“I sat on a hill and looked all around
And thought I saw where the sky met the ground
I knew what and I knew mostly how,
But why was what confounded me now.
The question why has pondered men’s minds
Since the very beginning of time
But I guess why is what makes men, men,
For they need a question with no end.
Now that I am going I am beginning to see
Why, why can never be.”
I read this poem preparing for this talk and something in them resonated with this science guy. My professional life as educator and researcher has been focused on finding the “what” and the “how” of the natural world.
But there are those big why questions out there, the questions that bring many to religion.
Why do we exist?
Why do we die?
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Then there are those pesky related questions:
Where did the universe come from?
What happens after we die?
How did George Bush get elected……. twice?!
Is there a God? Heaven? Hell?!
Today I am humbled to share the story of my journey to answer to these questions and to describe what brings me to this particular holy house.
I could give you the answers first, but where is the suspense in that?!
My story begins:
Father, Albert Henry Markhart II, organic chemist son of Albert Henry Markhart I, dentist, drunk, died just after my first birthday and Blanche whose claim to fame was that she survived the removal of a 23 pound ovarian cyst when she was 83 and lived another 6 years.
Mother, Mildred Lucy Taylor, nurse, daughter of Bertha and Wendel, coal miner, Sears salesman, binge drinker whose claim to fame was that they required all children (two girls and a boy) to support themselves before they could get married.
Mom and Dad were raised as church-going Methodists.
But in 1954, at the age of 3, we moved to Wilbraham, MA and I went to my first church, UU Church in Springfield.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you as a life-long UUer.
My first church was awesome! An old farmstead with barn and horses! The meeting room was a five-car garage turned into a chapel. Sunday school was held in the first floor of the farm house, with windows we could easily sneak out of and hide in the bushes. I am sure I was as much of a pain in the butt to that “Janet Hanson” as my young ones have been to our JH. But after Sunday school, Rev. Munson gave horse back riding lessons and we could play in the barn. How cool is that!
Each UU church has its own personality.
It is said that in the eastern UU churches, the eucharist is optional; in the Midwest, god is optional.
In California, clothing is optional.
I know for sure the first two are true. I remember going to a special communion service where we drank grape juice and ate stale crackers.
Look around, clearly god is optional in the Midwest.
But my 84 year old UU mom in San Diego tells me that at least in her church clothing is NOT optional.
Adolescence was the best part in the Springfield UU church. Mr Shields was an awesome youth advisor. The most important time in my search for answers was The “Church Across the Street” where we explored, visited, other churches, and talked religion. Even though we never played with condoms it was really stimulating.
The summer after 9th grade I went to Ferry Beach, a UU camp on the coast of Maine. There I buried God. Really, I was part of the worship workshop that planned the evening worship services. We held a funeral for God: casket, shroud, the whole deal. I wrote the final words: “We created him, now we destroy him, God is Dead!”
I realized what a personal statement this was. I declared myself an atheist, at times I have hedged as an “agnostic,” but it was clear to me. There is no God.
There is an unavoidable consequence of being smart and self aware. Things that we do not understand or can’t control cause us great fear and painful anxiety. A common human solution dilemma is to create gods. Lots of them! It makes us feel secure, valuable, and valued. Explains the unexplainable. But the gods are our creation. We are not their creation.
As a teen I continued in LRY, liberal religious youth. Great discussions and great girls: racism, abortion, women’s rights, war, and Sue Peters, the first to tickle my tonsils with her tongue!
I became an ardent humanist, naturalist, rationalist. Answers were available through learning, discussion, and occasionally from Sue Peters.
At the Springfield UU Church the adult Sunday service was two hours long. The first hour was religious. The second was the forum where important topics of the day were discussed and debated.
I remember one time when my dad was in charge of organizing a Sunday Forum. The topic was LSD. Remember he was an organic chemist. Turns out he was also college roommates with Tim Leary. My dad arranged a speaker phone call to Leary in upstate NY for an hour of Q and A. Not only was I impressed with my Dad, but I was really impressed with the respectful ardent debate of the congregation.
