Rev. C. Scot Giles, D.Min., LLC

Over the years I received many requests to post the text of some of the sermons I have given at churches of my denomination. I've decided to go ahead a do that with a selection of my best pulpit work. The text of the sermon will be at the start of the Blog entry, and you will find service details (readings, prayers, etc.) at the end.

My sermon this morning is a “theme” sermon in my ministry. It is a theme I believe in and talk about all the time. Simply put, I think it is important to live one’s life as a Positive Person rather than a Negative Person. Easy to say, but hard to do.

Negative people trouble me. They can bring me down when I want to feel up, and I believe they are hurting their own mental, spiritual and physical health by being negative.

Mostly, they bother me because I know that without constant vigilance over my own mood and outlook, I would be one of them.

I am a man with a melancholic personality. A positive frame of reference about my life does not come easily to me. It is something I work at every day. So this morning I will speak about the power of a positive expectation and the danger of a negative one.

When I speak about Negative People I do not mean people who are suffering a bereavement over a loss or death. Bereavement is a healthy, temporary state in the mind. It hurts, but it passes and often deepens us and brings with it a wisdom.

When I speak about Negative People I do not mean people who are biochemically depressed. Such people suffer from a treatable chemical imbalance in the brain that we have ways to help in most cases. This is an illness, and no one chooses to be depressed.

No, I refer to those people who make a choice to consistently expect things to go poorly. Physician-author July Orloff in her book Positive Energy uses specific names to describe them. Perhaps you will recognize some of the names: ”the sob sister, the guy who is always mad, the blamer, the drama queen, the constant talker and the person who always seems to require endless help.” They are people who always whine and complain but who do not act.

“The fool says, ‘I have no friends’ (Sirach 20:16) and for good reason.

Of the popular shows making the rounds of stages this summer, my favorite is Celtic Thunder, a show composed of five male soloists. They do music with a traditional Celtic flair, performing on a special stage that resembles an old stone pathway.

The song I like the best is “Heartland,” an updating of a traditional hymn. Chanting the words “Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy” in Gaelic, they intertwine that chant with a fisherman’s prayer to protect the crew of a ship from the storm and other perils of the “vasty deep.”

It’s a bold song, and when performed well, the singers put on an expression of stoic pride; which is fitting as it is a song sung by men for centuries as they would go out onto the big ocean in little boats, and were in peril of their lives if the weather turned.

I like the song because of it’s bravery and positive energy. This is a song sung by people who know their lives are full of risk, yet who face that risk with a calm mind and a radical trust that they will come through it well. They are not negative people.

Figuring out how not to become negative in our world can be a challenge.

There is no such thing as safety. If the recent atrocity at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church has taught us nothing, it has taught us that no place is completely safe. This isn’t news. We all really knew that. But most of us live our lives with the comforting illusion that we’re going to live forever and that bad things do not happen to good people.

We know that’s not true, but it’s comforting to think. And so we think it, and are comforted, except when events show us how foolishly wrong it is.

Yet the knowledge that no one is safe weighs on the mind and burdens the soul. It changes us. Some of us find courage inside to move forward regardless while others find the dark too much handle. They become fearful and negative. As Michael Pritchard quipped, “Fear is that little darkroom where negatives are developed.”

The problem with negative people is that they seem to be everywhere. I’ve met them and so have you. They are the people who, no matter what, can always find something wrong with every good idea. They are the people who have a knack for bringing others down, and sometimes it seems like the illumination in a room grows dimmer when they enter.

They are damaged souls. New studies in brain development have showed that the brain is constantly wiring and re-wiring itself all our life long. When we are very young this process goes on intensely. When older, it slows, but still continues. New synapses form. New dendritic linkages fashion themselves as the biocomputer of our brain strives to adapt to changing environments and stressors. Nerve cells pick up and hold a slight biochemical charge so that they will fire on less stimulation than nerve cells right alongside. Over time, these pathways become reinforced and very strong.

The process was named “kindling” by Dr. Herbert Benson of Boston’s Deaconess Hospital. It means that our brain is changing all the time, but it does not always change for the better. Put a human in a painful or stressful place and his or her brain will change to adapt to it. But the more that happens the harder it is to think new thoughts or feel new feelings. The habits of a lifetime etch themselves into the hardware of our nervous system, and some get trapped there.

In a rabbi’s story a troubled soul had died and gone to Heaven. Taking pity upon him, a Guardian Angel told him that as he was now in Heaven, he could have anything he wanted. All he had to do was ask. The man thought and asked if, please, he could have a hot roll with butter every morning. It would be so good to be able to have a hot roll with butter every day.

And, said the Rabbi, all the Angels in Heaven wept that a human spirit had become so worn and tired that this was the most it could ask for; that this was all it could dream.

Negative people become negative because they discovered it was a way to adapt to the stress in their lives. As we live in a stressful world, over time the negative people become legion.

And sometimes, they are us.

