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/jack-harris-bonham/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2009/07/human-rights-vs-human-duties/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2009/07/human-rights-vs-human-duties/#comments Sun, 19 Jul 2009 17:06:23 +0000 tom http://www.austinuu.org/wp/?p=2804 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2009/07/human-rights-vs-human-duties/feed/ 0 Rev. Jack Harris-Bonham July 19, 2009 - Text of this sermon is not available but you can listen by clicking the play button. Rev. Jack Harris-Bonham July 19, 2009 Text of this sermon is not available but you can listen by clicking the play button. First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no 28:25 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2009/03/to-such-as-these/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2009/03/to-such-as-these/#comments Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:54:13 +0000 tom http://www.austinuu.org/wp/?p=2567 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2009/03/to-such-as-these/feed/ 0 Jack Harris-Bonham March 29, 2009 - Text of this sermon is not available but you can listen by clicking the play button. Jack Harris-Bonham March 29, 2009 Text of this sermon is not available but you can listen by clicking the play button. First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no 25:56 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/07/clouds/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/07/clouds/#comments Sun, 29 Jul 2007 19:19:58 +0000 admin http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=5 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/07/clouds/feed/ 0 © Jack Harris-Bonham July 29, 2007 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button below. - Prayer: Mystery of many names, and mystery beyond all naming, © Jack Harris-Bonham July 29, 2007 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button below. Prayer: Mystery of many names, and mystery beyond all naming, this morning we wish to think about and discuss the possibility that we are whole and complete right now, right this moment. This morning we wish to let go of the burden of self-improvement, realizing that all that self-help minutia is but an attempt for authority to tell us once again, that we're not right, we've never been right, and we'd better get with the program to get right. Hogwash! There isn't a thing we need that we don't have right now. Thinking that we lack something is simply the ability of our own minds to imagine that there's something out there that will be better than whatever it is inside here. The grass is always greener is in fact propaganda of the advertising moguls. The truth is the grass is always grass. Our lives look different to us because we are into judgment and we see in others the chance that their lives are not tangled skeins, but the truth is if we were able to walk in their shoes and really be them, we would be looking back at ourselves thinking how together we seem now that we're the other. The problem is we're looking to be served when in truth we need to be looking for opportunities to serve. Monty Newton traveled to Nicaragua this past week as a birthday present to himself. No, he did not travel to a remote resort where he sat in wicker rockers with tall drinks garnished with umbrellas. No, Monty traveled to a small village where with a group of other spiritually minded people they dug a well for a village. And the emails that he sent back to Nell, Lulu and Henry although garbled by the non-familiarity of the Spanish keyboards were, none the less, filled with a renewal of spirit that is taking place in Monty because he knows what Gandhi knew to serve is to rule. Forgive us, Great Spirit, as we seem to spend the majority of our time worried about who's going to give us our next jolly. Forgive us for stopping at the traffic light and NOT giving that dollar to that homeless person - "Oh, they're just going to spend it on alcohol," we think, but what we're really saying is that if we were homeless we'd take the opportunity to lose ourselves in booze. Now lift us up Great Spirit and help us realize that the majority of problems in our lives are self-created and can be self-cured. In truth the self that we hope to improve is non-existent. We are all simply witnesses of this life, and all the trauma and drama of our lives, is nothing more than adult temper tantrums that we're not being pleased, not being fed what we think we need. Wake up! We've got it all and always have. We pray this in the name of everything that is holy, and that is, precisely, everything. Amen. Reading James Agee, A Death in the Family On the rough wet grass of the backyard my father and mother have spread quilts. We all lie there, my mother, my father, my uncle, my aunt, and I too am lying there. First we were sitting up, then one of us lay down, and then we all lay down, on our stomachs, or on our sides, or on our backs, and they have kept on talking. They are not talking much, and the talk is quiet, of nothing in particular, of nothing at all. The stars are wide and alive, they seem each like a smile of great sweetness, and they seem very near. All my people are larger bodies than me, quiet, with voices gentle and meaningless like the voices of sleeping birds. By some chance, here they are, all on this earth; and who shall ever tell the sorrow of being on this earth, lying, on quilts, on the grass, in a summer