The church provided me with a place to listen, ask questions, be heard.
Dialog brought clarity.
A few important teen time conclusions:
1) It is ok NOT to have answers to the big questions. This doesn’t mean one stops looking, but chill out. Don’t be fooled into accepting something that is not true out of convenience or need.
2) Speak only what you believe. Don’t let someone else put words in your mouth. I recoil at responsive readings. How dare anyone tell me what I should say! This emotional reaction is so strong that it took me a long time to say our opening and closing words. I am still troubled by hymns.
3) On an interpersonal level religion did not really matter. I spent 17 years in a church filled with different views on lots of things and everyone pretty much got along. I learned later how wrong I was.
High School graduation…1969!
Four years of college, biology, sociology, the old testament. I grew into a strong evolutionist, humanist, environmentalist. The Christian view of having dominion over the world appalled me as it was leading to environmental collapse. The more I learned, the more mysteries evaporated, questions gave way to answers. Sex, no drugs, but lots or rock and roll! The first earth day, bus trips to DC to protest war, ardent ZPG-er, blacklisted by all fraternities, flannel shirts, college life was great!
In college I was fascinated by TV evangelists taking advantage of the fears and tragedy of many to scam millions of dollars. At one time I could make some real money doing this. But instead I joined the radio station. “The voice the choice of Gettysburg College.” And then became a U professor. Not as lucrative, but more honest.
I remember one day watching a TV preacher heal a broken ankle and collect huge sums of faith money. I then changed the channel to the watch the Sunday news. There was a report of an earthquake that had trapped a mom and her child, they were pinned and separated by just a few feet. The mom listened to her child cry for help for three days before the child died. The mother was rescued hours later. Can you imagine anything worse?
My reaction: How could any one believe in a God letting this happen?!
Graduate School: North Carolina. One’s faith is tested during life’s challenges. My college girlfriend, my best friend, and I found a house to share. They got there one week before I did and…..well they fell in love with each other.
Fortunately, I found out before I had unpacked everything I owned from my ‘65 VW bus.
I moved to a trailer on a small farm. A UU Fellowship happened to be just down the street. I started teaching 7 and 8th grade Sunday School, “The Church Across the Street” again enriched my life.
David Breeze worked in our greenhouses at the Duke U. He also played electric bass in the rock band at his black Pentecostal church. When we drove the dirt roads into the county we were the only white folk for miles. We watched women talk in tongues as they trembled on the floor. We heard the four foot tall preacher lady tell us about the being the salt of the earth as she stomped with extra purpose up and down the aisle with her box of Mortens “when it rains it pours”.
A few years later I met a woman who would become my first wife.
She was a non-church going Methodist. No problem, right?! Love conquers all? Not.
We moved to MN, she was an OB/GY resident. Death and dying on the cancer ward was one more straw that pushed her to become a born-again Christian. My conversion became paramount to her. If I did not embrace Christ as my savior we would not spend eternity together in heaven. She tried and tried and cried and cried.
How wonderful it would have been to believe: absolute truth, life ever after, a reason for everything. But it just was not right; my UU roots were planted just too deep. I clearly remember the day on the couch when she looked at me and called me her devil. Soon we were divorced.
But out of the flames and carnage grew a new love to become my new family. I met my wife Beth, had two children, Ben and Bryan. And my heart sang again!
The arrival of children brings young adults back to organized religion. I returned a few years early.
A Thai fundamentalist Christian female graduate student of mine fell in love with a Thai Buddhist. Not only would they not marry her, her church shunned her. She came to me in tears. I had a solution. I had heard of a small UU church in Mahtomedi. I found the old stone church and asked Ted Tollefson if he would marry a Buddhist and a Christian. Some of you who knew Ted are not surprised that he jumped at the opportunity. We had the service in our living room. Ted did an awesome job blending Christian and Buddhist readings and philosophy.
We started coming to the church shortly after the move to Maple Street.
What does 52 years of UUism leave me now?
