http://www.austinuu.org/wp At First UU Church of Austin, we gather in community to nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice. Thu, 29 Jul 2010 04:05:54 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0 As an inclusive religious and spiritual community, we support each individual's search for meaning and purpose, and join together to help create a world filled with compassion and love. First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin webmaster@austinuu.org webmaster@austinuu.org (First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin) 2000-2009 At First UU Church of Austin, we gather in community to nourish souls, transform lives, and do justice. http://www.austinuu.org/wp/wp-content/plugins/powerpress/rss_default.jpg http://www.austinuu.org/wp/category/sermons/former-ministers/davidson-loehr/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/12/is-courage-ever-enough/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/12/is-courage-ever-enough/#comments Mon, 08 Dec 2008 00:14:20 +0000 tom http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=2075 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/12/is-courage-ever-enough/feed/ 0 © Davidson Loehr  December 7, 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. - PRAYER: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. © Davidson Loehr  December 7, 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. PRAYER: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest ... First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/11/harvesting-thanksgiving-2008/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/11/harvesting-thanksgiving-2008/#comments Sun, 23 Nov 2008 16:47:04 +0000 tom http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=2053 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/11/harvesting-thanksgiving-2008/feed/ 0 © Davidson Loehr  Brian Ferguson  23 November 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. Prayer - Thanksgiving is part of a harvest cycle, © Davidson Loehr  Brian Ferguson  23 November 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. Prayer Thanksgiving is part of a harvest cycle, where we plant and then hope we can be thankful for what we reap. In that spirit, I want to share a short and thankful focus from the Buddhist tradition showing us what we hope for every time we plant seeds - whether in the ground, in our lives or in our worship services: Now we have finished. Everyone stand and we will bow to the Buddha three times to thank him. We thank him, because even if we did not have a great enlightenment, we had a small enlightenment. If we did not have a small enlightenment, at least we didn't get sick. And if we got sick, at least we didn't die. So let's thank the Buddha. (Hsuan Hua) Amen. HOMILY: Harvesting Thanksgiving Davidson Loehr Since I needed my Thanksgiving reflections today to be focused on something significant but fairly distant, I want to use a metaphor to transpose some deeper dimensions of Thanksgiving into history, politics and life. This may sound like the opening to the sermon of a few weeks ago, when I said I wanted to talk about the meaning of life, honest religion, God, Jesus, the Bible, salvation, the Army, amoeba, the Holy Spirit, the Marine Corps, and playing hide-and-seek. But it's a homily, not a full-length sermon, so it won't be that ambitious. Thanksgiving, as we know, is a harvest festival, in the tradition of harvest festivals going back to ancient times. They planted, then they harvested what they had planted. What did they plant? On the literal level, they planted the usual stuff - beans, squash, other vegetables, they cultivated orchards and the rest. But deeper, it's different. So let's start with the first Thanksgiving in this country, which happened in 1621. You all know much of this story. In December of 1620, 102 Pilgrims arrived on the Mayflower and landed in Massachusetts. Mother Nature wasn't on their side, though Father Time was. They were greeted, after a harrowing trip across the Atlantic, by a brutal and deadly Massachusettes winter. One hundred and two of them arrived here; by the following summer, only 55 were left alive. Nearly half of them died. Imagine this! 102 people leave their homes, say farewell to families and friends, say goodbye to a whole way of life, a whole world. They arrive as strangers in a strange land, and the land knows them not. It is cold, indifferent and deadly, and they spend a lonely and fearful winter freezing, starving, and dying. They bury nearly half of their number: one half of these Pilgrims buries the other half, and in the spring they plant crops and they hunt for food. The crop is good. There is food here after all, there can be life here. It was like all of life, compressed into one year. And by late summer, when they could at last celebrate a good crop, half of those with whom they had hoped to celebrate were dead. This was the preparation for the first Thanksgiving, and there was not a yellow Happy Face in the bunch. The first Thanksgiving lasted for three days. There was much eating, drinking, and merriment between the surviving Pilgrims and Chief Massasoit and his people. According to one source, the menu for the feast was venison stew cooked over an outdoor fire; spit-roasted wild turkeys stuffed with corn bread; oysters baked in their shells; sweet corn baked in its husks; and pumpkin baked in a bag and flavored with maple syrup. The food was served on large wooden serving platters, and everyone ate their fill. But now let's explore the metaphor. What did the Pilgrims really plant, that let them reap this feast? They certainly didn't plant venison, wild turkey or oyster seeds. What the Pilgrims really planted were two crops: hope, and empowerment. They planted hope rather than fear or