Here We Have Gathered

This is the text of the reflections I offered to the congregation I serve on July 29, 2018.  I have also included the Opening and Closing words, and hope UUA President Susan Frederick-Gray will understand their importance to the whole.

Opening Words:

As a people—a people of faith—that say we are committed to justice, compassion, and equity. As a faith that says we are committed to the inherent worth and dignity of all people. As a faith that says we are committed to respect for the interdependent web of all life—we have a critical role to play in this time.

Two things that are absolutely clear. #1—This is no time for a casual commitment to your faith, your community, and your values, and

#2—this is not time to think we are in this alone. 

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray, from her sermon, “No Time for a Casual Faith,”
 delivered at the 2018 General Assembly Sunday service

Sermon:  “Here We Have Gathered”

It is not uncommon to hear people talk about being “cultural Christians.”  They are acknowledging that there is something Christian-ish about them, but don’t mistake them for strong adherents of the faith; these are not what you might call “committed Christians.”  The scholar of comparative religion, Winston Smith, was once asked why, after he’d studied the great religions of the world and incorporated into his own life many of the spiritual understandings and practices he’d encountered, why he still referred to himself as a Methodist.  He replied, without skipping a beat, “ancestor worship.”  He had been born into the Methodist tradition, and he continued to claim it long after it’d had ceased to have any claim on him.  (This is true in all religious traditions – there are “cultural” Jews, and Buddhists, and Hindus, and, for that matter, Atheists.  People for whom their relationship with the spiritual/religious tradition they claim has little or no claim on them; people who we might say are “casual” in their religious affiliations.)

Leia, our Director of Faith Development, and I once ran a two-day training for staff teams – ordained ministers and the professional religious educators with whom they worked.  One of the exercises that we’d borrowed from some place began with participants calling out things that the congregation they served did that they were particularly proud of.  “Our monthly food pantry!” one said.  “Our collaboration with other faith communities to provide housing for the homeless during the coldest months of the year,” said another.  “The work we do to keep the vision of the United Nations alive in the minds of our congregation.”  “Our ministry with, for, and by young adults.”  Someone said, “Our religious education programming,” with someone else quickly adding, “especially our youth!”  “Meaningful worship.”  (That came from one of the clergy people present.)  “Our covenant groups that bring small groups together in powerful ways.”  “Our support of the Movement for Black Lives.”  “Having become a Green Sanctuary.”  Having become a Welcoming Congregation.”  “Our program to bring food to members of the congregation when they are sick.”  “Our practice of raising money monthly for non-profits doing meaningful work in our wider community.” 

I could go on.  They certainly did.  They had no problem listing program after program, project after project, one after another, of which they were proud.  (The list I just read, by the way, didn’t come from my notes after that weekend: they’re all things we do here that I’m proud of.)

Like I said, this group had no problem coming up with a long list of things the congregations they served were doing that were making a difference in the lives of their members and their wider communities.  It was the second part of the exercise that we tough.  Participants were asked to read together an item from that list beginning with the words, “We do …” and ending with, “. . . because we’re Unitarian Universalists.”

·    We have a monthly food pantry because we’re Unitarian Universalists. 

·    We collaborate with other faith communities to provide housing for the homeless during the coldest months of the year because we’re Unitarian Universalists.

·    We have a ministry with, for, and by young adults because we’re Unitarian Universalists

·    We bring food to members of the congregation who are sick because we’re Unitarian Universalists.

·    We became a Green Sanctuary and a Welcoming Congregation because we’re Unitarian Universalists

Not everyone had a hard time with this, but a lot of the people there found it really hard to say that they and the congregations they served do the good and important things they do because they are Unitarian Universalists.  They would have felt comfortable saying that they did them because they were good people, because they cared about each other and the world, because they were the right things to do.  But to say that they did them because of being Unitarian Universalists, because our faith traditions compels them to, because as Unitarian Universalists they felt a mandate to make the world a better place … well … a lot of the folks in that workshop weren’t all that comfortable saying that.  And these were religious professionals!