evening, among the sounds of night. May god bless my people, my uncle, my aunt, my mother, my father, oh, remember them kindly in their time of trouble; and in the hour of their taking away. After a little I am taken in and put to bed. Sleep, soft smiling, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/07/the-sustainability-of-life-on-planet-earth/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/07/the-sustainability-of-life-on-planet-earth/#comments Sun, 22 Jul 2007 12:46:26 +0000 tom http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=1869 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/07/the-sustainability-of-life-on-planet-earth/feed/ 0 © Jack Harris-Bonham July 22, 2007 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button below. - Prayer: Heavenly Father, Mother God, © Jack Harris-Bonham July 22, 2007 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button below. Prayer: Heavenly Father, Mother God, this morning we name you and hope that those listening are entertained by the metaphor and not caught by it. Language is an odd thing; it seems the more education that someone has the more often they are snagged by the very words that would serve them. Saying precisely what we mean has its place in science and architecture, but the vagueness of metaphor may allow us to journey places that would not be journeyed to if, in fact, we were drawing plans or writing formulae. The Mystery to which I usually pray is not served by preciseness. The mystery of metaphor is the same as the mystery of story. Suspending disbelief is the crux of journeying into the story of the divine. As we suspend disbelief - and who of us does not have some disbelief - we are then able to engage the right side of our brains and enter into relationship with the character of our imaginations. This morning we imagine a world that does not operate by greed, we imagine a world in which those with power and money search for those in need, this morning we imagine a world in which honor is spread among all peoples, a world in which the hungry are only so because they have not been discovered by those who have more to eat than necessary. Yes, this is fanciful, and dream-like, but remember now that everything that we see that is made by humans and human culture was at first an intention and an idea. We speak of the naturalness of nature while deriding those things made by humans, but how different is the wasp nest from the home. Both are containers in which those living there find meaning. If the human species is to continue upon this earth, then the human species must begin to dream dreams that do not include gluttony of greed. The human species must begin to dream dreams that recoil in revulsion at the idea that we would kill one of our own because they had killed. We must begin to dream dreams that spark in us the better angels of our natures, as those better angels turn from the horror, the horror of the world that we now live in. In 500 million years the sun will go out. In this sense all is for naught. In 500 millions years earth will be like Venus varying in temperature from equator to poles by only 7 degrees and the mean temperature hovering around 690 degrees Fahrenheit. At that point the greatest of what we have created, Shakespearian drama, modern medicine, acupuncture, philosophy, theology, the beauties and wonders of this planet Earth will be gone and forgotten. But is this any more reason for despair than the simple fact that whatever we do personally for our significant others and those children that we raise together, all those things are for naught in the light of our eventual demise? Death does not erase the love that we share, any more than the red giant of our sun will erase what has transpired on this thin layer of life, our beloved earth, our mother and sustainer. We would and do recoil in horror when we see that there are those who would give their mothers up for a profit, yet we allow the soulless corporations of this our beloved planet to treat our mother as if she were a whore. There will come a time when the heads of major corporations will stand trial as greed criminals, as murderers of our mother. My prayer today is that these proceedings will occur before mother lies on her deathbed and before we have let our own greed and culpability run rampant just in order for us to get a final slice of the greed pie. We must realize now that any money siphoned from the soulless corporations that now rape the earth is blood money. Help us to see, Divine Spirit that the money that is made from this blood is money that is made from the blood of our own children. In ravaging the earth we are, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/07/foster-child/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/07/foster-child/#comments Sun, 15 Jul 2007 17:49:24 +0000 admin http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=7 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/07/foster-child/feed/ 0 © Jack Harris-Bonham July 15, 2007 Guest speakers: Lawrence Foster, Sr., Lloyd Foster, Kenneth Foster, Sr., and Nydesha Foster First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play bu... © Jack Harris-Bonham July 15, 2007 Guest speakers: Lawrence Foster, Sr., Lloyd Foster, Kenneth Foster, Sr., and Nydesha Foster First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. Prayer Mystery of many names, mystery beyond all naming, anyone can be happy when things are going right, when blue skies and