Attending to Democracy

Calling all UUs of the Hastings and White Plains congregations! The corruption of our democracy calls for our attention.

Reverends Peggy Clarke and Meredith Garmon will be facilitating an exploration of healing our democracy and Parker Palmers book, Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit. Join us on Wed Nov 30 at one of these two times/locations:
11:00am at First Unitarian Society of Westchester, Hastings
or
7:30pm at Community Unitarian Universalist Congregation at White Plains

Why This Issue?

The need for securing truly democratic process is clear. Delegates at the 2016 General Assembly in Columbus, OH, selected "The Corruption of Our Democracy" to be the 2016-2020 Congregational Study/Action Issue (CSAI) of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA) of Congregations.

Every two years, at General Assembly, the delegates select one issue for Congregational Study and Action for the following four years. (Thus, we are always in the first two years of one issue, and in the last two years of another issue). Delegates at GA 2016 considered other nominated topics, "Climate Change and Environmental Justice," "A National Conversation On Race," and "Ending Gun Violence in America." Feeling that these important issues could not be effectively addressed unless our nation's democratic process began working, delegates chose democracy as the single most important issue for UUs to begin addressing.

What is a CSAI?

The Congregational Study/Action Issue (CSAI) is an invitation for congregations and districts to take a topic of concern and engage it, reflect on it, learn about it, respond to it, comment on it take action -- each in their own way. A CSAI is NOT a statement -- it is a question.

What Does Improved Democracy Have To Do With Unitarian Universalism?

Our Seven Principles give us spiritual grounding to put our faith into action. Our fifth principle declares our commitment to "the right of conscience and the use of democratic process in our congregations and in society at large." Our General Assembly considered CSAI proposals in 2010 and 2014 on “Revitalizing Democracy” and passed AIWs (Actions of Immediate Witness) in 2011 and 2013 on amending the constitution.

What Are Some of the Questions for Study?

• Unitarian Universalists have identified escalating inequality, racial justice, voting rights, immigration, reproductive justice, marriage equality and more as major moral concerns. Now climate change looms large. Could passing an amendment establishing that only human beings, not corporations, unions and other artificial entities, have constitutional rights, and money is not free speech, benefit these important issues?
• What does “corporate personhood” mean and why is it important to address that in addition to “money as speech” in a proposed constitutional amendment?
• How have Supreme Court decisions over the past two hundred years created this “legal fiction”?
• How does treating corporations and other artificial entities as persons violate our Unitarian Universalist principles?
• Is a moral political revolution needed to address voting rights, gerrymandering, voting methods, and the possibility of public financing of campaigns?

What Suggestions for Actions Does our Unitarian Universalist Association Offer?

The Advocacy and Witness staff at UUA is preparing a resource guide for the issue. So far, these suggestions have been posted at UUA.org:

• Hold forums in your congregation on the various proposals to overturn Citizens United v. FEC and other Supreme Court decisions giving moneyed interests sway in this country.
• Show the 30-minute film “Legalize Democracy” and discuss how this supports our Seven Principles and affects all ages.
• Encourage your congregation to pass a resolution for Move to Amend and endorse it.
• Encourage your City Council and County Commission to pass a resolution for Move to Amend, and work to place a ballot initiative or non-binding referendum on your city or county ballot, so all voters can speak out on this important issue. Invite youth to participate in this effort.
• Educate your congregation about the Interfaith Caucus of Move to Amend. Use the issue of climate change to reach out to other faiths.
• Join your UU State Action Network, or start one if your state does not yet have one, and encourage them to include climate change as a core issue and the amendment movement to help address it.

What Are the Hastings and White Plains Congregations Doing?

Let's begin our plunge into the spirit work of restoring/creating democracy by looking at Parker Palmer's wonderful and insightful book, Healing the Heart of Democracy: The Courage to Create a Politics Worthy of the Human Spirit.

Join us on Wed Nov 30 at one of these two times/locations:
11:00am at First Unitarian Society of Westchester, Hastings
or
7:30pm at Community Unitarian Universalist Congregation at White Plains.

