BROOKFIELD UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CHURCH
Open-Mindedness, As Assigned
Sermon by Amy Frisella
January 24, 2021
I recently reconnected with an old friend of mine who is now the president of a Jewish synagogue in Connecticut. We reconnected on Facebook because she (thankfully!) agreed to adopt Hailey’s much loved chick who was quickly blossoming into a rooster – not the hen we had expected. As president of her synagogue, she told me it was her job three weeks a month to give the sermon. I was astounded at the amount of work required of her. But she explained to me that they, like every synagogue of their faith, utilize the same set reading from the Torah for the week and her sermon was simply a few short words offering some personal connection or interpretation of the reading. I told her that my time to give a sermon was drawing closer and explained I was given a general sermon topic too, but we often, in true UU spirit, completely ignore our assigned topic and talk about whatever we feel like talking about - which was precisely what I had intended to do. But my friend offered me some words of wisdom about the divine or maybe simply serendipitous nature of a pre-established sermon topic. So, I challenged myself instead to write a sermon on precisely what I was given – and so today’s sermon topic is open-mindedness, as assigned.
After much deliberation, contemplation and meditation, here’s what I think about today’s topic in a nutshell – open-mindedness does not naturally exist! Now, if I were the president of a Jewish synagogue, I would say “Amen” and let you all contemplate that for the week. But, me, being a true UU at heart, I firmly made up my mind, I’ll share it with you, and likely change it next week.
The University of Pennsylvania has an Authentic Happiness club that defines open-mindedness as …”the willingness to search actively for evidence against one’s favored beliefs, plans or goals and to weigh such evidence fairly when it is available.” They say, “Being open-minded does not imply that one is indecisive, wishy-washy, or incapable of thinking for one’s self. After considering various alternatives, an open-minded person can take a firm stand on a position and act accordingly.” Great advice for our young adults from UPenn. But it leaves me wondering what happens as we age? When we were young, once faced with any life topic, we approached it with an open mind, we looked left, we looked right, we investigated all the various possibilities and we drew our conclusion. We proudly took a firm stand and acted accordingly. But as the years pass, how do we prevent that firm stand from turning into standing in cement? Overtime, can we mistakenly categorize a belief as wisdom when in fact, we haven’t even reevaluated that belief in decades. Can a once reasoned position ever become outdated? Can we outgrow a belief? Can life circumstances change our perspective? And if so, how often can we alter, shift or amend our positions? How can we maintain the proper balance or liquidity in our thought process without creating a watered down, wishy-washy - no stance at all - version of something only pretending to be open-minded?
When I think about open-mindedness, I think about the classical conditioning I learned about in college. Stuff like the Pavlovian response. For those who may not know or remember - The Pavlovian response was discovered by a Russian scientist - Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov recognized and used a naturally occurring response (a dog salivating in the presence of food) and introduced to that naturally occurring response - a bell. He discovered once a dog associated the bell with the food, the dog would salivate at the sound of bell even without the food present. That is called classical conditioning. It’s a scientific theory that can be used to explain our process of learning. Then, long after Pavlov’s dogs became famous, there were scientific discoveries about the connections in the brain that made classical conditioning possible. Those connections create a type of neurological pathway in your brain. It was proved that neurologically, a stimulus is directly connected to a response. That is your conditioning. When I hear this – I feel that and respond in my conditioned way – and I don’t even have to think about it – it is a totally automatic path from A to B in my brain. It’s like Eckhart Tolle said in today’s reading, most thinking is happening in the background completely automatically, like digesting or circulating blood. Conditioning is necessary to function and operates behind the scenes in our brains constantly. And that, to me, is a good example of the opposite of open-mindedness. This is how I came to draw the conclusion that open-mindedness does not exist in any natural state. Ask yourself this – how many political conversations have you had in the past 6 months with anyone that resulted in someone changing someone else’s mind about anything? No matter what information comes in – you process and then react to it in accordance with the conditioning and thought patterns you have already adopted. So I assert, you cannot and will not recondition your thoughts unless you want to. Unless you are open to it, practice it and intentionally make a change. So I’m saying - open mindedness (for adults anyway) is a learned behavior. Or, to put it more precisely, in order to open your mind to a new idea you must intentionally un-learn something already learned. It’s not an insurmountable task but like anything worthwhile it is deliberate, it takes time and practice.