Well here are my answers to a few FAQs:
- What is UUism? A journey to find personal answers to universal questions.
- What does this UUer believe? The value and dignity of all individuals and all living things.
- What happens after you die? Ashes to ashes. Deeds affect the future forever, I really like the butterfly effect.
- Where did we come from? The beginnings of the universe? I have no idea. And it doesn’t bother me.
- Life? We will find out for sure someday. But once it started, evolution by natural selection accomplished the rest.
- What is the hardest thing about being a UU?
- Putting belief into action.
- Being tolerant of the ignorant and dangerous without tolerating the ignorant and dangerous.
A year ago I listened to a lecture given by the pastor at Eaglebrook Church titled something like, “The Scientific Case Against Evolution.” I don’t have time to go into all the errors of fact, but if I were invited to his church to speak I would use the power of the parable. The story goes like this:
Once there was a UU minister and another preacher on safari in Africa. One night while discussing if humans evolved from apes around the camp fire, they spotted a lion approaching though the grass. Both started to run. The UU minister stopped at her tent and put on her sneakers. The other preacher slowed to say, “Why are you putting on your sneakers, you will never out-run the lion!” The UU minister responded, ”I don’t have to, I just have to out run you.”
The UU minister’s genes made it into the next generation!
Not understanding evolution can win one a Darwin Award.
Before I finish I want to thank you for being a community that touches me in places that nothing else in my life does. The friendship, support, challenging new ideas, and awesome talent enrich me. The opportunity to teach RE and bringing organic squash to pot luck dinners also enriches me.
I would like to end with a poem I wrote when I was 15 struggling with the big issues of life, trying to find what I believed.
It is titled:
Why
I sat on a hill and looked all around
And thought I saw where the sky met the ground
I knew what and I knew mostly how,
But why was what confounded me now.
The question why has pondered men’s minds
Since the very beginning of time
But I guess why is what makes men, men,
For they need a question with no end.
Now that I am going I am beginning to see
Why, why can never be.
“I sat on a hill and looked all around
And thought I saw where the sky met the ground
I knew what and I knew mostly how,
But why was what confounded me now.
The question why has pondered men’s minds
Since the very beginning of time
But I guess why is what makes men, men,
For they need a question with no end.
Now that I am going I am beginning to see
Why, why can never be.”
I read this poem preparing for this talk and something in them resonated with this science guy. My professional life as educator and researcher has been focused on finding the “what” and the “how” of the natural world.
But there are those big why questions out there, the questions that bring many to religion.
Why do we exist?
Why do we die?
Why do bad things happen to good people?
Then there are those pesky related questions:
Where did the universe come from?
What happens after we die?
How did George Bush get elected……. twice?!
Is there a God? Heaven? Hell?!
Today I am humbled to share the story of my journey to answer to these questions and to describe what brings me to this particular holy house.
I could give you the answers first, but where is the suspense in that?!
My story begins:
Father, Albert Henry Markhart II, organic chemist son of Albert Henry Markhart I, dentist, drunk, died just after my first birthday and Blanche whose claim to fame was that she survived the removal of a 23 pound ovarian cyst when she was 83 and lived another 6 years.
Mother, Mildred Lucy Taylor, nurse, daughter of Bertha and Wendel, coal miner, Sears salesman, binge drinker whose claim to fame was that they required all children (two girls and a boy) to support themselves before they could get married.
Mom and Dad were raised as church-going Methodists.
But in 1954, at the age of 3, we moved to Wilbraham, MA and I went to my first church, UU Church in Springfield.
Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you as a life-long UUer.
My first church was awesome! An old farmstead with barn and horses! The meeting room was a five-car garage turned into a chapel. Sunday school was held in the first floor of the farm house, with windows we could easily sneak out of and hide in the bushes. I am sure I was as much of a pain in the butt to that “Janet Hanson” as my young ones have been to our JH. But after Sunday school, Rev. Munson gave horse back riding lessons and we could play in the barn. How cool is that!
Each UU church has its own personality.
