Sunday Service: The Path of Buddhism - January 11th, 2015

Editor's Note:  Along with a congregational service on Buddhism, our Religious Education programming is devoting time to learning more about this major world religion.  Youth in their Sunday classes will spend time this year on the religion, its tenets and practices - and adults are welcome to attend the five-week course led by Rev. Tom starting January 18th.  Details available HERE

The Path of Buddhism

By Reverend Tom Capo

Preached on 1/11/2015

How many of you know the story of Siddhartha Gautama or as he came to be known, the Buddha?  Well, just so we start in the same place, let me tell you the Cliff Notes version of his life.  His father was a king, who believed that Siddhartha would either become a great king or a great religious leader, and since he wanted his son to become a great king, he kept his son secluded on their castle grounds.  One day Siddhartha went outside the grounds, and saw old people, sad people, and sick people.  He was greatly moved by this exposure.  So he left the castle and started studying with great spiritual teachers and tried many spiritual practices to find how one might cope with the problems of this life.  Eventually, he found himself sitting under a Bodhi tree meditating, and he realized, that is, he became enlightened, that there was a path to deal with suffering in the world.  He realized that there will always be suffering; our lives have ups and downs—that is the way life is.  And suffering is not intended to convey a negative view of the world or of life.   Tibetan Buddhist monk, Pema Chodron (choe drun), wrote: “When we resist change, it’s called suffering. But when we can completely let go and not struggle against it, when we can embrace the groundlessness of our situation and relax into its dynamic quality, that’s called enlightenment, or awakening to our true nature, to our fundamental goodness.”  In order to deal with suffering, one needs to have a down-to-earth, reasonable understanding of suffering, and see the world as it is—not as we want it to be.  In other words one day or another there will be suffering in your life—so it is best to learn to cope with suffering without letting it control you.

Sunday Service: The Complexity & Simplicity of Hinduism - Sunday January 4, 2015

The Complexity and Simplicity of Hinduism

Preached on 1/04/2015

By Reverend Tom Capo

First let me share a few interesting facts about Hinduism. (Hindu.BZ.com and hindu facebook)

1. More than 10,000 years ago the institution of marriage was founded and put forth in practice by Hindus.

2. The Rigveda, one of Hindu's holy scriptures, is the oldest literature known to humanity.

3. According to the Vedas, lending money on interest is a bad Karma.  We will talk about Karma later. 

4. According to the Vedas, Om, Hinduism's most sacred sound, is the sound which was present at the time of creation of universe.

5. Parents, teachers, and food are considered next to God.  That makes sense to me somehow.

6. Because of the usefulness of rivers, they are highly revered in Hinduism. People call them mother. 

7. Hindus believe that we get the human body when our soul passes through 8,400,000 species of plants and animals.

I could go on with interesting facts or tell you about the gods and goddesses of Hinduism, or the social caste system--the societal level that each person is assigned based on their birth; or I could talk about the various ways that people practice their faith, or all the religious texts and their meaning to various sects of Hinduism; or I could talk about the various rituals, holidays, and pilgrimages.  If I chose to talk about even one of these in detail, we would be here for a very very long time.  You see Hinduism is a collective term applied to the many philosophical and religious traditions native to India.  In a strict sense there was no 'Hinduism' before modern times, although the sources of Hindu traditions are very ancient.  And Hinduism has no definite starting point that anyone has been able to discover. The traditions which flow into Hinduism may go back several thousand years and some practitioners claim that revelation in Hinduism is eternal; sound familiar?

Sunday Service: Irrational Hope - Sunday December 7th, 2014

Irrational Hope

Reverend Tom Capo

Preached Sunday December 7th, 2014

I offer this poem by Vineet Bansal for your reflection:

What hope means

Hope is bright shining light which keeps darkness at bay

Hope is gentle cold breeze on a hot summer day

Hope is to remain positive when going gets tough

Hope is seeking more when others think you had enough

What hope means

Hope is dreaming of tomorrow

Hope is simmering under sorrow

Hope is sparkles when tears are in our eyes

Hope is a beautiful thing & beautiful things never die

What hope means

Hope is as light as a feather

Hope keeps all of us together

Hope is ubiquitous and free of cost

Hope is the last thing ever lost..... 

