I really enjoyed the writing of today's sermon "Awe's Purpose."

We were completing an autumn sermon series on Awe using Dacher Keltner's book.  In it he discusses eight "wonders of life," and today was the final one--epiphanies.  He emphasizes the power of awe to reveal to us knowledge of fundamental truths about the interconnectedness of the world.

With that buzzing in my mind, I read two columns this week that ended up framing my sermon.  The first was last week's piece by Ross Douthat on how the election reveals ways in which the world has changed, particularly that there is no longer any mainstream mechanism for setting the terms of the debate, and so more wild and extreme ideas are now a part of the conversation.  This set up the idea that truth is contested and institutions (like the church) are no longer trusted to help govern such debates.

The second was an essay in The Christian Century about Reign of Christ Sunday, which this is in the liturgical calendar.  Part of its meaning to defend truth that transcends nationalism, racism, etc. in this age of lies.

So, I used the sermon to establish an epistemology to respond to the challenge posed by Trump's election, according to Douthat's analysis.  Establishing an idea of what truth is and how we get to it (through awe & wonder and the spiritual practices that contribute to them).

Awe’s Purpose

Isaiah 60:1-5a

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational Church

24 November 2024

            So, many of you have probably been reading articles, columns, and essays analyzing the recent election and what it means.  Everything from analyses of the polls to much deeper pieces claiming things like the end of the neo-liberal era have been all over the place.  The conservative New York Times columnist Ross Douthat had a piece last weekend in which he claimed that the election was the clearest sign that the era we had been living in is over and a new one has begun.  He wrote,

probably somewhere between the first reports of a deadly flu in Wuhan, China, and Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, one of history’s wheels turned irrevocably, and the normal that Trump’s opponents aspired to recover slipped definitively into the past.  A restoration? No: The post-Cold War era has ended, and we’re not going back.

            Instead, he pointed out,

All we know is that right now our core political categories are contested — with vigorous disagreement about what both democracy and liberalism mean, unstable realignments on both the left and the right, and “post-liberal” elements at work in right-wing populism and woke progressivism and managerial technocracy alike.

            The consensus that has existed since the collapse of the Soviet Union is now over and political, social, and cultural debates will range over a much wider set of options and possibilities.  And there’s something else that’s new about this time we live in.  Douthat writes,

even the wilder influences are here to stay, because there is no cultural forcing mechanism to make the radical and reactionary go away . . . or to establish a zone of respectability and marginalize everything else.

That’s because we are also not going back to a world where there is a set of trusted truth-mediating institutions, core sources of news and information that everyone recognizes and trusts, a “mainstream” of argument and opinion-shaping that sets the parameters of debate.

            Douthat summarized this as “We’re experiencing a more radical kind of informational fracture.”

            I’ve been pondering what this analysis, if true, means for the Mainline Protestant Christian Church and the institutions and practices we’ve spent centuries building. 

            But today I’m going to talk about how this relates to the purpose of awe, as we wrap up our autumn series on the topic, with the eighth and final “wonder of life” as identified by the psychologist Dacher Keltner.  These are the eight ways that humans across the globe and in myriad cultures and religions experience awe.  We’ve examined nature, music, art, mysticism, etc. and today we come to epiphanies.  Ever had an epiphany that left you in awe?

            Here’s how Keltner describes the physical experience we humans have when we are in awe.  Read excerpt page 249.

            And that process in our bodies results in a shift in our thinking and feeling.  Keltner writes, “Awe shifts our minds from a more reductionistic mode of seeing things in terms of separateness and independence to a view of phenomena as interrelating and dependent.”  He continues, “Awe enables us to see that life is a process, that all endless forms most beautiful are deeply interconnected, and involve change, transformation, impermanence, and death.”

            In other words, the very experience of awe, including its seven other forms we’ve already talked about, generates epiphanies.  Awe and wonder lead to us seeing things in new ways.  Opening our minds to new things.  Transforming the ways we think and feel and interact with the world.

