Rev. Kathryn Rayner
given October 8, 2006
Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Bozeman
Thank you, Rev. Lois and Kathy for inviting me here today. And thank you – all of you – for allowing me to come and share my thoughts on ultimacy and intimacy.
For those who do not know me, and that may be most of you here, I am Rev. Kathryn Rayner. I was recently ordained as an Interfaith Minister through The New Seminary, located in New York City. The New Seminary is the oldest interfaith seminary in the country and it is currently celebrating its 25th anniversary.
Rev. Lois has asked me to take a few moments to explain what an Interfaith Minister is. I have to admit that when I was first asked this question, I laughed. You see, Interfaith Ministers are so diverse that I doubt that any one of us could give you the exact same answer. However, there are some things we do agree upon – at least among those who have been ordained through The New Seminary. I would like to share those principles with you.
An Interfaith Minister is someone who seeks to promote understanding, harmony and love among people by emphasizing what is universal in the teachings of the many spiritual paths and faith traditions. This perspective reaches beyond tolerance or even co-existence.
She has chosen to learn about, respect and appreciate the diversity of paths to Oneness, and to look for the universal truth contained in each one. An Interfaith Minister does not seek to homogenize religious differences. Rather, she honors the sacredness and uniqueness of each faith.
- An Interfaith Minister recognizes that all authentic spiritual traditions, at their core, are committed to the common values of peace, tolerance, compassionate service, and love for all creation AND that beneath the diversity of theological beliefs, rites, and observances there lies a deeper unity of experience.
- An Interfaith Minister is someone who is dedicated to serving, without discrimination, the spiritual needs of all those who seek his guidance, counsel, and assistance.
- An Interfaith Minister is someone who is dedicated to deepening her own spiritual development and practice, and her connection to the Divine, so that her service to others is always grounded in the integrity of her own spiritual life.
In order to become an Interfaith Minister, I had to undergo two years of seminary training where I studied with over 70 seminarians from many religious and spiritual backgrounds. My classmates spanned the full gamut of religious and spiritual practice. Some were practicing Wiccans, Shamans, Native Indigenous peoples, Unitarians, Taoist, Muslims, Jews, Christians, New Agers, Reiki Masters, Buddhist, Hindus, Course in Miracles students and self-defined spiritual practitioners. Believe me, the list doesn’t end there, but for today, it will.
Not only was my class pluralistic in our religious affiliations, we were diverse by race, socioeconomic status, sexual orientation, ethnic background, political leanings, gender AND age.
After learning from, dialoguing with and experiencing the faiths of my fellow classmates, my whole perspective about myself and the world changed. For the most part – and I say this as a CYA just in case you catch me on something in the future – For the most part, I am now unable to place people into different categories of ‘good and evil’, ‘us and them’, or even the ‘chosen and the damned’. I realized, during this two year experience that these labels, for the most part, were the result of things I had been taught by others, my own fears, biases, prejudices, false beliefs, ignorance and pre-conceived judgments.
Thus, when I look at you today in this room, I don’t see Unitarian Universalists but creations of and co-creators with God.
So “what is of ultimate value, worth or importance to me”? Some of you may think I might say “Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself”, “the Golden Rule” or “working for the common good”, or bringing peace on earth, ” or even “forgiveness.” Well, all of these are important but I don’t believe they are the most important, and that is what you asked me to talk about today. I believe that the most important is the Acceptance of Self – self as a sacred being. I define the “sacred self” as both a spiritual being and a human being and that may surprise a lot of you. For me, both of these parts of self are sacred, indeed.
Let me explain why I have drawn this conclusion.
In terms of the Golden Rule, “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”, if I allow others to treat me abusively… does that give me license to treat others abusively? How can I work for the common good if I haven’t defined what good is for me? Or better yet, what happens if what I believe to be good actually is not healthy? How can I help bring peace on earth if I haven’t established peace within myself? And finally, if I cannot love myself, accept myself – even my failings – how can I truly love and forgive others? It’s kind of hard.
Self-Acceptance means loving oneself, knowing oneself, and accepting oneself. It means recognizing all components of self fully and completely, including the warts, the pimples, and the middle-age spread, without shame or disgrace. It means recognizing, as Abraham Maslow put it, that I have physiological needs, safety and security needs, love and belonging needs, status and self-esteem needs, and yes, spiritual and “self-actualized” needs. It is recognizing that all of these needs have to be fully embraced by me for me to become an integrated complete person.
It is recognizing that if I do not have the foundation of self-acceptance, these ideas, these ethics, these principles just don’t make sense.
I would like to dig a little bit deeper by saying if I do not accept my self, both as a spiritual being and a human being (as a complete package), my spirituality as I am practicing it today actually could be hindering my growth instead of nurturing it.
Let me rephrase this because I really want you to hear this.
If I do not accept my self as a whole integrated being, chances are that my “spiritual practice” is more than likely impeding my growth instead of helping it to flourish and prosper.
