Tuesday night class #4 - Original blessing or original sin?

The worth and dignity of every person is found in merging with the All.

by Jack Turner

The Buddha taught that the source of human suffering was attachment. Along with this idea of attachment comes the idea of impermanence. Nothing stays the same forever. When we apply these ideas to the "person," the self, it becomes apparent that a great deal of human suffering arises because we become attached to the person we think we are, and this perception of our person is often wrong, inaccurate, constantly changing.

Psychologists describe the "false self", the "ideal self" and the "authentic self". Which self, which person, has worth and dignity referred to in the first principle of Unitarian Universalism? Buddhist meditation seems to aim at the dissolution of the egotistic self so that the "person" can become one with the all. The ego disappears. This also is a common understanding in mystical Christianity.

At the time of death, if not before, we would have more peace if we could give up our attachment to our self, our person, because we become more aware that this creation of an ego has not brought us the peace and love which we have desired. In fact, we realize more and more that it is in giving up the willfulness of this ego, and shedding it, like a snake sheds its skin, that the of a mature spirituality is achieved.

The idea of the worth and dignity of every person refers, at a mystical level, to the awareness that the person's worth and dignity arises from an awareness that the "person" is merely a part of something much greater, a whole that is mysterious and unfathomable on the earth plane. It is this awareness which is a manifestation of a miracle because it takes us beyond the drama of the ego to an awareness of peace and perfect love. The path of this awareness is surrender to our Higher Power whatever or whomever we conceive our Higher Power to be and a willingness to do God's will for us. We surrender our willfulness for willingness. It is in the detachment from our egos that we ascend the ladder to the awareness of the worth and dignity of every person as a part of the mysterious All.

Body of Christ, Droplets of the ocean, over-soul, cosmic consciousness and the first principle

by Glen Daniels

St. Paul writes in his first letter to the Corinthians in part 12, verse 12 - 13 "For even as the body is one and yet has many members, and all the members of the body, though they are many, are one body, so also is Christ. 13For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body, whether Jews or Greeks, whether slaves or free, and we were all made to drink of one Spirit." The key in Paul's statement here is "by one spirit" meaning that we are all part of a whole. It is this part of the whole which is holy, which has worth and dignity.

Another metaphor rather than the body might be the ocean of which we each are single droplets. As a droplet we tend to think we are self sufficient and autonomous when, in fact, we are utterly dependent on the whole. And so we can come to understand that what we do to and for our brothers and sisters we do to ourselves. We are all in this thing called life together.

The genius of Unitarian Universalism is the Universalist idea that we all go to heaven. No one goes to hell. It is one for all and all for one. 

While other religions have taught condemnation and exclusion, Unitarian Universalism has taught the opposite, the basic goodness of everybody and the need for compassion and inclusion. This idea of the over-soul articulated by Emerson in the mid nineteen century further strengthens this Universalist belief. Mr. Markham, in his Tuesday night class, referred to this idea, in passing, as "cosmic consciousness." This cosmic consciousness comes at the later stages of spiritual development and is something that a person has to be ready for. 

Perhaps, one of the reasons that UU is such a small denomination is that, as Jesus said, "many are called but few are chosen" meaning that the majority of humans are not at a place where cosmic consciousness is yet possible. It is our job, though, as Unitarian Universalists to facilitate this growth by reminding our fellows that every human being has inherent worth and dignity even if there are barriers and obstacles to its recognition. The feet and the eyes may not seem to have much to do with each other as very different anatomical parts but they both are important parts of the human body.

Application of UU first principle implies, perhaps, voluntary poverty

by Christopher O'Connor

The capitalistic system is based on the bottom line, profit. In our contemporary world where most physical needs are now easily met, capitalism has moved on to create a perception of needs in people that they didn't know they had before so that these people will buy the corporations goods and services. In order to create this perception of need, modern marketing techniques are created, refined, and promulgated on a global level. These marketing techniques are based on dividing practices where they compare one person with another, one group with another with one person or group appearing to be deficient, inadequate, and/or vulnerable in some way losing in the manufactured competition and comparison. The world has been skillfully divided into the haves and the have nots and it has given rise to jealousy, envy, greed, contempt, disdain, bullying, exclusion, isolation, and attack.

Into this capitalistic culture comes Unitarian Universalism which, as its first principle, counters all this with a value that every person has inherent worth and dignity. Nothing could be more counter cultural in a capitalistic society which operates and profits on the opposite value that some people are better than others and that many people without the corporation's product or service are unworthy and without dignity. Is it any wonder that Unitarian Universalism is such a small denomination when its primary value is overwhelmed by an economic narrative that constantly undermines it?

