Unitarian Universalist Church West

Transformation is one of those words with a simple meaning.  It means a change, particularly in form or structure.  But when we use the word transformation in church, it becomes one of those words with a big meaning:  it means to become deeper, more open, more loving, more joyful, more at peace, more related to oneself and to others and to the larger Wholeness of which we are a part.  Here, transformation means the change that involves knowing ourselves, understanding ourselves, as part of something larger than ourselves.  To be “a people of transformation,” means being those who practice this kind of transformation personally and collectively and who help create a place where others might participate in personal and societal transformation as well.

Transformation sounds huge -- it sounds like everything changes completely.  But just as every journey begins with a single step, all transformations can begin with small changes.  To practice transformation, begin by changing something -- for example, wake up ten minutes earlier in the morning and spend those minutes reading a book, meditating, stretching, or contemplating your own back yard out the window.  Try something different -- take a new route to work or school, pour your coffee with your non-dominant hand, listen to a different radio station.  Interrupt your habits, your usual patterns, and you will notice how they comfort you and/or keep you stuck.

As a spiritual practice, transformation, according to www.spiritualityandpractice.com “holds within its wide embrace the personal renewals that come with a spiritual awakening, a conversion, a mystical epiphany, or an enlightenment. It covers the deepening that takes place when we get in touch with our Higher Self or Spirit.”

As a community practice, transformation means joining our strength with others to build a better world.  the work we are doing with Common Ground of SE Wisconsin is the work of transformation, as is the work of the annual Peace Conference we sponsor, the work of our Earth Ministry committee and the work of our Nicaragua Brigades and our Habitat for Humanity team.  More information on Social Action at UUCW can be found here:  http://www.uucw.org/living-our-values

The shadow side of transformation is our culture’s addiction to the new.  When we have to have the newest product, have to jump on the bandwagon of every new idea -- when we become enraptured by change, we see this shadow.  Racing from one stimulus to another, we lose our own right path.  Transformation’s second shadow is the belief that “god” or a higher power of some kind will change everything for us if we just ask in the right way.  This is not to deny the power of prayer and meditation in helping shift our human consciousness toward transformation, for both practices can be immensely helpful when we are in personal transition, or when we are seeking to change our society.  “Magical thinking” and prayer are two different things.

Some thoughts on Transformation:  Quotations
When we quit thinking primarily about ourselves and our own self-preservation, we undergo a truly heroic transformation of consciousness.  ~ Joseph Campbell

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. ~ Alan Watts

I'm neither an optimist nor a pessimist. I am a dyed-in-the-wool possibilist!  By this, I mean with an eco-mind, we see that everything's connected and change is the only constant. ~ Frances Moore Lappé

Nature often holds up a mirror so we can see more clearly the ongoing processes of growth, renewal, and transformation in our lives.  ~ Anonymous

Personal transformation can and does have global effects. As we go, so goes the world, for the world is us. The revolution that will save the world is ultimately a personal one. ~ Marianne Williamson

Transformation literally means going beyond your form. ~ Wayne Dyer

If we can recognize that change and uncertainty are basic principles, we can greet the future and the transformation we are undergoing with the understanding that we do not know enough to be pessimistic.  ~ Hazel Henderson

The mind, intellect, ego, ether, air, fire, water, and earth are the eightfold transformation of My nature. ~ from the Bhagavad Gita

Sometimes a breakdown can be the beginning of a kind of breakthrough, a way of living in advance through a trauma that prepares you for a future of radical transformation. ~ Cherrie Moraga

Hope and change are hard-fought things. ~ Michelle Obama

The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance. ~ Alan Watts

Transformation is not five minutes from now; it's a present activity. In this moment you can make a different choice, and it's these small choices and successes that build up over time to help cultivate a healthy self-image and self esteem. ~ Jillian Michaels

How wonderful it is that nobody need wait a single moment before starting to improve the world. ~ Anne Frank

He who is not busy being born is busy dying. ~ Bob Dylan

[A]ll change, even very large and powerful change, begins when a few people start talking with one another about something they care about. ~ Margaret J. Wheatley