Last week during the annual “Questions & Responses” service I was asked what I found most frustrating about Unitarian Universalism (and, by extension, I’d think, “about Unitarian Universalists”).  In addition to the things I mentioned then, I’d add this – the number of people who are, for lack of a better phrase, cultural, or casual, UUs.  Oh we’re good-hearted people, just as are most “cultural Christians.”  If asked, we will claim our connection to this Unitarian Universalist tradition, yet if we’re being really honest, it has little to no claim on us.  It isn’t truly a part of our identity – our core ­identity.  It’s what we do, where we go on Sunday mornings (and a few other times during the week), yet it’s not really who we are.

And I find that frustrating – and more than a little sad, frankly – because our Unitarian Universalist faith is something.  Our tradition has a history, and an identity, and a power that is different than the history, identity, and power of other religious traditions or civic groups.  Unitarian Universalism is more than, as one joke at our expense puts it, “halfway between the Methodists and the golf course.”  Yet when we don’t feel, don’t know ourselves to be part of something larger than ourselves, larger than the congregation we happen to go to when we think there’ll be something interesting to us, it is so easy to become focused on our own congregation and what’s happening there right now.  This is true in and about Unitarian Universalist congregations wherever we’ve set up shop, and whatever is, or that we might think isn’t, happening in them at any particular moment.  (And how we feel about it.)

When we become so isolated and insular, we cut ourselves off from the power of our association, and I’m not talking about our institutional Association, but the reality that our congregations are associated with one another, connected with one another, can draw strength from and offer support to one another.  When we lose sight of the fact that we are part of something larger than merely the group of people who gather at 717 Rugby Road in Charlottesville, or 351 Boylston Street in Boston, or 2952 South Peoria Avenue in Tulsa, or online through the Church of the Larger Ministry, then we all too often also lose sight of the fact that we are a part of an association of several hundred thousand people, over 1,600 congregations, and a faith that, in the United States, can trace its roots back to the founding of the Universalist Church of America in 1793. Our Unitarian Universalist tradition is something, and we lose something when we don’t fully recognize, acknowledge, and own that as a part of who we are.  We lose something, and our congregations, and our wider Association loses much when we are just “cultural UUs” or, “casual” about our Unitarian Universalism.

In the sermon I quoted from as our Opening Words, the Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray also said,

“Friends, this is no time to go it alone—we as Unitarian Universalists can’t go it alone. We as individual congregations cannot be in this struggle alone.

[…]

This time we are living in is one of tremendous opportunity and needed change—and the health and strength of our communities and our commitment to our values, to this theology of love and interdependence is crucial”

And she said,

“This is no time for a casual faith. As Unitarian Universalists, we are first and foremost religious communities, religious communities that practice love as our foundation—and we are living in times of heartbreak, violence, struggle, and pain. In this time, we need communities that remind us of our humanity in this very inhumane time.”

And these are very “inhumane” times, indeed. 

Hate crimes “more than doubled the day after the 2016 election, with a 92 percent spike in average daily hate crimes in the two weeks following the election compared to the daily average from the beginning of the year. Crimes against Latinos increased by the greatest percent, followed by Muslims and Arabs and African-Americans.”  (I quoted that from an article co-authored by the Director of the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism at California State University San Bernardino.)

These are inhumane times

This past Thursday the Justice Department issued a legal brief arguing that federal civil rights law does not ban discrimination on sexual orientation.  In April the administration rewrote a federal rule that had bared discrimination in health care due to “gender identity,” and the State Department reportedly has been, “retroactively revoking passports for transgender women, forcing them to provide proof of their gender.”  Some in the EPA have come out and said that under Trump their mission is changing, “from protecting human health and the environment to protecting industry.” 

These are inhumane times.

All this, and I haven’t yet mentioned that, according to U.S. District Judge Dana Sabraw, the administration is responsible for “losing several hundred parents” of the more than 2,700 children forcible separated at the U.S. boarder since October of last year, nor that, as a recent article in New York magazine put it, it seems increasingly plausible that “Trump has been a Russian asset since 1987.”

These are inhumane times indeed.  Frightening times.  Dangerous times.  And times that call on us to work, perhaps harder than we’ve ever worked before, to both stem and then reverse the rising tide of hatred.  These are times that call on us as Unitarian Universalists to do this work, because as Unitarian Universalists we have something rare and unique to offer.  We know more about interfaith collaboration than just about anyone, because every Sunday in every UU sanctuary is something of an interfaith service.  We know a lot about working for justice as an expression of our spirituality, because the work of justice has been at the core of our Unitarian Universalist faith and the Unitarian and Universalist faiths which preceded it.  We know so much about inclusion, for it has been a principle around which we have rallied since the beginning that every person has inherent worth and dignity.