Unitarian Universalists have few fellow pilgrims journeying through this world other than groups like the Amish, and people who take religious vows of poverty. Is it possible for UUs to also take vows of poverty and develop more communitarian life styles? Perhaps communities should be started for UUs who take their principles seriously and want to live a life style more congruent with the values we espouse. The serious application of the first principle would lead to eschewing the capitalistic propaganda that human life is improved through gratuitous materialism. A first step might be to simplify one's life style and donate one's surplus to those in genuine need.

Stephen Daily - Vulnerability undermines worth and dignity

by Stephen Daily

Perhaps the greatest impediment to miracle readiness or the appreciation of the first principle of the inherent worth and dignity of every person is the unconscious fear of our own deep seated, innate defectiveness and inadequacy. This unconscious sense of unworthiness gives rise to a chronic anxiety of being vulnerable to shaming. This fear of being shamed leads to repression or what we have more colloquially called "denial". This repression and denial gives rise to lying, pretense, hypocrisy, arrogance, and "control issues". The "need to be right" leads to power struggles with ourselves and others contributing to a psychological, biological, and spiritual toxic brew of emotions which are conscious and largely unconscious. The sad observation is that none of this anxiety and hell on earth is necessary because we are all okay as we are if only we could develop the cosmic consciousness to become aware of this spiritual reality.

Unitarian Universalism's first principle which directly states that each person has worth and dignity is amazing in our culture where the myth of scarcity and defectiveness is the air we breath. It seems that the denial and repression of our feared inadequacies and defectiveness block our awareness of first, the worth and dignity of ourselves, and then our fellow human beings. Being in a capitalist society where the marketing of products and services is based on advertising depicting needs, often needs we didn't even know we have, is based on a competitive comparison with others leaving us feeling unworthy, with lesser dignity, which can only be ameliorated by the purchase of the advertised products or services.

Our capitalist materialistic system of economics is based on a deficiency model of scarcity. Perhaps, Unitarian Universalists have not recognized before or if so, often enough, that the whole economic system of our society which is killing us because of its toxic impact on our physical environment is based on a deficiency model constantly telling us that we are inadequate in some way as compared to other people and therefore must spend money on the advertisers goods.

In more traditional religions, those with a religious vocation often take vows of voluntary poverty. There are many reasons and influences in this spiritual practice, but perhaps one of the most important reason is the recognition that on a spiritual level a person's worth and dignity does not depend on material wealth to repair cultural stimulated deficicences. If we would have true peace and joy it will require the recognition of our intrinsic beauty as the creation of the Spirit Of Life, not only our own beauty but that of all our fellow human beings. Rejecting the myths of scarcity, and recognizing the fears of vulnerability precipitated by shaming is liberating for us and for all human beings.

Editor's note;

Stephen Daily is a psychotherapist and will be writing regularly in 2015 on UU A Way Of Life  about the emotional and psychological influence of UU values and understandings on our lives as individuals and as a human family.

From whence does our existential anxiety arise?

It is written in ACIM, "You are afraid to know God's Will, because you believe it is not yours. This belief is your whole sickness and your whole fear."

We, humans, live in fear. There is a low level anxiety about our existence. Something is just not quite right even when we can't identify what it is.

Nadia Bolz-Weber says in her interview with Krista Tippett On Being:

"Well, I think we've sort of glamorized certain types of brokenness. You know, there's like the big ones: mental illness, addiction. And in a way, it can be very tempting to allow those people who are so obviously broken to just carry all the brokenness for us...........................Everyone has something that they - like it might not be a huge addiction, the really kind of big sexy ones, but it might be there's something that we feel powerless over, that we feel like has a hold of us, that we don't feel like we have much choice in, like we've lost the ability to choose whether we're going to do this, or this this, or be in this relationship, and then our life has a certain unmanageability because of that. I think that is very, very, very common, even if you don't have one of the big sexy problems that we sort of identify."

When we fear God's will because it means giving up our identification with our own egos, it causes existential anxiety and we are at odds with ourselves and life. We don't know and don't accept who we really are. We doubt our essential worth and dignity. We are one with God, with Life, whether we want to acknowledge our radical dependence on that fact or not and when we deny it, reject it, are unaware of it, we suffer. When we recognize it, accept it, align or give up our egos to be one with it we are at peace.

God Or The Ego?

The spiritual life can be like a roller coaster with ups and downs, twists and turns, incredible highs and sluggish lows where our momentum in life seems to bottom out.

I have been in a low, bottoming out, but the spiritual reality is always softly humming in the background even though it seems reluctant to come to the foreground - until yesterday when I returned once again to the incredible, difficult, enlightening but maddening A Course In Miracles.

So, I will begin again on Chapter 11 where we are confronted with the question, God Or The Ego?, and I wonder if you might be interested in joining me on this gentle exploration of the inner world?

Our Unitarian Universalist faith draws from many sources and we are a people of many books. We don't limit ourselves to just one. In my life I have studied the Christian  bible, the Tao Te Ching, many of the Buddhist scriptures, looked at the Koran, and A Course In Miracles which I have studied now for 25 years.

