How are we feeling this morning? Good? Bad? Up? Down? Left? Right? (A little political humor there — very little!). Are we feeling sad or happy? Grumpy? Sleepy? Dopey? Fretful? Feisty? Perky? Chipper? Now in my native state, which happens to be Maine, if you asked somebody how they were feeling, as in, Jasper, how you feelin? they might respond, Eh-ah, fair to middlin.

Well, we dont often, or I dont often, anyway, pause to think about our feelings, my feelings, because feelings, after all, are meant to be felt. Right? Meant to be experienced. But Emerson talked of life being passed through the fire of thought, and feelings are a big part of life, even though we dont often think about them because were too busy feeling them. So today were going to consider our feelings. We are here to celebrate all of life, that not just part of life which emanates from the neck up. And I think that rap about Unitarian Universalists as being Gods frozen people is very unfair. So today we are going to consider our feelings. And even though we can feel great emotional pain (Im not speaking so much of physical pain, which of course can be great, too), and would like to climb down from that cross of the moment, what would life be like without the ability to feel? Would it be worth living? Well, how would we know if we couldnt feel?

Feelings are much more than the spice or the seasoning of life. From my way of thinking, feelings are both engine and fuel. The feeling that life is worth living, or not worth living, is a feeling. Faith is a feeling. Feelings are the sail, the boat, the wind; perhaps reason is the rudder, or maybe the keel. You remember Mr. Spock? Not Dr. Spock, you remember Mr. Spock, the pointy-eared Vulcan from Star Trek who had no emotions, so that many of the human attitudes and actions based on emotions were illogical to him. Well, by the standards of recent logic, a statement such as love is stronger than death doesnt make sense. How could love, something that we cant see, something not visible, be stronger than death? It doesnt make any sense, yet we know, even though we cant prove it in a laboratory, that it is true in a certain way.

And you and I, more than we realize it, are feeling all the time. We are feeling creatures, every minute, every second of our waking lives, and a portion of our sleeping lives, as well. We cannot turn off our feelings, even if we want to, like a water faucet, although at times it may seem we can if we sit on them or deny them or suppress, repress, or project them. But theyre at work, keeping us animated, keeping us alive, keeping us caring, keeping us passionate. And of course sometimes our feelings can get us in big trouble if certain buttons are pushed, positively or negatively, something really agreeable or pleasurable, or disagreeable or unpleasant. We are never to deny our feelings. Remember Cheryll said to the children that its OK to feel. Denying feelings is not a healthy thing to do, nor is it necessarily healthy to live out all your feelings, your desires, because that can be just as unhealthy.

Let him who is without sin cast the first stone, and I confess I do not often enough consider my feelings. I try to consider the feelings of others, but if I am up, if I am high, man, I just want to keep feeling good! I want to ride that horse as hard and long and fast as I can, yet I try to be aware that there may be some type of compensatory action in the future. Im a firm believer in the law of compensation, Emersons law, and somewhere along the line, if I allow myself to get too high for too long, I know that the lows will seem even lower by comparison.

And I must confess, this past week I have been in a mild funk, kind of a low-grade depression, and so instead of just feeling funky or blue, I asked myself, Where is this coming from? We dont deny our feelings, we dont act necessarily on our feelings, we dialogue with our feelings, and thats what I tried to do this past week instead of just feeling down. And I traced my feelings to the fact that I didnt come to church last Sunday. Now, I didnt need to be here, I wasnt obligated to be here, yet something inside needed to be here. Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., a worshiper at Kings Chapel, said, There is in the corner of my heart a little plant called reverence which needs watering about once a week.

I wanted to be here because I told Dave Rosser that I would be here. I wanted to support Dave and the Social Justice Committee and OTOC, and hear Don Bredthauer speak. Yet the storm interfered. We live in the hills, Bay Hills, Buccaneer Bay north of Plattsmouth, the Loess Hills, and they were covered with ice, and on top of the ice was snow. It took me two days to shovel out my driveway. So contractually I was not obligated to be here, the storm made it nearly impossible to be here, yet what did I feel for not being here? Guilty. Because I had said I would be here. I try to be a person of my word. I knew it wasnt logical, yet thats the way I felt. That was part of the cause of my funk, and the other was what Eric Burn or a transactional analyst might call stroke depletion. By not being here, I didnt receive my necessary quota of strokes words, smiles, laughs, affirmations. Insufficient human contact. Its good to get out of the house, and canine strokes, as warm and fuzzy and wet as they may be, are not enough. I would know! Not enough by themselves.