despair, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/11/the-transient-and-the-permanent-in-religion/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/11/the-transient-and-the-permanent-in-religion/#comments Mon, 17 Nov 2008 01:50:10 +0000 tom http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=2038 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/11/the-transient-and-the-permanent-in-religion/feed/ 0 © Davidson Loehr  16 November 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. - PRAYER: Let us find a spiritual North Star to steer by when we are torn betw... © Davidson Loehr  16 November 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. PRAYER: Let us find a spiritual North Star to steer by when we are torn between life's over-rated pleasures and its under-rated treasures. We want to feel the difference between being opportunistic and being authentic, and learn how we can better choose the one that gives us more and better life. Let us find the determination not to do what we should not do, the courage to do what we should do, and that elusive wisdom that lets us tell the difference. How often we chase after things we don't need, like dogs chase cars, not knowing what good they'd do us if we caught them. Can we learn to yearn for what we need rather than what we merely want? And as for our lives - if they can't be as long as we would like, can they be as rich and rewarding as we wish? These are just some of the questions we feel along life's path on this day as on many days. We offer them up, to speak them out loud in the hope that the person who hears them will be us. Amen SERMON: The Transient and the Permanent in Religion There's something exhilarating about being present when high ideals and aspirations are discussed, even if all we do is listen. We consult experts in diet, exercise, ecology, finances and a few dozen other areas, all important, all with a few really gifted and motivated people available to pass on their inspiring visions to us, and it feels well worth the money we've spent. In the meantime, we stay overweight, out of shape, eating poorly, handling our finances poorly, and the rest of it. Still, it's inspiring. Hearing about gifted religious visionaries and prophets is like this, too. This is the third in the series of three sermons on the early 19th century thinkers who helped define Unitarianism as a separate religion in America, a religion that was derived from, but distinct from, liberal Christianity. All three men were in their 30s when they delivered the sermons that Unitarian students are still required to read. William Ellery Channing was 38 when he delivered the sermon called "Unitarian Christianity" in 1819. Ralph Waldo Emerson was 35 when he gave his address at the Harvard Divinity School - the last time he was invited to speak there for 30 years. The minister I want to talk about today was Theodore Parker, who was just 31 when he delivered a sermon called "The Transient and the Permanent in Christianity" in 1841. I have to say that Parker is my favorite of the three, and was from the first time I read their sermons nearly thirty years ago. Parker was an almost mythic person. Born the eleventh child of a farmer, he grew up very poor. He was mostly self-educated, then wound up graduating from Harvard Divinity School. By the time he entered the ministry, he could read twenty languages. After he died, at the age of 49, it was discovered that his library was the largest personal library in America, with about 50,000 volumes. His biographer (Henry Steele Commager) said that Parker wrote notes in the margins of almost all of them. If he actually read them all, that would be almost three books a day from the day he was born. At his peak, he preached to around 3,000 people, the largest audience in America - without a microphone. His sermons routinely lasted over an hour, were thoroughly researched and brilliantly written. Besides being the most powerful and combative voice of liberal religion in America - he was far more combative than either William Ellery Channing or Ralph Waldo Emerson - he was ferociously active on behalf of women's rights, prison reform and especially anti-slavery causes in the 1840s and 1850s, well before that was a cause most Unitarians would touch. That was partly because many wealthy Unitarians made a lot of money from the business of slavery, and partly because it was a rude subject, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/11/the-audacity-of-hope/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/11/the-audacity-of-hope/#comments Mon, 10 Nov 2008 04:55:44 +0000 tom http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=2028 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/11/the-audacity-of-hope/feed/ 0 © Davidson Loehr  9 November 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above. - Video clips at Ustream - PRAYER: (Ask veterans to stand, thank them. © Davidson Loehr  9 November 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above. Video clips at Ustream PRAYER: (Ask veterans to stand, thank them.) We pray for the bodies, minds and spirits of our soldiers on active duty now, that they may return home and may get the care they need. And we remind ourselves - because we too easily forget - of the gratitude we owe to all veterans, past, present and future, for being willing to play that game of Russian Roulette we call military service. Any of them could have been sent into combat, and any of them could have been maimed or killed. No one else in our country is asked to offer that degree of sacrifice on behalf of political and military ambitions soldiers never fully understand, even as they are being shot at. We pray, as people have prayed throughout history, for a time when soldiers and wars will not be necessary. But we don't live in that world. And so we pray for the safety of our soldiers, and offer our heartfelt gratitude to all our veterans for their