Should you strive – on any given topic – to become more open-minded you might think of your normal everyday thinking as a record playing. I mean a real record – a vinyl record on a turntable (for those of us too young to know what a vinyl record is – google it!). Our thoughts function all day just following one long path - grooved if you will, like a record – from one thought to the next to the next as we automatically respond to the stimuli around us. The only way to change your learned reaction, to be open to a new idea, is to scratch the record. If you’ve ever successfully dieted you must have scratched your record so that for example 3pm no longer triggers a need for chocolate, instead you may have changed that conditioning so that 3pm instead triggers your time to go for a walk. If you left the religion of your upbringing, you likely scratched your record and reconditioned a previously set of religious beliefs.
So, while I was preparing for this sermon I was forced to ask myself – Am I open-minded? And after honest reflection I discovered, I’m not, not really, certainly not all the time. I shared these thoughts in this morning’s call to worship which I’ll read again.
There are thoughts in my head that I did not create, thoughts that do not serve me. They were given to me by another and will stay with me for my entire life. I respond in ways that I do not intend, responses that cause harm and separate me from others but I allow these responses time and time again. I cast judgments on others in a split second when I do not know their histories or challenges, their accomplishments or talents. I don’t need to know you. I can create an entire story about you based on your age, your clothing, your name, your skin color, your birthplace, your religion, or the political sign in your yard. I have wisdom and I know what I know and I’m sure if you disagree, you must be wrong, misinformed, in some way mistaken or sadly confused.
So I’ve spent some time thinking about where - very specifically where is it that I might strive to be more open-minded? And I discovered, when my negative thoughts arise, thoughts I really want to keep to myself, that’s my clue I’m being close-minded. When my fears take over, fears I am a little embarrassed to say aloud – that’s my clue I’m being close-minded. When I detect empty space that separates me from you – that’s my clue I’m being close-minded. When I am blind to your point-of-view and I feel no compassion, that’s my clue I’m being close-minded.
Once I realized I might not always been open-minded, I endeavored to make a change. I have been thinking of this as a change in perspective from teacher to student. In places where I think I have room for improvement, I breathe and attempt to release my attachment to my current belief and allow myself to become a student again. It replaces passing judgment with becoming inquisitive. So when I am inclined to share my authority on a topic, instead I’m trying to ask questions. But be careful. The law recognizes two very different types of questions – open and closed. An open question allows the respondent a full range of responses. These questions are phrased with how, what, where, when and why. Closed questions create the response and contain judgments – like “did you” or “Isn’t it true that”. Open and closed questions are so different that, in the courtroom, you can only use open-ended questions when you are questioning a witness on direct examination – a time when the judge is learning about the case. And closed ended questions are reserved only for cross-examination when you are passing judgment and limiting what a hostile witness can tell the judge. Closed questions are called closed because they already contain the answer in the question. So I realized in order to open my mind to a new way of thinking, I have to ask open-ended questions to create a truly inquisitive learning opportunity for myself and remove my previously conceived judgments.
Everyone is somewhere on this continuum of closed-to-open-mindedness. So this week, our assigned sermon topic invites us to take time to reflect on those ideas that no longer serve us. Ideas, thoughts and reactions that cause space between us and make a conscious decision to become students again. We are invited to become a witness to our thoughts – to really figure out precisely where we are uncomfortable - then work to scratch that internal record. While I still assert open-mindedness doesn’t exist naturally for us older adults, I believe we have the ability to create new perspectives and recognize that wisdom contains more questions than answers.