Have you ever had a time of negativity? I have. It’s almost the default setting for the human brain. Of the 200 or so chemicals your brain uses to regulate its functioning only about 60 are critically important. Of those 60 chemicals, 45 can create the experience of fear. Any experience you have that is not accompanied by fear is the work of the remaining 15 chemicals.

Think about that. Only 15 out of 60 neuropeptides account for anything other than fear and negation. Your brain has a strong biochemical predisposition to favor fearful and negative expectation. So you do it, and so do I.

Negativity is the default setting of the human brain. Every one of us looks out at the world through smoke-colored glasses and every one of us sees the world in a distorted way. The only way to get a clear view of the world is to adopt a discipline of putting a positive spin on incoming data. That’s not wishful thinking. That’s not optimism. It is merely coping for the biochemical predisposition of the brain we have inherited. A decision to expect positive things instead of negative just gets us back to the baseline of a clear view of the world.

It’s not hard to imagine why the fearful brain has evolved. Fear makes a creature cautious. Cautious creatures tend to survive and reproduce, passing on the fearful gene. At this point in evolution fear is the easiest emotion to experience. If we are not careful, it will keep us from getting anything done.

As a helping professional I’m tempted to quip that “I like negative people because they insure my financial future.” The trouble is that isn’t true. People who are habitually downcast are not good candidates for therapy and seldom respond. In order to benefit from a helping relationship one must agree there is the possibility of improvement. Negative People seldom agree with that.

These days I’ve been reading the work of Paulo Coelho, a Brazilian author who now lives in Paris. Some of you may have read his book The Alchemist, which was on the Best Seller List some years ago. Coelho writes well and his books translate readily from his native Portuguese. But while his words are simple; the ideas behind them are complex. In one of his lessor-known books, called The Valkyries, he writes about a concept I find helpful.

He calls it “The Pact with Failure.” Coelho believes that there is a part of human consciousness that is intrinsically self-defeating and self-destructive. This part of our minds gets formed the moment someone told us as children that we were a “bad” boy or girl. The brain hears the parental authority telling us that we are bad, and begins to re-wire itself so that thinking we are bad becomes easier to think. Over time that idea becomes “kindled,” and part of our own mind is out to get us.

The only way, Coelho believes, for us to become happy is to find a way to break our “Pact with Failure.” We do this by self-examination and discovering how we unconsciously “mess ourselves up” and make a decision to choose a different path. At first that feels strange, but over time we break the Pact and move into a happier way of understanding ourselves and our lives.

I loved this idea because it helped me reframe part of my own story. I’ve been open about the fact that as a young man I was a violent person. I was always furious about things that had happened, and that fury manifested itself in ways I now regret. My “Pact with Failure” was my anger. It always appeared when I would have been better served by a calm mind and strategic thinking. Deciding that I would no longer act in anger took practice. It was hard. Many times I walked away from situations, despite the laughter of others, because I’d promised myself I would wait until I was calm before I acted.

Over time, I changed. The quality of my decisions improved. I began to have success where formerly I had failure. I still don’t always get it right. I’m working at it.

I don’t know what your particular “Pact with Failure” is, or even if you have one. But I think Coelho is on to something and I suspect a lot of us do. That “Pact” will lead us directly to fear, failure and negativity is we let it. It’s a good “Pact” to break.

In classical theology, being a negative person was considered a sin. God was good, and so was the world God had created. If you were “right with God” you were supposed to be confident that everything would work out for you. To doubt that was to doubt God, and doubting God was sin.

There is even a section in the Book of Deuteronomy where the writer comes right out and says that provided we do what God says we should do, only good things will happen to us:

"If you heed these ordinances, by diligently observing them, the LORD your God will maintain with you the covenant loyalty that he swore to your ancestors; he will love you, bless you, and multiply you; he will bless the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground, your grain and your wine and your oil, the increase of your cattle and the issue of your flock, in the land that he swore to your ancestors to give you. You shall be the most blessed of peoples, with neither sterility nor barrenness among you or your livestock. The LORD will turn away from you every illness; all the dread diseases of Egypt that you experienced, he will not inflict on you, but he will lay them on all who hate you." (Deut. 7:12-15)

The problem with this belief is that it is manifestly and obviously untrue. Bad things happen to good people all the time. This mistake by the writer of Deuteronomy was so obviously wrong that the Book of Job and the Book of Eccelesastes had to be written to correct it. In the Book of Job, the belief that bad things only happen to bad people is specifically refuted, and the Book of Eccelesastes comes right out and says that the world is an unjust and unfair place.

But, said the writer of the Book of Eccelesastes, while the world is unfair, it is still good. Happiness is not guaranteed, but it is possible. We have some control over events, even if that control is not absolute. That’s wisdom. Otherwise being a Negative Person would be the only reasonable kind of person to be.

I see this in my professional work all the time. My ministry is one of spiritual healing, especially with regard to cancer.