David McRaney in his book You are not so smart wrote:

    “The misconception: If you are in a bad situation, you will do whatever you can to escape it.  The truth: If you feel like you aren’t in control of your destiny, you will give up and accept whatever situation you are in.

    In 1965, a psychologist named Martin Seligman started shocking dogs.  He was trying to expand on the research of Pavlov—the guy who could make dogs salivate when they heard a bell ring.  Seligman wanted to head in the other direction, and when he rang his bell, instead of providing food, he zapped the dogs with electricity.  To keep them still, he restrained them in a harness during the experiment.  After they were conditioned, he put these dogs in a big box with a little fence dividing it into two halves.  He figured if [he] rang the bell, [the dog] would hop over the fence to escape, but it didn’t.  It just sat there and braced itself.  They decided to try shocking the dog after the bell.  The dog still sat there and took it.  When they put a dog in the box that had never been shocked before, or had previously been allowed to escape, and tried to zap it—it jumped the fence.  [McRaney asserts:]      You are just like these dogs…The leading theory as to how such a strange behavior would evolve is that it often springs from all organisms’ desire to conserve resources.  If you can’t escape a source of stress, it leads to more stress, and this positive feedback loop eventually triggers an autonomic shutdown.  At its most extreme, you think if you keep struggling you might die.  If you stop [struggling], there is a chance the bad thing will go away.”  

Sunday Service: Food and Religion - November 23st, 2014

Food and Religion

By Reverend Tom Capo

Preached on November 23, 2014

    What is the significance of food as it relates to spirituality or religious tradition?  In Steve’s story, little Carrie travels to different homes looking for her brother, but instead finds various cultural dishes made with rice.  Just like Carrie, I spent much of last week exploring the ways in which various religions include food in their rituals and traditions.  In this journey from virtual house to house, I was surprised by what I feasted upon.

    Our journey starts with the Sikh religious home. The Golden Temple Complex is the Central worship place for Sikhs around the world, and it is in Punjab, India.  The Sikhs are serving a free communal meal known as Langar.  The concept of `Langar' is a very old tradition of great importance for the Sikhs.  This tradition was started by the first Sikh Guru, Guru Nanak. It was designed to uphold the principle of equality between all people regardless of religion, caste, color, creed, age, gender or social status.  This was a revolutionary concept in the caste-ordered society of 16th century India where Sikhism began. In addition to the ideals of equality, the tradition of Langar expresses the ethics of sharing, community, inclusiveness and oneness of all humankind.

    Let’s now head to the Christian religious home.  I grew up Catholic and I felt I had some knowledge of this religion and food.  Communion.  The little wafer and a sip of wine that is given out in remembrance of Jesus Christ.   According to the Catholic faith, this wafer and wine is transubstantiated, actually becomes, the body and blood of Jesus Christ.  In Protestant Christian traditions, this wafer and wine is either though to be consubstantiated, that is, becoming the body and blood of Christ while still being wafer and wine, or is thought of more metaphorically, not actually changing.  The wafer and wine are used to remember Jesus, his wisdom and life.  But what is interesting to me is that this tradition of bread and wine didn’t really become part of the worship service in the Catholic Church until the time of Constantine around 313 CE.  

Sunday Service: ISIS and the Middle East - November 16th, 2014

   ISIS and the Middle East

By Reverend Tom Capo  

11/16/14

    “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up swords against nation, neither shall they learn war anymore; but they shall all sit under their own vines and fig trees, and no one shall make them afraid.”  This quote from the Jewish Bible prophet Micah is a statement of hope for our world.  I wish I could say that this is happening right now, but I’d have to be blind to the many wars and atrocities that are occurring in so many places.  This image of the Tao with peace and justice represents the complexity that we face.  I believe all of us would prefer that the human race would sit together peacefully under vines and trees with no-one prodding us, through words or actions, to be afraid, but that, most emphatically, is not the world we live in.  How do we balance justice with peace? 

