The Top Five Regrets of the Dying<\/a>.
<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe first regret is this: \u201cI wish I\u2019d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.\u201d
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\u201cI wish I\u2019d had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me.\u201d
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The regret seems to be that I knew all along who I truly am. But I let others define me and lived the life they expected, rather than the life I should have lived.
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But for that to be true there would have to truly be some essential you that you could separate from the expectations of others. Sure you could say that I took over my father\u2019s rug store because that\u2019s what was expected of me, but deep down I always knew that I was supposed to play sax in a jazz band. OK. Maybe saxophone feels more real to you. But where did that urge to play saxophone come from? Wasn\u2019t that also culturally conditioned? Where did you hear jazz? What if you hadn\u2019t heard jazz, then what would have happened to that song the morning star sang to you at your birth? What if the saxophone hadn\u2019t been invented?
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The culture gives us a lot of boxes, but it gives us a lot of gifts, too, like jazz, and saxophones, and rug shops. Other people do have a lot of expectations of us. But aren\u2019t their expectations also part of who we are?
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The other four regrets of the dying are these. In case you were wondering:
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\u201cI wish I hadn\u2019t worked so hard.\u201d
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\u201cI wish I\u2019d had the courage to express my feelings.\u201d
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\u201cI wish I had stayed in touch with my friends.\u201d
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And lastly, \u201cI wish that I had let myself be happier.\u201d
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So here\u2019s to a life without regrets.
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From the problems of personal identity, we then moved, this month, to looking at the issue of corporate identity. Who are we?
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That\u2019s a spiritual issue, too. Many spiritual questions wonder about the nature of humanity. Are we good or evil? Are we mortal or will something of our personality survive our physical deaths? Are we a special and deliberate creation or are we the accidental outcome of the same natural process that formed the rest of the universe and other living things?
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But there\u2019s another more prosaic reason to ask the question of corporate identity. Who are we? Who are we as a congregation? What\u2019s our identity? Or more accurately, Who are you?
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You may have noticed in my last couple of sermons that I\u2019ve avoided answering that question for you. I have my observations, but mostly I feel that it isn\u2019t my place to answer that question for you. You should ask that question and come to your own answers.
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Who are you? What is the character of this congregation? What is your personality? What are your particular gifts and challenges, strengths and needs? What song did that morning star sing when this church was born? What song are you singing now? If you had the courage to be who you truly are, beyond the expectations of others, who would you be? Who are you?
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Instead of giving you my answers to those questions, over the last couple of weeks, I\u2019ve given you a couple of answers not specific to this congregation but generic to Unitarian Universalism as a whole. Just to get you thinking. Who are we, as Unitarian Universalists, generally?
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Two weeks ago, I said that that one of the distinctive characteristics of Unitarian Universalism is that we are a church that searches for the truth. We prize the truth. We test the truth. We \u201ccherish our doubts\u201d, as the Unitarian Universalist minister Bob Weston says, because we know that \u201cdoubt it the attendant of truth.\u201d We probe and ponder and go back to question again where other religious have long satisfied themselves with traditional answers.
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Then last week, I proposed that another of the core characteristics of Unitarian Universalism is that we Side With Love.
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Other religions connect to love, of course. It\u2019s not unique about us, but it\u2019s true about us, that Unitarian Universalists connect in our faith to love in all its forms: to the passionate expressive form of love called Eros in our work for justice and cultural change; to the compassionate, respectful form of love called Philio in our fellowship and community; and to the divine, universal form of love called Agape, in our worship, in our theology of the interdependent web, and in the theology that gives us half our name: Universalism.
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A third characteristic of Unitarian Universalism, is our value of democracy. Democracy is the fifth of our seven principles. The day before the Federal holiday of President\u2019s Day is a good day to talk about this third answer to the question \u201cWho are we as Unitarian Universalists?\u201d We are people who value democracy.