broad horizons lay before them. But it takes a special kind of person, a special kind of people to stay focused and on task in spite of the storm that looms on the horizon, in spite of the threats that bear down upon them, in spite of daily reminders that their lives are scheduled to end. I received a letter recently from Kenneth Foster, Jr. The tone of the letter was confident and upbeat. I received a letter from Kenneth Foster, Jr., a man who is scheduled to die of lethal injection on the 30th of August. In this letter Kenneth thanked me for my concern about his case, he told me how blessed he felt that there are those on the outside of the machinery of death who care and are responding to his cause. He also explained about the bureaucracy behind the death machine to me, ten years of experience has taught him well. He blessed me in his letter not so much by the things he said but more by the tone in which they were said. Even though I am an older man than he in years, his years of being condemned have lent him a mantle of experience and age that comes from so many dark nights of the soul - one right after the other, after the other, after the other. Kenneth and I will meet next month when the letter from our Board of Trustees of this church reaches the Warden, and I am given clearance. The meeting will be as all those meetings are between death row inmates and visitors. Kenneth will be behind glass like some specimen that has been separated from society so as not to increase the risk of infection. We will have all the visuals of people who meet, people who meet on opposite sides of thick glass, people who are forbidden to greet each other with a touch or even a holy kiss. We will meet and when we do, Kenneth says, "I hope that we can meet, so that you can hear my testimony personally - and I don't mean legal wise. I mean me as the person I am." And this kind of talk just makes me think of the old time religion in which someone from the pulpit shouts, "Can I have a witness!?" You see the death that Kenneth Foster, Jr. faces isn't what he fears, the past ten years has been a mighty teacher - as Martin Luther wrote so many years ago "a mighty fortress is our God," no, the death that Kenneth Foster, Jr. fears is the death of recognition. He doesn't mind going down, but he does mind going down with no one paying attention. Can I have a witness? The bread and circuses that this country has created in its out of control consumerism - the bread and circuses that keeps us occupied, but distracted, the 150 cable channels, the I-pods, and I-phones, personal computers, the gadgetry of modernity has kept us all informed, updated, and in the grove, but ultimately hanging out with ourselves. The community of humankind has been diminished in the process of our being entertained. The community of humankind cries out for more than food and juggling. The community of humankind awaits the new awakening of the human heart, the time when as Kenneth told me in his letter; people can look each other in the eyes and see that the other is ultimately themselves. Yes, as Kenneth says this looking does weigh heavily upon the human heart, but it springs from a place of truth and as Kenneth's Master said 2000 years ago, ye shall know the truth and that truth shall make you free. Kenneth may be locked behind the intricacies of multiple locks, sealed hermetically behind thick glass, family and friends may not be able to physically touch him, but there are Kenneth's eyes into which we may gaze, and entering there we come away with only one feeling. First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/06/hermits-or-husbands/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/06/hermits-or-husbands/#comments Sun, 17 Jun 2007 17:59:39 +0000 admin http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=9 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/06/hermits-or-husbands/feed/ 0 © Jack Harris-Bonham June 17, 2007 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. - Prayer Mystery of many names and Mystery beyond all naming, © Jack Harris-Bonham June 17, 2007 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. Prayer Mystery of many names and Mystery beyond all naming, this morning we are here in celebration of among other things - fathers. Some of us have negative images of what fathers can be because some of us have had lousy fathers. Others see fatherhood in a positive light because their personal experiences are positive ones. In some sense many of us wish, as my wife, Viv, does that we had Atticus Finch as our father. Harper Lee's image of fatherhood as portrayed by Gregory Peck in the Oscar winning Christmas Day 1962 release still brings pangs of envy - if only we could have been that way with our kids. But more than simply parenting we are talking this morning about husbanding - the ability to spend or use economically, or simply the ability to live gracefully without a lot of fuss. This world and the harbingers of news don't want us to imagine that anything is easy. The world speaks in the language of labor. Count, if you will, how many times people tell you how hard something is going to be, or with what difficulty something may be accomplished. There's a bit of self-fulfilling negativity there. Think instead of the watercourse way - the fact that water effortlessly finds its own level. Lao-Tzu's Tao Te Ching suggests that we take the watercourse way that we flow into life, giving where giving seems appropriate and receiving