The acceptance of self is the missing link for many spiritual seekers today. You’ll hear them say, “Why is my faith failing me?” Many times the answer turns out to be, “because I forgot to build my spiritual life on the foundation of self acceptance!” A house built without a firm foundation will not withstand the storm.
Let me explain this further by taking an example that John Welwood described in his article called, “Embodying Your Realization: Psychological Work in the Service of Spiritual Development.” For those of you who would like to read this article in its entirety, it is available in electronic format at his website: johnwelwood.com.
"Say a woman came to me for advice about her marriage, and as a minister, I advised her not to be angry with her husband, but instead to be a compassionate friend. You might think that this was perfectly sound spiritual advice. Compassion IS a higher truth than anger. We are taught this in Buddhism, Christianity, Judaism – practically from all world religions. We understand that from the point of pure open awareness we discover compassion as the very core of inner nature. From this perspective, could we say that feeling angry about being hurt separates us from our true nature?
"The answer to that question is: it all depends on where the person is coming from – where their frame of reference is.
"Let’s wind the tape back a little bit on this scene that I have just described. What I didn’t tell you is that when I gave this advice, I did not take into consideration the emotional and psychological state of this woman: that she was someone who had swallowed her anger all her life. In her childhood, her father had been abusive and would slap her and send her to her room whenever she showed any anger about the way he treated her. So, she learned to suppress her anger, and always tried to please others and “be a good girl”.
"Because I had advised her to feel compassion rather than anger, she initially felt relieved because this fit right in with her defenses. Since anger was terrifying and threatening to her, she saw the teaching on compassion as a way to refuse to deal with her anger or the message it contained. So what is the end result when she comes from this point of reference? The teaching on compassion, instead of helping her, increased her sense of frustration and powerlessness in her marriage AND it actually hindered her personal growth.
"In taking into consideration the absolute and relative nature of this woman, it becomes extremely critical for me, as a minister, to show her that she needed to pay more attention to her anger in order to move beyond her pattern of self-suppression, so that she can discover her inner strength and power, and begin to relate to her husband in a more active, assertive way. Then and only then, when she has learned to set boundaries, to treat her self with respect and to honor her feelings, does the higher truth of compassion come into effect.
"You see, in reality, this woman’s attempt at compassion was not be entirely genuine because it was based on rejecting her own anger. For this higher truth of compassion to function in her world, she would have to be willing to feel, acknowledge, and come to terms with her anger before she could arrive at genuine forgiveness and compassion. As they say, you should never put the cart before the horse."
I know for myself that I have been conditioned from childhood to hate my anger. Because of this, when I observe anger, I have a tendency to judge and suppress it, to get rid of it, because it is “bad” and painful, or shameful or even worse… “unspiritual.” Thus, in order to learn what anger is trying to teach me so that I can fully embrace it and be compassionately transformed, I must be very careful to have an open mind and heart to let myself feel fully, even if it means touching the deepest wells of grief, sorrow and rage within me. I have to be willing to do this so that I can receive the lesson and the blessing that this feeling would give me. Yes, I said, “the BLESSING this feeling would give me.” It’s like Jacob wrestling with the angel until he is blessed.
In order to explore this feeling, questions I could ask myself are, "What aspect of my self is asking for acceptance and compassion? What part of my self that has been rejected is asking to be received, valued and accepted again? Can I touch with love whatever I have closed my heart to? Do I have a false belief that is hindering me from being a whole person? Has a boundary been violated? Do I need to set a boundary or do I have a defensive state that is alienating myself from others? Is there something that I need to forgive? What is the lesson, the message I am to receive?"
Let’s take another example – one that is more personal to me.
A little over 8 years ago, I came to a point in my life where marriage sounded like a really good thing. I found a man that I was extremely attracted to and who was apart of the same church I belonged to. In my mind he was the perfect match because spiritual compatibility was all that mattered! That was what I was taught! All I had to do was do everything I could to make him happy and then I would be happy. You know… treat him good, he’ll treat me good? “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!”
Well, after the first year of marriage, I began to question that logic. For it became quite apparent that we had hardly anything in common accept our spiritual background. And doing everything I could to give my husband a satisfying life, I had put all of my needs and desires on hold. It didn’t take long before I became depressed and downright miserable! You see, I wasn’t taking care of myself! I wasn’t acknowledging my own personal needs because I was taught that other people’s needs were more important than my own. You may have heard the statement, “JOY means Jesus, Others, You.”
Well, since I wasn’t doing too well in taking care of my self, the universe decided to give me a wake up call. In less than a year’s time, 4 years into my marriage, I was involved in two car accidents. In the first accident my car was hit from behind. In the second, a deer jumped in front of my car. After the first incident I was a physical wreck. After the second, I was a total wreck – physically, psychologically, spiritually and emotionally. A TOTAL WRECK!
