Last week we celebrated a marvelous Easter Service in our parlor for the first in-person service since last summer. Surrounded by beautiful flowers and spring colors and with twenty four people in attendance and an eight person music ensemble directed by Dale Holden, it was a special Easter indeed. This week the pre-recorded Easter is available to view on our YouTube Channel and although the last part of Dave’s Easter message didn’t get on the recording, the transcript is included in this week’s support page. If you have already seen the Easter Service, then you may want to catch up on last week’s recording, “The Happiness Factor” which is archived and you can access by clicking this link. https://youtu.be/eY970FONNuw
During coffee hour last week we conducted an informal survey of how people felt about continuing in-person Sunday Services with safety precautions in place and after a discussion with the church leadership we are (cautiously) moving ahead with in-person Sunday Services. The on-line digital options will still continue including the zoom coffee hour and check-in. As we move forward we will continue to monitor the covid numbers in the State and in our community and base any change on those numbers.
We hope that everyone will find a way to participate in the life of our spiritual community in a manner that is safe and meaningful.
Earth Day was on Friday, April 22nd so we have an article in today’s support page by Ajahn Sucitto on facing the challenges of climate change in a changing world and this week’s Sunday Service will continue the theme.
Have a good week-end everyone.
In Ministry,
Dave
UUHoulton Easter Altar (2022)
Arriving Again
Bob just got a new pair of hearing aids for Easter and they worked so great he told his friend Harry that he could hear a pin drop on a hardwood floor from 50 feet away.
“That’s unbelievable,” said Harry. “I’m thinking about getting a pair for myself, what type is it?”
“Four o’clock,” responded Bob.
Sometimes we think we’re getting it. And yes, we might be close, but we’re not quite getting it. That’s kind of the way it feels with Easter this year. So many of us want life to return to what it was like before covid, and we keep waiting and we keep hoping and yet, here we are, not quite where we were before, but still not quite where we would like to be. The title of today’s Easter message is “Arriving Again,” and what it refers to is this elusive and repetitive sense of finding our bearings in a world that is temporarily out of sorts and uncertain. Easter in itself is a seasonal and cyclical certainty that comes around the loop every year right about now, sometimes earlier, sometimes later, but it always comes, bringing with it renewal, new life and new expectations of what might be; but it’s arrival each time around is always slightly different, influenced by changing circumstances and modifications no one can anticipate. That’s where we are at right now and it’s okay to admit that it is not an easy place to be.
For today’s Easter message I have 2 poems and a comment; the poems are short, I will try to make my comments the same…
The first poem is by E.E. Cummings
i thank You God for most this amazing day:
for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky;
and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes!
I who have died am alive again today,
today is the birth of life and of love and wings and of the gay great happening earth
now the ears of my ears awake and now the eyes of my eyes are opened.
The second poem is by Anne Sexton titled “From the Garden.”
From The GardenAnne Sexton
Come and consider the lilies.
(When you think of it we have two problems)
We are of little faithand we talk too much.
Put your mouthful of words away
and come with me to watch
the lilies open in such field,
growing there like yachts,
their white sails fluttering
slowly steering their petals
without maps or clocks.
Let us stop and consider the view
;a white house where white clouds
decorate the muddy halls.
Oh, put away your good words
and your bad words, too.
Spit out your words like small stones!
Then come here.
Come here and enjoy the flowers in my spring garden.
The two point outline is found right in the poem,
When you think of it we have two problems:
1. We are of little faith
2. We think too much
So what does this mean, we are of little faith?
Well, let’s look at the opposite; what would it look like if we did have faith?
To have faith is to retain something solid even when there appears to be nothing of substance to hold on to.
When the world starts to fall apart around you – you don’t.
For the past two years our world of normalcy has been undercut by covid, economic uncertainty, climate crisis, inflation and now war – so no wonder we feel a bit wobbly or find our faith shaken.
In the poem we are encouraged to look closely at the lily as an example of faith-like quality. This morning we have an Easter lily right here in the parlor to accompany the poem. Ann Sexton says the lilies open in the field like sails catching a breeze on a yacht as they navigate without aid of maps or clocks. The large white petals are like a white house and white clouds decorating the muddy world.
