Lay Led Sermons at UUCOB
New Year's Hope by Janice Lane
When Nancy asked if I’d do this service for the
first of January, she suggested the god Janus, who
is symbolized with 2 faces - one looking forward,
one looking back. As we begin another year of our
lives, I’d like for us to take a bit of time to see
where we’ve been and where we’re heading as a
congregation and as individuals. Our interdependent
web of life is a tenet of our chosen faith and we
are all aware that what each of us does affects the
whole of life. As a congregation, we’ve been through
a lot this past year and it has affected each of us
in a different way. We’ve had some losses - the
death of one of our founding members, Virginia
Valpey; the retirement and relocation of our
minister George Smith and his wife Joanne, several
of our older members leaving and moving into
retirement communities, to name just a few. I know
many of you have suffered losses in your own lives
of one sort or another that you’ve had to come to
terms with. Losses are seldom easy, but a part of
our life and our growth nonetheless. We’ve also
experienced some joys over the past year. We still
have our wonderful Florence Burnham with us, our
miracle. With the departure of our minister, we’ve
grown together and matured as a group, becoming more
integrated with one another. We’ve come to
understand and draw upon each others strengths in a
very healthy way. I can’t stress to you how
beautiful this has been to see. I’ve seen other
groups tear apart into factions trying to gain power
at times like this, and it has been just the
opposite for us. We have pulled together and found
our common ground because it’s important for us to
continue as a viable congregation. At our workshop
session with Ed Piper, we got some ideas and some
focus about where we want to go as a group. We
agreed to call a new minister and this process has
been going forward. I would like to say that for me
personally, this has been a good experience working
with the search committee; it’s been a process of
understanding these folks on a much deeper level,
and these folks take the job you entrusted us with
very seriously. The surveys we completed as part of
the search process gave us an idea of the dynamics
of our group, which have changed drastically since
our last search. We’ve seen younger people coming
and joining our ranks, and more importantly,
stepping up to take leadership roles. We’ve seen a
diversity of beliefs coming in, and being accepted
and embraced by the congregation. Something else so
very important, is the way so many of us volunteer
in areas that we don’t always get seen or
acknowledged. I thank you each and every one for
your contributions - we would not be able to
function without the work that’s done by our often
underappreciated volunteers. We’ve done well over
the past year.
What about the year to come? This is the first
day of it and our attitudes and outlooks will decide
our course, knowing that, again, our interdependent
web tells us that each choice we make affects the
whole. We have some challenges ahead in the new
year. Our RE program has been struggling and it’s so
important for us to have quality programs and
instructions for our youngsters. They will hear many
other voices in the community about what is right
and wrong religiously - don’t we owe it to them to
give them clear, unbiased choices about their
spiritual lives? I urge any of you who haven’t
worked with the children to sign up for one Sunday,
a block of Sunday lessons, or just to be on the
playground with the little ones sometimes to
experience their joy of living and playing. In all
likelihood, we’ll be calling a new minister for our
congregation. The search committee will probably be
ready to advertise by sometime in February. This
will mean a whole new dynamic for us as a group and
there will be an adjustment period. Thankfully, the
search committee is a diverse grouping of several
different paths of thinking and belief, so that the
likelihood of finding someone suitable for all is
very good. No minister will be able to please all of
the people all of the time, and it’s good for us to
remember that and be accepting and tolerant as this
new person joins us and finds their place in our
community. Finances are another challenge for us.
Many of us have limited incomes and are giving as
much as we can. Perhaps we can find some new and
novel ways to fund-raise for our church community.
We have lots of creative thinkers here and have
already seen some new approaches such as the 50-50
raffle in conjunction with our awesome yard sale.
Another challenge for us is attracting new members.
We live in a very transient area, and it’s hard to
find new members who will stay for the long term. I
know there are other people in the community that
would love to know that we’re here and what we stand
for, it’s just a matter of getting the information
out to those folks. In order for us to ever have a
full time minister, we need to have more members.
One of the things we can do is to remember that when
we have visitors, it’s important for us to make them
feel welcome. What I do feel for sure will happen
this year is that we will move forward and grow
together as a cohesive group. I think the progress
we’ve made to make our congregation cohesive over
the time since George left is remarkable and I look
forward to seeing it continue. Each of you has
played a part in this and will continue to add your
own unique gifts. I also look forward to spending
time with this group of people in the congregation.
As a whole, we are very loving and supportive of one
another and I know this will continue. It’s the joys
and not the challenges that encourage us to stay
together and go forward as a group. One of the
things that stood out to me as I compiled the
surveys was that on nearly every one I looked out,
one of the reasons people continued to come was
because of the fellowship. We like each other and
choose each week to come and be part of this group.
This brings me to the third part of this service,
interrelated with the first two, finding peace on
earth and peace in our own lives in the new year. I
remember seeing this bumper sticker years ago and
thinking, wow, what a wonderful visualization to
have (Visualize World Peace). Not long after, I saw
this other bumper sticker (Visualize Whirled Peas),
which really made me laugh, but basically had the
same message as long as you don’t take it literally!