when things come our way. I'm thinking of the scene in To Kill a Mockingbird where Atticus Finch finds the town drunk harassing Atticus' children who are waiting in the car. Atticus comes out of the house where he's been visiting and simply approaches the car. The town drunk spews vitriolic profanities at Atticus, but Atticus never responds, never lashes out at the man. Atticus knows that it is his presence alone that is making the statement that needs to be made. He is his children's father, and his economy causes the drunk to slither off away from them. We pray for the good sense and certitude to know when we are doing what needs to be done by simply suiting up and showing up. There's an art to life that isn't often taught, and isn't often recognized. Give us the insight to see those artists of life that don't fit the mold of society, those pushed toward the periphery because they don't match definitions of success and worldly honor. Mostly, this morning we search for an economy of being. May we forgive ourselves when we use a hammer when a thumbtack would have done the trick. Great Spirit give us the power to know that more often than not we know, from the inside, what needs to be done, and what needs to be ignored. Minding the breath, minding our heartbeats let us move through this life like the guests that we are, honoring the earth and all sentient beings that inhabit it. We pray this in the name of everything that is holy, and that is, precisely, everything. Amen Affirmation of Faith Monty Newton Reading: (From Cormac McCarthy's The Orchard Keeper He came out on a high bald knoll that looked over the valley and he stopped here and studied it as a man might cresting a hill and seeing a strange landscape for the first time. Pines and cedars in a swatch of dark green piled down the mountain to the left and ceased again where the road cut through. Beyond that a field and a log hogpen, the shakes spilling down the broken roof, looking like some diminutive settler's cabin in ruins. Through the leaves of the hardwoods he could see the zinc-colored roof of the church faintly coruscant and a patch of boarded siding weathered the paper-gray of a waspnest. And far in the distance the long purple welts of the Great Smokies. If I was a younger man, he told himself, I would move to them mountains. I would find me a clearwater branch and build me a log house with a fireplace. First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/05/funny-church-store/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/05/funny-church-store/#comments Sun, 13 May 2007 15:33:27 +0000 admin http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=12 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/05/funny-church-store/feed/ 0 © Jack Harris-Bonham May 13, 2007 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 7875 www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. - PRAYER Mystery of many names, mystery beyond all naming, © Jack Harris-Bonham May 13, 2007 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 7875 www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. PRAYER Mystery of many names, mystery beyond all naming, today we wish to speak of misunderstandings. Today we bring before the congregation here gathered the idea that listening may be more of a passive activity than we imagined. When we're listening there are times in which what we wish to hear stands in the way of what is being said. Empty us, Great Spirit, leech from us the agendas, hidden and open, as we gather here this morning. Make of each of us a receptacle of peace. If we try to put iced tea in our favorite pitcher, it will not fit if the pitcher is already filled with beer. The use of the receptacle is in the vacuity of its space. Make us empty Great Spirit as we gather here this morning. Our monkey minds keep chattering in the background, but we will in this worship space pull away from the distracting voices in our heads, we will gather our minds in the intervals between the noises, between the conflicting voices that call for us to react in a world that's already rife with reactions. Also in this hour help us examine our intentions on which our road to hell is paved. Help us be aware enough to see that holding out for what seemingly benefits us, excludes us from participating in a salvation that may be disguised as something that we secretly despise, secretly wish would simply go away. Mothers and fathers gather with their children this day. May they realize that who they are has nothing to do with where they came from or what has come from them. Mothers and fathers, your children are not you, and their actions are their actions. Having a child who is a brain surgeon doesn't make you a brain surgeon, nor does it reflect well on you. Their glory and honor is theirs not yours. Likewise having a jailbird as a son throws no aspersions in your direction. Their crimes are not your crimes. Yes, we are all connected, but the fruits of one's actions are one's own even when pride and shame declare otherwise. Bring us now to a point of stillness in which we can feel our hearts beating within us, feel our breath as it revolves in and out of us. In the space between the breaths let us pause and ask ourselves who is it that is breathing, since in fact, this breath started without our conscious intervention and continues when we slip into sleep and unconsciousness. As we rely on that hidden source to keep us alive, let us lean back on that hidden source and relax