Sunday Service: How Do We Help Each Other? May 24th, 2015

How Do We Help One Another

By Reverend Tom Capo

Delivered on 5/24/2015

      A lot of things drew me to DuPage Unitarian Universalist Church last year: your hunger for social justice/social action causes, your hands-on involvement with PADS and Bridges, helping homeless individuals and families, your eagerness to embrace the use of technology on Sunday mornings.  Another quality that made this church stand out for me was the way you take care of each other, and in particular, the Pastoral Ministry Associates, or PMA, Committee.  Revitalized in 2012, the PMA have been able and effective partners in ministry.  They call people, write cards, monitor our Joys and Concerns Facebook page, and generally reach out to the people here in this community who are in crisis, in need, in pain.  This past year our PMA Committee created an on-call schedule to keep track of and follow up with the many members and friends in need.  And one of the things I love about this congregation is that many of you have formally or informally reached out to people in need in this congregation to give them help and/or support.  This winter and spring in particular, have seen an uptick in the number of members and friends who have needed some support, and I have been so gratified and impressed by the consistently nurturing and caring responses this community offers.  DuPage Unitarian Universalist Church is truly a community of love and truly understands how important expressing that love for one another is.  

      And yet, this community, we, are not like one of Shakespeare’s fictional characters.  Our bounty is not “boundless as the sea.”  And so many times, though we love truly and deeply, we don’t find that “the more [love we] give… the more [we] have” to give.  While there is truth in how our hearts can grow as we share our love with one another and with people in need, unlike a fictional character, our love is not infinite.  We are human, and like it or not, we have limits.  

Many of us have been working long and hard this year helping members and friends who are in need, and I’ve wondered about whether some of us might experience some compassion fatigue.

“You cannot say, I need you

So you say, I like your shoes

I cannot say, I see your gods have failed you

So I say, your eyes look so sad

You fold your arms, the sentences for my crimes is life

I lean in, let’s look at those chains

You look past me, eyes wide, I am alone

And the night is coming for me

My heart pounds

Knowing what waits there

Your breath stops to keep

The next door locked and shut

But my left foot

Is already in it

Outside the trees

Are restless with light

In the settling quiet

Each filament of dust

Streaming in from earth or star

Delivers us, mote by mote

From the hour of undoing

Into the hour of mercy

On what wings

We cannot say”

This poem was written by psychotherapist, mystic, and poet Frances Hatfield. 

      I want to be clear that we will always have people in need in the congregation and we should be willing as a community to step up and be there to help them.  This sermon is not about telling people who are in pain, who are suffering, to “suck it up.”  This sermon is about how we care for others and care for ourselves.

Sunday Service: Spiritual Practices - November 9th, 2014

Spiritual Practices  

By Reverend Tom Capo  

11/9/2014

 

As one of my spiritual practices, I read and reflect on a number of passages from different religious traditions.  Many of the passages I receive by email each day.  On October 26, I received this passage from Eknath Easwaran, the founder of the Blue Mountain Center of Meditation: “Without a tank full of gas, no car can drive very far. The mind, too, needs a full tank of vitality to draw on for patience, resilience, and creativity. Filling that tank every morning is one of the most practical purposes of meditation. The test of your meditation is: How long can you be patient with those around you? In the beginning, you should aim to make it at least to noon acting like the proverbial angel.  Most of us, however, even if we start with a full tank, have little control over the thousand and one little pinpricks that drain vitality as we go along: worry, vacillation, irritation, daydreaming. By lunchtime the indicator may be hovering around empty.  Then it is that you have to be acutely vigilant. The tank is nearly empty, but by sheer effort and deft defensive driving, and using the mantram, you manage to coast through to the end of the day without any serious accidents.  The more effort you make, the more endurance you gain. The next day you may find the tank itself a little larger; you start the next day with a greater capacity for love and patience than before.” A spiritual practice, at least from my perspective, serves a number of purposes:  filling our vitality tank, grounding us in the truest part of ourselves, opening us up for enlightenment or deeper understanding of ourselves and the world, and connecting us to something greater than our own desires, needs, and feelings.

Ok, so, those are some purposes, but what the heck is a spiritual practice?  Well, let’s start with characteristics and then consider a definition that might be useful, that might help us to decide what spiritual practice we could incorporate into our lives or what characteristics we might add to our current practices.