Order a Copy of the Book

Order from Amazon: CLICK HERE
Order from Barnes & Noble: CLICK HERE
Order from Indie Bound: CLICK HERE

About the Book

In Healing the Heart of Democracy, Parker J. Palmer quickens our instinct to seek the common good and gives us the tools to do it. This timely, courageous and practical work—intensely personal as well as political—is not about them, “those people” in Washington D.C., or in our state capitals, on whom we blame our political problems. It’s about us, “We the People,” and what we can do in everyday settings like families, neighborhoods, classrooms, congregations and workplaces to resist divide-and-conquer politics and restore a government “of the people, by the people, for the people.”

In the same compelling, inspiring prose that has made him a bestselling author, Palmer explores five “habits of the heart” that can help us restore democracy’s foundations as we nurture them in ourselves and each other:

- An understanding that we are all in this together
- An appreciation of the value of “otherness”
- An ability to hold tension in life-giving ways
- A sense of personal voice and agency
- A capacity to create community

Healing the Heart of Democracy is an eloquent and empowering call for “We the People” to reclaim our democracy. The online journal Democracy & Education called it “one of the most important books of the early 21st Century.”

From the Englewood Review of Books:

“There is a deep and disturbing cloud hanging over the United States. It is a malaise that is leading to cynicism and self-centeredness. The antidote is to be found in the healing of the heart of our democracy, so that we might emerge from this private focus to a public one, which recognizes our interdependence. I know of no better guide to discerning the problem and the solutions, than this book by Parker Palmer. It is a prophetic book, one that needs to be taken with all due seriousness, if we are to emerge from our malaise stronger and healthier than before.”

From Publishers Weekly:

"He bravely takes on the current political climate, and this book provides therapy for the American body politic. His insights are heart-deep: America gains by living with tension and differences; we can help reclaim public life by actions as simple as walking down the street instead of driving. Hope's hardly cheap, but history is made up of what Palmer calls 'a million invisible acts of courage and the incremental gains that came with them.' This beautifully written book deserves a wide audience that will benefit from discussing it."

Spirituality and Practice says:

“Healing the Heart of Democracy is a hopeful book that lifts up and hallows the heart as a source of inner sight. Inspired by the efforts to understand and undergird democracy by Abraham Lincoln, Alexis de Tocqueville, Rosa Parks, and others; the author sends us on our way rejoicing with the small portion of hope that he has planted in our minds and souls.”

Science & Spirituality: Beyond Words

"Science and Spirituality" meets at 11:30a on the 2nd and 4th Thursdays of each month, at:

Community UU Congregation
466 Rosedale Ave
White Plains, NY

Next meeting: Thu Oct 27, 11:30a

At our Oct 27 meeting we will begin discussing:
Carl Safina, Beyond Words: What Animals Think and Feel

Grab a copy of the book and join us! For Thu Oct 27 we'll be discussing: "Part One: Trumpets of Elephants" (pp. 5-136).

Order from Amazon: CLICK HERE
Order from Barnes & Noble: CLICK HERE
Order from Indie Bound: CLICK HERE

Description:

"I wanted to know what they were experiencing, and why to us they feel so compelling, and so-close. This time I allowed myself to ask them the question that for a scientist was forbidden fruit: Who are you?"

Weaving decades of field observations with exciting new discoveries about the brain, Carl Safina's landmark book offers an intimate view of animal behavior to challenge the fixed boundary between humans and nonhuman animals. In Beyond Words, readers travel to Amboseli National Park in the threatened landscape of Kenya and witness struggling elephant families work out how to survive poaching and drought, then to Yellowstone National Park to observe wolves sort out the aftermath of one pack's personal tragedy, and finally plunge into the astonishingly peaceful society of killer whales living in the crystalline waters of the Pacific Northwest.

Beyond Words brings forth powerful and illuminating insight into the unique personalities of animals through extraordinary stories of animal joy, grief, jealousy, anger, and love. The similarity between human and nonhuman consciousness, self-awareness, and empathy calls us to re-evaluate how we interact with animals. Wise, passionate, and eye-opening at every turn, Beyond Words is ultimately a graceful examination of humanity's place in the world.