I’m going to give the last words here to the Rev. Olympia Brown who, among other things, was the first woman ordained in the United States with the full support and backing of a denomination.  In a well-known passage from her writings (included in the back of our hymnal at #569) she said,

Stand by this faith. Work for it and sacrifice for it. There is nothing in all the world so important as to be loyal to this faith which has placed before us the loftiest ideals, which has comforted us in sorrow, strengthened us for noble duty and made the world beautiful. Do not demand immediate results but rejoice that we are worthy to be entrusted with this great message, that you are strong enough to work for a great true principle without counting the cost.

Parting Words

For our Parting Words I will once again return to Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray’s GA sermon:

The promise of our faith means liberating ourselves from the systems of dominance and exploitation we all suffer under. The promise of our faith means making compassion a way of being, it means creating a collective sense of both community and responsibility. It holds the vision of a yet to be realized future where our collective survival, our liberation, and a practice of the fullness of our theology is possible.

[…]

Theologically, our Universalism tells us that no one is outside the circle of love. However, we must understand that in our lives, in the context of oppression and discrimination, that the circle has never been drawn wider from the center. It has always grown wider because of the vision, leadership and organizing of people living on the margins who truly understand the limits and costs of oppressive policies—and what liberation means.

This time we are living in is one of tremendous opportunity and needed change—and the health and strength of our communities and our commitment to our values, to this theology of love and interdependence is crucial. I know this work is calling more from us, but I also know that we have been readying for it. And I know it will change us, but I also see that day when we will look back and see the measurable change in our hearts, in our communities, in our faith and in our society that were nurtured by our struggles and our courageous love today.

Now this change won’t come through optimistic hope or casual practice. It will take a greater commitment and generosity to communities that sustain courage, love, hope and resiliency. It will mean new ways of living our faith and reaching out more boldly, lovingly and faithfully with others for justice. And it will take each of us finding our work, our place—where our gifts help call something new—something life giving—into this world.

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

Benediction

Instead of our usual benediction, this morning I offer the words with which Susan concluded her sermon:

May the spiritual community that we practice strengthen all of our hearts, may it give us courage, may we not be silent or shrink back from the demands of love. May we hold one another in love as we follow new pathways of joy, of community, of change, of risk and of joy. And may we all be held the practice of agape love that leads us to the liberation we all need—until all are free.

Rev. Susan Frederick-Gray

Introduction to the Closing Hymn

These are the words Jason Shelton spoke at the 2017 General Assembly when he premiered the updated lyrics for his beloved song, “Standing on the Side of Love” (now “Answering the Call of Love”).  This morning was the first time we sang the new words, so we shared Jason’s introduction:

Sometimes we build a barrier to keep love tightly bound.
Sometimes our words themselves are the barriers.
The metaphors we use for the work of justice matter.

If we are called to be in this work together, then we have to understand when our words become barriers to full participation.

What does love call us to do? For some, it’s standing on the side of love. For some, standing is not an option. And the continued use of that metaphor is a painful reminder of the barriers to full inclusion of people with disabilities in our congregations and at our General Assemblies.

What is my responsibility as an artist when awareness of this pain comes to my consciousness?

I am clear that the SSL metaphor — as I intended it — has nothing to do with the physical act of standing. It’s about aligning ourselves with what love calls us to do. But I am also clear that intent is not the same thing is impact, and the impact of this metaphor has become a barrier for some among us.

Friends, when love calls, it sometimes asks us to let go of our attachments, and maybe even our t-shirts. I’m not sure what to do about those t-shirts, but I do know that love is calling us to a new and deeper awareness, and I can do something about the song that I wrote.

So I ask you to rise not in body, but truly to rise in spirit — mindful of all that might mean for you — and join me in Answering the Call of Love.

Cheers!

This is the text of the reflections I offered at the congregation I serve on Sunday, July 15, 2018.