The primary tool I use to do that healing is hypnotism and I’m known for my work with the more difficult medical cases. I’m affiliated with two Chicago-area hospitals as well as the University of Chicago Medical Center, and at this point there is a high degree of acceptance of the power of the mind by the mainstream medical community.

We know and can demonstrate that negative people tend to have worse medical outcomes, and positive people tend to have better medical outcomes, even when all other variables are controlled. This isn’t too surprising as emotions are, in addition to everything else, biochemical states in the body. If we characteristically feel one way we have a different biochemistry going in our body than if we characteristically feel a different way.

There is no surprise in discovering that biochemical changes affect medical outcome. Everyone already knew that.

Therefore, a lot of my professional work is the task of helping people move from a negative disposition to a positive one. When they do that they are changing their body as well as their mind, and things simply go better. Resilience to illness improves. The human body is stronger when the thoughts in the mind are positive.

In my work, being a Negative Person can translate into being a dead one, and so breaking the “Pact with Failure” is an imperative task for the people I work with.

As the writer of Proverbs puts it, “a downcast spirit dries up the bones.” (Prov. 17:22)

I am a martial artist. I’m a multiple black belt in taekwondo karate and a swordsman. In fact, I have spoken from this pulpit on the spiritual aspects of the martial arts and even displayed Fenris bane Vitar, my sword, which was made for me by Master Daniel Wilson of Angel Sword in Driftwood, Texas.

The martial arts are at least 50% mental. You have to be fit and flexible, but it really is all about controlling your mind.

I’ll never forget my first black belt test. In my Federation a Master cannot test his or her own student for black belt. The test is always done by someone you do not know. The task before me was to break four boards with a single punch. That’s about three inches of solid wood.

To do this task requires a lot of focus. You have to control your instincts. You focus on a point on the other side of the boards, just behind them. That imaginary point is your target. You focus until the boards cease to exist for you, and all you see if the target as if the boards were not there.

You can have no doubt. No negativity. If you can do this your hand will pass right through the boards on its way to the target. However, if you do not achieve the proper focus, if you doubt yourself even a bit, or are the smallest bit negative in your expectation, it will not go well.

As you deliver the punch your unconscious mind will see the boards as “really there.” Instinctively, you will pull the punch before your hand reaches the target because your mind will “flinch” with the expectation of a painful impact. By pulling the punch you sacrifice the power you need to break the boards. Your hand will shatter, not the wood.

That is why all marital artists do board breaking as part of every martial arts test. It is an absolute test. If everything isn’t correct, the board will not break. If the mind isn’t focused and positive, everyone will see that in a very dramatic way.

It quickly taught me the power of positive expectation and the foolishness of negative expectation.

So far today I’ve talked about why I believe it’s so important to be a Positive Person and why being a Negative Person is unwise. Is suspect many of you agree with me. In fact, if we took a poll most people would probably agree that it is better to live life as an optimist than a pessimist; if only because it’s less stressful.

If that’s so, why are there so many Negative People around? Why is it so easy for us to become Negative? If staying positive is such a good thing, why do we mess it up so often?

I’ve pondered this. I found in Coelho a possible answer. We have an inner voice that is not on our side. In his book, The Zahir, Coelho calls this voice “the Acomodador.”

This is a concept borrowed from the shamanic practices of North Mexico. The Acomodador is the point in life where you decide to stop reaching for the fulfillment of your dreams and hopes, and instead settle for something less. It is the moment in our lives when we decide to abandon our desires and make do with what we have. It is seldom a good decision.

It’s what goes on when you think of all the wonderful things you’d like to do with your life but find yourself saying “oh come on!” “You’re never going to do that. Who do you think you are?”

You know that voice don’t you? I certainly do. It’s an easy and a seductive voice that suggests we give up, settle for what we have and cease to strive.

In hypnotism there is a style called “Parts Work.” It’s where you imagine that the mind is made up of sub-personalities and you work with them individually.

Someone once said that we all have within out minds at least two parts. We have a Don Quixote part and a Sancho Panza part. For those unfamiliar with the classical story by Miguel de Cervantes, Quixote is idealistic and mad, Sancho Panza is his sidekick who just tries to keep Quixote out of trouble.

We all have an idealistic part and another part that is less than idealistic. That’s the Sancho Panza part who just wants to sit down, have a beer, get a girl (or what have you) and chill out. That’s the Acomodador. It wants you to settle.

The problem with that is that you know you have settled. You’ve disappointed yourself and that will cast a shadow. Over time, that shadow can make you negative.

Yet this analysis suggests a solution. A decision not to settle, or at least not to settle easily and without a fight. An unrest in the soul that pushes you to try should be cherished.

Perhaps that’s why I rejoice when the vocalists in Celtic Thunder sing the song “Heartland.” A hymn to giving something your best shot, even though it’s tough and the odds may seem long. It’s simply, in my opinion, the best way to live.

And that’s my sermon.