A Course In Miracles can be dense and intellectualized and it is easy to get lost in metaphysical concepts and speculations, but then there are times when it is stunningly crystal clear and understandings slam you like a whack with a 2 x 4 across the side of your noggin. Here is one such smack:

"The ego, then, is nothing more than a delusional system in which you made your own father."
T-11.Intro.2.4

I have been reflecting on the viciousness of gossip, calumny, irreverence which has come to be called "snark" and it is passed off defensively sometimes as entertainment, comedy, but it is done at someone else's expense. The mockery, the ridicule, might be helpful if it puncture's the bubble of someone's ego which has become inflated and arrogant, but we should remember than underneath the ego is a child of God.

As Unitarian Universalists we covenant to affirm and promote the inherent worth and dignity of every person and if our snark, our mockery, our ridicule, our satire points to the fraudulence of the ego this might be holy work, the work of the court jester or the holy fool who points out the folly, the hypocrisy, the hubris of human egos, but at the same time that we mock the work of the ego, we must also be respectful and reverent about the underlying divine spark which has been buried in misguided projection and confabulation.

God, Life, is our origin, our Father and Mother, the ground of creation. When we forget this, and think we are our own creation, masters of our own life, that we can manage our own affairs by ourselves, we have lost our way, our humility, our reverence, a sense of gratitude for our radical dependence on others and life. Let us rise above our egos and praise God, praise the Spirit of Life, our Higher Power whatever we conceive that Higher Power to be.

Promoting and affirming the inherent worth and dignity starts with me.

Promoting and affirming the inherent worth and dignity starts with ourself, perhaps, first. We are more than a body, but the body is the window to the soul.

Free book on first principle for reflection and study

There is a limited number of handmade copies of "16 reflections on the first principle of Unitarian Universalism" available.

Many of these reflections appeared on the UU A Way of Life blog during the month of June 2014.

This special edition includes introductions to each reflection, and questions for consideration and discussion following each reflection.

This little book can be used for personal study and reflection or with a group. If you would like a hard copy, send me your name and address to davidgmarkham@gmail.com. If you would like a PDF file of the same little book, I can send it to you by return email as an attachment.

Living the first principle requires enormous amounts of patience

Linda McCullough Moore begins her story, Four Kinds Of People, in her book of short stories, This Road Will Take Us Closer To The Moon with these three sentences, "I'm sitting in the late afternoon of my existence at Logan Airport reading the fine print on the backside of my boarding pass when my life walks in. Well, one of my lives, my former life. Carlton."

"The wife - I'll call her Mary Ann - asks him how long the layover in Charlotte is. He asks her how the hell would he know. Still the charmer."

"Are those your boys?" I say to Mary Ann.
No, we rented them for the trip. I make the only interesting reply.

"Are you married?" she asks me.
"Not at the moment, but I have high hopes for the thousand priests at Myrtle Beach."
"Oh," she says as though she has some clue what that might mean. I start to explain, but then think better of it. There are about four people in the world who are interested in the difference between Catholic and Episcopalian priests and their matrimonial proclivities.
"And you're not a nun, you say."
"Nope, still not a nun." I can see why she has a little trouble with the weather channel.

One might wonder how one should respond when stories of your past life encounter you unexpectedly and are filtered through the dark veil of ignorance begging for clarification which only the deeply initiated could possibly understand. In such instances the inherent worth and dignity of every person is hard to remember and if remembered hard to apply when people are clueless and naive. What does it take in moments like this to live the first principle? Patience, patience, and more patience.

Patience leads to forgiveness which leads to compassion which just might lead to gratitude. The narrator of the story is patient and has a good sense of humor the kind that can laugh at the incongruity and absurdity of life. It is important to laugh with people and not at people, and experience the mysterious alchemy which transforms pain into peace, darkness into light, banal nonsense into grace.

The older we get the more former lives we have, the more stories that can haunt us, the more experiences we can cherish and enjoy in the sharing with others. We remember the children who were only with us a short time on the trip, the partner(s) we tried to love and hoped would love us, the goals we pursued some with triumph, some with defeat, some just abandoned for various reasons that we can't name or if we can, we don't tell others or want to talk about. Because we believe in the inherent worth and dignity of every person our faith inspires us to be grateful for tomorrow if it comes, because God only knows how the story will continue to be created and unfold, and we are filled with enthusiastic hope for the actualization of the divine potential that we and all our brothers and sisters possess.

My Kind Of Church Music - The Boy In The Bubble, Paul Simon

There is inherent worth and dignity in the awareness of Love's presence

"But no, oh no, we will not be diverted, not from our lives. We'll take them home with us and sleep with them tonight. We children will grow up and carry them away and keep them with us everywhere we go." p.6

Linda McCollough Moore, "That's A Fact" in The Road Will Take Us Closer To The Moon

The Perennial Philosophy teaches us that unless we lose our lives we cannot find them. We have to give up our egos to join the unitive life with the Godhead. It is the unitive life with the Godhead that has inherent worth and dignity not the constraining ego we have created for ourselves out of separateness.

