February 19, 2012

Matt Alspaugh

This homily was preceded by brief presentations by five people from five generations.

Conflict between young and old has always been with us, it seems. I remember seeing a poster that had these words on it: “I see no hope for the future of our people if they are dependent on frivolous youth of today, for certainly all youth are reckless beyond words… When I was young, we were taught to be discreet and respectful of elders, but the present youth are exceedingly [disrespectful] and impatient of restraint”, and attributed (falsely, it turns out)[1] to the Greek poet Hesiod, twenty seven centuries ago.

Of course it goes both ways. In my generation, the tagline was, “don’t trust anybody over 30.[2]” So disagreement based on age, maturity, stage of life, has been going on a long time.

But what’s relatively recent is the idea that each of us is affected by the world events, technology, and culture of our childhood – and these events have a similar effect on all of us who were born within the same few decades. So we share cultural experiences with those people born around the same time as we were, and these common experiences give us similar outlooks on life. And of course, the next generation is formed by different experiences which give them a different outlook – and that’s the root of our “generation gap.”

The idea of generational differences was popularized in the 50s with the birth of the baby boom generation, those people born in the two decades or so after World War II. Born into relative prosperity, but also born into the Cold War, these babies, millions of them, grew up having power in numbers, and have tended to reject or at least redefine traditional values. The boomers have ruled the roost, for a long time, as marketers cater to their vast numbers, and their political power has increased as they age.

But other generations have their own characteristics. The Generation X folks, a much smaller group, often children of divorce, latchkey kids, children of the inwardly focused boomers, growing up in a country rocked by an energy crisis and political corruption, left to pick up the pieces from the wreckage left by the boomers.

The Millennials, or Gen Y, found themselves nurtured and protected, even overprotected as children, over-scheduled by hovering helicopter moms concerned by the threat of school shootings and terrorism, but the kids turn out all right.

And Gen Z, the Internet Generation, born into the post 9-11 Homeland security world, maybe too soon to tell what they are like, but not too soon to guess that they will adapt and grow up just fine too.

 

In 1991, historians William Strauss and Neil Howe wrote a book called Generations[3], that claimed there is a recurring generational cycle in American history. They suggest that there are four generational archetypes — they call these turnings — that repeat in a cycle. Thus, if you want to know what the Gen Z folks are going to be like, look four generations earlier, to the Veterans. So Kali [a Gen Z], look at Art [a Veteran]! Indeed, these historians see at least six complete generational cycles in American history. At the end of each cycle is a crisis — the American Revolution, the Civil War, the Great Depression and World War II, with a new crisis of similar proportions looming in the years ahead. It’s a fascinating read, even if you find the idea of these cycles and turnings a little too deterministic or ‘just so’.

But I want to caution that we can use and misuse generational identity just as we can use or misuse any of our other identities — race, gender, sexual orientation, personality. Unconsciously, or consciously, we use identity to make first impressions about people. Sometimes that is helpful. But we must be careful not to put people in a box based on their identity. We need to be careful not to use generational identity, just as we are careful not to use racial or sexual identity, to label people — ‘oh, that generation — he’s a boor’, or ‘oh, one of those people, she’s a slacker, for sure’. We need to do what my generation called ‘consciousness raising’, noticing and making conscious, becoming aware of our unconscious prejudices, so we can be ready to set them aside if they are not true for a given person.

Understanding generations also helps us understand systemic forces of good or ill on groups of people. Take millennials for example. They are said to be the first generation that, overall, will be less well off than their parents.[4] College tuition costs for them is three times what it was for boomers, and there is less grant money available to pay that tuition.[5] And yet, without college, the average millennial male will make 25% less than a similar boomer or X-er man did three decades ago.[6] So, there’s little wonder millennials have a different view about work, school, and money than their predecessors did.

Let’s also remember that church is one of the few places remaining in our society where people of different generations freely come together. Indeed, few of our families these days include three or four generations living together. The grown kids have moved away with the grand kids, and the old folks are off in the retirement home.

But here, today, we had five generations speaking to us. So in this church community we can learn from people of other generations, understand the specific situations of their upbringings, listen to their hopes and fears, find out what motivates them and gives them purpose.

Let us hold all of our generations with respect. Let us recognize and cherish the gifts that each person within each generation brings to us with their lives and their stories. Let us remember that all of us are different, and all of us have value, as unique human beings.

Notes:

1 http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Hesiod

2 http://www.bartleby.com/73/1828.html

3 Neil Howe and William Strauss, “Generations: The History of America’s Future, 1584 to 2069″ http://www.amazon.com/Generations-History-Americas-Future-1584/dp/0688119123/

4 http://www.truth-out.org/heather-mcghee-millennial-generation/1328972276

5 http://billmoyers.com/content/the-millennials-by-the-numbers/

6 ibid.

January 15, 2012

Matt Alspaugh

About five years ago, I had the opportunity to participate in a congregational study trip to Guatemala, sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. About twenty of us stayed in a small, traditional hotel in Antigua, which was our base camp for part of the trip. From there we traveled to visit many small groups working for social justice, and to talk with individuals who had been witness to the genocide that Molly described in her chalice lighting reflection.

On the last day of our trip, we had dinner with the proprietor of our hotel. Hugo was a quiet man, very polite, speaking good English, but a little uncomfortable telling his story. During the early days of la violencia, Hugo had worked as a newspaper reporter for one of the more liberal papers, but when his life became endangered, he fled, crossing the border into Los Angeles. There, he worked as a bellhop for one of the larger hotels, gradually learning other aspects of the business. When it was relatively safe to return to Guatemala, he did so, and opened his hotel. He still maintains a low profile, since, as a former journalist, he knows too much about the ‘hidden powers’, the corruption that still remains in Guatemala, and his life could still be in danger.

