“The individual and society make up one enormous ocean; by adding our individual drops to this ocean, we participate in the formation of society” –Masaru Emoto

Call to Gather (Merle Fleming)

When we gather…[in this church]
sharing what we feel today
Hearing, talking, laughing, weeping
Last week softly slips away.

In this place we touch each other
centered selves with strength to be.
Singing here in joy together

Peace next week for thee and me.

Meditation for 9/11/05

Water, timeless liquid source of Earthly wisdom,
we honor your mystery and majesty.

Water, the substance out of which life began,

Reliever of thirst, cleansing healer,

“Gleaming generosity” coursing through the conduits of our bodies…

When we were first conceived, tiny fetuses in our mother’s wombs,
our bodies were 99 percent made up of you.

When we emerged from our watery cocoon,
you made up 90 percent of us.

By the time we reach adulthood,
you comprise 70 percent of our bodies.
And if we die of old age, we will still be around 50 percent you.

Throughout our lives, then, we are mostly water. We are mostly you.

You are the transporter of energy, circulator of nourishment, universal solvent.

How is it that you can also be the source of our despair as you pour yourself upon us in torrents of rain, storm surges of disregard, hurricanes of helplessness?

Remind us of your wisdom,
even as you may take away life as we know it.

Remind us that each of us is merely a drop in your greater ocean and that we are all inextricably interconnected, different sized pools of the same basic substance, who splash against each other from time to time. Splashing in joy, splashing in sorrow, splashing as we lap the shores of your great sea.

We are in need of you, we are in awe of you, we are you.

Amen.

Sermon

We all are well aware that the last two weeks have been filled with chaos, confusion and despair for people in the Gulf Coast and those who are concerned for their welfare. Several of you have shared with me your desire to do something for the survivors, to participate in some kind of solution. Like most of you, I have followed the developments in the Gulf Coast with agony, anger, and helplessness that while real for me, cannot begin to approach the feelings of the people actually living through the reality of the storm’s aftermath. At the end of my sermon today, I will make some suggestions about what we can do with our desire to help.

But first, I want to tell you about the work of Dr. Masuru Emoto[1]. It may seem odd that I would postpone comments on such an urgent situation with a story of a Japanese scientist with, what some might contend, are outlandish claims. But I do think the two topics are related. See if you agree.

For over ten years now, Emoto has been taking photographs of frozen ice crystals. He stared doing this as a simple experiment and it grew into a passion to discover the hidden messages in water…messages that he believes could lead us to better understand the mysteries of our existence and to live more peaceful and fulfilled lives as a result.

His journey began with his hunch that, based on the principles of homeopathy, water has the capacity to copy and memorize information. Simply stated, homeopathy is a system of medical treatment based on the theory that you can fight toxins by treating them with minute quantities of the toxins diluted in water. In his search to find physical proof of why this treatment works, Emoto found an open door in his remembrance of a fact that he had long taken for granted: “No two snow crystals are exactly the same.” He figured that if he froze water and looked at the crystals, each one would be unique and might convey something important about itself.

After many trials and errors he and his assistant developed the ability to freeze water in a controlled way that enabled them to observe and photograph crystals.

They started by simply noting the differences among crystals formed by water from different sources. For example, the crystals formed from tap water were usually deformed compared to the crystals created using the water of natural springs, glaciers or underground rivers.

One day, his assistant suggested that they expose the water to music before creating the crystals. The results, Emoto says, were astonishing.

Bottles of water that were exposed to the music of Chopin or Mozart, formed beautiful detailed crystals, while the water that was exposed to “violent heavy metal music” resulted in “fragmented and malformed crystals at best.”

For those Slipknot or Skinny Puppy fans out there, you may think this sounds like hogwash. But wait; there’s more. The team then performed additional experiments with water, like wrapping the bottles with pieces of paper, upon which were written words like “thank you” or “fool.” Emoto admits that it doesn’t seem logical that water would be able to “read” the writing and change its form accordingly, but that appears to be what happened, as the water that had been exposed to positive words or expressions created beautiful crystals, while the water exposed to negative expressions barely formed crystals at all. Even more incredible, the language in which the words were written didn’t affect the outcome. Whether using Japanese, English or German words, the result was still the same: Positive words led to beautiful crystals.

Emoto says the key to understanding this phenomena is found in three words: existence is vibration. The science of quantum mechanics contends that substance is essentially vibration. Breaking down a substance into its smallest parts, atoms, we can understand that each nucleus and corresponding set of electrons has its own vibration or frequency. While the human ear cannot detect all frequencies, Emoto contends that water can. In fact, he calls it the “master listener,” a substance of unique sensitivity that receives all frequencies, carries them and mirrors them back to the world. Wacky, right? Maybe even impossible to believe.

As I read his book this summer, I found myself shaking my head a lot, even chuckling at the beautiful color photos of crystals he includes. “You can’t be serious,” I found myself saying to no one in particular. And yet…and yet…

Why is it really so wacky to grasp the real point of his research…that it matters what we believe … that it matters how we treat each other … the messages we convey … the ways in which we choose to expose ourselves to beauty, to love, to gratitude…or not? Don’t we all have empirical evidence from our lives that when we have approached a situation with openness, love, and gratitude, the result has been typically better than when our attitude and actions have been drenched in negativity, selfishness or expectations of control over others?

