Rev. ALex McGee led the service this Sunday with help from Worship Weaver Bob Gross.
Please ask permission before quoting in writing, since these are a blend of text and draft notes.

OPENING WORDS NEAR THE START OF THE SERVICE:
attributed to the Buddha:
“What you think, you become.
What you feel, you attract.
What you imagine, you create.”

SERMON
OPENING JOKE
“A woman in a supermarket is following a grandfather and his badly behaved 3 year old grandson. It’s obvious to her that he has his hands full with the child screaming for sweets in the sweet aisle, biscuits in the biscuit aisle, and for fruit, cereal and pop in the other aisles. Meanwhile, granddad is working his way around, saying in a controlled voice,”Easy, William, we won’t be long. Easy, boy.” Another outburst and she hears the grandfather calmly say, “It’s okay William, just a couple more minutes and we’ll be out of here. Hang in there, boy.” At the checkout, the little terror is throwing items out of the cart and granddad says again in a very controlled voice, “William, William, relax buddy, don’t get upset. We’ll be home in five short minutes; stay cool, William.” Very impressed, the woman goes outside where the grandfather is loading his groceries and the boy into the car. She said to the elderly gentleman, “It’s none of my business, but you were amazing in there. I don’t know how you did it.
That whole time, you kept your composure and no matter how loud and disruptive he got, you just calmly kept saying things would be okay. William is very lucky to have you as his grandpa.” “Thanks,” said the grandfather, “but I’m William. The little brat’s name is Kevin.”

This man was practicing self control. He was practicing moderation. He was practicing self-restraint. And that is the topic I want to explore today. I believe a worthwhile question is: Why do so many world religions encourage self control and moderation?

Let’s start by looking at some commonly known restraints encouraged by some religions.
Mormonism says no caffeine
Catholicism says no sex before marriage
Hindusim says no stealing
Judaism says no work on the Sabbath
All of these are general rules. We can guess that someone in a position of authority thought they would be good guidelines for individuals to be healthy and groups to be well. Of course, sometimes authorities abuse the use of rules, but in general, religions are pointing to some universal wisdom when they encourage self-restraint.

The question then becomes,
Which are the restraints that are life-giving?
And, to answer that question, we need to consider individual contexts.

Each person comes to this exploration of self-control from a different place.
A person born with a carefree temperament has a different disposition than a person who was born more cautious.
A person raised in a rule-centered household has a different outlook than a person in a more loose household.
A person living with an addiction may bring a different perspective than a person who is not.
A person who has been labeled ADHD may have insights about freedom and creativity that aren’t visible to others.
A person who has been labeled with OCD may desire to be free of too much internal control.
These are just some of the many angles that different people may bring to the question of self-restraint.
So, when we consider what it means to practice self-moderation, it can have many angles.

Let me offer an example of a person who chose to limit himself for spiritual reasons. I’m going to share part of an essay by the Rev. Abhi Janamachi, who is a Unitarian-Hindu. In this essay, he is describing his choice to fast during the Muslim month of Ramadan. When I say fasting, I mean that a person doesn’t eat during daylight hours, although they may drink, and if they have health needs, then they do eat. Ramadan is a time period in which Muslims refrain from eating, drinking, smoking, and engaging in sexual activity. Muslims believe fasting teaches self-restraint, deepens their relationship with God and with each other, and creates a deeper empathy and compassion for the destitute. Although this author is not Muslim, he is coming alongside them, exploring the spiritual discipline, and what it can mean for him. He writes:
“I am fasting for myself, for my own spiritual growth, to make more room for God. I want to deepen or reawaken my sense of the Spirit by letting go of my cravings for good food. My hunger will be a visceral reminder of my own deepest yearnings. As a Unitarian Universalist, I believe in the primacy of reason, conscience, and freedom, and I know that the biggest obstacle standing in the way of my living freely, reasonably, and compassionately is my own ego, selfishness, and unquenchable desire. I have tended to fill my spiritual hunger with food and drink, with material comforts, with stuff, with tasks, with distractions like television.”
Rev. Abhi Prakash Janamanchi (citation: https://www.uuworld.org/authors/abhiprakashjanamanchi. UU World Magazine, October, 2006. “Why I Am Fasting for Ramadan.” Accessed on October 12, 2019.).