Continue reading Sermon: Doors Open for Everyone

“Resolutions, Conflict, and Interconnectedness”

January 1, 2012

Mark Debruin and Sarah Jordan

Preamble

Mark: Some of you may know that I used to teach high school. In teaching you learn to repeat the message several times. So I am going to tell you what I am going to tell you. If you listen closely you will learn the secret to having riches, learn how to resolve or minimize conflict, and learn how to strengthen New Year’s Resolutions. All in one service.

Sarah: Several year’s ago Mark DeBruin was the treasurer at the UU church in Reynoldsburg, a suburb of Columbus.  He attended training from the Ohio-Meadville District about changes that churches experience, especially when they transition from a smaller church size to a larger church size or when the demographics of a church dramatically change.  Usually these changes result in a lot of conflict.  We will explores some of the lessons learned that can hopefully deepen your relationships here.   Theoretically, if you can understand where the other person is coming from, then that will help minimize the likelihood of conflict.

Continue reading Sermon: “Resolutions, Conflict, and Interconnectedness”

December 11, 2011

Matt Alspaugh

t was a surprise to me and it may be a surprise to you that we live in the most peaceful time in history. Not only that, overall trends indicate that peace will continue to break out worldwide, and that levels of violence will continue to decline.

When I first heard a variation of this thesis that war is declining that peace is a real possibility — I was in the car, driving somewhere in Minnesota, listening to Fresh Air or some other program on the radio, and the speaker is long forgotten — I was dumbstruck. This hope for peace seemed incredibly naive and farfetched, a lovely religious sentiment, especially at this time of year — peace on Earth and goodwill to all, and all that. But there is actually evidence to support this idea.

Continue reading Sermon: Is It Possible to Live in Peace?

November 20, 2011

Matt Alspaugh

At the most wonderful concert last night, James Durst[1] commented briefly on how folk music evolves as folk artists borrow each others songs and modify them, rearrange them, add verses, which he calls the ‘folk process’. And which he freely admits some call ‘stealing’.

I immediately thought of how at times, the ‘sermon process’ happens when a person, let’s call him Matt, is stuck on a topic, and goes to the internet to borrow from others sermons, modify their ideas, rearrange them and add verses.  Today’s topic — grace — is certainly one of those themes which required full engagement of ‘the sermon process’.

Grace is one of those words whose meaning has been distorted by so many flavors of Christianity that it is hard to use the word without confusion. It joins words like faith, evil, salvation, words which themselves have been twisted into knots and overloaded with multiple meanings.

Continue reading Sermon: Everyday Grace

October 23, 2011

Matt Alspaugh

A monk joins a monastery and takes the vow of silence. Now in this monastery that vow is very strict, and no one is allowed to speak ever, except once a decade, when each monk meets with the abbot, at which time they are allowed to say just two words.

So after ten years, the monk meets with the abbot, and is asked how things are with him, and he says, “bed, hard”. Ten years more, and he meets, and says, “food, bad”., Another decade and at this meeting he says, “I quit!” At which point the abbot says, “That doesn’t surprise me a bit. You’ve done nothing but complain ever since you got here.”

So may I ask your forbearance today, at least to put up with this brief message? I don’t want you to get labeled a complainer like that monk.

Continue reading Sermon: Asking Your Forbearance

October 9, 2011

Sarah Lown

The Happy Valley –the inspiration for my talk today– is a place called Abyssinia. It’s a perfect land –where earthquakes produce aromatic spices, and no one wants for a thing. Sounds like bliss.

Meantime, back in the real world, about once a week, someone turns to me –or I turn to someone else— and ask, “Is it my imagination, or are things falling apart?”

It seems like things are falling apart. The economy looks bleak. U.S. military actions abroad are escalating. School systems are in crisis. Foreclosures are still on the rise. There’s climate change. We don’t need to look hard to find things falling apart.

It’s times like this that I take comfort in reading accounts of disaster and dystopia. I think it helps to know that things can always get worse. Continue reading Sermon: Hope for a Happy Valley

September 18, 2011

Matt Alspaugh

One summer when I was in college, I attended one of those wilderness survival training programs. This wasn’t one of those hard-core Outward Bound or military survival experiences, we didn’t eat bugs or learn to snare rats or anything. We just had to be spread out alone in the desert one night with out much in the way of material support.

Continue reading Sermon: “Survivor”

August 28, 2011

Matt Alspaugh

Some of us here have been participating on and off in Julie Thomas’s wonderful study group on Tibetan Buddhism. Up in the Youth Room, she’s redecorated one wall with Buddhist images and an altar table filled with statuary, flowers, bowls, christmas lights, and other ritual objects. If you haven’t seen that room, you should go look at it. In the group we’re immersed into a Buddhist practice that is heavy on ritual, with incense, lots of chanting, communal reading, and brief meditations.

As someone who leans more toward the more austere and intellectual Zen Buddhism in my own interest, I’m just glad to have any Buddhist activity in Youngstown and in our space.

Now the study has been interesting. We’ve spent hours going over the meaning of a couple of short texts, in great detail. These texts, part of the Lom Rim genre, or Way of the Path, describe how one should live in order to fully realize one’s potential.

Continue reading Sermon: Precious Human Life