            Awe, he teaches, “is about knowing, sensing, seeing, and understanding fundamental truths.”  We gain self-knowledge in moments of awe.  And we gain knowledge about the world and how it works.

            The fundamental epiphany that Keltner declares results from an exploration of awe—our interconnectedness with all of reality and the ways we depend upon those larger systems.

            This is how he finally answers the question, what is the purpose of this emotion?  What is the purpose of awe?  He answers, “Awe integrates us into the systems of life—communities, collectives, the natural environment, and forms of culture, such as music, art, religion, and our mind’s efforts to make sense of all its webs of ideas.  The epiphany of awe is that its experience connects our individual selves with the vast forces of life.”

            One of my favorite 21^st century books of philosophy is Susan Neiman’s Evil in Modern Thought.  A fascinating discussion of the ideas of Frederick Nietzsche, Hannah Arendt, Albert Camus, John Rawls, and others, and what we can learn about evil and the struggle against it from their writings.

            For Neiman, the problem of evil is not just the classic religious problem of how evil exists if God is good and powerful.  Rather, she believes the existence of evil is a challenge and a threat for all belief systems that try to make sense of the world.  Even more a of challenge for those belief systems based on reason than those based on religion.

            She writes, “When the world is not as it should be, we begin to ask why.”  That’s the origin of the problem.  She adds, “We proceed on the assumption that the true and the good, and just possibly the beautiful, coincide.  Where they do not, we demand an account.”

            And nowhere is that human demand more obvious than in children when they cry out, “That’s not fair.”  Or when they won’t quit asking questions, trying to understand.  Neiman states it well—“The adamant child who wants every question answered expresses something about the nature of reason.”  She adds, “In the child’s refusal to accept a world that makes no sense lies all the hope that ever makes us start anew.”

            This fundamental human insistence on understanding and fairness is what drives us to keep on.  When the world doesn’t make sense, we don’t resign ourselves to hopelessness and despair and give up.  We have the power to fashion human relations and culture that do make more sense than what we currently have.  And in that childhood demand we get a sense of the ideals we are aspiring too.

            Part of what kids awaken us to is awe and wonder.  And those are vital to the project of overcoming evil and making the world a better, fairer, more rational place.  Here’s how Neiman puts it, “We experience wonder in the moments when we see the world is as it ought to be.”

            Maybe the greatest thing about our experiences of awe is that they show us the world we desire—one that is good and beautiful and rich with meaning.  Our experiences of awe teach us what we yet may create.

            So for Neiman, wonder is an essential tool in overcoming evil.

            The theologian Kevin Hector, in his book Christianity as a Way of Life, elevates the crucial importance of the spiritual practice of paying attention.  He writes, “At the most basic level, to practice attention is to loosen the grip of our preconceptions in order to see a particular object in all its particularity and, so, to let our mind be filled with that object’s peculiar reality.” 

Think of all those great Mary Oliver poems that do this—paying attention to a rock, a turtle, wild geese, the waves on the shore.  Or the current wave of anti-trans actions, which surely stem from a failure of paying attention—of paying attention to trans persons in their particularly.  Paying attention is vitally important to our spiritual and social well-being.

            But Kevin Hector adds that attention by itself is not sufficient for the Christian way of life.  Attention trains us to see the world as abundant with the blessings of God our Creator, but we have to take a further step.  We can’t only attend to the thing in front of us, we must also wonder about it.  Wonder leads to appreciation.  When we wonder, he writes, we must linger in that wonder, “let it sink in, and just so, to do justice to whatever wondrous thing we have beheld.”

            And in this way attention, leading to awe and wonder, teaches us something.  In other words, an epiphany.  What does it teach?  Hector answers that we will get better at contemplating God because we’ve gotten better at seeing God’s glory in everything around us.