There is the divine spark within each one of us that senses our oneness with everything, but to give up "our lives" as Moore puts it is too threatening to our ego and so we will not be diverted from that which we have made up which all to often is a private hell with fears, resentments, grievances, hurt, hate, and suffering. As it says in A Course In Miracles, "You who identify with your ego cannot believe God loves you." T-4.III.4:1 It is written a little further in the Course: "You project onto the ego the decision to separate, and this conflicts with the love you feel for the ego because you made it. No love in this world is without this ambivalence, and since no ego has experienced love without ambivalence the concept is beyond its understanding. Love will enter immediately into any mind that truly wants it, but it must truly want it. This means that it wants it without ambivalence, and this kind of wanting is wholly without the ego's 'drive to get.'" T-4.III.4:5-8

There is the great story of the rich young man who comes to Jesus in Matthew 19:16-22

"And behold, a man came up to him, saying, “Teacher, what good deed must I do to have eternal life?” 17 And he said to him, “Why do you ask me about what is good? There is only one who is good. If you would enter life, keep the commandments.” 18 He said to him, “Which ones?” And Jesus said, “You shall not murder, You shall not commit adultery, You shall not steal, You shall not bear false witness, 19 Honor your father and mother, and, You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” 20 The young man said to him, “All these I have kept. What do I still lack?” 21 Jesus said to him, “If you would be perfect, go, sell what you possess and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; and come, follow me.” 22 When the young man heard this he went away sorrowful, for he had great possessions.

Moore's prediction is not always true. We do not always carry the lives of our family of origin with us everywhere we go. Some of us, actually, take Jesus' advice, and give all the ego stuff up, and devote ourselves to a non material path clearing away the obstacles to the awareness of Love's presence in our lives. Some of us are aware of where the inherent worth and dignity lies and it lies in the awareness of Love's presence in the world which we are all a part of, and which some are more aware of and focused on than others.

My Kind Of Church Music - Can't Buy Me Love, The Beatles

Learning what love is

"But still I know this is no sudden thing: my father spilling his guts to these German strangers. He has dragged himself, inches at a time, over to the cliff's edge and, head heavy, tumbled over. That is how it's done. A person doesn't run a mile to reach the edge and hurl himself into the void that ends in jagged rock below, for the simple reason that by the time you've reached the edge, you're winded, and you stop just shy to catch your breath and reconsider. The ones who take the plunge make camp just crawling the distance from the edge and every day inch closer, living in a place where tumbling over - be it suicide or saying all - is not a great departure from the routine." pp. 5-6

Linda McCullough Moore, "That's a Fact" in This Road Will Take Us Closer To The Moon.

The straw that broke the camel's back is down the road. It will only be a matter of time before it lands on your back. People will say you are over reacting, the object of your complaint trivial, only a little thing. You are silly to let such a trifle upset you so. But they have no idea. They haven't really been listening, and even if they did so what? They couldn't or wouldn't do anything about it anyway.

What has been going on has been unsaid. It is absent but implicit. And yet without the ears to hear, who hears, and without the eyes to see, who sees, and without the mind to think and understand, who really thinks and understands? Fear clouds the hearing, the vision, the understanding.

It takes awhile to get to the edge, and gratitude for life's gifts is absent having been ground down to believe one is not worthy. The only redemption is in forgiveness and generosity, then comes gratitude, but when one is on the edge a significant act is imminent whether it be death and mayhem or finally letting the cat out of the bag, calling a spade a spade, and taking the bull by the horns. Which will it be? No matter, cause afterwards, life will not be the same.

If a person knew that he/she had inherent worth and dignity, and even more importantly knew that other people who knew them, knew and thought that too, then things will go better, but without this knowledge, tragedy is more likely.

True religion is for those who know that every person has inherent worth and dignity and they not only bring people back from the edge, but provide hope and support in learning what Love is, taking life to a whole new level.

Intimacy is a matter of the heart

"You might think if you know story of anybody's life, then you can't help but love them, or at least understand why they are the way they doggedly persist in being. But that's not the case. Certain parents leave teeth marks on their children, and no matter that the scarring heals and fades, the old, soft indentations are always there to finger and call memory back."

Linda McCullough Moore, "On My Way Now," The Sun, April, 2014, p.22

As life fingers those old, soft indentations and memories are called back, both conscious and unconscious, drama erupts and plays get performed, usually tragedies, and while the cast members may be new, the scripts are the same, and the plot unfolds in predictable ways with the same conclusions unless there is a transformation of some sort, an alchemy of sorts, which sometimes religion and/or therapy  or some other form of Love can perform which may seem absolutely miraculous.

Observing these moments of grace, the transforming moments of grace, restores our belief in the inherent worth and dignity of every person, and holy relationships based on unconditional love.