During the holiday season, you see this phrase,
“Peace on Earth” on many cards, advertisements, and
other things. It seems we dwell on this for a little
while during the holidays and then, many times, just
throw our hands up after a while wondering how one
person can make a difference. How then, can our
interdependent web help us bring peace into the
world all year long? I remember feeling, as a little
girl and a teen, that the whole concept of peace on
earth was so huge that I just couldn’t wrap my head
around it. Yes, it was something I wanted to happen,
but how could one little girl make a difference in
such a huge challenge as that? I have come to find,
as I have grown and matured, that peace is a daily
ritual of everyday life. The things we do in our
average existence are the things that have the most
profound difference in the lives of other people and
how we treat each other as human beings. There are a
couple of quotes from Mother Theresa that I think
sum up a lot of it: “All works of love are works of
peace.” and “If we have no peace, it is because we
have forgotten that we belong to each other.” The
interdependent web at work. And Mother Theresa lived
that every day. She created a ripple of hope and of
peace in the lives she touched. That’s one of the
things I learned were so important in life -
creating ripples. If you are rude to the clerk at
the grocery store because you’re in a bad mood, what
kind of ripple effect have you created? If, on the
other hand, the clerk at the grocery store is having
a bad day and snaps at you, if you respond with love
and kindness instead of defensiveness, you may
change the way that person is looking at their day -
or even their life. We belong to each other - we are
parts of the whole - what we do and say DOES make a
difference in the web of life. The way we treat
other people, or any living thing, sends ripples of
that vibration outward. If we want peace in the
world, we have to make sure we are sending out
ripples and vibrations of love, kindness,
forgiveness, and acceptance. Another thing we can do
to bring peace into the world is to be lighthouses.
Lighthouses stand tall and proud and light the way
for mariners to find safe harbor. The captains of
ships don’t come to the lighthouses when they land
to thank the lighthouse for showing them the way,
they just go on about their business, but able to do
so because they were shown the way. We, as
lighthouses, must shine the lights of our
peacefulness and goodness for others to see in a
world where there may be darkness and fear. We
affect people’s lives every day without being aware
of it. My mother used to tell me that people pay
more attention to what you do than what you say, so
it was important to always behave in a way that you
wanted people to emulate. Of course, I haven’t
always done that, none of us have, but it’s a good
aspiration to try and live up to. I think as a
church family, we are a lighthouse of tolerance,
acceptance, and caring for our community. If we
can’t find peace within our own walls, how can we
expect it from the larger community? I have seen a
trend within our ranks toward conflict resolution in
a peaceable way, and not just tolerance, but
acceptance of our diversity. What a wonderful
message to send out to our larger community - this
is a group that values and works toward peace and
harmony each day. What a glowing light on that
lighthouse! But before any of this can happen, each
of us must find peace within ourselves. That is
often the hardest thing to accomplish. Loving the
self, finding peace within the self. It’s easier to
ignore our own restless tides than to deal with
them. Until we do, we can’t truly send out the
ripples or be the lighthouses. We have to be those
first to ourselves. How can we do that? Just some
suggestions:
- set aside some time for reflection on a
regular basis to get your bearings and see where
you’ve been and where you’re going. It’s hard in
our busy lives to do this, but I think it’s
absolutely essential for our well being;
- try and really love yourself - pay attention
to what your good attributes are and try to
positively change the ones that are holding you
back;
- practice gratitude in your everyday life, it
brings peace to our lives to be able to count
our blessings;
- practice forgiveness - not only with other
people but with ourselves. We’re often our own
worst critics and are much harder on ourselves
and our faults than other people are on us. But
if there is a conflict in your life, just the
act of forgiving the other person, whether or
not they reciprocate, can bring peace to your
own heart;
- take care of your health and your body -
it’s hard to find peace when there is illness or
disease. Do whatever you can to rectify whatever
health and wellness issues are in your life;
- don’t forget to have fun - it’s hard to be
peaceful when life is so serious day in and day
out. Having fun should not be a luxury but an
integral part of your healthy life as much as
anything else;
- share yourself and your resources with
others. Serving others as a volunteer in
whatever cause is close to you, being a friend
to someone when they need it, things like that
bring love and peace into our lives;
- and finally, accept things in your life as
they are right now and be at peace with them.
That doesn’t mean you have to like everything
that’s going on, but whatever is there is a
culmination of events that led up to your life
being exactly where it’s at right now. Bless
those events and bless this part of your life,
and know that you can move beyond it and make it
better. Your own actions determine the course of
your life - you CAN bring your own peace.
I’d like to close with this verse by Lao Tzu:
If there is to be peace in the world,
There must be peace in the nations.
If there is to be peace in the nations,
There must be peace in the cities.
If there is to be peace in the cities,
There must be peace between neighbors.
If there is to be peace between neighbors,
There must be peace in the home.
If there is to be peace in the home,
There must be peace in the heart.
So be it. Amen.
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