This page was updated 07/14/2008

Good morning.

One hates to find deep meaning from advertising but I admit I really like this season’s Sears ad: live like it’s summer.  People in northern Indiana are generally pretty good at this – even if you aren’t part of the lake culture, it seems like things are a bit more relaxed from Memorial Day until August.  Timing tends to slip, and what made people mad in the cold months doesn’t seem so important on a perfect 75 degree day when the sun is shining.

So in that spirit, I decided I wanted to talk about something other than politics or government.  Honestly, I didn’t want to ramble on about challenges or problems or issues.  And then I saw an article in the UU World called “This Present Paradise” by Rita Nakashima Brock and Rebecca Ann Parker.  These scholars reviewed ancient texts and discuss how the earliest Christians did not focus on the crucifixion.  Rather, they focused on paradise – and their paradise was primarily about the here and now, not the afterlife.

What better topic to talk about on a summer Sunday morning?

So I decided to talk about “finding paradise” and by that I mean “finding paradise wherever you happen to be.”  And part of what I mean by “finding” is “creating.”

We can look at this on a couple of levels.  The first is physical paradise, the wonders of nature and even sometimes the world that we humans have built.  The second is the love and happiness that we are given in life, and how we use our own love and happiness to make the world a bit more like paradise for those around us.

On the natural level it’s pretty easy to find paradise.  Nakashima Brock and Parker write, “In the early church, paradise—first and foremost—was this world, permeated and blessed by the Spirit of God. Images of paradise in Rome and Ravenna captured the craggy, scruffy pastoral landscape, the orchards, the clear night skies, and teeming waters of the Mediterranean world, as if they were lit by a power from within. Sparkling mosaics in vivid colors captured the world’s luminosity. The images filled the walls of spaces in which liturgies fostered aesthetic, emotional, spiritual, and intellectual experiences of life in the present, in a world created as good and delightful.”

My very first spiritual experience was on a hillside at Girl Scout camp in western Iowa.  It was early morning and everybody else was asleep.  For some reason I started walking on the hill and to see the sunrise just overwhelmed me.  I had found paradise, although it lasted only a few minutes.  But I still remember that moment so I guess I found paradise forever.  And I’ve been lucky enough to see paradise in places from the Pacific Northwest to Ireland to the Caribbean, as well as much closer to home.  It’s all over and you don’t even have to look very hard.

I hope we all have a place or two or more that we consider paradise.  Often it’s the natural beauty that defines paradise for us, but sometimes it is an experience that makes us realize we are in the presence of the divine.  Falling in love is such an experience, of course, but haven’t you ever seen a child at a special moment and just realized how many things are right with the universe?  Or seen someone do a kind act, particularly one that was unexpected?  Or heard, as we often do here, music that simply lifts your soul?  Or read something so powerful that you re-read it over and over until you made it part of yourself?  I think those are all little bits of paradise.  Those are all little bits or realizing that we are in the presence of the divine.

It seems to me that part of paradise is external – what we experience – and part of it is internal – whether we are in an emotional or mental or spiritual state to be open to the feeling of awe which is integral to the concept of paradise.

I will admit right now that I am one of the luckiest people I know.  I do not believe that this is due to any particular virtue or providence but rather to random chance, and for goodness sakes if I cannot be happy, then nobody can.  But there have been times when I’ve struggled with things, and at those times I have learned that finding something to be grateful for has always helped.  I am fortunate that I was always able to find something, but I think that most Americans can if we are in the mood to do so.  If nothing else, we live in a country where we can speak our minds without fear of being whisked away in the middle of the night.  And if you can find one reason to express thanks, then you can usually find another, and I believe that such gratitude is helpful in opening oneself back up the presence of the divine, even if that paradise is a small one.

Another trick to awe – to finding paradise – is ritual.  People have known that forever and it’s why we have an ORDER of service on Sunday morning.  I don’t know why, but following an artificial and, frankly, arbitrary structure of words and music helps open up many of us to that combination of thoughts and feelings which is spirituality.  It helps make us feel closer to the divine, to connect with the universe outside of ourselves, and that means closer to finding paradise.

That is the internal part.  However, there is an external part as well; for that paradise to exist there is a role for humans to play.  Natural beauty only exists if we protect it, or at least don't destroy it.  Kindness allows us help another person, whether we know that they are suffering or not, see that someone else cares.  And working to improve our society improves the lives of people in that society, especially the lives of people who have the fewest resources to help themselves.

So I am of the belief that we humans also create paradise outside of ourselves, or at least we can and should try.  Internally, we need to be open to that feeling of awe - whether we achieve that openness through meditation or prayer or a conscious decision to be grateful.  But I don't think that's enough.  We need to help paradise along through our external actions as well.

And that is what Unitarian Universalists do.  On Sunday mornings we share a common worship service, and the rest of the week we are trying to make the world a better place.

I guess when you have a forum called City Council to talk to anyone with cable TV on Tuesday nights, it’s hard to come up with a lot of words on Sunday.  Or maybe it’s because I’ve become used to listening to a lot of other people talk on Tuesday nights that I have gotten a bit more respect for brevity – or at least to improve my ability to stop talking when I’ve run out of things to say.

So, thank you for the opportunity to share my thoughts this morning.  This congregation – this loving, supporting, imperfect but always trying family – is one more thing for which I am deeply grateful. 

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