Why Fear Pleasure? (Sunday, September 25, 2011)

Why fear pleasure?

Why are we afraid of pleasure
as though the God we know
was that mean, severe
punisher of our souls
we gave up long ago?

Why are we afraid of joy
as though the God we know
were that tight and dried-out spirit
giving only to his favorites
and withholding grace from the rest of us?

God to some of us is all abundance all joy
gifts of grace unimaginable waiting
including pleasure and laughter
in the living of our days.

God is not a puny soul
living drunkenly for himself alone
God's grace is our model
as is God's freedom and abundance.

We seek a life of truth
and of connection
neither squandering our days like fools
nor slavishly hoarding them like martyrs

But spending them wisely and mirthfully
with deeds that serve the cause of justice
and words that cause the hearts around us
to leap with pleasure
and smile back at us
in a warm embrace of love.

jbs
3/25/99          9/25/11

Yearning To Be Made New (Sunday, September 18, 2011)

We yearn to be made new,

to rise from bed each morning
a New Man or New Woman, all that we are called to be,
meeting each new challenge and each joy
with full engagement of heart and mind and soul.

But, of course, we carry around with us each day
all that we have ever been before;
we bring along with us all the hidden crystals
of that whom we have already been:
the countless risings and fallings,
the errors, short-sightedness, stuckness, unkindness
that we have faced too many days
and have often added to.

It takes a leap of faith
for societies or for any of us to change.
It takes actually changing, too:
finding the courage and the faith
to do things differently than we always have before,
to act as though (for it will never be true if we don't)
that this is the first day in a brand new age.

Our hearts may grow weary at the thought;
our minds grow full of fear.
But to return to the cold and static way it was before
might well be nothing more than spiritual dying.

jbs
11/1/98          9/18/11

September 11th

As there can be no new birth without pain,
could it be that this awful week-- the sadness,
the horror we have glimpsed and felt
even the anger,
could yet usher forth in history’s time
new ways of being human upon this earth?

Hope dies last they say:
is it possible for us to be innocent enough still
to believe that the lives of those dear, precious souls
(our mothers, fathers, sisters, brothers, children, friends)
yet may be redeemed in flowers of peace, justice, and beauty
from the dust and ashes of humanity’s folly?

Not always in shimmering sunlight
the Spirit moves,
and not always in the bright light of day
Life its lessons teaches;
But often, too, in the deepest midnight when darkness descends,
on the border between darkness and daylight
we look perhaps most clearly into our souls.

These souls of ours were not made to soar to heaven
directly, not looking back, but to collect the dust
of earth as they move toward fulfillment.

That dust of molten steel and charred hopes
is now sacred soil, and always our pain
is a blessed sacrament.

The stone-dark midnight and the rainy morn
will give way in time to the sunlit day;
the freshened breeze will entice again with its sweetness;
just a hint of coolness will pervade the air,
reminding us of what a pleasure it still is to be alive.

For it is from the Hand of Life that all blessings flow;
the Hand of Life and frail human hands:
hands held close with those who have come before,
hands held tight to those who are still with us:
All we can do at a time like this is cling together,
--hold on and hope and pray--
and know in our hearts,
that when the dust finally settles,
no forces seen or unseen,
no puny human powers or principalities,
no terror-mad souls, or hatred or spite
can ever separate us from the love of God;
can block that precious sunlight of God’s new day
from these tired, eager eyes.

jbs
9/11/01 - 9/16/01

A Children's Sunday Meditation (Sunday, June 12, 2011)

It is not just we that drink from earth;

we nourish her as well.

To know the earth within oneself

is to know everything there is to know.

The past that is within us bends eagerly

forward to embrace our future.

The future smiles back at us and

kisses the present moment in all its joy.

All distance is compounded in every cell;

the sense of aging is often but illusion.

Young and old in each of us

greet each the other cheerfully:

There is within each wise old soul

a beautiful child who would come out to play.

