Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth, ME

Leela Sinha

Another Sunrise
March 23, 2008 (Easter)
Ellsworth, Maine

 

 Another Sunrise - March 23, 2008 - MP3 [28:18m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Another Sunrise - March 23, 2008 - PDF: Download

He never really expected to see another sunrise, not after the crucifixion and such.  –there’s only so much a body can endure before it gives up the ghost.  Besides, he wasn’t sure what kind of terms he’d be on with god, not after the weeping and gnashing of teeth in the garden, and then the fear and the cold of being so very alone, right there at the end between the two others, the rude one and the nice one.  It wasn’t much to make you believe in miracles, even though he knew he should, even though he knew he was supposed to, but by the last few hours he was really just tired and cold, really cold, waiting for it to be over like the 40 days in the desert. It hadn’t even been that long between the beginning and the end, just a few years or so, a few years of talking and walking and hoping and dreaming between the visions in the desert and the night on the cross.  A few years to tell people what he believed, and in the end he wasn’t even sure what he believed anymore. Continue reading »

Living In Balance
Leela Sinha (delivered with Sara Hayman)
March 16, 2008
Ellsworth, Maine

 Living In Balance - March 16, 2008 - PDF: Download

reading: retelling of The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

That story,
the one about the boy?
This is not how we want our lives to go,
the persistent discontent
but too often we learn that giving
until we are nothing but stumps
is the only way to be;
too often we learn that to be truly useful
we must be used up,
and so we try to give
until we are empty.
There is no balance in that,
except the giant balance that is the relatively closed system
of this planet of ours,
where almost nothing is created or destroyed,
but where transformation is the word of the day
every day
and has been for nearly 5 billion years,
and where occasionally visitors from outer space
drop something we can use
(like amino acids. or water.)
But our daily balance is not served by our extermination;
we are not like the insect females who
eat their partners
recycle the now-spent parts
into the next generation.
Parents should not be consumed by their children,
nor children by their parents,
nor friends or relatives or perfect strangers
by each other.
We are not meant to be cannibals,
but you couldn’t tell it by the way we often are with each other,
our desperation overriding our sense of community and our sense of self
until we have completely absorbed each other.
What a way to live!
We have choices,
we know we have choices,
the wheeling of life and of time through eternity takes the shape of balance
and we know we have choices.
And this week the equinox comes again
to remind us again
of our choices,
that we are not meant to suck each other dry,
that morning and evening are two equal parts
of one day,
the unity of time from Aristotle’s dramas
and from our own sleeping and waking. Continue reading »

For the Greater Good
Leela Sinha
Feb 17, 2008
Ellsworth, Maine

 

 February 17, 2008 - MP3: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 For the Greater Good - February 17, 2008 - PDF: Download

The fine art of working for the greater good involves a paradox.
A lot about our religion involves a paradox, so this should come as no surprise.  We live a rich life, caught between one thing and another, in the energy of active potential, objects falling, bonds breaking, fire burning.  It’s not a simple life, not an easy life, and certainly not a stable life—not stable in moments, anyway.  It is stable in the big picture, stable like a waterfall—and just as hard, just as dangerous, just as powerful.  I think this may qualify us as the most timid daredevils of the religious world.  We don’t sun dance, we don’t fast for a month, we don’t collectively sit for days of silence, we don’t do much with our bodies—but we play fast and loose with our minds and our hearts.  Timid daredevils.  –another paradox.

Continue reading »

On the Shoulders of Giants
Leela Sinha
February 3, 2008
UU Church of Ellsworth, Maine

 

 On The Shoulders Of Giants - February 10, 2008 - MP3: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 On The Shoulders of Giants - February 10, 2008 - PDF: Download

what would it be like
if we really truly started from scratch,
from a blank slate
from a tabula rasa
–no influences
–no extras
–no training
–no principles.
Who would we be as a people?

It is unknowable, because we are social, learning creatures. It is who we are; it is what we do. Raise a human infant among wolves and it will be socialized there, with them. We are curious. We have mutable brains. Who we are matters, and where we are matters. It also matters whence we have come. Our elders and our ancestors have a profound effect on how we understand our world. They give to us culture and personality, expectations and training. They give us boundaries and possibilities-roots and wings. They communicate in a thousand thousand different ways.

They share out of love and obligation and hope and even irritation, but they share because they believe something is good-or at least better-their way. They are trusting the accrued wisdom of the ages before them, and unless we have a lot of extra energy, we carry the tradition forward.

