“Staying Awake at the Wheel”
Preached by Rev. Tera Little at Throop UU Church
June 9, 2013
Like many teenagers, I took driver’s ed in high school. Our teacher was the same man who taught us history and civics, and he had instructed generations of students through the years. He had been my mom’s high school basketball coach!
What a brave person, letting us teens drive him through town. He was tough, and he liked to threaten us young drivers with all sorts of things. One of the worst was spitting in our ears.
I’ve always remembered a few safe driving pointers he gave us: keep your hands at 10 and 2. Don’t speed up in a curve. And be all means - stay awake!
Those three tips are applicable to life, not just driving:
Last Saturday, several of us attended a day-long workshop called “Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream.” The focus was on the environment and what each of us can do to help heal our world. The day called us forward into a sacred activism.
As a closing, each participant was given a woven bracelet, like this one. It serves as a tangible reminder for the truths we awakened to that day, and for our own personal commitments we made to do our part to bring wholeness to the earth.
Reminders like this bracelet are important. Our standard United States culture lures us into a trance. We know that much of what we need - or think we need - to survive damages the planet. Yet, we continue on a destructive path. Driving cars. Jetting off to national church conferences. Enjoying the convenience and low-cost of cheaply made, easily replaceable appliances and home goods. We live in a culture that has throwaway resources, species, and people. (1)
Annie Dillard wrote: “the way we spend our days is the way we spend our lives.” When I look over each day last week - I wonder - did I live the life that wants to live in me? Staying grounded takes practice and intent, and it’s so easy to lose focus.
I’m reminded of a story in the Christian Scriptures. It’s one of my favorites, because each time I read it a Monty Python-esque scene unfolds before me.
It happens on the night Jesus is betrayed and taken away. He knows something is about to happen. Right, you know. You feel it, when you’ve pushed and pushed and you just know that soon something will break.
We Unitarian Universalists like to lift up the community activist aspect of Jesus’s life. He was walking and talking with his mind stayed on freedom.
And he also prayed for freedom and justice. And so it was, just hours before he was arrested, that he and three of his disciples retreated to one of his favorite places for quiet reflection.
That night, he asked only one thing of his disciples. To stay awake. Jesus walked away from them, to a more secluded space, and prayed an anguished prayer. When he came to check on them - they were asleep.
He asks them again - stay awake! And he went away, and prayed, and came back to find them asleep again.
This happened three times. These men, beloved and dear, could not stay awake, even though the stakes were so high.
Jesus warned them “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
We are like those disciples. Or like the King in our Story for All Ages. Starting each day with good intentions. Trying our best to do our part. Yet, sometimes we fall asleep at the wheel. We lose our own spiritual alertness. We get caught up in quenching our thirst for MORE - the latest cool techie gadget. More clothes. More stuff in an attempt to fill up our aching souls. Our hands are all over the steering wheel, as we work so hard trying to provide food, clothing, shelter for ourselves and our families.
And we don’t see what the earth is trying to tell us. She tries to get our attention. But we look away, too busy trying to fill our own cups.
Life doesn’t have to be that way. And I know that for many of you, if not all of you, your life is about way more than only satisfying your own needs. You are givers and doers.
And even so - it often doesn’t feel like enough.
I wasn’t alive during the civil rights movement, but many poignant images from that time are burned into my memory:
An idea lives within me that to be effective, a movement needs one central theme and huge, large actions that bind people together and change public opinion.
And in my lifetime, I haven’t experienced that kind of massive issue movement. We started to see it in 1999 with the huge protests against the World Trade Organization.
The Occupy Movement that began in 2011 captured some of that feeling of incredible solidarity among people.
Now I’m beginning to understand that just as we don’t live in a 1960’s world any longer, today’s revolution looks and feels differently, and will be just as effective.
And just as churches were a bedrock foundation for the civil rights movement, religious and spiritual communities need to be active partners in the global reawakening taking place.