The important thing is this: to be ready at any moment to sacrifice what you are for what you could become. ~ Charles Dickens

It takes a deep commitment to change and an even deeper commitment to grow. ~  Ralph Ellison

Scared and sacred are spelled with the same letters. Awful proceeds from the same root word as awesome. Terrify and terrific. Every negative experience holds the seed of transformation. ~ Alan Cohen

We seek not rest but transformation.
We are dancing through each other as doorways. ~  Marge Piercy

As human beings, our greatness lies not so much in being able to remake the world -- that is the myth of the atomic age -- as in being able to remake ourselves. ~ Mohandas K. Gandhi

It doesn't matter how long we may have been stuck in a sense of our limitations. If we go into a darkened room and turn on the light, it doesn't matter if the room has been dark for a day, a week, or ten thousand years -- we turn on the light and it is illuminated. ~ Sharon Salzberg

What you are, the world is.
And without your transformation,
there can be no transformation of the world.
~ j. krishnamurti

To change one's life: 
1. Start immediately. 
2. Do it flamboyantly. 
3. No exceptions. ~ William James

If you begin to understand what you are without trying to change it, then what you are undergoes a transformation. ~ Jiddu Krishnamurti

Transformation is only valid if it is carried out with the people, not for them. ~ Paulo Freire

Change will not come if we wait for some other person or some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek. ~ Barack Obama

Life is a process. We are a process. The universe is a process. ~ Anne Wilson Schaef

We learn and grow and are transformed not so much by what we do but by why and how we do it. ~ Sharon Salzberg

In the practice of our days, to listen is to lean in, softly, with a willingness to be changed by what we hear. ~ Mark Nepo

More Thoughts on Transformation -- from the Rev. Lori Hlaban
This column from Rev. Hlaban was intended for the February West Wind, but due to a space crunch there, we are grateful to provide it for you here.

As I begin writing this installment of The A.M. News, there’s an insane amount of activity here at Unitarian Universalist Church West.

We’re gearing up for the big 50th Anniversary Celebration at the end of January. We’re about to shift our theme to “We are a people of Transformation” for February. The annual Canvass will launch soon. The Unitarian Universalist Association’s Standing on the Side of Love public advocacy group has just launched its “Thirty Days of Love” initiative, timed to begin with the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s birthday, and end on Valentine’s Day. I’m in the middle of facilitating New UU Orientation for another large group of people, hoping that many will become members!

But – I’m also thinking deeply about the ideas for our February theme: Change. Impermanence. Transformation. These are really big ideas!

Change is “eternal, perpetual, immortal,” wrote Arthur Schopenhauer. One of the things I often talk about with couples who are planning weddings is change. I invite them to think about how they’ve changed in their lives individually, how their relationship has changed them, and imagine how it might change in the future. A wise man I know once told a newly-wed couple that he wished them many marriages together, as life changed them and their relationship.

Impermanence is a concept I was introduced to while studying Buddhism about a decade ago. It can be hard to conceive of nothing being permanent, or see this as a good thing. Then, during a discussion of impermanence, the instructor spoke of a toddler experiencing the “terrible twos” and asked if we could see impermanence in a positive way. Aha! Of course!

Transformation is change – but may be a deeper experience. A tried-and-true metaphor for such transformation is the way a caterpillar spins a cocoon around its body and, over a period of weeks, slowly transforms from a worm-like creature into a beautiful butterfly. It seems miraculous that such a thing can occur!

What change are you hoping for? How do you want to be transformed? I hope you will join us on our journey!

Blessings!
The Rev. Lori Hlaban
 

A Sermon on Creative Transformation -- from the Rev. Suzelle Lynch
The sermon below, “A True Human Being/Creative Transformation” was given by Rev. Lynch as one of five theme talks on Creativity at the Lake Geneva Summer Assembly in July, 2005.  Three brief readings precede the sermon.