Faith is as natural as wind filling a great white sail and carrying us across rough waters without being too concerned that we don’t have a compass and we may not know exactly where we are going.
Faith is surprisingly natural and effortless if we don’t resist the process.
Faith is sufficient of itself. It doesn’t need extra gadgets or outside guidance.
Faith is pure and sincere as a white cloud overhead in the endless sky.
Nature is one of our best guides when we need assistance.
Spring is probably one of the best example of faith.
You can always trust spring.Even after the worst of winters or a late season-exit,
you know you can trust spring. It will come. You don’t have to do anything or speed-up anything, just allow it to be
and it will come. That is what faith looks like.
And the second point in the poem is we think too much.
She also goes on to say we talk too much(they kind of go together)
These are two things that, once again, undermine our basic faith quality.
We think too much and we talk too much.The poet says to spit out your words, the good ones and the bad ones, spit them both out like small stones in your mouth.
Don’t complain too much or don’t try to explain everything just sit quietly and contemplate the amazing wonder of this moment and the wonder of this worldand this incredible experience of being alive on this Easter Sunday.That in itself is more than enough.
In closing I want to read a short excerpt from last year’s Easter sermon. As I was re-reading the transcript I couldn’t help but notice how close we are to the same spot now, as we were a year ago. We were so hopeful of moving into the summer and leaving covid behind us in large part, but it never quite happened. We had a few in-person services, we had a grand Congregational Church celebration service in early August and then continual set-backs. The title of today’s message, “Arriving Again,” reflects this recurring cycle we find ourselves in. Here it is:
This year I think we need Easter more than ever. Easter is always a marker of transition from Winter to Spring, from dormancy to renewal, but this year, with the coronavirus pandemic dragging on – now into its second year, (now in its third year) and having lived with so many unknowns about the virus (its effects and dangers) and with the possibility of new variations and mutations to follow, all of this has taken a physical and mental toll on our collective well being.
So this year, I think we need Easter more than ever.
We need the reassuring message of new life arising out of what is passing away.
We need the encouraging message of continuance; our world may look different and how we live may change, but we will continue on.
We need the uplifting message of enduring hope, even when the future is unsure or unknown.
All of these are the much needed message of Easter.
As Christ is risen, so too are we to walk and live in the newness of life born anew each day.
So yes, I think we need Easter more than ever, and perhaps, even more than we did last year…Arriving again.
HERE IS THE SERVICE LINK FOR THIS WEEK’S SERVICE(Please note it won’t be active until 10AM on Sunday morning)
HERE IS THE ZOOM LINK FOR SUNDAY:
David Hutchinson is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Topic: UUHoulton zoom coffee hour and check-inTime: Apr 24, 2022 11:00 AM Eastern Time (US and Canada)
Join Zoom Meetinghttps://us06web.zoom.us/j/87615274870?pwd=VlVTeEp3MkFkYVBNRlIyQS96enMvZz09
Meeting ID: 876 1527 4870Passcode: 552288
Virtual Offering Plate
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UU Church of Houlton61 Military StreetHoulton, ME 04730
An article for Earth Day:
Waking Up in Dark Times
In order to shed light on the realities of climate change, says Ajahn Sucitto, first we should get more comfortable with the darkness.
I’ve been reflecting on the environmental crisis, and as I do, I find myself in the darkness, as I imagine we all are to some degree. And that says something, something we shouldn’t brush aside or try to make go away. This is a place for sharing truth—and the truth right now is darkness. I sometimes reflect on how I’ve been practicing meditation, morality, restraint, generosity, sharing, and simplicity for more than forty years with as much integrity as possible. I shouldn’t have to feel this bad, this hopeless, this helpless, this guilty. Yet when I look at this crisis, I’m in the dark.
Recently I’ve been on retreat in the woods at Citta-viveka Monastery. Back in the 1970s, we were very fortunate to have been gifted about 150 acres of woodland to look after. Much of it had been commercially planted with nonnative trees, and it had become void of wildlife. Consequently, we’ve been attending to it, trying to rewild it, and taking out invasive species. It took at least twenty-five years, but the woodland is making a comeback. The trees are growing, the birds have returned, and there are otters in the water. That makes me feel good—that’s something I was part of. The feeling is more than an idea; it arises because I can smell the fresh air and hear the life around me. I realize, That’s where I belong. I’m on this Earth. There’s love and respect for the natural world, as well as an attitude of restraint toward it. These mental qualities happen naturally through knowing where we are. We’re all in, and form a part of, a living system—it’s not just decorations, or a theme park, or a screen saver. It’s the real thing: it breathes, it’s messy. Something in me lights up at that.