            Today is Reign of Christ Sunday.  Originally “Christ the King Sunday” before we Christians made the wise choice to listen to women and alter our language and practice, and thus take one tiny step toward a better, fairer world. 

            A great essay this week in The Christian Century by T. Denise Anderson told the origin of this liturgical day:

In 1925, Pope Pius XI instituted the feast day of the Solemnity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, King of the Universe. To understand why he did this, we should consider what was happening in the world at the time. That year, Adolf Hitler had just published the first volume of Mein Kampf, which detailed his descent into antisemitism and his sinister designs for world domination. . . .  A year later, more than 40,000 members of the Ku Klux Klan marched on Washington to demand, among other things, immigration restrictions based on race and nationality. With membership of over 5 million at the time, the Klan was the largest fraternal organization in the United States. . . . The world was still navigating the aftermath of the Great War, and there was growing nationalist sentiment around the globe. Pius wanted to counter what he perceived to be unhealthy nationalism and increased secularism. He called the church to declare Christ’s kingship over all creation. The Christian’s first allegiance is therefore to Christ, whatever the nation of their citizenship. Regardless of where in the world Christians live, they should be guided by their values as followers of Christ, over and above national movements or cultural ethics.

            Anderson then draws on why this liturgical celebration is important in 2024.  She writes, sounding somewhat like Ross Douthat, “In a world in which misinformation, disinformation, and conspiracy theories abound, the truth is not always obvious. The lies are often so much louder, more insistent, and definitely more abrasive.”  She adds, “The truth is anathema in this age, probably because it’s easier (and often more profitable) to deal in lies. Lies concentrate power among the few, while the truth disperses it among the many.”

            What, then, are Christians to do?  If we truly live under the reign of Christ?  Here is Anderson’s answer.  Which I think is our Christian response to the world we live in as seen by Douthat in his essay.  And an answer we can get to because of what we learn in our moments of awe.  Which means this answer may be the purpose of our own exploration of awe this autumn.  So, let me conclude with her words:

When we love our neighbor as ourselves, when we do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with God, and when we care for the afflicted and stand up for the oppressed, then we abide in truth and count ourselves as citizens of Jesus’ unique kingdom. The lie is fear. Scarcity narratives that stoke the fear that we don’t have enough, when scripture assures us God knows and intends to provide for our needs, are lies. The fear that siblings with different or no citizenship papers would all seek to do us harm affronts God’s truth that commands us to welcome the stranger among us. Fear is a lie. Love is truth.

A recommitment to truth in these times is in order for everyone, but especially for Jesus’ church.

Self-Transcendence

Isaiah 6:1-9

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational Church

17 November 2024

            In their book The Varieties of Spiritual Experience, the scientists David Yaden and Andrew Newberg describe the Awe Experience Scale which is used to measure spiritual experiences.  These experiences are measured according to these six different aspects:

• Vastness—the feeling that we are in the presence of something grand
• Accommodation—we struggle to take it all in
• Time—which feels like it is slowing down
• A feeling that the sense of self has diminished
• Feeling connected to everything, and finally
• The physiological responses like goosebumps and chills

I’m going to venture a guess that probably none of us sitting here have had the type of mystical vision described by the prophet Isaiah?  But I am guessing that we have had spiritual experiences that check all the criteria on that scale.  What are your most profound, moving, and memorable spiritual experiences?

The next wonder of life in our autumn series is mystical awe.  We’ve talked about various other types of awe—arising from nature, music, art, and the beauty of moral character.  And while each of those has had what we might call a spiritual component, we haven’t explicitly gotten to spiritual and religious experiences until today. 

Religion has another connection with awe.  As Dacher Keltner points out, our religious and spiritual teachings and practices themselves arose from some person’s awe experience.  Our beliefs and rituals are themselves archives of ancient experiences of awe.

Yaden and Newberg identify that these religious experiences generally contain a feeling of unity with God, nature, the universe, or other people.  And some sense of transcending or losing the self, the ego.

