From the Pulpit

Excerpts from sermons being delivered this week at area places of worship.

@List hed 10:Rev. Nonin Chowaney, Nebraska Zen Center, Heartland Temple

Many years ago, while I was practicing at San Francisco Zen Center, I attended a lecture in Berkeley by Thich Nhat Hanh, a Vietnamese Zen Buddhist master. During the lecture, he told a story about the "boat people," Vietnamese refugees who left their country by ship after the war. Desperate to leave Vietnam, the boat people sometimes had to take passage in old, rickety, underpowered, and often overloaded boats piloted by mercenary ship captains.

In the frequently severe weather of the South China Sea — known for its precipitous, violent storms — the boats rolled and floundered. People would panic and run from rail to rail, which made a dangerous situation worse.

In these extreme circumstances, the boat people found that if just one person remained calm and did not panic, their behavior had a deep effect on others in the boat. The presence of a calm, centered person calmed others and kept them from worsening an already desperate situation. It was not that the person took charge and did anything. They just remained calm and simply were. They didn't do anything special, but they had a positive effect on everyone in the boat.

All of us are sailing in little boats through life. Sometimes we sail alone, but much of the time, we share a boat with others — at work, at home with our families, at the practice place, at the movies, in the political arena, or at the ballpark. When the weather gets rough and the boat starts to rock, the person who can remain calm and by their presence enable others to do so becomes especially important.

Who is that person? We all can be. Zen Buddhist practice is a calming and centering process, and if we practice daily over a period of time, we become centered and calmed. We then project that everywhere we go and in everything we do, being that one person in the boat.

I've found that the more storms in my life — not only those storms arising in my personal life but also those arising in response to local and global events — the more important it is to continue to practice regularly, to sit zazen (meditation) every day. Regularly returning to the cushion and to that calm and stable place within enables me to function with some measure of equanimity as I sail my little boat through the surface turbulence of daily life.

@List hed 10:Rabbi Mordechai Levin, Beth El Synagogue

How often do we say, "If only I had that (whatever it is), I would be happy." "If only the situation was like that, I would be happy." "If only that happened, I would be happy"?

There are many books about happiness, but no simple or easy recipes to attain it. Can happiness be found in money, pursuit of honor, buying material things, gambling, food, etc? Is it possible that some people are searching for happiness in the wrong places?

In his book "Happiness and the Human Spirit: The Spirituality of Becoming the Best You Can Be," Rabbi/psychiatrist Abraham J. Twerski says that to be happy, we need to live as spiritual beings. Every person can be spiritual, regardless of the degree or even presence of formal religion, by being the best person he or she can be.

A person cannot be happy unless he is complete. The things that make us human are a number of unique traits that animals do not have. We are the only living things that have the ability to be humble, to make ethical choices; we have the ability to improve ourselves, to be compassionate, to have perspective for the future, to search for truth, and to have goals in life. If we do not use these traits, we are incomplete, and incomplete human beings cannot be happy.

Talk radio host, author and lecturer Dennis Prager says in his book "Happiness is a Serious Problem, A Human Nature Repair Manual," that achieving happiness requires us to stop blaming our discontent on others and that happiness depends on us. It requires giving up any expectations that life is supposed to be wonderful, and it requires a continuing process of counting our blessings.

One of the common barriers to happiness is the false expectation that one thing — a book, a teacher, an accomplishment — will bring us eternal bliss. But a happy — or happier — life is rarely shaped by some extraordinary life-changing event; rather, it is shaped incrementally, experience by experience, moment by moment.

These authors and many others suggest different ways and ideas to achieve happiness. But most of them agree that gratitude is essential. We have many blessings to be grateful for, and yet we take them for granted; therefore, we have to constantly remind ourselves to be grateful. Happiness is the sum total of many details, of many small blessings; therefore, if we learn to appreciate and rejoice in the blessings of life, we will be happier.

@List hed 10:Rev. Thomas Schmitt, Zion Lutheran Church

Matthew 15:21-28

"It is not right to take the children's bread and throw it to the dogs," Jesus says. How rude, crude and socially unacceptable!

A woman foreign to Israel had leaned on Jesus for help for her daughter, only to get this off-putting comment. Who would dare to continue to plead for help? The faith-filled, that's who.

This faith-filled woman persists: "Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters' table." How's that for a comeback?! We love her courage! We admire her persistence! Yet we so often fail to follow her to the master's table with the same insistence for the master's gifts.

Yes, we are all dogs, that is, unworthy sinful guests at our holy Lord's table. The children's bread is He who is the Bread of Life, Jesus Christ Himself. It truly is not right that we should be given such a gift! But that's what God's grace and mercy are all about. We don't stand before God because of our bountiful goodness, but because of our desperate need. Then He who the gifts of forgiveness of sins, life and salvation gives us not just crumbs, but the whole feast here in time and there in heaven for eternity.