of the stage.

NARRATOR: two more Lone Rangers appeared!

Two new Lone Rangers: “We’re the Loooooooone Rangers! The heck with The Posse!”

First two Lone Rangers, from the left side: “We’re the Loooooooone Rangers! The heck with The Posse!”

This is when the most important movement happens. The two sets of Lone Rangers sort of begin moving (maybe kind of up and down, like horseback rid-ers) and begin moving towards each other. Once all four are together, they are kind of moving independently, but begin moving more and more in synchronized movement - their movement needs to show the audience that they are becom-ing The Posse.

NARRATOR: But in spite of all their yelling, something had happened, and the Lone Rangers - all four of them - hadn’t even noticed it! Have you? Have you seen what’s happened?

The four Lone Rangers, who have been moving from the left side to the right side together like synchronized horseback riders, separate - two going to each side - then reach down behind the screen and bring up a big sign between them that says
“THE END”

SERMON: From the Fringes to the Center?
Something revolutionary has begun being born in the past forty years, and it’s arriving almost unnoticed. It is the birth of a new worldview, a fundamentally new way of understanding ourselves and our world. It is dramatically different from the two American worldviews which preceded it. I think it signals a cultural revolution already in progress, and still nearly invisible.
I want to talk with you this morning about three fundamentally different worldviews. One has been with us for centuries, one has been part of us for about the last 150 years. And the third one is really just about thirty years old - still a baby.

What is a “worldview”? What does that word mean? Your worldview is the content of everything you believe is real - God, the economy, technology, the planet, being moral or smart, conformist or rebellious. It includes your view of how things work, how you should work and play, your relationships with others, everything you value. (The Cultural Creatives, p. 17) Most of us change our worldview only once in a lifetime, if at all, because it changes virtually everything in our consciousness. (pp. 17-18)

That’s also why it is useful to group people by their worldviews. If you understand a person’s worldview, you can understand a lot about them. You’ll have a good idea how they will vote on a wide variety of issues, what kind of heroes and heroines they are likely to have, what kind of a life they admire, and what they think America and the world should be like.

I’m trying to do several things this morning. I may be biting off more than I can chew. I am reflecting on a very provocative book called The Cultural Creatives: How 50 Million People Are Changing the World (Paul H. Ray & Sherry Ruth Anderson [New York: Harmony Books, 2000]). I’m also trying to back off from the book far enough to find some very broad and clear patterns, and I’m trying to present these patterns in a way that will feel relevant to your lives. Finally, I’m trying to make this into a sermon, rather than just a book review. Only a fool would try to do this in thirty minutes. Let’s begin.
The three worldviews: Traditional, Modern, and Creative.

Traditionalists

The first, and oldest, American worldview might as well be called Traditionalism, because that’s what it sounds and feels like. Traditional Americans feel that the best American values were represented by images like John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Donna Reed or Doris Day. They look to global figures like Mother Theresa, Billy Graham, or Pope John Paul II as people of the right kind of moral values. Their hope for America is that it might, somehow, rediscover a romanticized, idealized version of the small-town and rural America of a hundred years ago, when life was simpler and people were, they believe, more responsible and moral. They love Rush Limbaugh and Dr. Laura, though him more than her.

They hate feminism. They hate the idea and fact of gay or lesbian rights. People are supposed to know their place. Men are supposed to be men and manly, women are supposed to be nurses, teachers, wives and mothers. Sex and passion of all kinds must be kept under control in all areas. Life isn’t complex if we’ll all just follow the rules. All the guidance you need to live by is contained in the Bible. And if people read their bibles more the world would be a much better place. Preserving civil liberties is nowhere near as important as restricting immoral or unpatriotic behavior. (pp. 31-32).

One quarter of American adults fall into this general category, about 48 million people. Those with strong religious feelings tend to be Catholics, Mormons, fundamentalists or evangelical Protestants. Many are African American or Hispanic American. About 70% of these Traditional people are religious conservatives who oppose abortion. They oppose it, however, for two main reasons that are seldom acknowledged. First, because it’s too much inappropriate independence for women. And second, because a woman’s right to an abortion is felt as a symbol of a whole immoral order that rejects the rule of men, the church, and “the way things are supposed to be.” But this group isn’t mainly about politics. It’s about beliefs, ways of living, a sense of the world’s order and their place in it.

You know these traditional-minded people. They’re in your family, as they are in mine and everyone else’s. Some of them love you dearly, as you love them, even though your beliefs drive each other crazy. We might think of them as “The Posse” - that big group that all moves together - but they’re really not. They were more numerous and powerful 150 years ago. But they have become the “moral minority,” and have no chance of being the vision of the future unless the country takes a turn toward fascism, which seems unlikely.

Modernists

The second worldview that has defined our society developed during the 19th century, and most of the 20th century. This worldview can be called the Modernism, and Modernists make up about half of the population. They believe that science, technology, and capitalism are the secrets of America’s success and the best hope of humanity.

