I need to be reminded of that sometimes, not just that there are Unitarian Universalist communities like that around, but that there are so many people, so many people trying to make a life out of community and connection, trying to stay in touch with compassion and empathy for one another, moving through the world out of a sense of hope, not fear, not all the time.
[00:14:23]
Sometimes I feel like what I'm letting myself do is catch back up with myself again. Like my body's gotten out over my skis. I don't ski. I don't actually know if that's the appropriate metaphor, but I think what it means from context clues is trying to get yourself back aligned again. Trying to get yourself re centered so that your center of balance, you're not fighting against your center of balance.
[00:15:23]
It's not about those things not existing. It's not about events that. Or running away into just, oh, feel good all the time sort of a thing. But it's about getting myself back centered again, getting myself square aligned with myself. And that's the invitation this morning. This invitation into practice in the silence which will hold together in a few moments. The invitation is to come back home to your self again.
[00:16:11]
To find that part of yourself which is looking for life in community and connection with others. That part of yourself which moves through the world in a place of hope and not fear. That part of yourself which connects with the reality of other people. The compassionate peace, the empathic peace. All of that we can lose when we get out in front of ourselves too far.
[00:16:44]
Our commitment to connect bravely with each other means that we're called to be glad with those who rejoice and to weep with those who mourn. So bring your pain and bring your sorrow Bring your hopes and bring your fears. And each week we set aside time in the service in ritual to make that visible, to make the interior landscapes of every one of us in into something visible, something bigger than any of us.
[00:18:51]
We are good at playing that same trick on ourselves. Incidentally, if you've ever worked out and then justified having ice cream because you worked out, you know what I mean? You exercise and burn 300 calories and then eat 800 calories of ice cream because you worked out. I'm in a bulk phase. It makes sense in your head though, right? Because it's. It takes the form of something that's reasonable. It's actually, though, a kind of misdirection that is rationalizing the irrational.
[00:32:24]
In public life, from politicians and thought leaders and pundits and social media shares, we are drenched by the steady downpour of misdirection in the shape, in the clothing of well reasoned arguments, or at least reasonable sounding arguments.
[00:33:15]
That reasonable, well meaning people could be persuaded into a program of reasonable, well meaning assassination or genocide or ethnic cleansing. That those weren't the product of trickery, but of bright, reasonable people making bright, reasonable arguments about how to protect themselves.
[00:36:04]
I was struck then by the ordinariness of it, the way he explained this, not like a villain in a movie cackling, but sitting at his dining room table on a sunny morning making atrocity look like common sense, necessity.
[00:36:31]
And it's easy maybe to brush that off as obvious or to pat ourselves on the back for our own moral superiority. But right here in this country, we are carrying out atrocity in plain sight, with the nation's attention misdirected by rationale and explanation.
[00:36:53]
And I don't here mean that they're misdirecting you from some grand plan though maybe I mean instead misdirecting your attention away from the still small voice of conscience that every one of us has. The sleight of hand here is to get you disconnected from your moral sense.
[00:39:44]
Whatever your opinion about immigration, when you hear the condition of these camps, there is part of you, that still small voice within you which says this is clearly absurd and inhumane. Whatever your politics, this is no way to treat human beings.
[00:40:09]
This voice of conscience is what's silenced by the reasonable sounding explanations we have to keep the country from descending into chaos. If we don't get them, they'll be shooting at us in a few years. We need to find suspects and take care of them. We need to do what we have to do to keep our country together and protect us.
[00:40:27]
Moral disengagement is the name for how we convince ourselves that ethical stake standards don't apply in this situation. And it works just the way that sleight of hand magic does. It directs your attention from what's happening, the human reality of this.
[00:41:04]
It reframes the behavior in a way that makes it acceptable without changing either the behavior or your moral standard. We're still good people. We still believe in being good to kids and welcoming refugees. Of course we do. Of course. Children shouldn't be separated from their parents. Everyone knows that. Of course, that's what we believe as Americans. It's just that in this situation that doesn't apply.
[00:41:33]
Each of these strategies presents reasons, justifications, explanation. But more than that, it works as misdirection because it demands an answer back from you. It demands that you engage with that sort of reasoning on its own terms.
[00:42:01]
It's sharp, I think, to say it, but this is what's being said plainly, without the sarcastic intonation every day, directing your attention away from the simple, clear voice of conscience into an endless labyrinth of argumentation disconnected from the reality of human experience.
[00:45:02]
And because we are reasonable, because we are people who believe strongly, deeply in reason and tolerance and empathy, we're ready to debate and dialogue and discuss. When Pidgin says, just let me run these camps till the emergency is over, and you say, well, I disagree about what constitutes an emergency and whether that applies to your deployment of the National Guard, you've already fallen for the trick in some way.
[00:45:32]
Not all debate is real debate. In reposted statements online, in carefully edited and curated video of so called debate There is a performance of give and take, which is actually about reinforcing what the watcher already believes on faith.
[00:46:23]
Real debate requires vulnerability, the possibility that you might be wrong, that you might need to change your mind. Pidgin is not actually trying to debate with you about driving the bus. Pidgin is not open to a give and take where they are educated about why pigeons should not drive buses.
[00:47:19]
This is the lens through which to notice the clips of triumphant takedowns that YouTube's algorithm is probably putting next to this video right now. It's not that all dialogue is in bad faith, but dialogue in bad faith misdirects like pidgin, like the South African military commander, like the justifications for concentration camps. Its sleight of hand is moral disengagement, sending your attention away from conscience, shifting you away from human and humane reality.
[00:50:32]
My suggestion is that where reason sometimes can be tricked and misdirected, compassion and conscience are surer guides.
[00:51:41]
But the work that we do here, of sitting with the most difficult things, not just this topically, but everything behind every one of those stones that you place. The work that we do here of celebration, of sharing joy and sorrow. Bring your pain and bring your sorrow, the choir sang today. Bring your hopes and your fears and we will wrap our loving arms around you. These are practices that keep connected to compassion, that help us to remember the essential humanity of all people.
[00:52:02]
This is not about escape from the world. We'll just joy ourselves into feeling numb. This is not navel gazing. This is preparation. And it's not just, I mean, the feeling of worship, words, melody, silence. I mean the way that we encounter each other, that we work to encounter each other over coffee and committee meetings.
[00:52:38]
The way that we practice seeing each other and listening each other into speech, of saying, how are you? And actually, genuinely meaning it. That's the work of finding love at the center of living, of reconnecting, of finding that music that we're listening for.
[00:53:05]
Not to carry this as a weight and a burden, but as a reminder that at the center of living, we're trying to follow this through thread of love through the labyrinth of the world and not lose it, not get distracted, but to pay attention today and every day.
[00:53:41]