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The actual language of our fifth principles is, \u201cThe right of conscience and the use of the democratic process in our congregations and in society at large.\u201d
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\u201cThe right of conscience\u201d means the ability to hold our own ideas and opinions. To resist a decision forced upon us by the culture, or by a tradition. Right of conscience comes from that same sense that there is something essential in each of us that can act freely from the other parts of ourselves that are shaped by outside forces. \u201cThe right of conscience\u201d speaks to the Transcendentalist notion that each of us has a direct connection to a source of truth that speaks to us personally, unmediated by tradition, scripture, or a priest.
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\u201cRight of conscience\u201d means that when we feel something to be true, in our bones, or in our soul, or where-ever that knowing is felt, that we should trust that feeling, and that we should speak our truth, and follow its lead, even though the rest of the community is going another way.
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We admire those people who act from a moral conviction. We applaud when a voice of truth critiques the evil in a social system. The brave ones who speak truth to power. The conscientious objector who refuses to participate and accepts the consequences.
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But there\u2019s a danger, there, too, isn\u2019t there? A danger in the person who feels they have a direct connection to a moral judge who tells them personally what is right and what is wrong. A danger to community when every person is forever empowered to go their own way, and when asserting your individuality, and criticizing the larger community is a way to earn attention and praise.
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The other piece of our fifth principle is, \u201cthe use of the democratic process in our congregations and in society at large.\u201d
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The democratic process creates from the right of conscience a process to create communal decisions. In a democracy, everyone gets to share their wisdom, their opinion, their truth. And then we make a collective decision from individual voices.
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The word democracy means, rule of the people. Demos, the people. Kratos, rule.
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Which people? Most democracies limit the \u201cdemos\u201d to certain qualified people. Adults, not children, for instance. Citizens, not foreigners, that makes sense. In this American democracy originally only free, white, men, who owned property. Still, today, many Americans are denied the right to vote either by law, such as felons; or denied the ability to vote by regulations that create barriers that have greater impact on the poor, or the non-English speaking, or the physically isolated and so on.
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What if we don\u2019t all agree? Is it just majority rule or does democracy require consensus? Or are there different standards for different kinds of decisions? 50% plus one for some. Two thirds for others? All twelve jurors most agree. One senator can mount a filibuster.
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Which decisions? Is every person asked every time for their vote on every decision? That doesn\u2019t seem practical. So direct democracy is rare. More often the people elect representatives. The representatives do the job of governing, granted authority by the people to represent them. And then the people can go back to doing their jobs, like selling rugs and playing saxophone in a jazz band.
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How to govern? People can\u2019t, all of them at once, sit on the throne. So what institutions will we need? How are they organized, financed, given authority, held accountable?
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And one more question, which I\u2019ll come back to in a moment, \u201cWhy democracy?\u201d Why \u201crule of the people\u201d instead of some other system?
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But first notice that all of those questions of democracy apply in churches as well as in nations.
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Which people? In this church we have members. We also have a number of people who prefer to remain friends. Friends of the church. There is a legal difference between members and friends. Members are allowed to vote. Only members can serve on your Search committee, or on your Board of Trustees. Only members will be asked to vote on calling your next settled minister,. Church members are also members of the legal corporation of the church. Friends are not.
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Friends participate in our programs, and many friends are very active and generously supportive of the church. But the legal difference between members and friends, has to do with a spiritual difference between membership and friendship. Members have made a spiritual investment, a psychic giving of themselves. They are members of a shared body. Like the relationship you have with the members of your body as opposed to your relationship with your friends. Members step in to the community with a full-hearted assent and an unreserved energy of both responsibility and vulnerability to this body.
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What if we don\u2019t all agree? Most congregational decisions can be made by simple majority. But in practice we seldom have votes that are that divided. Usually we avoid bringing an issue to a vote if we sense that it would be controversial. When you have your vote to call your next settled minister most ministers wouldn\u2019t accept your call unless your vote was nearly unanimous.