service. Amen. SERMON: The Audacity of Hope Part A: Excited utterances Tuesday's presidential election was both a historic and exciting election. I want to talk about it, to look into this winning message of hope and change that carried Barack Obama to such a stunning victory of more than a two-to-one electoral vote. I want to wonder what it would take to make his hopes real, and whether it's realistic to believe such change is possible. But first, I just want to share, even to wallow in, some of the many excited utterances of this week. Here's one: "Tuesday, Nov. 4, 2008, is a date that will live in fame (the opposite of infamy) forever. If the election of our first African-American president didn't stir you, if it didn't leave you teary-eyed and proud of your country, there's something wrong with you." Those words came from the Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman in a column he wrote for the New York Times two days ago, and they are a measure of the excitement that many people in our country and around the world feel this week. Just consider the biography of the man we've elected President, against the whole history of the United States of America, and ask if it feels like you must be dreaming: His father was born and raised in a small village in Kenya. He grew up herding goats, went to school in a tin-roof shack. His father - our new President's grandfather -- was a cook, a domestic servant to the British. But as Obama tells the story, "My grandfather had larger dreams for his son. Through hard work and perseverance my father got a scholarship to study in a magical place, America, that shone as a beacon of freedom and opportunity to so many who had come before. "My parents imagined me going to the best schools in the land, even though they weren't rich, because in a generous America you don't have to be rich to achieve your potential. "I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible." This is as perfect a Horatio Alger American Dream story as anyone is ever likely to have: the hard-working and determined person who succeeds despite overwhelming odds simply through what Martin Luther King called the content of his character. This is the American dream: from poor, powerless boy - or girl! - to the White House. He's right: his story wouldn't be possible in no other country on Earth. Here are some more excited utterances, from this morning's paper: Maureen Dowd writes: "I grew up in the nation's capital, but I've never seen blacks and whites here intermingling as they have this week. Everywhere I go, some white person is asking some black person how they feel. First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/10/how-you-should-vote/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/10/how-you-should-vote/#comments Mon, 27 Oct 2008 04:02:01 +0000 tom http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=1847 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/10/how-you-should-vote/feed/ 0 © Davidson Loehr  26 October 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above. - Online TV Shows by Ustream - PRAYER: - Our deepest fear is not that we ... © Davidson Loehr  26 October 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above. Online TV Shows by Ustream PRAYER: Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be significant, formidable, powerful? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn't serve the world. There's nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We were born to manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. - Nelson Mandela, 1994 Inaugural Speech - words adapted from Marianne Williamson SERMON: How You Should Vote So many conservative preachers have been telling their people how to vote for so long that I began to wonder if I was being derelict in my duty. After all, we're trying to do honest religion here. And surely honest religion also has some light to shed on the upcoming election. So that's what I want to do this morning. I want to bring this election - and I mean this presidential election - home to you in a way that might make it more clear just how you should vote on November 4th. It's a complex subject, and I first need to sketch a much bigger picture before I can then bring this election - or any- important election - into it. Many of you know the story about two wolves that comes from our Native American tradition. A young boy who was the strongest and most popular boy in the tribe went to see his grandfather for some wisdom. He was strong and clever enough to take whatever he wanted from others, and one voice within him said he should do it. On the other hand, he felt it wasn't fair, taking things from others that they needed, just because he could get away with it. His grandfather nodded, and said yes, he had the same two voices within him. He thought of them as two wolves. One always urged him to take what he could get away with, to use his advantages over others to his own advantage, not theirs. The other wolf always wanted him to be decent, compassionate, someone who was a blessing to all around him rather than just to himself. I want to talk about these two wolves this morning, because they are in all of us. We are not all the strongest, cleverest and most popular, but we have other advantages. Maybe we have more education than the majority of others, or we attended elite schools, and both expect and know that just the fact that we attended an elite school will open doors for us that aren't opened for others, and we like it. It seems only fair. Or perhaps we've made or inherited more money than most others - I'm convinced that the ability to make money is a gift that a few have but most don't - and righteously cling to the advantages and security that brings. Or we're more attractive than most, and have learned how to use that to our advantage. But let's not get so fuzzy that we fail to see the