The UUCW Nugget
November 16, 2016
 
Office Hours
(Sept 6, 2016 - 
June 29, 2017):
Mon, Tues, Wed: 
9 am - 3 pm
Thur. 9 am - 2 pm 

Congregational Mission Statement
"The members and friends of the Unitarian Universalist 
Church of Worcester covenant to be a congregation of love, hope and justice inspiring people to take on the challenges of a changing world."
  
Welcoming Church 
Mission Statement 

The LGBTQI and Allies of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Worcester strives to further the affirmation and celebration of LGBTQI individuals in all aspects of the church community. We also seek to increase the visibility of UUCW as a Welcoming Congregation within the greater community.
 
Bodhichitta

Dear Friends,
               
I had such a difficult time choosing my focus for this week's Nugget.  This week was supposed to be part 2 of my exploration of Jane Hirshfield and the Tao, but I felt that it was important to respond to the election, and the anxiety we are all feeling.  So I mapped something rough out in my head, planning to talk to Reverend Aaron about whether I was in line with the right sentiments for our congregation.

As I sat through this week's sermon, I had the following sequence of thoughts.  Okay, this is good, I'm on point with my topic.  Okay, I'll just ask Aaron if I'm getting it right.  Okay, this is good, I'm definitely right in line with his thinking.  And then - Oh, well, I guess he just about covered everything!
               
So my preconceived ideas went out the window.  This morning, frustrated, I started up with Jane and the Tao, but it just didn't feel right. I didn't think any of you would be in the mood for my next thoughts on the Tao, not this week.  I was convinced that I needed to reach towards the emotions we've all been expressing at church for the last several days.  Looking for ideas, I canvassed my friends at work, and the best advice I got was - speak to everyone's desire to find community.  My friend wrote, "In times of fear, people need to band together, find the common good, and help." 

This got me thinking of Pema Chodron, and I looked onto my bookshelf and there was her book, The Places That Scare You.  I picked up the book and it fell open to a passage that captured perfectly what's in my heart.
 
To understand it, you just need to become familiar with one Sanskrit word - Bodhichitta.  I will let Pema explain it to you. 

"Chitta" means "mind" and also "heart" or "attitude."  "Bodhi" means "awake," "enlightened," or "completely open." 

Sometimes the completely open heart and mind of bodhichitta is called the soft spot, a place as vulnerable and tender as an open wound.  It is equated, in part, with our ability to love.  Even the cruelest people have this soft spot.  Even the most vicious animals love their offspring.  As Trungpa Rinpoche put it, "Everybody loves something, even if it's only tortillas."
               
Now that you know this word, you are ready for the passage:

               "When I was about six years old I received the essential bodhichitta teaching from an old woman sitting in the sun.  I was walking by her house one day feeling lonely, unloved, and mad, kicking anything I could find.  Laughing, she said to me, "Little girl, don't you go letting life harden your heart."

               "Right there, I received this pith instruction: we can let the circumstances of our lives harden us so that we become increasingly resentful and afraid, or we can let them soften us and make us kinder and more open to what scares us.  We always have this choice.

               "If we were to ask the Buddha, "What is bodhichitta?" he might tell us that this word is easier to understand than to translate. He might encourage us to seek out ways to find its meaning in our own lives. He might tantalize us by adding that it is only bodhichitta that heals, that bodhichitta is capable of transforming the hardest of hearts and the most prejudiced and fearful of minds."

Now is the time to transform our hearts, even before we find new ways to communicate with each other.

I've been so proud of the response of the millennials I work with.  In addition to the young woman I quoted above, a second young woman came into my office Thursday and said - "I don't need to complain.  I can just work to create the world I want to live in.  I asked myself, What do I really care about?"  She isn't interested in keeping up the FaceBook posts, which are not helping to bridge any gaps.  Instead, she is going to do what many at the church do, she's going to volunteer.  She has signed up to volunteer at a rape crisis center, a place she worked a few years ago.  She, like so many of us, wants to get back to that impulse to reach out - to band together, find the common good, and help.
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