Since they’re half the population, we all know lots of them, and know them well. We’re really living in their world. They value Success - and seem to spell it with a capital “S” - and making or having plenty of money, whether they actually have it or not. Bill Gates is the richest of them, and they think we should be in awe of rich people. They know that science, not religion, is really the answer to most of the questions we have. “Spirituality” is kind of a flaky concept. Our bodies are pretty much like machines, not temples. They don’t relate to John Wayne as much as they relate to Harrison Ford, Sean Connery, or Madonna. It’s not being traditional, obedient and moral that matters as much as being smart, aggressive and rich. These are the people who believe, and sometimes live, the American Dream. When Ronald Reagan was asked what he thought was the greatest thing about America, he said it’s a country where you can get rich. Half the population thinks that’s pretty solid.

You can see the Modernist worldview everywhere. Read Time magazine, the NY Times, the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, Forbes or USA Today, and you’ll be soaked in the official worldview of the Moderns. You know these people too, they’re part of us, they still run the country.

But see what a different world they live in than the Traditionalists! Science counts for more than religion. Being smart, independent and successful are more important than being faithful or moral. And religious notions like “the meek shall inherit the earth” or the poor will “get their reward in heaven” just seem foolish to them.

For most of us, society seems to be a battle between these two groups, the Traditionalists and Modernists. This is the battle between science and religion, or pro-life versus pro-choice. Jimmy Stewart or Jimmy Carter served proudly in the armed forces when they were called to, as Traditionalists should. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush did not, and avoiding the draft was seen as the smart thing to do. They really are two different worlds, two fundamentally different ways of understand what is good and right.

Creatives

But since about 1970, a new worldview has emerged. If the first worldview, the one from 150 to 200 years ago, is Traditional, and if the second one - the one soaked in science, technology, and the American Way - is Modern, the new worldview might be called Creative. It’s more concerned with trying to heal and mend, trying to become whole people in a whole world, than with taking sides. That’s very different!

Now: how to persuade you there is a new worldview and that you are probably up to your eyeballs in it? It’s kind of like trying to explain “water” to fish. Let me ask you about a dozen questions, and just mentally see how many you would answer Yes to. And as we’re going through them, feel how fundamentally different they sound than anything in the Traditionalist or Modernist world-views:

1. Do you love nature, and are you deeply concerned about protecting it?
2. Are things like global warming, the destruction of the rain forests, overpopulation, ecological irresponsibility and the widespread exploitation of people in poorer countries important to you, and would you like to see us take action to act more responsibly in these areas?
3. Would you be willing to pay a little more in taxes, or for your consumer goods, if you knew the money would go to clean up the environment and stop global warming?
4. Do you give a lot of importance to developing and maintaining your personal relationships?
5. Do you think it’s important to try and help other people develop their unique gifts?
6. Do you believe in equality for women at work, and more women leaders in business and politics?
7. Are concerns about violence and the abuse of women and children around the world important to you?
8. Do you think our politics and government spending should put more emphasis on children’s education and well-being, on rebuilding our neighborhoods and communities, and on creating an ecologically sustainable future?
9. Are you unhappy with both the left and the right in politics, and do you wish we could find a new way that’s not just in the “mushy middle”?
10. Would you like to be involved in creating a new and better way of life in our country?
11. Are you uncomfortable with all the emphasis in our culture on success and “making it,” on getting and spending, on wealth and luxury goods? Do you feel that it all misses the most important things in life?
12. Do you like people and places that are exotic and foreign, and like experiencing and learning about other ways of life? (p. xiv)

Now: how many people, what percent of the American adult population, do you think shares those values? Maybe two percent? Five percent? Those are the answers that researchers get when they ask this question. Very few, maybe five percent, maybe not that many. We’re the Lone Rangers, not The Posse.
But no, it’s about 26% of the adult American population who share those values. Since the 1960s, about fifty million people have changed, or been born into, this new worldview.

These figures don’t sound believable. When researchers began publishing them, a lot of Europeans didn’t even believe them. Three years ago, officials in the European Union decided to do a survey in each of their fifteen countries. In the fall of 1997, they found an even higher percentage - and between 80 and 90 million people — in their own cultures who had, almost unnoticed, somehow changed to (or been born into) a worldview that embraced all the values in those questions I just asked.

A very important piece of this new way of looking at the world is that it is a vision that is beginning to appeal to, and that works in, business. Where political liberals have spent decades bashing business in the name of ecological and other concerns, business leaders are beginning to discover that, ideology aside, it simply makes better business and earns more money to be ecologically responsible, to hire the best people available, and to create healthy and respectful working situations. I’ll tell you just one business story.

