Four weekends ago, I spent Labor Day Weekend on retreat with more than eighty other members of this congregation. The theme of this year's retreat was "Relax, Reflect, Reconnect." We were certainly in the right setting to do these things, a YMCA camp in Becket, MA. Far away from the demands of everyday life with all meals prepared for us, surrounded by twelve hundred acres of trees that were just beginning to show a hint of fall color, close to a serene lake where we could swim or go canoeing - some had to swim while trying to canoe!, and in the company of family and friends we played, danced, sang songs, drummed, hiked, roasted marshmallows, shared meals, shared silence, worshipped, and talked. We talked about our summers that were drawing to a close, about our families and children, swapped life stories, and every now and then, conversation would turn to the fast approaching start of a new year here at the Unitarian Society of New Haven. For the most part, these conversations were full of excitement and enthusiasm for all that would be happening this year, the celebration of our fifty-year anniversary as a congregation, the ground breaking for a new sanctuary, the monthly gatherings of potluck groups, the return of full Sunday morning activities for adults and children alike. And then, there would be a deep sigh - either by an individual or a collective group sigh, and the conversation would become more reflective. And what I heard expressed by many, is that there just doesn't seem to be enough time in a day or week, nor the energy, to do all that needs to be done.

And it wasn't just demands on time and attention from committee work and participation in various programs here at USNH that caused this sense of weariness when looking to the future. We began talking about the realization that in all aspects of our lives, there seems to be more and more to do - families, with children, juggling school schedules and sports with afternoon practices and weekend games and music lessons and their growing social lives, made all the more difficult with both parents working or a single parent in the home. And for those who do not have children, there was talk about the increased demands of work, with recent reporting in the news that Americans now had added an additional 40 hour work week to each month by working an extra 10 hours each week, and over 40% of the working population stating that their work had adversely affected the significant relationships in their life and 60% claimed their physical and emotional health has been harmed as a direct result of their work.

Many expressed the feeling that life is out of control - too much to do, too many pressures to "achieve" what society has determined to be the measure of success in material terms, too great a demand that our children have and do all that is needed to ensure them the best possible futures. And there didn't seem to be any easy clear cut solutions for bringing life back in to balance - no easy answer for the question "What do we quit doing?" But we all agreed we needed more time to do exactly what we were doing at the retreat, relaxing, reflecting, and reconnecting. We needed time to be still, to not answer the phone and respond to email, to not have to rush about in carpools, time to think about life and how we should be living it, time to pay attention and notice the world around us, and the ability to spend uninterrupted time with family, our children, and each other in this community.

Back in July, while buying a few books for pleasure reading over the summer, I came across a book written by Robert Coles, "The Secular Mind". The striking cover, a beautiful misty orange sunset as viewed from across a mountain range set against a black background didn't seem to match the title, so I turned it over, curious to see what it was about and read this, "Does the business of daily living distance us from life's mysteries? Do most American's value spiritual thinking more as a hobby than as an all-encompassing approach to life? Will the concept of the soul be defunct after the next few generations? … Robert Coles offers a profound meditation on how secular culture has settled into the hearts and minds of America." While this book didn't quite fit into the category of fun summer reading, I added it to my pile of novels, and am very glad I did. Which goes to show you can't always go by the rule of never judging a book by its cover.

After the conversations at our retreat, I remembered this book, and wanted to see what Coles had to say about this struggle to balance the increasing demands of daily life with what I believe is a universal human need to live a religious life, a life that takes into consideration the ultimate questions of meaning. In Coles' words, this is a pull between the secular and sacred dimensions of our lives and he suggests that it is not a new conflict, particular to our society and the times we are living in. In fact Coles points out that most of the Bible, Old and New Testaments both, chronicle this dualism of our lives. It is the stories of people trying to get it right, to figure out how to live their lives in a way that deepened their understanding of and connection to the mystery and wonder of life.

It is found in the Exodus story when Moses and the people of Israel were not allowed to enter the Promised Land until they began living their lives in accordance with the laws that governed not only morality but how to worship and be in relationship with Yahweh. This struggle between the secular and sacred is at the root of the stories of all the prophets of the Old Testament and it is the struggle that Jesus deals with in the New Testament stories. Jesus was radical because he took issue with the secular values of his time, values of power and material gain, and urged people to take up a more sacred approach to life. Certainly our struggle today between the secular and sacred dimensions of our lives is manifested very differently and it takes on new dimensions and complexities. We know a lot more now. There are three areas of science that have greatly impacted religious thought and beliefs, because they have removed much of the mystery of our lives. First is astronomy, with Galileo setting in motion our expanding view of the expanding universe, and that we are only one tiny spot out of a seemingly endless number of spots. Then the study of biology helped us to learn how the body works, and brought us medical advancements. It also brought us Darwinism, which suggests, "Our being here at all is only a result of many accidents and incidents, chance and circumstance, … that we are merely an aspect of an ever changing nature, that our origin was not divine, but a consequence of a biological saga of sorts." (Coles) If this wasn't enough to do in religion, I'm not sure what is.