About the Author

Carl Safina's work has been recognized with MacArthur, Pew, and Guggenheim Fellowships, and his writing has won Orion, Lannan, and National Academies literary awards and the John Burroughs, James Beard, and George Rabb medals. He has a PhD in ecology from Rutgers University. Safina is the inaugural holder of the endowed chair for nature and humanity at Stony Brook University, where he co-chairs the steering committee of the Alan Alda Center for Communicating Science and is founding president of the not-for-profit Safina Center. He hosted the 10-part PBS series "Saving the Ocean" with Carl Safina. His writing appears in "The New York Times," "National Geographic," "Audubon," "Orion," and other periodicals and on the Web at National Geographic News and Views, Huffington Post, and CNN.com. Beyond Words is his seventh book. He lives on Long Island, New York.

Practice of the Week: Real Compassion

Practice of the Week
Real Compassion

Adapted from Norman Fischer, Training in Compassion

Compassion literally means "to feel passion with." Passion means pain. Compassion is the willingness to feel pain with another, to feel another's pain as one's own.

We usually think of compassion as something sweet and nice, positive and wonderful. Everybody wants to be compassionate. And it's true -- compassion feels good. But we overlook the fact that compassion is also essentially a painful feeling.

Feeling another's pain as our own is painful. And it turns out that it's impossible to take in the pain of another unless we are able to take in our own pain. And most of us are not so good at accepting our own pain. We prefer to deny it or distract ourselves from it. We are so intent on making our own pain go away that we don't allow ourselves to feel it. We can't take it in. Consequently we are incapable of feeling another's pain, so we are incapable of actual compassion, although we may think we are quite compassionate.

If you've ever been ill, physically or emotionally, or otherwise in need of compassionate caring, you may have noticed that many people will offer help and kind words, but somehow most of these offerings seem either insincere or otherwise to miss the mark. They don't feel good; they don't help. It is as if these people, though they clearly mean well and their offers are touching, are not capable of really receiving your pain. They want to make you feel better, help you somehow by offering remedies and recommendations or cheerful words or distracting gifts, but they seem unable or unwilling to do what you need them to do: to simply feel and acknowledge your pain. They want to be compassionate, but they can't seem to do that, and so their presence makes you feel more lonely and isolated in your misfortune.

This is because they are actually terrified of their own pain. And you can feel that they are also terrified of your pain, even though, of course, they would never say so and may not even realize they are feeling this. But you, the person ill in a hospital bed or depressed or grieving, can see this all too clearly. And when you are in need of compassion, these people do not really comfort you. Maybe they even annoy you, despite their sincere efforts -- because it is impossible to be truly compassionate, to receive another pain, if you are unable to receive your own.

My mother was a dear woman, but at the time of her death, decades ago, she was bewildered by what was happening to her, and quite agitated. She was sixty-two, never expected to die so young, and didn't fully grasp that she was, in fact, dying. Or maybe she just couldn't bear to think about it, and no one around her ever brought it up. We were all there, me, my brother, my father, and my mother's sisters. Probably what my mother needed, in her agitated state, was a little peace and quiet. Instead, she was constantly interrupted by nurses and doctors looking in on her and by relatives who keep turning her pillow, asking her what she needed, getting her things she didn't need, and trying to talk to her about cheerful things.

It seemed obvious to me that none of us could accept the reality of my mother's situation because none of us had made peace with the fact that this was death, that she would die, we would die, and that we all felt terrible about this situation. None of us could face the pain -- ours or hers.

A dear friend of mine lost her husband, who died suddenly, with no warning. His death was a complete shock to her, and her subsequent grief was so immense that she was all but inconsolable. She had many friends who kept trying to comfort her. Not only did their efforts leave her completely untouched, they actually made her angry. Her grief had given her a deadly accurate insincerity meter, so she felt people's fear and avoidance much more than she felt the consolation they were trying to offer he with their words and pats on the shoulder.