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Opening Words

People deal too much with the negative, with what is wrong. Why not try and see positive things, to just touch those things and make them bloom?
-Thich Nhat Hanh

Chalice Lighting and Covenant

God, who broughtest us from the rest of last night,
Unto the joyous light of this day,
Be Thou bringing us from the new light of this day,
Unto the guiding light of eternity.
In symbol of that light, kindle we the lamp of this day.
-Carmina Gadelica

Reading

Sir. 20:1    There is a rebuke that is untimely,
and there is the person who is wise enough to keep silent.
2 How much better it is to rebuke than to fume!
3 And the one who admits his fault will be kept from failure.
4 Like a eunuch lusting to violate a girl
is the person who does right under compulsion.
5 Some people keep silent and are thought to be wise,
while others are detested for being talkative.
6 Some people keep silent because they have nothing to say,
while others keep silent because they know when to speak.
7 The wise remain silent until the right moment,
but a boasting fool misses the right moment.
8 Whoever talks too much is detested,
and whoever pretends to authority is hated.
9 There may be good fortune for a person in adversity,
and a windfall may result in a loss.
10 There is the gift that profits you nothing,
and the gift to be paid back double.
11 There are losses for the sake of glory,
and there are some who have raised their heads from humble circumstances.
12 Some buy much for little,
but pay for it seven times over.
13 The wise make themselves beloved by only few words,
but the courtesies of fools are wasted.
14 A fool’s gift will profit you nothing,
for he looks for recompense sevenfold.
15 He gives little and upbraids much;
he opens his mouth like a town crier.
Today he lends and tomorrow he asks it back;
such a one is hateful to God and humans.
16 The fool says, “I have no friends,
and I get no thanks for my good deeds.
Those who eat my bread are evil-tongued.”
17 How many will ridicule him, and how often!

Prayer
(by David Honour)

GOD, IN WHOM I LIVE AND BREATHE AND
HAVE MY BEING...

Like the purest and most subtle perfume
Your presence fills my consciousness.

Ineffable, indescribable;
You are as close as my own soul,
Yet as different and alien as the stars themselves.

In your holy embrace I live and breathe and have my being.

I call out to you and you answer in the echo of my words.

You are Incomprehensible Mystery;
Yet my soul dances with knowledge of you.

You are the one who transcends;
Incarnate in all that is;
Beholden to none.

You cannot be held by our words;
Or by the limits of the human mind.

You are within, beyond, between.
An all embracing reality, without shape or substance.

Haunting presence.

Soul of the Cosmos.

Written on July 27, 2008

I feel a need to comment on today's tragic shooting at the Tennessee Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, a congregation of my own denomination.

Apparently an emotionally disturbed man entered the building today during a children's worship service. Without warning, he opened fire on the congregation with a shotgun, killing at least two people and wounding many others.

Church members eventually subdued him, apparently led by one member of the congregation who was trained in martial arts and was able to pin the gunman to the floor.

Details will no doubt emerge over the next few days. For now, I ask your prayers for the members and children of the Tennessee Valley Congregation, for its minister, the Rev. Chris Buice, and for the gunman Jim Adkisson.

We live in an immensely troubled world, and there are no easy solutions to many of the problems we face. Had Mr. Adkisson not had access to a shotgun he could just as easily used some other weapon such as a bottle of gasoline. There is no meaningful way to stop someone who wants to kill other people for no rational reason.

I hope the months ahead will result in sober reflection about what is happening to us as a society where people reach the decision to commit mayhem like this.

I hope we will reflect on the need for more comprehensive treatment of mental illness, and find some way to reach out to the troubled people in our midst.

I hope we will reflect on what has happened to us where we think it is normal to show horrible violence as a form of entertainment, and where we give the youngest among us access to games where they pretend to murder others in order to score points.

I hope we will stand in support of citizens who will risk their lives to subdue an armed attacker. We should be proud to have such people among us.

I hope we can find in our own hearts the compassion to think on these things for a while before turning our attention to other things.

A few weeks ago I did a "practice audit." That is, I carefully logged and reviewed where my time was going, looking for ways to make things more efficient.

The result was no surprise. One of the biggest time wasters was playing "phone tag" with clients who needed to reschedule appointments. There had to be a better way.

The rescheduling and adjusting of client appointments is a nightmare for practitioners. Your schedule can be full, and then fall apart completely as clients call with conflicts and request changes. You can go from a profitable day to a day when you do not clear expenses, simply because people made appointments they then needed to change.

I'd done some checking on how colleagues handled this. Most have a policy similar to my own. If a client cancels an appointment on less than 24-hours notice, the client is charged. The problem with such a policy is that it can be hard to enforce for those clients who pay cash, and it doesn't change the fact that you have to call every one of those clients back to get them rescheduled.

Some practitioners simply assign every new client a fixed appointment. If you are a client you have a designated appointment slot and you pay for it even if you need to cancel it. As one colleague said, "everyone thinks they have a good reason to cancel a session, so everyone gets charged."