It is said that in the eastern UU churches, the eucharist is optional; in the Midwest, god is optional.
In California, clothing is optional.
I know for sure the first two are true. I remember going to a special communion service where we drank grape juice and ate stale crackers.
Look around, clearly god is optional in the Midwest.
But my 84 year old UU mom in San Diego tells me that at least in her church clothing is NOT optional.
Adolescence was the best part in the Springfield UU church. Mr Shields was an awesome youth advisor. The most important time in my search for answers was The “Church Across the Street” where we explored, visited, other churches, and talked religion. Even though we never played with condoms it was really stimulating.
The summer after 9th grade I went to Ferry Beach, a UU camp on the coast of Maine. There I buried God. Really, I was part of the worship workshop that planned the evening worship services. We held a funeral for God: casket, shroud, the whole deal. I wrote the final words: “We created him, now we destroy him, God is Dead!”
I realized what a personal statement this was. I declared myself an atheist, at times I have hedged as an “agnostic,” but it was clear to me. There is no God.
There is an unavoidable consequence of being smart and self aware. Things that we do not understand or can’t control cause us great fear and painful anxiety. A common human solution dilemma is to create gods. Lots of them! It makes us feel secure, valuable, and valued. Explains the unexplainable. But the gods are our creation. We are not their creation.
As a teen I continued in LRY, liberal religious youth. Great discussions and great girls: racism, abortion, women’s rights, war, and Sue Peters, the first to tickle my tonsils with her tongue!
I became an ardent humanist, naturalist, rationalist. Answers were available through learning, discussion, and occasionally from Sue Peters.
At the Springfield UU Church the adult Sunday service was two hours long. The first hour was religious. The second was the forum where important topics of the day were discussed and debated.
I remember one time when my dad was in charge of organizing a Sunday Forum. The topic was LSD. Remember he was an organic chemist. Turns out he was also college roommates with Tim Leary. My dad arranged a speaker phone call to Leary in upstate NY for an hour of Q and A. Not only was I impressed with my Dad, but I was really impressed with the respectful ardent debate of the congregation.
The church provided me with a place to listen, ask questions, be heard.
Dialog brought clarity.
A few important teen time conclusions:
1) It is ok NOT to have answers to the big questions. This doesn’t mean one stops looking, but chill out. Don’t be fooled into accepting something that is not true out of convenience or need.
2) Speak only what you believe. Don’t let someone else put words in your mouth. I recoil at responsive readings. How dare anyone tell me what I should say! This emotional reaction is so strong that it took me a long time to say our opening and closing words. I am still troubled by hymns.
3) On an interpersonal level religion did not really matter. I spent 17 years in a church filled with different views on lots of things and everyone pretty much got along. I learned later how wrong I was.
High School graduation…1969!
Four years of college, biology, sociology, the old testament. I grew into a strong evolutionist, humanist, environmentalist. The Christian view of having dominion over the world appalled me as it was leading to environmental collapse. The more I learned, the more mysteries evaporated, questions gave way to answers. Sex, no drugs, but lots or rock and roll! The first earth day, bus trips to DC to protest war, ardent ZPG-er, blacklisted by all fraternities, flannel shirts, college life was great!
In college I was fascinated by TV evangelists taking advantage of the fears and tragedy of many to scam millions of dollars. At one time I could make some real money doing this. But instead I joined the radio station. “The voice the choice of Gettysburg College.” And then became a U professor. Not as lucrative, but more honest.
I remember one day watching a TV preacher heal a broken ankle and collect huge sums of faith money. I then changed the channel to the watch the Sunday news. There was a report of an earthquake that had trapped a mom and her child, they were pinned and separated by just a few feet. The mom listened to her child cry for help for three days before the child died. The mother was rescued hours later. Can you imagine anything worse?
My reaction: How could any one believe in a God letting this happen?!
Graduate School: North Carolina. One’s faith is tested during life’s challenges. My college girlfriend, my best friend, and I found a house to share. They got there one week before I did and…..well they fell in love with each other.
