"Love Beauty Truth" Revisited (Time Machine - Five Years Ago)
So, if only for an archival benchmark of where I WAS, here's a short talk I gave to the All Souls Unitarian Universalist Congregation some time ago. It would be interesting if I took the time now to edit and rewrite it, given all I don't know at this point in time...


My Credo
April 16, 2000

There's a plaque down in the Religious Education wing for LCDR Robert Kragg. He was president of All Souls when he died in 1963 with the sinking of the Thresher. Cast above its torch are three words: "Love," "Beauty," and "Truth." Those three ideals are the principals by which I try to live.

LOVE

I was born and raised in a Swedish-Lutheran family in Northern Indiana and I stayed with Christianity until I started to drift away in my early 20s. But still, there are the basic teachings of Jesus that remain. For me, the heart of all of his wisdom is simple Love - "do unto others as you would have them do unto you." Love, for me, is not just romantic love, but rather sincere kindness, respect and acceptance that is due to all the world.

At a very basic level, we're all just trying to get through this life with a little warmth around us, a little food in our bellies and some good company once in while. Given this simple view, I feel we all should cut each other a little slack once in a while, particularly when one of us - be it a person or a group or a nation - is feeling: out in the cold; or hungry for something; or just all alone. It's during those times that life gets very complicated and that there seem to be no answers, simple or otherwise. It's also during those times that we particularly need to reach out for one another. For me, Love is all about really being there for the other person.

TRUTH

In my early 20's, like so many other college kids, I started a life-long habit of looking for answers to Life in all sorts of philosophy books. I‘ve found that the one great truth that comes out of all the various schools of philosophy is the quest for Truth, itself. For me, Truth is a way of living that involves honesty, integrity, and really listening to each other to get the full picture within the larger context.

Returning to Jesus’ message - "Love thy neighbor as thyself" - Christianity really doesn't deal out a lot of advice on that "Love thyself" part - in fact, it encourages self-sacrifice and taking care of others, even at the expense of yourself. While Jesus preached loving the world, Buddha, on the other hand, taught simple ways to love yourself by first being truthful to yourself.

Buddha teaches us to just let go of all the stuff that always seems to eventually cause problems. It's certainly not easy, but if you decide to let go of all the baggage - the stuff that we waste our lives planning and scheming and scrambling and grasping and manipulating others with our scripts and agendas, you might eventually get to being honest with yourself and accepting your own self with Love and Truth. Only then, can you fully experience the intrinsic perfection - the simple beauty - of everything that is already part of our world.

BEAUTY

We all can appreciate a fine work of art or a touching piece of music or the grace of a natural dancer or the splendor of the ocean or a stunning sunset. But what about the little things that are part of our "everyday" "ordinary" lives that we usually take for granted?

A little over ten years ago, I had an epiphany of sorts. I was pouring some coca cola into a glass full of ice cubes. Suddenly, I became mesmerized and transfixed by the way the fluid ran over the ice, the way the light refracted through the wet cubes and the caramel-colored liquid, the sounds and the sensation of the bubbles of carbonation and the way they caught the sunlight over the glass. I know this sounds like some kind of 60s flashback, but at that moment my eyes opened to the perfect beauty of this very "ordinary" event.

This was no sunset over the Pacific, but it was every bit as beautiful, because it was right now - right here - one perfect timeless moment. Perhaps because it was so unexpected or because I became so focused, I realized how lucky I was to be alive - that moment was an absolute gift. Since that experience, I’ve consciously tried to be open to the beauty of the common stuff that always surrounds us.

IN SUMMARY

Of all books, I think of the Tao Te Ching as my Bible. In 81 simple and beautiful verses, it reflects on the interconnectedness of all things and the mystery of Life. It tells how endless striving is wasteful and how a rich Life can be realized by openly accepting this very moment. You learn that, as long as you don’t try to force things, you can still partake of Life with great enthusiasm. By accepting without any strings what you are doing now, you just might find joy.

Those of you who know me well know that I really love everyday sounds: the music of the wind rustling in the trees always brings me to a complete standstill; the song of the mockingbird outside my window actually makes me laugh out loud with joy; but best of all for me, is when I hear the voices of friends, sitting around a campfire or downstairs at the All Souls kitchen table talking long into the night. With music such as this, full of Love, Truth and Beauty, what more could anyone want out of Life?