This is common in grief. You can tell who is and who is not really willing and able to go where you are, in your deep sorrow, and you can be quite upset by the pious conventional words and gestures of those who want to be nice and compassionate but actually have no clue as to what compassion actually is. Compassion really does require us to feel the pain of another personally.

Real, full compassion requires training your heart to do what it usually does not want to do: to go toward, rather than away from, what's painful and difficult in your own life. Second, it requires realizing that your own suffering and the suffering of others are not different. When you discover that this is so, you see that when you are willing to really take in your own suffering, you find, within that very suffering, the suffering of others. The reverse is also true: when you are able to truly take in the suffering of another, you find within it your own human pain. Being willing to receive pain, we come to understand, is the only way to open our hearts to love. Practicing real and full compassion makes this an experiential truth.

How

To send and receive compassion, begin with resting in the openness of mind (SEE HERE.) This is also where to end. This gives us the basis for the hard work of real compassion. In the beginning, resting in the openness of mind gives us courage. In the end, we return to that open rest for recuperation.

Start by breathing in the openness of mind that you can feel in the clarity and strength of the inhale. And then exhale, letting go completely and merging with openness of mind, so that there is nothing else present but that. Breathing this way, we open to a complete release of everything and trust of everything especially when we exhale, resting in the natural openness of our own being and of everything. This is just an easeful opening and letting go. Stay with this part for as long as you need to.

Next, breathe in your own suffering. Let compassion ride on your breath. As you inhale, take in your own pain and the suffering. Not only do we not avoid it as we usually do, as it is our natural impulse to do, we actually breathe it into our body. Gobble up all the suffering and the pain. You may well be squeamish about this, and it might be difficult at first, but with practice, you can do it. Visualize the pain and suffering as a dark, sticky substance or smoke or some kind of goo that you are breathing in, taking into your body. The goo is coming is coming from all around you, and you are taking it in, with all the pores of your body as well as through your nostrils as you breathe in. If you are not so visually oriented, then in some other way imagine that you are actually breathing in the pain and suffering, really take it in. This is receiving.

Then, breathe out. When we breathe out, something miraculous happens. It turns out that our bodies are transformation machines. They transform the goo, the suffering, the pain, into lightness, ease, peacefulness that comes out of our nostrils and all the pores of our body as a light sweet mist (or some other imagined form of lightness, ease, joy). Unharmed by the pain you breathed in, you have now transformed that pain, so that you now breathe out bliss and ease and lightness and healing power, as if you were breathing out healing light. This is sending. You are sending healing light to yourself and to many others.

Why This Works

Our body has a wisdom greater than we imagine. It breathes, circulates blood, heals us, keeps us balanced and alive every day, without our paying attention to it. Our bodies have been miraculously born into this world, through no effort on our part, and when the body is finished doing its work, at that precise moment, without fanfare and without regret, it lets go of life and returns to the earth it is made of. (We may have regrets and clingings, but the body doesn't. It knows exactly what to do.) Our life, in fact, is a sacred miracle. We constantly forget this, occupied as we are with other matters. But fortunately our body never forgets. Our body never fails us, for it is, on its own, as it is, love itself, life itself, nature itself, flowing on in profound sanity despite our human confusions. Naturally it has the capacity to breathe in suffering and transform it into healing. In fact, this is what breathing is: inhaling we are saying yes to another moment of life with all of its pain, sorrow, and loss; exhaling we are releasing all of this, letting go of everything and returning to peace.

Real compassion doesn't take a major effort on our part. We only have to allow it. If you allow the breath to bring in suffering, allow the body to receive, then when you breathe out, it's not suffering anymore. We have turned the suffering of ourselves, of others, of the whole world, into easeful, healing light.

Regularly practice connecting with the body's natural real compassion. Then, when you encounter someone who desperately needs compassion, you will know how to face their pain -- their suffering and grief. The impulse to superficially cheer or comfort will be gone. Without fear or avoidance, you will know what to say (or just be quiet) and do (or just be present and still). Your sincerity will be clear because you have truly taken in their pain. You haven't made it go away (indeed, the urge to push it away is the source of insincere gestures) -- yet you are sending peace.

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For list of all weekly practices: "Practices of the Week Index"