obvious. And what's obvious is that, while we have lots of individual traits that give us an advantage over others, the differences that really make the most difference in the world have always been differences in power: the ability to get and keep power. The wolf with power has a different view of power and its privileges than the wolves without power have, and a different plan for How Things Should Work. I'm going to call this Plan A, or Plan Alpha, for it is the scheme of things as designed by the Alpha males and females. The other wolf favors Plan Beta, or Plan B. It's about weaker, squishier things, like empathy, compassion, reciprocity, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/10/the-holy-heretical-spirit/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/10/the-holy-heretical-spirit/#comments Sun, 19 Oct 2008 14:51:02 +0000 tom http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=1761 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/10/the-holy-heretical-spirit/feed/ 0 © Davidson Loehr  19 October 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above. - Streaming live video by Ustream - PRAYER: Let us trust in the Holy Spir... © Davidson Loehr  19 October 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button above. Streaming live video by Ustream PRAYER: Let us trust in the ... First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/10/atonement/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/10/atonement/#comments Sun, 12 Oct 2008 22:18:57 +0000 tom http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=1640 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/10/atonement/feed/ 0 © Davidson Loehr  and Rabbi Michael LeBurkien  12 October 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. - - Notes on this service: - This is a service ... © Davidson Loehr  and Rabbi Michael LeBurkien  12 October 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. Notes on this service: This is ... First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/09/what-do-you-people-believe-anyway/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/09/what-do-you-people-believe-anyway/#comments Mon, 29 Sep 2008 03:25:09 +0000 tom http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=1457 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/09/what-do-you-people-believe-anyway/feed/ 0 Davidson Loehr 28 September 2008 - - PRAYER: - Let us be pulled into spiritual paths that leave us with a good aftertaste. There is so much religious advice around telling us how we had better get in line with this or that set of beliefs being hawked ... Davidson Loehr 28 September 2008 PRAYER: Let us be pulled into spiritual paths that leave us with a good aftertaste. There is so much religious advice around telling us how we had better get in line with this or that set of beliefs being hawked by churches and preachers who sometimes just feel too slick or mean. But their certainty is too simple, doesn?t have a good smell to it and leaves a bad aftertaste. Let us instead be lured into paths of loving others as we love ourselves, and loving ourselves as children of God, the sons and daughters of Life?s longing for itself, stewards of only the highest ideals. Such spiritual paths are very simple, but they have an aroma and an aftertaste that is still pleasing even years later. So much in life can be identified by the lasting taste, smell and feel it leaves with us. Let us learn to be drawn to the places that smell good - that smell like ambrosia, or the subtle scent of those angels of our better nature. Amen. READING: The Friar Bernard lamented in his cell on Mount Cenis the crimes of mankind, and rising one morning before day from his bed of moss and dry leaves, he gnawed his roots and berries, drank of the spring, and set forth to go to Rome to reform the corruption of mankind. On his way he encountered many travellers who greeted him courteously; and the cabins of the peasants and the castles of the lords supplied his few wants. When he came at last to Rome, his piety and good will easily introduced him to many families of the rich, and on the first day he saw and talked with gentle mothers with their babes at their breasts, who told him how much love they bore their children, and how they were perplexed in their daily walk lest they should fail in their duty to them. "What!" he said, "and this on rich embroidered carpets, on marble floors, with cunning sculpture, and carved wood, and rich pictures, and piles of books about you?" "Look at our pictures, and books,? they said, "and we will tell you, good Father, how we spent the last evening. These are stories of godly children and holy families and romantic sacrifices made in old or in recent times by great and not mean persons; and last evening, our family was collected, and our husbands and brothers discoursed sadly on what we could save and give in the hard times." Then came in the men, and they said, "What cheer, brother? Does thy convent want gifts?" Then the Friar Bernard went home swiftly with other thoughts than he brought, saying, "This way of life is wrong, yet these Romans, whom I prayed God to destroy, are lovers, they are lovers; what can I do?" (Emerson, "The Conservative," in The Oxford Book of Essays, p. 181) SERMON: What Do You People Believe, Anyway? Every religious liberal has heard some version of this question from their family or friends. It?s hard to answer questions of belief in ways that are both honest and interesting. Maybe all I can do here is let you hear how I grapple with this, hoping it might help you grapple with it too. One way of getting into the complexities of belief today is through understanding the complexities of families today. For a couple decades at least, we've been used to the phrase "His, hers and ours" to describe what we learned to call "blended families." Other siblings, parents or other