Work and Re-Creation Reverend Roberta Finkelstein August 28, 2005 The poet Marge Piercy says, "People yearn for work that is real." As we approach the Labor Day week-end, I want to take some time to talk about work, and what it is that makes it real. The Labor Day holiday is the final gasp of summer - we are so busy with back to school and zucchinis that we may forget the historical significance of Labor Day; a nod of gratitude to courageous generations of workers who learned that by coming together in labor unions they could make their experience of work more bearable & more satisfying. In those days, low pay, long hours, unfair compensation and exploitation of workers were common. Paid vacation and sick leave were unheard of. When people are underpaid or exploited, they are not happy. That is why the labor movement began. But today, studies of employee satisfaction tell us that although low pay or unfair employment practices create dissatisfaction, higher compensation or better conditions don’t necessarily create satisfaction. Other factors come into play that create true job satisfaction. This morning I want to talk not about the dissatisfiers, but about the satisfiers; those things that make us happy at our work. About ten years ago I was given a book called Zen and the Art of Making a Living by Laurence Boldt. It is a big, thick, long book and it sat unread on my shelf for quite a while. But when I finally opened it, I was surprised to find that page after page, there was a convergence between his premises and the basic tenets of liberal religious philosophy. Boldt defines Zen as that which integrates the spiritual and the material, holding up the sacredness of the ordinary. "Very UU," I thought as I read it. He says that realizing your life work is a life long process - an unfolding rather than a discrete point in time. "Very UU, " I thought again. Finding your true vocation takes both inner and outer work. The inner work is cultivating self-knowledge, clarifying values, separating yourself from the expectations and opinions of other. The outer work is investigation: reading, talking to others, learning, doing. "Very UU," I thought. Our spiritual journey is based on leaning from each other as well as finding what is already inside of us - reflecting on our lived experiences. Boldt also insists that a truly satisfying vocation will have a service orientation of some sort. When we work congruently with our values, when we are cognizant of what impact we are having on the larger society, we are far more likely to feel good about what we are doing. And as he described this understanding of the impact of our work on others and on our world, the image of the interdependent web danced in my mind. "Very UU, " I thought. Boldt's ideas about work are captured in what he calls "a practical philosophy of work in four acts plus a prologue". In the prologue Boldt uses the genre of the mythical quest - when a hero or heroine sets off into the world to do some great deed - usually with a grand vision that few of his or her contemporaries share. The quester meets many challenges, learns some things about herself and the world, is oft defeated and discouraged, figures out who his real friends are, and finally is successful in reaching the goal. The point of the prologue to the quest is to say "I SEE" - in a Zen-like manner. " I SEE" is not just a statement, it is an acronym. The I is for integrity - knowing who you are, and being faithful to that identity. The S is for Service. The E is for enjoyment - What do I love to do? And the final E is for excellence - What can I dedicate myself to enough to pursue it to excellence? Now, I have a philosophical disagreement with Boldt over excellence. I advocate the "good enough" approach to things like parenthood, ministry and vocation, and life in general. But the acronym becomes very un-Zen like when you replace the E with GE, so I'll let the excellence stand as an ideal rather than a concrete goal. This prologue is the heart and mind and soul searching stage of the quest for meaningful work. Boldt believes that a good career choice is made from the inside out. Once you have said, "I SEE' you move on to Act I - the Quest for Life Work. Like mythical heroes we must each embark on a vision quest - asking what is our word view? what can we imagine ourselves doing? In Act I we create a heroic identity for ourselves. Having a heroic identity means knowing one's purpose (what am I doing here?), acknowledging one's particular gifts and talents, and coming to a realistic appraisal of the outcomes of one's efforts. Act II is The Game of Life's Work - he calls it a game because you have to be willing to play, and to play roles. At this stage you are no longer imaging and imagining, you have made a choice, often in spite of the disapproval or disbelief of others and the incongruence between your choice and the expectations you grew up with. I experienced some of that when I announced to my somewhat startled colleagues in nurse-midwifery that I was leaving to go to seminary. "You're going to be a what?" At General Assembly this year I heard a story about a well-known preacher remembering the reception he received when he made public his intended vocation. At a dinner party he was asked, by a very loud and imperious hostess, “I understand you are going into the ministry. Is this your own idea, or have you been poorly advised?” ee cummings says "to be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody-else, means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting." Only by calling it a game, Laurence Boldt would add, and playing at it, do you resist the temptation to become grim about it. A strong purpose allows for playfulness - purposeful playfulness. Act III is the Battle for Life's Work. Boldt uses the term battle deliberately to make it clear that in any vocation, power is a reality that must be dealt with. Power is something liberal religion not always comfortable with. It is easier to think of ourselves as powerless than it is to decide how to exercise our power to bring about the world we believe in. You will note that this discomfort with owning and exercising power is not a