This solution works fine for the practitioner. Your schedule is stable and you don't need to call anyone back. If a client cancels, they already have the next appointment reserved.

The problem with this model is that it ignores what modern life is like for our clients. Few people have stable schedules and can commit to an unchanging appointment slot. This is especially true if you deal with people who have medical problems. They always have to adjust the schedule around treatments, scans and days then they feel too sick to go anywhere.

I've wrestled with this for a long time, and I think I've found a solution that will work for everyone. At least I know I feel good about it and the handful of clients who have used it so far are pleased.

If you look to the left side of my web site page you will see a new option, "Change An Appointment" under the "Take Action Now" menu. If you click on that option you will find yourself looking at a copy of my schedule. The schedule is updated every two minutes and all confidential information is removed. You can see only my free/busy times.

If you need to change an appointment you can scroll through my schedule and find a slot that works for both of us. Then, you email me to request the change. When I get the email I'll record the change and send you a confirming email. It's all done on line and we don't need to connect on the phone. This has already saved me hours, and clients like it because they can see where the openings are so it's efficient for them as well.

The business model I use is called an Ideal Micropractice. It's a model developed by primary care physicians to run a low-overhead, high-tech practice. The idea is to use technology instead of staff. By keeping your overhead low you retain more of what you earn and can charge lower prices and spend more time with clients and patients.

In keeping with this model I had been exploring how to move more of my practice administration to the Web, and this is an easy way to do that.

Over the years I received many requests to post the text of some of the sermons I have given at churches of my denomination. I've decided to go ahead a do that with a selection of my best pulpit work. The text of the sermon will be at the start of the Blog entry, and you will find service details (readings, prayers, etc.) at the end.

The Fall from Grace
The Rev. Dr. C. Scot Giles
(Preached at Countryside UU Church, February 17, 2008)
(Preached at the Geneva UU Society, March 9, 2008)

It can be argued that a preacher should never do to a congregation what I am about to do to you.

I intend to tell you something you already know.

What I’m going to spend the next twenty minutes telling you is that no one is perfect. This is not news to either you nor me, and most (if not all) of you already agree with me.

However, I’m going to show you how the irrational expectation that people should be perfect is rooted so deeply into your psychological and linguistic consciousness that we are all enslaved to a conviction that we know is wrong. And that this conviction affects much of what we do, and how we weigh our own self-worth.

The Garden

Most of us know the story of the Garden of Eden, where according the the surface story in the Book of Genesis, the First Man (Adam) and the First Woman (Eve) lived after they were created.

The Text tells us the the Garden was located near four ancient rivers, Pishon, Gihon, the Tigris and the Euphrates. Depending on who you want to believe regarding how the flow of these rives has changed over the ages, the Garden would have been located either in present-day Iraq or perhaps Armenia.

In the center of the Garden there were two trees. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil (which should really be translated as the Tree of Conscience), and the Tree of Life. The Children of God are told they may eat of any tree or plant in the Garden, except for the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. For if they do, God says, they will die.

And the Lord God commanded the man, ‘You may freely eat of every tree of the garden; but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall die. (Gen. 2:16-17).

But the woman is tempted by a talking serpent, who tells the woman:

You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil. (Gen. 3:4-5)

The First Woman convinces the First Man to disobey God’s rule. They eat apples from the Tree, realize they are naked, and by implication have sex.

While it’s not explicit in the story, in Ancient Mideastern literature “fruit” and “apples” have a sexual meaning. In fact the same Babylonian word, “Inbu,” is used to mean both “fruit” and “sex,” the meaning being determined from the context (which is not always clear)

And God expels them from the Garden for their disobedience. As the text says:

Then the Lord God said, ‘See, the man has become like one of us, knowing good and evil; and now, he might reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life, and eat, and live forever’--therefore, the Lord God sent him forth from the Garden of Eden...He drove out the man; and at the east end of the garden of Eden he placed the cherubim, and a sword flaming and turning to guard the way to the tree of life. (Gen. 3:22-24)

In the Abrahamic Religions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam), this is called the Fall. Human beings were once citizens of a perfect kingdom, but were cast out of it for something that involves sex and disobedience, and now dwell in an imperfect world.

Worse, each of us is believed to carry with us the taint of this primordial disobedience. The classic text on this is Romans 5:12, where Paul wrote:

Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned.

Traditional Theology calls this “Original Sin.” In the more extreme forms of Protestant Theology, such as Calvinism, it’s called “Ultimate Depravity,” and those who believe in it argue that all people are born a little bit insane, because we are the descendants of the First Man and First Woman, who messed up.

There are all sort of things strange about this story. There is a lot a preacher can do with it. For example, to whom is God speaking when God says “See, the man has become like one of us”? Apparently, the Lord God is not alone, and it is unclear about who sort of being the “us” references.

