Sunday Sermon [Audaciousness]

¡Hola! Everybody…
Hmmmm… it seems we now we have a Road to Nowhere that connects to the Bridge to Nowhere. Sarah “I can see Russia, Charlie!” Palin has repeatedly told the lie that she killed the infamous “Bridge to Nowhere.” The reality is that she was for it initially until it became too embarrassing and congress killed the funding. Once the project was practically dead, she decided it wasn’t good for the people of Alaska (after a cost of astronomical proportions). Well, it turns out that we now have a three-mile bridge in the middle of nowhere linking to a bridge leading to nowhere. Maybe that’s what they should call the Palin/ McCain campaign: The Road to Nowhere.

You do the math: 3.1 miles at a cost of $25 million dollars. Here’s your money at work:

(The road to nowhere connecting to the bridge to nowhere)

Maybe the money would've have been better spent on comprehensive sex education? ::blank stare::

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-=[ Living Audaciously ]=-

“Let no one be discouraged by the belief that there is nothing that one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world’s ills. It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped.”

Robert F. Kennedy spoke those words over thirty years ago. He went on to add, “Each time a man stands up for an ideal, strikes out against injustice, or acts to improve the lot of others, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistance.”

At the same time, Martin Luther King, Jr. referred to the “fierce urgency of now” and passionately articulated a need for “vigorous and positive action.” These two men were cut down in the prime of their lives, but they weren’t the movement they served. We -- you and I and people who desire a more just world -- we are that movement. Those days, while filled with turmoil from deep tectonic cultural shifts, are not as critical as the world we live in today.

There is a sickness in this world so systemic, so widespread that most folk don’t want to acknowledge it. Everyday, as we sift through the mess of a disconnected and mechanistic society that costs countless lives, another chance appears to reclaim our right, to grow a relationship, to become more whole, more connected. Each act is another chance to speak louder, become stronger and more comfortable with loving truths. Each act you take is another chance to nurture the power, hope, and focused positive action necessary to create some sense of sanity in our daily lives.

But we seemed to have fallen asleep for a bit there and now that we are awakening, we want to blame everyone but those who should be held accountable. Truly, huge swaths of people in this country are still asleep.

There’s a slogan popular with the huge fellowship of the 12-Step movement: walking the walk. What it means is having the courage to live your principles. It’s about dropping the nonsense and, one day at a time -- sometimes one breath at a time -- living fully. Walking the walk to me is living audaciously. It’s getting out of your head and into your life, living your principles. Are you the change you want to see in the world? And if your answer is in the affirmative, is that change embracing of others and not just confined to your narrow demographic? What good is your child’s school, for example, if they’re being raised in a society that is failing millions of children? Eventually our children will pay for our fear-based narrow-mindedness. Of that, I am certain.

As nature is clearly showing us, we live in a world that is deeply interconnected in ways we’re only beginning to recognize. What we say and do affects countless others. Your actions can be life-affirming or they can be life-denying. The true challenge facing you today and every day you wake up is if your actions and thoughts will serve to make a better world, or if your actions will add to the fear and isolation that threatens to destroy us.

Every day, you’re given this chance to make a difference.

Every day…

This isn’t going to be easy, it will take every tear, every chuckle, every exalted and painful moment, for all of us to become more fully human, but it can be done. In fact, there are people already doing it:

· A group of teens takes action and help raise funds for an elderly woman who was assaulted and robbed -- giving her the $900 she lost.

· A small community-based organization helps a young couple buy their fist home.

· One grief-stricken mother begins a movement to end drunk driving, possibly saving countless lives in the process.

· One sober addict helps another stay clean.

Every day there are people everywhere making a difference, being the change they want to see in the world and that is the only way we will effect true change. Whether you’re a conservative or liberal, or radical, we have to come together respectful of our different values in a life-affirming spirit in order to save this planet. It doesn’t matter your views on abortion or God. Those are distractions fabricated to keep our wills away from enacting change. There is common ground, but that ground can only be inhabited if we respect our differences, white, black, or brown, gay and lesbian or heterosexual. In short, we have to walk the walk or become lost on the Road to Nowhere.

Love,

Eddie