The third area of science that has changed religious thought and purpose is psychiatry. In the late 1800's, Freud wanted to understand why we behave the way we do and the reasons for the emotions we experience. This had been the domain of religion, with clergy being the ones to counsel most people while hearing confessions, and providing analysis based on theological convictions concerning the nature of humanity and God, and sin and salvation. And suddenly, psychiatrists were saying they better understood what really was going on in people's minds and could better help people understand themselves. There was an immediate condemnation of psychoanalytical theories by most clergy on the grounds that they were godless. And Freud himself responded, "They are right, psychoanalysis is godless, it is godless materialism." Soon the consultation room with a couch replaced the confessional booth for many.

I am not suggesting that these shifts in our worldview are negative or even that we would be better off without them in a spiritual sense. But it is important to acknowledge that they have chipped away at ideas and beliefs that were once under the umbrella of religion, and with greater knowledge, there is less mystery and less room for perceived miracles, and fewer things that are considered sacred. Now add to this the reality of our daily lives, the seemingly ever increasing demands on our time, the need to work longer hours just to make ends meet, the onslaught of information that comes to us now in many forms, the media, cell phones, the internet and electronic communication, increased availability of entertainment such as cable channels on our televisions, and video games. It is no wonder that our lives seem unmanageable with little, if any, opportunity to be still and to be quiet, and take notice of our days. For many of us, it seems that the fragile balance between the secular and sacred aspects of our lives has been tipped toward the secular, and we are left yearning to find ways to deepen our relationship with the sacred center of our being, hungry to have encounters with the holy.

In the "Gift of Faith: Tending the Spiritual Lives of our Children", Jeanne Nieuwejaar, a Unitarian Universalist minister, points out that participating in communal worship, observing holy times in holy places, is one way we can develop a greater sense of the sacred in our daily lives. This is what we are doing right now, when we come together as a community and turn our hearts and minds to those things which matter most. Nieuwejaar writes that during the hour of weekly worship in her congregation, it is not uncommon to see people with tears welling up in their eyes, regardless of what is being talked about. In fact, a few of her congregants have told her they cry nearly every week while attending worship. She reflects that maybe this happens because this one hour of our week is the only time many of us have to allow ourselves to be open to a state of wholeness, to experience a receptivity to fully know and be known, to let ourselves be touched, and to feel deeply, to feel deeply a sense of connection with something beyond ourselves. In the Jewish Tradition, holding Sabbath allows for this deepened experience of the holy for a whole day. The point of observing the Sabbath in this way is not to confine holiness to one day of the week, but to lift up, notice, and celebrate all that is holy so a sense of sacredness will be renewed and can be carried forth into all aspects of life each day. The Sabbath is understood to be a break from the daily demands of life, a break from the secular. A time not to be productive, but simply to be. For a whole day, from sundown on Friday until sundown on Saturday. There are restrictive rules and affirmative rules that protect the sacredness of the Sabbath. All cooking is completed before the Sabbath begins so that attention can be given to the rituals, and time can be spent with family and friends. Money should not be handled and cars should not be driven. You must not work or pursue mundane concerns. These prohibitions are intended to free the participants from the cares and concerns that normally occupy their minds so that they can delight in beauty and in the sharing of thoughts and ideas with others. And during this sacred time, all must rest and rejoice and spend intimate time with their mate.

Most of us will never observe a 24-hour Sabbath, with the discipline intended in this tradition. It is difficult enough to set aside two or three hours a week for worship and spiritual nurture with the demands of our lives. But I wonder how our lives might shift if we did moved in that direction, if the nurturing of our sense of the sacred became our top priority, the thing that all else was scheduled around, not the thing that was fit in when everything else was accomplished. If we were firmly committed to setting aside time and place to know, celebrate, and honor the holy, and thereby reclaim our sense of sacredness and carry it into the remainder of our days, all the places and activities of our secular lives.