Amen and blessed be.
Sermon by Amy Frisella
January 24, 2021
I recently reconnected with an old friend of mine who is now the president of a Jewish synagogue in Connecticut. We reconnected on Facebook because she (thankfully!) agreed to adopt Hailey’s much loved chick who was quickly blossoming into a rooster – not the hen we had expected. As president of her synagogue, she told me it was her job three weeks a month to give the sermon. I was astounded at the amount of work required of her. But she explained to me that they, like every synagogue of their faith, utilize the same set reading from the Torah for the week and her sermon was simply a few short words offering some personal connection or interpretation of the reading. I told her that my time to give a sermon was drawing closer and explained I was given a general sermon topic too, but we often, in true UU spirit, completely ignore our assigned topic and talk about whatever we feel like talking about - which was precisely what I had intended to do. But my friend offered me some words of wisdom about the divine or maybe simply serendipitous nature of a pre-established sermon topic. So, I challenged myself instead to write a sermon on precisely what I was given – and so today’s sermon topic is open-mindedness, as assigned.
After much deliberation, contemplation and meditation, here’s what I think about today’s topic in a nutshell – open-mindedness does not naturally exist! Now, if I were the president of a Jewish synagogue, I would say “Amen” and let you all contemplate that for the week. But, me, being a true UU at heart, I firmly made up my mind, I’ll share it with you, and likely change it next week.
The University of Pennsylvania has an Authentic Happiness club that defines open-mindedness as …”the willingness to search actively for evidence against one’s favored beliefs, plans or goals and to weigh such evidence fairly when it is available.” They say, “Being open-minded does not imply that one is indecisive, wishy-washy, or incapable of thinking for one’s self. After considering various alternatives, an open-minded person can take a firm stand on a position and act accordingly.” Great advice for our young adults from UPenn. But it leaves me wondering what happens as we age? When we were young, once faced with any life topic, we approached it with an open mind, we looked left, we looked right, we investigated all the various possibilities and we drew our conclusion. We proudly took a firm stand and acted accordingly. But as the years pass, how do we prevent that firm stand from turning into standing in cement? Overtime, can we mistakenly categorize a belief as wisdom when in fact, we haven’t even reevaluated that belief in decades. Can a once reasoned position ever become outdated? Can we outgrow a belief? Can life circumstances change our perspective? And if so, how often can we alter, shift or amend our positions? How can we maintain the proper balance or liquidity in our thought process without creating a watered down, wishy-washy - no stance at all - version of something only pretending to be open-minded?
When I think about open-mindedness, I think about the classical conditioning I learned about in college. Stuff like the Pavlovian response. For those who may not know or remember - The Pavlovian response was discovered by a Russian scientist - Ivan Pavlov. Pavlov recognized and used a naturally occurring response (a dog salivating in the presence of food) and introduced to that naturally occurring response - a bell. He discovered once a dog associated the bell with the food, the dog would salivate at the sound of bell even without the food present. That is called classical conditioning. It’s a scientific theory that can be used to explain our process of learning. Then, long after Pavlov’s dogs became famous, there were scientific discoveries about the connections in the brain that made classical conditioning possible. Those connections create a type of neurological pathway in your brain. It was proved that neurologically, a stimulus is directly connected to a response. That is your conditioning. When I hear this – I feel that and respond in my conditioned way – and I don’t even have to think about it – it is a totally automatic path from A to B in my brain. It’s like Eckhart Tolle said in today’s reading, most thinking is happening in the background completely automatically, like digesting or circulating blood. Conditioning is necessary to function and operates behind the scenes in our brains constantly. And that, to me, is a good example of the opposite of open-mindedness. This is how I came to draw the conclusion that open-mindedness does not exist in any natural state. Ask yourself this – how many political conversations have you had in the past 6 months with anyone that resulted in someone changing someone else’s mind about anything? No matter what information comes in – you process and then react to it in accordance with the conditioning and thought patterns you have already adopted. So I assert, you cannot and will not recondition your thoughts unless you want to. Unless you are open to it, practice it and intentionally make a change. So I’m saying - open mindedness (for adults anyway) is a learned behavior. Or, to put it more precisely, in order to open your mind to a new idea you must intentionally un-learn something already learned. It’s not an insurmountable task but like anything worthwhile it is deliberate, it takes time and practice.