So, that is one person’s example of how they intentionally chose to practice self-control as a spiritual practice, drawing on a tradition from a religious heritage.

LIFE LONG LEARNING
This example helps us see the principle that if a person is to learn self-restraint, they need to experiment with limits. Consider the fact way that children learn limits through experimentation. When learning to ride a bike, at first they may not balance, but eventually learn how much effort to apply in order to be stable.
I heard a story from many decades ago of a family in which only the boys were allowed to have bicycles. One of the young sisters in the family was envious of her brother’s bicycle. In a fit of desire and courage, when the family wasn’t looking, she grabbed her brother’s bike. She hopped on, and began to ride it, seeking the freedom and fun of the ride. Only then did she realize that she did not know how to use the brakes.

In a similar way, children have opportunities to learn about emotional self-control, and when to put the brakes on their anger, or re-direct it, and when to put the brakes on affection, if it is about to get them into trouble.

In addition to learning physical and emotional self control, children have opportunities to learn mental self control. Mental self-control can mean focusing on a project, but not so much that one exhausts oneself.

So, how can we continue to hone our ability and awareness of self-control as adults?
Just as in learning the balance of riding a bike, we need a life long spiritual practice finding calibration again and again. Technology will continue to change, and the self control that helped you if you lived before the age of cell phones may not help you now. Consider the new book: Outsmart Your Smartphone: Conscious Tech Habits for Finding Happiness, Balance, and Connection IRL by Tchiki Davis (New Harbinger, 2019). She recommends: Reconnect with your values, including kindness and gratitude. Find your purpose in life—and then live it. Use technology to do good things in the world. Be fully present in each moment using mindfulness. This book is just one of the many examples of how we need to be constantly updating our brains as the environment and tools around us change.

EMOTIONS, LONG TERM PERSPECTIVE and VALUES
Yet, self-control is valid when it points to the values that we want to live out. Consider the situation of money.

In spending money, a person at first needs enough money for survival. At some point, if they have more, it can allow them to spend for comforts. Then, with a little more money, they have enough to survive and have basic comforts and give the to community around them. We could call this “enough.” Past that point, we might say that spending more money is over-consumption. That is a statement of values, and each person might draw the line at a different point. So, there is a point on the spectrum in which a person finds balance, and self-control helps them stay at that balance point. But, if they become bogged down by grief, by low-self-esteem, by some other emotional hardship, they might try to fix their unhappiness by buying more things to make them happy. In other words, we can get out of balance.

“Owing to desires, anger, greed, infatuation, arrogance and jealousy, the mind is engulfed in pain. Misled by these emotions, a person can lose his balance of mind and behave unethically.” P. 137 Light on Yoga Sutras of Patanjali, by BKS Iyengar (Harper Collins, 1993).

Sometimes in life we reach a spot when we think that our heartache will have no end,
sometimes we have big questions that lead to a crisis of hope,
sometimes we are not sure who we are anymore,
and at those times, in desperation, we might accidentally look for a big fix, or a big cover-up.
We lose sight of the fact that a small adjustment will help, and we don’t need a big leap.
For example, one of the common pieces of advice for a person who has just experienced a big loss is: don’t make any big changes in the first year. The pain of grief can make a person want a quick out: by selling the house that is full of memories; by finding a new partner to fill the empty places; by taking new job in a new city as a big distraction. But if those decisions are made without moderation, without consideration, without a long term perspective, the person may find themselves later in regret, once the fog of grief clears. The solution is often a small calibration, a bit of patience.