Ray Anderson, CEO of Interface, Inc., the largest commercial carpet firm in the world, read a book several years ago called The Ecology of Commerce and he had a kind of conversion experience. He turned his company, with manufacturing sites spread across four continents, into a business that not merely recycled its waste materials but returned to the Earth more than they took out. His people (in 110 countries) are reimagining and redesigning everything they do. And it pays. In the first five years, they invested $25 million in waste reduction and saved $122 million. By 1998, Ray Anderson was giving more than 100 speeches a year to business and environmental groups around the world. He wants to create “the next industrial revolution.” (11) Other large multinational companies - like Electrolux and Mitsubishi Electronics - have also begun changing their philosophy and their ways of doing business - again, not so much out of a notion of ideological purity as out of the simple and powerful realization that it makes more money to work smart.

We know where this new worldview came from. Its origins were in the civil rights movement, the movements for women’s rights, gay rights, the environmental movements and the anti-war movements of the 1950s - 1970s.

But while these different ways of thinking about nature, women, sexual identities, animals and the rest each began in a separate movement, they have now coalesced into this new Creative worldview. If you meet with the activists at Rainforest Action Network in San Francisco, for example, you’ll hear about more than rain forests. You’ll also hear them talk about feminism, gay liberation, so-cial justice, organic foods, spirituality, and people of the third world. All these issues are in the air they breathe. They’re imagining a whole new culture that’s trying to heal what has been divided and broken for so long. (p. 166) That’s the Creative worldview.

To Traditionalists, all of this just sounds like a weird bunch of people. They see the 1960s and 1970s as the birth of the Age of Narcissism and the loss of our moral center as a society. There is a lot of narcissistic personal behavior around to support the idea. But a better case can be made that we are actually far more morally aware and responsible today than we were forty years ago. I gave you a list of questions with which nearly all of you identified. Now here’s another list that we don’t think about often enough. It is a list of moral attitudes and behaviors that were normative forty years ago, but are nearly impossible to defend today:

White supremacy.
Discrimination against women in the legal system, colleges and the work-place.
Creating a hair-trigger risk of nuclear war, in which the amazing phrase “mutually assured destruction” was the main military strategy, ignoring the fact that it would kill billions of people or even all life on Earth in a nuclear winter.
The McCarthy-era suppression of civil liberties in the name of anti-Communism.
Expecting people to stay in stultifying, dead-end, or harmful jobs in the name of security or loyalty.
Expecting people to stay in stultifying, dead, or harmful marriages in the name of security or loyalty.
Expecting people to stay in churches and religions that are stultifying, dead, and lacking in spirit. Just this morning I saw a bumper sticker coming from this sort of feeling. It said “If going to church makes you a Christian, does going to the garage make you a car?”
Treating our souls, or psyches, as steeped in Original Sin, or as a sewer of unconscious drives, rather than being full of positive human potential. What an amazing revolution the “human potential movement” was, to define us as basically healthy rather than basically evil!
Gay and lesbian bashing.
Routine mistreatment of animals in research laboratories.
And subjects like drunkenness, old age, ethnicity, race or gender as the butt of comedians’ jokes.
All of these attitudes have deep moral dimensions. And in all these ways and many others, we are far more mature and responsible today than we were fifty years ago in the days of “Ozzie and Harriet.” Furthermore, the Lone Rangers from all these movements have now become the new Posse. There are more “Cultural Creatives” today than there ever were in the Moral Majority!
It is a huge movement, with far greater intellectual, political and economic power than it has yet realized - primarily, I think, because it isn’t aware of itself. For example: In 1998 and 1999, the top-selling movie video, The Lion King, was advertised and promoted everywhere. You couldn’t turn on the TV or go to a fast-food place without seeing posters, cups and gadgets promoting that block-buster movie. But it wasn’t the top-selling video of the time. The Lion King was outsold by an instructional video for yoga, which sold more than a million copies. In fact, among Amazon.com’s ten top-selling videotapes for those two years were two other yoga videotapes as well. (p. 328)

So what does all this mean? For one thing, it means that if you hunger for a deep change in your life that moves you in the direction of less stress, more health, lower consumption, more spirituality, more respect for the earth and the diversity within and among the species that inhabit her, you are not alone!

It’s funny, how new world views are born. During the Industrial Revolution, the image of the machine became the central image of Modernism: it still is. Our new worldview also has a powerful guiding image. And just as the picture of the machine wasn’t possible before the 19th century, so our new picture wasn’t possible until the late 1960s. Interestingly, both the picture and its power were almost prophetically predicted over twenty years earlier. In 1946, astronomer Fred Hoyle said that when the first picture of the Earth taken from space was shown, it would change the world. (p. 303)

The photos of earth taken from the moon are powerful signs of a new consciousness, a new picture of our interdependence, our interrelationships, a world without borders that is an organic whole. Those photographs of the blue-green earth floating in space are the baby pictures of a new worldview. Our first baby pictures.

As we approach the Christmas season, it’s a good time to think of things like baby pictures. Christmas is about the birth of something hopeful and lifegiving, something that might even save the world. We’re not the Lone Rangers any more. There are about fifty million of us; we’re The Posse. Extending the Christmas story metaphor, I wonder: What if we are the infant in this new manger? What if our mission is indeed to save the world, and our most sacred task is to get about the business of discovering, together, how to do it?