Be of Good Cheer

It is possible to live in a balance between realism and optimism.


We Unitarian Universalists represent a positive, open kind of spirituality.

We are not alone in this kind of spiritual life,
  yet our witness is unique.

We may not often be aware of it,
     but who we are, how we live and how we think
           makes a difference in our world.

Our lack of awareness of the correspondence between our thoughts and our world
   is based at least in part on the reality that we are often unable to see it.

Our spirituality is meant to open our eyes
     and give us a deep, dependable hope-based view of our world and our life in it.

When I say it is "meant", who meant it?

Who means it?

We do!

We are free in our own thinking,
      although maybe I need to acknowledge that we are MOSTLY free.

We want to enhance our own freedom and the freedom of others.

After all, one of our basic seven principles of Unitarian Universalism is
   "A free and responsible search for truth and meaning."

Whether or not we arrive at conclusions that include the Divine Being, also known as God,
  we are free in our inquiry.

This is very important in our understanding of uncertainty,
    and uncertainty is vital in retaining our hope and optimism.

For many of us, any meaningful concept of God might involve an indwelling Spirit
   not entirely unlike the Force of Star Wars
      Who binds us to one another,
         all of us to the whole Multiverse,
            holding the whole of Creation together.

Maybe there is no such thing.

That possibility is real.

It is also unknowable
  in the sense of not knowing what is real and what is not.

I know what I believe.

At least I think I do.

Since I'm not sure,
  I also know that I can't expect anyone else to agree with me.

My favorite meme about theology is from Peanuts by Charles Schulz.

Snoopy is sitting on top of his doghouse with a typewriter.

Charlie Brown tells him that he has heard that Snoopy is writing a book on theology
   and comments that he hopes Snoopy has a good title.

In his thought bubble Snoopy says, "I have the perfect title."

"Has it ever occurred to you that you might be wrong?"

That is indeed the perfect title for a book about theology.

It's all speculation when we come down to it.

It is all uncertain.

And again, I want to say that the uncertainty is our most reliable source
     of hope and optimism!

Many people today are claiming religious certainty
    based on what the Bible says.

But the Bible says this and that,
  and this does not always agree with that.

It's because the Bible is full of many different theologies
    from different times and places.

If it was magically delivered from Heaven,
     God is either very peculiar indeed
          or She has a very warped sense of humor!

It's therefore important that everyone who thinks, writes, speaks or speculates
              about God
    is willing to do so with a deep sense of humility and uncertainty.

That's not what we are seeing lately!

More and more bizarre ideas are being proclaimed by those who are very sure
   that they alone have the truth.

At the same time, my observation over many years
     is that those who are most certain that they are right
          are most certainly wrong
               at least in some respects.

Their own hope and optimism about life are sometimes at risk
   precisely because they have insisted on claiming and proclaiming their certainty!

There are good examples of uncertainty in every area of life.

Nate Silver, one of our best number crunchers these days,
 was roundly and severely criticised
   because his statistical model gave Donald Trump
     a much better chance of winning the the 2016 election
         than the analysis of any other leading pundit.

He was very sure of the uncertainty of the outcome.

Guess who turned out to be right!

Having to be unsure about most things is something we live with,
    and it is not always a comfortable position to be in!

At the same time I find this reality to be deeply encouraging
      as well as humbling.

If I'm absolutely certain that I'm right about something,
      I had better be especially careful
          to do some serious fact checking.

It works for all of us.

The more sure we are,
   the less likely we are really and truly able to be so sure!

It's like an epistemological interpretation of the saying,
       "Pride goeth before a fall!"

The original verse from the book of Proverbs in the Hebrew Bible actually says,
   "Pride goes before destruction, and a haughty spirit before a fall."

It's interesting that most of the verses people think they are quoting from the Bible
     with a lot of certainty
         are very often misquoted, mistranslated, misunderstood
               and otherwise misused.

Really, the only way one could come up with a concept of Biblical inerrancy
    would be to misuse the Bible by claiming that it is something it is not and cannot be.

It is not a monolithic statement of faith about one and only one view of God.

It is a library of documents of many kinds from the ancient world.