Fortunately, I found out before I had unpacked everything I owned from my ‘65 VW bus.
I moved to a trailer on a small farm. A UU Fellowship happened to be just down the street. I started teaching 7 and 8th grade Sunday School, “The Church Across the Street” again enriched my life.
David Breeze worked in our greenhouses at the Duke U. He also played electric bass in the rock band at his black Pentecostal church. When we drove the dirt roads into the county we were the only white folk for miles. We watched women talk in tongues as they trembled on the floor. We heard the four foot tall preacher lady tell us about the being the salt of the earth as she stomped with extra purpose up and down the aisle with her box of Mortens “when it rains it pours”.
A few years later I met a woman who would become my first wife.
She was a non-church going Methodist. No problem, right?! Love conquers all? Not.
We moved to MN, she was an OB/GY resident. Death and dying on the cancer ward was one more straw that pushed her to become a born-again Christian. My conversion became paramount to her. If I did not embrace Christ as my savior we would not spend eternity together in heaven. She tried and tried and cried and cried.
How wonderful it would have been to believe: absolute truth, life ever after, a reason for everything. But it just was not right; my UU roots were planted just too deep. I clearly remember the day on the couch when she looked at me and called me her devil. Soon we were divorced.
But out of the flames and carnage grew a new love to become my new family. I met my wife Beth, had two children, Ben and Bryan. And my heart sang again!
The arrival of children brings young adults back to organized religion. I returned a few years early.
A Thai fundamentalist Christian female graduate student of mine fell in love with a Thai Buddhist. Not only would they not marry her, her church shunned her. She came to me in tears. I had a solution. I had heard of a small UU church in Mahtomedi. I found the old stone church and asked Ted Tollefson if he would marry a Buddhist and a Christian. Some of you who knew Ted are not surprised that he jumped at the opportunity. We had the service in our living room. Ted did an awesome job blending Christian and Buddhist readings and philosophy.
We started coming to the church shortly after the move to Maple Street.
What does 52 years of UUism leave me now?
Well here are my answers to a few FAQs:
- What is UUism? A journey to find personal answers to universal questions.
- What does this UUer believe? The value and dignity of all individuals and all living things.
- What happens after you die? Ashes to ashes. Deeds affect the future forever, I really like the butterfly effect.
- Where did we come from? The beginnings of the universe? I have no idea. And it doesn’t bother me.
- Life? We will find out for sure someday. But once it started, evolution by natural selection accomplished the rest.
- What is the hardest thing about being a UU?
- Putting belief into action.
- Being tolerant of the ignorant and dangerous without tolerating the ignorant and dangerous.
A year ago I listened to a lecture given by the pastor at Eaglebrook Church titled something like, “The Scientific Case Against Evolution.” I don’t have time to go into all the errors of fact, but if I were invited to his church to speak I would use the power of the parable. The story goes like this:
Once there was a UU minister and another preacher on safari in Africa. One night while discussing if humans evolved from apes around the camp fire, they spotted a lion approaching though the grass. Both started to run. The UU minister stopped at her tent and put on her sneakers. The other preacher slowed to say, “Why are you putting on your sneakers, you will never out-run the lion!” The UU minister responded, ”I don’t have to, I just have to out run you.”
The UU minister’s genes made it into the next generation!
Not understanding evolution can win one a Darwin Award.
Before I finish I want to thank you for being a community that touches me in places that nothing else in my life does. The friendship, support, challenging new ideas, and awesome talent enrich me. The opportunity to teach RE and bringing organic squash to pot luck dinners also enriches me.
I would like to end with a poem I wrote when I was 15 struggling with the big issues of life, trying to find what I believed.
It is titled:
Why
I sat on a hill and looked all around
And thought I saw where the sky met the ground
I knew what and I knew mostly how,
But why was what confounded me now.
The question why has pondered men’s minds
Since the very beginning of time
But I guess why is what makes men, men,
For they need a question with no end.
Now that I am going I am beginning to see
Why, why can never be.