I know…I know…my attitude or your attitude would have had nothing to do with what happened with Hurricane Katrina, right? Some misery is simply unavoidable, whether it comes via an act of nature or an act of human violence or disregard. Just thinking positive thoughts or meditating in front of a bottle of water would have little impact on most of the chaos and unrest in the world.

And yet…and yet…

I do believe that resignation to our lack of power and influence in our own lives and the lives of our sisters and brothers and this planet we share contributes more to our despair than we may be able or willing to acknowledge.

Dr. Emoto writes:

“In what direction are we headed? What is our role in protecting this planet? Such questions can only be considered when we recognize the greatness of the human being. Perhaps it is time that we stop seeing the human being as the evil agent. I think we underestimate the innate abilities that we each have. We have enormous power.”

Think about it. If water is the “master listener,” capable of carrying information and mirroring it back, what does that mean for we human beings who are nearly ¾ water?

One more story:

Emoto tells of a family who conducted their own water experiement. They put rice in two glass jars filled with water, and several times a day for a month they said “Thank you” to one jar and “you fool” to the other. When they got up in the morning, when the children came home from school, when the family went to bed at night, they said “thank you” to one and “you fool” to the other.

Over the month, they recorded how the rice in the jars changed. The difference was stark. After thirty days, the rice that was thanked started to ferment with a mellow smell, like malt. The rice that was exposed to the abusive message “you fool” rotted and turned black.

Emoto claims that hundreds of families throughout Japan conducted the same experiment, and all had the same result. One family took the experiment a step further. Along with the “thank you” jar and the “you fool” jar, they prepared a third container to which they said nothing. They simply ignored it.

The result? Emoto reports that the rice that was ignored rotted more quickly than the rice that was exposed to “you fool.” When others tried the same experiment, they had the same results. The lesson we can draw from this is significant. Being ridiculed is not as damaging as being ignored.[2]

Being ridiculed is not as damaging as being ignored.

Considerable anger has been directed at our federal government over its delayed and ineffective response to this crisis, and it seems this anger is warranted. After all, when even the reporters finally have gotten angry at our president and his administration, you know something serious is going on. But let us not forget, even in our righteous indignation, what we do together moving forward is much more important than anything that has already transpired.

As Emoto’s research suggests, simply saying “you fool” will only further poison us all and will distract us from the bigger problem at hand—the disregard for our fellow citizens that has enabled our country to fall under the spell of the “Pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality…a dangerous mindset that seeks to eliminate the public sector and privatize everything, regardless of who gets left behind in the process.

Being ridiculed is not as damaging as being ignored.

Indeed, the most important thing to come out of this whole mess could be the painful wake-up call to the ever-growing disparity of economic privilege. When tens of thousands of citizens are criticized, if not ridiculed, for not evacuating in advance of the storm, even as many had no means to do so, it is time for a re-evaluation of our nation’s priorities. Americans have to live with the reality that even as our elected government continues to emphasize tax cuts over the welfare of its citizens, there are countless people who are being ignored, passed by, left to fend for themselves in ways that will have ramifications for all of us. For we are all connected. It’s that interdependent web stuff, you know. And when we neglect a portion of our population, we all eventually pay the price. It’s time for us to rediscover some real Christian values. As Jesus said, “just as you did not do it for one of the least of my brethren, you did not do it for me.”

This week, at an AMOS clergy gathering, I met a fellow named Ray who has made three trips down to Louisiana and back to pick up people willing to come to Iowa. Ray is from Louisiana, much of his family was down there, so for him, this is personal. He told of how frightened people are to move any more, how suspicious they are of “well-meaning” people who they fear will only cart them to another convention center or other temporary human warehouse. Can you blame them? Ray said Iowa will see few refugees unless we make some personal contact with those in need of help. That’s why he’s making the trips…and why he will go again.

Is this the most efficient response? Probably not. But it’s working for a few people at least.

So, what can we do, particularly those of us who cannot drive down to Louisiana? I suggest we give to charities of our choice that we know are doing good work. The Unitarian Universalist Service Committee is one of these and you can donate at uua.org. I suggest we also give locally, to DMARC’s food pantry for one, as they will be helping to feed those that do come to Iowa. Eventually our church may be asked to help sponsor a displaced family, but I need to know how many people wish to participate if the opportunity arises so that we take on only what we can handle. If you are interested in helping or coordinating such an effort, let me know, by e-mail if you can, so I can keep a running tally.

And finally, we can develop and nurture that impulse in ourselves that says the status quo in this country is not good enough and we can spread the good word through our actions, our loving, grateful actions. For as Dr. Emoto writes, “What we really know is possible in our hearts is possible. We make it possible by our will. What we imagine in our minds becomes our world.”

[1] Detailed in The Hidden Messages in Water (Hillsboro, OR: Beyond Words Publishing), 2004

[2] pp. 64-65