I dreamt about my dead son. He was 8 when he died. He was our eighth child and I felt guilty about working so much and not spending enough time with him. I said to him in my dream that I was planning on stopping working so much to spend more time with him. I told him I loved him and missed him and wanted to be there for him more. He said, "That's all right, Dad."

I said, "No it isn't Ryan. I have not been as good a father as I want to be and I'm going to cut back on working so I can do more things with you."

He looked at me and said again, reassuringly, "Dad, it's okay."

I said, "No, Ryan, it's not okay. You deserve more of my time and attention and I'm going to do better."

He said more loudly and somewhat sternly, "Dad, it's okay. Intimacy is a matter of the heart."

I was startled and immediately woke up and thought to myself, "What did this kid just say to me? 'Intimacy is a matter of the heart?', Jesus, he's only eight."

There is tremendous worth and dignity in Ryan's statement to me, his reassurance, that, indeed, intimacy is a matter of the heart. It's not money, gifts, time, pride, encouragement, support, nurturance, attention, compliments and all the other things that we want to give and share with another. In the last analysis, what we have to give and share which has great worth and dignity is the intimacy of the heart, the pure wish for someone else's well being unconditionally.

My Kind Of Church Music - I will always love you, Whitney Houston

The inherent worth and dignity is in the ocean of which we are drops

Aldous Huxley writes in his book The Perennial Philosophy:

"The biographies of the saints testify unequivocally to the fact that spiritual training leads to transcendence of personality, not merely in the special circumstances of battle, but in all circumstances and in relation to all creatures, so that the saint 'loves his enemies' or, if he is Buddhist, does not even recognize the existence of enemies, but treats all sentient beings, sub-human as well as human, with the same compassion and disinterested good will. Those who win through to the unitive knowledge of God set out upon their course from the most diverse starting points." p.44

The inherent worth and dignity of every person resides not in the personality, in the ego, but rather in the common core of being known as the "unitive knowledge of God" in the Perennial Philosophy. In fact to get to the "inherent worth and dignity" referred to in the first principle, a person has to transcend the personality, and become aware of the oneness with everything and that this oneness with everything is what has worth and dignity in which we all share. We are the drops of the ocean and while each drop has worth and dignity, it is the ocean, of which we a part, and we are manifestation of, that is the basis of this worth and dignity.

We tend to forget that we a just a drop. We tend to think that we are the whole ocean, or that we can be something separate from the ocean, and it is in this that we are sadly mistaken. It is in recognizing, acknowledging, and accepting that the ocean is bigger than we are, just little drops, and that we are part of the all, and surrendering our will to be separate, that in losing our separate life, we gain the whole world and salvation has been achieved.

In the Christian prayer, the Our Father, we pray, "...Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Thy will, not my will. It is in surrendering that we find our worth and dignity. In our separateness, we are isolated and we die.

The Greek Stoic philosopher, Epictetus, writes in his book, The Enchiridion, in section 8, "Don't demand that things happen as you wish, but wish that they happen as they do happen, and you will go on well."

As Barry Stevens, the humanistic psychologist, wrote back in the 60s, "Don't push the river." but rather surrender to your Higher Power, however, whatever, whomever you conceive it to be, and "go with the flow."

The "flow", of course, is also thought of as The Tao.

Embracing Tao, you become embraced.
Supple, breathing gently, you become reborn.
Clearing your vision, you become clear.
Nurturing your beloved, you become impartial.
Opening your heart, you become accepted.
Accepting the World, you embrace Tao.
Bearing and nurturing,
Creating but not owning,
Giving without demanding,
Controlling without authority,
This is love.” 

Lao Tzu

My Kind Of Church Music - Our Father, Andrea Bocelli and the Mormon Tabernacle Choir

Undermining the ego's thought system can be painful

It is written in A Course In Miracles, "Undermining the ego's thought system must be perceived as painful, even though this is anything but true. Babies scream in rage if you take away a knife or scissors, although they may well harm themselves if you do not. In this sense you are still a baby. You have no sense of self-preservation, and are likely to decide that you need precisely what would hurt the most." T-4.II.5:1-5

When I read this I feel uplifted, inspired, like a weight has been lifted off my shoulders. So much of what we believe is the inherent worth and dignity of ourselves and others is like the babies with scissors. It is written a little later in ACIM, "Salvation is nothing more than 'right-mindedness,' which is not the One-mindedness of the Holy Spirit, but which must be achieved before One-mindedness is restored." T-4.II.10:1 What is this "right-mindedness" which ACIM speaks of? It is the awareness that all is one, the unitive knowledge of existence. It is this connection with the Godhead which is a manifestation of the "inherent worth and dignity of every person". This connection exists whether it is acknowledged or not, understood or not, appreciated or not, valued or not. We are all in this thing called Life together and our salvation depends are a growing awareness, appreciation, and Rev. Guengerich would say, gratitude, for this fact.