weakness shared by our friends on the radical religious right. Every time you ask yourselves how those people are able to push their agenda so hard and so successfully, remind yourselves how deeply they believe in their personal and communal power. Because they believe, they show up, they write checks, they write letters, they make phone calls. They don't wring their hands and talk about being a small bastion of conservatism awash in a sea of liberalism. They do not live in a culture of scarcity. They have the money and the time to change the world because they are willing to acknowledge and exercise power. It is well documented that Unitarian Universalists across the continent have the second highest per capita income of any religious group, yet we are the second lowest givers to our own churches. Margaret Beard, who was Director of Extension for the Unitarian Universalist Association for many years, used to say that almost every church she visited told her that they were the exception, that although UU's in general may have money, "We don't." Yes, we do! This year we are walking together through a time of transition that could easily be defined as ‘the year you find your communal power.’ Part of the search is about money – bringing to fruition your wish for fiscal stability as you articulated it together last year. But it is not just money you wish for and will find, it is also power. By building this bold and striking building, you rejected the ‘small island of liberalism awash in a sea of conservatism’ metaphor. You want to be a significant presence on the religious landscape of this community. Even though many of you ended the church year last spring tired and burned out, I feel the energy and determination returning. You are powerful, you are warriors. And it's a good thing too, because one of the things your money and determination has done is brought into your midst a minister who is rarin' to go. And I can't go alone - I can only go with you, my warrior friends. Boldt says this about being warriors. "No doubt, some of you are still having difficulty with the warrior metaphor. As we use the term, warrior isn't limited to combat veterans, but applies to anyone who uses their aggressive energy in a disciplined way. Aggressive energy is a part of life. There is no getting around it. It can be used creatively, or it can be used destructively, but it cannot be eliminated. Non-violence is the creative use of aggression." He goes on to extol guerilla tactics in the creative use of power. Don't take on large armies in their strongholds - go under, around and behind the big bullies. Use the essential internal strengths that we all have and can cultivate. The first is Bravery. "Only the gentle are brave," he writes. True valor arises out of commitment to your vision, it allows you to initiate new strategies, endure against the odds, and ultimately to triumph. The second is Integrity - being true to yourselves. Greed compromises integrity, but so does laziness or passivity. The third is Resourcefulness - which means knowing there is a way, finding the way using both reason and intuition, taking action, and keeping at it! The first opportunity for all of you to apply integrity, reason, and intuition to the forward progress of this congregation will be your participation in the Fish Wish process your board is planning. They are looking for a way to bring all the resourcefulness of all of you to bear on creating a strategic plan for bringing fiscal stability to this church. All you have to do is show up, listen, think, dream, and speak your truths to the assembled sages. Finally, after the quest, the game, and the battle, we arrive at Act IV -The School of Life's Work. The end point is not an end point at all; but a school -the on-going process of learning and change. We are never finished finding our true vocation. The humanist psychologist Carl Rogers once said, "The only person who is educated is the one who has learned how to learn . .. . and change." And, not surprisingly, I have a suggestion for where you can attend the School of Life’s Work right here. It is the Chalice Communities. These small groups, facilitated by trained lay leaders, are a place where you can learn, month after month, about your true identity. In a safe and loving environment, you can take risks, encourage each other, and experience the transformations that accompany spiritual growth. "There is nothing,” said George Washington Carve, “that will not reveal its secrets if you love it enough." In a Chalice Community, you can love your vocation into being. Please fill out a registration form for the Chalice Communities that will be forming in September. You can talk to me, or any of the facilitators, for more information. I have given you a basic overview of what Boldt sees as the essentials of pursuing meaningful life work - work that brings health and satisfaction to the individual and improves the world in some way, work that does not destroy self respect, burn you out, stress you, or eat you up inside. There is one more factor in this equation, and to identify it we need to consult another model for work and re-creation: the model given to us in Genesis 1, which is, among other things, a model for vocation. Work from a grand vision, enjoy doing what you do well, pause to examine your work and bask in the warmth of success, and then take a day off! Time off is part of my spiritual discipline. I always take Mondays off. If you call me on a Monday with anything other than a pastoral emergency, I will remind you that Monday is my Sabbath, and ask you to try again on Tuesday. Michelle takes Fridays as her Sabbath day. If God needed rest every six days, so must we. The summer is almost over, vacation time is coming to an end. School, church, office, all are calling us back. But still we need recreation, no, re-creation time so that we can renew our capacity to give to the world, receive from the world, and feel the better for our giving, and our receiving. The moral of this sermon is really two-fold. First: seek that which is meaningful with which to fill your days. Second: Look at the fruits of your labor, see that it is good, and then take a day off!