First Reading -- From The Essential Rumi, trans., Coleman Barks with John Moyne, A.J. Arberry, Reynold Nicholson, 1995.)

Gamble everything for love,
if you’re a true human being.
 If not, leave this gathering.
Half-heartedness doesn’t reach into majesty.
You set out to find God,
but then you keep stopping for long periods
at mean-spirited roadhouses.

Second Reading -- Theologian Matthew Fox and mystical author Andrew Harvey asked the participants at a spiritual retreat this question:  What are the principal obstacles to your creativity?  Matthew Fox writes, “The answers were both practical and profound… and reveal(ed) to me … how central creativity is to our very nature as human beings.  For to inquire about what prevents our creativity, it turns out, is to reveal the essence of who we are and who we are becoming or failing to become.”
 Here are some of the answers from those retreat participants to that question of obstacles to creativity.
 The fear of Bigness – mine and God’s – that I might encounter if I really let my creativity express itself.
 My lack of feeling, my lack of spiritual depth.
 Sadness prevents my being spontaneous and creative.
 Fear of death.
Fear of loss of identity.
The fear of my (sexual identity)—the harassment I would receive if I were truly honest about who I am . .. and how that would emerge through my creativity.
Identification with failure.
Lack of money.
Being a white, male, heterosexual and not knowing what my creative agenda ought to be.
Perfectionism.
Lack of community support.
Workaholism.

Third Reading -- From Rollo May (in Matthew Fox, p. 125) “Creativity is a yearning for immortality…. Creativity comes from this struggle – out of the rebellion the creative act is born.  Creativity is born of a great passion – the passion of the adult human being, which is a passion to live beyond one’s death.” 

SERMON -- A True Human Being/Creative Transformation
In my former congregation there was a little tiny woman named Helen Long, who was one of the oldest members of that church.  She was shy, and very quiet, but powerfully intelligent and perceptive, and we used to talk from time to time during the coffee hour after church.  One day, as she was talking about some of the physical problems aging had brought her way, she commented, “Old age isn’t for sissies.”  We both laughed, but her remark has always stayed with me.  It’s a quote from Bette Davis, actually, who said "old age ain't no place for sissies," but it could probably have been said by anyone who has reached a certain achievement in years.  

 I haven't achieved old age yet, but hope that one day I will be able to laugh about its difficulties as easily as Helen did. She lived well into her nineties with mind and spirit intact.  But I have lived long enough to say that life – at any age – isn’t for sissies.  For life, if lived truly, if lived creatively, is challenging.  That doesn’t mean it isn’t also rewarding and joyful, but we have to understand that by its very design, a life lived creatively cannot and will not leave us unchanged, unscathed, or unhurt.  Living truly – true to our deepest humanity – is risky.  It's a gamble!
 

That's what Rumi says, “Gamble everything for love, if you’re a true human being.  If not, leave this gathering.”  He's echoing Helen and Bette.  Get in the game, he says.  Or else get out.  Half-heartedness doesn't reach into majesty.  Be a true human being, or leave this gathering.  He’s talking about transformation.

 There’s something shocking about this, something provocative.  He challenges our very self-image.  Of course we’re true human beings, aren't we?  He makes us want to say, “Hey, wait a minute.  I can’t gamble everything.  I have a family to support.  I have a responsible job.  People are counting on me.”  Or perhaps we’d say, “I’m too set in my ways to take big risks.  Let the younger people do it.  I’m happy with myself as I am.”  But a younger person might say, “Hey, I’m not looking to gamble right now, I’m just getting started in life.”

What does it mean to gamble everything for love?  Rumi was a Sufi, and at the core of Sufism is the quest to enter mystical union with the Presence which is neither male nor female but from which the universe manifests.  God, in a word – or Allah, more truly.  Sufis believe that this mystical union is the ultimate aim in life and that it may be achieved through union with another person, with a teacher who has touched the holy him or herself.  