Adultery of the heart - happens all the time

It is written in A Course In Miracles:

"Everyone makes an ego or a self for himself, which is subject to enormous variation because of its instability. He also makes an ego for everyone else he perceives, which is equally variable. Their interaction is a process which alters both, because they were not made by or with the Unalterable. It is important to realize that this alteration can and does occur as readily when the interaction takes place in the mind as when it involves physical proximity. Thinking about another ego is as effective in changing relative perception as is physical interaction. There could be no better example that the ego is only an idea and not a fact." T-4.II.2:1-6

Is the "inherent worth and dignity of every person" a fact or a fiction? Is this "person" a fantasy or something real?

Jesus says in Mathew 5:28 "But I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart." Does the person who is lusting and the imagined person lusted after have "inherent worth and dignity"?

My friend Sam says, "No, Dave, don't be silly. Both the person filled with lust and the person he or she imagines in his or her mind lusted after are just imaginary and neither have anything to do with the self/not self that the principle is speaking about." 

"You're saying, Sam," I say, "that this interaction is just the nonsense of two egos getting it on like in a dream, and Jesus is not condemning but suggesting, maybe with humor, that the lustful person is just engaged in idle bull shit that has no real meaning?"

"Yeah, you can say that. The imagining of the lustful person doesn't seem to have any inherent worth and dignity does it? Not because it is sexual but because it is the projection of one ego imagining another ego which in the mind of reality is insane and we do it all the time especially when it comes to perceived slights, disappointments, injustices, even successes we are jealous of, from others. It's like we create this soap opera in our own mind where we alternate between victim and victor and this "monkey mind as the buddhists call it" becomes our reality in the sense that we create this dream trance that we think is real, but it is only, often, a hell of our own making. This adultery, betrayal, unfaithfulness, attacks,  happens all the time about all kinds of topics not just sexual. Jesus is saying when we project our own ego stuff onto ourselves and others we are losing faith with the inherent worth and dignity of our being and committing an adultery, our being is being adulterated."

"And this dream which is an adulteration, a separation, from our unitive experience of God, doesn't have any inherent worth and dignity is what you are saying," I ask?

"How could it? We just make it up." said Sam

"So what is this inherent worth and dignity that the first principle is referring to," I ask?

"You're going deep, now, Dave. We should probably save this question for when we have more time. However, let me suggest that the answer from the Perennial Philosophy gives to this question is that spiritual training leads to the transcendance of the personality, the giving up of the "self", the ego and becoming one with God, our Higher Power, Life. Til next time?"

"Yeah, okay. Thanks Sam."

And so I wonder how the inherent worth and dignity of every person spoken about in the first principle does not refer to the ego, but rather to some other quality called, for lack of a better word, or phrase, the "unitive oneness with the Godhead.

The God seed inherent in the first principle of Unitarian Universalism

Aldous Huxley writes in the Perennial Philosophy,

"For, as all exponents of the Perennial Philosophy have constantly insisted, man's obsessive consciousness of, and insistence on being, a separate self is the final and most formidable obstacle to the unitive knowledge of God. To be a self is, for them, the original sin, and to die to self, in feeling, will and intellect, is the final all inclusive virtue". p.36

Huxley writes a bit further:

"Man's final end, the purpose of his existence, is to love, know, and be united with the immanent and transcendent Godhead. And this identification of self with the spiritual not-self can be achieved only by "dying to" selfness and living to spirit." p.38

Huxley quotes Meister Eckhart, the 14th century German mystic who wrote: "The Scriptures say of human beings that there is an outward man and long with him an inner man."

"The seed of God is in us. Given an intelligent and hard-working farmer, it will thrive and grow up to God, whose seed it is; and accordingly its fruits will be God-nature. Pear seeds grow into pear trees, nut sees into nut trees, and God seed into God."

I don't think I have ever heard or read a UU sermon on the outer person and the inner person. In fact, it has been my experience that UU focuses too much on the outer world especially with its preoccupation with social justice issues and rarely focuses on the development of the interior spiritual life.

Because of the six sources, UUs on left on their own to research, experiment, and practice activities that would fertilize, cultivate, and irrigate the "God seed" within them that Eckhart speaks of. "Different strokes for different folks" as they say and that is all well and good until one realizes that if you are open to everything, you will fall for anything.

Rev. Galen Guengerich suggests that the unique spiritual practice of Unitarian Universalists should be gratitude. In practicing gratitude we become aware that we are utterly dependent on the interconnected web for everything even language which gives us the power to think and be conscious. Practices of gratitude begin with just taking notice and being mindful of the blessings and the grace that bombard us on a minute to minute, hour to hour, day to day basis.