The more fundamental extinction we’re facing is the extinction of truth. All the other forms of extinction come under that.
The other morning, as I was leaving my little hut at 5:00 a.m. to get to the meditation hall on time, it was dark, so I had to switch on a headlamp to find my way through the woods. The headlamp has various settings on it, so I thought that I’d turn the setting down, just keep it at “dim.” “Bright” is too harsh, too invasive. You don’t need to see that much apart from the little piece of land where your feet are walking. That’s all the light you need. After a while, I thought, Why not switch it off altogether? There are animals out there that live without headlamps. So I turned it off. It was very dark at first, but after standing there for a while, and getting used to it, the darkness softened into dimness. I heard and smelled the world around me; my skin started to prickle. And my feet began to find their way as I fumbled along. I came alive in the darkness.
As I was coming through the woods, I could sense I was approaching the lake. I heard the quacking of the ducks. Concerned I might walk into the lake, I switched my headlamp on. Quack-quack-QUACK-QUACK! The sound rose in intensity: the ducks—and all the other creatures—knew, Here comes “human.” The one who switches on the shining, hard light strapped to his head. The one who sticks his head out of Nature, looks at it, decides what he wants to do with it, manipulates it, and destroys what isn’t convenient for him. So everything runs away from us—as it should. Like this, we’re an enemy to the planet.
Individually, we probably don’t think of ourselves in that way. We regard ourselves as “animal lovers” and so on. But this view ignores the causes and conditions that have made us such a threat to the survival of the planet and its various life forms. The light of our civilization is so brilliant, so clear, that we assume we know how things are. The light enables us to move much faster, but we can’t fully see where we are, since the brightness blinds us to what’s outside our main beam. Moreover, it’s stuck on our heads.
That’s modern, industrial civilization, with all its amazing stuff and conveniences and our longer life expectancy. But do you think we’re living better lives? I don’t know. Western society, in particular, has moved very far ahead with this light. It was during the seventeenth century that the arrival of newly invented machines and devices began playing an important role in the day-to-day lives of a good number of people. And we’ve been increasingly dominating and exploiting everything ever since. For a long time, of course, there seemed to be sufficient resources for us to get away with it. After dominating the natural world, we got around to dominating other humans through conquest, colonialism, and slavery. We’d take over other people’s lands, all the while telling ourselves, “These people are inferior, they don’t count,” or “They’re not fully human anyway.”
We’ve been following that domination–exploitation paradigm for centuries in a trance induced by this clear, rational, narrow beam of light. And now the animals are gone or going, the forests are gone or going, the air is not so good, and a lot of the water is undrinkable. Much of the earth’s topsoil is disappearing because it’s been exhausted through intensive agriculture. Land is also being lost as the water levels rise. Insects—those nasty little bugs we mostly dislike—they’re vanishing too. And now we’re finding out that these insects are important for the welfare and reproduction of plant life, including the crops we eat. We’re eliminating those aspects of life that cannot speak (the earth, trees, animals, and even the air) as well as those who can: the tribespeople, the people of the land who’ve been pushed off or killed so somebody could get their minerals, their timber, their land. It’s our society, our culture, that has been doing this.
This is a lot to take in, isn’t it?
As the Himalayan glaciers melt down, the rivers that they feed will eventually dry up, and about two billion people won’t get their water. What are they going to do? There will be massive social unrest. The economy, it would seem, matters more than quite a few humans—more than the planet. It doesn’t make sense. Still, we tend to think of pieces of land like Britain or France or America as separate places that we can protectively exclude from the disaster “over there.” But what about the air, the water, and the climate in these places? We can’t say: “This is British air only for British people” or “a British climate that stops at Calais or Dover.” So we discover that we’re connected—we’re connected in a crisis.