For Rumi, gambling everything for love meant following his teacher Shams of Tabriz, and finding in his devotion to Shams the meaning of the universe.  Rumi wrote that Shams’ face was the sun which every religion was trying to remember.  (From The Soul of Rumi, A New Collection of Ecstatic Poems, translated by Coleman Barks,p. 49)   Rumi and Shams are said to have experienced a love as friends that transcended any they had ever known – they became lost in conversation that was so sustaining that they did not need food or drink or sleep.  Rumi wrote, “If you want to live your soul, find a friend like Shams and stay near.”  (p. 236)

Talk about risk!  Talk about faith!  To say nothing of passion.  

“Creative people are committed to risk,” writes Benny Golson, jazz musician and composer.  “The creative person always walks two steps into the darkness.  Everybody can see what’s in the light.  They can imitate it, they can underscore it, ..they can reshape it.  But the real heroes delve in (the) darkness of the unknown. “

Risk, faith and passion are not always things that come easily for us as Unitarian Universalists.  We'd rather stand back a bit from our spiritual quest instead of delving in the unknown.  We pride ourselves on being skeptics, on being in step with the scientific, analytical culture of our time.  Some of us have had disappointments and disillusionments with religions that didn't allow us to question, and so we have become good at questioning everything, and having faith only in that which can be proven. 

There's nothing wrong with this approach, of course.  It helps us avoid situations like the one in which a certain disciple in a Hindu story found himself.  This disciple's guru told him, “God has many names, and one of these is Rama.  If you see God in everything, then you will be safe wherever you go.”  So as the disciple traveled, he recited, “Ram, Ram” everywhere he went to keep himself safe.

One day on his travels he came to a village that was being terrorized by a mad elephant who rampaged through the streets, charging everything that moved.  When the villagers warned the disciple that the elephant was nearby, he was unconcerned.  “My guru told me only to recognize God in everything and I will be safe,” he said.  But the villagers persisted, warning him that it was very dangerous to go out when the elephant was around.

 “This elephant is God, and I am God, so why should I be afraid?” thought the disciple, stepping out into the street.  The elephant, upon seeing him, charged him.  “Watch out!” the villagers cried.  And even as the disciple was thinking, “I am God and you are God,” the mad elephant picked him up and dashed him down on the side of the road, nearly killing him.

After a long convalescence the disciple returned to his guru to tell the story and complain.  He said, “You told me to see Rama in everything and I would be safe!  But look what happened.
“Oh, my disciple,” said the guru, “You were right to see God in yourself and in the elephant.  But why,” he went on, “did you fail to recognize God in the voice of the villagers?”  (Adapted from “Soul Food,” eds. Kornfield and Feldman, pp. 214-15.)

The guru encouraged the disciple to follow a living, risky process of seeing God in everything – surely a more fluid and changing faith practice could not be imagined!  But the disciple safely sealed his faith into a bubble of belief, and thus risked his life on blind faith.  When we turn faith into belief, it blinds us to the creative possibilities in life – possibilities for growth and danger alike. 

We know this, of course.  But I wonder how many of you would believe me if I told you that being faithless is equally dangerous.  Refusing to trust our inner knowing, our creative intuition, relying only on logic and on that which is scientifically provable is every bit as much a form of fundamentalism as is blind faith.  It, too, is a closing of the human mind and spirit to the myriad possibilities of creative transformation.

What is called for, then, is not blind faith or no faith, but a wise faith.  “Wise faith opens us rather than narrows us.  It encourages us to question, to explore, to inquire.  It encourages us to discover our own answers and to trust in our own experience.  Wise faith enables us to listen to and learn from the guidance and experience of others while knowing that the power of transformation lies within….” (Kornfield and Feldman, pp. 208-9.)

But wise faith isn’t something we develop overnight – it takes a lifetime.  For at each stage of our lives, the primary task of faith is different.  Perhaps you remember the riddle of the sphinx from the story of Oedipus:  What animal walks on four legs in the morning, two legs at noon, and three legs in the evening (and has but one voice)? 