Mystical experiences are the most extreme version of what are a variety of self-transcendent experiences.  Psychologists also list mindfulness, flow, awe, and peak experiences as other common human moments of self-transcendence that fall short of the most vivid mystical experiences.

In his classic study of mysticism, the father of American psychology William James, described them has having four qualities—ineffable (that we can’t adequately describe our experience to others), a noetic quality (meaning that we’ve gained some sort of knowledge or revelation—like Isaiah and his vision), third, that these experiences are transient, not lasting long, and finally that we are passive in these moments, that they come upon us from the outside.

More recent empirical studies have revealed similar but differing qualities.  A 2015 study of mystical experiences, for instance, found that they include a feeling of unity with ultimate reality, being overwhelmed with positive emotions in a form of ecstasy, losing our sense of space and time, and, finally, James’s idea that we cannot adequately describe the experience.

But even if these experiences are difficult to describe to others, that generally hasn’t stopped people from trying.  Prophets, poets, and all sorts of religious practitioners have talked about and written about these types of experiences.

For example, the journalist Michael Pollan in his book on psychedelics—How to Change Your Mind—describes the loss of the ego he experienced on one of his trips:  Read excerpt from pages 263-4.

Pollan, who is not a religious person, takes this loss of the ego as the defining characteristic of the spiritual.  That spiritual experiences are precisely those that “arise when the voice of the ego is muted or silenced.” 

And this, he takes, is a good thing.  The ego so often gets in our way with its negative self-talk and its limited perspective on the world—what he calls “a measly trickle of consciousness.”  Spirituality is what opens us up to see and feel and experience more than what our ego limits us to.

And the neuroscience seems to back that up.  MRI studies have demonstrated that when a spiritual experience is being had, the brain’s default mode network (the source of our ego and sense of self) is quiet.  Leading Pollan to conclude that “the mystical experience may just be what it feels like when you deactivate the brain’s default mode network.”

The psychologist Mark Leary reports more of what neuroscience has taught us about religious experiences.  He writes, Read excerpt from page 160.

So the latest science affirms what religions have long taught—that the ego gets in the way of us achieving enlightenment and experiencing the fullness of God.  Western religions have traditionally focused on how we can control and change the self, while Eastern religions have focused more on quieting or losing the self.  A great example of the latter is Zen Buddhism where the goal is go to through every moment of life, no matter what we are doing “with full and complete attention and no self-commentary.”

Mark Leary, in his book The Curse of the Self, explores all the ways that our egos hold us back and limit us.  So religions have devised ways to control, overcome, and quiet the self.  Regarding mystics, he writes that they “aim to obtain direct knowledge or first-hand experience of reality without the use of thoughts or reasoning.”  And they do that by turning of self-reflection.  When they do, “they experience a world that is somewhat different from the one they experience in their ordinary state of consciousness.”

What do mystics report?  That they experience the universe as a unified whole.  Often they feel that they have merged with God.  Time becomes irrelevant, as if one has escaped from it.  They are usually flooded with positive emotions, reporting feeling peace, love, and joy. 

So, the pay off to these spiritual experiences, to these moments of awe is the loss of personal identity, the ego, the sense of self.  Mark Leary describes the “nonegoic person.”  Read excerpt from 196-7.

That sounds to me like the best description of the kind of spiritual growth and development we ought aspire to.  Leary is quick to admit that none of us, even the most spiritually mature, function at that level of well-being at all times in every moment.  But it remains the ideal, the inspiration, the goal of our spiritual lives.

This wonder of life, mystical awe, provides us insight on how to transcend our self, quiet our ego, and grow in spiritual and emotional maturity.  Most of us are unlikely to have a profound mystical vision like the prophet Isaiah, but we can cultivate the daily spiritual, religious, and emotional practices that open us to awe and help us to transcend the self.