At this point, we turn the headlamp off and it all opens. And we sense the enormous loss.
I respond to this loss where people feel it in their hearts. I teach ways and means of regaining heart. It’s called Dhamma—the natural order, or truth, that restores people’s personal well-being. Meditation is a big part of this; it gives people a chance to experience some calm. So, yes, I can offer some classical systems for calming the mind. And when I listen to why they’re not feeling peaceful—whether it’s because of abuse, alcohol, grief, anxiety, despair—focusing on the breath doesn’t cut through that for long. You need a more integrated approach, a fuller alignment to truth, to resolve the wide-ranging effects of the domination–exploitation paradigm.
And yet without meditation, where do we even begin to find a place to stand and speak the whole truth? The four noble truths teach that there is suffering, that it’s caused by human ignorance and selfishness, that it stops when these attitudes stop, and that we have to live in accordance with that. Maybe the truths of suffering and its origin don’t lead to the ceasing of suffering on the sociocultural level right now. But through meditation, through directly accessing the heart, one caen at least see and speak the truth of how suffering feels in this moment, where you experience it in your heart and body. A way of action can evolve from that, but the first step is to speak truth, feel truth, live truth.
This is what, by and large, the leaders of the power system do not speak. They do not speak the truth because they don’t feel the truth and don’t live the truth. So the more fundamental extinction we’re facing is the extinction of truth; all the other forms of extinction come under that. The sheer lies, duplicity, and distracting waffle that one is expected to listen to from apparent leaders is staggering. For the most part, very little they say is associated with integrity and compassion and mutual concern. The Earth is being treated as trash, as a product—as something we can mine and frack and douse with chemicals. And as the Earth becomes disposable, we do as well. That’s what it comes down to. Although things aren’t expressed in this way, that’s how much human life is worth to the power system: refugees, asylum seekers, migrants, the homeless, the disempowered, and so forth—they’re all just collateral debris on the margins of the Great Way Forward.
So as we speak the truth, maybe we can also seek truth from the darkness. That truth, I believe, will be spoken in a voice that knows what outrage and grief and fear and despair feel like, because they’ve been felt in the heart. That voice will come from a place of sensitivity, concern, and a willingness to sacrifice some time or money or convenience for the welfare of the planet. However small the sacrifice, the gesture of giving up part of what’s mine must be the gesture that’s made over and over again, on different levels. We have to learn to share with each other and with the rest of planetary life, to allow space for natural habitats, and to extend resources to the biosphere we have abused. This must be the direction that we as individuals encourage ourselves to follow. It is supported by the view that meditation offers, that all things are not “me,” not “mine.” To hold them as such is the cause of suffering.
We must turn on the heart-light, not just the headlight. We’ve learned to cover the heart with selfish attitudes and blind beliefs, and to be disconnected from the heart, from each other, and from truth. So we’ve lost that guiding light. Our thoughts swirl, and we become unbalanced. But when we recognize what’s happening, we can decide, I’ll be aware of selfishness, egocentricity, and bias, and investigate this as a cause of my suffering and your suffering. And then I’ll take the risk to let go of that cause, even a little. This means being wise about the imbalance and dysfunction that condition domination and exploitation and bring about so much misery and death. Breaking out of that must be the way out of suffering.
As I was walking along in the dark the other morning, I recognized that things are not absolutely dark. Even at nighttime, there’s some light that allows you to distinguish the shadows of the trees and the deeper darkness of the sky. The vague starlight makes it more like dusk. Dusk is a wonderful time of transition, when the certainties of our daylight lives are moderated. It’s a time when we can’t go so fast, when we have to listen more closely to what’s around us. When it’s twilight, you can no longer blindly follow your own will. You have to be more aware and alert. When you can’t see clearly, you can’t go at your normal speed. But where are we going anyway? Isn’t it as important, or more important, to go well—to live with integrity and respect? So maybe this twilight time is an opportunity to switch into having more attentiveness and respect for what’s here. When I turned off my light, I didn’t want to disturb the animals and the birds, and I found myself wanting to apologize to them for disturbing their terrain, and for the even greater disturbances that have transpired and continue to transpire on our planet. These are the attitudes that can arise in the period of dusk. That’s where we seem to be at this moment.