Huxley writes:

"Paradoxical as it may seem, it is, for very many persons, much easier to behave selflessly in a time of crisis than it is when life is taking its normal course in undisturbed tranquillity. When the going is easy, there is nothing to make us forget our precious selfness, nothing(except our own will to mortification and knowledge of God) to distract our minds from the distractions with which we have chosen to be identified; we are at perfect liberty to wallow in our own personality to our heart's content. And how we wallow! It is for this reason that all the masters of the spiritual life insist so strongly upon the important of little things." p42.

Following this thinking, it is gratitude for the little things in our lives, the air we breathe, the sun that grows our vegetation, the water we drink, the love of others and their love of us, even the difficulties we are presented with and challenged by that make our lives interesting and force us to grow sometimes outside our comfort zones.

Huxley writes:

"The saint is the one who knows that every moment of our human life is a moment of crisis; for at every moment we are called upon to make an all important decision - to choose between the way that leads to death and spiritual darkness and the way that leads towards light and life; between interests exclusively temporal and the eternal order; between our personal will, or the will of some projection of our personality, and the will of God." p.43

The saint is mindful and chooses, my will or God's will be done? In Alcoholics Anonymous the first  three steps are:

1. We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.
2. Came to believe that a power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.
3. Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood Him.

Saints are people in recovery. They are recovering from the conditioning of their own egos and turning their lives over to God as they understand God to be.

The first principle of Unitarian Universalism, the inherent worth and dignity of every person refers to the God seed which has to be cultivated and helped to grow within us until we reach the unitive, transcendent God consciousness called enlightenment. Is your church and religious practice helping you become enlightened? How could it be more of a help? How could you help others?

How is the inherent worth and dignity made manifest?

Eric Berne, the psychiatrist who developed a theory of human functioning he called "Transactional Analysis" wrote a book entitled "Games People Play" back in 1964 which describes repetitive patterns of interaction a person engages in which he called a "game". Does this pattern of interaction have "inherent worth and dignity"?

It is written in A Course In Miracles, "To be fatigued is to be dis-spirited, but to be inspired is to be in the spirit. To be egocentric is to be dis-spirited, but to be Self-centered in the right sense is to be inspired or in spirit. The truly inspired are enlightened and cannot hide in darkness." T-4.Intro.1:6-8.

It is written in the next paragraph:

"You can speak from the spirit or from the ego, as you choose. If you speak from the spirit you have chosen to "Be still and know that I am God." These words are inspired because they reflect knowledge. If you speak from the ego you are disclaiming knowledge instead of affirming it, and are thus dis-spiriting yourself. Do not embark on useless journeys, because they are indeed in vain. The ego may desire them, but spirit cannot embark on them because it is forever unwilling to depart from its Foundation." T-4.Intro.2:1-6

Does what is referred to in ACIM as "ego", or what Eric Berne refers to as ego-states have inherent worth and dignity? The ACIM teaches what it calls the ego is an illusion, it isn't real, and Eric Berne also describes the ego states as a social construction which requires analysis if there is to be an understanding that would lead to changes to improve functioning.

The UU first principle is "the INHERENT worth and dignity of every person." What does this word "inherent" mean in the context of this statement? I am taking it to mean the divine spark within the person which is often hidden from view because of the work of the ego. The opposite of inherent would be manifest. One aspect of "inherent" is that it is hidden not visible. "Inherent" may mean dormant or unrealized, having potential but not actualized.

It would seem that this word "inherent" implies that there is a seed of the divine within us that may not have germinated or it may have begun to sprout and grow and yet not blossomed and born fruit. The idea of inherency is that there is growth yet to be realized, potential yet to be actualized, a hidden quality yet to be made manifest. To use the words of ACIM "The truly inspired are enlightened and cannot hide in darkness." How to call the inherent worth and dignity forth? How to make the inherent worth and dignity manifest? This is the function of religion.

ACIM reads, "You can speak from the spirit or from the ego, as you choose." The choice is ours, and as I get older I find so many people talking from the ego rather than from the spirit that I am fatigued by "the useless journey". I rarely watch TV anymore, and I use the social media very sparingly. I am very skeptical about attending committee meetings and have dropped out of many. I am increasingly careful about who I spend time talking with because I have grown increasingly fatigued and alienated by "drama".

Linda McCullough Moore, in her story, "On My Way Now", in The Sun in April, 2014, writes, "I see now that my mother, all her life, was playing to an audience. I think it's how she would have liked to end her days:onstage." p.21

Have you noticed with some people "there is always something"? "Be still and know that I am God." counsels ACIM.

While the "INHERENT worth and dignity of every person" is something I can believe in and covenant to affirm and promote, I also know that I can't stop there with myself or with others because the real effort is to make this inherent worth and dignity manifest, to actualize it. How do we do that?

Is personhood real or just a social construction?

I

In Chapter 3 of his book, God Revised, Rev. Galen Guengerich discusses the nature of existence. In philosophy this is called ontology, the study of being. There are two approaches to this question that I like best, linear and reductive, and systemic.