And the easiest way to start is to pay attention.  Which is a point I’ve made every single Sunday.  Learning to live with more attention to ourselves and each other and the wonders of the world around us is maybe the easiest and most important spiritual practice we can engage in.  Cassidy Hall, in her new book Queering Contemplation writes that “Attention is the undistracted self, willing to truly look, deeply understand, and release attachment to moments before or after what is present.”

This week I can’t give you the assignment to go out and have a mystical vision. (But if you do, please tell me about it!)  But I can encourage you to pay attention, to cultivate you awareness.  And thereby to quiet the ego and begin to transcend the self.

Sacred Geometries

Proverbs 8:22-9:6

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational Church

10 November 2024

In the mountains of southeastern Turkey lies the archaeological site Göbekli Tepe.  A Neolithic site around 11,000 years old and maybe the oldest example of monumental human architecture that’s been discovered.  UNESCO describes it as follows: “this property presents monumental round-oval and rectangular megalithic structures erected by hunter-gatherers . . . . These monuments were probably used in connection with rituals, most likely of a funerary nature.”

The first excavator of Göbekli Tepe, Klaus Schmidt, called it “the world’s first temple,” an idea later dismissed.  But it is still a site that stuns, to think of hunter-gathers, at the dawn of the age when human settlements began, were already erecting monumental structures that would persist for thousands of years. 

In her book, Reality is Broken, the video game designer and theorist Jane McGonigal describes Göbekli Tepe:

[which]  features an intricate series of passageways that would lead visitors through the dark to a cross-shaped inner sanctum, almost like a labyrinth.  This particular architecture seems designed intentionally to trigger interest and curiosity, alongside a kind of trembling wonder.  What would be around the next corner?  Where would the path take them?

            And McGonigal draws upon some research in Smithsonian Magazine that suggests that instead of complex, settled human societies giving birth to monumental architecture, that maybe it was the reverse that happened.  Humans first came together to build monumental architecture and the effort involved in doing that gave birth to settled, complex human societies.  McGonigal draws the conclusion that these works “actually inspired and enabled human society to become dramatically more cooperative, completely reinventing civilization as it once existed.”

            Whatever could have inspired neolithic hunter-gatherers to build monumental megalithic structures?  McGonigal believes it was the human need for awe, which she describes as “the single most overwhelming and gratifying positive emotion we can feel.”  We are drawn to awe because it makes us feel so good and also because it provides us a “potential source of meaning,” to be a part of something larger than ourselves, a collective human action.

            She writes that humans need and desire “epic environments” that she defines as “vast, interactive spaces that provoke feelings of curiosity and wonder.”  These epic environments then make space for epic projects, the massive, cooperative tasks of humanity that are carried out over the long-haul.  And these then become part of the epic stories that we tell to connect ourselves to something much bigger than ourselves.

            These ideas resonate with what Susan Sink writes about today’s scripture lesson, in which Wisdom builds herself a house.  Sink writes, “Wisdom is with us and beyond us, accessible to humans in the world around us but also greater than our minds can grasp.”  We build ourselves epic, awe-inspiring spaces to inspire us to wisdom, to become part of epic projects, that bring us adventure and meaning.

            The next wonder of life that psychologist Dacher Keltner discusses in his global study on awe is the awe we experience from visual design—designs in nature and of human creation in art, architecture, movies, and even video games. 

            He writes that “there is transcendent, even spiritual, feeling found in seeing the deep geometric structures of the world.”  Think of the fractal shapes of a nautilus shell or the complexities of a dandelion puff.  Have you ever found yourself staring at the intricate shape inside the bloom of a flower?

            Keltner opens his chapter on visual awe by describing the first time seeing that scene in Jurassic Park when the brontosaurus appears.  And then the shot pans out to the valley filled with dinosaurs.  Remember how thirty years ago we had never seen CGI like that before?  The awe was multi-layered, right?  Awe at the artistic and technical wonder that went into creating the film.  Plus the awe of being transported for the first time into what it might actually feel like to encounter such massive beasts.  A few years ago when I rewatched the film with Sebastian, I was amazed at how well that moment holds up over time.  It still brought me chills and goosebumps and absolute delight.

