"As we meet, I always keep in mind that we are the same in being human beings. If we emphasize the superficial differences, I am an Easterner and furthermore a Tibetan from beyond the Himalayas, with a different environment and a different culture. However, if we look deep down… I want happiness and do not want suffering. Everyone, no matter where they are from, in this sense is the same. .

"With this understanding as a basis, when I meet new people in new places, in my mind there is no barrier, no curtain. I can talk with you as I would to old friends even though this is the first time we meet. In my mind, as human beings you are my brothers and sisters; there is no difference in substance. I can express whatever I feel, without hesitation, just as to an old friend. With this feeling we can communicate without any difficulty and can contact heart to heart, not with just a few nice words, but really heart to heart.

"Based on such genuine human relation - real feeling for each other, understanding each other - we can develop mutual trust and respect. From that, we can share other peoples' suffering and build harmony in human society. We can create a friendly human family."

- The XIVth Dalai Lama, His Holiness Tensin Gyatso.

Albert Camus

Our task as men (and women) is to find the few principles that will calm the infinite anguish of souls. We must mend what has been torn apart, make justice imaginable in a world so obviously unjust, give happiness a meaning once more to peoples poisoned by the misery of the century. Naturally, it is a superhuman task. But superhuman is the term for tasks men (and women) take a long time to accomplish, that is all."

Sermon

This morning, a miracle of sorts will happen in this church. Through only the hard work and volunteer efforts of your fellow members, a Haiti Carnival (kaneval) will come to life, complete with music, food, a Haitian village and hospital where your aches and pains can be diagnosed and hopefully cured! This celebration is in honour of a long connection forged by this congregation with the people of Haiti, and in particular with the Hopital Albert Schweitzer, named after the Swiss Unitarian Universalist doctor, theologian and musician who gave so much of himself around the world to aid those who were in greatest need of medical care.

The people who have worked so hard to bring you today’s celebration hope that it will pique your interest in the connection they feel with this vibrant country and its people, and that in two weeks’ time, you will support the effort of our children as they head off on their Annual Walkathon to raise money for the cause. Last year they raised over $6,000 dollars, money that goes so far in one of this continent’s poorest countries. We all hope to see you there, or to see your support there at the end of the day. I’m sure that everyone here believes that this is a worthy project, a good social action or justice ministry project to do with our children to show them we care.

But I want to talk further today about why we should care about a village or a hospital in Haiti enough to bring it to life and give it our financial support. And the answer may be different than you think. The easy answer is one that we hear often, see often on TV, one that we may have said ourselves, and it goes something like this: "Those poor people – look at them. We have so much and they have so little. We should give them some of what we have." And sometimes we do, and maybe it even makes us feel better for a while. But we walk away not really knowing anything about the people behind the images, the story behind the need, the human richness behind the poverty. And this impoverishes us, too – for it robs us of the genuine opportunity for human connection, for encountering the other in a way that would change our lives. Even this way of thinking – "us and them" betrays a profound divide in the way we think about humanity.

There are assumptions underlying our basic approach to the world in which we live which we barely understand, because they are the water in which we swim. If we truly want to try and live our Sixth Unitarian Universalist Principle ‘The Goal of World Community" we have a lot of unlearning to do.

To begin with I want to share a story with you. In the opening chapter of his Pulitzer Prizewinning book "Guns Germs and Steel," Jared Diamond tells the story of a man called Yali he meets in New Guinea in 1972. Yali is a respected local leader, a man of great insight and intelligence and Diamond strikes up a friendship with him while he is there as a biologist studying the amazing bird life of New Guinea. One day, he and Yali take a long walk down the beach where they share impressions and ask questions about each others’ culture, history, way of being. And in the midst of that conversation, Yali asks a question of Diamond that was to perplex him for more than 20 years, and eventually to form the basis of his book.

In New Guinea, they use the word "cargo" to describe all imported goods – from metal tools, medicines and matches to clothing and umbrellas - because they have traditionally come as "cargo" on cargo ships from far away. Yali says to Diamond "Why is it that you white people developed so much cargo and brought it to New Guinea, but we black people had little cargo of our own?

Diamond was intrigued by Yali’s question, and devoted many years to answering it. The end result is his book, which he wrote, he said in part, to counter the age-old racist assumptions that had previously offered answers to Yali’s question. It is a fascinating study of the development of human technology, language and agriculture and the role that environment, natural resources, climate and geography have played in human development. It is a fact, for example, that tools and weapons forged from metal are stronger in use and battle than those made of bone or coral. If you lived in a place with no iron ore deposits, no raw materials that could be smelted into metal – such as the Polynesian islands, for example. You had no way of developing metal, nor any way of winning against invaders with metal swords.