In the late 80s, early 90s, Sam, Diane, and, of course, Norm, were household names.   They were part of the TV “family” that gathered in a fictional Boston bar, and whose various ups and downs and absurdities formed the content of each episode.  The heart of the show, though, was the idea of a place, “where everybody knows your name.”  It wasn’t an instant hit, though.  Out of the 77 shows in its timeslot on the night of Cheers’ premier in September of 1982, it ranked 74th.  Thirty years later, however, roughly twenty years after the show ended, TV Guide put it at #11 on their list of the “60 Greatest Shows of All Time.”  For many, during the decade it was on, Cheers was the epitome of “Must See Thursday.”

Sometimes you want to go

Where everybody knows your name,

And they're always glad you came;

You want to be where you can see,

Our troubles are all the same;

You want to be where everybody knows your name.

[Feeling a little nostalgic?  Of course, the fact that I think of this as bringing a contemporary reference into these reflections shows just how old I really am.]

“Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.”   I come back to this quote from the English novelist Jane Howard over and over again.  “Call it a clan, call it a network, call it a tribe, call it a family. Whatever you call it, whoever you are, you need one.”

Since its inception in 1972, the General Social Survey has gathered data on contemporary American society in order to monitor and explain trends and constants in attitudes, behaviors, and attributes.  Hundreds of trends have been tracked in those years. Actually, since the GSS adopted questions from earlier surveys, trends can be followed for nearly 7 decades.

1985 was the first year that the GSS collected data on the number of confidants with whom Americans discuss important matters. In the 2004 GSS the authors replicated those questions to assess social change in core network structures. Discussion networks, as they’re called, were significantly smaller in 2004 than in 1985. The number of people who said that there is no one with whom they discuss important matters nearly tripled.  In her article, “The Loneliness of American Society,” Janice Shaw Crouse interpreted the data like this: 

“a quarter of the respondents — one in four — said that they have no one with whom they can talk about their personal troubles or triumphs. If family members are not counted, the number doubles to more than half of Americans who have no one outside their immediate family with whom they can share confidences. Sadly, the researchers noted increases in “social isolation” and “a very significant decrease in social connection to close friends and family.”

This has become almost a mantra:  we are the most connected society in the history of humanity, and also the loneliest.

Dr. Emma M. Seppälä is Associate Director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University and Co-Director of the Yale College Emotional Intelligence Project at Yale University.  She wrote an article for Psychology Today titled, “Connect To Thrive:  Social Connection Improves Health, Well-Being & Longevity.”  In it she wrote:

Social connection improves physical health and psychological well-being. One telling study showed that lack of social connection is a greater detriment to health than obesity, smoking and high blood pressure. On the flip side, strong social connection leads to a 50% increased chance of longevity.  Social connection strengthens our immune system […], helps us recover from disease faster, and may even lengthen our life.   [She notes research by Steve Cole, Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences in the UCLA School of Medicine, which shows that there are actually genes impacted by social connection, and that these also code for immune function and inflammation.]

It’s easy to scape goat technology – the rise of social media, in particular – to explain the seeming conundrum of our being connected yet alone.  “All that time spent on Facebook, Twitter, Snapchat,” many people say, “and maybe particularly all the MMORPGs, those Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, that “all the kids” seem so obsessed with, look like they’re providing community, yet it’s a very shallow kind of community.”  (I said, “all the kids” are obsessed with these games, yet there are quite a few adults who are massively pumped and have already bought their Season Five Battle Pass in hopes of finding out just what the heck is up with those cracks in the sky in Fortnite.  Or so I’ve heard.  But I digress.)  It’s common to hear people opine that social media offers only pseudo-connectivity, a mere simulacrum of the real thing.

Not so fast, other experts say.  A study carried out at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom, reported in Science Daily, observed, “Training older people in the use of social media improves cognitive capacity, increases a sense of self-competence and could have a beneficial overall impact on mental health and well-being.”  And a 2010 study led by Abilene Christian University found that, “students who returned to school after freshman year had significantly more Facebook friends and wall posts than those who didn't return.”  Reporting on it for Wired, Brian Chen wrote, “Rather than being an escape from reality, social media may mirror real life: More actively connected students on Facebook were most likely also connectors in the real world.  He quotes the lead on the research saying, "The study was able to show that these students who are more active on Facebook are also out there getting involved, making new friends and taking part of activities that the university provides for them."

