FAMILY – HOW BIG IS YOUR CIRCLE
December 12, 2021
Amy Frisella
CALL TO WORSHIP: A circle has no sides, instead it has a circumference. To calculate the circumference, we use the equation C = 2 X π X r or c = π x d. The Area of a circle is calculated by using the equation A = π x r². The area of a circle may also be called its capacity.
Fortunately, it doesn’t take any complicated math to increase the capacity of your circle – simply widen it.
CHALICE LIGHTING:
I can forgive you that harsh word because we have had a lifetime together exchanging kind words and deeds.
I can heal my heart from the pain of a broken promise but only after countless promises had been kept.
I can jump for joy with you in your accomplishments because I played a small part, even if only as your cheerleader, as you worked toward your goals.
But my real light shines when I can forgive, heal and jump for joy with someone who is a complete stranger to me.
READING: Thich Nhat Hanh “Living Buddha, Living Christ”
“Buddhist and Christian practice is the same…Each day, we practice looking deeply into ourselves and into the situation of our brothers and sisters. It is the most serious work we can do…Jesus told us to love our enemy. [While he was on the cross Jesus said,] ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ This teaching helps us to know how to look at the person we consider to be the cause of our suffering. If we practice looking deeply into his situation and the causes of how he came to be the way he is now, and if we visualize ourselves as being born in his condition, we may see that we could have become exactly like him. When we do that, compassion arises in us naturally…Suddenly the one we have been calling our enemy becomes our brother or sister…Looking deeply is one of the most effective ways to transform our anger, prejudices and discrimination… In Buddhism we speak of salvation by understanding.”
MEDITATION: Lower your gaze or close your eyes and imagine a circle around you. You are at the center of a circle that you can fill with your light and love. Your circle is warm and bright. Imagine in that circle with you a person very dear to you, whether they are still here or passed, bring that very special person into your circle. You know them - they are your kin. They understand so much of you and you so much of them. Imagine now others in your circle. People you love and respect. People who have changed your life in positive ways. Who are they? Bring into your circle your teachers, your loved ones, bring in more people or animals you want to be around. Bring into your circle someone you would like to see again. Someone you miss. Use your imagination to greet them and enjoy just thinking about them again. Let your circle become full. You have been touched by so many and have so much to be thankful for. Is there room for one more? Who do you need to widen your circle for?
Pause for meditation – Amen & Blessed be.
READING: Our second reading comes from a scientific journal, The Atlantic, written by Carl Room, titled: “Can a Predator Really Be Friends with It’s Prey?”
…Researchers aren’t sure what’s going on … when interspecies pairings are a predator and its prey. Over the past few weeks, for example, a tiger at the Siberian Zoo named Amur has been palling around with a goat, Timur, which handlers originally left in his enclosure as a meal. Amur had attacked and eaten all his previous goats: this one though, spends his days romping through the tiger enclosure with his would be killer…”They are inseparable,”…the director of the park told The Siberian Times. Amur, who had never been aggressive with park staff, has begun hissing at anyone who gets too close to Timur. One possible explanation: At the moment that Timur entered his enclosure, Amur was lonelier than he was hungry. Animals in captivity have their food presented to them...[so] a playmate – even an unorthodox one – can be more satisfying than a meal. “
SERMON:
When I was asked to give a sermon and was given the monthly topics for the year, it was easy for me to choose the topic of family. I have been blessed with a beautiful, supportive, kind and loving family. My parents have been my primary source of strength and admiration my entire life. I have invited them to listen to my sermon today on zoom from Florida so, naturally, I wanted to lead with that. I am so lucky to have two fantastic brothers who both support and protect me. The nuclear family that I was born into helped me practice for the nuclear family that I helped to create as an adult. Mary changed my tiny family circle into a much bigger one that would ultimately include her entire family, parents, siblings, extended family and our children.
We all know what family is. Family is a circle of people related in some way by blood or marriage. Family is our primary social institution which is to say one’s family is each individual’s first experience with socialization, the first place we learn about social behavior and expectations. Family is also based on a legal construct. Our laws about who can and cannot marry, our adoption laws and divorce laws create and deny family relationships within our society. And those laws may differ from one society to the next, they change and evolve over time.
