Unitarian Universalist Church of Ellsworth, ME

Saying Yes
April 27, 2008 (New Member Sunday)
Ellsworth, Maine
Leela Sinha

There is a cliff in Matheran, a hill station outside of Mumbai, in India. At the edge you can look straight down, not even a railing between earth and sky. Some people stay back; some walk right up until the staining red clay crumbles beneath their sandals. All they see are tops of trees and clouds sunk low in the valley and dust under their toes. About half of the people on any given day look like they’re going to vomit; the other half look like they are about to fly. They are twins, the seduction and the fear, the gift and the crisis of height.
Continue reading »

Leela Sinha

Becoming A Beacon

April 13, 2008 Ellsworth, ME

in my mind’s eye the image is fuzzy, like failing TV screens and old newspaper photographs–the kind where every dot is black or white and your brain has to fill in the blanks.  There’s never any audio in my memory, never any ambient noise or even-handed newscaster commentary, or any explanation at all, which may be because there was nothing anyone could say.  The picture is almost too small to be believed, always shot from behind the lone figure, always shot toward the advancing tank.  There are things that we always remember; every generation has a few.  That anonymous man in Tian’anman Square made indelible once again what is embedded in the history of the world: sometimes it is worth facing death for what we believe in. Continue reading »

Leela Sinha

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

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

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 »

A Church That Says Yes
Leela Sinha
March 2, 2008

reading: the story of Narcissus from Greek Mythology
credit to colleague the Reverend Chip Roush for the phrase, “The Yes Church”

sermon
What misery, to be in love with one’s own reflection!
We began this morning with the story of narcissus: a story of self-obsession, of surprise, of delight, and of tragedy.  It is written out of fear, fear of a kind of self-absorption and ignorance that can lead to downfall.
The story, passed down through millennia from ancient Greece, imbues us with a kind of paranoia of mirrors, a fear of looking too much, or liking what we see more than we should.  It implies that it is possible to like yourself  so much that you lose track of your responsibilities, your commitments, your context.  It implies that appreciating one’s own merits can be irresponsible, damaging, or even destructive.
Certainly, it can be.
The trouble is, mirrors are not just for vanity–they are not just for insignificant issues that are important only to us.  Mirrors give us that rare gift of vision through another’s eyes; for a brief moment or two we can “see oursel’ as ithers see us”, as poet  Robbie Bairns so gracefully put it.  It’s a rare privilege to have that outside perspective, an honest critique that leans neither to the indulgent nor to the cruel, motivated by something more robust than whim.  When someone offers us that gift–whether by donation, suggestion, comment, or offer–we are wise to accept, and to accept with grace, not suspicion, not anger, not fear.
It is okay to look, and to like what we see.
It is okay to look and see something we need to change.
It is important to look, to know ourselves, our assets, our flaws, else how can we know our role in the world?
“Know thyself,” said the temple at Delphi.  It is a noble ideal.
So who are we?
We are a church that says yes. Continue reading »

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

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

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”

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 »