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Accepting Reality can be difficult. A friend’s father has had indigestion for a week. Finally, he saw a doctor. The doctor says there’s a mass in his esophagus. He’s going for a biopsy tomorrow.

It will take several days to get the results. Whatever those results are, it will likely mean a new reality to accept about life. We are praying it is a good reality, but until the news is announced, we won’t know.

Let me ask a question: how many of you have ever turned down a marriage proposal? We had a board retreat on a Saturday a week ago, and the facilitator asked this question. And about 1/3 of the women indicated yes. There must have been some tension. They people who made the proposals probably thought they'd get a "yes" answer and then had to accept the reality of "no."

To accept reality. To accept the reality of a medical diagnosis. To accept the reality of loss - whether a job promotion, declining health, or a soured romance.

Bad news is hard to handle. The older I get, the more of it there seems to be. Today we can hear or read about every disaster in every town in every time zone in the world.

Me, I quit watching TV news. Two reasons: TV sells bad news and most news on TV doesn't affect how I live out my day. If the weather were unexpected, or if there were a major crime in our town, that might change things. But most news merely provides trivia, there aren’t any real opportunities for action.

Neil Postman, in his 1986 book Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public Discourse in the Age of Show Business called this phenomena the information-action ratio. And he said there was a low kind, and a high kind.

A high information-action ratio encourages involvement - the more actionable information one receives, the more likely one is to respond to it - “news you can use,” in other words. A low information-action ratio, by contrast, results in cynicism, distrust, and apathy.

Notice the acronym? Low information-action ratio = LIAR. When we put it that way, most of the news - bad or good - might as well be hot air because we can’t or won’t do anything about it.

And if I'm not going to do anything about it, then why bother tuning in? I must admit I am reluctant - for mostly selfish reasons - to arrive at the conclusion Postman arrives at in his book - that it is better to pay attention than to ignore what is going on in the world. The sad truth is, as he points out,

“there is no murder so brutal, no earthquake so devastating, no political blunder so costly that it cannot be erased from our minds by a newscaster saying, ‘Now ... this.’”

If we're not careful, we can become passive receptacles of mass media, instead of competent citizens who speak & act for peace, justice, and liberty.

It can be tough accepting reality. Sometimes we can try and suppress it. Or we can self-medicate. Or we can try and make substitutions, as if reality were merely another meal choice at Dennys.

At one point in my life, years ago, I wasn't feeling good about myself or the world I lived in. I experienced the twin peaks of incompetency: the rock and the hard place. I felt helpless and hopeless. Helpless to do anything about the world’s ills, and hopeless that anything much could be done. Getting caught between that rock and a hard place can be depressing.

At about the same time, I discovered a computer game. This game had hundreds of simultaneous players on it. You could log in and log out, and time passed in the game. I was warned the game could become addictive. But that only increased my desire to check it out.

You'd log on to the game on the internet, and you’d run into the same characters at the same time of day. Wizards, archers, blacksmiths. They might be a 40 year old in Idaho or a 16 year old in Iowa. But after a while, it became too much like real life. Except that if your character accidentally got killed, it could be resurrected.

Nowadays, there are 4 million users - probably the right word there - of these massively multi-player games. On National Public Radio this week there was a report in one game of a "plague" in their virtual world. A sociology researcher became interested in considering what people would do in real-world epidemics. So, she studied this plague. (NPR, All Things Considered, October 5, 2005, found at: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4946772)

So fantasy begins to mimic reality, and now you're working a virtual job in addition to your real one. Who needs that?

Of course children are good at shifting between make believe and accepting reality. Most of the time. One day I walked into the room where my daughters had just finished watching a movie. They looked thoughtful. My youngest asked me quite seriously - Daddy, are there monsters in this land?

Are there monsters? In this land? Well, yes. And no. There aren't purple Dinosaurs named Barney waddling around - except on stage, I suppose. But there are the monsters of racism, poverty, and disease. And every parent knows there are people who act like monsters with small children.

My daughters play a game. Sometimes they are Mother & Daughter, or Teacher & Student, or the Queen & the Princess. And as they are playing, all of a sudden, one of them says - Pretend we have magic shoes.

And the other one replies - magic shoes that give us special powers. And the first one says - pretend our shoes can make us fly.

And the other - let's fly about, shall we? And they walk through the living room as if they were flying. As if they were somehow looking down on their parents from somewhere near the ceiling.

Oh, look at that man over there (meaning me). I think that must be the cook. Soon, he will be making us a most delicious dinner.

Or, we'll all be in the car. Pretend we're watching a DVD in our limousine. I'm the Queen and you're the Maid.

"No, you be the maid. I was the maid last time.”

Which DVD would you like to watch? Power Puff girls? Oh, me too! Pretend we're—"

Dad interrupts: Girls! Pretend we’re at school. Look! Here we are! Everybody out! Let's go, have a great day! Bye! Don't forget your backpack! I love you! And off they go, with a slightly disappointed glance at me, the chauffeur.

Our children may say: let's pretend we can fly, and let's pretend our shoes give us magic powers. But we giants are called to pretend something much, much larger. We are called to stretch our disbelief so much, that something bigger could happen than “flying” or “magic shoes.”

The word "pretend" comes from a 14^th century French word meaning "to stretch." As Unitarian Universalists we are called to pretend, to make believe that a better world exists. That it is within our grasp.

Admittedly, this is a stretch. But, let's pretend. Are you ready?