The answer, of course, is a human being.  In the morning of life, we crawl on all fours, and in this vulnerable state, our faith is mostly directed toward our parents and the other adults who take care of us.  Faith is a matter of survival.  In adolescence and young adulthood, we work on developing faith in our own powers and abilities, as we build a life and identity, and test our influence in the world.  This is the noontime of life, when we learn what it means to “stand on our own two feet.”  We learn to have faith in ourselves, and in what can be proven.

At mid-life, the task of faith slowly shifts from the external world to our inner life.  As death's constellation rises above the horizon of our inner evening sky, we are pushed toward understanding a wider universe of meaning.  Our passion to live beyond our death becomes real and palpable.  As our bodies age in this evening of life, some of us gain that third foot, the cane or stick we might need for support; but all of us gain the opportunity to develop a spiritual third foot – to develop a supporting faith in the transcendent dimension of human being.  The dimension that lies beyond the limits of our ordinary experience; the dimension that is beyond all concrete knowing; the dimension of creativity.

Wise faith.  We survive, we prove ourselves and learn what can be proven, and therefore trusted, and then what?  That which is beyond our knowing, but in which we must place our faith, starts galloping towards us across the great plains of middle age. 

Or to use another metaphor, at midlife we set forth in earnest on the journey of our inner life, the journey of our inner growth and development.  And this is rarely a smooth, level path.  It's more like a mountainous hike, a path with many switchbacks, sharp rocks, and a lot of elevation gain.  We go along, sometimes in the company of loved ones and friends, sometimes alone.  And then suddenly, right in front of us, the trail is gone, wiped out.  We stand at the edge of a chasm.

And we find that our old beliefs and ideas and ways of being in life are no longer sufficient.  We are looking into the deep unknown; we must risk making a leap.

But hey!  Look over there!  What's that, just off the side of the trail?  A roadhouse.  

Webster says a roadhouse is an inn or tavern outside city limits that provides liquor and usually meals and dancing, and often gambling as well.  Roadhouses are hospitable and entertaining places, places to stop for the night while on a journey.  Clearly, this is not a bad thing.  So why, then, would Rumi say, "You set out to find God, but then you keep stopping for long periods at mean-spirited roadhouses."  

He makes me think of Jesus, who once said it would be easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than it would be for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven.  He makes me think of Lao Tzu, the Taoist, who wrote, "the way that can be named is not the way."  He makes me think of something an unnamed pundit once said, "The site of your next technique of avoidance is the site of your last breakthrough."  Roadhouses are places that both narrow our spirits and trap them.

Every time we face a challenge in our lives, there’s always the opportunity to stop, and turn aside for a time.  This isn’t necessarily a bad thing, for quite naturally, the roadhouse has a bar that has our favorite beverage, and it’s full of interesting-looking people who’ve made the same climb we have and they have great stories to tell about it.  So, instead of going on, we go in, have a drink, and listen to the people’s stories.  We tell them our story, too.  And we’re happy – at least for a while, because there’s this nice view of the mountains, and we’re warm and well-fed, and in good company….  But Rumi warns us that if we stay there, our spirits will die – our creativity will be lost.

 Perhaps you know what stops you, like the participants in Matthew Fox’s retreat.  Perhaps you know the scent of your deepest fear, the flavor of the experience that led you to give up on yourself.  Perhaps you know which risks you have found yourself unable to take; which ideas and stories and answers to life's questions are so important to you that any challenge to them shuts you down.  

 Perhaps you also know what sorts of distractions you like to indulge in when you stop in at the roadhouse.  I suspect we all have them, those things we do that seem so soothing and appealing, but which really are simply stopovers on the hard hike of our spiritual lives.… 

For some of us, it might be watching TV, or playing computer games, or surfing the net.  Some of us obsess over our children, muffling the gnawing of our own creativity by pouring into them all the love and attention we ourselves need.  For some of us the call of work drowns out all other voices from within us.  And sometimes the very things our spirits crave are actually present in our lives, but we are directing them towards someone else, or are not giving them the mindful attention that would make them a part of our spiritual journey.  It’s up to us – with a little help from our friends, perhaps – to wake up and notice the roadhouse we’ve stopped into.  