Coles suggests another way of looking at the need for balance between the sacred and the secular. He certainly agrees that our lives are often divided between secular and sacred activity. That the common every day tasks are considered secular, and the set aside time for contemplation, such as worship or meditation - whether in community or solitude, is sacred. But he also distinguishes between the secular mind and the sacred mind. In the secular mind, thinking is on autopilot, concentration is on tasks, there isn't much intentionality. Consideration is given to how things relate to the individual, but not how the individual is relating to the rest of the world, it is inner focused rather than outer focused. But with a sacred mind, we begin to seek that which is beyond ourselves. The sacred mind is one that contemplates, searches for meaning in all that it is engaged with, asks questions like, what should we be doing here? What does the fact that we have received this precious gift of our individual life demand of us in return? It is the mind that sees beauty and mystery and asks why? It is something that should be cultivated to get us through our ordinary days full of activity, with a sense that there is balance in our lives. We can attend worship and go through the motions of observing Sabbath law, which are intended to deepen our knowing of the sacred, but if we do it with a secular mind, if we are so tied to the busy-ness of daily life that we can't pay attention and look critically at our lives and how we are in relationship with all that is beyond us, we have not opened ourselves to encountering the sacred. We can also accomplish what is considered secular activities, buying groceries and making meals, with a sacred mind, taking notice of what we are doing and asking how and why. It's not just a matter of naming some tasks sacred and others secular, and finding time to do them both, it is the mindset we use for doing either of them.

I've been thinking about my sermon title, "In Search of the Sacred". I came up with this title while wrestling with the notion that secularism - the day to day common tasks and our increasing scientific knowledge were eroding away at our ability to see mystery and holiness in the world, that we no longer had time to enjoy sunsets, to sit and look with wonder at the tiny fingers on a newborn's hand, to feel connected to all of life with whom we share this earth, to deepen our connection with that which we call God through prayer or meditation. But what I've come to realize is that it is an ongoing process, we won't find the sacred and be finished with it. It requires a discipline, an intentional slowing down and turning back to the sacred mind when the secular demands seem to take over. And anything that points us to asking the ultimate questions and keeps us asking them, any time, event, object, or person, is sacred. But if our answers become automatic, we have leaned toward a secular mindset. What makes our lives sacred is the search, the need to explore and deepen our relationship with our selves and that which is beyond us, the continuous asking of the question, "How does my unfolding life hold up against what I thought to be true?" If this is what sets something aside as sacred, I suggest that we are living in a very sacred time. The terrorist attacks on September 11, and all that is going on in our nation and around the world as a result of these attacks have caused many of us to stop and pay attention. Our focus has been turned away from our individual lives. We have mourned and grieved with the families who lost their loved ones. We have been faced with the reality that life can end abruptly and without notice and so have given thought to how it is we fill our days. We have thought about issues of justice and the sanctity of life. We have asked ourselves, what responsibility do we bear for the well being of the rest of humanity? What are we called to do in this moment? There has been so much to consider at once, and so much pain and grief, that the secular mind and world beckons as a much-needed relief. It is easier to concentrate on coming up with a grocery list than to pay close attention to what is happening around us right now. And this is ok. I experienced this myself while being in New York at the World Trade Center site these past two weeks as a chaplain. There was so much suffering to be present to, for the rescue workers, for the relief volunteers, and for myself, that we all had to take breaks from it. I found myself at times focusing on getting ice to a food service area or setting up the system of clearing other chaplains to come help as a means of stepping in to the secular world and mind. There has to be a balance. And after a break, I could go back and be in relationship with the unfolding events in each moment, the place itself, and the people around me, truly listen to their individual stories and see their faces. It has certainly been a sacred experience for me.

My concern is that because it is such a painful time and it may continue to be so for longer than any of us can bear to imagine, we will turn away from the sacredness to be found. We will busy ourselves with secular tasks, which normally consume so much of our time anyway, and not come to grips with how these unfolding events hold up against what we have believed to be true about life. Not fully come to terms with how our lives have been and will continue to be affected. We have President Bush and Mayor Guiliano, encouraging us to get back to normal. Start working again and spending again, and get back in the planes, get busy again and don't let these major life and world events affect our American way of life. Well I for one, hope they do affect our lives.

I wonder what and how we would all be feeling and thinking had President Bush called for a sacred week of contemplation - or even a full twenty-four hours, with all but the absolutely necessary daily tasks coming to a halt - stores closed, entertainment off, hands resting, and America quiet and still to grieve and give serious thought and reflection on how the events of Sept. 11 have affected us and our world, and the implications of how we now choose to be in the world. I wonder if we would move out of despair more quickly if we took this kind of care of our soul.

I hope we encounter the sacredness of all that is happening. I hope the people, those who lost their lives, those who are in mourning, and those who are working at the World Trade Center everyday to put things right, and the events, the acts of terrorism and the acts of bravery, the acts of retaliation and the calls for peaceful justice, can all be encountered with the sacred mind, calling us into an ever-deepening relationship with our world. And I hope we carry this heightened sense of the sacred into our secular lives, actively creating the balance we need, living in the tension of ultimate questions and answers, and bringing greater meaning and purpose to each and every moment we still have in this gift called life.