Second, neither God nor the serpent is fully truthful. God tells the First Man, “for in the day that you eat of it you shall die.” But that’s not true and that’s not what happened. On the day he ate of it he got is Adamic rear kicked out of the garden, but he didn’t die. He will die…eventually. However, that’s not what God said.

The Serpent is equally deceptive. He tells the First Woman, “you will not die,” when in fact she will...eventually.

So both Almighty God and the Serpent tell half-truths with the skill and ease of a contemporary politician. That’s kind of odd, isn’t it?

Actually, the story of Eden is far older than our Bible. When we read the Book of Genesis we must remember that the earliest writer whose style we can detect was actually writing at the end of a long literary dark age in the 9th century BCE. There were legends far older than those recounted in Genesis. The writer is remembering and weaving together stories that had been told for thousands of years before.

The best scholarship credits the origin of the story of Eden to the Epic of Gilgamesh, a Mesopotamian tale about a hero-king who lived around 2500 BCE, and his half-wild friend Enkidu. The story is recounted on twelve clay tablets found in the library of the Assyrian King Ashurbanipal.

There is much in common between the Epic and Eden. In the Epic Enkidu’s animal nature is tamed and he becomes human. He has sex with the prostitute Shamhat, and after that the animals shun him and he can no longer talk to them. Shamhat gives him clothing and takes him to a city where his adventures begin, ultimately to end in his death at the hand of the gods.

Adam lives peacefully with the animals in Eden until he meets Eve and has sex with her. The result is he is evicted from his ideal existence among the animals, just as Enkidu loses his pure relationship with nature after sex with Shamhat. Eve makes clothing for Adam, Shamhat clothes Enkidu. Enkidu goes to a city; the children of Adam build a city in Gen. 4:17. In the Ancient World, cities were the centers of acculturation and assimilation, and were important places.

The central features of both the story of Eden, the Epic of Gilgamesh and many other ancient “stories of the acculturation of humanity” share the common features of an initial natural harmony, a break in that harmony due to a woman and sex, the development of clothing, expulsion and a city. I could stand here all morning and tell you ancient story after ancient story, and all would have that pattern. It’s very much a part of the Primordial Tradition from which all historical faith communities draw.

How Eden Differs

It is interesting to note that in most of the ancient stories, such as the Epic of Gilgamesh, the “Fall” is not really regarded as a fall at all. Instead, the journey made by the protagonist from animal-like innocence, to civilization living in a city, is seen as a positive thing. As far as I know, the story of Eden is the only ancient story that says that it’s bad.

This actually reflects a thread within Judeo-Christianity that is unique. Somehow it got the idea that childhood was good, and adulthood bad. We read in Mark 10:13:

People were bringing little children to him [Jesus] in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly, I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”

This shows up in later literature too. Many of you have read the classic children’s stories, The Chronicles of Narnia by Christian theologian C. S. Lewis, or at least seen the movie The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe” based on the first volume of the Chronicles.

In the full development of the stories in the Chronicles of Narnia, it’s clear that growing up is problematic. In fact, in the last volume, titled The Last Battle, the three child protagonists, Lucy, Edmund and Peter, die in a train wreck so they are spared the “Fall from Grace” that comes from growing up.

This is very different from another set of books, His Dark Materials, by free-thinker Philip Pullman. Some of you may know of the first volume, The Golden Compass, which has recently been made into a movie.

This set of books is sometimes referred to as an “anti-Narnia.” In them, the growing up and sexual unfolding of the heroine Lyra Belacqua, is portrayed as a good thing, and the books end with a bittersweet tale of love found, lost, and fondly remembered.

Within the Judeo-Christian tradition there is this crazy notion that growing up is bad, and having sex is worse. “And how you like, dem apples”?

How the Legend of the Fall has Affected Us

Language is a funny thing. Philosophers have taught for centuries that language structures the possibility of thought. Increasingly psychologists agree. Words create the neurological connections in the brain that experience can exploit.

One of the easiest places to see this is in the difficulty that men and woman have in understanding each other.

I realize it’s a generalization, but in our society woman are socialized to have a much larger vocabulary regarding feelings than men. A woman can usually readily distinguish between many shades of emotion and can give you different definitions for “anger,” “disappointment,” “betrayal,’ “rage,” “pique,” “bereavement” and “disagreement.”

Men seldom show such nuance. Typically, they’ve got the definitions for “anger,” “disappointment,” “betrayal,’ “rage,” “pique,” “bereavement” and “disagreement” collapsed into one phrase: “I feel mad.”

Let’s look at the word “innocence.” It’s a positive word. I would much rather be considered “innocent” than “guilty” if the words are used to impute blame.

However, there is another sense of the word “innocence” in which it means “naive.” We might speak of a young person as being “innocent” to mean that he or she hasn’t a clue what is really going on.

That meaning isn’t so positive is it? It’s one thing to say someone is without guilt. It is another to say they are clueless. Yet in the Garden of Eden these words get confused.