But of course, we all know that’s not the whole story about family. There are those people whom we “consider family”. When we have a strong enough bond with someone we might say “they are like family to me” we are talking not about any social institution or legal construct, but rather we are referring to a relationship distinctly reserved for those in our family circle. We are saying that we have allowed someone into our circle and they will be treated with the special acceptance reserved for only a select few. Like the tiger and the goat, we periodically see these unique relationships in the animal world. These bonds are different than any other. The bonds with people in our circle are rich and deep. The love is deeper even though sometimes with that depth comes some murkey waters. With those in your inner circle you rejoice as if it’s your own accomplishment – never with jealousy or desire. With those in your inner circle, their pain becomes your pain. Their accomplishments become your sense of pride as if you yourself put the work in. You feel so close to them that you play a part in the happenings of their life. If someone in your inner circle is being harmed you respond with the wrath of a mother bear. A family bond is tenacious – it can survive trials that break other bonds. Only those people in your inner circle receive your full capacity for love, forgiveness and protection.
When I was a teenager the word “family” was a kind of slang in the gay community. We’d say, “what do you think about him – do you think he’s family.” A gay party invitation might read – “you can bring your girlfriend because we are only having family.” Or, someone might say – “she came out – she’s family.” So, when I came out, I became a member of the gay family. And all of the sudden, my relationship with other gay people was redefined. My circle was opened up to complete strangers only because we had this common trait. I cared about what happened to them. If something happened to a gay person on the news, a total stranger, that incident, in some way, was an affront to me in a new way, as if harm had come to my sister or brother. When one of us won a battle, we all won, not necessarily because we all benefitted but because someone in our circle, in our gay family, beat someone outside of our circle. We won is also to say – the others – the not “we” – lost. To this day, when I see someone even wearing a gay pride t-shirt, I can give them a wink or hello because we know we are connected – distinguished in some way from all of the other strangers that surround us – strangers – that is to say – the straight people.
Everyone experiences this, right?, this isn’t a gay phenomena. We all have a circle. We allow a select few a certain connection. Our circles are very small relatively speaking, a select few in, but most out. Since we all have these circles, it leads me to wonder if that’s human nature or learned? After a little thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not human nature because if it were, it means we have been given hearts and minds with limited capacity. If it’s human nature it means that we only have a limited amount of time and energy to care about a small and finite number of people. And, while I function that way, I don’t think I am actually limited. I don’t think I was given a finite capacity for connection and love. So, if it’s not human nature, it must be learned. So then logic tells me if we, as an entire human race, have learned to limit ourselves to our small circles, we can un-learn, and expand our circles of connection.
But where then are our teachers? Who can we look to, to show us how to expand our capacity for connection? How can we love people who do not feel like family to us? We can’t look to our political leaders. Politics as an institution was built on the idea of clearly defined circles. The political construct is to divide us and them and resolve disputes. It was not made to unite. Every politician has a constituency, which is another word for jurisdiction. Every politician - town, state, federal, in every country, has people they represent to the detriment of the people they do not represent. No matter who we put in office, no politician can ever be all inclusive because there will always be people outside of their jurisdiction that they will consider “others”. Not so for our UU teaching. Our UU principles are at least built on the premise of inclusion. We can look to spiritual teachers like Thich Nhat Hanh and Jesus and the Buddha because they may have never learned to limit their capacity for love. These teachers had a much, much bigger, maybe unlimited circles, and were able to in some miraculous way, to relate to practically everyone and see all people as their family. Kind of like when I came to love and accept the gay community as my own, it seemed to sort of happen overnight. Once I realized I was gay, I immediately understood something about others like me – they became like my brothers and sisters. And I have a few other groups in my circle as well. All as result of my life experiences. I consider all of you my UU family, and I feel a sense of love and belonging in this community like no other.
One time I had my Sturbridge t-shirt on when we were on vacation in Florida and someone ran right up to me to tell me they too were from Sturbridge! They were so excited, and so was I. We were only there a few days but we talked about Yankee Spirits and Cedar Street Coffee House like a couple of homesick kids at summer camp. But you’ll never see me run around my town excited to see my fellow Sturbridgians - ah,um Sturbridoneons?