We can come to know things by breaking things down into their component parts or observing how they behave over time. This approach has made science very successful and works well too for mechanics.

The systemic approach is to conceptualize things as interacting in a system and the mantra of systems thinkers is "the whole is greater than the sum of the parts." UUs acknowledge system thinking in their seventh principle respecting the interdependent web.

As we observe and reflect on life from both a reductive and linear view, and from a systems view we realize that there is no such thing as "a person" but rather a manifestation of relationships. If we reflect on our own experience we realize that there are thousands of sides to our individual personality because we are one person with our parents, another with our spouse, another with our children, another with our co-workers, with our neighbors, with our friends, with various authority figures we encounter, etc. Each "other" and each situation brings out a little different side of our personality and with each we have a different identity. Every person who "knows" us has a different identity story about us as we do about them and so who is the "real" me? Rev. Guengerich writes in his book, God Revised, referring to Walt Whitman, "Whitman's central insight is that the self exists in a system where everyone is who they are by virtue of their relationships to everyone and everything else." p. 57

Rev. Guengerich writes:

The essence of the individual, according to Whitman, is made up of all the relationships he or she represents. If teased all the way out in space and back in time, these relationships ultimately include everything whatsoever. Some of these relationships appear trivial - unless we consider that everything had to happen precisely as it did for us to be here today, just as we are. It turns out that the story of Galen Guengerich, the cosmos, began not on September 3, 1957, or even nine months earlier than that, but in the beginning." p.58

Rev. Guengerich writes a few pages later in his book, God Revised, "The present builds a bridge from what is past to what is possible.

The question before us is how to construct the bridge and whether religion forms a part of it? As I will discuss in upcoming chapters, religious faith and practice at their best can help liberate us from the limitations of the past and help us construct a more promising future. Religion is about transformation - about making good on our desire to become better people and make our world a better place." p. 61

The focus has been shifted from the individual to relationships. Identity, what we call the self, is, as we have seen, a social construction, it does not exist other than as a witness to our body, our thoughts, our emotions, our behavior, our social status. What is this witness? Where does it come from? Perhaps it is the witness that has inherent worth and dignity and not the body and its ego.

The person's not the problem; the problem is the problem

"Though we claim that every life has worth and dignity, many Unitarian Universalists join the approximately eighty percent of Americans who believe in the death penalty, somehow concluding that committing heinous crimes makes a human being lose status." pp.28-29

Marilyn Sewell, "The Inherent Worth And Dignity of Every Person" in With Purpose and Principle: Essays About The Seven Principles of Unitarian Universalism, Edward A. Frost, ed.

"Again, we must monitor our actions to see that they fit our words. Should there not be a fit, our words will ring hollow." p. 30 Ibid.

"Imperfect as we are, this principle calls us into right relationship with others." p.30 Ibid

As Rev. Marilyn Sewell writes, "Imperfect as we are..." we are still called by this first principle into right relationship, and we struggle and stumble to define, describe, and enact these relationships. Religion, Rev. Galen Guengerich tell us, is to help us create the faith that will guide us from here to there, will guide to us the person, the people, the human beings we want to become and Life calls us to become. We are headed towards the Atonement, the oneness, the unity that we share with all our brothers and sisters and all of Life which we profess to respect and hold dear in our seventh principle about the interdependent web of all existence.

Socrates tells us that an unexamined life is not worth living and so as Unitarian Universalists we covenant with each other to live examined lives. This examination which is humbly undertaken to identify weaknesses and problems in how we live our lives is an essential part of our spiritual practice. Where we realize our imperfections, we are called upon by this first principle to promptly admit our mistakes and failings and to develop a corrective action plan to pursue the achievement of the "right relationship" when, as they say in twelve step programs, "it would do no further harm."

Of course, we recognize if we practice the Serenity Prayer, that there are some things we just have to accept, and there are some things we can change, and pray for wisdom to know the difference. Recognizing the inherent worth and dignity of every person does not mean that we have to accept, tolerate, support, or respect all their behavior. Good people do bad things. Rev. Sewell writes, "This tolerance of harmful behavior is not consistent with our principles, for it is in violation of the law of love and healthy respect for the larger community." p. 28, ibid.

In application of this principle it is important to make a distinction between the person and the problem. As I have been taught as a student of Narrative Therapy, "the person's not the problem, the problem is the problem." This idea is called "externalization" which means that we externalize the problem from the person so that we can see that the person is not the problem, the problem is. Once we externalize the problem, it can be dealt with and managed. If the person him or herself is the problem, then we have a really big problem unless we can control or eliminate their body which is not "them" but merely the container of the indwelling spirit. The idea of the first principle only works well if we recognize that behavior is not what has inherent worth and dignity, and often times we equate behavior with personhood. This is a huge mistake and in the daily practice of this principle must be recognized and taken into account. What is this "person" which has inherent worth and dignity?