So what is this all about, this apparent fact that we, as a society, are increasingly disconnected even in our overly-connected world?  I’m going to go out on a limb here, and suggest that at least part of the reason is that relationships – real, deep, meaningful relationships – are a lot of work.  And I think they’re hard in at least three ways.

First, relationships take time.  Real, deep, genuine, heart-to-heart relationships don’t appear suddenly, out of nowhere, fully formed from the head of Zeus (as it were); they don’t get heated up in a microwave, they need to simmer, to slow cook.  Part of it is longevity – our deepest relationships are often with people who’ve known for a long, long time.  They’re with people with whom we don’t have to recount the details of our lives again and again, because these friends have been there through the good times and the bad.  This means they also take time invested.  Being there through the good times and the bad times requires us to actually be there through the good times and the bad times, and that takes time.

Oh, I know that a lot of folks have friends with whom we’re in touch only sporadically yet with whom, when we are in touch, it seems that we pick up right where we left off as if no time had passed at all.  Of course, usually such relationships were already deep, yet often these aren’t people who’d meet the criteria the GSS uses in their studies.  I once heard the kind friendship the GSS is talking about as people I know I could call in the middle of the night and who would drop everything and get in their cars or on a plane to go from wherever they are to wherever I am in order to be with me.  That significantly lowers the number of people on my list.

A second reason real, deep, genuine, heart-to-heart relationships are hard is because they require commitment.  They require us to hang in there even when the relationship gets strained.  We have to be there for each other “through thick and thin” not only in relation to the world around us, but the world between us as well.  The “good times and the bad times” doesn’t just refer to the promise that you will be there for me when I experience good times and bad times, and that I’ll do the same for you.  It means that we’re there for and with each other when we, together, when our relationship is going through good times or bad ones. To take something I often say to my kids, it means continuing to love each other even when we don’t particularly like each other very much.

And that’s hard, isn’t it?  That’s really hard.  When you think that I’ve offended you; when I think that you’re being unfair and nasty to me.  When I’ve hurt you, and you’ve hurt me.  I’m not talking about obviously unhealthy, abusive relationships.  Let’s be clear about that.  I’m not talking about “sticking it out” through any kind of abuse “for the sake of the relationship.”  There’s a power imbalance there, and can be real danger, and that’s not what I’m talking about.  (I would argue, that’s not really – can’t really be – the kind of deep and genuine relationship we’re talking about here in the first place.)  I’m talking about otherwise healthy, equal, mutual relationships which have stood the test of time yet which are, right now, strained to the point perhaps even of breaking.  I’m talking about taking a deep breath and leaning into that discomfort, knowing that the relationship is, ultimately, worth it.

Because that experience of someone knowing our name, really knowing who we are, and always being glad we came, no matter what’s going on with me or between us – that’s a deep human longing.  More than that, it’s a deep human need.

And it’s one of the reasons for faith communities.  It’s one of the reasons that people come together in places like this – we’re looking for a place in which we feel known, seen for who we are, appreciated, and loved.  We’re looking for a place, and a people, in which, and by which, we feel that we belong.  And think about it – if a real, deep, genuine, heart-to-heart relationship is really hard work between two people, then it’s got to be a whole lot harder among hundreds.  The complexity, the challenges, the opportunities for disappointments and pain, the work of it, is all exponentially increased.

Those of you who have been waiting for me to name the third reason I think relationships in which we’re really known are such hard work, here it is.  Truth be told, they’re scary.  For many of us it is so, so, very, very scary.  Because being known, deeply and fully, requires us to open ourselves up deeply and fully.  It requires me to really trust showing you who I really am, allowing you to see who I really am down beneath what I show to the world; it requires my showing you the truths of who I am that I don’t want anyone to see. 

A few years ago, when we did the Beloved Conversations program here, quite a number of us took part in the weekend workshop with which it begins.  The last exercise of the first evening had a profound impact on a lot of us, I’d dare say on most of us.  I won’t go through the whole thing this morning, but suffice it to say that it brought us in deep enough to look at, and name, our deepest, most fundamental fear.  We did this on our own, but then we were asked, if we were willing, to share them with one another.  And here, in this sanctuary, with the protective shroud of nighttime’s darkness around us, person after person dared to speak aloud their deepest fear.  These were folks many of us would identify as leaders in the congregation, people we’d identify as those we admire, and some we might say we aspire to be more like.  And nearly every one of these strong, wise, successful people said nearly exactly the same thing:  “I’m afraid that if people really knew me, they wouldn’t like me.”  I’m afraid that if people really knew me, really knew “my name,” really knew me deeply, genuinely, and in a truly heart-to-heart way, they wouldn’t like me.  I wouldn’t be accepted. I wouldn’t be loved.