So what happens now? For the last twenty years or more, the science has been clear that our current lifestyle is having a devastating impact on the planet—and yet this has been mostly ignored. The papers from the Nobel laureates were just filed away. The prognosis was too inconvenient, so it’s been “business as usual.” It’s up to ordinary people, then, to step forward to support the Earth and its inhabitants. Let’s be kind, let’s be compassionate, let’s be moral—and truthful. Let’s accept our fear and work with it, accept our grief and regret and be guided by them. Let’s also accept our rage, but moderate it into quiet strength. And let’s come together. I don’t think there need be a manifesto here, or a great “this-is-the-way-forward” idea. Just be natural. If you’re looking to support nature, be natural. Let light from the heart guide you, because we can gather together around that light.
You’re probably seeing the news reports of the climate change presentations and demonstrations taking place across the world. You see all kinds of people—elderly, middle-aged, and young, nonconformists and businessmen—people who previously wouldn’t have met or shared dinner with each other. I’m heartened to see people rising up to ask for truth. Most of the presenters are not professional speakers or leaders. They have a different voice: there’s no waffle, no promising, no blathering. It’s direct. It has courage and bravely speaks the truth. This is the light of the heart.
At this time, many feel they have to undertake acts of civil disobedience and nonviolent disruption to highlight the need for government action. They are criticized for being disruptive, but when we clear-cut forests and douse the soil with pesticides, that’s even more disruptive—for many species, and for the water and air. When Indigenous people all over the world had their land taken away from them, when their cultures were destroyed so that the colonists and the industrial magnates could exploit their resources—that was disruptive. When they were slaughtered, or subjugated and deprived of dignity and rights because they didn’t fit into the Great Way Forward, that was more than disruptive—it was catastrophic. The destruction of the environment has been sanctioned, even at such cost to our fellow humans. And it’s still going on. Isn’t that disruptive? And as for the future, when the oceans are flooding our cities, when wildfires are incinerating farms and homes, and when the soil can’t produce food, that will be highly disruptive—more so than a delay in getting to work on account of a demonstration blocking the street.
It’s also important to get into what’s left of nature. Really get into it. Walk across a moor for an afternoon—be open to it, whatever the weather. Let yourself be affected by it. Because when you feel nature and adapt to it, when you let it adjust the way you walk, your speed, your directions and plans, then you come to love it. This is your teacher or your mother, and you love it. And what you love deeply, you’ll sacrifice for. You’ll also realize that you didn’t need all the things you’ve been accumulating over the years. We’ve had too much for too long; we’ve been living in a dream, and it’s turning into a nightmare. We have to come out of the dream in order to be whole—and truthful.
May this time wake us up, so that we hear the truth, the ancient truth, that we belong to this Earth—and that we have to look after it, and honor it.
ABOUT AJAHN SUCITTO
Ajahn Sucitto is a Theravada monk, born in Britain and ordained in Thailand in 1976. He served as abbot of Cittaviveka (Chithurst Buddhist Monastery) in England from 1992 to 2014, and remains based there as a teacher. He co-edits dhamma moon, a website featuring “practice-notes on the joys, struggles, humour and pain of the journey towards truth and freedom.” His latest book, Buddha-Nature, Human Nature is about our environment and the ways in which Buddhism can affect it.
The photo titled “Earthrise,” went on to become one of the most iconic images of the 20th century and is often credited for propelling the environmental movement that led to the first Earth Day in 1970.
Our good friend and neighbor John Richards passed earlier this week. He used to attend Quaker meeting with the Ropers, the Congregational Church and occasionally the UUs. We have several of his books that he generously donated to our library.
Prayer List
For those recovering from COVID-19 in the state of MaineLocal emergency personnel and hospital staff
For our state and national leaders as they respond to the current coronavirus crisis
For those working for social justice and societal change
Pray for peaceful action and democratic process in our nation
Pray for peace
Prayers for those who lost their home in the Houlton fire
The war in Ukraine is about to enter its third month
The Four Limitless Ones Prayer
May all sentient beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness.
May we be free from suffering and the root of suffering.
May we not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering
.May we dwell in the great equanimity free from anger, aggression and exclusion.
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