If you lived in a place that had almost no domesticable large mammals – like Australia, as compared to Europe’s 72 species of large mammals, you lost the potential benefits of large protein sources, improved farming techniques, better transportation and an unbelievable advantage – mounted soldiers. Genghis Kahn, for example, conquered the world because of the availability of 2 things – horses, who have a distinct advantage over foot soldiers and metal stirrups, which make a man much more difficult to unhorse than those riding without them.

If you lived in a climate that was less than hospitable to growing large amounts of food – like our far North, for example, your population could simply never grow to the size needed to develop conquering armies that are capable of invading, stealing and absorbing others’ resources.

What Diamond’s book does, is show the incredible ingenuity of the human mind, the ability to make something out of everything, to survive in unbelievably diverse circumstances – the way an African of the Khoisan tribe can find a wealth of food and water in a square mile of desert that looks completely barren to our eyes. What is also shows is that despite that ingenuity, mere chance vastly favoured certain groups of people over others, making it a thousand times more likely that they would develop the populations, technology and innovation that gave them a conquering advantage over those they encountered. If you are from the west, when you read Diamond’s book, you understand for the first time, how absolutely random the development of your ancestors was. It helps you to see that but for the grace of some iron ore, an ox, a pig and a good growing season, the affluent people of Haiti would be watching TV commercials about "Those poor people in Canada, what can we do?"

We are a part of a religious community, an intentional gathering with goals like peace, world community and respecting the inherent worth and dignity of every person at the heart of our faith. In committing to these ideals, we are asking something profoundly difficult of ourselves. We are asking ourselves to transcend the boundaries we are born into and the boundaries we create for ourselves (which are even greater) and to behold our human family in a new way.

We do this because we believe there is much to be gained, much to be shared, much to be learned, by this profound human interchange of experience, story and self. We pledge, as spiritual beings, to try and get "out of our own skin" even for a while, to more fully understand what it mean to be a human being on this planet of billions of souls, only a few of which share our experience.

We pledge to try and see each other’s "True Colours" which are all the colours of the rainbow, the colour of an old black woman and a young white man, and the colours of the hummingbird and the green grass snake, and the Aurora Borealis. We pledge to try and see the world as it as, as well as the way we would like it to be. We pledge to try to look with frank and unsentimental eyes at all of it, not just at the narrow slice of life into which we were by chance born. These are our commitments as religious beings. This is why we choose to befriend and to know the people of Haiti. Not to help them, but to help ourselves – all ourselves become the human beings we are meant to become.

UU Minister Penny Hackett- Evans says in her poem "Meditation on the World"

This is not a just world,
it is just a world.

It is a world of pain and hurt,
tragedy,
loneliness,
poverty
dishonesty,
and even death.

Though it also contains beauty and glory,
we numb ourselves
when we refuse to see
the wholeness of the world.

Woven into every life
are all shades of
pain and joy
sadness and gladness
births and deaths.

We ask to see the truth
of the world we are given.
To see that a partial world
would not work.

We seek the courage to know and face

the world we are given
The strength to decide
to live in it -- anyway.

And even, the audacity to find holiness
in all the truths of our life.

And, when that holiness is hard to discern,
may we find friends who will stand with us
and a love that will hold us."

"We seek the courage to know and face the world we are given." How do we do this from our privileged place as North Americans? In many ways. Perhaps one of the most important is education. In a few weeks, our congregation will be hosting the Canadian Unitarian Council’s Annual Conference and Meeting. Among the many fun, inspiring and informative events will be a modified version of an Empty Bowls Dinner, with the proceeds going to benefit the Unitarian Service Committee of Canada – one of the first bodies to make aid to the developing world a goal. How many of you have ever been to a true Empty Bowls dinner? (Then we need to do one at this church!)

At a true Empty Bowls dinner, everyone pays the same amount for a ticket – but each person receives a different coupon when they come through the door. Some are given coupons for wealthy countries like Canada, the U.S., Britain, France, Japan or Australia – but just a few. More are given coupons for countries with some degree of prosperity, but challenges as well – like the Ukraine or Venezuela, China or India. A third much larger group is given coupons for countries with a very low per capita income, countries where there are many people made hungry – which of course are the majority of countries in the world.

The North Americans are ushered into a place at the centre of the room where a fine tablecloth is laid with expensive china and crystal, and there they are served a 5 course gourmet meal with wine while others look on. The second group of people are given a plate with some vegetables and potatoes and a small amount of meat, and they sit at rough tables surrounding the fine dining. The third group of people (the largest number) have no seats, and are given a small bowl of rice which they eat while milling around. Of course everyone in groups 2 and 3 finishes quickly, and then gets to watch the west eat course after course of gourmet food. The numbers (you may have guessed) are based on the exact proportion of consumption in the world.