Yesterday, many of us spent the day together, imagining how we want this church to be known in the wider community, three to five years from now. Our facilitator asked us, “What would someone driving by this church know about you? Those are the people who ... “
As we explored answers to that question, we drew on the passions and strengths already here. We ended up with a compelling picture of a church that matters to this city. That matters to the people around us. A place where every person makes a difference.
Take a moment and see with me that church we imagined:
We created three main focus areas, and the Acronym is GAS. But not the bad kind!
It stands for Garden. Arts. Spirit.
That will be the Fuel for our Future. And it’s not to say there isn’t room for other passion and ideas - but that it’s those things we want to be known for in the greater community.
We made plans for Throop Learning Satellite Gardens, a series of permaculture classes, positioning our space as a concert venue, supporting our music director in leading a kinder music program, and being ever more intentional about linking our spirit lives with our quest for healing the world.
You’ll be hearing more about this in one on one conversations with the leaders of the new program and ministry areas. You’ll be asked where you want to give your time, talent and treasure. You’ll be invited to help make this vision real. Howard Thurman said, “Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
The global reawakening needs us to come alive in all our glory! We will play our part in bending the arc of the universe ever more closely to justice.
It will take some hard work. Commitment. Sacrifice. It will require us to stay awake - keeping our hands at 10 & 2 and our eyes on the prize: creating a world that works for everyone: a socially just, environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilled human presence on this planet. (2)
Come with us. Let’s take one more step toward finding true joy in life: being used for a purpose larger than ourselves. Giving ourselves to the whole community. Being thoroughly used up before we die, knowing that the more we give, the more we live.(3)
Blessed be.
1. From “Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream” video series. Watched on June 1, 2013.
2. Mission statement from Pachamama Alliance.
3. From George Bernard Shaw reading, paraphrased.
Preached by Rev. Tera Little at Throop UU Church
June 9, 2013
Like many teenagers, I took driver’s ed in high school. Our teacher was the same man who taught us history and civics, and he had instructed generations of students through the years. He had been my mom’s high school basketball coach!
What a brave person, letting us teens drive him through town. He was tough, and he liked to threaten us young drivers with all sorts of things. One of the worst was spitting in our ears.
I’ve always remembered a few safe driving pointers he gave us: keep your hands at 10 and 2. Don’t speed up in a curve. And be all means - stay awake!
Those three tips are applicable to life, not just driving:
- always make sure your hands are where they need to be
- when your world starts swaying, slow down, breathe, and keep a steady pace
- keep your head up and pay attention to what is happening around you.
Last Saturday, several of us attended a day-long workshop called “Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream.” The focus was on the environment and what each of us can do to help heal our world. The day called us forward into a sacred activism.
As a closing, each participant was given a woven bracelet, like this one. It serves as a tangible reminder for the truths we awakened to that day, and for our own personal commitments we made to do our part to bring wholeness to the earth.
Reminders like this bracelet are important. Our standard United States culture lures us into a trance. We know that much of what we need - or think we need - to survive damages the planet. Yet, we continue on a destructive path. Driving cars. Jetting off to national church conferences. Enjoying the convenience and low-cost of cheaply made, easily replaceable appliances and home goods. We live in a culture that has throwaway resources, species, and people. (1)
Annie Dillard wrote: “the way we spend our days is the way we spend our lives.” When I look over each day last week - I wonder - did I live the life that wants to live in me? Staying grounded takes practice and intent, and it’s so easy to lose focus.
I’m reminded of a story in the Christian Scriptures. It’s one of my favorites, because each time I read it a Monty Python-esque scene unfolds before me.
It happens on the night Jesus is betrayed and taken away. He knows something is about to happen. Right, you know. You feel it, when you’ve pushed and pushed and you just know that soon something will break.
We Unitarian Universalists like to lift up the community activist aspect of Jesus’s life. He was walking and talking with his mind stayed on freedom.
And he also prayed for freedom and justice. And so it was, just hours before he was arrested, that he and three of his disciples retreated to one of his favorite places for quiet reflection.
That night, he asked only one thing of his disciples. To stay awake. Jesus walked away from them, to a more secluded space, and prayed an anguished prayer. When he came to check on them - they were asleep.