As such, it is of great value.

It is a great piece of literature.

Those who want to claim religious authority for it
   need most of all to be sure that it is treated with the same tools of discernment
      that would be used on any document from ancient civilizations.

To do otherwise is to proclaim certainty where there is in fact no certainty,
        to demand agreement where there never has been agreement,
               especially in the time in which the ancient literature was composed!

These are truths we need to be reminded of.

We need to remember how uncertain we are about almost everything.

In the uncertainty there is hope.

Ironically, it does not always work exactly that way.

We always need to look for hope, and sometimes it can be hard to find.

When what you know to be true and what you believe or want to believe do not match,
   you face a particularly poignant and painful kind of cognitive dissonance.

This has happened to me many times.

Life is full of surprises, and those are not always good surprises!

I know it happens to all of us.

I have found that facing the surprises of life,
 the solution to the cognitive dissonance between what we want and what we get,
  is the balance between realism and optimism.

Realism refers to what we know to be true.

Optimism refers to the good things we believe or want to believe will come about.

Hope lives in the tension between reality and what we believe,
   and it does not only live there.

Sometimes what we hope for really does come about!

Sometimes, especially in the short run, it does not happen.

For example, power does not seem to flow from altruism,
   nor does power seem to return to altruism much of the time.

And yet, MLK Jr. said that the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.

Actually, when we quote this famous statement from a speech by MLK,
    we are doing something not at all unlike the funny mentalists
        when they quote the Bible.

The original quote, which helped form both some of the thinking
   and some of the speech of MLK
        was from the writings of one of our Unitarian Universalist saints:

In the 19th Century, Theodore Parker said,
"I do not pretend to understand the moral universe;
    the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but a little ways;
       I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight;
           I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice."

Hope lives for us in the uncertainty of how and when the arc will bend toward justice.

Will we see it?

We don't know.

But we can stronly believe that it will come about.

The realities in which we live do not always give us what we want.

Too often the people with whom we share our lives are very sure of things easily proven to be false.

It's generally useless to try to use reality to convince those whose minds are already made up.

We've all heard it, even if not in these exact words,
         "My mind is made up! Don't confuse me with the facts."

Again, it's not just with the Bible and theology where this principle stands so clearly.

Uncertainty is the order of the Multiverse in which we live.

We thought the Universe contained everything; hence it is called Universe for Universality!

And yet...

The bubbles that formed in the earliest moments of our Universe's existence
       may themselves have been the start of still other Universes.

It sounds like crazy speculation,
    but in theoretical physics these days,
       crazy speculation often results in strong evidence
          that the world is very different from what we thought it was.

All this is to say, "Be of Good Cheer!"

There is more to our world and ourselves than what meets the eye.

We have good reason to hope
    in any moment in any time.

We really can live in a balance between realism and optimism.

The more we look at the uncertainty of life
     the more we can regard the possibilities of hope!

In my own personal life,
    I have faced situations that tend to engender fear.

I'm speaking of this now in order to let you know that I'm not just speaking out of comfort and well being
    but out of absolute necessity.

I need optimism to get through many of my days.

Reality sometimes is not looking so good.

I have to keep my own realism and optimism in balance,
    but I absolutely have to keep my heart and mind focused on hope.

After all,
    as it was said in one of the Epistles of John (whoever John really was!)
           "Perfect Love casts out fear."

The contemporary Course in Miracles is based on that very saying.

Perfect love, of course, is an ideal,
   as is the casting out of fear,
     but they are worthy goals!

Perfect love means caring without conditions.

Casting out fear means living in hope, no matter what.

To be of good cheer,
     what we need most is to keep our hearts and minds focused on the good possibilities
           that always do and always will exist in every situation of our lives.

It may seem a bit ironic to be looking for hope in the midst of uncertainty,
    but in our times, exactly that search,
      looking for hope,
           may be the most important thing we can do!

It is, after all, how we can continue to be of good cheer in these interesting times:
    keeping the balance between realism and optimism
       by remembering the uncertainty
           within which our hope lives.

Amen.

So mote it be.

Blessed Be.