into the hereness of our existence. We are not in control. Hallelujah and Amen. We pray this in the name of everything that is holy and that is exactly everything. Amen SERMON-Funny Church Store Introduction: When I moved to New Haven to attend the Yale School of Drama in 1989, I rented a truck and car dolly and moved myself. I saved a bundle. Viv followed me in her 2002 BMW when we went to return the truck. We couldn't find the place. We kept driving up and down this same stretch of New England back road, but the rental place was nowhere in sight. I stopped at a minit mart and went in to ask directions. The man behind the counter was from somewhere in Asia. I explained my predicament and his eyes lit up. "Yes, Yes, I know where that is. You go this way down the road, and turn right at the Funny Church Store." He smiled glad that he'd been able to help. "The Funny Church Store?" I asked with a puzzled look on my face. "Yes, the Funny Church Store, you'll see it on your right, it's right behind there." "Behind the Funny Church Store?" "That's right!" I walked back to the truck and Viv yelled at me from her car window, "Do you know where it is?" I walked over to her car smiling. "I know exactly, where it is." Driving toward the funny church store I was imagining a church whose Pastor would look and sound something like this - Jesus and Moses were playing golf. Moses approached the ball, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/05/thats-how-the-light-gets-in/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/05/thats-how-the-light-gets-in/#comments Sun, 06 May 2007 16:59:50 +0000 admin http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=13 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/05/thats-how-the-light-gets-in/feed/ 0 © Jack Harris-Bonham May 6, 2007 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. - PRAYER Mystery of many names, mystery beyond all naming we come to you this morning w... © Jack Harris-Bonham May 6, 2007 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. PRAYER Mystery of many names, mystery beyond all naming we come to you this morning with the songs and melodies of one of your chosen people, Leonard Cohen. In that spirit I pray today the lyrics of one of his poems: Don't really have the courage to stand where I must stand, Don't really have the temperament to lend a helping hand. Don't really know who sent me to raise my voice and say: May the lights in the land of plenty shine on the truth some day. I don't know why I come here, knowing as I do what you really think of me, what I really think of you. For the millions in the prison that wealth has set apart, for the Christ who has not risen from the caverns of the heart, For the innermost decision that we cannot but obey, for what's left of our religion I lift my voice and pray. May the lights in the land of plenty shine on the truth some day. We pray this in the name of everything that's holy, and that is, precisely everything. Amen. Affirmation of Faith by Don Smith SERMON In traditional Christianity sin is seen as a determent, a flaw, the fly in the ointment. My now deceased second father-in-law, Linus Hernandez used to say, "Everyone loves Elizabeth's Taylor's hair, but nobody wants it in their soup." Talking about sin as a determent is counterproductive. There's a better way. In alcoholics anonymous, of which I am a proud anonymous member, it's common to hear people say that they don't regret or want to take back any drink or drinking that they did. The idea is simple. Whatever they did, however much they drank, the wreckage of lives that trails behind them - none of this can be regretted for two reasons - first, the guilt itself would kill us, or drive us to drink - poor me, poor me, pour me another drink! And secondly if that drinking got us to AA and we're sober, and the promises are coming true, then, baby, all that suffering is exactly what it took! Think of it as a trip in your family car. Yeah, okay, the radiator hose blew the third day, you had two flat tires the next day, and the water pump eventually went out. Regardless, you're at your vacation spot thanks to the old soccer mom car! It's hard to hate what's brought you to a state of grace. It's hard to hate what's brought you to a state of grace. There's a tradition in some synagogues when members of the synagogue are invited to stand and tell a bad story on themselves. After the first story ends, someone stands and tells a worse than the first. Then another and another. The idea is - the parishioner with the worst story, wins! And the prize isn't shame - it's solidarity! When the last confessor stands and tops all the other stories, then there's a moment of silence and it that silence, there is a bonding, the human, oh so human, sigh of relief as all in that community know that they are blemished, imperfect. The moral high ground has been relinquished, and in the words of Second Isaiah, the high has been made low, and the crooked places made straight. Martin Marty, Professor Emeritus at the University of Chicago tells the story of one of his grandchildren who when Marty had stepped down from the University, turned to Marty and said, "Grandpa, now that you're retarded?" At first Marty winced because retardation is never a subject for jest, but then Dr. Marty remembered that to be retarded also means to be caused to move or proceed slowly; delayed or impeded. And that's not always a bad thing. What would music be like if there were no variance in