I think maybe, because we were surrounded by “others” – we had that one thing in common – our hometown – to connect us to each other. So, are we to conclude it would require a trip to outer space, for us to say – oh wow – there’s another human! Remember those oceans and mountains? We have something in common!
And then my mind wanders and wonders, what if instead of coming out as a teenager, or in addition, I was a very talented linguist? I learned Spanish AND French easily, in high school. Would I now love to travel and have overcome my fear of flying? Would I now then feel a connection to people from all over the world? How big would my circle be then? Who would my circle include today if my parents were an interracial couple or how might that circle be different if one of my brothers became a police officer? Any and all of these life circumstances could greatly affect who I would permit into my circle and who would be left out. But those weren’t my life circumstance. So the real question is - how do we relate to and love those people with whom we have no apparent connection?
Why do some people dislike me, judge me, or simply not notice me? Well, when my kids have asked me that, I’ve told them, if someone doesn’t like you – they don’t know you. And that’s true, I really believe that, certainly of my kids. The great spiritual teachers tell us from today’s reading, if we practice looking deeply into another’s situation and the causes of how they came to be the way they are now, and if we visualize ourselves as being born in the other persons’ condition, we may see that we could have become exactly like them. When we do that, compassion arises in us naturally and suddenly the one we have been calling our enemy – the others - become our brother or sister.
Of course, it would be naïve for me to propose that we should strive to exist without a circle at all. But rather, I suggest it’s only because we have fixed and finite circumstances that we have fixed and finite circles. I think we all have the capacity for loving connection to virtually everyone if our imaginations were free and our circumstances were endless. I think that any small twist of fate, any tiny turn of events, with virtually any other given facts of my life story, like a tiger in need of companionship more than a meal, any change of circumstance could have, and likely would have, completely altered my circle so the ones I have always known as “others” would instead be my family. I hope this holiday season we all find ways to increase the capacity of our family circle.
Amen and blessed be.
BENEDICTION: Today’s Benediction words are attributed to Angelita Lim: “I saw you were perfect and so I loved you. And then I saw you were not perfect and I loved you even more.”
December 12, 2021
Amy Frisella
CALL TO WORSHIP: A circle has no sides, instead it has a circumference. To calculate the circumference, we use the equation C = 2 X π X r or c = π x d. The Area of a circle is calculated by using the equation A = π x r². The area of a circle may also be called its capacity.
Fortunately, it doesn’t take any complicated math to increase the capacity of your circle – simply widen it.
CHALICE LIGHTING:
I can forgive you that harsh word because we have had a lifetime together exchanging kind words and deeds.
I can heal my heart from the pain of a broken promise but only after countless promises had been kept.
I can jump for joy with you in your accomplishments because I played a small part, even if only as your cheerleader, as you worked toward your goals.
But my real light shines when I can forgive, heal and jump for joy with someone who is a complete stranger to me.
READING: Thich Nhat Hanh “Living Buddha, Living Christ”
“Buddhist and Christian practice is the same…Each day, we practice looking deeply into ourselves and into the situation of our brothers and sisters. It is the most serious work we can do…Jesus told us to love our enemy. [While he was on the cross Jesus said,] ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’ This teaching helps us to know how to look at the person we consider to be the cause of our suffering. If we practice looking deeply into his situation and the causes of how he came to be the way he is now, and if we visualize ourselves as being born in his condition, we may see that we could have become exactly like him. When we do that, compassion arises in us naturally…Suddenly the one we have been calling our enemy becomes our brother or sister…Looking deeply is one of the most effective ways to transform our anger, prejudices and discrimination… In Buddhism we speak of salvation by understanding.”
MEDITATION: Lower your gaze or close your eyes and imagine a circle around you. You are at the center of a circle that you can fill with your light and love. Your circle is warm and bright. Imagine in that circle with you a person very dear to you, whether they are still here or passed, bring that very special person into your circle. You know them - they are your kin. They understand so much of you and you so much of them. Imagine now others in your circle. People you love and respect. People who have changed your life in positive ways. Who are they? Bring into your circle your teachers, your loved ones, bring in more people or animals you want to be around. Bring into your circle someone you would like to see again. Someone you miss. Use your imagination to greet them and enjoy just thinking about them again. Let your circle become full. You have been touched by so many and have so much to be thankful for. Is there room for one more? Who do you need to widen your circle for?