Only then do we have a choice.  We can stay there and stagnate or we can leave the inn's comforts and confront the chasm.

For life, lived truly, is not for sissies.  Remember Henry Nelson Weiman’s words:  What we all want more than anything else in the world is for our lives to have some genuine significance – to be part of something greater than ourselves.  If we are to meet this challenge, our lives will be full of passion, risk, change and uncertainty.  They will be full of the tension that comes from holding questions open until the answers emerge, instead of rushing in with solutions because the tension makes us so uncomfortable; full of hope and creativity.

Gamble everything for love – risk leaping the chasms that open up on your path.  Risk telling the truth about yourself and your life.  Risk listening to your heart instead of your head, or to your head instead of your heart – you know which one.  Be a true human being – let go of your disappointments and disillusionments with religions that did not allow you to question, and embrace this one which delights in your questions and invites your ever-changing answers.  

Gamble everything for love, for that which brings deep meaning to your life.   Let go of your self-image and live for something broader and more passionate than self. 

Be a true human being – knowing, that no matter where you are in life, no matter whether you have four feet on the ground or two feet or three, when you live your soul – live your creativity -- majesty shall be yours.   Amen.

Some final thoughts on Transformation – Gathered from the UUCW Leadership Council, January 2012
Green sanctuary – changing daily habits
Global Peace & Justice
Transform building – new entry
The last sermon – thinking about corporations
Progress of a new member
Stepping into leadership
Structure of committees, encourage conversation & change
Old property – more tidy, kept
Peace Park
Belong to groups with potential to change you
Leadership, action – choose your route to change
Jane Goodall – We all make a difference, choose the difference you want to make
Born on the Fourth of July
The interrupters – organize house parties for that? - on Frontline in March
Movie – Norma Rae
Book – Serving with Grace (Wikstrom)
Exp. – being a birth partner, seeing birth of children
Intentionality
Midwest Leadership School – spiritual direction, path walking
Relationship & transformative from dysfunction – function
Planting seeds in Feb. based on what we may have decided to change in Jan.
Transformation/change is not always easy. One experience was with family. Transformed the relationship to a painfully truthful and negative way.
Transforming expectations.
Truth is coming from this.
Maybe needed to happen to push us forward.
Perception?
Play – Saw “Next to Normal” on NY Eve. Intense and very real. Truth.
Have to face the truth about self, others life during transformation.
Major medical issue. How to cope with the change? New doc during the course of this. Realization of all the changes over time - transformation/realization of what I can do/no longer do.
Transformation is sometimes painful, but necessary for growth.
Transformations through the life cycle.
Old toy Transformers
From within something emerges, something else/new
Being both transformed & a facilitating transformer of others
Taking something that is within and ….
Transforms is a big word – need an easier way to grab onto a process that in fact is happening
It can be sometimes hard to recall the old ways we were after the change has happened.
Adaptation – growing up requires staying current.
Transformation – Food Network – from garbage to cuisine.
Woormans.
Changing the Paradigm.
How to make order of service environmentally friendly.
Complaint free bracelet
Change – She changes everything she touches – Maria O.
2001: A Space Odyssey – movie
Siddartha-Harman Hesse
Art gallery changes every month.
Chaz Bono book – Becoming Chaz?
Anything on evolution
Change of viewpoint in UUism as a movement
UUnity Circles – personal insight
12 Step Buddhist group
Film series: “I Am”, “The Way”, “Happy”
Program themes for Adult Ed, UUnity Circle, West of 50, etc…
Life Transitions/Transformations:
 having a family  senior living
 empty nesters   taking care of parents
 retirement
Books: (in) Transition
Coupled with an anonymous donor who donated about $1000 to help pay for my first brigade
Being asked to pitch in with work transformed my life with the church. When Eddee Daniel asked
me to lead future brigades after our 2006 trip to Nicaragua, my life was transformed.  ~ Jim Fischer