NATIONS
Let us consider that framework on a broader level, expanding from individual use of resources to how a whole society uses resources.
On a global scale, what would self-control mean? This question is becoming more and more urgent as we experience heightened climate change.
This week the Washington Post published photos of new erosion in Siberia, where global warming is happening at a rate faster than elsewhere on earth. And as we sit here this morning, in Japan, they are suffering from the strongest typhoon in many decades.
Climate change may leave you with fear, it may leave you with anger, it may leave you with grief, but what you can do is start from where you are right now and look for solutions.
Some people say that climate change can not be solved by individuals, but only by government regulations of corporations.
I believe many levels of action are needed, and the self-control needs to be on individual, corporate, and government levels.
There is a principle called the Less is More principle.

Bigger scale. Book: progress as if survival mattered. Live simply that others may simply live. Self-control is easier when you have a long-term perspective. Moderation in personal consumption moderation in national and global consumption. Because the person cares for another they might practice self restraint. For example a pregnant woman who wants the developing baby to be healthy will make certain food choices or avoid certain substances during the pregnancy. There are also stories of partners practicing self restraint to support their female partners.

BE IN A SUPPORTIVE ENVIRONMENT
Surround yourself with people who share your values enough to help you do the behaviors that will live them.

FORGIVENESS
When we go too far in a direction we then later need to ask forgiveness. Yom kippur. There will be a reading at the end of the service.

SELF CONTROL CAN INCLUDE A RANGE OF CHOICES
It’s about learning things on a spectrum: a healthy life = being able to move along a spectrum and make choices appropriate to the situation.

For example: Envision a cobblestone pathway. It is not like a smooth paved sidewalk. In a cobblestone path, some of the stones are large, some are small, and most are rounded, with uneven spaces between. A person can not walk along that path with the same-size, regulated steps. They need to be able to adjust—to take big steps over the uneven places, and little steps when the smooth stones are close together. Perhaps you have seen a child learning to walk on cobblestones, adjusting their stride. Perhaps you are have experienced a challenge in your own walking, and know the struggle of needing to make your legs work to adjust to uneven footing. The control over one’s leg muscles gives one stability, and hence for safety from falling. This can be a metaphor. A person is not guaranteed to walk through life on smooth surfaces; there will be times when the path is uneven. So it is with emotional and mental landscapes: we need the capacity to adjust to the big or little movements, so that we have an inner stability. We can not be guaranteed an outer environment of ease at all times.

Here’s the human truth: we do not have control over what happens.
Seasons come and go.
Lives begin and end.
Emotions rise and fall.
Thoughts come and go.
We do have control over behaviors. And perhaps this is, ultimately what saves us.

Consider that, in light of the fact that most religions
• Most religions describe the ultimate outcome as a kind of freedom. Both of the basic level of adhering to a religion and at the more mystical level. This freedom is about expansiveness space and spacious love. It’s a ultimately self-control boils down to a paradox of freedom that is greater than the freedom that we might seek in the moment. I just understand freedom it is to understand freedom on a large scale instead of the small freedom. To be a seeker of truth means to look for the right path in any given moment

Perhaps you will resonate with the words of a doctor who was asked to write about his experience of living with ADHD, and wrote: “I am a seeker. I love the brief prayer that says, “Lord, help me always to search for the truth, but spare me the company of those who have found it.” I have not found the truth, but I seek it every day. Most of us with ADHD are seekers.” — BY EDWARD HALLOWELL, M.D. from additudemag.com

In closing:
Self control is because is not a set thing, but a moving, living, thriving, dynamic experience. May all of us be alive and awake in this seeking.

END
The text above is generally notes from which I preached, and is shared to connect with folks who couldn’t be in the sanctuary today. If you are planning to quote these words, please check with me first. Thank you. —Alex

CLOSING WORDS NEAR THE END OF THE SERVICE: We Begin Again in Love #637