So today I am calling the ancestors, inviting them to be here with us; not just our usual bearers of wisdom but the obscure, the unheard-of, the parents, grandparents, aunts, mentors, the family gods, the neighborhood storytellers, the servants, the administrators-the bearers of family and institutional memory and hope and possibility. Continue reading »

The Things We Do For Love
Leela Sinha
February 10, 2008
Ellsworth, Maine
sermon “The Things We Do For Love”

 

 The Things We Do For Love - February 3, 2008 - MP3: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 The Things We Do For Love - February 3, 2008 - PDF: Download

On this second day of caucusing, I am heartsick.  Raised in the theoretically diverse but effectively segregated suburbs of New York City in a mixed-race family by a mother who at least once did call herself feminist, I learned that we should be independent-minded, honest, and fair; that we should vote for conscience and honor the choices that others made…and I learned that every person deserves a chance—that we are all supposed to be equal before the law and before our peers.  I also learned that we don’t live up to our ideals.

Continue reading »

Growing Values
Leela Sinha
Jan 27 2008
Ellsworth, Maine

 

 Growing Values - January 27, 2008 - MP3: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Growing Values - January 27, 2008 - PDF: Download

Reading: Sister Helen Prejean’s essay “Living My Prayer” from This I Believe, the NPR series.

Sermon
When I was little I wanted to be Robin Hood.  I didn’t want to be like Robin Hood, I wanted to be Robin Hood.  To me, this was everything that being in second grade in a suburban elementary school was not: he spent his days in the woods, he had cool and relevant skills like archery and hunting, he lived with his friends, no one bossed them around,  and most of all, he made life fair.  He made life fair.  He didn’t have to stomp his feet and hope that some condescending grownup heard his cry.  He made it fair.  And he was so clever that he always got his way in the end.  In retrospect I’m sure being thrown in the Sheriff of Nottingham’s dungeons and almost getting hung every several chapters was unpleasant, and no matter how good his men were I’m sure it made him just a little uneasy, but as far as I could see he was smart and witty and teasing but not mean, and his life looked a lot better than mine.  Thus was launched a lifelong fascination with woodcraft, with ancient and medieval England, with archery, with the power of community, and with justice.
And look where I ended up. Continue reading »

 

 Not Water But Fire - January 13, 2008 MP3: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Not Water But Fire - January 13, 2008 PDF: Download

Water is the lifeblood of earth; it is well over half of the human body; water is the power to carve pillars from mountains and valleys from plains; it is the power to give life and to take it away. It floats in itself, it quenches thirst and fire. The people of the first century knew all that. and yet…and yet when they told the story of john the Baptist, John who came before Jesus, they told a story of one who said “I baptize with water, but one who comes after me, one whose sandals I am not worthy to tie, will baptize with the holy spirit and with fire.”

It’s a terrifying image. If we look back in the Bible it’s not impossible: the burning bush which spoke to Moses, the hot coal which called Isaiah to prophesy by touching his lips, the fires which consumed Sodom and Gomorrah when they were found to be unredeemable by a very angry God—but the fire images of the Hebrew Scriptures are wild. They inspire fear, and obedience through fear; they test loyalty and demand faith.

The one who comes after me will baptize with fire.

We can imagine the possibilities, Jesus and John standing side by side at the river, John in it up to his waist, Jesus standing beside a kind of funeral pyre on the banks. Choose, they might say, choose your baptism. In the already-scorched desert, fire would have been a way to cook food, but not essential for life. Choose, they might suggest, and the newly-convinced person looks between them, incredulous. Choose fire? You’ve got to be kidding.

Read this full sermon in PDF format here

 

 Solitary Lessons - January 06, 2008 MP3: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download
 Solitary Lessons - January 06, 2008 PDF: Download

My brilliant and famous colleague, Robert Fulghum, wrote that all he really needed to know he learned in kindergarten. He seems to be a good man and a successful minister, so I have no doubt that that first year of schooling served him well.

Myself, I have needed a little more education. There were, of course, years of school, which you know I think is a dicey prospect at best, but there have been other, stronger possibilities. Going to camp, for example, especially Unitarian Universalist camp. Working on tech crew for the drama club. Working on tech crew in college. Comparing the two. Singing in choirs. Shoveling snow. Learning to stay in a small boat in a very big ocean.

Of course, this is hardly the season for kayaks. But recently my partner Janine and I have taken up a new hobby: playing solitaire.

Download this full sermon in PDF format here.

 

 Embers & Acorns - December 23, 2007 MP3: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

We’re working hard on getting these recordings publicized on various podcast sites. Below are some links to the pages that link here.

• iTunes Store Address
• Our Odeo Channel (odeo/4594029bf9d2c397)
• RSS Feed URL