In every child’s heart there lies unspoken

all wisdom we could ever hope to hear.

jbs

10/2/00          6/13/04          6/12/11

"Who We Can Become" (Sunday, June 5, 2011)

Who we can become

We do not know our power,
any of us-- except perhaps those
who bathe in the power of others,
commanding armies to march
where they would never dare tread
themselves.

Our power (the power that comes
from within) is so much more humble
(and, let us hope, so much more abiding):
slow to anger, yes-- but too slow at times
to act and know itself, as well.

We can transform the moment,
and in so doing, begin to change
the world.
We can live in truth,
as much as that costs us,
(though, if truth be told,
its sacrifices pale when compared to the suicide
of giving oneself away endlessly
to the forces of death and taxes).

This is the miracle of our birth,
the miracle of our being here:
that in our radical dependence,
our utter insignificance,
we are called to uniqueness as well—
that our responsibility to the world
births the freedom of the soul.

We are called, all of us:
Called to live our lives,
Called to share our gifts,
Called to love one another,
in the continual shedding of old skins,
in the continual sacrifice of our old lives
for new ones.

jbs
2/20/03          6/1/03          6/5/11

An Easter Prayer (Sunday, April 24, 2011)

The eye of faith looks out upon the mundane
and sees that which is divine;
the holy eye cast upon the merest stone
reflects back a diamond or a jewel;
everywhere we look we see choice miracles
when the Holy Lord of Easter walks with us.

To let the soul rise to meet its true level
one must stand back, be still,
put aside the ledger book and balance
and listen, heart open, for the essence of life.
All that we torment ourselves with shall pass away in time;
only the Voice of God remains eternal:
singing with the birds; humming softly in the breeze;
crashing and flashing across the sky
in the most awesome cascade of the changing seasons.

O Spirit of Life,
We are surrounded with your wonders on this Easter day.
You are the fount of joy that surges upward in our hearts;
yours is the springtime that makes our spirits glad.
May we learn ever to live in the light of your love;
may we adorn our lives with truth, with gentleness and kindness.
May we, too, blossom forth in beauty once again,
that new life may rise up within us, as well,
and winter turn to spring again within our fragile human hearts,
and the miracles of Easter echo forth within our souls.

Amen.

jbs
7/6/01          3/31/02          4/25/11

Easter 2011

Easter 2011

The Universalist Parsonage

Stoughton, Massachusetts

Dear friends,

The story of Easter is not just another historical myth. It is not even just a matter of religious speculation of what awaits us when we die.

The spirit of Easter is a real, living presence, here with us today. The hope of Easter is for this life. It is a call to push aside the boundaries of this life. To reach deeper and gain more meaning from this life. Easter declares that, wherever death exists in our lives, there is a power of which we can become part, which can overcome it. We experience many deaths in these lives we lead. Faith tells is that we can experience countless resurrections, as well.

Resurrection can be hard work sometimes. It can be soul-wearying and heart-breaking (not to mention back-breaking) work. Resurrection never comes on the cheap. It requires the full engagement of our hearts and minds—and of our hands. Human hands reaching out to do all that needs doing. To heal all that needs healing. Human hands, sometimes, folded in prayer, seeking the help and guidance we will need to choose wisely the next moves we must make on our road toward eternity.

This Easter may we, too, stand as disciples of tireless and timeless ideals:

the ideal that life has meaning;

the ideal that life is worth living;

the ideal that love can transform the world;

the ideal that love is more powerful than even death itself.

That first Easter long ago kindled within us the miraculous ability to hope and to dream. Let us dare to hope with courage. Let us dream, and let us act, wisely and lovingly. Let us choose, here and now, our own special place on the tree of eternal life.

Elizabeth joins me in wishing all of you the choicest blessings of this Easter season.

                                                                                    Faithfully yours,

Rev. Jeffrey B. Symynkywicz