Pause for meditation – Amen & Blessed be.
READING: Our second reading comes from a scientific journal, The Atlantic, written by Carl Room, titled: “Can a Predator Really Be Friends with It’s Prey?”
…Researchers aren’t sure what’s going on … when interspecies pairings are a predator and its prey. Over the past few weeks, for example, a tiger at the Siberian Zoo named Amur has been palling around with a goat, Timur, which handlers originally left in his enclosure as a meal. Amur had attacked and eaten all his previous goats: this one though, spends his days romping through the tiger enclosure with his would be killer…”They are inseparable,”…the director of the park told The Siberian Times. Amur, who had never been aggressive with park staff, has begun hissing at anyone who gets too close to Timur. One possible explanation: At the moment that Timur entered his enclosure, Amur was lonelier than he was hungry. Animals in captivity have their food presented to them...[so] a playmate – even an unorthodox one – can be more satisfying than a meal. “
SERMON:
When I was asked to give a sermon and was given the monthly topics for the year, it was easy for me to choose the topic of family. I have been blessed with a beautiful, supportive, kind and loving family. My parents have been my primary source of strength and admiration my entire life. I have invited them to listen to my sermon today on zoom from Florida so, naturally, I wanted to lead with that. I am so lucky to have two fantastic brothers who both support and protect me. The nuclear family that I was born into helped me practice for the nuclear family that I helped to create as an adult. Mary changed my tiny family circle into a much bigger one that would ultimately include her entire family, parents, siblings, extended family and our children.
We all know what family is. Family is a circle of people related in some way by blood or marriage. Family is our primary social institution which is to say one’s family is each individual’s first experience with socialization, the first place we learn about social behavior and expectations. Family is also based on a legal construct. Our laws about who can and cannot marry, our adoption laws and divorce laws create and deny family relationships within our society. And those laws may differ from one society to the next, they change and evolve over time.
But of course, we all know that’s not the whole story about family. There are those people whom we “consider family”. When we have a strong enough bond with someone we might say “they are like family to me” we are talking not about any social institution or legal construct, but rather we are referring to a relationship distinctly reserved for those in our family circle. We are saying that we have allowed someone into our circle and they will be treated with the special acceptance reserved for only a select few. Like the tiger and the goat, we periodically see these unique relationships in the animal world. These bonds are different than any other. The bonds with people in our circle are rich and deep. The love is deeper even though sometimes with that depth comes some murkey waters. With those in your inner circle you rejoice as if it’s your own accomplishment – never with jealousy or desire. With those in your inner circle, their pain becomes your pain. Their accomplishments become your sense of pride as if you yourself put the work in. You feel so close to them that you play a part in the happenings of their life. If someone in your inner circle is being harmed you respond with the wrath of a mother bear. A family bond is tenacious – it can survive trials that break other bonds. Only those people in your inner circle receive your full capacity for love, forgiveness and protection.
When I was a teenager the word “family” was a kind of slang in the gay community. We’d say, “what do you think about him – do you think he’s family.” A gay party invitation might read – “you can bring your girlfriend because we are only having family.” Or, someone might say – “she came out – she’s family.” So, when I came out, I became a member of the gay family. And all of the sudden, my relationship with other gay people was redefined. My circle was opened up to complete strangers only because we had this common trait. I cared about what happened to them. If something happened to a gay person on the news, a total stranger, that incident, in some way, was an affront to me in a new way, as if harm had come to my sister or brother. When one of us won a battle, we all won, not necessarily because we all benefitted but because someone in our circle, in our gay family, beat someone outside of our circle. We won is also to say – the others – the not “we” – lost. To this day, when I see someone even wearing a gay pride t-shirt, I can give them a wink or hello because we know we are connected – distinguished in some way from all of the other strangers that surround us – strangers – that is to say – the straight people.