relatives often become at least temporary parts of our families too, as with the family who lit our candles this morning, and as with some of your families. And what is true of our blended families is also true of the blend of beliefs we each have. Honest religious belief can never again be the simplistic kind of white-bread thing we thought it was fifty years ago. The things we cling to today are blended families of beliefs, borrowing from all over the world map. In old-time religion, it might have seemed enough to recite a creed cobbled together many centuries earlier by people living in a very different world, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/09/unitarian-christianity/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/09/unitarian-christianity/#comments Sun, 21 Sep 2008 18:00:00 +0000 tom http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=1034 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/09/unitarian-christianity/feed/ 0 Davidson Loehr 21 September 2008 - - PRAYER: - When people or experiences become doorways or windows, let us learn to look through them. - When someone or something in life opens us to the possibility of a life with more understanding, Davidson Loehr 21 September 2008 PRAYER: When people or experiences become doorways or windows, let us learn to look through them. When someone or something in life opens us to the possibility of a life with more understanding, compassion... First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/09/covenants/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/09/covenants/#comments Sun, 07 Sep 2008 17:29:12 +0000 brian http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=211 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2008/09/covenants/feed/ 0 © Davidson Loehr  7 September 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. - - PRAYER: We give thanks for life and truth, © Davidson Loehr  7 September 2008  First UU Church of Austin  4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756  www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. PRAYER: We give thanks for life and truth, and are grateful when they find us. The kind of light that can heal comes in so many forms, from so many directions. It may be that the best way to live is with the kind of openness and trust that seems so much easier for children than for adults. When the man Jesus pointed to small children and said we must be like them if we are to enter the kingdom of God, it was a deep truth that transcended even him, and was rooted in the deepest nature of life itself. Let us not think that religion is about swooning to the sound of heavenly words or music. It's about coming alive in a deep and fulfilling way. Living well is more than "the best revenge" - it's also the best religion. And it's what generates the heavenly music, not the other way around. Let us give thanks when we are found by the kind of truth that can set us free and make us feel more whole. And let us try to be vehicles of that kind of truth and healing for the parts of our world that touch our heads and hearts. Those in our larger world need us, just as we need them, for we really are all in this together. And for that too we give thanks. Amen. SERMON: Covenants "Covenant" is a weird word. In 22 years, I've never preached on it, seldom used it, and get suspicious of people who throw it around like it's something of which all really cool people should have one. So after deciding to bring it to you as a Sunday theme, I had to try and understand it well enough to know why I think it's worth your time to hear about it in a sermon. For me, that meant trying to learn a wide variety of covenants, both from religion and from real life, because I think the more ways we can say something, the better the chances are that we actually know what we're talking about. So let me start with you the way I started with myself - by talking about a lot of different kinds of covenants, so the pattern and feel of what this weird word means might come alive from several different directions. It's actually about something pretty important, and not at all confined to religion. One of the classic statements is from the Bible, from the book of Joshua, where the writer says that you can serve any god you choose, then ends with the famous line, "But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD." (Joshua 24:15) Another is the famous statement of Martin Luther's, when he decided he had to serve a different definition and style of God than the Roman Catholic Church had served for almost 1500 years, when he said, "Here I stand. I can do no other. God help me. Amen." As I said last week, this wasn't long before he had to hide out for a year and a half because the Church wanted to kill him. But he was sustained in his hiding out by the new faith to which he had given himself heart, mind and soul. Probably the most detailed and demanding example is in the religion of Islam. We are in their most sacred month, the month of Ramadan, when Muslims are expected to fast during the day for a whole month, as an exercise in spiritual purification. But in addition, there are four other Pillars of Islam, expected of all. They are required to profess their faith, do the ritual prayers that occur five times a day, pay a percentage of their income each year to benefit the poor - the poor can demand this! - and at some time in their life, make a pilgrimage to Mecca. Those are all pretty dramatic. But the idea of being possessed by an idea or a cause that gives you life is not just something that happens in organized religions. I'm a member of a local group of former military officers. It was started by a retired Air Force general I know, and most of the officers were Colonels or generals. I'm the token former Lieutenant, and the token minister. First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no