     What has been on my heart for some time has been the group ISIS, also known as ISL or the Islamic State or Isil or Daesh.  This splinter group from the Al-Queda network has taken over vast swaths of Iraq and Syria.  They are well armed, extremely well-funded, and have lots of people from around the world volunteering to fight for them.  They have used mass killings, beheadings, intimidation, and fear to control their own soldiers as well as the people in the cities that they have taken over.  As far as I know, they seem to have no interest in peaceful dialogue as a means to their ends.   Unitarian minister, Transcendentalist, orator, and poet, Ralph Waldo Emerson wrote: “Peace cannot be achieved through violence, it can only be attained through understanding.”  So how do we reach an understanding with people who have no interest in any understanding beyond, “join us or die?” How do we reconcile Emerson’s lofty philosophy with the fact of a violent fundamentalist group whose rampage must be halted?

    I am increasingly disturbed and, let’s be honest, afraid of what they are doing and what they might do.  I am having some flashbacks to feelings that I had during 9-11 when the twin towers were destroyed and the country was afraid—having experienced a  catastrophic foreign terrorist attack on United States soil for the first time in modern history.  I remember my irrational fear while interacting with a Middle-eastern stranger in a grocery store a few days after the attack.  Yet, after a time, I was able to find an inner peace. I chose not to live in fear; I chose not to give power over my behavior to a group that wanted me to be afraid; and I chose not to treat my Middle-eastern and Islamic brothers and sisters differently because of what some extremists chose to do.

     What’s helping me cope this time is an experience I had about 6 years ago, while serving in Cedar Rapids.  Tensions were high between the Jewish and the Islamic communities due to what was going on in the Middle East.  People here in the United States had family and friends who had been wounded or were in imminent danger due to the fighting in Israel.   The Rabbi at the time defended the right of the people of Israel to protect themselves against the bombings of innocents, and one of the Imams compared the Israelis’ persecution of the Palestinians along the West Bank to the Holocaust.  They took this dialogue to Facebook, and predictably, the tension between the two groups escalated.  A number of faith leaders in Cedar Rapids, of which I was one, decided to hold a Peace service on neutral ground, the Unitarian Universalist church that I was serving.  Both the Imam and the Rabbi were invited and attended.  They consciously put aside their reactive and inflammatory words.  The Rabbi said a beautiful, elegant, and loving prayer for the Palestinian children along the West Bank.  Then the Iman stood up, thanking the Rabbi for his words while he shook his hand, and then prayed for peace for all the people who live in Israel.  Some of you may be sitting there thinking, “so what? That didn’t solve the conflict in the Middle East.”  And you’re right, it didn’t.   But it did bring peace to our own multi-national community.  In a sense, we thought globally and acted locally, and the result was peace between the Jewish and Islamic communities in Cedar Rapids.

    The Rabbi prayed for the children, just as we did today in our prayer.  But again I wonder what is the balance between protection and love—how do we know when we go too far in one direction, thinking of protection, and believing that we are at war primarily because we are safeguarding the world for our children or our children’s children?  Mother Teresa wrote:  “If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”  The Rabbi and the Imam remembered that we belong to one another, but there are so many in our world who forget.

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.

Sunday Service: Environmental Justice - October 19th, 2014

Environmental Justice

By Reverend Tom Capo

10 19 2014

The story of Jonah and the Very Big Fish is memorable.  When I was young all I remember is Jonah getting eaten by the whale and traveling around the sea.  But as you heard there is much more to this story.  Jonah didn’t want to help or warn the people of Nineveh because he didn’t feel they were worthy—they were wicked and an enemy of Israel.  Eventually he gave in and passed on the message and the people changed.  Now I am not Jonah nor are you.  But aren’t there times, when you feel like feel like a Jonah?  You try to tell others about the need to care for mother earth.  You do it over and over and again, until you just get tired.  You don’t think people are hearing you anyway, so why tell them one more time?  Like Jonah, you come to think of those people who refuse to listen as enemies.  People who aren’t helping mother earth, who are denying climate change, who aren’t going to listen to you anyway because they’re just, well, “wicked.”  You find no motivation within yourself to keep speaking truth to power, because power just doesn’t care.  So where can you find the motivation to continue working for environmental justice?