And that’s the Catch-22, isn’t it?  In our desire to belong, to be deeply known, we hide sometimes great swaths of ourselves for fear of being rejected, being told that we don’t belong.  The third thing that makes these real relationship we seek so very, very hard is that we want to be known, and yet we don’t want to risk actually being known.  We don’t think we can risk it.

So here’s the thing – to the extent that we do risk it, to the extent that we do allow both the good times and the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad times to have equal freedom between and among us, to that extent and only to that extent will our relationships be the kind of real, deep, genuine, heart-to-heart relationships we want and which, ultimately, we need (not just for the sake of our immune and inflammation related genes, but for our souls).

This can be such a community, my friends.  This has been such a community for many of us over the years, and hard as it can be to believe at times, I truly believe that this is such a community right now.  Challenges, difficulties, disagreements – even hard and harsh ones – are not necessarily a sign that things are going wrong.  It’s what we do with them that determines what they mean for us.  If we lean into them; if we commit ourselves to sticking with it and each other; if we do lean into the discomfort (while clearly rejecting any abusiveness we might see); if we remember that the relationships that are this community are, ultimately, more important than the transitory happiness and satisfaction of any one of us; if, in other words, we do the hard, hard work real relationships require, we can, we will, prove to one another and to ourselves that even when we do show each other who we really are, we will be accepted and loved for who we are.  This then will be for us – each of us and all of us; you, me, and those who’ve not yet even found this community – this will then truly be a place where everybody knows our name, and really, truly are glad we came.  It is my hope that each of us can find even a taste of that here, and that each of us will do what we can to ensure that this is such a place for others.

Pax tecum,

RevWik

Hunger

The Vietnamese Buddhist teacher, poet, and peace activist has said that the United States is a land of "hungry ghosts." These are mythic creatures who have huge bellys and pinhole mouths; they can never satisfy their desires.  Their cravings.  Their hunger.

Today is Day 13 of my first long-term all-juice fast.  (And it's 18 days since I last had fast food, soda, processed foods, red meat, sugar, and wheat!)  I'm learning something about hunger.  About craving.

As I cook dinner for my family I suddenly realize that whatever it is that I'm cooking -- last night it was rotissery chicken, alfredo noodles, and salad -- is my all-time favorite food in the world and that without a little taste of it I will dissolve into nothingness like the Wicked Witch when faced with water.

And when I'm getting ready to leave a nighttime meeting at church I become accutely aware of how delicious the Quarter Pound Big Bite hot dogs taste at the 7-11 I pass on the way home.  There is no finer cuisine on the planet, and my body is telling me that I desperately need something from the oversized, overprocessed meat-like food group in order to maintain optimum health.

One of the things I keep trying to teach my kids -- now 10 and 8 -- is the difference between "needs" and "wants."  "I need a new beyblade," one will say.  "No," I'll reply, "you want a new beyblade.  You need food, clothing, shelter, and love."  I think it's part of my parental duty to pass on such important information.

And yet I am discovering anew just how much I need to take my own life lessons to heart.  In this immediate instance it's food -- I need some crackers!  I need something to chew on!  But it's becoming clear to me (again) how often I make the same mistake my kids do.

• I need more financial security.
 
• I need this or that person's respect.
 
• I need to attain this or that level of professional achievement.
 
• I need . . .

Through the process of this juice fast I am learning to differentiate between my food needs and my food wants.  And when I'm able to do this I'm also able to see that I actually want to be healthy more than I want the taste of a Double Quarter Pounder with Cheese.  Needs must be attended to; wants can be weighted against other wants and decisions can be made.  We have at least some measure of control over our wants.

This is one of the great gifts of fasting -- whether it be a food fast, a media fast, a fast from negative-thoughts.  It can help us remember the difference between wants and needs, and help us (re)gain control of our living.

In Gassho,

RevWik