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Which decisions? This is often a troubling question in a congregation. Church communities are small enough that it is possible to ask the whole congregation to participate in many decisions. But does the congregation as a whole really make better decisions than does the board or some other smaller group authorized by the congregation to assume responsibility for certain tasks? Sometimes, in the name of \u201cdemocracy\u201d a congregation will insist on congregational meetings, hearings, surveys, referendums. Sometimes that\u2019s useful. Other times, it’s a sign of an inability to trust. Or a sign that some persons want the power to control decisions without wanting to accept the accountability of elected leadership.
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How to govern? Churches like other non-profit organizations are governed by a Board of Trustees. And we follow a ruling document called Bylaws.
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And lastly, that question I said I would come back to. Why democracy? Why rule of the people instead of some other governance system?
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Why not an oligarchy? Which is rule of the few, the \u201coligos\u201d. Which few? Why not an aristocracy? Which is rule of the best the \u201caristos.\u201d But then, again, which best?
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Which of us doesn\u2019t consider ourselves in some way, the best? Which of us doesn\u2019t imagine that our direct connection to that divine source of wisdom, our \u201cconscience\u201d is more reliable, and better equipped to make better decisions, than most others? Isn\u2019t there something broken in our democracy (you most surely have asked) when someone like our current President could be elected? And maybe if that\u2019s the kind of President they are going to elect maybe those people shouldn\u2019t be trusted to vote. Right?
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And then there\u2019s old Abe, saying, \u201cWhy should there not be a patient confidence in the ultimate justice of the people! Is there any better or equal hope in the world?\u201d That\u2019s from his 1861 Inaugural address.
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Here are some words in defense of democracy from another Presidential inaugural address, \u201cWhat truly matters is not which party controls our government, but whether our government is controlled by the people.\u201d Here\u2019s the next sentence, \u201cJanuary 20th 2017, will be remembered as the day the people became the rulers of this nation again.\u201d
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Which people?
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Plato recommended an aristocracy ruled by philosopher-kings. Wouldn\u2019t that be refreshing?
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But here is the flaw in \u201cthe right of conscience\u201d that \u201cthe use of the democratic process\u201d solves. Or at least addresses.
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Is there really a universal source of wisdom? If such a wisdom source exists are we connected to it in a way where we can hear it speak clearly? As we hear, and as we consider what we have heard, are we each so free of bias, and so, in all ways, mentally and morally sound, that each of us can then faithfully follow the instructions the wisdom source gives us? Couldn\u2019t at least some of us, or any of us at least some of the time, truly think we\u2019ve plugged in to divine wisdom and truly be mistaken?
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Yes. Of course. Because we\u2019re human.
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So how do we discern whether that wisdom we think we\u2019re receiving really is divine, and not demonic, that we\u2019ve heard correctly, that the wisdom we have is correctly applied to the particular question at hand, and that we\u2019re faithful to the wisdom not shading the message for our own advantage or prejudices?
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We do that by bringing our individual intuitions to a community, like this congregation. We discuss. We explore. We test. We debate. It\u2019s what I call, \u201cthe corrective of the community.\u201d We don\u2019t stand alone, or apart. We don\u2019t adopt the role of outside critic, who won\u2019t also accept the role of owner of the organization and its decisions.
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We bring our individual wisdom. And then other folks say here, \u201cthat doesn\u2019t sound right to me.\u201d Or ask, \u201cDid you consider this other idea?\u201d They offer, \u201cHere\u2019s what I think I know.\u201d And the individual is encouraged to think again. To pray again. To listen again. Until minds and hearts soften and bend toward something like a common center.
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Yes. Communities, too, can be deluded. Communities have for centuries persisted in claiming as truth beliefs and practices that we now consider abhorrent. And yes, it is true, that sometimes the moral hero standing alone among the crowd is the one who has the truth, and whose voice is the necessary condition that begins to sway the crowd and change the culture.
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But it is the principle of democracy, and the fifth principle of Unitarian Universalism, that the best way to get the most truth, the certain way where every voice has a chance to be heard, is to allow every voice to speak.
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As Winston Churchill said, \u201cMany forms of Government have been tried, and will be tried in this world of sin and woe. No one pretends that democracy is perfect or all-wise. Indeed it has been said that democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time.\u2026\u201d
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Enjoy your President\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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