tempo - besides sounding like Philip Glass? There is a form of enlightenment within Zen Buddhism that's called a life of one continuous mistake. How can this be, you might ask? Being conscious of who you are, and what you're capable of, knowing that your feet aren't on a pedestal, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/04/enemy-combatants/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/04/enemy-combatants/#comments Sun, 22 Apr 2007 17:01:04 +0000 admin http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=14 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/04/enemy-combatants/feed/ 0 © Jack Harris-Bonham April 22, 2007 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button below. - PRAYER Mystery of many names, and mystery beyond all naming, © Jack Harris-Bonham April 22, 2007 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button below. PRAYER Mystery of many names, and mystery beyond all naming, we cont... First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/04/your-heart-will-live-forever/ http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/04/your-heart-will-live-forever/#comments Sun, 08 Apr 2007 17:20:29 +0000 admin http://www.austinuu.org/sermon/?p=15 http://www.austinuu.org/wp/2007/04/your-heart-will-live-forever/feed/ 0 © Jack Harris-Bonham April 8, 2007 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 www.austinuu.org - Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. - PRAYER Mystery of many names and Mystery beyond all naming, © Jack Harris-Bonham April 8, 2007 First UU Church of Austin 4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756 www.austinuu.org Listen to the sermon by clicking the play button. PRAYER Mystery of many names and Mystery beyond all naming, we gather here today to celebrate the resurrection of life. What this resurrection means can be, and is, as varied as the people who go to make up this community. But encompassing them all is the notion that what was dead and useless has been sloughed off and a rebirth has begun. Let us be gentle with ourselves when we are rebirthing, bringing forth that which is new and different from ourselves. Let us find the wisdom to treat ourselves in these moments as we would treat a newborn child. Holding our newness gently let us rock back and forth and sing lullabies - songs that sooth the soul. And help us, Great Spirit within, to recognize when others are so engaged, when others are bringing forth from themselves a new way of being, a new way to amplify the glory of the Light that surrounds us all. Some of us have figuratively been entombed in the rock hardness of our hearts. May that hardness melt away and may we emerge from our self-made tombs renewed with no sense of remorse, or regret. The harden-hearts of our past are past. We are new creatures in this moment and in this moment we celebrate the quite human ability to take to flights of fancy and return to earth changed creatures. Bless all those here with the ability to see themselves new again. Give us all the willingness to let go of others so that they may change and grow, and above all forgive us for thinking that we've had it figured out years ago. In the name of everything that is holy and that is, precisely, everything. Amen. SERMON: Your Heart Will Live Forever A Resurrection Twist There is a Shinto temple in the southern end of Honshu Island - the biggest of the islands that go to make up Japan. Legend has it that it was first built in 4 BC, but probably the 7th Century is more like it. I say "first" built because when ever it was first built over 2000 years ago, or 1400 years ago it has been rebuilt every 20 years since that time. They don't tear down the 20 year old shrine and build another one, they ritualistically dismantle it, then on an adjacent site it is rebuilt from entirely new materials, but following exactly the same ancient plans. Is it the same shrine - the Ise Shrine or more commonly know in Japan as Jingu - "The Shrine" - is it the same shrine that exists today first built in the 7th Century? Or is it only a reproduction of the long-lost original building - oh, an exact reproduction no doubt - last rebuilt in 1993 - but still a reproduction? In a similar manner each and every cell in our bodies is replaced every seven years. If you're 49 years old - you've inhabited 7 totally different bodies, oh, each was an exact reproduction, but each was still a reproduction. If at the age of 49 you're fortunate enough to have your grandmother around like my wife, Viv, did when she was 49, then what exactly is it about you that your grandmother loves? In other words, what is it that's stayed constant during those seven reproductions? For the people of Japan the soul of the Ise Shrine centers around the fact that each time the Shrine is rebuilt it is built and used as a Shinto Shrine, the Shrine - Jingu! No rich person bought it and lived in it, held dinner parties in it, raised children in it, died in it. It was never used as a stable for a nobleman's horses. It was never used as an amusement park centering on the quaint past. It is a shrine, a holy temple, and it always has been. And what makes it a shrine is that Shinto priests maintain it, hold Shinto rites in it, clean it, protect it, and every 20 years lovingly dismantle it and build it anew; fresh, raw, pristine. Trees grown in the generation of its parent temple - trees nourished on rain that fell on the former temple, First Unitarian Universalist Church of Austin no