Long, long ago, in a time before this time, in a land not unlike this one, there were people who were like us. They are long gone, their possessions scattered. No one is alive now who knew them then.

But their stories live on, and so we tell the stories, we remember their dreams, we make them our own, because they remind us who we are. We, who freely choose this faith.

There were liberal religious men & women who lived in a world they did not create, but who sought to change it. They were people who resisted simply being rolled over by history, but instead sought to make history themselves.

With the reality of slavery, they worked for freedom

With the reality of disenfranchisement, they worked to get the right to vote

With the reality of segregation, they worked for equal opportunity

These women & men did something interesting. They accepted reality AND they pretended. They may not have known Albert Einstein, but they would have agreed with him when he said, Imagination is more important than knowledge. (Source: are you kidding? I saw it on a bumper sticker).

These men & women of long ago accepted the reality they found themselves in. But then they said - Hey! Let's pretend we can do something about this. They wanted to believe they could do something, and then they made their beliefs affect reality by working.

Long, long ago, in a time before this time, in a land not unlike this one, there were people who were like us. They had their turn. They told their stories. They helped make history.

For example, they accepted the reality of conditions in prisons and mental hospitals. And they said something like: "let's make believe we could get conditions improved there. How would we do that?"

Why? They could have watched the news. They could have watched movies. They could have played games at home. Why work for justice - for strangers? Why?

I like to believe that they did that kind of work - for the same reason I have done so - it makes me feel better.

It made me feel better about myself and the possibilities for the world, when I have written letters to the editor.

It made me feel better when I was a kid and we made stuff and sent it to the soldiers in Vietnam.

It made me feel better when Rev. Bonnie and I marched in a gay pride day march even though we weren't gay ourselves.

It makes you feel better when you feel you are making your contribution to changing history, however small that contribution may be regarded.

It makes me feel better when I am living out my dreams. Even if the dream was given to me by someone else.

I'll never forget being a little boy, and hearing an African American Preacher on TV. He was speaking in the heart of Washington, DC. There was a huge crowd there. Maybe the largest there had ever been there up to that time.

Here is part of what this preacher said:

I have a dream that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed: 'We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal.' ... I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character. I have a dream today. (Retrieved from http://www.mecca.org/~crights/dream.html on October 6, 2005).

Many of us still have that dream today.

Long, long ago, in a time before this time, in a land not unlike this one, there were people who were like us. They had their turn.

Now, it is our turn. What shall we do? Make Believe? Or Accept Reality?

Let's pretend. Let's pretend that we can work for an "earth made fair and all her people one."

            Let's pretend that one day, all children will be judged not on the color of their skin, but on the content of their character.

Let's pretend that one day, gays and lesbians will be able to marry and have the same marital rights as the majority does.

Let's pretend we can have a church where atheists, agnostics, Christians, Jews, and Pagans can worship together in harmony.

Let's pretend that we can do something about the world we find ourselves in. Let's pretend, you and me! [Say Amen! Somebody]

Of course, we will accept reality first. Let us name the elephants in the room.

            There are already too many claims on our time

            There is a seemingly endless supply of human misery, AND

            We are vastly outnumbered by the religious right and those who oppose progress - we are outnumbered by at least 100 to 1!

            But, the fat lady has not yet sung!

There is also the reality, that though sometimes too long in coming, in most significant social issues, liberal religious views, have prevailed. Our comfort derives not from the present struggle, but from the sure and certain knowledge that however long delayed, progress - with our help - seems almost inevitable.

While we are small in numbers, we are given hope & courage by our history.

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed it's the only thing that ever has.” (#561)

says anthropologist Margaret Mead in our hymnal.

Long, long ago, in a time before this time, in a land that looked like this one, there were people who were like us. Those people are long gone, their possessions scattered. No one is alive now who knew them then.

But they came together. They were perplexed. They said: religion is oppressive, it causes discord, wars, triumphalism. Who needs it? But wait a minute - let’s pretend.

            Let’s pretend there could be a religion where authenticity was more important than authoritarianism.

            Where deeds are more important than creeds

            Let’s pretend there are many scriptures, not just one

            Let’s pretend that religion is about the here & now, not the hereafter.

Let’s pretend such a religion exists! And to make it convenient, let’s pretend it exists in Kirkwood! Why not? It could happen! We could make it happen!

You! Are! Making it Happen! Thank You!

Most people are completely unaware that we exist. If only they knew what we’re doing here.

You help make Eliot a HIAR - high information-action ratio congregation.

            When I asked you all for leadership on Hurricane Katrina, many of you responded quickly & generously.

            Our youth group has led the way with helping to permanently resettle refugees here in St Louis.

            And when we decided to split the collection monthly between our own ministries and a selected charity, you responded. Last week, we raised more than double our usual collection, half going directly to the resettlement project.

The call was made, and you answered!

And also, last week, I handed out $1,000 in $100 bills - with a couple of strings attached - and many of you put your hands out!

            Yes! It was a good thing! No, I’m not handing out money today!

            But if you miss a Sunday at Eliot, you don’t know what you’re missing!

Long, long ago, in a time before this time, in a land like this one, there were people who were like us. They wanted what we want. They worked for what we work for. They were successful. They handed us this faith. With one string, one question.

Who will we hand this faith to?

As the preacher said: With this faith we will be able to hew out of the mountains of despair a stone of hope. (MLK, I Have A Dream)

A stone of hope, said Dr. King. But upon this rock, we have built so much more than hope. We have built a home. Welcome. Welcome Home. Let us sing & listen now, for that Voice Still and Small, #391.