All human beings run on feelings, including presidents and potentates (Im not sure what a potentate is, but I always liked the way that sounded, especially with another p word, so presidents and potentates. A Shriner perhaps? Im not sure. Somebody with a fez?) Well, I wonder what feelings are warming the attitudes of our President, the President of the United States. Im not enough of a genius to pretend to know how he is feeling, so I wont speculate. (You notice I said Not enough of a genius. No discount there.) But I still wish he had followed the advice which I so generously gave him after he was elected and before he took office. Some of you may remember my sermon An Open Letter to president-elect George W. Bush. Among other things I advised him to release those IQ scores that would stop a lot of talk! And then I thought this was really good I thought he could make a real contribution by calling up Al Gore and saying, Look, we know the system didnt work this time. Lets you and I get together and make a bipartisan effort to reform the Electoral College. I thought that was a win-win situation. Both of them would win in a way, and the country would win. And now weve got the possibility of something like that happening again in the future because the system has not been reformed. Well, I thought that was really good.

And then, of course, we know the Presidents job is nothing if not stressful, and I wonder how he perseveres and keeps a level head through all the demands that come his way, day and night. And sure, he and Laura ride around in their pickup on the ranch before dinner, and Im sure that helps, but and I was serious about this my recommendation for a weekly therapy session would have benefited him greatly, as it would benefit any of us greatly. But, unfortunately in our society, asking for help is seen as a sign of weakness, and anything to do with mental or emotional unhealth is still stigmatized. Its not as bad as it was during the days of Senator Eagletons revelation that he had had shock treatment or something. And that was the dead end of his political career. But it unfortunately is still stigmatized. I sent that advice to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Nada. Never received even an acknowledgement. Until those two men in black came to my front door, and I knew I was in trouble when they began addressing me as Citizen Benner.

Well, groups of human beings known as nations run on feelings, too. And what has the United States of America been feeling since September 11th, 2001? since the anthrax scare? Collectively we have been feeling fear, have we not? Conscious and unconscious. Weve been feeling insecure. And we need to dialogue nationally with our feelings, lest we compensate by going the route of vengeance and retribution just to feel better.

And groups of human beings known as religions run on feelings, too. They, including ours, are based on feelings and they originate through feelings. Prince Gautamas parents spoiled their child. They didnt want him to be exposed to the world, to feel any pain. They wanted him to be a great king and not follow the path of religion. And so he had everything that he could possibly want; he never left the palace grounds, except to go hunting. He loved to hunt, and during four trips, according to the legend, outside the palace grounds, he encountered four sights or scenes. First was a man all skin and bones, writhing in pain, moaning on the ground. The second was an old man bowed by the years, his back was bowed, his hands trembled, and even with two canes he could barely walk. The third site was a funeral. Sickness and suffering, old age and infirmities, and death made the young prince very, very sad. And then he saw an old monk in coarse yellow robes who was begging for food, he was penniless, yet his face radiated calm and happiness. And it was those feelings that sent Prince Gautama on a path leading to enlightenment. And the prince became the Buddha, the enlightened one. Compassion is at the heart of Buddhism and Islam. In the Koran, every Surra begins with these words, In the name of God, the compassionate, the caring.

But compassion is not a staple in the creator God depicted in Genesis, not in my reading anyway. Compassion was not the motivation for creating Adam and Eve. And it could be argued even that there was an element of a trickster God in this deity, almost teasing Adam and Eve, telling them, Ive planted these wonderful trees, but ah! Dont touch them! Touche pas! (Thats my Bible. I like to read it in the original tongue. Touche pas! Strike that from the record; the jury will disregard those remarks.) But when they did eat the apples, they became like God, knowing good and evil. That incurred the wrath of the creator, and he punished them severely. That was a setup! It wasnt nice, it wasnt fair. The snake was commanded to crawl on his belly for the rest of his life. You wonder how he got around before then. Did he hop like a bunny rabbit? The woman was to have her pain in childbearing increased greatly. Yet, if you read the Bible, it says she couldnt say no to her husband. And then Adam had to go out and get a real job! Well, Edens crop, it seems to me, was not compassion, but shame. Go out and buy stocks in fig leaf companies. Not only was there enough shame to go around, its been around for a long, long time.

Ours too is a religion originated in feeling and based on feeling. Were not Gods frozen people. Our religion is based on feeling, as well as thinking. We run on feelings, not of fear or guilt or shame, but compassion, acceptance, encouragement, and respect. Those words are all included in our Principles. We believe in the transforming power of love. So let our hearts be glad on this day that we consider our feelings, and let us be glad for the great gift that we share our free faith.