Here I was, recovering from physical injury, attempting to work full time despite those injuries in order to keep a roof over my and my husband’s head and feeling emotionally overwhelmed, distraught and frazzled.
It was then, when I was at the lowest of lows, that I began to understand self acceptance. Through medical assistance, physical therapy, counseling and self care I began to accept the fact that I had needs in all aspects of my being – physically, psychologically, emotionally, and spiritually – and some of those needs were extremely different (sometimes opposite to) my husband’s needs. I realized, then and there, that it was okay to be me and I deserved to be cared for.
I needed physical exercise and rest. I needed to get a deep tissue massage every other week. I needed to set limits on what I would and would not do. I needed relationships where I could be emotionally vulnerable and accepted! I needed to speak up when someone violated a boundary. I needed a place where from time to time I could have peace and quiet! I needed a place that I could call home for longer than 5 years. I needed time to go play and to chill out. It felt good to have a dog!
In recognizing my own needs, even my own fundamental needs as a human being; I discovered that when I ignored or denied these needs, I was eroding my health at every level. Ignoring my needs was like sending an express letter to my self that I wasn’t important enough to get my needs met. I also noticed that when I began to take care of my self, when I began to accept my self and value my self, my confidence and self-esteem rose. My emotional and physical health improved! When I decided to do the deep, hard work of coming to terms with my past – accepting, grieving and forgiving it, I noticed that not only did my emotional life begin to blossom but my spiritual life as well. I began to experience an internal freedom, an internal expression of wholeness and completeness that I had never experienced before. I felt closer to God, to Spirit than I had in a very long time.
I realized that I had to accept and value my self as a whole integrated person in order for these phrases, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you!” and “Love Thy Neighbor as Thyself”, to make sense and come alive for me. You see, I discovered that all components of my self were indeed sacred and worthy of care. And with this realization, I was able to see the sacredness in others and therefore give the same care toward them as I did toward myself.
In cultivating self-acceptance, and tolerance towards myself and others, I also found myself being far more understanding, patient, empathic, balanced, and open-minded.
And finally, through this process of growth, I came to realize that true intimacy came from being known, and being known required knowing my self, having a self to know, and having enough of a sense of my own individuality to have something to present to the other.
In “A Path with Heart,” Jack Kornfield writes,
Much of spiritual life is self-acceptance, maybe all of it. Indeed, in accepting the songs of our life, we can begin to create for ourselves a much deeper and greater identity in which our heart holds all within a space of boundless compassion.
Self-acceptance is of vital importance. I CANNOT EMPHASIZE THIS ENOUGH! With this awareness, we can learn to release ourselves from needy, fearful or compulsive identities to discover a wholeness and well-being, a sense of inner and outer freedom.
When we incorporate self-acceptance, self-realization, and self-knowledge into our spiritual practice, we discover that the conflict and pain we have carried for so long can lead us to new levels of freedom. We recognize that each circumstance has a lesson that can bring us to its own particular awakening.
Unconditional acceptance is the kind of love Jesus speaks of when he taught to love thy neighbor; that Buddha meant when he said that the enemy, adversary or competitor can be one’s greatest teacher.
Self-acceptance causes a profound shift in identity that leads us to becoming whole integrated beings – in becoming the Buddha, the Christ, Krishna.
As the Oracle of Delphi stated it, “Know thyself. Knowledge of oneself is the only real knowledge, for as one understands oneself, only then may one truly understand another.”
Exploring our identities is deep, hard work. It often requires the facilitation of a teacher, guide or counselor. Use them. I do.
I would like to share with you a poem that summarizes the message I am trying to leave you with today. It is called “Know Thyself”. The author is unknown.
You can’t be all things to all people.
You can’t do all things at once.
You can’t do all things equally well.
You can’t do all things better than everyone else.
Your humanity is showing just like everyone else’s.
So:
You have to find out what you are, and be that.
You have to decide what comes first, and do that.
You have to discover your strengths, and use them.
You have to learn not to compete with others,
Because no one else is in the contest of “being you”.
Then:
You will have learned your own uniqueness.
You will have learned to set priorities and make decisions.
You will have learned to live with your limitations.
You will have learned to give yourself the respect that is due.
And you’ll be a most vital person.
Dare to Believe:
That you are a wonderful, unique person.
That you are a once-in-all history event.
That it’s more than a right, it’s your duty, to be who you are.
That life is not a problem to solve, but a gift to cherish.
And you’ll be able to stay one up on what used to get you down.
In closing, I would like to recite the Serenity Prayer, in its original wording, composed by the 20th century Protestant theologian, Reinhold Niebuhr, in 1943. This prayer, in its revised version, is widely used by AA, NA, CoDA, Al-Anon and Alateen members.
God give us grace
to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed,
courage to change the things that should be changed,
and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.
Amen.
The book that inspired this talk today was written by Jack Kornfield. It is called, A Path with Heart. I highly recommend this book to all of you as it contains invaluable depth and teaching that I was unable to touch on today.
Thank You.