            Keltner draws upon the work of philosopher Iris Murdoch and proclaims that good art allows us to delight in what is excellent while also giving us “a new way of seeing the world.”  Such moments of visual awe allow us to transcend our selfishness and join “with others in an appreciation of what is meaningful and live-giving.”  He summarizes these ideas by declaring “In good art, there are so many opportunities to reach the highest part of the soul.”

            I hope you’ve been to the newly reopened Joslyn Museum.  If not, you really should.  The new building is a marvel of design and sacred geometries, while also allowing us to see the old building in fresh and new ways.  Much less the art, including so much new art, that graces the exhibition spaces.  I’ve been three times already, and there’s one particular room in the Schraeger collection that I find to be a meditative, spiritual space.  The walls covered in abstract paintings, mostly fields of color.  The response it elicits in me reminds me of visiting the Rothko Chapel in Houston.  Another place you should visit if you ever get the chance.

            According to the latest science of awe, viewing excellent and beautiful visual designs and art stimulates the dopamine network in the brain leading to greater wonder, increased creativity, more inspiration, improved problem-solving abilities, and “openness to others’ perspectives.”  As Keltner writes, “Art empowers our saintly tendencies.”

            While working on this sermon, I thought back to Holy Week 2019 when the cathedral of Notre Dame burned in that catastrophic fire, compelling a global grief.  At the time I talked about how the Gothic architecture pioneered in the cathedral and the art and music it inspired were ancestors of our own sanctuary and the music and art of our worship. 

            So many read deeper meanings into the destruction of the cathedral. 

            John Pavlovitz blogged, “Watching the flames swallowing up such a universally beloved testament to the staggering creativity that humanity is capable of, we recognize how tethered to each other we are, how fragile and fleeting everything here is—and how starved for beauty we all are these days.”

            Historian of religion Jean-François Colosimo described the scene as ‘images of the end of the world’ that communicated ‘the extreme fragility of our situation.’”

            The art critic Jonathan Jones wrote:

A cathedral can endure the loss of its stained glass and other fineries . . . .  It’s precisely this endurance that makes medieval architecture so special. Almost a thousand years after its original creation Notre Dame still speaks to us. Like cave paintings, it connects us with some primal aesthetic urge. Now our time faces a challenge. . . . If we can reawaken the creativity this building embodies it will be a great moment of artistic renewal . . .

            And it seems that that renewal is underway.  The Paris Olympics this summer gave us glimpses into the grand and glorious work that is being done.

            Another thing John Pavlovitz wrote at time was this: “We all belong to one another.  The more we remember that, the more beauty we will make together in this place.  And the world needs beauty now more than ever.”

            Wisdom reminds us that we are part of something far larger than ourselves.  Something bigger than the times in which we live.  An on-going human project that spans the aeons. 

            We are invited to be a part of that collective project.  Enjoying the awe and wonder and helping to create it and maintain it, for the good of all.  For the beauty we crave is the beauty that can touch our souls deeply, inspiring our imaginations, leading to transformation.

            Let me close, for the second time this autumn, with the invitation that Divine Wisdom offers to us:

Wisdom has built her house;
she has hewn her seven pillars.

She has slaughtered her animals,
she has mixed her wine,

she has also set her table.
She has sent out her servant-girls,
she calls from the highest places in the town . . .
“Come, eat of my bread
and drink of the wine I have mixed.
Lay aside immaturity, and live,
and walk in the way of insight.”

For young people, particularly young LGBTQ+ people.

I know that the election results have left you confused, sad, afraid, heartbroken, and angry.  These are proper emotions for what has happened.  Now is a time for lament and grief.  And in this time of deep emotions, I offer these pastoral thoughts.