The First Man and the First Woman are guiltless (until they start eating each other’s fruit), and they are also naive, in that they have not a clue about what adult life is really like. Then, God casts them out of Eden. At that point, according to the story, they get a clue, and they are also blameworthy.

But let’s think about that. Is it really bad to grow up? Is it wrong to go from being clueless to being “fully-clued”? Perhaps the oldest stories got it right, and the tale about Eden got it wrong.

The orthodox response is to claim that things were perfect when Adam and Eve were in the Garden. They fell from that perfection by a willful act of disobedience to God. It would be a good thing to go back to that way of being, the orthodox say, where all of our needs are met, and where we don’t have to do anything, except what we are told.

Some of the people who think this are foolish enough to imagine that the afterlife would be a return to Eden. There, they would meet other perfect people, would live in a perfect world, eat perfect food, live in perfect homes, enjoy perfect relationships, have all the perfect possessions, think only perfect thoughts and feel only perfect feelings.

That vision of the afterlife is so saccharine that it makes my teeth hurt.

My friends, this response is a bad one. It’s worse than bad. It’s the source of much human pain and suffering. It is not good to live with all of your needs being met. It is not right to have nothing to do except what you are told. It is not blessed to live mindlessly.

Scripture as Metaphor

When one joins a congregation that is part of the Unitarian Universalist Association part of the deal is that no one is going to tell you what you have to believe. We each find our own spiritual path within the broad tradition of Unitarian and Universalist Purposes and Principles.

My personal path is a conservative one, I am a Unitarian Universalist Christian. I identify with what is coming to be called “Progressive Christianity,” an ecumenical interpretation of the Christian tradition shaped by the encounter with science, modernity and world religions. We feel that scripture is entirely metaphor and parable, not fact. Yet we find it interesting.

People like me do not think we have found the one right path. In fact, we loudly and loosely proclaim that there are many right paths, many ways to be a spiritual person.

Still, we enjoy the rich brew that comes from studying one tradition deeply. Not that there is anything wrong with any other path, nor anything wrong with being eclectic if your personality leads you that way.

This is to say that I am a fan of the Bible. I read and study it every day. I enjoy the story of the Garden of Eden, even though I think most of the interpretations of that story are neurotic and wrong.

The story of the Garden of Eden does not actually say that Eden was perfect. It says that it was “good;” as were Adam and Eve, and everything else that had been created. Being good is not the same as being perfect. And that’s the point I want to make with you today.

I think Ralph Waldo Emerson got it right when in his Essay on Compensation he said, “there is a crack in everything God has made.” Most things that exist are imperfect. In fact, except for pure mathematical forms, there probably is nothing that actually exists that is totally perfect. Plato said much the same, as did Lao-Zu.

If you strive to be perfect, or if you demand others be perfect, you have departed on a Fool’s Errand and you will fail.

But the notion that we should all be perfect, or at least try for perfection, has gotten deeply rooted in our culture. We are told we are Fallen and should try to Get Up. We were once perfect in the Garden and should try to be perfect again. Wrong, wrong, wrong, wrong and wrong.

Think you’re not affected? Ever sit through a performance review at work? When was the last time you were rated “perfect” on every score? No one ever is, and the expectation that it is even possible sets you up for failure. Any supervisor who has got it in for you will have ammunition, because you have been rated on an impossible scale.

Looking for a romantic relationship? In my clinical work I see how the fantasy of the “soul mate,” or the perfect partner, has wrecked the chances of thousands of good people to have a right relationship or a good marriage. The expectation that another human being could ever meet all of you needs for companionship is a silly expectation. Yet good people routinely pass each other by because they are working with a checklist of qualities for the “soul mate” than not one person in ten million will satisfy.

If you are supposed to be “my everything” and I feel any sort of lack, well then there must be something wrong with you. Foolish.

In ministry I’ve seen parish colleague after parish colleague broken because congregations somehow expect their minister to be all things to all people, even when those things contradict each other. In ancient times some of the early Christian groups called their clergy “The Perfecti,” or “The Perfect.” That was a mistake that would haunt the church forever. No one is perfect.

As a hypnotist I know that what you tell yourself in the privacy of your mind has enormous power to affect who you are, how you think and what you feel. I swear, if most of us talked to others that way we talk to ourselves, we’d not have any friends! Zero tolerance. Zero forgiveness. Zero empathy. All because we were brought up to think of ourselves as people who should make no mistakes.

Life does not consist of the opportunity to meet perfect people. All of us must be satisfied with real and imperfect people who have likes, dislikes, personalities and kinks. In fact, the Minister Emeritus of this church used to have above his desk an embroidered sampler that said “All God’s Children Got Kinks.” He was spot on right.

Consider political commentary. When was the last time you saw a balanced portrayal of any candidate in the media? It does happen, but its rare and never occurs in the mass media. Instead, every candidate is picked apart until they have to make asinine claims like “I didn’t inhale,” They do this because we expect a standard of behavior from those who serve our government that no one but a single-minded, life-long fanatic could maintain.