He asks them again - stay awake! And he went away, and prayed, and came back to find them asleep again.
This happened three times. These men, beloved and dear, could not stay awake, even though the stakes were so high.
Jesus warned them “Watch and pray that you may not enter into temptation. The spirit indeed is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
We are like those disciples. Or like the King in our Story for All Ages. Starting each day with good intentions. Trying our best to do our part. Yet, sometimes we fall asleep at the wheel. We lose our own spiritual alertness. We get caught up in quenching our thirst for MORE - the latest cool techie gadget. More clothes. More stuff in an attempt to fill up our aching souls. Our hands are all over the steering wheel, as we work so hard trying to provide food, clothing, shelter for ourselves and our families.
And we don’t see what the earth is trying to tell us. She tries to get our attention. But we look away, too busy trying to fill our own cups.
Life doesn’t have to be that way. And I know that for many of you, if not all of you, your life is about way more than only satisfying your own needs. You are givers and doers.
And even so - it often doesn’t feel like enough.
I wasn’t alive during the civil rights movement, but many poignant images from that time are burned into my memory:
- the black students walking into Little Rock Central High School, holding their heads high as white students and protestors yelled at them
- hundreds of thousands of people in Washington, DC for Martin Luther King’s “I Have A Dream” speech
- the marchers from Selma to Birmingham
An idea lives within me that to be effective, a movement needs one central theme and huge, large actions that bind people together and change public opinion.
And in my lifetime, I haven’t experienced that kind of massive issue movement. We started to see it in 1999 with the huge protests against the World Trade Organization.
The Occupy Movement that began in 2011 captured some of that feeling of incredible solidarity among people.
Now I’m beginning to understand that just as we don’t live in a 1960’s world any longer, today’s revolution looks and feels differently, and will be just as effective.
And just as churches were a bedrock foundation for the civil rights movement, religious and spiritual communities need to be active partners in the global reawakening taking place.
Yesterday, many of us spent the day together, imagining how we want this church to be known in the wider community, three to five years from now. Our facilitator asked us, “What would someone driving by this church know about you? Those are the people who ... “
As we explored answers to that question, we drew on the passions and strengths already here. We ended up with a compelling picture of a church that matters to this city. That matters to the people around us. A place where every person makes a difference.
Take a moment and see with me that church we imagined:
- the doors wide open with multigenerational and diverse people flowing in and out
- music creating a pulse of life that serves as the bass line for all the good ministries and programs here
- this building being utilized constantly as the amazing community resource it is, providing space and inspiration for art, civic engagement, health and wellness, sustainability
- our church being known as the place to go to deepen one’s eco-spirituality
We created three main focus areas, and the Acronym is GAS. But not the bad kind!
It stands for Garden. Arts. Spirit.
That will be the Fuel for our Future. And it’s not to say there isn’t room for other passion and ideas - but that it’s those things we want to be known for in the greater community.
We made plans for Throop Learning Satellite Gardens, a series of permaculture classes, positioning our space as a concert venue, supporting our music director in leading a kinder music program, and being ever more intentional about linking our spirit lives with our quest for healing the world.
You’ll be hearing more about this in one on one conversations with the leaders of the new program and ministry areas. You’ll be asked where you want to give your time, talent and treasure. You’ll be invited to help make this vision real. Howard Thurman said, “Ask yourself what makes you come alive and then go do that. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive."
The global reawakening needs us to come alive in all our glory! We will play our part in bending the arc of the universe ever more closely to justice.
It will take some hard work. Commitment. Sacrifice. It will require us to stay awake - keeping our hands at 10 & 2 and our eyes on the prize: creating a world that works for everyone: a socially just, environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilled human presence on this planet. (2)
Come with us. Let’s take one more step toward finding true joy in life: being used for a purpose larger than ourselves. Giving ourselves to the whole community. Being thoroughly used up before we die, knowing that the more we give, the more we live.(3)
Blessed be.
1. From “Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream” video series. Watched on June 1, 2013.
2. Mission statement from Pachamama Alliance.
3. From George Bernard Shaw reading, paraphrased.