I have done a version of this exercise with a junior Youth Group (ages 12-14) and about 25 rice krispie squares for snack at break time. Three of the youth were North America they were instructed to take most of the squares. A few others got half a square each, and the rest of the group – the majority, were supposed to share the crumbs.

As you might have guessed, youth being a little more in touch with their real feelings than adults, or perhaps just less able to suppress them, all sorts of fights broke out. There was stealing, begging, bargaining, protests of unfairness, alliances, ganging up, grabbing and an actual wrestling match over the last rice krispie square that got marshmallow-stretched to about twice its length. Like the Empty Bowls dinner, it was a very interesting exercise, one whose message I hope lingered long after the Rice Krispie crumbs were cleaned up.

One fundamental truth of trying to build world community is that we will never make any progress as a people until we understand that we are one people, that all of our ways of living are interconnected.

Writer Robert Aiken says:

With resources scarcer and scarcer

I vow with all beings

And Nelson Mandela says (and he ought to know!)

"I am not truly free if I am taking away someone else’s freedom, just as surely as I am not free when my freedom is taken from me… To be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and enhances the freedom of others."

This interconnection is truly what makes us human – not the ways that we separate ourselves, but the way that we overcome our separateness and recognize our interdependence. Human rights activist Margaret Randall writes:

‘Let us be present, each from her or his culture, each from his or her experience, and assume our responsibility for all life. Let us come together in witness of difference, and embrace one another. Let us see the child whose parents cannot be there, and put our arms around that child. Let us stand beside the one abused by power, and recognize that all abuse of power diminishes our own humanity. Let us call upon those who still believe they have a right to violate the lives of others, and let them know we will no longer tolerate their cowardice.

Let us sound a mighty "NO" echoing from mountaintops and ocean floors, through canyons and across deserts, jungles, forests and farmlands, until that NO becomes a powerful YES. Let us hold life – from legions of humans to the tiniest flower, and recommit ourselves to nurturing its presence in all our lives."

Who is your neighbour? Is you neighbour the guy next door who’s threatening to build a fence that will shade your roses? Is our neighbour the United States? Or is your neighbour the woman on the other side of the world who like you, wants a better future for her children? The woman who, if you could look into her eyes, you would see is your sister? The man who struggles to live with dignity, to be a hero to his children when he cannot always feed them? The man who, if you could look into his eyes, you would call brother and friend, the man who has something to teach you? The child whose wisdom belies her age, whose joy holds the secret of life, whose sorrow is a river that leads to understanding?

Who is your neighbour? To know and feel that we truly are one people, we must start by asking deep questions of ourselves.

UU composer Ysaye Maria Barnwell of the acapella singing group "Sweet Honey in the Rock" asks:

Would you harbor me?
Would I harbor you?
Would you harbor a Christian, a Muslim, a Jew
a heretic, convict or spy?
Would you harbor a runaway woman, or child,
a poet, a prophet, a king?
Would you harbor an exile, or a refugee,
a person living with AIDS?
Would you harbor a Tubman, a Garrett, A Truth
a fugitive or a slave?
Would you harbor a Haitian, Korean or Czech,
a lesbian or a gay?

Would you harbor me?
Would I harbor you?

These are the questions we must ask ourselves if we truly want to build world community in our lives, in our church, in our city, in our world. What are the barriers that we need to take down – barriers of thought, of prejudice, of history or habit, barriers of ignorance or intention, barriers of injustice and inequity? Barriers to seeing every person as our brother or sister and to building the bridges that will bring us deeply and truly into each others’ lives. Barriers that keep us from being truly welcome to everyone, from having a community that truly is a world community.

Why should we do this? UU Minister Mark Morrison Reed told the Commission on Appraisal (a body that gathers to consider our future as UUs every 3-5 years)

"To move forward as a denomination, we need first to ask ourselves why (we need to reach out) and I think there is only one authentic answer. For yourself. For yourself because you will feel more comfortable in a multicultural, multiracial congregation. For yourself because being part of a (truly) inclusive movement is more consonant with the self-image you hold of yourself as a religious liberal. For yourself, not because you should, but because you yearn (for things to be) different. Not for them but for yourself – for ourselves. "

And so we will celebrate this morning, and walk in soldarity in two weeks, not to help the poor people of Haiti, but to celebrate with our brothers and sister, our common human heritage – one that makes us feel with each other, that takes joy in the connection we find, that makes of us one voice, one world, one people, so that we will ALL be less impoverished.

I’ll close with the words of Rev. Donald Johnston who prays:

"Here may no one be altogether stranger, no honesty of thought ignored, no depth of feeling dismissed, no life belittled and no life shut out. May clarity of mind and heart be humbly treasured, be brought to bear toward word and person and world. May growth of mind and spirit be our purpose; and may new understanding lead us to new ways in which to blend our shared lives.'' Let this be our prayer. So may it be. Amen.