Everyone experiences this, right?, this isn’t a gay phenomena. We all have a circle. We allow a select few a certain connection. Our circles are very small relatively speaking, a select few in, but most out. Since we all have these circles, it leads me to wonder if that’s human nature or learned? After a little thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not human nature because if it were, it means we have been given hearts and minds with limited capacity. If it’s human nature it means that we only have a limited amount of time and energy to care about a small and finite number of people. And, while I function that way, I don’t think I am actually limited. I don’t think I was given a finite capacity for connection and love. So, if it’s not human nature, it must be learned. So then logic tells me if we, as an entire human race, have learned to limit ourselves to our small circles, we can un-learn, and expand our circles of connection.
But where then are our teachers? Who can we look to, to show us how to expand our capacity for connection? How can we love people who do not feel like family to us? We can’t look to our political leaders. Politics as an institution was built on the idea of clearly defined circles. The political construct is to divide us and them and resolve disputes. It was not made to unite. Every politician has a constituency, which is another word for jurisdiction. Every politician - town, state, federal, in every country, has people they represent to the detriment of the people they do not represent. No matter who we put in office, no politician can ever be all inclusive because there will always be people outside of their jurisdiction that they will consider “others”. Not so for our UU teaching. Our UU principles are at least built on the premise of inclusion. We can look to spiritual teachers like Thich Nhat Hanh and Jesus and the Buddha because they may have never learned to limit their capacity for love. These teachers had a much, much bigger, maybe unlimited circles, and were able to in some miraculous way, to relate to practically everyone and see all people as their family. Kind of like when I came to love and accept the gay community as my own, it seemed to sort of happen overnight. Once I realized I was gay, I immediately understood something about others like me – they became like my brothers and sisters. And I have a few other groups in my circle as well. All as result of my life experiences. I consider all of you my UU family, and I feel a sense of love and belonging in this community like no other.
One time I had my Sturbridge t-shirt on when we were on vacation in Florida and someone ran right up to me to tell me they too were from Sturbridge! They were so excited, and so was I. We were only there a few days but we talked about Yankee Spirits and Cedar Street Coffee House like a couple of homesick kids at summer camp. But you’ll never see me run around my town excited to see my fellow Sturbridgians - ah,um Sturbridoneons?
I think maybe, because we were surrounded by “others” – we had that one thing in common – our hometown – to connect us to each other. So, are we to conclude it would require a trip to outer space, for us to say – oh wow – there’s another human! Remember those oceans and mountains? We have something in common!
And then my mind wanders and wonders, what if instead of coming out as a teenager, or in addition, I was a very talented linguist? I learned Spanish AND French easily, in high school. Would I now love to travel and have overcome my fear of flying? Would I now then feel a connection to people from all over the world? How big would my circle be then? Who would my circle include today if my parents were an interracial couple or how might that circle be different if one of my brothers became a police officer? Any and all of these life circumstances could greatly affect who I would permit into my circle and who would be left out. But those weren’t my life circumstance. So the real question is - how do we relate to and love those people with whom we have no apparent connection?
Why do some people dislike me, judge me, or simply not notice me? Well, when my kids have asked me that, I’ve told them, if someone doesn’t like you – they don’t know you. And that’s true, I really believe that, certainly of my kids. The great spiritual teachers tell us from today’s reading, if we practice looking deeply into another’s situation and the causes of how they came to be the way they are now, and if we visualize ourselves as being born in the other persons’ condition, we may see that we could have become exactly like them. When we do that, compassion arises in us naturally and suddenly the one we have been calling our enemy – the others - become our brother or sister.
Of course, it would be naïve for me to propose that we should strive to exist without a circle at all. But rather, I suggest it’s only because we have fixed and finite circumstances that we have fixed and finite circles. I think we all have the capacity for loving connection to virtually everyone if our imaginations were free and our circumstances were endless. I think that any small twist of fate, any tiny turn of events, with virtually any other given facts of my life story, like a tiger in need of companionship more than a meal, any change of circumstance could have, and likely would have, completely altered my circle so the ones I have always known as “others” would instead be my family. I hope this holiday season we all find ways to increase the capacity of our family circle.
Amen and blessed be.
BENEDICTION: Today’s Benediction words are attributed to Angelita Lim: “I saw you were perfect and so I loved you. And then I saw you were not perfect and I loved you even more.”