I don’t know about you, but I do not think we are well-served by a government of single-minded, life-long fanatics. Give me a grace-filled old sinner any day.

The Perfect is the Enemy of the Good

In 1764 Voltaire wrote in his Encyclopedia of Philosophy that “the perfect is the enemy of the good.” He was also spot on right. If you try for perfection you will surely fail. The effort you waste in trying, will keep you from ever actually accomplishing anything.

How to Destroy Others

If you want to destroy someone, demand that they be perfect. Accept nothing else. If your child is in the Honor Society, ask why he or she is not the Valedictorian. If your subordinate has made only one minor mistake, be sure you write it down to bring it up at the performance review. If you wish to hurt the person you love, be sure to put the words “yes, but…” in every sentence of praise you speak.

Demand that they be as perfect as humans were said to be in the Garden; and you will have done the serpent’s work and broken their mind and their spirit.

Demand perfection of yourself and you will feel your own mind and spirit break.

The perfect is the enemy of the good. Instead of aiming for perfection, we are much better off accepting that there has been a cherubim placed in the east of Eden with a flaming sword. We cannot return that way if ever we came that way; nor should we try.

Instead, we should strive to be as worthy as we can be, knowing that we will always mess up somewhere. We should seek political candidates that are good people, no matter how they may have stumbled.

We should look for romantic partners who are interesting people who fit our kinks reasonably well.

We should seek clergy who are good people and who try their best, knowing that no person can ever live up to the expectations of everyone in our congregations.

To do this is to live a good life. Otherwise, we will keep digging holes of impossible expectation and falling into them.

In closing I offer a quotation from Abraham Lincoln, who was not perfect but who was very, very good. He said, “Whatever you are, try to be a good one.”

Just try to be a good one.

That’s wisdom. And that’s my sermon.

Chalice Lighting & Covenant

We light this chalice to celebrate our church of the liberal religious tradition, and it's ancient and deep roots.
We celebrate our diverse community which encourages spiritual growth through practice and active involvement in the world at large.

We unite to strengthen the bonds of kinship among all persons; to promote human dignity; and increase reverence for life’s creating, sustaining, and transforming power through worship, study, and service.

Reading (Genesis 3:8-19 NRSV)

“They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden.

But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, “Where are you?” He said, “I heard the sound of you in the garden, and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself.” He said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?”

The man said, “The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate.” Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this that you have done?” The woman said, “The serpent tricked me, and I ate.”

The Lord God said to the serpent, “Because you have done this, cursed are you among all animals and among all wild creatures; upon your belly you shall go, and dust you shall eat all the days of your life. I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will strike your head, and you will strike his heel.”

To the woman he said, “I will greatly increase your pangs in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children, yet your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you.”

And to the man he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife, and have eaten of the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life; thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.

By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread until you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”

I'm amazed at the attention this informal web site gets from readers. I made a small change in web site design last night, and this morning brought a couple of emails asking about it.

That's kind of neat, actually.

The change was an alteration in my practice logo. For almost twenty years I used a small Celtic Knot as a logo. I picked it up in the early days of the Internet. I think it was a freebie from Microsoft. Here it is:

I used this little design to dress up business cards, brochures, letterhead and this web site.

Recently, I've gotten involved in planning a major medical conference here in Chicago. Called "A Chicago Perspective: Meeting the Psychosocial Needs of Cancer Patients." I'm one of the sponsors, along with Wellness House, Wellness Place, Edward Hospital Cancer Center, Loyola University, Rush University Medical Center, The University of Chicago, The Adventist Cancer Network and a long list of other fine institutions. I'm on the Steering Committee for the conference, and feel honored to have a place at that table.

The graphic designer who created the brochure had a problem with my little Celtic Knot. It's not a high-resolution graphic, and she had to do a lot of extra work to get it to look good in the brochure.

So I figured it was time for an update. I decided to go with a more obvious spiritual symbol this time. Being of Celtic ethnicity, I also wanted to keep a Celtic Knot motif.

After a bit of hunting I licensed a beautiful graphic from Cari Buziak of Aon Celtic Art (you will find a link to her gorgeous web site on my Useful Links page). Here is the new graphic:

This is called a Celtic Cross and was used by the ancient church to combine the themes of Christianity, Eternal Life and the Interconnectedness of Nature, Humanity and Spirit. I love it.

The lines on either side of the cross are Ogham, an old Celtic alphabet. At a time when paper and ink were expensive, but there was plenty of wood, the people in England, Ireland, Scotland and Wales worked out an easy way to write. They inscribed a "stemline" in a piece of wood, and then made marks to the left, right or intersecting it to form letters. Each of the 20 Ogham letters is named after a tree, and the name of the letter is the same as the name of the tree in Gaelic.

The Ogham on the logo spells out "Hold Fast." It's a phrase from scripture and something of a personal motto.

I hope you like it.