Should you strive – on any given topic – to become more open-minded you might think of your normal everyday thinking as a record playing. I mean a real record – a vinyl record on a turntable (for those of us too young to know what a vinyl record is – google it!). Our thoughts function all day just following one long path - grooved if you will, like a record – from one thought to the next to the next as we automatically respond to the stimuli around us. The only way to change your learned reaction, to be open to a new idea, is to scratch the record. If you’ve ever successfully dieted you must have scratched your record so that for example 3pm no longer triggers a need for chocolate, instead you may have changed that conditioning so that 3pm instead triggers your time to go for a walk. If you left the religion of your upbringing, you likely scratched your record and reconditioned a previously set of religious beliefs.
So, while I was preparing for this sermon I was forced to ask myself – Am I open-minded? And after honest reflection I discovered, I’m not, not really, certainly not all the time. I shared these thoughts in this morning’s call to worship which I’ll read again.
There are thoughts in my head that I did not create, thoughts that do not serve me. They were given to me by another and will stay with me for my entire life. I respond in ways that I do not intend, responses that cause harm and separate me from others but I allow these responses time and time again. I cast judgments on others in a split second when I do not know their histories or challenges, their accomplishments or talents. I don’t need to know you. I can create an entire story about you based on your age, your clothing, your name, your skin color, your birthplace, your religion, or the political sign in your yard. I have wisdom and I know what I know and I’m sure if you disagree, you must be wrong, misinformed, in some way mistaken or sadly confused.
So I’ve spent some time thinking about where - very specifically where is it that I might strive to be more open-minded? And I discovered, when my negative thoughts arise, thoughts I really want to keep to myself, that’s my clue I’m being close-minded. When my fears take over, fears I am a little embarrassed to say aloud – that’s my clue I’m being close-minded. When I detect empty space that separates me from you – that’s my clue I’m being close-minded. When I am blind to your point-of-view and I feel no compassion, that’s my clue I’m being close-minded.
Once I realized I might not always been open-minded, I endeavored to make a change. I have been thinking of this as a change in perspective from teacher to student. In places where I think I have room for improvement, I breathe and attempt to release my attachment to my current belief and allow myself to become a student again. It replaces passing judgment with becoming inquisitive. So when I am inclined to share my authority on a topic, instead I’m trying to ask questions. But be careful. The law recognizes two very different types of questions – open and closed. An open question allows the respondent a full range of responses. These questions are phrased with how, what, where, when and why. Closed questions create the response and contain judgments – like “did you” or “Isn’t it true that”. Open and closed questions are so different that, in the courtroom, you can only use open-ended questions when you are questioning a witness on direct examination – a time when the judge is learning about the case. And closed ended questions are reserved only for cross-examination when you are passing judgment and limiting what a hostile witness can tell the judge. Closed questions are called closed because they already contain the answer in the question. So I realized in order to open my mind to a new way of thinking, I have to ask open-ended questions to create a truly inquisitive learning opportunity for myself and remove my previously conceived judgments.
Everyone is somewhere on this continuum of closed-to-open-mindedness. So this week, our assigned sermon topic invites us to take time to reflect on those ideas that no longer serve us. Ideas, thoughts and reactions that cause space between us and make a conscious decision to become students again. We are invited to become a witness to our thoughts – to really figure out precisely where we are uncomfortable - then work to scratch that internal record. While I still assert open-mindedness doesn’t exist naturally for us older adults, I believe we have the ability to create new perspectives and recognize that wisdom contains more questions than answers.
Amen and blessed be.
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