First, politics can and will be heartbreaking, more than once in your life.  Your side will lose vital elections.  Bills you work hard to pass, will fail, and vice versa.  Your hopes and dreams will only sometimes be realized.  And those times when you are triumphant will feel glorious.

So you must be sure that your sense of identity, meaning, and purpose are not primarily shaped by your politics.  Find those in something bigger and more lasting.  For example, people of faith let their religion and spirituality shape their identity, meaning, and purpose.  Other pursuits like art, culture, scientific exploration, and sports work for people too.  Be grounded, rooted, centered in something other than politics.

Find your community, your safe spaces.  Or even create them if you must.  Our LGBTQ+ community has always created our own spaces where we can be our authentic selves and find caring and supportive friends.  Clubs, organizations, social groups, sports leagues, churches, etc. all exist.  Find your place to belong.

And have your group of core friends, what we call our “family of choice,” to be your closest allies and support.

Second, I believe we may have failed you in not preparing you for the world as it actually is.  After the highs of the Obama years and winning the struggle for marriage equality, we did enter a new phase in which LGBTQ+ folks have been able to live more openly and freely with much broader mainstream acceptance. 

Maybe this election is a wake-up call that we have not come as far as we thought.  But, if so, we do have traditions, skills, creativity, and resources to draw upon.  We should remind ourselves that it was only 21 years ago that the Supreme Court said that laws banning gay sex were unconstitutional.  And not long before that majorities were still opposed to LGBTQ+ people.  Yet, even during the injustices of that time we could live rich, full, joyful lives.  In fact, doing so was part of our defiance and subversion, our challenge to the injustices.

We changed the world back then by living our lives and working to persuade people and institutions, to change their hearts and minds, to see us and eventually to welcome us.  Clearly this work continues.  And, yes, it involved emotional labor, and we wish we were past it, but it seems that we are not.

So, we must protect ourselves from those who would do us harm, while also finding ways to engage and try to educate and persuade folks from the majority of the electorate who voted for Donald Trump.  We cannot hold half our fellow citizens in contempt or fear if we are to be successful in the long-term work of securing our civil rights and the opportunities for us to flourish.

And in the midst of that on-going work, you’ll need to retreat and renew among like-minded folks where you belong.  So finding your community, your family of choice, your safe spaces and fun places, is vital.

Sometimes these losses feel more devastating than other times.  Sometimes after a loss, we need a break from politics and advocacy.  It’s okay to take breaks and take care of yourself.  Be sure you have good self-care practices.

And balance those with how to remain engaged in the work we have to do.  Find your avenues for being part of the educational, persuasive, and political work going forward, that fits your gifts, temperament, and passions.

Do be informed and keep aware.  Study up on what is happening and the most effective ways to respond.  There are lots of great resources on defending democracy and human rights and organizing ourselves for justice. 

My final pastoral word is do not let them take your joy.  As hard as it might be right now, as down as you might feel, a joyful queer person is an act of subversion and dissent and a witness for a better world.  This is one reason gay clubs were so important, and sometimes when the worst things happened, we went dancing.  To feel alive and sexy in our bodies and the sense of community with each other, and to let it all out.

In the next few years there will be moments that call for our outrage and despair, but we cannot live in those emotions every day.  Nor will we be successful if we respond to everything with our anger set to volume 10.  We must use discernment, both for our own health and well-being and for the success of our movement. 

So, find the things that you enjoy, that give you joy, that express your joy, that are fun.  Things to do alone and with friends.  The other day I was cooking breakfast and put on some of my favorite music (just so happened to be the very lesbian Indigo Girls) and grooved and danced while I was cooking.

These are acts of defiance.  Our opponents do not get to ruin our lives, they do not get to dominate our emotions, we will not grant them that power.

Let’s be there for each other and keep each other safe.  Our community has done this before, and we can do it again.  And I believe right and truth, good and beauty and love are on our side.  These are the greatest things.